A Victor of Salamis
“I’m not angry. Yet you will thank me to-morrow. The pentathlon will be
merely a pleasant flute-playing before the great war-drama. You will see
more of the ‘Cyprian’ at Athens—”
Democrates heard no more. Forth from that wine-house he ran into the
sheltering night, till safe under the shadow of the black cypresses. His
head glowed. His heart throbbed. He had been partner in foulest treason.
Duty to friend, duty to country,—oath or no oath,—should have sent him to
Leonidas. What evil god had tricked him into that interview? Yet he did
not denounce the traitor. Not his oath held him back, but benumbing
fear,—and what sting lay back of Lycon’s hints and threats the orator knew
best. And how if Lycon made good his boast and killed Glaucon on the
morrow?
CHAPTER IV
THE PENTATHLON
In a tent at the lower end of the long stadium stood Glaucon awaiting the
final summons to his ordeal. His friends had just cried farewell for the
last time: Cimon had kissed him; Themistocles had gripped his hand;
Democrates had called “Zeus prosper you!” Simonides had vowed that he was
already hunting for the metres of a triumphal ode. The roar from without
told how the stadium was filled with its chattering thousands. The
athlete’s trainers were bestowing their last officious advice.
“The Spartan will surely win the quoit-throw. Do not be troubled. In
everything else you can crush him.”
“Beware of Mœrocles of Mantinea. He’s a knavish fellow; his backers are
recalling their bets. But he hopes to win on a trick; beware, lest he trip
you in the foot-race.”
“Aim low when you hurl the javelin. Your dart always rises.”
Glaucon received this and much more admonition with his customary smile.
There was no flush on the forehead, no flutter of the heart. A few hours
later he would be crowned with all the glory which victory in the great
games could throw about a Hellene, or be buried in the disgrace to which
his ungenerous people consigned the vanquished. But, in the words of his
day, “he knew himself” and his own powers. From the day he quitted boyhood
he had never met the giant he could not master; the Hermes he could not
outrun. He anticipated victory as a matter of course, even victory wrested
from Lycon, and his thoughts seemed wandering far from the tawny track
where he must face his foes.
“Athens,—my father,—my wife! I will win glory for them all!” was the drift
of his revery.
The younger rubber grunted under breath at his athlete’s vacant eye, but
Pytheas, the older of the pair, whispered confidently that “when he had
known Master Glaucon longer, he would know that victories came his way,
just by reaching out his hands.”
“Athena grant it,” muttered the other. “I’ve got my half mina staked on
him, too.” Then from the tents at either side began the ominous call of
the heralds:—
“Amyntas of Thebes, come you forth.”
“Ctesias of Epidaurus, come you forth.”
“Lycon of Sparta, come you forth.”
Glaucon held out his hands. Each trainer seized one.
“Wish me joy and honour, good friends!” cried the athlete.
“Poseidon and Athena aid you!” And Pytheas’s honest voice was husky. This
was the greatest ordeal of his favourite pupil, and the trainer’s soul
would go with him into the combat.
“Glaucon of Athens, come you forth.”
The curtains of the tent swept aside. An intense sunlight sprang to meet
the Athenian. He passed into the arena clad only in his coat of glistering
oil. Scolus of Thasos and Mœrocles of Mantinea joined the other four
athletes; then, escorted each by a herald swinging his myrtle wand, the
six went down the stadium to the stand of the judges.
Before the fierce light of a morning in Hellas beating down on him,
Glaucon the Alcmæonid was for an instant blinded, and walked on passively,
following his guide. Then, as from a dissolving mist, the huge stadium
began to reveal itself: line above line, thousand above thousand of
bright-robed spectators, a sea of faces, tossing arms, waving garments. A
thunderous shout rose as the athletes came to view,—jangling, incoherent;
each city cheered its champion and tried to cry down all the rest:
applause, advice, derision. Glaucon heard the derisive hootings, “pretty
girl,” “pretty pullet,” from the serried host of the Laconians along the
left side of the stadium; but an answering salvo, “Dog of Cerberus!”
bawled by the Athenian crowds opposite, and winged at Lycon, returned the
taunts with usury. As the champions approached the judges’ stand a
procession of full twenty pipers, attended by as many fair boys in flowing
white, marched from the farther end of the stadium to meet them. The boys
bore cymbals and tambours; the pipers struck up a brisk marching note in
the rugged Dorian mode. The boys’ lithe bodies swayed in enchanting
rhythm. The roaring multitude quieted, admiring their grace. The champions
and the pipers thus came to the pulpit in the midst of the long arena. The
president of the judges, a handsome Corinthian in purple and a golden
fillet, swept his ivory wand from right to left. The marching note ceased.
The whole company leaped as one man to its feet. The pipes, the cymbals
were drowned, whilst twenty thousand voices—Doric, Bœotian, Attic—chorused
together the hymn which all Greece knew: the hymn to Poseidon of the
Isthmus, august guardian of the games.
Louder it grew; the multitude found one voice, as if it would cry, “We are
Hellenes all; though of many a city, the same fatherland, the same gods,
the same hope against the Barbarian.”
“Praise we Poseidon the mighty, the monarch,
Shaker of earth and the harvestless sea;
King of wide Ægæ and Helicon gladsome
Twain are the honours high Zeus sheds on thee!
Thine to be lord of the mettlesome chargers,
Thine to be lord of swift ships as they wing!
Guard thou and guide us, dread prince of the billows,
Safe to their homeland, thy suppliants bring;
Faring by land or by clamorous waters
Be thou their way-god to shield, to defend,
Then shall the smoke of a thousand glad altars,
To thee in reverent gladness ascend!”
Thus in part. And in the hush thereafter the president poured a libation
from a golden cup, praying, as the wine fell on the brazier beside him, to
the “Earth Shaker,” seeking his blessing upon the contestants, the
multitude, and upon broad Hellas. Next the master-herald announced that
now, on the third day of the games, came the final and most honoured
contest: the pentathlon, the fivefold struggle, with the crown to him who
conquered thrice. He proclaimed the names of the six rivals, their cities,
their ancestry, and how they had complied with the required training. The
president took up his tale, and turning to the champions, urged them to
strive their best, for the eyes of all Hellas were on them. But he warned
any man with blood-guiltiness upon his soul not to anger the gods by
continuing in the games.
“But since,” the brief speech concluded, “these men have chosen to
contend, and have made oath that they are purified or innocent, let them
join, and Poseidon shed fair glory upon the best!”
More shouting; the pipers paraded the arena, blowing shriller than ever.
Some of the athletes shifted uneasily. Scolus the Thasian—youngest of the
six—was pale, and cast nervous glances at the towering bulk of Lycon. The
Spartan gave him no heed, but threw a loud whisper at Glaucon, who stood
silently beside him:—
“By Castor, son of Conon, you are extremely handsome. If fine looks won
the battle, I might grow afraid.”
The Athenian, whose roving eye had just caught Cimon and Democrates in the
audience, seemed never to hear him.
“And you are passing stalwart. Still, be advised. I wouldn’t harm you, so
drop out early.”
Still no answer from Glaucon, whose clear eye seemed now to be wandering
over the bare hills of Megara beyond.
“No answer?” persisted the giant. “_Eu!_ don’t complain that you’ve lacked
warning, when you sit to-night in Charon’s ferry-boat.”
The least shadow of a smile flitted across the Athenian’s face; there was
a slight deepening of the light in his eye. He turned his head a bit
toward Lycon:—
“The games are not ended, dear Spartan,” he observed quietly.
The giant scowled. “I don’t like you silent, smiling men! You’re warned.
I’ll do my worst—”
“Let the leaping begin!” rang the voice of the president,—a call that
changed all the uproar to a silence in which one might hear the wind
moving in the firs outside, while every athlete felt his muscles tighten.
The heralds ran down the soft sands to a narrow mound of hardened earth,
and beckoned to the athletes to follow. In the hands of each contestant
were set a pair of bronze dumb-bells. The six were arrayed upon the mound
with a clear reach of sand before. The master-herald proclaimed the order
of the leaping: that each contestant should spring twice, and he whose
leaps were the poorest should drop from the other contests.
Glaucon stood, his golden head thrown back, his eyes wandering idly toward
his friends in the stadium. He could see Cimon restless on his seat, and
Simonides holding his cloak and doubtless muttering wise counsel. The
champion was as calm as his friends were nervous. The stadium had grown
oppressively still; then broke into along “ah!” Twenty thousand sprang up
together as Scolus the Thasian leaped. His partisans cheered, while he
rose from a sand-cloud; but ceased quickly. His leap had been poor. A
herald with a pick marked a line where he had landed. The pipers began a
rollicking catch to which the athletes involuntarily kept time with their
dumb-bells.
Glaucon leaped second. Even the hostile Laconians shouted with pleasure at
sight of his beautiful body poised, then flung out upon the sands far
beyond the Thasian. He rose, shook off the dust, and returned to the
mound, with a graceful gesture to the cheer that greeted him; but wise
heads knew the contest was just beginning.
Ctesias and Amyntas leaped beyond the Thasian’s mark, short of the
Athenian’s. Lycon was fifth. His admirers’ hopes were high. He did not
blast them. Huge was his bulk, yet his strength matched it. A cloud of
dust hid him from view. When it settled, every Laconian was roaring with
delight. He had passed beyond Glaucon. Mœrocles of Mantinea sprang last
and badly. The second round was almost as the first; although Glaucon
slightly surpassed his former effort. Lycon did as well as before. The
others hardly bettered their early trial. It was long before the Laconians
grew quiet enough to listen to the call of the herald.
“Lycon of Sparta wins the leaping. Glaucon of Athens is second. Scolus of
Thasos leaps the shortest and drops from the pentathlon.”
Again cheers and clamour. The inexperienced Thasian marched disconsolately
to his tent, pursued by ungenerous jeers.
“The quoit-hurling follows,” once more the herald; “each contestant throws
three quoits. He who throws poorest drops from the games.”
Cimon had risen now. In a momentary lull he trumpeted through his hands
across the arena.
“Wake, Glaucon; quit your golden thoughts of Eleusis; Lycon is filching
the crown.”
Themistocles, seated near Cimon’s side, was staring hard, elbows on knees
and head on hands. Democrates, next him, was gazing at Glaucon, as if the
athlete were made of gold; but the object of their fears and hopes gave
back neither word nor sign.
The attendants were arraying the five remaining champions at the foot of a
little rise in the sand, near the judges’ pulpit. To each was brought a
bronze quoit, the discus. The pipers resumed their medley. The second
contest was begun.
First, Amyntas of Thebes. He took his stand, measured the distance with
his eye, then with a run flew up the rising, and at its summit his body