A Victor of Salamis
“Sparta is insulted. Away with the braggart!” the Laconians were
clamouring. The Athenians answered in kind. Already a dark sailor was
drawing a dirk. Everything promised broken heads, and perhaps blood, when
Leonidas and his friend,—by laying about them with their staves,—won their
way to the front. The king dashed his staff upon the shoulder of a
strapping Laconian who was just hurling himself on Glaucon.
“Fools! Hold!” roared Leonidas, and the moment the throng saw what
newcomers they faced, Athenian and Spartan let their arms drop and stood
sheepish and silent. Themistocles instantly stepped forward and held up
his hand. His voice, trumpet-clear, rang out among the pines. In three
sentences he dissolved the tumult.
“Fellow-Hellenes, do not let Dame Discord make sport of you. I saw all
that befell. It is only an unlucky misunderstanding. You are quite
satisfied, I am sure, Master Bronze-Dealer?”
The Sicyonian, who saw in a riot the ruin of his evening’s trade, nodded
gladly.
“He says there was no thieving, and he is entirely satisfied. He thanks
you for your friendly zeal. The Oriental was not Dexippus’s slave, and
Xerxes does not need such boys for spies. I am certain Glaucon would not
insult Sparta. So let us part without bad blood, and await the judgment of
the god in the contest to-morrow.”
Not a voice answered him. The crash of music from the sacrificial embassy
of Syracuse diverted everybody’s attention; most of the company streamed
away to follow the flower-decked chariots and cattle back to the temple.
Themistocles and Leonidas were left almost alone to approach the athlete.
“You are ever Glaucon the Fortunate,” laughed Themistocles; “had we not
chanced this way, what would not have befallen?”
“Ah, it was delightful,” rejoined the athlete, his eyes still kindled;
“the shock, the striving, the putting one’s own strength and will against
many and feeling ‘I am the stronger.’ ”
“Delightful, no doubt” replied the statesman, “though Zeus spare me
fighting one against ten! But what god possessed you to meddle in this
brawl, and imperil all chances for to-morrow?”
“I was returning from practice at the palæstra. I saw the lad beset and
knew he was not Dexippus’s slave. I ran to help him. I thought no more
about it.”
“And risked everything for a sly-eyed Oriental. Where is the rascal?”
But the lad—author of the commotion—had disappeared completely.
“Behold his fair gratitude to his rescuer,” cried Themistocles, sourly,
and then he turned to Leonidas. “Well, very noble king of Sparta, you were
asking to see Glaucon and judge his chances in the pentathlon. Your
Laconians have just proved him; are you satisfied?”
But the king, without a word of greeting, ran his eyes over the athlete
from head to heel, then blurted out his verdict:
“Too pretty.”
Glaucon blushed like a maid. Themistocles threw up his hands in
deprecation.
“But were not Achilles and many another hero beautiful as brave? Does not
Homer call them so many times ‘godlike’?”
“Poetry doesn’t win the pentathlon,” retorted the king; then suddenly he
seized the athlete’s right arm near the shoulder. The muscles cracked.
Glaucon did not wince. The king dropped the arm with a “_Euge!_” then
extended his own hand, the fingers half closed, and ordered, “Open.”
One long minute, just as Simonides and his companions approached, Athenian
and Spartan stood face to face, hand locked in hand, while Glaucon’s
forehead grew redder, not with blushing. Then blood rushed to the king’s
brow also. His fingers were crimson. They had been forced open.
“_Euge!_” cried the king, again; then, to Themistocles, “He will do.”
Whereupon, as if satisfied in his object and averse to further dalliance,
he gave Cimon and his companions the stiffest of nods and deliberately
turned on his heel. Speech was too precious coin for him to be wasted on
mere adieus. Only over his shoulder he cast at Glaucon a curt mandate.
“I hate Lycon. Grind his bones.”
Themistocles, however, lingered a moment to greet Simonides. The little
poet was delighted, despite overweening hopes, at the manly beauty yet
modesty of the athlete, and being a man who kept his thoughts always near
his tongue, made Glaucon blush more manfully than ever.
“Master Simonides is overkind,” had ventured the athlete; “but I am sure
his praise is only polite compliment.”
“What misunderstanding!” ran on the poet. “How you pain me! I truly
desired to ask a question. Is it not a great delight to know that so many
people are gladdened just by looking on you?”
“How dare I answer? If ‘no,’ I contradict you—very rude. If ‘yes,’ I
praise myself—far ruder.”
“Cleverly turned. The face of Paris, the strength of Achilles, the wit of
Periander, all met in one body;” but seeing the athlete’s confusion more
profound than ever, the Cean cut short. “Heracles! if my tongue wounds
you, lo! it’s clapped back in its sheath; I’ll be revenged in an ode of
fifty iambs on your victory. For that you will conquer, neither I nor any
sane man in Hellas has the least doubt. Are you not confident, dear
Athenian?”
“I am confident in the justice of the gods, noble Simonides,” said the
athlete, half childishly, half in deep seriousness.
“Well you may be. The gods are usually ‘just’ to such as you. It’s we
graybeards that Tyche, ‘Lady Fortune,’ grows tired of helping.”
“Perhaps!” Glaucon passed his hand across his eyes with a dreamy gesture.
“Yet sometimes I almost say, ‘Welcome a misfortune, if not too terrible,’
just to ward off the god’s jealousy of too great prosperity. In all
things, save my father’s anger, I have prospered. To-morrow I can appease
that, too. Yet you know Solon’s saying, ‘Call no man fortunate till he is
dead.’ ”
Simonides was charmed at this frank confession on first acquaintance.
“Yes, but even one of the Seven Sages can err.”
“I do not know. I only hope—”
“Hush, Glaucon,” admonished Democrates. “There’s no worse dinner before a
contest than one of flighty thoughts. When safe in Athens—”
“In Eleusis you mean,” corrected the athlete.
“Pest take you,” cried Cimon; “you say Eleusis because there is Hermione.
But make this day-dreaming end ere you come to grips with Lycon.”
“He will awaken,” smiled Themistocles. Then, with another gracious nod to
Simonides, the statesman hastened after Leonidas, leaving the three young
men and the poet to go to Glaucon’s tent in the pine grove.
“And why should Leonidas wish Glaucon to grind the bones of the champion
of Sparta?” asked Cimon, curiously.
“Quickly answered,” replied Simonides, who knew half the persons of the
nobility in Hellas; “first, Lycon is of the rival kingly house at Sparta;
second, he’s suspected of ‘Medizing,’ of favouring Persia.”
“I’ve heard that story of ‘Medizing,’ ” interrupted Democrates, promptly;
“I can assure you it is not true.”
“Enough if he’s suspected,” cried the uncompromising son of Miltiades;
“honest Hellenes should not even be blown upon in times like this. Another
reason then for hating him—”
“Peace!” ordered Glaucon, as if starting from a long revery, and with a
sweep of his wonderful hands; “let the Medes, the Persians, and their war
wait. For me the only war is the pentathlon,—and then by Zeus’s favour the
victory, the glory, the return to Eleusis! Ah—wish me joy!”
“Verily, the man is mad,” reflected the poet; “he lives in his own bright
world, sufficient to himself. May Zeus never send storms to darken it! For
to bear disaster his soul seems never made.”
* * * * * * *
At the tent Manes, the athlete’s body-servant, came running to his master,
with a small box firmly bound.
“A strange dark man brought this only a moment since. It is for Master
Glaucon.”
On opening there was revealed a bracelet of Egyptian turquoise; the price
thereof Simonides wisely set at two minæ. Nothing betrayed the identity of
the giver save a slip of papyrus written in Greek, but in very uncertain
hand. “_To the Beautiful Champion of Athens: from one he has greatly
served._”
Cimon held the bracelet on high, admiring its perfect lustre.
“Themistocles was wrong,” he remarked; “the Oriental was not ungrateful.
But what ‘slave’ or ‘lad’ was this that Glaucon succoured?”
“Perhaps,” insinuated Simonides, “Themistocles was wrong yet again. Who
knows if a stranger giving such gifts be not sent forth by Xerxes?”
“Don’t chatter foolishness,” commanded Democrates, almost peevishly; but
Glaucon replaced the bracelet in the casket.
“Since the god sends this, I will rejoice in it,” he declared lightly. “A
fair omen for to-morrow, and it will shine rarely on Hermione’s arm.” The
mention of that lady called forth new protests from Cimon, but he in turn
was interrupted, for a half-grown boy had entered the tent and stood
beckoning to Democrates.
CHAPTER III
THE HAND OF PERSIA
The lad who sidled up to Democrates was all but a hunchback. His bare arms
were grotesquely tattooed, clear sign that he was a Thracian. His eyes
twinkled keenly, uneasily, as in token of an almost sinister intelligence.
What he whispered to Democrates escaped the rest, but the latter began
girding up his cloak.
“You leave us, _philotate_?” cried Glaucon. “Would I not have all my
friends with me to-night, to fill me with fair thoughts for the morrow?
Bid your ugly Bias keep away!”
“A greater friend than even Glaucon the Alcmæonid commands me hence,” said
the orator, smiling.
“Declare his name.”
“Declare _her_ name,” cried Simonides, viciously.
“Noble Cean, then I say I serve a most beautiful, high-born dame. Her name
is Athens.”
“Curses on your public business,” lamented Glaucon. “But off with you,
since your love is the love of us all.”
Democrates kissed the athlete on both cheeks. “I leave you to faithful
guardians. Last night I dreamed of a garland of lilies, sure presage of a
victory. So take courage.”
“_Chaire! chaire!_”(1) called the rest; and Democrates left the tent to
follow the slave-boy.
Evening was falling: the sea, rocks, fields, pine groves, were touched by
the red glow dying behind Acro-Corinthus. Torches gleamed amid the trees
where the multitudes were buying, selling, wagering, making merry. All
Greece seemed to have sent its wares to be disposed of at the Isthmia.
Democrates idled along, now glancing at the huckster who displayed his
painted clay dolls and urged the sightseers to remember the little ones at
home. A wine-seller thrust a sample cup of a choice vintage under the
Athenian’s nose, and vainly adjured him to buy. Thessalian easy-chairs,
pottery, slaves kidnapped from the Black Sea, occupied one booth after
another. On a pulpit before a bellowing crowd a pair of marionettes were
rolling their eyes and gesticulating, as a woman pulled the strings.
But there were more exalted entertainments. A rhapsodist stood on a pine
stump chanting in excellent voice Alcæus’s hymn to Apollo. And more
willingly the orator stopped on the edge of a throng of the better sort,
which listened to a man of noble aspect reading in clear voice from his
scroll.
“Æschylus of Athens,” whispered a bystander. “He reads choruses of certain
tragedies he says he will perfect and produce much later.”
Democrates knew the great dramatist well, but what he read was new—a “Song
of the Furies” calling a terrific curse upon the betrayer of friendship.
“Some of his happiest lines,” meditated Democrates, walking away, to be
held a moment by the crowd around Lamprus the master-harpist. But now,
feeling that he had dallied long enough, the orator turned his back on the
two female acrobats who were swinging on a trapeze and struck down a long,