A Victor of Salamis
“Dear friends, here is a man I’ve already suspected of undemocratic
sentiments conferring with a Barbarian. Good patriots cannot be too
vigilant. A plot, I assert. Treason to Athens and Hellas! Freedom’s in
danger. Henceforth I shall look on Glaucon the Alcmæonid as an enemy of
liberty.”
“_Phui!_” almost shouted Phormio, whose sense of humour was keen, “a noble
conspiracy! Glaucon the Fortunate calls on a Babylonish merchant by night.
You say to plot against Athens. I say to buy his pretty wife a carpet.”
“The gods will some day explain,” said Clearchus, winding up the
argument,—and so for a little while the four forgot all about Glaucon.
* * * * * * *
Despite the cane, Clearchus was right. The visitor was Democrates. The
orator mounted the dark stair above the shield-factory and knocked against
a door, calling, “_Pai! Pai!_” “Boy! boy!” a summons answered by none
other than the ever smiling Hiram. The Athenian, however, was little
prepared for the luxury, nay splendour, which greeted him, once the
Phœnician had opened the door. The bare chamber had been transformed. The
foot sank into the glowing carpets of Kerman and Bactria. The
gold-embroidered wall tapestries were of Sidonian purple. The divans were
covered with wondrous stuff which Democrates could not name,—another age
would call it silk. A tripod smoked with fragrant Arabian frankincense.
Silver lamps, swinging from silver chains, gave brilliant light. The
Athenian stood wonderbound, until a voice, not Hiram’s, greeted him.
“Welcome, Athenian,” spoke the Cyprian, in his quaint, eastern accent. It
was the strange guest in the tavern by Corinth. The Prince—prince surely,
whatever his other title—was in the same rich dress as at the Isthmus,
only his flowing beard had been dyed raven black. Yet Democrates’s eyes
were diverted instantly to the peculiarly handsome slave-boy on the divan
beside his master. The boy’s dress, of a rare blue stuff, enveloped him
loosely. His hair was as golden as the gold thread on the round cap. In
the shadows the face almost escaped the orator,—he thought he saw clear
blue eyes and a marvellously brilliant, almost girlish, bloom and
freshness. The presence of this slave caused the Athenian to hesitate, but
the Cyprian bade him be seated, with one commanding wave of the hand.
“This is Smerdis, my constant companion. He is a mute. Yet if otherwise, I
would trust him as myself.”
Democrates, putting by surprise, began to look on his host fixedly.
“My dear Barbarian, for that you are a Hellene you will not pretend, you
realize, I trust, you incur considerable danger in visiting Athens.”
“I am not anxious,” observed the Prince, composedly. “Hiram is watchful
and skilful. You see I have dyed my hair and beard black and pass for a
Babylonish merchant.”
“With all except me, _philotate_,—‘dearest friend,’ as we say in Athens.”
Democrates’s smile was not wholly agreeable.
“With all except you,” assented the Prince, fingering the scarlet tassel
of the cushion whereon he sat. “I reckoned confidently that you would come
to visit me when I sent Hiram to you. Yes—I have heard the story that is
on your tongue: one of Themistocles’s busybodies has brought a rumour that
a certain great man of the Persian court is missing from the side of his
master, and you have been requested to greet that nobleman heartily if he
should come to Athens.”
“You know a great deal!” cried the orator, feeling his forehead grow hot.
“It is pleasant to know a great deal,” smiled back the Prince, carelessly,
while Hiram entered with a tray and silver goblets brimming with
violet-flavoured sherbet; “I have innumerable ‘Eyes-and-ears.’ You have
heard the name? One of the chief officers of his Majesty is ‘The Royal
Eye.’ You Athenians are a valiant and in many things a wise people, yet
you could grow in wisdom by looking well to the East.”
“I am confident,” exclaimed Democrates, thrusting back the goblet, “if
your Excellency requires a noble game of wits, you can have one. I need
only step to the window, and cry ‘Spies!’—after which your Excellency can
exercise your wisdom and eloquence defending your life before one of our
Attic juries.”
“Which is a polite and patriotic manner of saying, dearest Athenian, you
are not prepared to push matters to such unfortunate extremity. I omit
what his Majesty might do in the way of taking vengeance; sufficient that
if aught unfortunate befalls me, or Hiram, or this my slave Smerdis, while
we are in Athens, a letter comes to your noble chief Themistocles from the
banker Pittacus of Argos.”
Democrates, who had risen to his feet, had been flushed before. He became
pale now. The hand that clutched the purple tapestry was trembling. The
words rose to his lips, the lips refused to utter them. The Prince, who
had delivered his threat most quietly, went on, “In short, good
Democrates, I was aware before I came to Athens of our necessities, and I
came because I was certain I could relieve them.”
“Never!” The orator shot the word out desperately.
“You are a Hellene.”
“Am I ashamed of it?”
“Do not, however, affect to be more virtuous than your race. Persians make
their boast of truth-telling and fidelity. You Hellenes, I hear, have even
a god—Hermes Dolios,—who teaches you lying and thieving. The customs of
nations differ. Mazda the Almighty alone knoweth which is best. Follow
then the customs of Hellenes.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“Plainer, then. You know the master I serve. You guess who I am, though
you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?”
The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were
pressed behind his head.
“I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.”
“Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry. You will
find a Persian pays like the lord he is, and that his darics always ring
true metal.”
“I’ll hear no more. I was a fool to meet Lycon at Corinth, doubly a fool
to meet you to-night. Farewell.”
Democrates seized the latch. The door was locked. He turned furiously on
the Barbarian. “Do you keep me by force? Have a care. I can be terrible if
driven to bay. The window is open. One shout—”
The Cyprian had risen, and quietly, but with a grip like iron on
Democrates’s wrist, led the orator back to the divan.
“You can go free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of
your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition.
Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble
house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate.
You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To
win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the
Theseia you fed the poor of Athens on sixty oxen washed down with good
Rhodian wine. All that made havoc in your patrimony.”
“By Zeus, you speak as if you lived all your life in Athens!”
“I have said ‘I have many eyes.’ But to continue. You gave the price of
the tackling for six of the triremes with which Themistocles pretends to
believe he can beat back my master. Worse still, you have squandered many
minæ on flute girls, dice, cock-fights, and other gentle pleasures. In
short your patrimony is not merely exhausted but overspent. That, however,
is not the most wonderful part of my recital.”
“How dare you pry into my secrets?”
“Be appeased, dear Athenian; it is much more interesting to know you deny
nothing of all I say. It is now five months since you were appointed by
your sagacious Athenian assembly as commissioner to administer the silver
taken from the mines at Laurium and devoted to your navy. You fulfilled
the people’s confidence by diverting much of this money to the payment of
your own great debts to the banker Pittacus of Argos. At present you are
‘watching the moon,’ as you say here in Athens,—I mean, that at the end of
this month you must account to the people for all the money you have
handled, and at this hour are at your wits’ ends to know whence the
repayment will come.”
“That is all you know of me?”
“All.”
Democrates sighed with relief. “Then you have yet to complete the story,
my dear Barbarian. I have adventured on half the cargo of a large
merchantman bringing timber and tin from Massalia; I look every day for a
messenger from Corinth with news of her safe arrival. Upon her coming I
can make good all I owe and still be a passing rich man.”
If the Cyprian was discomposed at this announcement, he did not betray it.
“The sea is frightfully uncertain, good Democrates. Upon it, as many
fortunes are lost as are made.”
“I have offered due prayers to Poseidon, and vowed a gold tripod on the
ship’s arrival.”
“So even your gods in Hellas have their price,” was the retort, with an
ill-concealed sneer. “Do not trust them. Take ten talents from me and
to-night sleep sweetly.”
“Your price?” the words slipped forth involuntarily.
“Themistocles’s private memoranda for the battle-order of your new fleet.”
“Avert it, gods! The ship will reach Corinth, I warn you—” Democrates’s
gestures became menacing, as again he rose, “I will set you in
Themistocles’s hand as soon—”
“But not to-night.” The Prince rose, smiled, held out his hand. “Unbar the
door for his Excellency, Hiram. And you, noble sir, think well of all I
said at Corinth on the certain victory of my master; think also—” the
voice fell—“how Democrates the Codrid could be sovereign of Athens under
the protection of Persia.”
“I tyrant of Athens?” the orator clapped his hand behind his back; “you
say enough. Good evening.”
He was on the threshold, when the slave-boy touched his master’s hand in
silent signal.
“And if there be any fair woman you desire,”—how gliding the Cyprian’s
voice!—“shall not the power of Xerxes the great give her unto you?”
Why did Democrates feel his forehead turn to flame? Why—almost against
will—did he stretch forth his hand to the Cyprian? He went down the stair
scarce feeling the steps beneath him. At the bottom voices greeted him
from across the darkened street.
“A fair evening, Master Glaucon.”
“A fair evening,” his mechanical answer; then to himself; as he walked
away, “Wherefore call me Glaucon? I have somewhat his height, though not
his shoulder. Ah,—I know it, I have chanced to borrow his carved
walking-stick. Impudent creatures to read the name!”
He had not far to go. Athens was compactly built, all quarters close
together. Yet before he reached home and bed, he was fighting back an
ill-defined but terrible thought. “Glaucon! They think I am Glaucon. If I
chose to betray the Cyprian—” Further than that he would not suffer the
thought to go. He lay sleepless, fighting against it. The dark was full of
the harpies of uncanny suggestion. He arose unrefreshed, to proffer every
god the same prayer: “Deliver me from evil imaginings. Speed the ship to
Corinth.”
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE ACROPOLIS
The Acropolis of Athens rises as does no other citadel in the world. Had
no workers in marble or bronze, no weavers of eloquence or song, dwelt
beneath its shadow, it would stand the centre and cynosure of a remarkable
landscape. It is “_The Rock_,” no other like unto it. Is it enough to say
its ruddy limestone rises as a huge boulder one hundred and fifty feet
above the plain, that its breadth is five hundred, its length one
thousand? Numbers and measures can never disclose a soul,—and the Rock of
Athens has all but a soul: a soul seems to glow through its adamant when
the fire-footed morning steals over the long crest of Hymettus, and
touches the citadel’s red bulk with unearthly brightness; a soul when the