Pausanias, the Spartan
by
Lord Lytton
Part 1 out of 5
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Marc D'Hooghe and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN.
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS.
An Unfinished Historical Romance
BY
THE LATE LORD LYTTON
EDITED BY HIS SON
Dedication
TO
THE REV. BENJAMIN HALL KENNEDY, D.D.
CANON OF ELY,
AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
* * * * *
MY DEAR DR. KENNEDY,
Revised by your helpful hand, and corrected by your accurate
scholarship, to whom may these pages be so fitly inscribed as to that
one of their author's earliest and most honoured friends,[1] whose
generous assistance has enabled me to place them before the public in
their present form?
It is fully fifteen, if not twenty, years since my father commenced
the composition of an historical romance on the subject of Pausanias,
the Spartan Regent. Circumstances, which need not here be recorded,
compelled him to lay aside the work thus begun. But the subject
continued to haunt his imagination and occupy his thoughts. He detected
in it singular opportunities for effective exercise of the gifts most
peculiar to his genius; and repeatedly, in the intervals of other
literary labour, he returned to the task which, though again and again
interrupted, was never abandoned. To that rare combination of the
imaginative and practical faculties which characterized my father's
intellect, and received from his life such varied illustration, the
story of Pausanias, indeed, briefly as it is told by Thucydides and
Plutarch, addressed itself with singular force. The vast conspiracy of
the Spartan Regent, had it been successful, would have changed the
whole course of Grecian history. To any student of political phenomena,
but more especially to one who, during the greater part of his life,
had been personally engaged in active politics, the story of such a
conspiracy could not fail to be attractive. To the student of human
nature the character of Pausanias himself offers sources of the
deepest interest; and, in the strange career and tragic fate of the
great conspirator, an imagination fascinated by the supernatural must
have recognized remarkable elements of awe and terror. A few months
previous to his death, I asked my father whether he had abandoned all
intention of finishing his romance of "Pausanias." He replied, "On the
contrary, I am finishing it now," and entered, with great animation,
into a discussion of the subject and its capabilities. This reply to my
inquiry surprised and impressed me: for, as you are aware, my father was
then engaged in the simultaneous composition of two other and very
different works, "Kenelm Chillingly" and the "Parisians." It was the
last time he ever spoke to me about Pausanias; but from what he then
said of it I derived an impression that the book was all but completed,
and needing only a few finishing touches to be ready for publication at
no distant date.
This impression was confirmed, subsequent to my father's death, by a
letter of instructions about his posthumous papers which accompanied
his will. In that letter, dated 1856, special allusion is made to
Pausanias as a work already far advanced towards its conclusion.
You, to whom, in your kind and careful revision of it, this unfinished
work has suggested many questions which, alas, I cannot answer, as
to the probable conduct and fate of its fictitious characters, will
readily understand my reluctance to surrender an impression seemingly
so well justified. I did not indeed cease to cherish it, until
reiterated and exhaustive search had failed to recover from the
"wallet" wherein Time "puts alms for oblivion," more than those few
imperfect fragments which, by your valued help, are here arranged in
such order as to carry on the narrative of Pausanias, with no solution
of continuity, to the middle of the second volume.
There the manuscript breaks off. Was it ever continued further? I know
not. Many circumstances induce me to believe that the conception had
long been carefully completed in the mind of its author; but he has
left behind him only a very meagre and imperfect indication of the
course which, beyond the point where it is broken, his narrative was
intended to follow. In presence of this fact I have had to choose
between the total suppression of the fragment, and the publication
of it in its present form. My choice has not been made without
hesitation; but I trust that, from many points of view, the following
pages will be found to justify it.
Judiciously (as I cannot but think) for the purposes of his fiction,
my father has taken up the story of Pausanias at a period subsequent
to the battle of Plataea; when the Spartan Regent, as Admiral of the
United Greek Fleet in the waters of Byzantium, was at the summit of
his power and reputation. Mr. Grote, in his great work, expresses the
opinion (which certainly cannot be disputed by unbiassed readers of
Thucydides) that the victory of Plataea was not attributable to any
remarkable abilities on the part of Pausanias. But Mr. Grote fairly
recognizes as quite exceptional the fame and authority accorded to
Pausanias, after the battle, by all the Hellenic States; the influence
which his name commanded, and the awe which his character inspired.
Not to the mere fact of his birth as an Heracleid, not to the lucky
accident (if such it were) of his success at Plataea, and certainly
not to his undisputed (but surely by no means uncommon) physical
courage, is it possible to attribute the peculiar position which
this remarkable man so long occupied in the estimation of his
contemporaries. For the little that we know about Pausanias we are
mainly dependent upon Athenian writers, who must have been strongly
prejudiced against him. Mr. Grote, adopting (as any modern historian
needs must do) the narrative so handed down to him, never once pauses
to question its estimate of the character of a man who was at one time
the glory, and at another the terror, of all Greece. Yet in comparing
the summary proceedings taken against Leotychides with the extreme,
and seemingly pusillanimous, deference paid to Pausanias by the Ephors
long after they possessed the most alarming proofs of his treason,
Mr. Grote observes, without attempting to account for the fact, that
Pausanias, though only Regent, was far more powerful than any Spartan
King. Why so powerful? Obviously, because he possessed uncommon force
of character; a force of character strikingly attested by every
known incident of his career; and which, when concentrated upon the
conception and execution of vast designs, (even if those designs be
criminal), must be recognized as the special attribute of genius.
Thucydides, Plutarch, Diodorus, Grote, all these writers ascribe
solely to the administrative incapacity of Pausanias that offensive
arrogance which characterized his command at Byzantium, and apparently
cost Sparta the loss of her maritime hegemony. But here is precisely
one of those problems in public policy and personal conduct which the
historian bequeathes to the imaginative writer, and which needs, for
its solution, a profound knowledge rather of human nature than of
books. For dealing with such a problem, my father, in addition to the
intuitive penetration of character and motive which is common to every
great romance writer, certainly possessed two qualifications special
to himself: the habit of dealing _practically_ with political
questions, and experience in the active management of men. His
explanation of the policy of Pausanias at Byzantium, if it be not (as
I think it is) the right one, is at least the only one yet offered. I
venture to think that, historically, it merits attention; as, from the
imaginative point of view, it is undoubtedly felicitous. By elevating
our estimate of Pausanias as a statesman, it increases our interest in
him as a man.
The Author of "Pausanias" does not merely tell us that his hero, when
in conference with the Spartan commissioners, displayed "great natural
powers which, rightly trained, might have made him not less renowned
in council than in war;" but he gives us, though briefly, the
arguments used by Pausanias. He presents to us the image, always
interesting, of a man who grasps firmly the clear conception of a
definite but difficult policy, for success in which he is dependent on
the conscious or involuntary cooperation of men impenetrable to that
conception, and possessed of a collective authority even greater than
his own. To retain Sparta temporarily at the head of Greece was an
ambition quite consistent with the more criminal designs of Pausanias;
and his whole conduct at Byzantium is rendered more intelligible than
it appears in history, when he points out that "for Sparta to maintain
her ascendancy two things are needful: first, to continue the war
by land, secondly, to disgust the Ionians with their sojourn at
Byzantium, to send them with their ships back to their own havens, and
so leave Hellas under the sole guardianship of the Spartans and their
Peloponnesian allies." And who has not learned, in a later school, the
wisdom of the Spartan commissioners? Do not their utterances sound
familiar to us? "Increase of dominion is waste of life and treasure.
Sparta is content to hold her own. What care we, who leads the Greeks
into blows? The fewer blows the better. Brave men fight if they must:
wise men never fight if they can help it." Of this scene and some
others in the first volume of the present fragment (notably the scene
in which the Regent confronts the allied chiefs, and defends himself
against the charge of connivance at the escape of the Persian
prisoners), I should have been tempted to say that they could not have
been written without personal experience of political life; if
the interview between Wallenstein and the Swedish ambassadors in
Schiller's great trilogy did not recur to my recollection as I write.
The language of the ambassadors in that interview is a perfect manual
of practical diplomacy; and yet in practical diplomacy Schiller had
no personal experience. There are, indeed, no limits to the creative
power of genius. But it is perhaps the practical politician who will
be most interested by the chapters in which Pausanias explains his
policy, or defends his position.
In publishing a romance which its author has left unfinished, I may
perhaps be allowed to indicate briefly what I believe to have been
the general scope of its design, and the probable progress of its
narrative.
The "domestic interest" of that narrative is supplied by the story of
Cleonice: a story which, briefly told by Plutarch, suggests one of
the most tragic situations it is possible to conceive. The pathos and
terror of this dark weird episode in a life which history herself
invests with all the character of romance, long haunted the
imagination of Byron; and elicited from Goethe one of the most
whimsical illustrations of the astonishing absurdity into which
criticism sometimes tumbles, when it "o'erleaps itself and falls o'
the other---."
Writing of Manfred and its author, he says, "There are, properly
speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him; and which,
in this piece also, perform principal parts. One under the name of
Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a
voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the
following is related:--When a bold and enterprising young man, he won
the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour,
and murdered his wife. But the murderer was the same night found dead
in the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be
attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and _these spirits haunted
him all his life after_. This romantic incident is rendered highly
probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance,
when turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the
fatal history of the King of Sparta. It is as follows: Pausanias, a
Lacedaemonian General, acquires glory by the important victory at
Plataea; but afterwards forfeits the confidence of his countrymen by
his arrogance, obstinacy, and secret intrigues with the common enemy.
This man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which
attends him to his end. For, while commanding the fleet of the allied
Greeks in the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a
Byzantine maiden. After long resistance, he at length obtains her from
her parents; and she is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly
desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in
the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his sleep;
apprehensive of an attack from murderers he seizes his sword, and
destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves him. Her shade
pursues him unceasingly; and in vain he implores aid of the gods and the
exorcising priests. That poet must have a lacerated heart who selects
such a scene from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his
tragic image with it."[2]
It is extremely characteristic of Byron, that, instead of resenting
this charge of murder, he was so pleased by the criticism in which
it occurs that he afterwards dedicated "The Deformed Transformed" to
Goethe. Mr. Grote repeats the story above alluded to, with all the
sanction of his grave authority, and even mentions the name of the
young lady; apparently for the sake of adding a few black strokes to
the character of Pausanias. But the supernatural part of the legend
was, of course, beneath the notice of a nineteenth-century critic; and
he passes it by. This part of the story is, however, essential to
the psychological interest of it. For whether it be that Pausanias
supposed himself, or that contemporary gossips supposed him, to be
haunted by the phantom of the woman he had loved and slain, the fact,
in either case, affords a lurid glimpse into the inner life of
the man;--just as, although Goethe's murder-story about Byron is
ludicrously untrue, yet the fact that such a story was circulated,
and could be seriously repeated by such a man as Goethe without being
resented by Byron himself, offers significant illustration both of
what Byron was, and of what he appeared to his contemporaries. Grote
also assigns the death of Cleonice to that period in the life of
Pausanias when he was in the command of the allies at Byzantium; and
refers to it as one of the numerous outrages whereby Pausanias abused
and disgraced the authority confided to him. Plutarch, however, who
tells the story in greater detail, distinctly fixes the date of its
catastrophe subsequent to the return of the Regent to Byzantium, as a
solitary volunteer, in the trireme of Hermione. The following is his
account of the affair:
"It is related that Pausanias, when at Byzantium, sought, with
criminal purpose, the love of a young lady of good family, named
Cleonice. The parents yielding to fear, or necessity, suffered him to
carry away their daughter. Before entering his chamber, she requested
that the light might be extinguished; and in darkness and silence she
approached the couch of Pausanias, who was already asleep. In so doing
she accidentally upset the lamp. Pausanias, suddenly aroused from
slumber, and supposing that some enemy was about to assassinate him,
seized his sword, which lay by his bedside, and with it struck the
maiden to the ground. She died of her wound; and from that moment
repose was banished from the life of Pausanias. A spectre appeared to
him every night in his sleep; and repeated to him in reproachful tones
this hexameter verse,_Whither I wait thee march, and receive the doom
thou deservest. Sooner or later, but ever, to man crime bringeth
disaster.'_
The allies, scandalized by this misdeed, concerted with Cimon, and
besieged Pausanias in Byzantium. But he succeeded in escaping,
Continually troubled by the phantom, he took refuge, it is said, at
Heraclea, in that temple where the souls of the dead are evoked. He
appealed to Cleonice and conjured her to mitigate his torment. She
appeared to him, and told him that on his return to Sparta he would
attain the end of his sufferings; indicating, as it would seem, by
these enigmatic words, the death which there awaited him. "This"
(adds Plutarch) "is a story told by most of the historians."[3]
I feel no doubt that this version of the story, or at least the
general outline of it, would have been followed by the romance had my
father lived to complete it. Some modification of its details would
doubtless have been necessary for the purposes of fiction. But that
the Cleonice of the novel is destined to die by the hand of her lover,
is clearly indicated. To me it seems that considerable skill and
judgment are shown in the pains taken, at the very opening of the book,
to prepare the mind of the reader for an incident which would have been
intolerably painful, and must have prematurely ended the whole narrative
interest, had the character of Cleonice been drawn otherwise than as we
find it in this first portion of the book. From the outset she appears
before us under the shadow of a tragic fatality. Of that fatality she
is herself intuitively conscious: and with it her whole being is in
harmony. No sooner do we recognise her real character than we perceive
that, for such a character, there can be no fit or satisfactory issue
from the difficulties of her position, in any conceivable combination
of earthly circumstances. But she is not of the earth earthly. Her
thoughts already habitually hover on the dim frontier of some vague
spiritual region in which her love seeks refuge from the hopeless
realities of her life; and, recognising this betimes, we are prepared
to see above the hand of her ill-fated lover, when it strikes her down
in the dark, the merciful and releasing hand of her natural destiny.
But, assuming the author to have adopted Plutarch's chronology,
and deferred the death of Cleonice till the return of Pausanias to
Byzantium (the latest date to which he could possibly have deferred
it), this catastrophe must still have occurred somewhere in the
course, or at the close, of his second volume. There would, in that
case, have still remained about nine years (and those the most
eventful) of his hero's career to be narrated. The premature removal
of the heroine from the narrative, so early in the course of it,
would therefore, at first sight, appear to be a serious defect in the
conception of this romance. Here it is, however, that the credulous
gossip of the old biographer comes to the rescue of the modern artist.
I apprehend that the Cleonice of the novel would, after her death,
have been still sensibly present to the reader's imagination
throughout the rest of the romance. She would then have moved through
it like a fate, reappearing in the most solemn moments of the story,
and at all times apparent, even when unseen, in her visible influence
upon the fierce and passionate character, the sombre and turbulent
career, of her guilty lover. In short, we may fairly suppose that,
in all the closing scenes of the tragedy, Cleonice would have still
figured and acted as one of those supernatural agencies which my
father, following the example of his great predecessor, Scott, did not
scruple to introduce into the composition of historical romance.[4]
Without the explanation here suggested, those metaphysical
conversations between Cleonice, Alcman, and Pausanias, which occupy
the opening chapters of Book II., might be deemed superfluous. But, in
fact, they are essential to the preparation of the catastrophe; and
that catastrophe, if reached, would undoubtedly have revealed to any
reflective reader their important connection with the narrative which
they now appear to retard somewhat unduly.
Quite apart from the unfinished manuscript of this story of Pausanias,
and in another portion of my father's papers which have no reference
to this story, I have discovered the following, undated, memorandum of
the destined contents of the second and third volumes of the work.
PAUSANIAS.
VOL. II.
Lysander--Sparta--Ephors--Decision to recall Pausanias.
Pausanias with Pharnabazes--On the point of success--Xerxes'
daughter--Interview with Cleonice--Recalled.
Sparta--Alcman with his family.
Cleonice--Antagoras--Yields to suit of marriage.
Pausanias suddenly reappears, as a volunteer--Scenes.
VOL. III.
Pausanias removes Cleonice, &c.--Conspiracy against him--Up to
Cleonice's death.
His expulsion from Byzantium---His despair--His journey into
Thrace--Scythians, &c.
Heraclea--Ghost.
His return--to Colonae.
Antagoras resolved on revenge--Communicates with Sparta.
The * * *--Conference with Alcman--Pausanias depends on Helots, and
money.
His return--to death.
This is the only indication I can find of the intended conclusion of
the story. Meagre though it be, however, it sufficiently suggests the
manner in which the author of the romance intended to deal with the
circumstances of Cleonice's death as related by Plutarch. With her
forcible removal by Pausanias, or her willing flight with him from the
house of her father, it would probably have been difficult to reconcile
the general sentiment of the romance, in connection with any
circumstances less conceivable than those which are indicated in the
memorandum. But in such circumstances the step taken by Pausanias migh
have had no worse motive than the rescue of the woman who loved him
from forced union with another; and Cleonice's assent to that step might
have been quite compatible with the purity and heroism of her character.
In this manner, moreover, a strong motive is prepared for that sentiment
of revenge on the part of Antagoras whereby the dramatic interest of the
story might be greatly heightened in the subsequent chapters. The
intended introduction of the supernatural element is also clearly
indicated. But apart from this, fine opportunities for psychological
analysis would doubtless have occurred in tracing the gradual deterio-
ration of such a character as that of Pausanias when, deprived of the
guardian influence of a hope passionate but not impure, its craving for
fierce excitement must have been stimulated by remorseful memories and
impotent despairs. Indeed, the imperfect manuscript now printed, contains
only the exposition of a tragedy. All the most striking effects, all the
strongest dramatic situations, have been reserved for the pages of the
manuscript which, alas, are either lost or unwritten.
Who can doubt, for instance, how effectually in the closing scenes of
this tragedy the grim image of Alithea might have assumed the place
assigned to it by history? All that we now see is the preparation made
for its effective presentation in the foreground of such later scenes,
by the chapter in the second volume describing the meeting between
Lysander and the stern mother of his Spartan chief. In Lysander himself,
moreover, we have the germ of a singularly dramatic situation. How would
Lysander act in the final struggle which his character and fate are
already preparing for him, between patriotism and friendship, his
fidelity to Pausanias, and his devotion to Sparta? Is Lysander's father
intended for that Ephor, who, in the last moment, made the sign that
warned Pausanias to take refuge in the temple which became his living
tomb? Probably. Would Themistocles, who was so seriously compromised in
the conspiracy of Pausanias, have appearedand played a part in those
scenes on which the curtain must remain unlifted? Possibly. Is Alcman the
helot who revealed, to the Ephors, the gigantic plots of his master just
when those plots were on the eve of execution? There is much in the
relations between Pausanias and the Mothon, as they are described in the
opening chapters of the romance, which favours, and indeed renders almost
irresistible, such a supposition. But then, on the other hand, what genius
on the part of the author could reconcile us to the perpetration by his
hero of a crime so mean, so cowardly, as that personal perfidy to which
history ascribes the revelation of the Regent's far more excusable
treasons, and their terrible punishment?
These questions must remain unanswered. The magician can wave his wand
no more. The circle is broken, the spells are scattered, the secret
lost. The images which he evoked, and which he alone could animate,
remain before us incomplete, semi-articulate, unable to satisfy the
curiosity they inspire. A group of fragments, in many places broken,
you have helped me to restore. With what reverent and kindly care,
with what disciplined judgment and felicitous suggestion, you have
accomplished the difficult task so generously undertaken, let me here
most gratefully attest. Beneath the sculptor's name, allow me to
inscribe upon the pedestal your own; and accept this sincere assurance
of the inherited esteem and personal regard with which I am,
My dear Dr. Kennedy,
Your obliged and faithful
LYTTON.
GINTRA, _5 July, 1875_.
Notes:
[1] The late Lord Lytton, in his unpublished autobiographical memoirs,
describing his contemporaries at Cambridge, speaks of Dr. Kennedy as
"a young giant of learning."--L.
[2] Moore's "Life and Letters of Lord Byron," p. 723.
[3] Plutarch, "Life of Cimon."
[4] "Harold."
PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
On one of the quays which bordered the unrivalled harbour of
Byzantium, more than twenty-three centuries before the date at which
this narrative is begun, stood two Athenians. In the waters of the
haven rode the vessels of the Grecian Fleet. So deep was the basin, in
which the tides are scarcely felt,[5] that the prows of some of the
ships touched the quays, and the setting sun glittered upon the smooth
and waxen surfaces of the prows rich with diversified colours and
wrought gilding. To the extreme right of the fleet, and nearly
opposite the place upon which the Athenians stood, was a vessel still
more profusely ornamented than the rest. On the prow were elaborately
carved the heads of the twin deities of the Laconian mariner, Castor
and Pollux; in the centre of the deck was a wooden edifice or pavilion
having a gilded roof and shaded by purple awnings, an imitation of the
luxurious galleys of the Barbarian; while the parasemon, or flag, as
it idly waved in the faint breeze of the gentle evening, exhibited the
terrible serpent, which, if it was the fabulous type of demigods and
heroes, might also be regarded as an emblem of the wily but stern
policy of the Spartan State. Such was the galley of the commander of
the armament, which (after the reduction of Cyprus) had but lately
wrested from the yoke of Persia that link between her European and
Asiatic domains, that key of the Bosporus--"the Golden Horn" of
Byzantium.[6]
High above all other Greeks (Themistocles alone excepted) soared the
fame of that renowned chief, Pausanias, Regent of Sparta and General
of the allied troops at the victorious battle-field of Plataea. The
spot on which the Athenians stood was lonely and now unoccupied, save
by themselves and the sentries stationed at some distance on either
hand. The larger proportion of the crews in the various vessels were
on shore; but on the decks idly reclined small groups of sailors, and
the murmur of their voices stole, indistinguishably blended, upon the
translucent air. Behind rose, one above the other, the Seven Hills, on
which long afterwards the Emperor Constantine built a second Rome; and
over these heights, even then, buildings were scattered of various
forms and dates, here the pillared temples of the Greek colonists,
to whom Byzantium owed its origin, there the light roofs and painted
domes which the Eastern conquerors had introduced.
One of the Athenians was a man in the meridian of manhood, of a calm,
sedate, but somewhat haughty aspect; the other was in the full bloom
of youth, of lofty stature, and with a certain majesty of bearing;
down his shoulders flowed a profusion of long curled hair, divided in
the centre of the forehead, and connected with golden clasps, in which
was wrought the emblem of the Athenian nobles--the Grasshopper--a
fashion not yet obsolete, as it had become in the days of Thucydides.
Still, to an observer, there was something heavy in the ordinary
expression of the handsome countenance. His dress differed from the
earlier fashion of the Ionians;[7] it dispensed with those loose linen
garments which had something of effeminacy in their folds, and was
confined to the simple and statue-like grace that characterised the
Dorian garb. Yet the clasp that fastened the chlamys upon the right
shoulder, leaving the arm free, was of pure gold and exquisite
workmanship, and the materials of the simple vesture were of a quality
that betokened wealth and rank in the wearer.
"Yes, Cimon," said the elder of the Athenians, "yonder galley itself
affords sufficient testimony of the change that has come over the
haughty Spartan. It is difficult, indeed, to recognize in this
luxurious satrap, who affects the dress, the manners, the very
insolence of the Barbarian, that Pausanias who, after the glorious day
of Plataea, ordered the slaves to prepare in the tent of Mardonius
such a banquet as would have been served to the Persian, while his own
Spartan broth and bread were set beside it, in order that he might
utter to the chiefs of Greece that noble pleasantry, 'Behold the
folly of the Persians, who forsook such splendour to plunder such
poverty.'"[8]
"Shame upon his degeneracy, and thrice shame!" said the young Cimon,
sternly. "I love the Spartans so well, that I blush for whatever
degrades them. And all Sparta is dwarfed by the effeminacy of her
chief."
"Softly, Cimon," said Aristides, with a sober smile. "Whatever
surprise we may feel at the corruption of Pausanias, he is not one who
will allow us to feel contempt. Through all the voluptuous softness
acquired by intercourse with these Barbarians, the strong nature of
the descendant of the demigod still breaks forth. Even at the distaff
I recognize Alcides, whether for evil or for good. Pausanias is one on
whom our most anxious gaze must be duly bent. But in this change of
his I rejoice; the gods are at work for Athens. See you not that,
day after day, while Pausanias disgusts the allies with the Spartans
themselves, he throws them more and more into the arms of Athens? Let
his madness go on, and ere long the violet-crowned city will become
the queen of the seas."
"Such was my own hope," said Cimon, his face assuming a new
expression, brightened with all the intelligence of ambition and
pride; "but I did not dare own it to myself till you spoke. Several
officers of Ionia and the Isles have already openly and loudly
proclaimed to me their wish to exchange the Spartan ascendancy for the
Athenian."
"And with all your love for Sparta," said Aristides, looking
steadfastly and searchingly at his comrade, "you would not then
hesitate to rob her of a glory which you might bestow on your own
Athens?"
"Ah, am I not Athenian?" answered Cimon, with a deep passion in his
voice. "Though my great father perished a victim to the injustice of
a faction--though he who had saved Athens from the Mede died in the
Athenian dungeon--still, fatherless, I see in Athens but a mother, and
if her voice sounded harshly in my boyish years, in manhood I have
feasted on her smiles. Yes, I honour Sparta, but I love Athens. You
have my answer."
"You speak well," said Aristides, with warmth; "you are worthy of the
destinies for which I foresee that the son of Miltiades is reserved.
Be wary, be cautious; above all, be smooth, and blend with men of
every state and grade. I would wish that the allies themselves should
draw the contrast between the insolence of the Spartan chief and the
courtesy of the Athenians. What said you to the Ionian officers?"
"I said that Athens held there was no difference between to command
and to obey, except so far as was best for the interests of Greece;
that--as on the field of Plataea, when the Tegeans asserted precedence
over the Athenians, we, the Athenian army, at once exclaimed, through
your voice, Aristides, 'We come here to fight the Barbarian, not to
dispute amongst ourselves; place us where you will'[9]:--even so now,
while the allies give the command to Sparta, Sparta we will obey. But
if we were thought by the Grecian States the fittest leaders, our
answer would be the same that we gave at Plataea, 'Not we, but Greece
be consulted: place us where you will!'"
"O wise Cimon!" exclaimed Aristides, "I have no caution to bestow on
you. You do by intuition that which I attempt by experience. But hark!
What music sounds in the distance? the airs that Lydia borrowed from
the East?"
"And for which," said Cimon, sarcastically, "Pausanias hath abandoned
the Dorian flute."
Soft, airy, and voluptuous were indeed the sounds which now, from the
streets leading upwards from the quay, floated along the delicious
air. The sailors rose, listening and eager, from the decks; there was
once more bustle, life, and animation on board the fleet. From several
of the vessels the trumpets woke a sonorous signal-note. In a few
minutes the quays, before so deserted, swarmed with the Grecian
mariners, who emerged hastily, whether from various houses in the
haven, or from the encampment which stretched along it, and hurried
to their respective ships. On board the galley of Pausanias there was
more especial animation; not only mariners, but slaves, evidently
from the Eastern markets, were seen, jostling each other, and heard
talking, quick and loud, in foreign tongues. Rich carpets were
unfurled and laid across the deck, while trembling and hasty hands
smoothed into yet more graceful folds the curtains that shaded the
gay pavilion in the centre. The Athenians looked on, the one with
thoughtful composure, the other with a bitter smile, while these
preparations announced the unexpected, and not undreaded, approach of
the great Pausanias.
"Ho, noble Cimon!" cried a young man who, hurrying towards one of the
vessels, caught sight of the Athenians and paused. "You are the very
person whom I most desired to see. Aristides too!--we are fortunate."
The speaker was a young man of slighter make and lower stature
than the Athenians, but well shaped, and with features the partial
effeminacy of which was elevated by an expression of great vivacity
and intelligence. The steed trained for Elis never bore in its
proportions the evidence of blood and rare breeding more visibly than
the dark brilliant eye of this young man, his broad low transparent
brow, expanded nostril and sensitive lip, revealed the passionate
and somewhat arrogant character of the vivacious Greek of the Aegean
Isles.
"Antagoras," replied Cimon, laying his hand with frank and somewhat
blunt cordiality on the Greek's shoulder, "like the grape of your own
Chios, you cannot fail to be welcome at all times. But why would you
seek us now ?"
"Because I will no longer endure the insolence of this rude Spartan.
Will you believe it, Cimon--will you believe it, Aristides? Pausanias
has actually dared to sentence to blows, to stripes, one of my own
men--a free Chian--nay, a Decadarchus.[10] I have but this instant
heard it. And the offence--Gods! the _offence!_--was that he ventured
to contest with a Laconian, an underling in the Spartan army, which
one of the two had the fair right to a wine cask! Shall this be borne,
Cimon?"
"Stripes to a Greek!" said Cimon. and the colour mounted to his brow.
"Thinks Pausanias that the Ionian race are already his Helots?"
"Be calm," said Aristides; "Pausanias approaches. I will accost him."
"But listen still!" exclaimed Antagoras eagerly, plucking the gown of
the Athenian as the latter turned away. "When Pausanias heard of the
contest between my soldier and his Laconian, what said he, think you?
'Prior claim; learn henceforth that, where the Spartans are to be
found, the Spartans in all matters have the prior claim.'"
"We will see to it," returned Aristides, calmly; "but keep by my
side."
And now the music sounded loud and near, and suddenly, as the
procession approached, the character of that music altered. The Lydian
measures ceased, those who had attuned them gave way to musicians of
loftier aspect and simpler garb; in whom might be recognized, not indeed
the genuine Spartans, but their free, if subordinate, countrymen of
Laconia; and a minstrel, who walked beside them, broke out into a song,
partially adapted from the bold and lively strain of Alcaeus, the first
two lines in each stanza ringing much to that chime, the two latter
reduced into briefer compass, as, with allowance for the differing laws
of national rhythm, we thus seek to render the verse:
SONG.
Multitudes, backward! Way for the Dorian;
Way for the Lord of rocky Laconia;
Heaven to Hercules opened
Way on the earth for his son.
Steel and fate, blunted, break on his fortitude;
Two evils only never endureth he--
Death by a wound in retreating,
Life with a blot on his name.
Rocky his birthplace; rocks are immutable;
So are his laws, and so shall his glory be.
Time is the Victor of Nations,
Sparta the Victor of Time.
Watch o'er him heedful on the wide ocean,
Brothers of Helen, luminous guiding stars;
Dangerous to Truth are the fickle,
Dangerous to Sparta the seas.
Multitudes, backward! Way for the Conqueror;
Way for the footstep half the world fled before;
Nothing that Phoebus can shine on
Needs so much space as Renown.
Behind the musicians came ten Spartans, selected from the celebrated
three hundred who claimed the right to be stationed around the king
in battle. Tall, stalwart, sheathed in armour, their shields slung at
their backs, their crests of plumage or horsehair waving over their
strong and stern features, these hardy warriors betrayed to the keen
eye of Aristides their sullen discontent at the part assigned to
them in the luxurious procession; their brows were knit, their lips
contracted, and each of them who caught the glance of the Athenians,
turned his eyes, as half in shame, half in anger, to the ground.
Coming now upon the quay, opposite to the galley of Pausanias, from
which was suspended a ladder of silken cords, the procession halted,
and opening on either side, left space in the midst for the commander.
"He comes," whispered Antagoras to Cimon. "By Hercules! I pray you
survey him well. Is it the conqueror of Mardonius, or the ghost of
Mardonius himself?"
The question of the Chian seemed not extravagant to the blunt son of
Miltiades, as his eyes now rested on Pausanias.
The pure Spartan race boasted, perhaps, the most superb models of
masculine beauty which the land blessed by Apollo could afford. The
laws that regulate marriage ensured a healthful and vigorous progeny.
Gymnastic discipline from early boyhood gave ease to the limbs, iron
to the muscle, grace to the whole frame. Every Spartan, being born to
command, being noble by his birth, lord of the Laconians, Master of
the Helots, superior in the eyes of Greece to all other Greeks, was at
once a Republican and an Aristocrat. Schooled in the arts that compose
the presence, and give calmness and majesty to the bearing, he
combined with the mere physical advantages of activity and strength a
conscious and yet natural dignity of mien. Amidst the Greeks assembled
at the Olympian contests, others showed richer garments, more
sumptuous chariots, rarer steeds, but no state could vie with Sparta
in the thews and sinews, the aspect and the majesty of the men.
Nor were the royal race, the descendants of Hercules, in external
appearance unworthy of their countrymen and of their fabled origin.
Sculptor and painter would have vainly tasked their imaginative minds
to invent a nobler ideal for the effigies of a hero, than that which
the Victor of Plataea offered to their inspiration. As he now paused
amidst the group, he towered high above them all, even above Cimon
himself. But in his stature there was nothing of the cumbrous bulk and
stolid heaviness, which often destroy the beauty of vast strength.
Severe and early training, long habits of rigid abstemiousness, the
toils of war, and, more than all, perhaps, the constant play of
a restless, anxious, aspiring temper, had left, undisfigured by
superfluous flesh, the grand proportions of a frame, the very
spareness of which had at once the strength and the beauty of one of
those hardy victors in the wrestling or boxing match, whose agility
and force are modelled by discipline to the purest forms of grace.
Without that exact and chiselled harmony of countenance which
characterised perhaps the Ionic rather than the Doric race, the
features of the royal Spartan were noble and commanding. His
complexion was sunburnt, almost to oriental swarthiness, and the
raven's plume had no darker gloss than that of his long hair, which
(contrary to the Spartan custom), flowing on either side, mingled
with the closer curls of the beard. To a scrutinizing gaze, the more
dignified and prepossessing effect of this exterior would perhaps have
been counterbalanced by an eye, bright indeed and penetrating, but
restless and suspicious, by a certain ineffable mixture of arrogant
pride and profound melancholy in the general expression of the
countenance, ill according with that frank and serene aspect which
best becomes the face of one who would lead mankind. About him
altogether--the countenance, the form, the bearing--there was that
which woke a vague, profound, and singular interest, an interest
somewhat mingled with awe, but not altogether uncalculated to produce
that affection which belongs to admiration, save when the sudden frown
or disdainful lip repelled the gentler impulse and tended rather to
excite fear, or to irritate pride, or to wound self-love.
But if the form and features of Pausanias were eminently those of
the purest race of Greece, the dress which he assumed was no less
characteristic of the Barbarian. He wore, not the garb of the noble
Persian race, which, close and simple, was but a little less manly
than that of the Greeks, but the flowing and gorgeous garments of the
Mede. His long gown, which swept the earth, was covered with flowers
wrought in golden tissue. Instead of the Spartan hat, the high Median
cap or tiara crowned his perfumed and lustrous hair, while (what
of all was most hateful to Grecian eyes) he wore, though otherwise
unarmed, the curved scimitar and short dirk that were the national
weapons of the Barbarian. And as it was not customary, nor indeed
legitimate, for the Greeks to wear weapons on peaceful occasions
and with their ordinary costume, so this departure from the common
practice had not only in itself something offensive to the jealous
eyes of his comrades, but was rendered yet more obnoxious by the
adoption of the very arms of the East.
By the side of Pausanias was a man whose dark beard was already sown
with grey. This man, named Gongylus, though a Greek--a native of
Eretria, in Euboea--was in high command under the great Persian king.
At the time of the barbarian invasion under Datis and Artaphernes,
he had deserted the cause of Greece and had been rewarded with the
lordship of four towns in Aeolis. Few among the apostate Greeks were
more deeply instructed in the language and manners of the Persians;
and the intimate and sudden friendship that had grown up between him
and the Spartan was regarded by the Greeks with the most bitter and
angry suspicion. As if to show his contempt for the natural jealousy
of his countrymen, Pausanias, however, had just given to the Eretrian
the government of Byzantium itself, and with the command of the
citadel had entrusted to him the custody of the Persian prisoners
captured in that port. Among these were men of the highest rank and
influence at the court of Xerxes; and it was more than rumoured that
of late Pausanias had visited and conferred with them, through the
interpretation of Gongylus, far more frequently than became the
General of the Greeks. Gongylus had one of those countenances which
are observed when many of more striking semblance are overlooked.
But the features were sharp and the visage lean, the eyes vivid and
sparkling as those of the lynx, and the dark pupil seemed yet more
dark from the extreme whiteness of the ball, from which it lessened or
dilated with the impulse of the spirit which gave it fire. There was
in that eye all the subtle craft, the plotting and restless malignity
which usually characterised those Greek renegades who prostituted
their native energies to the rich service of the Barbarian; and the
lips, narrow and thin, wore that everlasting smile which to the
credulous disguises wile, and to the experienced betrays it. Small,
spare, and prematurely bent, the Eretrian supported himself by a
staff, upon which now leaning, he glanced, quickly and pryingly,
around, till his eyes rested upon the Athenians, with the young Chian
standing in their rear.
"The Athenian Captains are here to do you homage, Pausanias," said he
in a whisper, as he touched with his small lean fingers the arm of the
Spartan.
Pausanias turned and muttered to himself, and at that instant
Aristides approached.
"If it please you, Pausanias, Cimon and myself, the leaders of the
Athenians, would crave a hearing upon certain matters."
"Son of Lysimachus, say on."
"Your pardon, Pausanias," returned the Athenian, lowering his voice,
and with a smile--"This is too crowded a council-hall; may we attend
you on board your galley?"
"Not so," answered the Spartan haughtily; "the morning to affairs, the
evening to recreation. We shall sail in the bay to see the moon rise,
and if we indulge in consultations, it will be over our winecups. It
is a good custom."
"It is a Persian one," said Cimon bluntly.
"It is permitted to us," returned the Spartan coldly, "to borrow from
those we conquer. But enough of this. I have no secrets with the
Athenians. No matter if the whole city hear what you would address to
Pausanias."
"It is to complain," said Aristides with calm emphasis, but still in
an undertone.
"Ay, I doubt it not: the Athenians are eloquent in grumbling."
"It was not found so at Plataea," returned Cimon.
"Son of Miltiades," said Pausanias loftily, "your wit outruns your
experience. But my time is short. To the matter!"
"If you will have it so, I will speak," said Aristides, raising his
voice. "Before your own Spartans, our comrades in arms, I proclaim our
causes of complaint. Firstly, then, I demand release and compensation
to seven Athenians, free-born and citizens, whom your orders have
condemned to the unworthy punishment of standing all day in the open
sun with the weight of iron anchors on their shoulders."
"The mutinous knaves!" exclaimed the Spartan. "They introduced into
the camp the insolence of their own agora, and were publicly heard in
the streets inveighing against myself as a favourer of the Persians."
"It was easy to confute the charge; it was tyrannical to punish words
in men whose deeds had raised you to the command of Greece."
"_Their_ deeds! Ye Gods, give me patience! By the help of Juno the
protectress it was this brain and this arm that--But I will not
justify myself by imitating the Athenian fashion of wordy boasting.
Pass on to your next complaint."
"You have placed slaves--yes, Helots--around the springs, to drive
away with scourges the soldiers that come for water."
"Not so, but merely to prevent others from filling their vases until
the Spartans are supplied."
"And by what right--?" began Cimon, but Aristides checked him with a
gesture, and proceeded.
"That precedence is not warranted by custom, nor by the terms of
our alliance; and the springs, O Pausanias, are bounteous enough to
provide for all. I proceed. You have formally sentenced citizens and
soldiers to the scourge. Nay, this very day you have extended the
sentence to one in actual command amongst the Chians. Is it not so,
Antagoras?"
"It is," said the young Chian, coming forward boldly; "and in the name
of my countrymen I demand justice."
"And I also, Uliades of Samos," said a thickset and burly Greek who
had joined the group unobserved, "_I_ demand justice. What, by the
Gods! Are we to be all equals in the day of battle? 'My good sir,
march here;' and, 'My dear sir, just run into that breach;' and yet
when we have won the victory and should share the glory, is one state,
nay, one man to seize the whole, and deal out iron anchors and tough
cowhides to his companions? No, Spartans, this is not your view of the
case; you suffer in the eyes of Greece by this misconduct. To Sparta
itself I appeal."
"And what, most patient sir," said Pausanias, with calm sarcasm,
though his eye shot fire, and the upper lip, on which no Spartan
suffered the beard to grow, slightly quivered--"what is your
contribution to the catalogue of complaints?"
"Jest not, Pausanias; you will find me in earnest," answered Uliades,
doggedly, and encouraged by the evident effect that his eloquence had
produced upon the Spartans themselves. "I have met with a grievous
wrong, and all Greece shall hear of it, if it be not redressed. My own
brother, who at Mycale slew four Persians with his own hand, headed a
detachment for forage. He and his men were met by a company of mixed
Laconians and Helots, their forage taken from them, they themselves
assaulted, and my brother, a man who has monies and maintains forty
slaves of his own, struck thrice across the face by a rascally Helot.
Now, Pausanias, your answer!"
"You have prepared a notable scene for the commander of your forces,
son of Lysimachus," said the Spartan, addressing himself to Aristides.
"Far be it from me to affect the Agamemnon, but your friends are less
modest in imitating the venerable model of Thersites. Enough" (and
changing the tone of his voice, the chief stamped his foot vehemently
to the ground): "we owe no account to our inferiors; we render no
explanation save to Sparta and her Ephors."
"So be it, then," said Aristides, gravely; "we have our answer, and
you will hear of our appeal."
Pausanias changed colour. "How?" said he, with a slight hesitation in
his tone. "Mean you to threaten me--Me--with carrying the busy tales
of your disaffection to the Spartan government?"
"Time will show. Farewell, Pausanias. We will detain you no longer
from your pastime."
"But," began Uliades.
"Hush," said the Athenian, laying his hand on the Samian's shoulder.
"We will confer anon."
Pausanias paused a moment, irresolute and in thought. His eyes glanced
towards his own countrymen, who, true to their rigid discipline,
neither spake nor moved, but whose countenances were sullen and
overcast, and at that moment his pride was shaken, and his heart
misgave him. Gongylus watched his countenance, and once more laying
his hand on his arm, said in a whisper--
"He who seeks to rule never goes back."
"Tush, you know not the Spartans."
"But I know Human Nature; it is the same everywhere. You cannot yield
to this insolence; to-morrow, of your own accord, send for these men
separately and pacify them."
"You are right. Now to the vessel!"
With this, leaning on the shoulder of the Persian, and with a slight
wave of his hand towards the Athenians--he did not deign even that
gesture to the island officers--Pausanias advanced to the vessel, and
slowly ascending, disappeared within his pavilion. The Spartans and
the musicians followed; then, spare and swarthy, some half score of
Egyptian sailors; last came a small party of Laconians and Helots,
who, standing at some distance behind Pausanias, had not hitherto been
observed. The former were but slightly armed; the latter had forsaken
their customary rude and savage garb, and wore long gowns and gay
tunics, somewhat in the fashion of the Lydians. With these last there
was one of a mien and aspect that strongly differed from the lowering
and ferocious cast of countenance common to the Helot race. He was
of the ordinary stature, and his frame was not characterised by any
appearance of unusual strength; but he trod the earth, with a firm
step and an erect crest, as if the curse of the slave had not yet
destroyed the inborn dignity of the human being. There was a certain
delicacy and refinement, rather of thought than beauty, in his clear,
sharp, and singularly intelligent features. In contradistinction from
the free-born Spartans, his hair was short, and curled close above a
broad and manly forehead; and his large eyes of dark blue looked full
and bold upon the Athenians with something, if not of defiance, at
least of pride in their gaze, as he stalked by them to the vessel.
"A sturdy fellow for a Helot," muttered Cimon.
"And merits well his freedom," said the son of Lysimachus. "I remember
him well. He is Alcman, the foster-brother of Pausanias, whom he
attended at Plataea. Not a Spartan that day bore himself more
bravely."
"No doubt they will put him to death when he goes back to Sparta,"
said Antagoras. "When a Helot is brave, the Ephors clap the black mark
against his name, and at the next crypteia he suddenly disappears."
"Pausanias may share the same fate as his Helot, for all I care,"
quoth Uliades. "Well, Athenians, what say you to the answer we have
received?"
"That Sparta shall hear of it," answered Aristides.
"Ah, but is that all? Recollect the Ionians have the majority in the
fleet; let us not wait for the slow Ephors. Let us at once throw off
this insufferable yoke, and proclaim Athens the Mistress of the Seas.
What say you, Cimon?"
"Let Aristides answer."
"Yonder lie the Athenian vessels," said Aristides. "Those who put
themselves voluntarily under our protection we will not reject. But
remember we assert no claim; we yield but to the general wish."
"Enough; I understand you," said Antagoras.
"Not quite," returned the Athenian with a smile. "The breach between
you and Pausanias is begun, but it is not yet wide enough. You
yourselves must do that which will annul all power in the Spartan, and
then if ye come to Athens ye will find her as bold against the Doric
despot as against the Barbarian foe."
"But speak more plainly. What would you have us do?" asked Uliades,
rubbing his chin in great perplexity.
"Nay, nay, I have already said enough. Fare ye well,
fellow-countrymen," and leaning lightly on the shoulder of Cimon, the
Athenian passed on.
Meanwhile, the splendid galley of Pausanias slowly put forth into the
farther waters of the bay. The oars of the rowers broke the surface
into countless phosphoric sparkles, and the sound they made, as they
dashed amidst the gentle waters, seemed to keep time with the song
and the instruments on the deck. The Ionians gazed in silence as the
stately vessel, now shooting far ahead of the rest, swept into the
centre of the bay. And the moon, just rising, shone full upon the
glittering prow, and streaked the rippling billows over which it had
bounded, with a light, as it were, of glory.
Antagoras sighed. "What think you of?" asked the rough Samian.
"Peace," replied Antagoras. "In this hour, when the fair face of
Artemis recalls the old legends of Endymion, is it not permitted to
man to remember that before the iron age came the golden, before war
reigned love?"
"Tush," said Uliades. "Time enough to think of love when we have
satisfied vengeance. Let us summon our friends, and hold council on
the Spartan's insults."
"Whither goes now the Spartan?" murmured Antagoras abstractedly, as
he suffered his companion to lead him away. Then halting abruptly, he
struck his clenched hand on his breast.
"O Aphrodite!" he cried; "this night--this night I will seek thy
temple. Hear my vows--soothe my jealousy!"
"Ah," grunted Uliades, "if, as men say, thou lovest a fair Byzantine,
Aphrodite will have sharp work to cure thee of jealousy, unless she
first makes thee blind."
Antagoras smiled faintly, and the two Ionians moved on slowly and in
silence. In a few minutes more the quays were deserted and nothing but
the blended murmur, spreading wide and indistinct throughout the camp,
and a noisier but occasional burst of merriment from those resorts
of obscener pleasure which were profusely scattered along the haven,
mingled with the whispers of "the far resounding sea."
Notes:
[5] Gibbon, ch. 17.
[6] "The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm
of the Bosphorus, obtained in a very remote period the denomination of
the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the
horn of a stag, or, as it should seem, with more propriety to that of
an ox."--Gib. c. 17; Strab. 1. x.
[7] Ion _apud_ Plut.
[8] Herod. ix. 82.
[9] Plut. in Vit. Arist.
[10] Leader of ten men.
CHAPTER II.
On a couch, beneath his voluptuous awning, reclined Pausanias. The
curtains, drawn aside, gave to view the moonlit ocean, and the dim
shadows of the shore, with the dark woods beyond, relieved by the
distant lights of the city. On one side of the Spartan was a small
table, that supported goblets and vases of that exquisite wine which
Maronea proffered to the thirst of the Byzantine, and those cooling
and delicious fruits which the orchards around the city supplied as
amply as the fabled gardens of the Hesperides, were heaped on the
other side. Towards the foot of the couch, propped upon cushions piled
on the floor, sat Gongylus, conversing in a low, earnest voice,
and fixing his eyes steadfastly on the Spartan. The habits of the
Eretrian's life, which had brought him in constant contact with
the Persians, had infected his very language with the luxuriant
extravagance of the East. And the thoughts he uttered made his
language but too musical to the ears of the listening Spartan.
"And fair as these climes may seem to you, and rich as are the gardens
and granaries of Byzantium, yet to me who have stood on the terraces
of Babylon and looked upon groves covering with blossom and fruit the
very fortresses and walls of that queen of nations,--to me, who have
roved amidst the vast delights of Susa, through palaces whose very
porticoes might enclose the limits of a Grecian city,--who have stood,
awed and dazzled, in the courts of that wonder of the world, that
crown of the East, the marble magnificence of Persepolis--to me,
Pausanias, who have been thus admitted into the very heart of Persian
glories, this city of Byzantium appears but a village of artisans and
fishermen. The very foliage of its forests, pale and sickly, the very
moonlight upon these waters, cold and smileless, ah, if thou couldst
but see! But pardon me, I weary thee?"
"Not so," said the Spartan, who, raised upon his elbow, listened to
the words of Gongylus with deep attention. "Proceed." "Ah, if thou
couldst but see the fair regions which the great king has apportioned
to thy countryman Demaratus. And if a domain, that would satiate
the ambition of the most craving of your earlier tyrants, fall to
Demaratus, what would be the splendid satrapy in which the conqueror
of Plataea might plant his throne?"
"In truth, my renown and my power are greater than those ever
possessed by Demaratus," said the Spartan musingly.
"Yet," pursued Gongylus, "it is not so much the mere extent of the
territories which the grateful Xerxes could proffer to the brave
Pausanias--it is not their extent so much that might tempt desire,
neither is it their stately forests, nor the fertile meadows, nor the
ocean-like rivers, which the gods of the East have given to the race
of Cyrus. There, free from the strange constraints which our austere
customs and solemn Deities impose upon the Greeks, the beneficent
Ormuzd scatters ever-varying delights upon the paths of men. All that
art can invent, all that the marts of the universe can afford of the
rare and voluptuous, are lavished upon abodes the splendour of which
even our idle dreams of Olympus never shadowed forth. There, instead
of the harsh and imperious helpmate to whom the joyless Spartan
confines his reluctant love, all the beauties of every clime contend
for the smile of their lord. And wherever are turned the change-loving
eyes of Passion, the Aphrodite of our poets, such as the Cytherean and
the Cyprian fable her, seems to recline on the lotus leaf or to rise
from the unruffled ocean of delight. Instead of the gloomy brows and
the harsh tones of rivals envious of your fame, hosts of friends
aspiring only to be followers will catch gladness from your smile or
sorrow from your frown. There, no jarring contests with little men,
who deem themselves the equals of the great, no jealous Ephor is
found, to load the commonest acts of life with fetters of iron custom.
Talk of liberty! Liberty in Sparta is but one eternal servitude; you
cannot move, or eat, or sleep, save as the law directs. Your very
children are wrested from you just in the age when their voices sound
most sweet. Ye are not men; ye are machines. Call you this liberty,
Pausanias? I, a Greek, have known both Grecian liberty and Persian
royalty Better be chieftain to a king than servant to a mob! But in
Eretria, at least, pleasure was not denied. In Sparta the very Graces
preside over discipline and war only."
"Your fire falls upon flax," said Pausanias, rising, and with
passionate emotion. "And if you, the Greek of a happier state, you who
know but by report the unnatural bondage to which the Spartans are
subjected, can weary of the very name of Greek, what must be the
feelings of one who from the cradle upward has been starved out of the
genial desires of life? Even in earliest youth, while yet all other
lands and customs were unknown, when it was duly poured into my ears
that to be born a Spartan constituted the glory and the bliss of
earth, my soul sickened at the lesson, and my reason revolted against
the lie. Often when my whole body was lacerated with stripes,
disdaining to groan, I yet yearned to strike, and I cursed my savage
tutors who denied pleasure even to childhood with all the madness
of impotent revenge. My mother herself (sweet name elsewhere) had no
kindness in her face. She was the pride of the matronage of Sparta,
because of all our women Alithea was the most unsexed. When I went
forth to my first crypteia, to watch, amidst the wintry dreariness of
the mountains, upon the movements of the wretched Helots, to spy upon
their sufferings, to take account of their groans, and if one more
manly than the rest dared to mingle curses with his groans, to mark
_him_ for slaughter, as a wolf that threatened danger to the fold; to
lurk, an assassin, about his home, to dog his walks, to fall on him
unawares, to strike him from behind, to filch away his life, to bury
him in the ravines, so that murder might leave no trace; when upon
this initiating campaign, the virgin trials of our youth, I first set
forth, my mother drew near, and girding me herself with my grandsire's
sword, 'Go forth,' she said, 'as the young hound to the chase, to
wind, to double, to leap on the prey, and to taste of blood. See, the
sword is bright; show me the stains at thy return,'"
"Is it then true, as the Greeks generally declare," interrupted
Gongylus, "that in these campaigns, or crypteias, the sole aim and
object is the massacre of Helots?"
"Not so," replied Pausanias; "savage though the custom, it smells not
so foully of the shambles. The avowed object is to harden the nerves
of our youth. Barefooted, unattended, through cold and storm,
performing ourselves the most menial offices necessary to life, we
wander for a certain season daily and nightly through the rugged
territories of Laconia.[11] We go as boys--we come back as men.[12]
The avowed object, I say, is increment to hardship, but with this is
connected the secret end of keeping watch on these half-tamed and
bull-like herds of men whom we call the Helots. If any be dangerous,
we mark him for the knife. One of them had thrice been a ringleader
in revolt. He was wary as well as fierce. He had escaped in three
succeeding crypteias. To me, as one of the Heraclidae, was assigned
the honour of tracking and destroying him. For three days and three
nights I dogged his footsteps, (for he had caught the scent of the
pursuers and fled,) through forest and defile, through valley and crag,
stealthily and relentlessly. I followed him close. At last, one evening,
having lost sight of all my comrades, I came suddenly upon him as I
emerged from a wood. It was a broad patch of waste land, through which
rushed a stream swollen by the rains, and plunging with a sullen roar
down a deep and gloomy precipice, that to the right and left bounded the
waste, the stream in front, the wood in the rear. He was reclining by
the stream, at which, with the hollow of his hand, he quenched his
thirst. I paused to gaze upon him, and as I did so he turned and saw
me. He rose, and fixed his eyes on mine, and we examined each other in
silence. The Helots are rarely of tall stature, but this was a giant.
His dress, that of his tribe, of rude sheep-skins, and his cap
made from the hide of a dog increased the savage rudeness of his
appearance. I rejoiced that he saw me, and that, as we were alone, I
might fight him fairly. It would have been terrible to slay the wretch
if I had caught him in his sleep."
"Proceed," said Gongylus, with interest, for so little was known of
Sparta by the rest of the Greeks, especially outside the Peloponnesus,
that these details gratified his natural spirit of gossiping
inquisitiveness.
"'Stand!' said I, and he moved not. I approached him slowly. 'Thou art
a Spartan,' said he, in a deep and harsh voice, 'and thou comest for
my blood. Go, boy, go, thou art not mellowed to thy prime, and thy
comrades are far away. The shears of the Fatal deities hover over the
thread not of my life but of thine.' I was struck, Gongylus, by
this address, for it was neither desperate nor dastardly, as I had
anticipated; nevertheless, it beseemed not a Spartan to fly from a
Helot, and I drew the sword which my mother had girded on. The Helot
watched my movements, and seized a rude and knotted club that lay on
the ground beside him.
"'Wretch,' said I, 'darest thou attack face to face a descendant of
the Heraclidae? In me behold Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus.'
"'Be it so; in the city one is the god-born, the other the
man-enslaved. On the mountains we are equals.'
"'Knowest thou not,' said I, 'that if the Gods condemned me to die
by thy hand, not only thou, but thy whole house, thy wife and thy
children, would be sacrificed to my ghost?"
"'The earth can hide the Spartan's bones as secretly as the Helot's,'
answered my strange foe. 'Begone, young and unfleshed in slaughter as
you are; why make war upon me? My death can give you neither gold nor
glory. I have never harmed thee or thine. How much of the air and sun
does this form take from the descendant of the Heraclidae?'
"'Thrice hast thou raised revolt among the Helots, thrice at thy voice
have they risen in bloody, though fruitless, strife against their
masters.'
"'Not at my voice, but at that of the two deities who are the war-gods
of slaves--Persecution and Despair.'[13] "Impatient of this parley, I
tarried no longer. I sprang upon the Helot. He evaded my sword, and
I soon found that all my agility and skill were requisite to save me
from the massive weapon, one blow of which would have sufficed
to crush me. But the Helot seemed to stand on the defensive, and
continued to back towards the wood from which I had emerged. Fearful
lest he would escape me, I pressed hard on his footsteps. My blood
grew warm; my fury got the better of my prudence. My foot stumbled;
I recovered in an instant, and, looking up, beheld the terrible club
suspended over my head; it might have fallen, but the stroke of death
was withheld. I misinterpreted the merciful delay; the lifted arm left
the body of my enemy exposed. I struck him on the side; the thick hide
blunted the stroke, but it drew blood. Afraid to draw back within
the reach of his weapon, I threw myself on him, and grappled to
his throat. We rolled on the earth together; it was but a moment's
struggle. Strong as I was even in boyhood, the Helot would have been
a match for Alcides. A shade passed over my eyes; my breath heaved
short. The slave was kneeling on my breast, and, dropping the club, he
drew a short knife from his girdle. I gazed upon him grim and mute. I
was conquered, and I cared not for the rest.
"The blood from his side, as he bent over me, trickled down upon my
face. "'And this blood,' said the Helot, 'you shed in the very moment
when I spared your life; such is the honour of a Spartan. Do you not
deserve to die?'
"'Yes, for I am subdued, and by a slave. Strike!'
"'There,' said the Helot in a melancholy and altered tone, 'there
speaks the soul of the Dorian, the fatal spirit to which the Gods have
rendered up our wretched race. We are doomed--doomed--and one victim
will not expiate our curse. Rise, return to Sparta, and forget that
thou art innocent of murder.'
"He lifted his knee from my breast, and I rose, ashamed and humbled.
"At that instant I heard the crashing of the leaves in the wood, for
the air was exceedingly still. I knew that my companions were at hand.
'Fly,' I cried; 'fly. If they come I cannot save thee, royal though I
be. Fly.'
"'And _wouldest_ thou save me!' said the Helot in surprise.
"'Ay, with my own life. Canst thou doubt it? Lose not a moment. Fly.
Yet stay;' and I tore off a part of the woollen vest that I wore.
'Place this at thy side; staunch the blood, that it may not track
thee. Now begone!'
"The Helot looked hard at me, and I thought there were tears in his
rude eyes; then catching up the club with as much ease as I this
staff, he sped with inconceivable rapidity, despite his wound, towards
the precipice on the right, and disappeared amidst the thick brambles
that clothed the gorge. In a few moments three of my companions
approached. They found me exhausted, and panting rather with
excitement than fatigue. Their quick eyes detected the blood upon the
ground. I gave them no time to pause and examine. 'He has escaped
me--he has fled,' I cried; 'follow,' and I led them to the opposite
part of the precipice from that which the Helot had taken. Heading the
search, I pretended to catch a glimpse of the goatskin ever and anon
through the trees, and I stayed not the pursuit till night grew dark,
and I judged the victim was far away."
"And he escaped?"
"He did. The crypteia ended. Three other Helots were slain, but not
by me. We returned to Sparta, and my mother was comforted for my
misfortune in not having slain my foe by seeing the stains on my
grandsire's sword, I will tell thee a secret, Gongylus"--(and here
Pausanias lowered his voice, and looked anxiously toward him)---"since
that day I have not hated the Helot race. Nay, it may be that I have
loved them better than the Dorian."
"I do not wonder at it; but has not your wounded giant yet met with
his death?"
"No, I never related what had passed between us to any one save
my father. He was gentle for a Spartan, and he rested not till
Gylippus--so was the Helot named--obtained exemption from the black
list. He dared not, however, attribute his intercession to the true
cause. It happened, fortunately, that Gylippus was related to my own
foster-brother, Alcman, brother to my nurse; and Alcman is celebrated
in Sparta, not only for courage in war, but for arts in peace. He is
a poet, and his strains please the Dorian ear, for they are stern and
simple, and they breathe of war. Alcman's merits won forgiveness for
the offences of Gylippus. May the Gods be kind to his race!"
"Your Alcman seems one of no common intelligence, and your gentleness
to him does not astonish me, though it seems often to raise a frown on
the brows of your Spartans."
"We have lain on the same bosom," said Pausanias touchingly, "and
his mother was kinder to me than my own. You must know that to those
Helots who have been our foster-brothers, and whom we distinguish by
the name of Mothons, our stern law relaxes. They have no rights
of citizenship, it is true, but they cease to be slaves;[14] nay,
sometimes they attain not only to entire emancipation, but to
distinction. Alcman has bound his fate to mine. But to return,
Gongylus. I tell thee that it is not thy descriptions of pomp and
dominion that allure me, though I am not above the love of power,
neither is it thy glowing promises, though blood too wild for a Dorian
runs riot in my veins; but it is my deep loathing, my inexpressible
disgust for Sparta and her laws, my horror at the thought of wearing
away life in those sullen customs, amid that joyless round of tyrannic
duties, in my rapture at the hope of escape, of life in a land which
the eye of the Ephor never pierces; this it is, and this alone, O
Persian, that makes me (the words must out) a traitor to my country,
one who dreams of becoming a dependent on her foe."
"Nay," said Gongylus eagerly; for here Pausanias moved uneasily,
and the colour mounted to his brow. "Nay, speak not of dependence.
Consider the proposals that you can alone condescend to offer to
the great king. Can the conqueror of Plataea, with millions for his
subjects, hold himself dependent, even on the sovereign of the East?
How, hereafter, will the memories of our sterile Greece and your
rocky Sparta fade from your mind: or be remembered only as a state of
thraldom and bondage, which your riper manhood has outgrown!"
"I will try to think so, at least," said Pausanias gloomily. "And,
come what may, I am not one to recede. I have thrown my shield into
a fearful peril; but I will win it back or perish. Enough of this,
Gongylus. Night advances. I will attend the appointment you have made.
Take the boat, and within an hour I will meet you with the prisoners
at the spot agreed on, near the Temple of Aphrodite. All things are
prepared?"
"All," said Gongylus, rising, with a gleam of malignant joy on his
dark face. "I leave thee, kingly slave of the rocky Sparta, to prepare
the way for thee, as Satrap of half the East."
So saying he quitted the awning, and motioned three Egyptian sailors
who lay on the deck without. A boat was lowered, and the sound of its
oars woke Pausanias from the reverie into which the parting words of
the Eretrian had plunged his mind.
Notes:
[11] Plat. Leg. i. p. 633. See also Mueller's Dorians, vol. ii. p. 41.
[12] Pueros puberos--neque prius in urbem redire quam viri facti
essent.--Justin, iii. 3.
[13] When Themistocles sought to extort tribute from the Andrians, he
said, "I bring with me two powerful gods--Persuasion and Force."
"And on our side," was the answer, "are two deities not less
powerful--Poverty and Despair!"
[14] The appellation of Mothons was not confined to the Helots who
claimed the connection of foster-brothers, but was given also to
household slaves.
CHAPTER III
With a slow and thoughtful step, Pausanias passed on to the outer
deck. The moon was up, and the vessel scarcely seemed to stir, so
gently did it glide along the sparkling waters. They were still within
the bay, and the shores rose, white and distinct, to his view. A group
of Spartans, reclining by the side of the ship, were gazing listlessly
on the waters. The Regent paused beside them.
"Ye weary of the ocean, methinks," said he. "We Dorians have not the
merchant tastes of the Ionians."[15]
"Son of Cleombrotus," said one of the group, a Spartan whose rank
and services entitled him to more than ordinary familiarity with the
chief, "it is not the ocean itself that we should dread, it is the
contagion of those who, living on the element, seem to share in its
ebb and flow. The Ionians are never three hours in the same mind."
"For that reason," said Pausanias, fixing his eyes steadfastly on the
Spartan, "for that reason I have judged it advisable to adopt a rough
manner with these innovators, to draw with a broad chalk the line
between them and the Spartans, and to teach those who never knew
discipline the stern duties of obedience. Think you I have done
wisely?"
The Spartan, who had risen when Pausanias addressed him, drew his
chief a little aside from the rest.
"Pausanias," said he, "the hard Naxian stone best tames and tempers
the fine steel;[16] but the steel may break if the workman be not
skilful. These Athenians are grown insolent since Marathon, and their
soft kindred of Asia have relighted the fires they took of old from
the Cecropian Prytaneum. Their sail is more numerous than ours; on the
sea they find the courage they lose on land. Better be gentle with
those wayward allies, for the Spartan greyhound shows not his teeth
but to bite."
"Perhaps you are right. I will consider these things, and appease the
mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals
of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy
themselves in perpetual holidays?--spend days at the banquet?--ransack
earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?--and shall they be the
equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are
wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well
have no fear of death? I hate these sleek and merry feast-givers; they
are a perpetual insult to our solemn existence."
There was a strange mixture of irony and passion in the Spartan's
voice as he thus spoke, and Thrasyllus looked at him in grave
surprise.
"There is nothing to envy in the woman-like debaucheries of the
Ionian," said he, after a pause.
"Envy! no; we only hate them, Thrasyllus Yon Eretrian tells me rare
things of the East. Time may come when we shall sup on the black broth
in Susa."
"The Gods forbid! Sparta never invades. Life with us is too precious,
for we are few. Pausanias, I would we were well quit of Byzantium. I
do not suspect you, not I; but there are those who look with vexed
eyes on those garments, and I, who love you, fear the sharp jealousies
of the Ephors, to whose ears the birds carry all tidings."
"My poor Thrasyllus," said Pausanias, laughing scornfully, "think you
that I wear these robes, or mimic the Median manners, for love of the
Mede? No, no! But there are arts which save countries as well as those
of war. This Gongylus is in the confidence of Xerxes. I desire to
establish a peace for Greece upon everlasting foundations. Reflect;
Persia hath millions yet left. Another invasion may find a different
fortune; and even at the best, Sparta gains nothing by these wars.
Athens triumphs, not Lacedaemon. I would, I say, establish a peace
with Persia. I would that Sparta, not Athens, should have that honour.
Hence these flatteries to the Persian--trivial to us who render
them, sweet and powerful to those who receive. Remember these words
hereafter, if the Ephors make question of my discretion. And now,
Thrasyllus, return to our friends, and satisfy them as to the conduct
of Pausanias." Quitting Thrasyllus, the Regent now joined a young
Spartan who stood alone by the prow in a musing attitude.
"Lysander, my friend, my only friend, my best-loved Lysander," said
Pausanias, placing his hand on the Spartan's shoulder. "And why so
sad?"
"How many leagues are we from Sparta?" answered Lysander mournfully.
"And canst thou sigh for the black broth, my friend? Come, how often
hast thou said, 'Where Pausanias is, _there_ is Sparta!'"
"Forgive me, I am ungrateful," said Lysander with warmth. "My
benefactor, my guardian, my hero, forgive me if I have added to your
own countless causes of anxiety. Wherever you are there is life, and
there glory. When I was just born, sickly and feeble, I was exposed
on Taygetus. You, then a boy, heard my faint cry, and took on me that
compassion which my parents had forsworn. You bore me to your father's
roof, you interceded for my life. You prevailed even on your stern
mother. I was saved; and the Gods smiled upon the infant whom the son
of the humane Hercules protected. I grew up strong and hardy, and
belied the signs of my birth. My parents then owned me; but still
you were my fosterer, my saviour, my more than father. As I grew up,
placed under your care, I imbibed my first lessons of war. By your
side I fought, and from your example I won glory. Yes, Pausanias, even
here, amidst luxuries which revolt me more than the Parthian bow and
the Persian sword, even amidst the faces of the stranger, I still feel
thy presence my home, thyself my Sparta."
The proud Pausanias was touched, and his voice trembled as he replied,
"Brother in arms and in love, whatever service fate may have allowed
me to render unto thee, thy high nature and thy cheering affection
have more than paid me back. Often in our lonely rambles amidst the
dark oaks of the sacred Scotitas,[17] or by the wayward waters of
Tiasa,[18] when I have poured into thy faithful breast my impatient
loathing, my ineffable distaste for the iron life, the countless and
wearisome tyrannies of custom which surround the Spartans, often have
I found a consoling refuge in thy divine contentment, thy cheerful
wisdom. Thou lovest Sparta; why is she not worthier of thy love?
Allowed only to be half men, in war we are demigods, in peace, slaves.
Thou wouldst interrupt me. Be silent. I am in a wilful mood; thou
canst not comprehend me, and I often marvel at thee. Still we are
friends, such friends as the Dorian discipline, which makes friendship
necessary in order to endure life, alone can form. Come, take up thy
staff and mantle. Thou shalt be my companion ashore. I seek one whom
alone in the world I love better than thee. To-morrow to stern duties
once more. Alcman shall row us across the bay, and as we glide along,
if thou wilt praise Sparta, I will listen to thee as the Ionians
listen to their tale-tellers. Ho! Alcman, stop the rowers, and lower
the boat."
The orders were obeyed, and a second boat soon darted towards the
same part of the bay as that to which the one that bore Gongylus had
directed its course. Thrasyllus and his companions watched the boat
that bore Pausanias and his two comrades, as it bounded, arrow-like,
over the glassy sea.
"Whither goes Pausanias?" asked one of the Spartans.
"Back to Byzantium on business," replied Thrasyllus.
"And we?"
"Are to cruise in the bay till his return.
"Pausanias is changed."
"Sparta will restore him to what he was. Nothing thrives out of
Sparta. Even man spoils."
"True, sleep is the sole constant friend the same in all climates."
Notes:
[15] No Spartan served as a sailor, or indeed condescended to any trade
or calling, but that of war.
[16] Pind. Isth. v. (vi.) 73.
[17] Paus. Lac. x.
[18] _Ib_., c. xviii.
CHAPTER IV
On the shore to the right of the port of Byzantium were at that time
thickly scattered the villas or suburban retreats of the wealthier and
more luxurious citizens. Byzantium was originally colonized by the
Megarians, a Dorian race kindred with that of Sparta; and the old
features of the pure and antique Hellas were still preserved in
the dialect,[19] as well as in the forms of the descendants of the
colonists; in their favourite deities, and rites, and traditions; even
in the names of places, transferred from the sterile Megara to that
fertile coast; in the rigid and helot-like slavery to which the native
Bithynians were subjected, and in the attachment of their masters to
the oligarchic principles of government. Nor was it till long after
the present date, that democracy in its most corrupt and licentious
form was introduced amongst them. But like all the Dorian colonies,
when once they departed from the severe and masculine mode of life
inherited from their ancestors, the reaction was rapid, the degeneracy
complete. Even then the Byzantines, intermingled with the foreign
merchants and traders that thronged their haven, and womanized by the
soft contagion of the East, were voluptuous, timid, and prone to every
excess save that of valour. The higher class were exceedingly wealthy,
and gave to their vices or their pleasures a splendour and refinement
of which the elder states of Greece were as yet unconscious. At a
later period, indeed, we are informed that the Byzantine citizens
had their habitual residence in the public hostels, and let their
houses--not even taking the trouble to remove their wives--to the
strangers who crowded their gay capital. And when their general found
it necessary to demand their aid on the ramparts, he could only secure
their attendance by ordering the taverns and cookshops to be removed
to the place of duty. Not yet so far sunk in sloth and debauch, the
Byzantines were nevertheless hosts eminently dangerous to the austerer
manners of their Greek visitors. The people, the women, the delicious
wine, the balm of the subduing climate served to tempt the senses
and relax the mind. Like all the Dorians, when freed from primitive
restraint, the higher class, that is, the descendants of the
colonists, were in themselves an agreeable, jovial race. They had that
strong bias to humour, to jest, to satire, which in their ancestral
Megara gave birth to the Grecian comedy, and which lurked even beneath
the pithy aphorisms and rude merry-makings of the severe Spartan.
Such were the people with whom of late Pausanias had familiarly mixed,
and with whose manners he contrasted, far too favourably for his
honour and his peace, the habits of his countrymen.
It was in one of the villas we have described, the favourite abode
of the rich Diagoras, and in an apartment connected with those more
private recesses of the house appropriated to the females, that two
persons were seated by a window which commanded a wide view of the
glittering sea below. One of these was an old man in a long robe that
reached to his feet, with a bald head and a beard in which some dark
hairs yet withstood the encroachments of the grey. In his well-cut
features and large eyes were remains of the beauty that characterised
his race; but the mouth was full and wide, the forehead low though
broad, the cheeks swollen, the chin double, and the whole form
corpulent and unwieldy. Still there was a jolly, sleek good humour
about the aspect of the man that prepossessed you in his favour. This
personage, who was no less than Diagoras himself, was reclining lazily
upon a kind of narrow sofa cunningly inlaid with ivory, and studying
new combinations in that scientific game which Palamedes is said to
have invented at the siege of Troy.
His companion was of a very different appearance. She was a girl who
to the eye of a northern stranger might have seemed about eighteen,
though she was probably much younger, of a countenance so remarkable
for intelligence that it was easy to see that her mind had outgrown
her years. Beautiful she certainly was, yet scarcely of that beauty
from which the Greek sculptor would have drawn his models. The
features were not strictly regular, and yet so harmoniously did each
blend with each, that to have amended one would have spoilt the whole.
There was in the fulness and depth of the large but genial eye, with
its sweeping fringe, and straight, slightly chiselled brow, more of
Asia than of Greece. The lips, of the freshest red, were somewhat
full and pouting, and dimples without number lay scattered round
them--lurking places for the loves. Her complexion was clear though
dark, and the purest and most virgin bloom mantled, now paler now
richer, through the soft surface. At the time we speak of she was
leaning against the open door with her arms crossed on her bosom, and
her face turned towards the Byzantine. Her robe, of a deep yellow, so
trying to the fair women of the North, became well the glowing colours
of her beauty--the damask cheek, the purple hair. Like those of the
Ionians, the sleeves of the robe, long and loose, descended to her
hands, which were marvellously small and delicate. Long earrings,
which terminated in a kind of berry, studded with precious stones,
then common only with the women of the East; a broad collar,
or necklace, of the smaragdus or emerald; and large clasps,
medallion-like, where the swan-like throat joined the graceful
shoulder, gave to her dress an appearance of opulence and splendour
that betokened how much the ladies of Byzantium had borrowed from the
fashions of the Oriental world. Nothing could exceed the lightness of
her form, rounded, it is true, but slight and girlish, and the high
instep, with the slender foot, so well set off by the embroidered
sandal, would have suited such dances as those in which the huntress
nymphs of Delos moved around Diana. The natural expression of her
face, if countenance so mobile and changeful had one expression more
predominant than another, appeared to be irresistibly arch and joyous,
as of one full of youth and conscious of her beauty; yet, if a cloud
came over the face, nothing could equal the thoughtful and deep
sadness of the dark abstracted eyes, as if some touch of higher and
more animated emotion--such as belongs to pride, or courage, or
intellect--vibrated on the heart. The colour rose, the form dilated,
the lip quivered, the eye flashed light, and the mirthful expression
heightened almost into the sublime. Yet, lovely as Cleonice was deemed
at Byzantium, lovelier still as she would have appeared in modern
eyes, she failed in what the Greeks generally, but especially the
Spartans, deemed an essential of beauty--in height of stature.
Accustomed to look upon the virgin but as the future mother of a race
of warriors, the Spartans saw beauty only in those proportions which
promised a robust and stately progeny, and the reader may remember
the well-known story of the opprobrious reproaches, even, it is said,
accompanied with stripes, which the Ephors addressed to a Spartan king
for presuming to make choice of a wife below the ordinary stature.
Cleonice was small and delicate, rather like the Peri of the Persian
than the sturdy Grace of the Dorian. But her beauty was her least
charm. She had all that feminine fascination of manner, wayward,
varying, inexpressible, yet irresistible, which seizes hold of the
imagination as well as the senses, and which has so often made willing
slaves of the proud rulers of the world. In fact Cleonice, the
daughter of Diagoras, had enjoyed those advantages of womanly
education wholly unknown at that time to the freeborn ladies of Greece
proper, but which gave to the women of some of the isles and Ionian
cities their celebrity in ancient story. Her mother was of Miletus,
famed for the intellectual cultivation of the sex, no less than for
their beauty--of Miletus, the birthplace of Aspasia--of Miletus,
from which those remarkable women who, under the name of Hetaerae,
exercised afterwards so signal an influence over the mind and manners
of Athens, chiefly derived their origin, and who seem to have inspired
an affection, which in depth, constancy, and fervour, approached to
the more chivalrous passion of the North. Such an education consisted
not only in the feminine and household arts honoured universally
throughout Greece, but in a kind of spontaneous and luxuriant
cultivation of all that captivates the fancy and enlivens the leisure.
If there were something pedantic in their affectation of philosophy,
it was so graced and vivified by a brilliancy of conversation, a charm
of manner carried almost to a science, a womanly facility of softening
all that comes within their circle, of suiting yet refining each
complexity and discord of character admitted to their intercourse,
that it had at least nothing masculine or harsh. Wisdom, taken lightly
or easily, seemed but another shape of poetry. The matrons of Athens,
who could often neither read nor write--ignorant, vain, tawdry, and
not always faithful, if we may trust to such scandal as has reached
the modern time--must have seemed insipid beside these brilliant
strangers; and while certainly wanting their power to retain love,
must have had but a doubtful superiority in the qualifications that
ensure esteem. But we are not to suppose that the Hetaerae (that
mysterious and important class peculiar to a certain state of society,
and whose appellation we cannot render by any proper word in modern
language) monopolized all the graces of their countrywomen. In the
same cities were many of unblemished virtue and repute who possessed
equal cultivation and attraction, but whom a more decorous life has
concealed from the equivocal admiration of posterity; though the
numerous female disciples of Pythagoras throw some light on their
capacity and intellect. Among such as these had been the mother of
Cleonice, not long since dead, and her daughter inherited and equalled
her accomplishments, while her virgin youth, her inborn playfulness
of manner, her pure guilelessness, which the secluded habits of the
unmarried women at Byzantium preserved from all contagion, gave to
qualities and gifts so little published abroad, the effect as it were
of a happy and wondrous inspiration rather than of elaborate culture.
Such was the fair creature whom Diagoras, looking up from his pastime,
thus addressed:--
"And so, perverse one, thou canst not love this great hero, a proper
person truly, and a mighty warrior, who will eat you an army of
Persians at a meal. These Spartan fighting-cocks want no garlic, I
warrant you.[20] And yet you can't love him, you little rogue."
"Why, my father," said Cleonice, with an arch smile, and a slight
blush, "even if I did look kindly on Pausanias, would it not be to my
own sorrow? What Spartan--above all, what royal Spartan--may marry
with a foreigner, and a Byzantine?"
"I did not precisely talk of marriage--a very happy state, doubtless,
to those who dislike too quiet a life, and a very honourable one, for
war is honor itself; but I did not speak of that, Cleonice. I would
only say that this man of might loves thee--that he is rich, rich,
rich. Pretty pickings at Plataea; and we have known losses, my child,
sad losses. And if you do not love him, why, you can but smile and
talk as if you did, and when the Spartan goes home, you will lose a
tormenter and gain a dowry."
"My father, for shame!"
"Who talks of shame? You women are always so sharp at finding oracles
in oak leaves, that one don't wonder Apollo makes choice of your sex
for his priests. But listen to me, girl, seriously," and here Diagoras
with a great effort raised himself on his elbow, and lowering his
voice, spoke with evident earnestness. "Pausanias has life and death,
and, what is worse, wealth or poverty in his hands; he can raise or
ruin us with a nod of his head, this black-curled Jupiter. They tell
me that he is fierce, irascible, haughty; and what slighted lover is
not revengeful? For my sake, Cleonice, for your poor father's sake,
show no scorn, no repugnance; be gentle, play with him, draw not down
the thunderbolt, even if you turn from the golden shower."
While Diagoras spoke, the girl listened with downcast eyes and flushed
cheeks, and there was an expression of such shame and sadness on her
countenance, that even the Byzantine, pausing and looking up for a
reply, was startled by it.
"My child," said he, hesitatingly and absorbed, "do not misconceive
me. Cursed be the hour when the Spartan saw thee; but since the Fates
have so served us, let us not make bad worse. I love thee, Cleonice,
more dearly than the apple of my eye; it is for _thee_ I fear, for
thee I speak. Alas! it is not dishonour I recommend, it is force I
would shun."
"Force!" said the girl, drawing up her form with sudden animation.
"Fear not that. It is not Pausanias I dread, it is--"
"What then?"
"No matter; talk of this no more. Shall I sing to thee?"
"But Pausanias will visit us this very night."
"I know it. Hark!" and with her finger to her lip, her ear bent
downward, her cheek varying from pale to red, from red to pale, the
maiden stole beyond the window to a kind of platform or terrace that
overhung the sea. There, the faint breeze stirring her long hair, and
the moonlight full upon her face, she stood, as stood that immortal
priestess who looked along the starry Hellespont for the young
Leander; and her ear had not deceived her. The oars were dashing in
the wave's below, and dark and rapid the boat bounded on towards the
rocky shore. She gazed long and steadfastly on the dim and shadowy
forms which that slender raft contained, and her eye detected amongst
the three the loftier form of her haughty wooer. Presently the thick
foliage that clothed the descent shut the boat, nearing the strand,
from her view; but she now heard below, mellowed and softened in the
still and fragrant air, the sound of the cithara and the melodious
song of the Mothon, thus imperfectly rendered from the language of
immortal melody.
SONG.
Carry a sword in the myrtle bough,
Ye who would honour the tyrant-slayer;
I, in the leaves of the myrtle bough,
Carry a tyrant to slay myself.
I pluck'd the branch with a hasty hand,
But Love was lurking amidst the leaves;
His bow is bent and his shaft is poised,
And I must perish or pass the bough.
Maiden, I come with a gift to thee,
Maiden, I come with a myrtle wreath;
Over thy forehead, or round thy breast
Bind, I implore thee, my myrtle wreath.[21]
From hand to hand by the banquet lights
On with the myrtle bough passes song:
From hand to hand by the silent stars
What with the myrtle wreath passes? Love.
I bear the god in a myrtle wreath,
Under the stars let him pass to thee;
Empty his quiver and bind his wings,
Then pass the myrtle wreath back to me.
Cleonice listened breathlessly to the words, and sighed heavily as
they ceased. Then, as the foliage rustled below, she turned quickly
into the chamber and seated herself at a little distance from
Diagoras; to all appearance calm, indifferent and composed. Was it
nature, or the arts of Miletus, that taught the young beauty the
hereditary artifices of the sex?
"So it is he, then?" said Diagoras, with a fidgety and nervous
trepidation. "Well, he chooses strange hours to visit us. But he
is right; his visits cannot be too private. Cleonice, you look
provokingly at your ease."
Cleonice made no reply, but shifted her position so that the light
from the lamp did not fall upon her face, while her father, hurrying
to the threshold of his hall to receive his illustrious visitor, soon
re-appeared with the Spartan Regent, talking as he entered with the
volubility of one of the parasites of Alciphron and Athenaeus.
"This is most kind, most affable. Cleonice said you would come,
Pausanias, though I began to distrust you. The hours seem long to
those who expect pleasure."
"And, Cleonice, _you_ knew that I should come," said Pausanias,
approaching the fair Byzantine; but his step was timid, and there was
no pride now in his anxious eye and bended brow.
"You said you would come to-night," said Cleonice, calmly, "and
Spartans, according to proverbs, speak the truth."
"When it is to their advantage, yes,"[22]said but with respect to
others, they consider honourable whatever pleases them, and just
whatever is to their advantage."
Pausanias, with a slight curl of his lips; and, as if the girl's
compliment to his countrymen had roused his spleen and changed his
thoughts, he seated himself moodily by Cleonice, and remained silent.
The Byzantine stole an arch glance at the Spartan, as he thus sat,
from the corner of her eyes, and said, after a pause--
"You Spartans ought to speak the truth more than other people, for you
say much less. We too have our proverb at Byzantium, and one which
implies that it requires some wit to tell fibs."
"Child, child!" exclaimed Diagoras, holding up his hand reprovingly,
and directing a terrified look at the Spartan. To his great relief,
Pausanias smiled, and replied--
"Fair maiden, we Dorians are said to have a wit peculiar to ourselves,
but I confess that it is of a nature that is but little attractive to
your sex. The Athenians are blander wooers."
"Do you ever attempt to woo in Lacedaemon, then? Ah, but the maidens
there, perhaps, are not difficult to please."
"The girl puts me in a cold sweat!" muttered Diagoras, wiping his
brow. And this time Pausanias did not smile; he coloured, and answered
gravely--
"And is it, then, a vain hope for a Spartan to please a Byzantine?"
"You puzzle me. That is an enigma; put it to the oracle."
The Spartan raised his eyes towards Cleonice, and, as she saw the
inquiring, perplexed look that his features assumed, the ruby lips
broke into so wicked a smile, and the eyes that met his had so much
laughter in them, that Pausanias was fairly bewitched out of his own
displeasure.
"Ah, cruel one!" said he, lowering his voice, "I am not so proud of
being Spartan that the thought should console me for thy mockery."
"Not proud of being Spartan! say not so," exclaimed Cleonice. "Who
ever speaks of Greece and places not Sparta at her head? Who ever
speaks of freedom and forgets Thermopylae? Who ever burns for glory,
and sighs not for the fame of Pausanias and Plataea? Ah, yes, even in
jest say not that you are not proud to be a Spartan!"
"The little fool!" cried Diagoras, chuckling, and mightily delighted;
"she is quite mad about Sparta--no wonder!"
Pausanias, surprised and moved by the burst of the fair Byzantine,
gazed at her admiringly, and thought within himself how harshly the
same sentiment would have sounded on the lips of a tall Spartan
virgin; but when Cleonice heard the approving interlocution of
Diagoras, her enthusiasm vanished from her face, and putting out her
lips poutingly, she said, "Nay, father, I repeat only what others say
of the Spartans. They are admirable heroes; but from the little I have
seen, they are--"
"What?" said Pausanias eagerly, and leaning nearer to Cleonice.
"Proud, dictatorial, and stern as companions."
Pausanias once more drew back.
"There it is again!" groaned Diagoras. "I feel exactly as if I were
playing at odd and even with a lion; she does it to vex me. I shall
retaliate and creep away."
"Cleonice," said Pausanias, with suppressed emotion, "you trifle with
me, and I bear it."
"You are condescending. How would you avenge yourself?"
"How!"
"You would not beat me; you would not make me bear an anchor on the
shoulders, as they say you do your soldiers. Shame on you! _you_ bear
with me! true, what help for you?"
"Maiden," said the Spartan, rising in great anger, "for him who loves
and is slighted there is a revenge you have not mentioned."
"For him who _loves!_ No, Spartan; for him who shuns disgrace and
courts the fame dear to gods and men, there is no revenge upon women.
Blush for your threat."
"You madden, but subdue me," said the Spartan as he turned away. He
then first perceived that Diagoras had gone--that they were alone.
His contempt for the father awoke suspicion of the daughter. Again he
approached and said, "Cleonice, I know but little of the fables of
poets, yet is it an old maxim often sung and ever belied, that love
scorned becomes hate. There are moments when I think I hate thee."
"And yet thou hast never loved me," said Cleonice; and there was
something soft and tender in the tone of her voice, and the rough
Spartan was again subdued.
"I never loved thee! What, then, is love? Is not thine image always
before me?--amidst schemes, amidst perils of which thy very dreams
have never presented equal perplexity or phantoms so uncertain, I am
occupied but with thee. Surely, as upon the hyacinth is written the
exclamation of woe, so on this heart is graven thy name. Cleonice, you
who know not what it is to love, you affect to deny or to question
Back to Full Books
|