A Victor of Salamis
“A fair petition! Let the king grant it!” shouted twenty; while others
more wise whispered, “This was not done without foreknowledge by
Mardonius.”
Xerxes smiled benignantly and rubbed his nose with the lion’s fat while
deliberating.
“An evil precedent, lady, an evil precedent when women demand husbands and
do not wait for their fathers’ or brothers’ good pleasure. But I have
promised. The word of the king is not to be broken. Daughter of Gobryas,
your petition is granted. Come hither, Mardonius,”—the bow-bearer
approached the throne,—“you have heard the bold desire of your sister, and
my answer. I must command you to bestow on her a husband.”
The bow-bearer bowed obediently.
“I hear the word of the king, and all his mandates are good. This is no
meet time for marriage festivities, when the Lord of the World and all the
Aryan power goes forth to war. Yet as soon as the impious rebels amongst
the Hellenes shall be subdued, I will rejoice to bestow my sister upon
whatsoever fortunate servant the king may deign to honour.”
“You hear him, lady,”—the royal features assumed a grin, which was
reflected throughout the pavilion. “A husband you shall have, but
Mardonius shall be revenged. Your fate is in my hands. And shall not
I,—guardian of the households of my empire,—give a warning to all bold
maidens against lifting their wills too proudly, or presuming upon an
overindulgent king? What then shall be just punishment?” The king bent his
head, still rubbing his nose, and trying to persuade all about that he was
meditating.
“Bardas, satrap of Sogandia, is old; he has but one eye; they say he beats
his eleven wives daily with a whip of rhinoceros hide. It would be just if
I gave him this woman also in marriage. What think you, Hydarnes?”
“If your Eternity bestows this woman on Bardas, every husband and father
in all your kingdoms will applaud your act,” smiled the commander.
The threatened lady fell again on her knees, outstretching her hands and
beseeching mercy,—never a more charming picture of misery and contrition.
“You tremble, lady,” went on the sovran, “and justly. It were better for
my empire if my heart were less hard. After all, you danced so elegantly
that I must be mollified. There is the young Prince Zophyrus, son of Datis
the general,—he has only five wives already. True, he is usually the worse
for wine, is not handsome, and killed one of his women not long since
because she did not sing to please him. Yes—you shall have Zophyrus—he
will surely rule you—”
“Mercy, not Zophyrus, gracious Lord,” pleaded the abject Egyptian.
The king looked down on her, with a broader grin than ever.
“You are very hard to please. I ought to punish your wilfulness by some
dreadful doom. Do not cry out again. I will not hear you. My decision is
fixed. Mardonius shall bestow you in marriage to a man who is not even a
Persian by birth, who one year since was a disobedient rebel against my
power, who even now contemns and despises many of the good customs of the
Aryans. Hark, then, to his name. When Hellas is conquered, I command that
Mardonius wed you to the Lord Prexaspes.”
The king broke into an uproarious laugh, a signal for the thousand loyal
subjects within the great pavilion to roar with laughter also. In the
confusion following Artazostra and Roxana disappeared. Fifty hands dragged
the appointed bridegroom to the king, showering on him all manner of
congratulations. Xerxes’s act was a plain proof that he was adopting the
beautiful Hellene as one of his personal favourites,—a post of influence
and honour not to be despised by a vizier. What “Prexaspes” said when he
thanked the king was drowned in the tumult of laughing and cheering. The
monarch, delighted to play the gracious god, roared his injunctions to the
Athenian so loud that above the din they heard him.
“You will bridle her well, Prexaspes. I know them—those Egyptian fillies!
They need a hard curb and the lash at times. Beware the tyranny of your
own harem. I would not have the satrapies know how certain bright eyes in
the seraglio can make the son of Darius play the fool. There is nothing
more dangerous than women. It will take all your courage to master them. A
hard task lies before you. I have given you one wife, but you know our
good Persian custom—five, ten, or twenty. Take the score, I order you.
Then in twelve years you’ll be receiving the prize a Persian king bestows
every summer on the father of the most children!”
And following this broad hint, the king held his sides with laughter
again, a mirth which it is needless to say was echoed and reëchoed till it
seemed it could not cease. Only a few ventured to mutter under breath:
“The Hellene will have a subsatrapy in the East before the season is over
and a treasure of five thousand talents! Mithra wither the upstart!”
* * * * * * *
The summer was waning when the host moved southward from Larissa, for mere
numbers had made progress slow, and despite Mardonius’s providence the
question of commissariat sometimes became difficult. Now at last, leaving
behind Thrace and Macedonia, the army began to enter Greece itself. As it
fared across the teeming plains of Thessaly, it met only welcome from the
inhabitants and submissions from fresh embassies. Report came from the
fleet—keeping pace with the land army along the coasts—that nowhere had
the weak squadrons of the Greeks adventured a stand. Daily the smile of
the Lord of the World grew more complacent, as his “table-companions” told
him: “The rumour of your Eternity’s advent stupefies the miserable
Hellenes. Like Atar, the Angel of Fire, your splendour glitters afar. You
will enter Athens and Sparta, and no sword leave its sheath, no bow its
wrapper.”
Every day Mardonius asked of Glaucon, “Will your Hellenes fight?” and the
answer was ever more doubting, “I do not know.”
Long since Glaucon had given up hope of the defeat of the Persian. Now he
prayed devoutly there might be no useless shedding of blood. If only he
could turn back and not behold the humiliation of Athens! Of the fate of
the old-time friends—Democrates, Cimon, Hermione—he tried not to think. No
doubt Hermione was the wife of Democrates. More than a year had sped since
the flight from Colonus. Hermione had put off her mourning for the yellow
veil of a bride. Glaucon prayed the war might bring her no new sorrow,
though Democrates, of course, would resist Persia to the end. As for
himself he would never darken their eyes again. He was betrothed to
Roxana. With her he would seek one of those valleys in Bactria which she
had praised, the remoter the better, and there perhaps was peace.
Thus the host wound through Thessaly, till before them rose, peak on peak,
the jagged mountain wall of Othrys and Œta, fading away in violet
distance, the bulwark of central Hellas. Then the king’s smile became a
frown, for the Hellenes, undismayed despite his might, were assembling
their fleet at northern Eubœa, and at the same time a tempest had
shattered a large part of the royal navy. The Magi offered sacrifice to
appease Tishtrya, the Prince of the Wind-ruling Stars, but the king’s
frown grew blacker at each message. Glaucon was near him when at last the
monarch’s thunders broke forth.
A hot, sultry day. The king’s chariot had just crossed the mountain stream
of the Sphercus, when a captain of a hundred came galloping, dismounted,
and prostrated himself in the dust.
“Your tidings?” demanded Xerxes, sharply.
“Be gracious, Fountain of Mercy,”—the captain evidently disliked his
mission,—“I am sent from the van. We came to a place where the mountains
thrust down upon the sea and leave but a narrow road by the ocean. Your
slaves found certain Hellenes, rebels against your benignant government,
holding a wall and barring all passage to your army.”
“And did you not forthwith seize these impudent wretches and drag them
hither to be judged by me?”
“Compassion, Omnipotence,”—the messenger trembled,—“they seemed sturdy,
well-armed rogues, and the way was narrow and steep where a score can face
a thousand. Therefore, your slave came straight with his tidings to the
ever gracious king.”
“Dog! Coward!” Xerxes plucked the whip from the charioteer’s hand and
lashed it over the wretch’s shoulders. “By the _fravashi_, the soul of
Darius my father, no man shall bring so foul a word to me and live!”
“Compassion, Omnipotence, compassion!” groaned the man, writhing like a
worm. Already the master-of-punishments was approaching to cover his face
with a towel, preparatory to the bow-string, but the royal anger spent
itself just enough to avert a tragedy.
“Your life is forfeit, but I am all too merciful! Take then three hundred
stripes on the soles of your feet and live to be braver in the future.”
“A thousand blessings on your benignity,” cried the captain, as they led
him away, “I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet
deigns to notice my existence even to recompense my shortcomings.”
“Off,” ordered the bristling monarch, “or you die the death yet. And do
you, Mardonius, take Prexaspes, who somewhat knows this country, spur
forward, and discover who are the madmen thus earning their destruction.”
The command was obeyed. Glaucon galloped beside the Prince, overtaking the
marching army, until as they cantered into the little mud-walled city of
Heraclea a second messenger from the van met them with further details.
“The pass is held by seven thousand Grecian men-at-arms. There are no
Athenians. There are three hundred come from Sparta.”
“And their chief?” asked Glaucon, leaning eagerly.
“Is Leonidas of Lacedæmon.”
“Then, O Mardonius,” spoke the Athenian, with a throb in his voice not
there an hour ago. “There will be battle.”
So, whether wise men or mad, the Hellenes were not to lay down their arms
without one struggle, and Glaucon knew not whether to be sorry or to be
proud.
CHAPTER XX
THERMOPYLÆ
A rugged mountain, an inaccessible morass, and beyond that morass the sea:
the mountain thrusting so close upon the morass as barely to leave space
for a narrow wagon road. This was the western gate of Thermopylæ. Behind
the narrow defile the mountain and swamp-land drew asunder; in the still
scanty opening hot springs gushed forth, sacred to Heracles, then again on
the eastern side Mt. Œta and the impenetrable swamp drew together, forming
the second of the “Hot Gates,”—the gates which Xerxes must unlock if he
would continue his march to Athens.
The Great King’s couriers reported that the stubborn Hellenes had cast a
wall across the entrance, and that so far from showing terror at the
advent of majesty, were carelessly diverting themselves by athletic games,
and by combing and adorning their hair, a fact which the “Lord Prexaspes”
at least comprehended to mean that Leonidas and his Spartans were
preparing for desperate battle. Nevertheless, it was hard to persuade the
king that at last he confronted men who would resist him to his face.
Glaucon said it. Demaratus, the outlawed Spartan, said it. Xerxes,
however, remained angry and incredulous. Four long days he and his army
sat before the pass, “because,” announced his couriers, “he wishes in his
benignity to give these madmen a chance to flee away and shun
destruction;” “because,” spoke those nearest to Mardonius, the brain of
the army, “there is hot fighting ahead, and the general is resolved to
bring up the picked troops in the rear before risking a battle.”
Then on the fifth day either Xerxes’s patience was exhausted or Mardonius
felt ready. Strong regiments of Median infantry were ordered to charge
Leonidas’s position, Xerxes not failing to command that they slay as few