CHAPTER VII

[pg 74]CHAPTER VIIDEMOCRATES AND THE TEMPTERIn the northern quarter of Athens the suburb of Alopece thrust itself under the slopes of Mt. Lycabettus, that pyramid of tawny rock which formed the rear bulwark, as it were, of every landscape of Athens. The dwellings in the suburb were poor, though few even in the richer quarters were at all handsome; the streets barely sixteen feet wide, ill-paved, filthy, dingy. A line of dirty gray stucco house-fronts was broken only by the small doors and the smaller windows in the second story. Occasionally a two-faced bust of Hermes stood before a portal, or a marble lion’s head spouted into a corner water trough. All Athenian streets resembled these. The citizen had his Pnyx, his Jury-Court, his gossiping Agora for his day. These dingy streets sufficed for the dogs, the slaves, and the women, whom wise Zeus ordered to remain at home.Phormio the fishmonger had returned from his traffic, and sat in his house-door meditating over a pot of sour wine and watching the last light flickering on the great bulk of the mountain. He had his sorrows,—good man,—for Lampaxo his worthy wife, long of tongue, short of temper, thrifty and very watchful, was reminding him for the seventh time that he had sold a carp half an obol too cheap. His patience indeed that evening was so near to exhaustion that after[pg 75]cursing inwardly the“match-maker”who had saddled this Amazon upon him, he actually found courage for an outbreak. He threw up his arms after the manner of a tragic actor:—“True, true is the word of Hesiod!”“True is what?”flew back none too gently.“‘The fool first suffers and is after wise.’Woman, I am resolved.”“On what?”Lampaxo’s voice was soft as broken glass.“Years increase. I shan’t live long. We are childless. I will provide for you in my will by giving you in marriage to Hyperphon.”3“Hyperphon!”screamed the virago,“Hyperphon the beggarly hunchback, the laughing-stock of Athens! O Mother Hera!—but I see the villain’s aim. You are weary of me. Then divorce me like an honourable man. Send me back to Polus my dear brother. Ah, you sheep, you are silent! You think of the two-minæ dowry you must then refund. Woe is me! I’ll go to the King Archon. I’ll charge you with gross abuse. The jury will condemn you. There’ll be fines, fetters, stocks, prison—”“Peace,”groaned Phormio, terrified at the Gorgon,“I only thought—”“How dared you think? What permitted—”“Good evening, sweet sister and Phormio!”The salutation came from Polus, who with Clearchus had approached unheralded. Lampaxo smoothed her ruffled feathers. Phormio stifled his sorrows. Dromo, the half-starved slave-boy, brought a pot of thin wine to his betters. The short southern twilight was swiftly passing into night. Groups of young men wandered past, bound homeward from the Cynosarges, the Academy, or some other well-loved gym[pg 76]nasium. In an hour the streets would be dark and still, except for a belated guest going to his banquet, a Scythian constable, or perhaps a cloak thief. For your Athenian, when he had no supper invitation, went to bed early and rose early, loving the sunlight far better than the flicker of his uncertain lamps.“And did the jury vote‘guilty’?”was Phormio’s first question of his brother-in-law.“We were patriotically united. There were barely any white beans for acquittal in the urn. The scoundrelly grain-dealer is stripped of all he possesses and sent away to beg in exile. A noble service to Athens!”“Despite the evidence,”murmured Clearchus; but Lampaxo’s shrill voice answered her brother:—“It’s my opinion you jurors should look into a case directly opposite this house. Spies, I say, Persian spies.”“Spies!”cried Polus, leaping up as from a coal;“why, Phormio, haven’t you denounced them? It’s compounding with treason even to fail to report—”“Peace, brother,”chuckled the fishmonger,“your sister smells for treason as a dog for salt fish. There is a barbarian carpet merchant—a Babylonian, I presume—who has taken the empty chambers above Demas’s shield factory opposite. He seems a quiet, inoffensive man; there are a hundred other foreign merchants in the city. One can’t cry‘Traitor!’just because the poor wight was not born to speak Greek.”“I do not like Babylonish merchants,”propounded Polus, dogmatically;“to the jury with him, I say!”“At least he has a visitor,”asserted Clearchus, who had long been silent.“See, a gentleman wrapped in a long himation is going up to the door and standing up his walking stick.”[pg 77]“And if I have eyes,”vowed the juror, squinting through his hands in the half light,“that closely wrapped man is Glaucon the Alcmæonid.”“Or Democrates,”remarked Clearchus;“they look much alike from behind. It’s getting dark.”“Well,”decided Phormio,“we can easily tell. He has left his stick below by the door. Steal across, Polus, and fetch it. It must be carved with the owner’s name.”The juror readily obeyed; but to read the few characters on the crooked handle was beyond the learning of any save Clearchus, whose art demanded the mystery of writing.“I was wrong,”he confessed, after long scrutiny,“‘Glaucon, son of Conon.’It is very plain. Put the cane back, Polus.”The cane was returned, but the juror pulled a very long face.“Dear friends, here is a man I’ve already suspected of undemocratic sentiments conferring with a Barbarian. Good patriots cannot be too vigilant. A plot, I assert. Treason to Athens and Hellas! Freedom’s in danger. Henceforth I shall look on Glaucon the Alcmæonid as an enemy of liberty.”“Phui!”almost shouted Phormio, whose sense of humour was keen,“a noble conspiracy! Glaucon the Fortunate calls on a Babylonish merchant by night. You say to plot against Athens. I say to buy his pretty wife a carpet.”“The gods will some day explain,”said Clearchus, winding up the argument,—and so for a little while the four forgot all about Glaucon.* * * * * * *Despite the cane, Clearchus was right. The visitor was Democrates. The orator mounted the dark stair above the shield-factory and knocked against a door, calling,“Pai! Pai!”“Boy! boy!”a summons answered by none other than[pg 78]the ever smiling Hiram. The Athenian, however, was little prepared for the luxury, nay splendour, which greeted him, once the Phœnician had opened the door. The bare chamber had been transformed. The foot sank into the glowing carpets of Kerman and Bactria. The gold-embroidered wall tapestries were of Sidonian purple. The divans were covered with wondrous stuff which Democrates could not name,—another age would call it silk. A tripod smoked with fragrant Arabian frankincense. Silver lamps, swinging from silver chains, gave brilliant light. The Athenian stood wonderbound, until a voice, not Hiram’s, greeted him.“Welcome, Athenian,”spoke the Cyprian, in his quaint, eastern accent. It was the strange guest in the tavern by Corinth. The Prince—prince surely, whatever his other title—was in the same rich dress as at the Isthmus, only his flowing beard had been dyed raven black. Yet Democrates’s eyes were diverted instantly to the peculiarly handsome slave-boy on the divan beside his master. The boy’s dress, of a rare blue stuff, enveloped him loosely. His hair was as golden as the gold thread on the round cap. In the shadows the face almost escaped the orator,—he thought he saw clear blue eyes and a marvellously brilliant, almost girlish, bloom and freshness. The presence of this slave caused the Athenian to hesitate, but the Cyprian bade him be seated, with one commanding wave of the hand.“This is Smerdis, my constant companion. He is a mute. Yet if otherwise, I would trust him as myself.”Democrates, putting by surprise, began to look on his host fixedly.“My dear Barbarian, for that you are a Hellene you will not pretend, you realize, I trust, you incur considerable danger in visiting Athens.”“I am not anxious,”observed the Prince, composedly.[pg 79]“Hiram is watchful and skilful. You see I have dyed my hair and beard black and pass for a Babylonish merchant.”“With all except me,philotate,—‘dearest friend,’as we say in Athens.”Democrates’s smile was not wholly agreeable.“With all except you,”assented the Prince, fingering the scarlet tassel of the cushion whereon he sat.“I reckoned confidently that you would come to visit me when I sent Hiram to you. Yes—I have heard the story that is on your tongue: one of Themistocles’s busybodies has brought a rumour that a certain great man of the Persian court is missing from the side of his master, and you have been requested to greet that nobleman heartily if he should come to Athens.”“You know a great deal!”cried the orator, feeling his forehead grow hot.“It is pleasant to know a great deal,”smiled back the Prince, carelessly, while Hiram entered with a tray and silver goblets brimming with violet-flavoured sherbet;“I have innumerable‘Eyes-and-ears.’You have heard the name? One of the chief officers of his Majesty is‘The Royal Eye.’You Athenians are a valiant and in many things a wise people, yet you could grow in wisdom by looking well to the East.”“I am confident,”exclaimed Democrates, thrusting back the goblet,“if your Excellency requires a noble game of wits, you can have one. I need only step to the window, and cry‘Spies!’—after which your Excellency can exercise your wisdom and eloquence defending your life before one of our Attic juries.”“Which is a polite and patriotic manner of saying, dearest Athenian, you are not prepared to push matters to such unfortunate extremity. I omit what his Majesty might do in the way of taking vengeance; sufficient that if aught unfor[pg 80]tunate befalls me, or Hiram, or this my slave Smerdis, while we are in Athens, a letter comes to your noble chief Themistocles from the banker Pittacus of Argos.”Democrates, who had risen to his feet, had been flushed before. He became pale now. The hand that clutched the purple tapestry was trembling. The words rose to his lips, the lips refused to utter them. The Prince, who had delivered his threat most quietly, went on,“In short, good Democrates, I was aware before I came to Athens of our necessities, and I came because I was certain I could relieve them.”“Never!”The orator shot the word out desperately.“You are a Hellene.”“Am I ashamed of it?”“Do not, however, affect to be more virtuous than your race. Persians make their boast of truth-telling and fidelity. You Hellenes, I hear, have even a god—Hermes Dolios,—who teaches you lying and thieving. The customs of nations differ. Mazda the Almighty alone knoweth which is best. Follow then the customs of Hellenes.”“You speak in riddles.”“Plainer, then. You know the master I serve. You guess who I am, though you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?”The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were pressed behind his head.“I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.”“Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry. You will find a Persian pays like the lord he is, and that his darics always ring true metal.”“I’ll hear no more. I was a fool to meet Lycon at Corinth, doubly a fool to meet you to-night. Farewell.”Democrates seized the latch. The door was locked. He[pg 81]turned furiously on the Barbarian.“Do you keep me by force? Have a care. I can be terrible if driven to bay. The window is open. One shout—”The Cyprian had risen, and quietly, but with a grip like iron on Democrates’s wrist, led the orator back to the divan.“You can go free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition. Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate. You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the Theseia you fed the poor of Athens on sixty oxen washed down with good Rhodian wine. All that made havoc in your patrimony.”“By Zeus, you speak as if you lived all your life in Athens!”“I have said‘I have many eyes.’But to continue. You gave the price of the tackling for six of the triremes with which Themistocles pretends to believe he can beat back my master. Worse still, you have squandered many minæ on flute girls, dice, cock-fights, and other gentle pleasures. In short your patrimony is not merely exhausted but overspent. That, however, is not the most wonderful part of my recital.”“How dare you pry into my secrets?”“Be appeased, dear Athenian; it is much more interesting to know you deny nothing of all I say. It is now five months since you were appointed by your sagacious Athenian assembly as commissioner to administer the silver taken from the mines at Laurium and devoted to your navy. You fulfilled the people’s confidence by diverting much of this money to the payment of your own great debts to the banker Pittacus of Argos. At present you are‘watching the moon,’[pg 82]as you say here in Athens,—I mean, that at the end of this month you must account to the people for all the money you have handled, and at this hour are at your wits’ ends to know whence the repayment will come.”“That is all you know of me?”“All.”Democrates sighed with relief.“Then you have yet to complete the story, my dear Barbarian. I have adventured on half the cargo of a large merchantman bringing timber and tin from Massalia; I look every day for a messenger from Corinth with news of her safe arrival. Upon her coming I can make good all I owe and still be a passing rich man.”If the Cyprian was discomposed at this announcement, he did not betray it.“The sea is frightfully uncertain, good Democrates. Upon it, as many fortunes are lost as are made.”“I have offered due prayers to Poseidon, and vowed a gold tripod on the ship’s arrival.”“So even your gods in Hellas have their price,”was the retort, with an ill-concealed sneer.“Do not trust them. Take ten talents from me and to-night sleep sweetly.”“Your price?”the words slipped forth involuntarily.“Themistocles’s private memoranda for the battle-order of your new fleet.”“Avert it, gods! The ship will reach Corinth, I warn you—”Democrates’s gestures became menacing, as again he rose,“I will set you in Themistocles’s hand as soon—”“But not to-night.”The Prince rose, smiled, held out his hand.“Unbar the door for his Excellency, Hiram. And you, noble sir, think well of all I said at Corinth on the certain victory of my master; think also—”the voice fell—“how Democrates the Codrid could be sovereign of Athens under the protection of Persia.”[pg 83]“I tyrant of Athens?”the orator clapped his hand behind his back;“you say enough. Good evening.”He was on the threshold, when the slave-boy touched his master’s hand in silent signal.“And if there be any fair woman you desire,”—how gliding the Cyprian’s voice!—“shall not the power of Xerxes the great give her unto you?”Why did Democrates feel his forehead turn to flame? Why—almost against will—did he stretch forth his hand to the Cyprian? He went down the stair scarce feeling the steps beneath him. At the bottom voices greeted him from across the darkened street.“A fair evening, Master Glaucon.”“A fair evening,”his mechanical answer; then to himself; as he walked away,“Wherefore call me Glaucon? I have somewhat his height, though not his shoulder. Ah,—I know it, I have chanced to borrow his carved walking-stick. Impudent creatures to read the name!”He had not far to go. Athens was compactly built, all quarters close together. Yet before he reached home and bed, he was fighting back an ill-defined but terrible thought.“Glaucon! They think I am Glaucon. If I chose to betray the Cyprian—”Further than that he would not suffer the thought to go. He lay sleepless, fighting against it. The dark was full of the harpies of uncanny suggestion. He arose unrefreshed, to proffer every god the same prayer:“Deliver me from evil imaginings. Speed the ship to Corinth.”[pg 84]CHAPTER VIIION THE ACROPOLISThe Acropolis of Athens rises as does no other citadel in the world. Had no workers in marble or bronze, no weavers of eloquence or song, dwelt beneath its shadow, it would stand the centre and cynosure of a remarkable landscape. It is“The Rock,”no other like unto it. Is it enough to say its ruddy limestone rises as a huge boulder one hundred and fifty feet above the plain, that its breadth is five hundred, its length one thousand? Numbers and measures can never disclose a soul,—and the Rock of Athens has all but a soul: a soul seems to glow through its adamant when the fire-footed morning steals over the long crest of Hymettus, and touches the citadel’s red bulk with unearthly brightness; a soul when the day falls to sleep in the arms of night as Helios sinks over the western hill by Daphni. Then the Rock seems to throb and burn with life again.It is so bare that the hungry goats can hardly crop one spear of grass along its jagged slopes. It is so steep it scarce needs defence against an army. It is so commanding that he who stands on the westmost pinnacle can look across the windy hill of the Pnyx, across the brown plain-land and down to the sparkling blue sea with the busy havens of Peiræus and Phalerum, the scattered gray isles of the Ægean, and far away to the domelike crest of Acro-Corinthus. Let him turn to the right: below him nestles the[pg 85]gnarled hill of Areopagus, home of the Furies, the buzzing plaza of the Agora, the closely clustered city. Behind, there spread mountain, valley, plain,—here green, here brown, here golden,—with Pentelicus the Mighty rearing behind all, his summits fretted white, not with winter snows, but with lustrous marble. Look to the left: across the view passes the shaggy ridge of Hymettus, arid and scarred, as if wrought by the Titans, home only of goats and bees, of nymphs and satyrs.That was almost the self-same vision in the dim past when the first savage clambered this“Citadel of Cecrops”and spoke,“Here is my dwelling-place.”This will be the vision until earth and ocean are no more. The human habitation changes, the temples rise and crumble; the red and gray rock, the crystalline air, the sapphire sea, come from the god, and these remain.Glaucon and Hermione were come together to offer thanks to Athena for the glory of the Isthmus. The athlete had already mounted the citadel heading a myrtle-crowned procession to bear a formal thanksgiving, but his wife had not then been with him. Now they would go together, without pomp. They walked side by side. Nimble Chloë tripped behind with her mistress’s parasol. Old Manes bore the bloodless sacrifice, but Hermione said in her heart there came two too many.Many a friendly eye, many a friendly word, followed as they crossed the Agora, where traffic was in its morning bustle. Glaucon answered every greeting with his winsome smile.“All Athens seems our friend!”he said, as close by the Tyrannicides’ statues at the upper end of the plaza a grave councilman bowed and an old bread woman left her stall to bob a courtesy.[pg 86]“Isyourfriend,”corrected Hermione, thinking only of her husband,“for I have won no pentathlon.”“Ah,makaira, dearest and best,”he answered, looking not on the glorious citadel but on her face,“could I have won the parsley wreath had there been no better wreath awaiting me at Eleusis? And to-day I am gladdest of the glad. For the gods have sent me blessings beyond desert, I no longer fear their envy as once. I enjoy honour with all good men. I have no enemy in the world. I have the dearest of friends, Cimon, Themistocles—beyond all, Democrates. I am blessed in love beyond Peleus espoused to Thetis, or Anchises beloved of Aphrodite, for my golden Aphrodite lives not on Olympus, nor Paphos, nor comes on her doves from Cythera, but dwells—”“Peace.”The hand laid on his mouth was small but firm.“Do not anger the goddess by likening me unto her. It is joy enough for me if I can look up at the sun and say,‘I keep the love of Glaucon the Fortunate and the Good.’”Walking thus in their golden dream, the two crossed the Agora, turned to the left from the Pnyx, and by crooked lanes went past the craggy rock of Areopagus, till before them rose a wooden palisade and a gate. Through this a steep path led upward to the citadel. Not to the Acropolis of fame. The buildings then upon the Rock in one short year would lie in heaps of fire-scarred ruin. Yet in that hour before Glaucon and Hermione a not unworthy temple rose, the old“House of Athena,”prototype of the later Parthenon. In the morning light it stood in beauty—a hundred Doric columns, a sculptured pediment, flashing with white marble and with tints of scarlet, blue, and gold. Below it, over the irregular plateau of the Rock, spread avenues of votive statues of gods and heroes in stone, bronze, or painted wood. Here[pg 87]and there were numerous shrines and small temples, and a giant altar for burning a hundred oxen. So hand in hand the twain went to the bronze portal of the Temple. The kindly old priest on guard smiled as he sprinkled them with the purifying salt water out of the brazen laver. The door closed behind them. For a moment they seemed to stand in the high temple in utter darkness. Then far above through the marble roof a softened light came creeping toward them. As from unfolding mist, the great calm face of the ancient goddess looked down with its unchanging smile. A red coal glowed on the tripod at her feet. Glaucon shook incense over the brazier. While it smoked, Hermione laid the crown of lilies between the knees of the half-seen image, then her husband lifted his hands and prayed aloud.“Athena, Virgin, Queen, Deviser of Wisdom,—whatever be the name thou lovest best,—accept this offering and hear. Bless now us both. Give us to strive for the noblest, to speak the wise word, to love one another. Give us prosperity, but not unto pride. Bless all our friends; but if we have enemies, be thou their enemy also. And so shall we praise thee forever.”This was all the prayer and worship. A little more meditation, then husband and wife went forth from the sacred cella. The panorama—rocks, plain, sea, and bending heavens—opened before them in glory. The light faded upon the purple breasts of the western mountains. Behind the Acropolis, Lycabettus’s pyramid glowed like a furnace. The marble on distant Pentelicus shone dazzlingly.Glaucon stood on the easternmost pinnacle of the Rock, watching the landscape.“Joy,makaira, joy,”he cried,“we possess one another. We dwell in‘violet-crowned Athens’; for what else dare we to pray?”[pg 88]But Hermione pointed less pleased toward the crest of Pentelicus.“Behold it! How swiftly yonder gray cloud comes on a rushing wind! It will cover the brightness. The omen is bad.”“Why bad,makaira?”“The cloud is the Persian. He hangs to-day as a thunder-cloud above Athens and Hellas. Xerxes will come. And you—”She pressed closer to her husband.“Why speak of me?”he asked lightly.“Xerxes brings war. War brings sorrow to women. It is not the hateful and old that the spears and the arrows love best.”Half compelled by the omen, half by a sudden burst of unoccasioned fear, her eyes shone with tears; but her husband’s laugh rang clearly.“Euge!dry your eyes, and look before you. King Æolus scatters the cloud upon his briskest winds. It breaks into a thousand bits. So shall Themistocles scatter the hordes of Xerxes. The Persian shadow shall come, shall go, and again we shall be happy in beautiful Athens.”“Athena grant it!”prayed Hermione.“We can trust the goddess,”returned Glaucon, not to be shaken from his happy mood.“And now that we have paid our vows to her, let us descend. Our friends are already waiting for us by the Pnyx before they go down to the harbours.”As they went down the steep, Cimon and Democrates came running to join them, and in the brisk chatter that arose the omen of the cloud and fears of the Persian faded from Hermione’s mind.* * * * * * *[pg 89]It was a merry party such as often went down to the havens of Athens in the springtime and summer: a dozen gentlemen, old and young, for the most part married, and followed demurely by their wives with the latter’s maids, and many a stout Thracian slave tugging hampers of meat and drink. Laughter there was, admixed with wiser talk; friends walking by twos and threes, with Themistocles, as always, seeming to mingle with all and to surpass every one both in jests and in wisdom. So they fared down across the broad plain-land to the harbours, till the hill Munychia rose steep before them. A scramble over a rocky, ill-marked way led to the top; then before them broke a second view comparable almost to that from the Rock of Athena: at their feet lay the four blue havens of Athens, to the right Phaleron, closer at hand the land-locked bay of Munychia, beyond that Zea, beyond that still a broader sheet—Peiræus, the new war-harbour of Athens. They could look down on the brown roofs of the port-town, the forest of masts, the merchantman unloading lumber from the Euxine, the merchantman loading dried figs for Syria; but most of all on the numbers of long black hulls, some motionless on the placid harbour, some propped harmlessly on the shore. Hermione clouded as she saw them, and glanced away.“I do not love your new fleet, Themistocles,”she said, frowning at the handsome statesman;“I do not love anything that tells so clearly of war. It mars the beauty.”“Rather you should rejoice we have so fair a wooden wall against the Barbarian, dear lady,”answered he, quite at ease.“What can we do to hearten her, Democrates?”“Were I only Zeus,”rejoined the orator, who never was far from his best friend’s wife,“I would cast two thunderbolts, one to destroy Xerxes, the second to blast Themistocles’s armada,—so would the Lady Hermione be satisfied.”[pg 90]“I am sorry, then, you are not the Olympian,”said the woman, half smiling at the pleasantry. Cimon interrupted them. Some of the party had caught a sun-burned shepherd in among the rocks, a veritable Pan in his shaggy goat-skin. The bribe of two obols brought him out with his pipe. Four of the slave-boys fell to dancing. The party sat down upon the burnt grass,—eating, drinking, wreathing poppy-crowns, and watching the nimble slaves and the ships that crawled like ants in the haven and bay below. Thus passed the noon, and as the sun dropped toward craggy Salamis across the strait, the men of the party wandered down to the ports and found boats to take them out upon the bay.The wind was a zephyr. The water spread blue and glassy. The sun was sinking as a ball of infinite light. Themistocles, Democrates, and Glaucon were in one skiff, the athlete at the oars. They glided past the scores of black triremes swinging lazily at anchor. Twice they pulled around the proudest of the fleet,—theNausicaä, the gift of Hermippus to the state, a princely gift even in days when every Athenian put his all at the public service. She would be Themistocles’s flag-ship. The young men noted her fine lines, her heavy side timbers, the covered decks, an innovation in Athenian men-of-war, and Themistocles put a loving hand on the keen bronze beak as they swung around the prow.“Here’s a tooth for the Persian king!”he was laughing, when a second skiff, rounding the trireme in an opposite direction, collided abruptly. A lurch, a few splinters was all the hurt, but as the boats parted Themistocles rose from his seat in the stern, staring curiously.“Barbarians, by Athena’s owls, the knave at the oars is a sleek Syrian, and his master and the boy from the East too. What business around our war-fleet? Row after them, Glaucon; we’ll question—”[pg 91]“Glaucon does no such folly,”spoke Democrates, instantly, from the bow;“if the harbour-watch doesn’t interfere with honest traders, what’s it to us?”“As you like it.”Themistocles resumed his seat.“Yet it would do no harm. Now they row to another trireme. With what falcon eyes the master of the trio examines it! Something uncanny, I repeat.”“To examine everything strange,”proclaimed Democrates, sententiously,“needs the life of a crow, who, they say, lives a thousand years, but I don’t see any black wings budding on Themistocles’s shoulders. Pull onward, Glaucon.”“Whither?”demanded the rower.“To Salamis,”ordered Themistocles.“Let us see the battle-place foretold by the oracle.”“To Salamis or clear to Crete,”rejoined Glaucon, setting his strength upon the oars and making the skiff bound,“if we can find water deep enough to drown those gloomy looks that have sat on Democrates’s brows of late.”“Not gloomy but serious,”said the young orator, with an attempt at lightness;“I have been preparing my oration against the contractor I’ve indicted for embezzling the public naval stores.”“Destroy the man!”cried the rower.“And yet I really pity him; he was under great temptation.”“No excuses; the man who robs the city in days like these is worse than he who betrays fortresses in most wars.”“I see you are a savage patriot, Glaucon,”said Themistocles,“despite your Adonis face. We are fairly upon the bay; our nearest eavesdroppers, yon fishermen, are a good five furlongs. Would you see something?”Glaucon rested on the oars, while the statesman fumbled in his breast. He drew out a papyrus sheet, which he passed to the rower, he in turn to Democrates.[pg 92]“Look well, then, for I think no Persian spies are here. A month long have I wrought on this bit of papyrus. All my wisdom flowed out of my pen when I spread the ink. In short here is the ordering of the ships of the allied Greeks when we meet Xerxes in battle. Leonidas and our other chiefs gave me the task when we met at Corinth. To-day it is complete. Read it, for it is precious. Xerxes would give twenty talents for this one leaf from Egypt.”The young men peered at the sheet curiously. The details and diagrams were few and easy to remember, the Athenian ships here, the Æginetan next, the Corinthian next, and so with the other allies. A few comments on the use of the lightpentecontersbehind the heavy triremes. A few more comments on Xerxes’s probable naval tactics. Only the knowledge that Themistocles never committed himself in speech or writing without exhausting every expedient told the young men of the supreme importance of the paper. After due inspection the statesman replaced it in his breast.“You two have seen this,”he announced, seemingly proud of his handiwork;“Leonidas shall see this, then Xerxes, and after that—”he laughed, but not in jest—“men will remember Themistocles, son of Neocles!”The three lapsed into silence for a moment. The skiff was well out upon the sea. The shadows of the hills of Salamis and of Ægelaos, the opposing mountain of Attica, were spreading over them. Around the islet of Psyttaleia in the strait the brown fisher-boats were gliding. Beyond the strait opened the blue hill-girdled bay of Eleusis, now turning to fire in the evening sun. Everything was peaceful, silent, beautiful. Again Glaucon rested on his oars and let his eyes wander.“How true is the word of Thales the Sage,”he spoke;“‘the world is the fairest of all fair things, because it is the[pg 93]work of God.’It cannot be that, here, between these purple hills and the glistening sea, there will come that battle beside which the strife of Achilles and Hector before Troy shall pass as nothing!”Themistocles shook his head.“We do not know; we are dice in the high gods’ dice-boxes.“‘Man all vainly shall scan the mind of the Prince of Olympus.’“We can say nothing wiser than that. We can but use our Attic mother wit, and trust the rest to destiny. Let us be satisfied if we hope that destiny is not blind.”They drifted many moments in silence.“The sun sinks lower,”spoke Democrates, at length;“so back again to the havens.”On the return Themistocles once more vowed he caught a glimpse of the skiff of the unknown foreigners, but Democrates called it mere phantasy. Hermione met them at the Peiræus, and the party wandered back through the gathering dusk to the city, where each little group went its way. Themistocles went to his own house, where he said he expected Sicinnus; Cimon and Democrates sought a tavern for an evening cup; Glaucon and Hermione hastened to their house in the Colonus suburb near the trickling Cephissus, where in the starlit night the tettix4in the black old olives by the stream made its monotonous music, where great fireflies gleamed, where Philomela the nightingale called, and the tall plane trees whispered softly to the pines. When Hermione fell asleep, she had forgotten about the coming of the Persian, and dreamed that Glaucon was Eros, she was Psyche, and that Zeus was giving her the wings of a butterfly and a crown of stars.[pg 94]Democrates went home later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea from it—that Themistocles had revealed that day a priceless secret, that the statesman and Glaucon and he himself were the only men who shared it, and that it was believed that Glaucon had visited the Babylonish carpet-seller. Joined to this was an overpowering consciousness that Helen of Troy was not so lovely as Hermione of Eleusis. When he came to his lodgings, however, his wits cleared in a twinkling after he had read two letters. The first was short.“Themistocles to Democrates:—This evening I begin to discover something. Sicinnus, who has been searching in Athens, is certain there is a Persian agent in the city. Seize him.—Chaire.”The second was shorter. It came from Corinth.“Socias the merchant to Democrates:—Tyrrhenian pirates have taken the ship. Lading and crew are utterly lost.—Chaire.”The orator never closed his eyes that night.

In the northern quarter of Athens the suburb of Alopece thrust itself under the slopes of Mt. Lycabettus, that pyramid of tawny rock which formed the rear bulwark, as it were, of every landscape of Athens. The dwellings in the suburb were poor, though few even in the richer quarters were at all handsome; the streets barely sixteen feet wide, ill-paved, filthy, dingy. A line of dirty gray stucco house-fronts was broken only by the small doors and the smaller windows in the second story. Occasionally a two-faced bust of Hermes stood before a portal, or a marble lion’s head spouted into a corner water trough. All Athenian streets resembled these. The citizen had his Pnyx, his Jury-Court, his gossiping Agora for his day. These dingy streets sufficed for the dogs, the slaves, and the women, whom wise Zeus ordered to remain at home.

Phormio the fishmonger had returned from his traffic, and sat in his house-door meditating over a pot of sour wine and watching the last light flickering on the great bulk of the mountain. He had his sorrows,—good man,—for Lampaxo his worthy wife, long of tongue, short of temper, thrifty and very watchful, was reminding him for the seventh time that he had sold a carp half an obol too cheap. His patience indeed that evening was so near to exhaustion that after[pg 75]cursing inwardly the“match-maker”who had saddled this Amazon upon him, he actually found courage for an outbreak. He threw up his arms after the manner of a tragic actor:—

“True, true is the word of Hesiod!”

“True is what?”flew back none too gently.

“‘The fool first suffers and is after wise.’Woman, I am resolved.”

“On what?”Lampaxo’s voice was soft as broken glass.

“Years increase. I shan’t live long. We are childless. I will provide for you in my will by giving you in marriage to Hyperphon.”3

“Hyperphon!”screamed the virago,“Hyperphon the beggarly hunchback, the laughing-stock of Athens! O Mother Hera!—but I see the villain’s aim. You are weary of me. Then divorce me like an honourable man. Send me back to Polus my dear brother. Ah, you sheep, you are silent! You think of the two-minæ dowry you must then refund. Woe is me! I’ll go to the King Archon. I’ll charge you with gross abuse. The jury will condemn you. There’ll be fines, fetters, stocks, prison—”

“Peace,”groaned Phormio, terrified at the Gorgon,“I only thought—”

“How dared you think? What permitted—”

“Good evening, sweet sister and Phormio!”The salutation came from Polus, who with Clearchus had approached unheralded. Lampaxo smoothed her ruffled feathers. Phormio stifled his sorrows. Dromo, the half-starved slave-boy, brought a pot of thin wine to his betters. The short southern twilight was swiftly passing into night. Groups of young men wandered past, bound homeward from the Cynosarges, the Academy, or some other well-loved gym[pg 76]nasium. In an hour the streets would be dark and still, except for a belated guest going to his banquet, a Scythian constable, or perhaps a cloak thief. For your Athenian, when he had no supper invitation, went to bed early and rose early, loving the sunlight far better than the flicker of his uncertain lamps.

“And did the jury vote‘guilty’?”was Phormio’s first question of his brother-in-law.

“We were patriotically united. There were barely any white beans for acquittal in the urn. The scoundrelly grain-dealer is stripped of all he possesses and sent away to beg in exile. A noble service to Athens!”

“Despite the evidence,”murmured Clearchus; but Lampaxo’s shrill voice answered her brother:—

“It’s my opinion you jurors should look into a case directly opposite this house. Spies, I say, Persian spies.”

“Spies!”cried Polus, leaping up as from a coal;“why, Phormio, haven’t you denounced them? It’s compounding with treason even to fail to report—”

“Peace, brother,”chuckled the fishmonger,“your sister smells for treason as a dog for salt fish. There is a barbarian carpet merchant—a Babylonian, I presume—who has taken the empty chambers above Demas’s shield factory opposite. He seems a quiet, inoffensive man; there are a hundred other foreign merchants in the city. One can’t cry‘Traitor!’just because the poor wight was not born to speak Greek.”

“I do not like Babylonish merchants,”propounded Polus, dogmatically;“to the jury with him, I say!”

“At least he has a visitor,”asserted Clearchus, who had long been silent.“See, a gentleman wrapped in a long himation is going up to the door and standing up his walking stick.”

“And if I have eyes,”vowed the juror, squinting through his hands in the half light,“that closely wrapped man is Glaucon the Alcmæonid.”

“Or Democrates,”remarked Clearchus;“they look much alike from behind. It’s getting dark.”

“Well,”decided Phormio,“we can easily tell. He has left his stick below by the door. Steal across, Polus, and fetch it. It must be carved with the owner’s name.”

The juror readily obeyed; but to read the few characters on the crooked handle was beyond the learning of any save Clearchus, whose art demanded the mystery of writing.

“I was wrong,”he confessed, after long scrutiny,“‘Glaucon, son of Conon.’It is very plain. Put the cane back, Polus.”

The cane was returned, but the juror pulled a very long face.

“Dear friends, here is a man I’ve already suspected of undemocratic sentiments conferring with a Barbarian. Good patriots cannot be too vigilant. A plot, I assert. Treason to Athens and Hellas! Freedom’s in danger. Henceforth I shall look on Glaucon the Alcmæonid as an enemy of liberty.”

“Phui!”almost shouted Phormio, whose sense of humour was keen,“a noble conspiracy! Glaucon the Fortunate calls on a Babylonish merchant by night. You say to plot against Athens. I say to buy his pretty wife a carpet.”

“The gods will some day explain,”said Clearchus, winding up the argument,—and so for a little while the four forgot all about Glaucon.

* * * * * * *

Despite the cane, Clearchus was right. The visitor was Democrates. The orator mounted the dark stair above the shield-factory and knocked against a door, calling,“Pai! Pai!”“Boy! boy!”a summons answered by none other than[pg 78]the ever smiling Hiram. The Athenian, however, was little prepared for the luxury, nay splendour, which greeted him, once the Phœnician had opened the door. The bare chamber had been transformed. The foot sank into the glowing carpets of Kerman and Bactria. The gold-embroidered wall tapestries were of Sidonian purple. The divans were covered with wondrous stuff which Democrates could not name,—another age would call it silk. A tripod smoked with fragrant Arabian frankincense. Silver lamps, swinging from silver chains, gave brilliant light. The Athenian stood wonderbound, until a voice, not Hiram’s, greeted him.

“Welcome, Athenian,”spoke the Cyprian, in his quaint, eastern accent. It was the strange guest in the tavern by Corinth. The Prince—prince surely, whatever his other title—was in the same rich dress as at the Isthmus, only his flowing beard had been dyed raven black. Yet Democrates’s eyes were diverted instantly to the peculiarly handsome slave-boy on the divan beside his master. The boy’s dress, of a rare blue stuff, enveloped him loosely. His hair was as golden as the gold thread on the round cap. In the shadows the face almost escaped the orator,—he thought he saw clear blue eyes and a marvellously brilliant, almost girlish, bloom and freshness. The presence of this slave caused the Athenian to hesitate, but the Cyprian bade him be seated, with one commanding wave of the hand.

“This is Smerdis, my constant companion. He is a mute. Yet if otherwise, I would trust him as myself.”

Democrates, putting by surprise, began to look on his host fixedly.

“My dear Barbarian, for that you are a Hellene you will not pretend, you realize, I trust, you incur considerable danger in visiting Athens.”

“I am not anxious,”observed the Prince, composedly.[pg 79]“Hiram is watchful and skilful. You see I have dyed my hair and beard black and pass for a Babylonish merchant.”

“With all except me,philotate,—‘dearest friend,’as we say in Athens.”Democrates’s smile was not wholly agreeable.

“With all except you,”assented the Prince, fingering the scarlet tassel of the cushion whereon he sat.“I reckoned confidently that you would come to visit me when I sent Hiram to you. Yes—I have heard the story that is on your tongue: one of Themistocles’s busybodies has brought a rumour that a certain great man of the Persian court is missing from the side of his master, and you have been requested to greet that nobleman heartily if he should come to Athens.”

“You know a great deal!”cried the orator, feeling his forehead grow hot.

“It is pleasant to know a great deal,”smiled back the Prince, carelessly, while Hiram entered with a tray and silver goblets brimming with violet-flavoured sherbet;“I have innumerable‘Eyes-and-ears.’You have heard the name? One of the chief officers of his Majesty is‘The Royal Eye.’You Athenians are a valiant and in many things a wise people, yet you could grow in wisdom by looking well to the East.”

“I am confident,”exclaimed Democrates, thrusting back the goblet,“if your Excellency requires a noble game of wits, you can have one. I need only step to the window, and cry‘Spies!’—after which your Excellency can exercise your wisdom and eloquence defending your life before one of our Attic juries.”

“Which is a polite and patriotic manner of saying, dearest Athenian, you are not prepared to push matters to such unfortunate extremity. I omit what his Majesty might do in the way of taking vengeance; sufficient that if aught unfor[pg 80]tunate befalls me, or Hiram, or this my slave Smerdis, while we are in Athens, a letter comes to your noble chief Themistocles from the banker Pittacus of Argos.”

Democrates, who had risen to his feet, had been flushed before. He became pale now. The hand that clutched the purple tapestry was trembling. The words rose to his lips, the lips refused to utter them. The Prince, who had delivered his threat most quietly, went on,“In short, good Democrates, I was aware before I came to Athens of our necessities, and I came because I was certain I could relieve them.”

“Never!”The orator shot the word out desperately.

“You are a Hellene.”

“Am I ashamed of it?”

“Do not, however, affect to be more virtuous than your race. Persians make their boast of truth-telling and fidelity. You Hellenes, I hear, have even a god—Hermes Dolios,—who teaches you lying and thieving. The customs of nations differ. Mazda the Almighty alone knoweth which is best. Follow then the customs of Hellenes.”

“You speak in riddles.”

“Plainer, then. You know the master I serve. You guess who I am, though you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?”

The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were pressed behind his head.

“I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.”

“Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry. You will find a Persian pays like the lord he is, and that his darics always ring true metal.”

“I’ll hear no more. I was a fool to meet Lycon at Corinth, doubly a fool to meet you to-night. Farewell.”

Democrates seized the latch. The door was locked. He[pg 81]turned furiously on the Barbarian.“Do you keep me by force? Have a care. I can be terrible if driven to bay. The window is open. One shout—”

The Cyprian had risen, and quietly, but with a grip like iron on Democrates’s wrist, led the orator back to the divan.

“You can go free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition. Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate. You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the Theseia you fed the poor of Athens on sixty oxen washed down with good Rhodian wine. All that made havoc in your patrimony.”

“By Zeus, you speak as if you lived all your life in Athens!”

“I have said‘I have many eyes.’But to continue. You gave the price of the tackling for six of the triremes with which Themistocles pretends to believe he can beat back my master. Worse still, you have squandered many minæ on flute girls, dice, cock-fights, and other gentle pleasures. In short your patrimony is not merely exhausted but overspent. That, however, is not the most wonderful part of my recital.”

“How dare you pry into my secrets?”

“Be appeased, dear Athenian; it is much more interesting to know you deny nothing of all I say. It is now five months since you were appointed by your sagacious Athenian assembly as commissioner to administer the silver taken from the mines at Laurium and devoted to your navy. You fulfilled the people’s confidence by diverting much of this money to the payment of your own great debts to the banker Pittacus of Argos. At present you are‘watching the moon,’[pg 82]as you say here in Athens,—I mean, that at the end of this month you must account to the people for all the money you have handled, and at this hour are at your wits’ ends to know whence the repayment will come.”

“That is all you know of me?”

“All.”

Democrates sighed with relief.“Then you have yet to complete the story, my dear Barbarian. I have adventured on half the cargo of a large merchantman bringing timber and tin from Massalia; I look every day for a messenger from Corinth with news of her safe arrival. Upon her coming I can make good all I owe and still be a passing rich man.”

If the Cyprian was discomposed at this announcement, he did not betray it.

“The sea is frightfully uncertain, good Democrates. Upon it, as many fortunes are lost as are made.”

“I have offered due prayers to Poseidon, and vowed a gold tripod on the ship’s arrival.”

“So even your gods in Hellas have their price,”was the retort, with an ill-concealed sneer.“Do not trust them. Take ten talents from me and to-night sleep sweetly.”

“Your price?”the words slipped forth involuntarily.

“Themistocles’s private memoranda for the battle-order of your new fleet.”

“Avert it, gods! The ship will reach Corinth, I warn you—”Democrates’s gestures became menacing, as again he rose,“I will set you in Themistocles’s hand as soon—”

“But not to-night.”The Prince rose, smiled, held out his hand.“Unbar the door for his Excellency, Hiram. And you, noble sir, think well of all I said at Corinth on the certain victory of my master; think also—”the voice fell—“how Democrates the Codrid could be sovereign of Athens under the protection of Persia.”

“I tyrant of Athens?”the orator clapped his hand behind his back;“you say enough. Good evening.”

He was on the threshold, when the slave-boy touched his master’s hand in silent signal.

“And if there be any fair woman you desire,”—how gliding the Cyprian’s voice!—“shall not the power of Xerxes the great give her unto you?”

Why did Democrates feel his forehead turn to flame? Why—almost against will—did he stretch forth his hand to the Cyprian? He went down the stair scarce feeling the steps beneath him. At the bottom voices greeted him from across the darkened street.

“A fair evening, Master Glaucon.”

“A fair evening,”his mechanical answer; then to himself; as he walked away,“Wherefore call me Glaucon? I have somewhat his height, though not his shoulder. Ah,—I know it, I have chanced to borrow his carved walking-stick. Impudent creatures to read the name!”

He had not far to go. Athens was compactly built, all quarters close together. Yet before he reached home and bed, he was fighting back an ill-defined but terrible thought.“Glaucon! They think I am Glaucon. If I chose to betray the Cyprian—”Further than that he would not suffer the thought to go. He lay sleepless, fighting against it. The dark was full of the harpies of uncanny suggestion. He arose unrefreshed, to proffer every god the same prayer:“Deliver me from evil imaginings. Speed the ship to Corinth.”

[pg 84]CHAPTER VIIION THE ACROPOLISThe Acropolis of Athens rises as does no other citadel in the world. Had no workers in marble or bronze, no weavers of eloquence or song, dwelt beneath its shadow, it would stand the centre and cynosure of a remarkable landscape. It is“The Rock,”no other like unto it. Is it enough to say its ruddy limestone rises as a huge boulder one hundred and fifty feet above the plain, that its breadth is five hundred, its length one thousand? Numbers and measures can never disclose a soul,—and the Rock of Athens has all but a soul: a soul seems to glow through its adamant when the fire-footed morning steals over the long crest of Hymettus, and touches the citadel’s red bulk with unearthly brightness; a soul when the day falls to sleep in the arms of night as Helios sinks over the western hill by Daphni. Then the Rock seems to throb and burn with life again.It is so bare that the hungry goats can hardly crop one spear of grass along its jagged slopes. It is so steep it scarce needs defence against an army. It is so commanding that he who stands on the westmost pinnacle can look across the windy hill of the Pnyx, across the brown plain-land and down to the sparkling blue sea with the busy havens of Peiræus and Phalerum, the scattered gray isles of the Ægean, and far away to the domelike crest of Acro-Corinthus. Let him turn to the right: below him nestles the[pg 85]gnarled hill of Areopagus, home of the Furies, the buzzing plaza of the Agora, the closely clustered city. Behind, there spread mountain, valley, plain,—here green, here brown, here golden,—with Pentelicus the Mighty rearing behind all, his summits fretted white, not with winter snows, but with lustrous marble. Look to the left: across the view passes the shaggy ridge of Hymettus, arid and scarred, as if wrought by the Titans, home only of goats and bees, of nymphs and satyrs.That was almost the self-same vision in the dim past when the first savage clambered this“Citadel of Cecrops”and spoke,“Here is my dwelling-place.”This will be the vision until earth and ocean are no more. The human habitation changes, the temples rise and crumble; the red and gray rock, the crystalline air, the sapphire sea, come from the god, and these remain.Glaucon and Hermione were come together to offer thanks to Athena for the glory of the Isthmus. The athlete had already mounted the citadel heading a myrtle-crowned procession to bear a formal thanksgiving, but his wife had not then been with him. Now they would go together, without pomp. They walked side by side. Nimble Chloë tripped behind with her mistress’s parasol. Old Manes bore the bloodless sacrifice, but Hermione said in her heart there came two too many.Many a friendly eye, many a friendly word, followed as they crossed the Agora, where traffic was in its morning bustle. Glaucon answered every greeting with his winsome smile.“All Athens seems our friend!”he said, as close by the Tyrannicides’ statues at the upper end of the plaza a grave councilman bowed and an old bread woman left her stall to bob a courtesy.[pg 86]“Isyourfriend,”corrected Hermione, thinking only of her husband,“for I have won no pentathlon.”“Ah,makaira, dearest and best,”he answered, looking not on the glorious citadel but on her face,“could I have won the parsley wreath had there been no better wreath awaiting me at Eleusis? And to-day I am gladdest of the glad. For the gods have sent me blessings beyond desert, I no longer fear their envy as once. I enjoy honour with all good men. I have no enemy in the world. I have the dearest of friends, Cimon, Themistocles—beyond all, Democrates. I am blessed in love beyond Peleus espoused to Thetis, or Anchises beloved of Aphrodite, for my golden Aphrodite lives not on Olympus, nor Paphos, nor comes on her doves from Cythera, but dwells—”“Peace.”The hand laid on his mouth was small but firm.“Do not anger the goddess by likening me unto her. It is joy enough for me if I can look up at the sun and say,‘I keep the love of Glaucon the Fortunate and the Good.’”Walking thus in their golden dream, the two crossed the Agora, turned to the left from the Pnyx, and by crooked lanes went past the craggy rock of Areopagus, till before them rose a wooden palisade and a gate. Through this a steep path led upward to the citadel. Not to the Acropolis of fame. The buildings then upon the Rock in one short year would lie in heaps of fire-scarred ruin. Yet in that hour before Glaucon and Hermione a not unworthy temple rose, the old“House of Athena,”prototype of the later Parthenon. In the morning light it stood in beauty—a hundred Doric columns, a sculptured pediment, flashing with white marble and with tints of scarlet, blue, and gold. Below it, over the irregular plateau of the Rock, spread avenues of votive statues of gods and heroes in stone, bronze, or painted wood. Here[pg 87]and there were numerous shrines and small temples, and a giant altar for burning a hundred oxen. So hand in hand the twain went to the bronze portal of the Temple. The kindly old priest on guard smiled as he sprinkled them with the purifying salt water out of the brazen laver. The door closed behind them. For a moment they seemed to stand in the high temple in utter darkness. Then far above through the marble roof a softened light came creeping toward them. As from unfolding mist, the great calm face of the ancient goddess looked down with its unchanging smile. A red coal glowed on the tripod at her feet. Glaucon shook incense over the brazier. While it smoked, Hermione laid the crown of lilies between the knees of the half-seen image, then her husband lifted his hands and prayed aloud.“Athena, Virgin, Queen, Deviser of Wisdom,—whatever be the name thou lovest best,—accept this offering and hear. Bless now us both. Give us to strive for the noblest, to speak the wise word, to love one another. Give us prosperity, but not unto pride. Bless all our friends; but if we have enemies, be thou their enemy also. And so shall we praise thee forever.”This was all the prayer and worship. A little more meditation, then husband and wife went forth from the sacred cella. The panorama—rocks, plain, sea, and bending heavens—opened before them in glory. The light faded upon the purple breasts of the western mountains. Behind the Acropolis, Lycabettus’s pyramid glowed like a furnace. The marble on distant Pentelicus shone dazzlingly.Glaucon stood on the easternmost pinnacle of the Rock, watching the landscape.“Joy,makaira, joy,”he cried,“we possess one another. We dwell in‘violet-crowned Athens’; for what else dare we to pray?”[pg 88]But Hermione pointed less pleased toward the crest of Pentelicus.“Behold it! How swiftly yonder gray cloud comes on a rushing wind! It will cover the brightness. The omen is bad.”“Why bad,makaira?”“The cloud is the Persian. He hangs to-day as a thunder-cloud above Athens and Hellas. Xerxes will come. And you—”She pressed closer to her husband.“Why speak of me?”he asked lightly.“Xerxes brings war. War brings sorrow to women. It is not the hateful and old that the spears and the arrows love best.”Half compelled by the omen, half by a sudden burst of unoccasioned fear, her eyes shone with tears; but her husband’s laugh rang clearly.“Euge!dry your eyes, and look before you. King Æolus scatters the cloud upon his briskest winds. It breaks into a thousand bits. So shall Themistocles scatter the hordes of Xerxes. The Persian shadow shall come, shall go, and again we shall be happy in beautiful Athens.”“Athena grant it!”prayed Hermione.“We can trust the goddess,”returned Glaucon, not to be shaken from his happy mood.“And now that we have paid our vows to her, let us descend. Our friends are already waiting for us by the Pnyx before they go down to the harbours.”As they went down the steep, Cimon and Democrates came running to join them, and in the brisk chatter that arose the omen of the cloud and fears of the Persian faded from Hermione’s mind.* * * * * * *[pg 89]It was a merry party such as often went down to the havens of Athens in the springtime and summer: a dozen gentlemen, old and young, for the most part married, and followed demurely by their wives with the latter’s maids, and many a stout Thracian slave tugging hampers of meat and drink. Laughter there was, admixed with wiser talk; friends walking by twos and threes, with Themistocles, as always, seeming to mingle with all and to surpass every one both in jests and in wisdom. So they fared down across the broad plain-land to the harbours, till the hill Munychia rose steep before them. A scramble over a rocky, ill-marked way led to the top; then before them broke a second view comparable almost to that from the Rock of Athena: at their feet lay the four blue havens of Athens, to the right Phaleron, closer at hand the land-locked bay of Munychia, beyond that Zea, beyond that still a broader sheet—Peiræus, the new war-harbour of Athens. They could look down on the brown roofs of the port-town, the forest of masts, the merchantman unloading lumber from the Euxine, the merchantman loading dried figs for Syria; but most of all on the numbers of long black hulls, some motionless on the placid harbour, some propped harmlessly on the shore. Hermione clouded as she saw them, and glanced away.“I do not love your new fleet, Themistocles,”she said, frowning at the handsome statesman;“I do not love anything that tells so clearly of war. It mars the beauty.”“Rather you should rejoice we have so fair a wooden wall against the Barbarian, dear lady,”answered he, quite at ease.“What can we do to hearten her, Democrates?”“Were I only Zeus,”rejoined the orator, who never was far from his best friend’s wife,“I would cast two thunderbolts, one to destroy Xerxes, the second to blast Themistocles’s armada,—so would the Lady Hermione be satisfied.”[pg 90]“I am sorry, then, you are not the Olympian,”said the woman, half smiling at the pleasantry. Cimon interrupted them. Some of the party had caught a sun-burned shepherd in among the rocks, a veritable Pan in his shaggy goat-skin. The bribe of two obols brought him out with his pipe. Four of the slave-boys fell to dancing. The party sat down upon the burnt grass,—eating, drinking, wreathing poppy-crowns, and watching the nimble slaves and the ships that crawled like ants in the haven and bay below. Thus passed the noon, and as the sun dropped toward craggy Salamis across the strait, the men of the party wandered down to the ports and found boats to take them out upon the bay.The wind was a zephyr. The water spread blue and glassy. The sun was sinking as a ball of infinite light. Themistocles, Democrates, and Glaucon were in one skiff, the athlete at the oars. They glided past the scores of black triremes swinging lazily at anchor. Twice they pulled around the proudest of the fleet,—theNausicaä, the gift of Hermippus to the state, a princely gift even in days when every Athenian put his all at the public service. She would be Themistocles’s flag-ship. The young men noted her fine lines, her heavy side timbers, the covered decks, an innovation in Athenian men-of-war, and Themistocles put a loving hand on the keen bronze beak as they swung around the prow.“Here’s a tooth for the Persian king!”he was laughing, when a second skiff, rounding the trireme in an opposite direction, collided abruptly. A lurch, a few splinters was all the hurt, but as the boats parted Themistocles rose from his seat in the stern, staring curiously.“Barbarians, by Athena’s owls, the knave at the oars is a sleek Syrian, and his master and the boy from the East too. What business around our war-fleet? Row after them, Glaucon; we’ll question—”[pg 91]“Glaucon does no such folly,”spoke Democrates, instantly, from the bow;“if the harbour-watch doesn’t interfere with honest traders, what’s it to us?”“As you like it.”Themistocles resumed his seat.“Yet it would do no harm. Now they row to another trireme. With what falcon eyes the master of the trio examines it! Something uncanny, I repeat.”“To examine everything strange,”proclaimed Democrates, sententiously,“needs the life of a crow, who, they say, lives a thousand years, but I don’t see any black wings budding on Themistocles’s shoulders. Pull onward, Glaucon.”“Whither?”demanded the rower.“To Salamis,”ordered Themistocles.“Let us see the battle-place foretold by the oracle.”“To Salamis or clear to Crete,”rejoined Glaucon, setting his strength upon the oars and making the skiff bound,“if we can find water deep enough to drown those gloomy looks that have sat on Democrates’s brows of late.”“Not gloomy but serious,”said the young orator, with an attempt at lightness;“I have been preparing my oration against the contractor I’ve indicted for embezzling the public naval stores.”“Destroy the man!”cried the rower.“And yet I really pity him; he was under great temptation.”“No excuses; the man who robs the city in days like these is worse than he who betrays fortresses in most wars.”“I see you are a savage patriot, Glaucon,”said Themistocles,“despite your Adonis face. We are fairly upon the bay; our nearest eavesdroppers, yon fishermen, are a good five furlongs. Would you see something?”Glaucon rested on the oars, while the statesman fumbled in his breast. He drew out a papyrus sheet, which he passed to the rower, he in turn to Democrates.[pg 92]“Look well, then, for I think no Persian spies are here. A month long have I wrought on this bit of papyrus. All my wisdom flowed out of my pen when I spread the ink. In short here is the ordering of the ships of the allied Greeks when we meet Xerxes in battle. Leonidas and our other chiefs gave me the task when we met at Corinth. To-day it is complete. Read it, for it is precious. Xerxes would give twenty talents for this one leaf from Egypt.”The young men peered at the sheet curiously. The details and diagrams were few and easy to remember, the Athenian ships here, the Æginetan next, the Corinthian next, and so with the other allies. A few comments on the use of the lightpentecontersbehind the heavy triremes. A few more comments on Xerxes’s probable naval tactics. Only the knowledge that Themistocles never committed himself in speech or writing without exhausting every expedient told the young men of the supreme importance of the paper. After due inspection the statesman replaced it in his breast.“You two have seen this,”he announced, seemingly proud of his handiwork;“Leonidas shall see this, then Xerxes, and after that—”he laughed, but not in jest—“men will remember Themistocles, son of Neocles!”The three lapsed into silence for a moment. The skiff was well out upon the sea. The shadows of the hills of Salamis and of Ægelaos, the opposing mountain of Attica, were spreading over them. Around the islet of Psyttaleia in the strait the brown fisher-boats were gliding. Beyond the strait opened the blue hill-girdled bay of Eleusis, now turning to fire in the evening sun. Everything was peaceful, silent, beautiful. Again Glaucon rested on his oars and let his eyes wander.“How true is the word of Thales the Sage,”he spoke;“‘the world is the fairest of all fair things, because it is the[pg 93]work of God.’It cannot be that, here, between these purple hills and the glistening sea, there will come that battle beside which the strife of Achilles and Hector before Troy shall pass as nothing!”Themistocles shook his head.“We do not know; we are dice in the high gods’ dice-boxes.“‘Man all vainly shall scan the mind of the Prince of Olympus.’“We can say nothing wiser than that. We can but use our Attic mother wit, and trust the rest to destiny. Let us be satisfied if we hope that destiny is not blind.”They drifted many moments in silence.“The sun sinks lower,”spoke Democrates, at length;“so back again to the havens.”On the return Themistocles once more vowed he caught a glimpse of the skiff of the unknown foreigners, but Democrates called it mere phantasy. Hermione met them at the Peiræus, and the party wandered back through the gathering dusk to the city, where each little group went its way. Themistocles went to his own house, where he said he expected Sicinnus; Cimon and Democrates sought a tavern for an evening cup; Glaucon and Hermione hastened to their house in the Colonus suburb near the trickling Cephissus, where in the starlit night the tettix4in the black old olives by the stream made its monotonous music, where great fireflies gleamed, where Philomela the nightingale called, and the tall plane trees whispered softly to the pines. When Hermione fell asleep, she had forgotten about the coming of the Persian, and dreamed that Glaucon was Eros, she was Psyche, and that Zeus was giving her the wings of a butterfly and a crown of stars.[pg 94]Democrates went home later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea from it—that Themistocles had revealed that day a priceless secret, that the statesman and Glaucon and he himself were the only men who shared it, and that it was believed that Glaucon had visited the Babylonish carpet-seller. Joined to this was an overpowering consciousness that Helen of Troy was not so lovely as Hermione of Eleusis. When he came to his lodgings, however, his wits cleared in a twinkling after he had read two letters. The first was short.“Themistocles to Democrates:—This evening I begin to discover something. Sicinnus, who has been searching in Athens, is certain there is a Persian agent in the city. Seize him.—Chaire.”The second was shorter. It came from Corinth.“Socias the merchant to Democrates:—Tyrrhenian pirates have taken the ship. Lading and crew are utterly lost.—Chaire.”The orator never closed his eyes that night.

The Acropolis of Athens rises as does no other citadel in the world. Had no workers in marble or bronze, no weavers of eloquence or song, dwelt beneath its shadow, it would stand the centre and cynosure of a remarkable landscape. It is“The Rock,”no other like unto it. Is it enough to say its ruddy limestone rises as a huge boulder one hundred and fifty feet above the plain, that its breadth is five hundred, its length one thousand? Numbers and measures can never disclose a soul,—and the Rock of Athens has all but a soul: a soul seems to glow through its adamant when the fire-footed morning steals over the long crest of Hymettus, and touches the citadel’s red bulk with unearthly brightness; a soul when the day falls to sleep in the arms of night as Helios sinks over the western hill by Daphni. Then the Rock seems to throb and burn with life again.

It is so bare that the hungry goats can hardly crop one spear of grass along its jagged slopes. It is so steep it scarce needs defence against an army. It is so commanding that he who stands on the westmost pinnacle can look across the windy hill of the Pnyx, across the brown plain-land and down to the sparkling blue sea with the busy havens of Peiræus and Phalerum, the scattered gray isles of the Ægean, and far away to the domelike crest of Acro-Corinthus. Let him turn to the right: below him nestles the[pg 85]gnarled hill of Areopagus, home of the Furies, the buzzing plaza of the Agora, the closely clustered city. Behind, there spread mountain, valley, plain,—here green, here brown, here golden,—with Pentelicus the Mighty rearing behind all, his summits fretted white, not with winter snows, but with lustrous marble. Look to the left: across the view passes the shaggy ridge of Hymettus, arid and scarred, as if wrought by the Titans, home only of goats and bees, of nymphs and satyrs.

That was almost the self-same vision in the dim past when the first savage clambered this“Citadel of Cecrops”and spoke,“Here is my dwelling-place.”This will be the vision until earth and ocean are no more. The human habitation changes, the temples rise and crumble; the red and gray rock, the crystalline air, the sapphire sea, come from the god, and these remain.

Glaucon and Hermione were come together to offer thanks to Athena for the glory of the Isthmus. The athlete had already mounted the citadel heading a myrtle-crowned procession to bear a formal thanksgiving, but his wife had not then been with him. Now they would go together, without pomp. They walked side by side. Nimble Chloë tripped behind with her mistress’s parasol. Old Manes bore the bloodless sacrifice, but Hermione said in her heart there came two too many.

Many a friendly eye, many a friendly word, followed as they crossed the Agora, where traffic was in its morning bustle. Glaucon answered every greeting with his winsome smile.

“All Athens seems our friend!”he said, as close by the Tyrannicides’ statues at the upper end of the plaza a grave councilman bowed and an old bread woman left her stall to bob a courtesy.

“Isyourfriend,”corrected Hermione, thinking only of her husband,“for I have won no pentathlon.”

“Ah,makaira, dearest and best,”he answered, looking not on the glorious citadel but on her face,“could I have won the parsley wreath had there been no better wreath awaiting me at Eleusis? And to-day I am gladdest of the glad. For the gods have sent me blessings beyond desert, I no longer fear their envy as once. I enjoy honour with all good men. I have no enemy in the world. I have the dearest of friends, Cimon, Themistocles—beyond all, Democrates. I am blessed in love beyond Peleus espoused to Thetis, or Anchises beloved of Aphrodite, for my golden Aphrodite lives not on Olympus, nor Paphos, nor comes on her doves from Cythera, but dwells—”

“Peace.”The hand laid on his mouth was small but firm.“Do not anger the goddess by likening me unto her. It is joy enough for me if I can look up at the sun and say,‘I keep the love of Glaucon the Fortunate and the Good.’”

Walking thus in their golden dream, the two crossed the Agora, turned to the left from the Pnyx, and by crooked lanes went past the craggy rock of Areopagus, till before them rose a wooden palisade and a gate. Through this a steep path led upward to the citadel. Not to the Acropolis of fame. The buildings then upon the Rock in one short year would lie in heaps of fire-scarred ruin. Yet in that hour before Glaucon and Hermione a not unworthy temple rose, the old“House of Athena,”prototype of the later Parthenon. In the morning light it stood in beauty—a hundred Doric columns, a sculptured pediment, flashing with white marble and with tints of scarlet, blue, and gold. Below it, over the irregular plateau of the Rock, spread avenues of votive statues of gods and heroes in stone, bronze, or painted wood. Here[pg 87]and there were numerous shrines and small temples, and a giant altar for burning a hundred oxen. So hand in hand the twain went to the bronze portal of the Temple. The kindly old priest on guard smiled as he sprinkled them with the purifying salt water out of the brazen laver. The door closed behind them. For a moment they seemed to stand in the high temple in utter darkness. Then far above through the marble roof a softened light came creeping toward them. As from unfolding mist, the great calm face of the ancient goddess looked down with its unchanging smile. A red coal glowed on the tripod at her feet. Glaucon shook incense over the brazier. While it smoked, Hermione laid the crown of lilies between the knees of the half-seen image, then her husband lifted his hands and prayed aloud.

“Athena, Virgin, Queen, Deviser of Wisdom,—whatever be the name thou lovest best,—accept this offering and hear. Bless now us both. Give us to strive for the noblest, to speak the wise word, to love one another. Give us prosperity, but not unto pride. Bless all our friends; but if we have enemies, be thou their enemy also. And so shall we praise thee forever.”

This was all the prayer and worship. A little more meditation, then husband and wife went forth from the sacred cella. The panorama—rocks, plain, sea, and bending heavens—opened before them in glory. The light faded upon the purple breasts of the western mountains. Behind the Acropolis, Lycabettus’s pyramid glowed like a furnace. The marble on distant Pentelicus shone dazzlingly.

Glaucon stood on the easternmost pinnacle of the Rock, watching the landscape.

“Joy,makaira, joy,”he cried,“we possess one another. We dwell in‘violet-crowned Athens’; for what else dare we to pray?”

But Hermione pointed less pleased toward the crest of Pentelicus.

“Behold it! How swiftly yonder gray cloud comes on a rushing wind! It will cover the brightness. The omen is bad.”

“Why bad,makaira?”

“The cloud is the Persian. He hangs to-day as a thunder-cloud above Athens and Hellas. Xerxes will come. And you—”

She pressed closer to her husband.

“Why speak of me?”he asked lightly.

“Xerxes brings war. War brings sorrow to women. It is not the hateful and old that the spears and the arrows love best.”

Half compelled by the omen, half by a sudden burst of unoccasioned fear, her eyes shone with tears; but her husband’s laugh rang clearly.

“Euge!dry your eyes, and look before you. King Æolus scatters the cloud upon his briskest winds. It breaks into a thousand bits. So shall Themistocles scatter the hordes of Xerxes. The Persian shadow shall come, shall go, and again we shall be happy in beautiful Athens.”

“Athena grant it!”prayed Hermione.

“We can trust the goddess,”returned Glaucon, not to be shaken from his happy mood.“And now that we have paid our vows to her, let us descend. Our friends are already waiting for us by the Pnyx before they go down to the harbours.”

As they went down the steep, Cimon and Democrates came running to join them, and in the brisk chatter that arose the omen of the cloud and fears of the Persian faded from Hermione’s mind.

* * * * * * *

It was a merry party such as often went down to the havens of Athens in the springtime and summer: a dozen gentlemen, old and young, for the most part married, and followed demurely by their wives with the latter’s maids, and many a stout Thracian slave tugging hampers of meat and drink. Laughter there was, admixed with wiser talk; friends walking by twos and threes, with Themistocles, as always, seeming to mingle with all and to surpass every one both in jests and in wisdom. So they fared down across the broad plain-land to the harbours, till the hill Munychia rose steep before them. A scramble over a rocky, ill-marked way led to the top; then before them broke a second view comparable almost to that from the Rock of Athena: at their feet lay the four blue havens of Athens, to the right Phaleron, closer at hand the land-locked bay of Munychia, beyond that Zea, beyond that still a broader sheet—Peiræus, the new war-harbour of Athens. They could look down on the brown roofs of the port-town, the forest of masts, the merchantman unloading lumber from the Euxine, the merchantman loading dried figs for Syria; but most of all on the numbers of long black hulls, some motionless on the placid harbour, some propped harmlessly on the shore. Hermione clouded as she saw them, and glanced away.

“I do not love your new fleet, Themistocles,”she said, frowning at the handsome statesman;“I do not love anything that tells so clearly of war. It mars the beauty.”

“Rather you should rejoice we have so fair a wooden wall against the Barbarian, dear lady,”answered he, quite at ease.“What can we do to hearten her, Democrates?”

“Were I only Zeus,”rejoined the orator, who never was far from his best friend’s wife,“I would cast two thunderbolts, one to destroy Xerxes, the second to blast Themistocles’s armada,—so would the Lady Hermione be satisfied.”

“I am sorry, then, you are not the Olympian,”said the woman, half smiling at the pleasantry. Cimon interrupted them. Some of the party had caught a sun-burned shepherd in among the rocks, a veritable Pan in his shaggy goat-skin. The bribe of two obols brought him out with his pipe. Four of the slave-boys fell to dancing. The party sat down upon the burnt grass,—eating, drinking, wreathing poppy-crowns, and watching the nimble slaves and the ships that crawled like ants in the haven and bay below. Thus passed the noon, and as the sun dropped toward craggy Salamis across the strait, the men of the party wandered down to the ports and found boats to take them out upon the bay.

The wind was a zephyr. The water spread blue and glassy. The sun was sinking as a ball of infinite light. Themistocles, Democrates, and Glaucon were in one skiff, the athlete at the oars. They glided past the scores of black triremes swinging lazily at anchor. Twice they pulled around the proudest of the fleet,—theNausicaä, the gift of Hermippus to the state, a princely gift even in days when every Athenian put his all at the public service. She would be Themistocles’s flag-ship. The young men noted her fine lines, her heavy side timbers, the covered decks, an innovation in Athenian men-of-war, and Themistocles put a loving hand on the keen bronze beak as they swung around the prow.

“Here’s a tooth for the Persian king!”he was laughing, when a second skiff, rounding the trireme in an opposite direction, collided abruptly. A lurch, a few splinters was all the hurt, but as the boats parted Themistocles rose from his seat in the stern, staring curiously.

“Barbarians, by Athena’s owls, the knave at the oars is a sleek Syrian, and his master and the boy from the East too. What business around our war-fleet? Row after them, Glaucon; we’ll question—”

“Glaucon does no such folly,”spoke Democrates, instantly, from the bow;“if the harbour-watch doesn’t interfere with honest traders, what’s it to us?”

“As you like it.”Themistocles resumed his seat.“Yet it would do no harm. Now they row to another trireme. With what falcon eyes the master of the trio examines it! Something uncanny, I repeat.”

“To examine everything strange,”proclaimed Democrates, sententiously,“needs the life of a crow, who, they say, lives a thousand years, but I don’t see any black wings budding on Themistocles’s shoulders. Pull onward, Glaucon.”

“Whither?”demanded the rower.

“To Salamis,”ordered Themistocles.“Let us see the battle-place foretold by the oracle.”

“To Salamis or clear to Crete,”rejoined Glaucon, setting his strength upon the oars and making the skiff bound,“if we can find water deep enough to drown those gloomy looks that have sat on Democrates’s brows of late.”

“Not gloomy but serious,”said the young orator, with an attempt at lightness;“I have been preparing my oration against the contractor I’ve indicted for embezzling the public naval stores.”

“Destroy the man!”cried the rower.

“And yet I really pity him; he was under great temptation.”

“No excuses; the man who robs the city in days like these is worse than he who betrays fortresses in most wars.”

“I see you are a savage patriot, Glaucon,”said Themistocles,“despite your Adonis face. We are fairly upon the bay; our nearest eavesdroppers, yon fishermen, are a good five furlongs. Would you see something?”Glaucon rested on the oars, while the statesman fumbled in his breast. He drew out a papyrus sheet, which he passed to the rower, he in turn to Democrates.

“Look well, then, for I think no Persian spies are here. A month long have I wrought on this bit of papyrus. All my wisdom flowed out of my pen when I spread the ink. In short here is the ordering of the ships of the allied Greeks when we meet Xerxes in battle. Leonidas and our other chiefs gave me the task when we met at Corinth. To-day it is complete. Read it, for it is precious. Xerxes would give twenty talents for this one leaf from Egypt.”

The young men peered at the sheet curiously. The details and diagrams were few and easy to remember, the Athenian ships here, the Æginetan next, the Corinthian next, and so with the other allies. A few comments on the use of the lightpentecontersbehind the heavy triremes. A few more comments on Xerxes’s probable naval tactics. Only the knowledge that Themistocles never committed himself in speech or writing without exhausting every expedient told the young men of the supreme importance of the paper. After due inspection the statesman replaced it in his breast.

“You two have seen this,”he announced, seemingly proud of his handiwork;“Leonidas shall see this, then Xerxes, and after that—”he laughed, but not in jest—“men will remember Themistocles, son of Neocles!”

The three lapsed into silence for a moment. The skiff was well out upon the sea. The shadows of the hills of Salamis and of Ægelaos, the opposing mountain of Attica, were spreading over them. Around the islet of Psyttaleia in the strait the brown fisher-boats were gliding. Beyond the strait opened the blue hill-girdled bay of Eleusis, now turning to fire in the evening sun. Everything was peaceful, silent, beautiful. Again Glaucon rested on his oars and let his eyes wander.

“How true is the word of Thales the Sage,”he spoke;“‘the world is the fairest of all fair things, because it is the[pg 93]work of God.’It cannot be that, here, between these purple hills and the glistening sea, there will come that battle beside which the strife of Achilles and Hector before Troy shall pass as nothing!”

Themistocles shook his head.

“We do not know; we are dice in the high gods’ dice-boxes.

“‘Man all vainly shall scan the mind of the Prince of Olympus.’

“We can say nothing wiser than that. We can but use our Attic mother wit, and trust the rest to destiny. Let us be satisfied if we hope that destiny is not blind.”

They drifted many moments in silence.

“The sun sinks lower,”spoke Democrates, at length;“so back again to the havens.”

On the return Themistocles once more vowed he caught a glimpse of the skiff of the unknown foreigners, but Democrates called it mere phantasy. Hermione met them at the Peiræus, and the party wandered back through the gathering dusk to the city, where each little group went its way. Themistocles went to his own house, where he said he expected Sicinnus; Cimon and Democrates sought a tavern for an evening cup; Glaucon and Hermione hastened to their house in the Colonus suburb near the trickling Cephissus, where in the starlit night the tettix4in the black old olives by the stream made its monotonous music, where great fireflies gleamed, where Philomela the nightingale called, and the tall plane trees whispered softly to the pines. When Hermione fell asleep, she had forgotten about the coming of the Persian, and dreamed that Glaucon was Eros, she was Psyche, and that Zeus was giving her the wings of a butterfly and a crown of stars.

Democrates went home later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea from it—that Themistocles had revealed that day a priceless secret, that the statesman and Glaucon and he himself were the only men who shared it, and that it was believed that Glaucon had visited the Babylonish carpet-seller. Joined to this was an overpowering consciousness that Helen of Troy was not so lovely as Hermione of Eleusis. When he came to his lodgings, however, his wits cleared in a twinkling after he had read two letters. The first was short.

“Themistocles to Democrates:—This evening I begin to discover something. Sicinnus, who has been searching in Athens, is certain there is a Persian agent in the city. Seize him.—Chaire.”

The second was shorter. It came from Corinth.

“Socias the merchant to Democrates:—Tyrrhenian pirates have taken the ship. Lading and crew are utterly lost.—Chaire.”

The orator never closed his eyes that night.

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