A Victor of Salamis
He has triumphed, our own, our beloved,
Before all the myriad’s ken.
He has met the swift, has proved swifter!
The strong, has proved stronger again!
Now glory to him, to his kinfolk,
To Athens, and all Athens’ men!
Meet, run to meet him,
The nimblest are not too fleet.
Greet him, with raptures greet him,
With songs and with twinkling feet.
He approaches,—throw flowers before him.
Throw poppy and lily and rose;
Blow faster, gay pipers, faster,
Till your mad music throbs and flows,
For his glory and ours flies through Hellas,
Wherever the Sun-King goes.
Io! Io, pæan! crown with laurel and myrtle and pine,
Io, pæan! haste to crown him with olive, Athena’s dark vine.
He is with us, he shines in his beauty;
Oh, joy of his face the first sight;
He has shed on us all his bright honour,
Let High Zeus shed on him his light,
And thou, Pallas, our gray-eyed protectress,
Keep his name and his fame ever bright!”
Matching action to the song, they threw over the victor crowns and chains
beyond number, till the parsley wreath was hidden from sight. Near the
gate of Hermippus the jubilant company halted. The demarch bawled long for
silence, won it at last, and approached the chariot. He, good man, had
been a long day meditating on his speech of formal congratulation and
enjoyed his opportunity. Glaucon’s eyes still roved and questioned, yet
the demarch rolled out his windy sentences. But there was something
unexpected. Even as the magistrate took breath after reciting the victor’s
noble ancestry, there was a cry, a parting of the crowd, and Glaucon the
Alcmæonid leaped from the chariot as never on the sands at Corinth. The
veil and the violet wreath fell from the head of Hermione when her face
went up to her husband’s. The blossoms that had covered the athlete shook
over her like a cloud as his face met hers. Then even the honest demarch
cut short his eloquence to swell the salvo.
“The beautiful to the beautiful! The gods reward well. Here is the fairest
crown!”
For all Eleusis loved Hermione, and would have forgiven far greater things
from her than this.
* * * * * * *
Hermippus feasted the whole company,—the crowd at long tables in the
court, the chosen guests in a more private chamber. “Nothing to excess”
was the truly Hellenic maxim of the refined Eleusinian; and he obeyed it.
His banquet was elegant without gluttony. The Syracusan cook had prepared
a lordly turbot. The wine was choice old Chian but well diluted. There was
no vulgar gorging with meat, after the Bœotian manner; but the great
Copaic eel, “such as Poseidon might have sent up to Olympus,” made every
gourmand clap his hands. The aromatic honey was the choicest from Mt.
Hymettus.
Since the smaller company was well selected, convention was waived, and
ladies were present. Hermione sat on a wide chair beside Lysistra, her
comely mother; her younger brothers on stools at either hand. Directly
across the narrow table Glaucon and Democrates reclined on the same couch.
The eyes of husband and wife seldom left each other; their tongues flew
fast; they never saw how Democrates hardly took his gaze from the face of
Hermione. Simonides, who reclined beside Themistocles,—having struck a
firm friendship with that statesman on very brief acquaintance,—was
overrunning with humour and anecdote. The great man beside him was hardly
his second in the fence of wit and wisdom. After the fish had given way to
the wine, Simonides regaled the company with a gravely related story of
how the Dioscuri had personally appeared to him during his last stay in
Thessaly and saved him from certain death in a falling building.
“You swear this is a true tale, Simonides?” began Themistocles, with one
eye in his head.
“It’s impiety to doubt. As penalty, rise at once and sing a song in honour
of Glaucon’s victory.”
“I am no singer or harpist,” returned the statesman, with a
self-complacency he never concealed. “I only know how to make Athens
powerful.”
“Ah! you son of Miltiades,” urged the poet, “at least you will not refuse
so churlishly.”
Cimon, with due excuses, arose, called for a harp, and began tuning it;
but not all the company were destined to hear him. A slave-boy touched
Themistocles on the shoulder, and the latter started to go.
“The Dioscuri will save you?” demanded Simonides, laughing.
“Quite other gods,” rejoined the statesman; “your pardon, Cimon, I return
in a moment. An agent of mine is back from Asia, surely with news of
weight, if he must seek me at once in Eleusis.”
But Themistocles lingered outside; an instant more brought a summons to
Democrates, who found Themistocles in an antechamber, deep in talk with
Sicinnus,—nominally the tutor of his sons, actually a trusted spy. The
first glance at the Asiatic’s keen face and eyes was disturbing. An inward
omen—not from the entrails of birds, nor a sign in the heavens—told
Democrates the fellow brought no happy tidings.
With incisive questions Themistocles had been bringing out everything.
“So it is absolutely certain that Xerxes begins his invasion next spring?”
“As certain as that Helios will rise to-morrow.”
“Forewarned is forearmed. Now where have you been since I sent you off in
the winter to visit Asia?”
The man, who knew his master loved to do the lion’s share of the talking,
answered instantly:—
“Sardis, Emesa, Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana.”
“_Eu!_ Your commission is well executed. Are all the rumours we hear from
the East well founded? Is Xerxes assembling an innumerable host?”
“Rumour does not tell half the truth. Not one tribe in Asia but is
required to send its fighting men. Two bridges of boats are being built
across the Hellespont. The king will have twelve hundred war triremes,
besides countless transports. The cavalry are being numbered by hundreds
of thousands, the infantry by millions. Such an army was never assembled
since Zeus conquered the Giants.”
“A merry array!” Themistocles whistled an instant through his teeth; but,
never confounded, urged on his questions. “So be it. But is Xerxes the man
to command this host? He is no master of war like Darius his father.”
“He is a creature for eunuchs and women; nevertheless his army will not
suffer.”
“And wherefore?”
“Because Prince Mardonius, son of Gobryas, and brother-in-law of the king,
has the wisdom and valour of Cyrus and Darius together. Name him, and you
name the arch-foe of Hellas. He, not Xerxes, will be the true leader of
the host.”
“You saw him, of course?”
“I did not. A Magian in Ecbatana told me a strange story. ‘The Prince,’
said he, ‘hates the details of camps; leaving the preparation to others,
he has gone to Greece to spy out the land he is to conquer.’ ”
“Impossible, you are dreaming!” The exclamation came not from Themistocles
but Democrates.
“I am not dreaming, worthy sir,” returned Sicinnus, tartly; “the Magian
may have lied, but I sought the Prince in every city I visited; they
always told me, ‘He is in another.’ He was not at the king’s court. He may
have gone to Egypt, to India, or to Arabia;—he _may_ likewise have gone to
Greece.”
“These are serious tidings, Democrates,” remarked Themistocles, with an
anxiety his voice seldom betrayed. “Sicinnus is right; the presence of
such a man as Mardonius in Hellas explains many things.”
“I do not understand.”
“Why, the lukewarmness of so many friends we had counted on, the
bickerings which arose among the Confederates when we met just now at the
Isthmus, the slackness of all Spartans save Leonidas in preparing for war,
the hesitancy of Corcyra in joining us. Thebes is Medizing, Crete is
Medizing, so is Argos. Thessaly is wavering. I can almost name the princes
and great nobles over Hellas who are clutching at Persian money. O Father
Zeus,” wound up the Athenian, “if there is not some master-spirit
directing all this villany, there is no wisdom in Themistocles, son of
Neocles.”
“But the coming of Mardonius to Greece?” questioned the younger man; “the
peril he runs? the risk of discovery—”
“Is all but nothing, except as he comes to Athens, for Medizers will
shelter him everywhere. Yet there is one spot—blessed be Athena—”
Themistocles’s hands went up in easy piety—“where, let him come if come he
dare!” Then with a swift change, as was his wont, the statesman looked
straight on Democrates.
“Hark you, son of Myscelus; those Persian lords are reckless. He may even
test the fates and set foot in Attica. I am cumbered with as many cares as
Zeus, but this commission I give to you. You are my most trusted
lieutenant; I can risk no other. Keep watch, hire spies, scatter
bribe-money. Rest not day nor night to find if Mardonius the Persian
enters Athens. Once in our clutches—and you have done Hellas as fair a
turn as Miltiades at Marathon. You promise it? Give me your hand.”
“A great task,” spoke Democrates, none too readily.
“And one you are worthy to accomplish. Are we not co-workers for Athens
and for Hellas?”
Themistocles’s hawklike eyes were unescapable. The younger Athenian
thought they were reading his soul. He held out his hand....
When Democrates returned to the hall, Cimon had ended his song. The guests
were applauding furiously. Wine was still going round, but Glaucon and
Hermione were not joining. Across the table they were conversing in low
sentences that Democrates could not catch. But he knew well enough the
meaning as each face flashed back the beauty of the other. And his mind
wandered back darkly to the day when Glaucon had come to him, more radiant
than even his wont, and cried, “Give me joy, dear comrade, joy! Hermippus
has promised me the fairest maiden in Athens.” Some evil god had made
Democrates blind to all his boon-companion’s wooing. How many hopes of the
orator that day had been shattered! Yet he had even professed to rejoice
with the son of Conon.... He sat in sombre silence, until the piping voice
of Simonides awakened him.
“Friend, if you are a fool, you do a wise thing in keeping still; if a
wise man, a very foolish thing.”
“Wine, boy,” ordered Democrates; “and less water in it. I feel wretchedly
stupid to-day.”
He spent the rest of the feast drinking deeply, and with much forced
laughter. The dinner ended toward evening. The whole company escorted the
victor toward Athens. At Daphni, the pass over the hills, the archons and
strategi—highest officials of the state—met them with cavalry and torches
and half of the city trailing at their heels. Twenty cubits of the city
wall were pulled down to make a gate for the triumphal entry. There was
another great feast at the government house. The purse of an hundred
drachmæ, due by law to Isthmian victors, was presented. A street was named
for Glaucon in the new port-town of Peiræus. Simonides recited a triumphal
ode. All Athens, in short, made merry for days. Only one man found it hard
to join the mirth whole-heartedly. And this was the victor’s bosom
friend,—Democrates.
CHAPTER VI
ATHENS
In Athens! Shall one mount the Acropolis or enter the market place?
Worship in the temple of the Virgin Athena, or descend to the Agora and
the roar of its getters and spenders? For Athens has two faces—toward the
ideal, toward the commonplace. Who can regard both at once? Let the
Acropolis, its sculptures, its landscape, wait. It has waited for men
three thousand years. And so to the Agora.
“Full market time.” The Agora was a beehive. From the round Tholus at the
south to the long portico at the north all was babel and traffic. Donkeys
raised their wheezing protest against too heavy loads of farm produce.