BARSINÉ.
BARSINÉ.
It was not for long, however, that Charidemus was destined to enjoy these somewhat lonely days, and evenings that seemed only too short. About a week after the day on which he made his first acquaintance with Memnon and his wife, he was roused from his sleep about an hour before dawn by a visit from the governor himself.
“Dress yourself at once,” said Memnon, “I will wait for you.”
“We can hold the place no longer,” the governor explained to his prisoner, as they hurried down the steep path that led from the citadel to the harbour. “I am leaving a garrison in the citadels, but the town is lost. Luckily for me, though not, perhaps, for you, I have still command of the sea.”
The harbour was soon reached. Memnon’s ship was waiting for him, and put off the moment the gangway was withdrawn; the rest of the squadron had already gained the open sea.
“You must make yourself as comfortable asyou can on deck; the ladies have the cabin. Happily the night is fine, and our voyages hereabouts are not very long. The Ægean is the very Elysium of fair-weather sailors.”
Charidemus rolled himself up in the cloak with which, at Memnon’s bidding, a sailor had furnished him, and slept soundly, under one of the bulwarks, till he was awakened by the increasing heat of the sun. When he had performed as much of a toilet as the means at his disposal would permit, he was joined by Memnon, and conducted to the after-deck, where the breakfast table had been spread under an awning of canvas.
Presently the ladies appeared. Barsiné was one of them; the other was a very beautiful girl, who may have numbered thirteen or fourteen summers. “My niece, Clearista,” said Memnon, “daughter,” he added in a whisper, “of my brother Mentor;” and then aloud, “The most troublesome charge that a poor uncle was ever plagued with.” The damsel shook her chestnut locks at him, and turned away with a pout, which was about as sincere as her uncle’s complaint. The next moment a lad of ten, who had been trailing a baited hook over the stern, made his appearance. This was Memnon’s son, another Mentor. His tutor, the Nicon, whose acquaintance we have already made, followed him, and the party was now complete.
It was Clearista’s first voyage, and her wonderand delight were beyond expression. The sea, calm as a mirror, and blue as a sapphire, under a cloudless sky; the rhythmic dash of the oars as they rose and fell in time to the monotonous music of the fugleman standing high upon the stern; the skimming flight of the sea-birds as they followed the galley in the hope of some morsels of food; the gambols of a shoal of dolphins, playing about so near that it seemed as if they must be struck by the oars or even run down by the prow—these, and all the sights and sounds of the voyage fairly overpowered her with pleasure. Everything about her seemed to breathe of freedom; and she had scarcely ever been outside the door of the women’s apartments, or, at most, the walks of a garden. Who can wonder at her ecstasy? Memnon and Barsiné looked on with indulgent smiles. Young Mentor, who had seen a good deal more of the world than had his cousin, felt slightly superior. As for Charidemus he lost his heart on the spot. Child as she was—and she was young for her years—Clearista seemed to him the most beautiful creature that he had ever beheld.
The day’s companionship did not fail to deepen this impression. With a playful imperiousness, which had not a touch of coquetry in it, the girl commanded his services, and he was more than content to fetch and carry for her from morning till night. He brought her pieces of bread when it occurred to her that she should like to feed thegulls; he baited her hook when she conceived the ambition of catching a fish; and he helped her to secure the small sword-fish which she was lucky enough to hook, but was far too frightened to pull up. When the sun grew so hot as to compel her to take shelter under the awning the two told each other their stories. The girl’s was very brief and uneventful, little more than the tale of journeys, mostly performed in a closed litter, from one town to another; but the young man thought it profoundly interesting. He, on the other hand, had really something to tell, and she listened with a flattering mixture of wonder, admiration, and terror. Towards evening the unwonted excitement had fairly worn her out, and she was reluctantly compelled to seek her cabin.
Our hero was gazing somewhat disconsolately over the bulwarks when he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder. He turned, and saw Memnon standing behind him with a somewhat sad smile upon his face.
“Melancholy, my young friend?” he said. “Well, I have something to tell you that may cheer you up. I did not forget you yesterday when we left the town. Of course it would not have done to let your people get any inkling of my plans. If they had guessed that we were going to evacuate the place, they might have given us a good deal of trouble in getting off. So instead of sending any message myself, I left onefor the commander of the garrison to send as soon as we were safely gone. Briefly, it was to say that I was ready to exchange you for any one of four prisoners-of-war whom I named—I might have said all four without making a particularly good bargain, for, if you will allow a man who is old enough to be your father to say so, I like your looks. If they accepted—and I cannot suppose for a moment that they will hesitate—they were to send out a boat with a flag of truce from Miletus, where we shall be in two hours’ time or so, if the weather holds good. Then we shall have to say good-bye.”
“I shall never forget your kindness,” cried Charidemus.
“Well, my son, some day you may be able to make me or mine a return for it.”
“Command me,” answered the young man in a tone of unmistakeable sincerity; “you shall be heartily welcome to anything that I can do for you or yours.”
“Listen then,” said Memnon. “First, there is something that you can do for me. Perhaps it is a foolish vanity, but I should like to be set right some day in the eyes of the world. You will keep what I am going to tell you to yourself till you think that the proper time for telling it is come. I shall be gone then, but I should not like those that come after me to think that I was an incompetent fool. Well, then, your king never ought to have beenallowed to land in Asia. We could have prevented it. We had the command of the sea. We had only to bring up the Phœnician squadron, which was doing nothing at all, and our force would have been perfectly overwhelming. Look at the state of affairs now! Your king has positively disbanded his fleet. He knew perfectly well that it had not a chance with ours, and that it was merely a useless expense to him. Just as we could now prevent him from returning, so we could have prevented him from coming. For, believe me, we were as strong in ships six months ago as we are now, and I urged this on the king with all my might. He seemed persuaded. But he was overborne. Some headstrong fools, who unfortunately had his ear, could not be content, forsooth, but they must measure their strength with Alexander. So he was allowed to come, to land his army without losing a single man. Still, even then, something might have been done. I knew that we could not bring an army into the field that could stand against him for an hour. The Persians never were a match for the Greeks, man to man; and besides, the Persians are nothing like what they were a hundred and fifty years ago. And the Greek mercenaries could not be relied upon. They were the scum of the cities, and many of them no more Greeks than they are gods. Any man who had a smattering of Greek, and could manage to procure an old suit of armour, could get himself hired; and verylikely the only thing Greek about him was his name, and that he had stolen. Well, I knew that such as they were, and without a leader, too—even the best mercenaries without a leader go for very little—they would be worth next to nothing. So I went to Arsites, who was satrap of Phrygia, and in chief command, and said to him, ‘Don’t fight; we shall most infallibly be beaten. There is nothing in Asia that can stand against the army which we have allowed Alexander to bring over. Fall back before him; waste the country as you go, burn the houses; burn even the towns, if you do not like to detach men enough to hold them. Don’t let the enemy find a morsel to eat that he has not brought himself, or a roof to shelter him that he does not himself put up. And then attack him at home. He has brought all the best of his army with him. What he has left behind him to garrison his own dominions is very weak indeed, poor troops, and not many of them. And then he has enemies all round him. The Thracians on the north are always ready for a fight, and in the south there are the Greeks, who hate him most fervently, and have a long score against him and his father, which they would dearly like to wipe out. Half the men that you have with you here, and who will be scattered like clouds before the north-wind, if you try to meet him in battle, will raise such a storm behind him in his own country that he will have no choice but to turn back.’ Well,Arsites would not listen to me. ‘If you are afraid,’ he said, ‘you can go, you and your men; we shall be able to do very well without you. As for wasting the country and burning the houses, the idea is monstrous. The king has given it into my sole keeping, and there it shall be. Not a field shall be touched, not a house shall be burnt in my province. As for dividing the army, and sending half of it into Europe, it is madness. What good did Darius and Xerxes get by sending armies thither? No—the man has chosen to dare us on our ground, and we will give him a lesson which he and his people will never forget.’ I urged my views again, and then the fellow insulted me. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it does not suit you to put an end to the war. The more it is prolonged, the more necessary you will be thought.’ After that, of course, there was nothing more to be said. We fought, and everything happened exactly as I had foretold. Then the king made me commander-in-chief; but it was too late. I shall be able to do something with the fleet, of course; I shall get hold of some of the islands; but what good will that do when your Alexander is marching, perhaps, on Susa?”
He paused for a while, and took a few turns upon the deck, then he began again.
“As for myself, the end is very near; I have not many months to live. I should like to have measured my strength with this Alexander of yourswithout having a pack of incompetent satraps to hamper me. Perhaps it is as well for me and my reputation that I never shall. You know my name is not exactly a good omen. He calls himself the descendant of Achilles, and verily I can believe it. Any one who saw him fighting by the river bank on the day of the Granīcus might well have thought that it was Achilles come to life again, just as he was when he drove the Trojans through the Xanthus. How gloriously handsome he was! what blows he dealt! Well, you remember—though I don’t think it is in Homer,[29]that there was another Memnon who fought with the son of Peleus, and came off the worse; and I might do the same. Doubtless it was in the fates that all this should happen. I have felt for some time that the end was coming for the Great King; though, as I think I told you the other day, I am not at all sure that the change from Darius to Alexander will be for the better. And now for my present concerns. My wife and child are going to Susa. It is the way with the Persians to take a man’s family as hostages when they put him into a place of trust. Under other circumstances I mighthave refused. If the Persians wanted my services they must have been content to have them on my own terms. As it is, I do not object. My people will be safer there than anywhere else where I can put them. And that sweet child Clearista will go with them. But I feel troubled about them; they have that fatal gift of beauty. Good Gods, why do ye make women so fair? they break men’s hearts and their own. And there is little Mentor too. My elder sons—children, you will understand, of my first wife—can take care of themselves; but my wife and my niece and the dear boy are helpless. Now what I want you to promise is that, if you can, you will protect them. Your Alexander may reach Susa; I think he will; I do not see what there is to stop him. If he does, and you are with him, think of me, and do what you can to help them.”
The young man felt a great wave of love and pity surge up in his heart as this appeal was made to him.
“By Zeus and all the gods in heaven,” he cried, “I will hold them as dear as my own life.”
“The gods reward you for it,” said Memnon, wringing his young friend’s hand, while the unaccustomed tears gathered in his eyes.
Then silence fell between the two. It was interrupted by the approach of a sailor.
“My lord,” said the man, addressing himself to Memnon, “there is a boat coming out from Miletus with a flag of truce.”
“Ha!” cried Memnon, “they are sending for you. Well I am sorry to part. But it is for your good, and for mine too, for I trust you as I would trust my own son.”
Turning to the man who had brought the message, he said, “I expected the boat. Tell the captain from me to lie to till she boards us.”
When the little craft drew near enough for the occupants to be distinguished, Memnon burst into a laugh. “Ah!” he said, “they have put a proper value on you, my young friend. They have positively sent all four. I did not like, as I told you, to ask for more than one; but here they all are. It is not exactly a compliment to them; but they won’t mind that, if they get their freedom.”
Very shortly afterwards the boat came alongside; and a Macedonian officer climbed up the side of the galley. He made a profoundly respectful salutation to Memnon, and then presented a letter. The document ran thus:
“Alexander, King of the Macedonians, and Commander of the United Armies of the Hellenes to Memnon, Commander of the Armies of the King, greeting.“I consent to the exchange which you propose. But as I would not be as Diomed, who gave brass in exchange for gold, I send you the four prisoners whom you mention, in exchange for Charidemus the Macedonian. Farewell.”
“Alexander, King of the Macedonians, and Commander of the United Armies of the Hellenes to Memnon, Commander of the Armies of the King, greeting.
“I consent to the exchange which you propose. But as I would not be as Diomed, who gave brass in exchange for gold, I send you the four prisoners whom you mention, in exchange for Charidemus the Macedonian. Farewell.”
The letter had been written by a secretary, but ithad the bold autograph of Alexander, signed across it.
“My thanks to the king your master, who is as generous as he is brave,” was the message which Memnon gave to the officer in charge. The four exchanged prisoners now made their way up the side of the ship, were courteously received by Memnon, and bidden to report themselves to the captain.
“Will your lordship please to sign this receipt for the prisoners?” said the Macedonian officer.
This was duly done.
“Will you drink a cup of wine?” asked Memnon.
The officer thanked him for his politeness, but declined. He was under orders to return without delay.
“Then,” said Memnon, “your countryman shall accompany you directly. You will give him a few moments to make his adieus.”
The Macedonian bowed assent, and the two descended into the cabin. Barsiné was sitting busy with her needle by the side of a couch on which Clearista lay fast asleep.
“Our young friend leaves us immediately,” said Memnon to his wife; “I proposed an exchange, as you know, and it has been accepted. The boat is waiting to take him ashore. He is coming to say farewell.”
“We are sorry to lose you,” said Barsiné, “more sorry, I fancy, than you are to go.”
“Lady,” said Charidemus, “you put me in a sore strait when you say such a thing. All my future lies elsewhere; but at least I can cherish the recollection of your kindness. Never, surely, had a prisoner less reason to wish for freedom.”
“And now,” said Memnon, in as light a tone as he could assume, “I should like to give our young friend a keepsake. It is possible that you may meet him at Susa.”
“Meet him at Susa,” echoed Barsiné, in astonishment, “how can that be?”
“My darling,” returned Mentor, “if our people cannot make any better stand against Alexander than they did at the Granīcus, there is no reason why he should not get to Susa, or anywhere else for that matter.”
Barsiné turned pale, for lightly as her husband spoke, she knew that he meant something very serious indeed.
“Yes,” continued her husband, “you may meet him there, and he may be able to be of some use to you. I give him, you see, this ring;” he took, as he spoke, a ring set with a handsome sapphire from a casket that stood near. “If he can help you I know he will come himself, if anything should hinder him from doing that, he will give it to some one whom he can trust. Put yourself and your children in his hands, or in the hands of his deputy.”
“Oh! why do you talk like this?” cried Barsiné.
“Darling,” replied Memnon, “it is well to be prepared for everything. This invasionmaycome to nothing. But if it does not, if Alexander does make his way to the capital—well, it is not to me you will have to look for help; by that time I shall——”
The poor woman started up and laid her hand upon the speaker’s mouth.
“Good words, good words!” she cried.
He smiled. “You are right, for as your favourite Homer says:
“‘In sooth on the knees of the gods lieth all whereof we speak.’
“‘In sooth on the knees of the gods lieth all whereof we speak.’
“‘In sooth on the knees of the gods lieth all whereof we speak.’
And now give him something yourself that he may remember you by.”
She detached a locket that hung round her neck, and put it into his hand. He raised it respectfully to his lips.
“And Clearista—she might spare something. Artemis bless the child! how soundly she sleeps!” said Memnon, looking affectionately at the slumbering girl. And indeed the voices of the speakers had failed to rouse her. Exquisitely lovely did she look as she slept, her cheek tinged with a delicate flush, her lips parted in a faint smile, her chestnut hair falling loosely over the purple coverlet of the couch.
“The darling won’t mind a curl,” said Memnon; “put that in my wife’s locket, and you will remember both of them together;” and he cut off a little ringlet from the end of a straggling lock.
One of the sailors tapped at the cabin door.
“Yes; we are coming,” said Memnon. The young man caught Barsiné’s hand and pressed it to his lips; he knelt down and imprinted a gentle kiss on Clearista’s right hand. She smiled in her sleep, but still did not wake. A few moments afterwards he was in the boat, Memnon pressing into his hand at the last moment a purse, which he afterwards found to contain a roll of thirty Darics and some valuable jewels. In the course of an hour he stepped on to the quay of Miletus, a free man, but feeling curiously little pleasure in his recovered liberty.
On landing at Miletus Charidemus found a letter from the king awaiting him. After expressing his pleasure that he had been able to regain services that were so valuable, and paying him the compliment of saying that he considered the exchange had been very much to his own advantage, Alexander continued, “I desire to see you so soon after you have regained your liberty as you can contrive to come to me. You can journey either by land or sea. In either case you have at your disposal all that you may need. But I should advise that you come by sea, for I expect by the time within which you can probably reach me to be not far from the coast of Syria. The gods preserve you in the future as they have in the past!”
The officer in charge of the garrison of Miletus held very decidedly the same opinion as the king. “You can understand,” he said, when Charidemus went to report himself, “that the country is at present very unsettled. When such an army as that we foughtwith at the Granīcus is broken up, a great number of the men naturally become brigands. I do not doubt but that every forest between here and Lycia is full of them. Even without the brigands, the roads would hardly be safe. At present, you see, it is all an enemy’s country, except where we have garrisons. No; you could not travel without danger, unless I gave you all my garrison for an escort. Of course there are risks by sea. In the first place, it is very late for a voyage; and then there are Phœnician cruisers about. Still I should strongly recommend this way of going; and, by good luck, I can put the very fastest ship and the very best captain that we have at your disposal. I will send for him, and you shall hear what he says.”
In about an hour’s time, accordingly, the captain presented himself, a weather-beaten sailor, somewhat advanced in years, if one might judge from his grizzled hair and beard, but as vigorous and alert as a youth. He made light of the difficulty of the time of the year. “Give me a good ship and a good crew, and I will sail at any time you please from one equinox to the other; and let me say that you will not find a better ship than theCentaurbetween here and the Pillars of Hercules. As for the crew, I can warrant them. I have trained them myself. And I am not much afraid of Phœnician cruisers. Of course accidents may happen; but I know that in a fair fight or a fair chase, theCentaurand its crew can hold their own against anything that ever came out of Tyre or Sidon. And now, my good sir, when can you start? The sooner the better, I say, for the Persians are busy just now in the north, and we may very well get to our journey’s end without any trouble at all.”
Charidemus said that he had nothing to keep him in Miletus, and that the speedier the start the better he would be pleased. Before sunrise next morning, accordingly, theCentaurwas on its way, with a fresh following breeze from the north that spared the rowers all trouble. Halicarnassus was passed towards evening, and Rhodes the next day, brilliant in the sunshine with which its patron, the sun-god, was said always to favour it. The wind here began to fail them somewhat, as their course became more easterly; but the sea was calm, and the rowers, an admirably trained crew, who acknowledged no equals in the Western Mediterranean, got over distances that would have seemed incredible to their passenger had he not been an eye-witness of their accomplishment. Pleusicles, the captain, was in high spirits, and brought out of the store of his memory or his imagination yarn after yarn. He had begun his seafaring life nearly forty years before under the Athenian admiral Iphicrates—he was an Æginetan by birth—and had seen that commander’s brilliant victory over the combined fleets of Sparta and Syracuse.[30]He had been in everynaval battle that had been fought since then; first in the service of Athens, and then, either from some offence given or from unpunctuality in the matter of payment, going over to Philip of Macedon. Intervals of peace he had employed in commercial enterprises. He knew the Mediterranean from end to end, from Tyre to the Pillars, from Cyrene to Massilia. From Massilia, indeed, he had gone on his most adventurous voyage. A Greek traveller, Pytheas by name, had engaged him for an expedition which was to explore regions altogether unknown. Pleusicles related how they had sailed through the Straits of Calpe[31]into the immeasurable Ocean beyond, how they had with difficulty forced their way through leagues of matted sea-weed, and had come after months of difficult travel to an island in the northern sea, a land of much rain and little sunshine, where on a narrow strip of open ground between vast forests and the sea the natives cultivated some precarious crops of corn.[32]Of so much Pleusicles had been himself an eye-witness: but there were greater marvels of which he knew only by hearsay, a yet remoter island surrounded by what was neither land nor sea nor air, but a mixture of all, one huge jelly-fish, as it were, and a tribe with whom amber, a rare and precious thing among theGreeks, was so abundant that it was used as firewood.
On the third day theCentaurreached Patara on the Lycian coast, and on the next the Greek city of Phaselis. Here Charidemus found the king, who was engaged in one of those literary episodes with which he was wont to relieve his military life. The pride of Phaselis was its famous citizen, Theodectes, poet and orator. He had been the pupil, or rather the friend, of Aristotle. As such Alexander had known him when he himself had sat at the feet of the great philosopher. Indeed, though there was as much as twenty years difference between their ages, the prince and the poet had themselves been friends. Theodectes had died the year before in the very prime of life, and his fellow-citizens had exerted themselves to do him all possible honour. They had given the commission for his statue to Praxiteles, the first sculptor of the time, paying him a heavy fee of two talents,[33]a sum which severely taxed their modest resources. The statue had just then been set up. And now, by a piece of singular good fortune, as they thought it, the townsfolk had the future conqueror of Asia to inaugurate it. The king took a part in the sacrifice, crowned the statue with garlands, was present with some of his principal officers at the representation of a tragedy by the deceased author, and laughed heartily at the concluding farcein which the story of the healing of Cheiron, the Centaur, was ludicrously travestied.
Apollo and Cheiron.
Apollo and Cheiron.
Early the next day Charidemus was summoned to the royal presence. The king greeted him with more than his usual kindness, and proceeded to explain the business in which he proposed to employ him. “I am going to send you,” he said, “first to Greece, and then home; I have not the same reason,” he went on, with a smile, “that I had with Ptolemy and his detachment, that they were newly married.[34]But for the next three months or so there will be very little doing here, and you can be more profitably employed elsewhere. First, you must go to Athens. You will be in charge of an offering which I am sending to the goddess, three hundred complete suits of armour from the spoils of the Granīcus. You should be apersona gratathere. You are half an Argive, and the Argives have always been on good terms with the Athenians. And then you speak good Greek. If I were to send one of my worthy Macedonians they would laugh at his accent; he might lose his temper, and all the grace of the affair would be lost. That, then, is your mission, as far as the world sees it; you will take sealed instructions about other matters which you will not open till you have crossed the sea.... The offeringis all ready; in fact, it was lying shipped at Miletus when you landed there. But I wanted to see you, and to be sure also that you received my instructions. These you shall have at sunset. When you have received them, start back at once.”
Punctually at sunset one of the royal pages brought a roll of parchment sealed with the royal seal. Charidemus, who had been waiting on board theCentaurfor it, gave a formal receipt for it, and within half an hour was on his way westward. The good ship and her picked crew had better opportunities for showing their mettle than had occurred on the eastward journey. Things were easy enough as long as they were under the lee of the Lycian coast; but at Rhodes a strong head wind encountered them; and it was only after a hard struggle of at least twelve days, during which even the bold Pleusicles thought more than once of turning back, that they reached Miletus. By that time the weather had changed again; and the voyage to Athens, though undertaken with fear and trembling by the captains of the heavily-laden merchantmen that carried the armour, was prosperous and uneventful.
Charidemus spent about a month in Athens, finding, as might have been expected, a vast amount of things to interest, please, and astonish him. Some of the impressions made upon him by what he saw and heard may be gathered from extracts taken from letters which he wrote at this time to his Theban friend.
“ ... The armour has been presented in the Temple of Athené Polias. A more splendid spectacle I have never seen. They told me that it was almost as fine as the great Panathenæa, the grand triennial festival of which I dare say you have heard. ThePeploswas not there nor theBasket-bearers[35]—I missed, you see, the chance of seeing the beauty, though I saw the rank and fashion of Athens. But the magistrates were there, in their robes of office, headed by the King Archon, and, behind them a huge array of soldiers in complete armour, good enough to look at, but poor stuff in a battle, I should fancy—indeed the Athenians have long since done most of their fighting, I am told, by paid deputies. The best of these troops was a battalion, several thousands strong, of the ‘youths,’ as they called them. Students they are who do a little soldiering by way of change after their books. They can march, and they know their drill; and they are not pursy and fat, as are most of their elders. Their armour and accoutrements are excellent. If their wits are only as bright as theirshields and their spear-points, they must be clever fellows in the lecture-room. And the Temple itself! I simply have not words to describe it and its splendours. And then there was the great statue of the goddess outside the Temple; I had never seen it close at hand, though I remember having had the point of the lance which she holds in her hand and the crest of her helmet pointed out to me as I was sailing along the coast. But the effect of the whole when one stands by the pedestal is overpowering. Its magnificent stature—it is more than forty cubits high[36]—its majestic face, its imposing attitude—she is challenging the world, it would seem, on behalf of her favourite city—all these things produce an impression that cannot be described. It is made, you must understand, of bronze, and the simplicity of the material impressed me more than the gorgeous ivory and gold of the Athené Polias, as they call her. While I am talking about statues I must tell you about one which I was allowed to see by special favour; it is made of olive wood, and is of an age past all counting; the rudest shape that can be imagined, but extraordinarily interesting. The keeper of the Temple where it is (not the same as that of which I have been speaking, but called, by way of distinction, the Old Temple) have a story that it fell down from heaven. In the evening there was a great banquet in the Town-hall, a very gorgeous affair, withdelicacies brought from all the four winds—pheasants from the Black Sea, and peacocks, and dolphins, and I know not what in flesh, fish, and fowl. Of course the special Attic dishes were prominent—honey, figs, and olives—and there were a great choice of vintages. I was amazed at the abundance and luxury of the entertainment, and could not help thinking that there was a great deal of foolish waste. Far more interesting to me than the dishes and the drinks were the guests. I do not mean the magistrates and generals, for they had nothing particularly distinguished about them; I mean those who have a permanent seat at the table. You must know that the Athenians have an excellent custom of rewarding men who have done conspicuously good service to the state by giving them such a seat. Of course I saw Phocion there. I had seen him before in the king’s camp; and he has been very civil and serviceable to me. I sat next to a veteran who was the oldest of the public guests, and must have numbered fully a hundred years. What a storehouse of recollections the old man’s mind was! Of recent things and persons he knew nothing. When I was speaking of our king he stared blankly at me. But he remembered the plague—his father and mother and all his family died of it, he told me. His first campaign was in Sicily. He had been taken prisoner and thrust into the stone quarries of Syracuse. He could not bear to think, he told me, even now of the horrorsof the place. Then he had fought at Œgos-Potami,[37]and I know not where else. His last service, I remember, was at Mantinea, where he was in command of an Athenian contingent. He was seventy years old then, he told me, but as vigorous, he boasted, as the youngest of them. He saw your Epaminondas struck down, though he was not very near. And he was a disciple of Socrates. ‘To think,’ he said, ‘that I should be dining here at the State’s expense, and that he had the hemlock draught! I remember,’ he went on, ‘when he was put on his trial and had been found guilty, and the president asked him to name his own penalty, he mentioned this very honour that I enjoy. He deserved it much better, he said, for showing his countrymen how foolish and ignorant they were, than if he had won a victory at Olympia. What a stir of rage went through the assembly when he said it! It quite settled the matter for the death penalty. And now here am I and he—well he has his reward elsewhere, if what he always said is true—and that I shall soon know.’ A most interesting old man is this, and I must try to see him again.”
Demosthenes.
Demosthenes.
A week or two afterwards, he wrote again.
“I have seen Demosthenes. A young Athenian with whom I have become acquainted introduced meto him. At first he was cold and distant. It is no passport to his favour to be a Macedonian. Afterwards he became sufficiently friendly, and we had much talk together. He is not as hopeful as I am about the king’s undertaking. He thinks, indeed, that it will succeed, though, very likely, in his heart he wishes that it may not. But he does not expect much good from it. ‘So Greece, you think,’ he said to me one day, ‘will conquer Persia. I doubt it. I don’t doubt indeed that your Alexander will overrun Asia from one end to the other. Philip was a great soldier, and his son is a greater, while your Macedonians are the stuff out of which armies rightly so called are made. Persia, on the other hand, is thoroughly rotten, and will fall almost at a touch. But this is not the same thing as Greece conquering Persia. No; Persia will conquer Greece; we shall be overwhelmed with a flood of eastern vices and servilities. True Greece will perish, just as surely as she would have perished had the bow triumphed over the spear at Marathon or Platæa. But this will scarce be welcome to you,’ and he broke off. Still what he said has set me thinking. Only I do believe that our king is too thorough a Greek to be spoilt. But we shall see.
“I hoped to hear the great man speak, but was disappointed. He very seldom speaks now. The fact is there are no politics in Athens; and for the plaintiffs and defendants in civil causes the oratorswrite speeches, but do not deliver them. That the parties concerned have to do themselves. I heard, it is true, a speech of Demosthenes, but it was spoken by a very commonplace person, and, you will understand, was made commonplace to suit him. Of course it would not do to put a piece of eloquence into the mouth of some ordinary farmer or shipbuilder. Everybody knows that the suitors do not write the speeches, but still the proprieties have to be observed.
“The plaintiff in this case—his name was Ariston—had a very strange and piteous story to tell. Unfortunately there was something about the man that moved the court irresistibly to laughter. (The court, you must know, is the strangest that the wit or folly of man ever devised—a regular mob of thousands of men who shout and groan if anything displeases them, and chatter or fall asleep if they are pleased to find the proceedings dull.) Well, Ariston was an eminently respectable man; his hair and beard carefully arranged without being in the least foppish, and his cloak and tunic quite glossy; and the indignities of which he had to complain were so out of keeping with all that he looked that it was almost impossible not to be amused. His story was this, put briefly:
“Three years before (i.e., just before King Philip’s death) he had been sent on outpost duty to the frontier. The sons of a certain Conon were his neighbours in the bivouac, wild young fellows whobegan drinking after the midday meal, and kept it up to nightfall. ‘Whereas,’ said he in a dignified tone which raised a roar of laughter, ‘I conducted myself there just as I do here.’ The young men played all sorts of drunken tricks on Ariston and his messmates, till at last the latter complained to the officer in command. The officer administered a severe reprimand, which did, however, no manner of good, for that very night the ruffians made an attack on Ariston’s tent, gave him and his friends a beating, and indeed, but for the timely arrival of the officer in command, might have killed them. Of course when the camp broke up there was not a little bad blood between the parties to the quarrel. Still, Ariston did nothing more than try his best to steer clear of these troublesome acquaintances. One evening, however, as he was walking in the market-place with a friend, one of Conon’s sons caught sight of him. The young fellow, who was tipsy, ran and fetched his father, who was drinking with a number of friends in a fuller’s shop. The party rushed out; one of them seized Ariston’s friend and held him fast, while Conon, his son, and another man, caught hold of Ariston himself, tore his cloak off his back, tripped him up, and jumped upon him, as he lay in the mud, cutting his lip through, and closing up both his eyes. So much hurt was he that he could not get up or even speak. But he heard Conon crowing like a cock to celebrate his victory, while his companionssuggested that he should flap his wings, by which they meant his elbows, which he was to strike against his sides. Other things he heard, but they were so bad that he was positively ashamed to repeat them to the court. At last some passers-by carried him home, where there was a terrible outcry, his mother and her domestics making as much ado as if he had been carried home dead. After this came a long illness in which his life was despaired of. When he had told his story he gravely controverted what he supposed would be Conon’s defence, that this was a quarrel of hot-headed deep-drinking young men; that both parties were gay young fellows who found a pleasure in roaming the streets at night, and playing all kinds of pranks on passers-by, and that the plaintiff had no business to complain, if he happened to get the worst of it. He was no roisterer, Ariston said, with a solemnity which convulsed the court. Indeed, the idea that such a paragon of respectability should be anything of the kind was sufficiently amusing. However, he won his cause, and got thirty minas damages, or will get them if he can manage to make Conon pay, a thing which, the friend who took me into court tells me, is more than doubtful.
“You see, my dear Charondas, that there are other people besides philosophers in Athens. Indeed, from all that I could make out, though clever and learned men come to the city from all parts, the Athenians themselves seldom show any genius. Asfor those noisy, roistering young fellows, there are numbers of them in the streets at night. I have seen them myself, again and again, though they have never molested me. Indeed, they keep far enough away from any one who is likely to give them a warm reception. I cannot help thinking that, whatever Demosthenes may say, they would be better employed if they were following our king.”
In addition to his formal duties as commissioner in charge of the offering to the goddess, Charidemus was entrusted with special messages from Alexander to his old teacher, Aristotle, who had been a resident at Athens for now about two years. He found the philosopher in his favourite haunt of the Lyceum[38]just after he had dismissed his morning class of hearers. Aristotle was somewhat slight and insignificant in person, but he had a singularly keen and intelligent face. His appearance, as far as dress was concerned, was rather that of a man of the world than of a thinker. In fact, it was almost foppish. His hair was arranged with the greatest care. His dress was new and fashionable in cut; and his fingers were adorned with several costly rings. Charidemuscould not help thinking what a remarkable contrast he presented to the eccentric being whom he had seen in his tub at Corinth. But in the great man’s talk there was not a vestige of affectation or weakness. Charidemus was struck with the wide range of subjects which it embraced. There was nothing in the world in which he did not seem to feel the keenest interest. He cross-examined the young man as to the features of the countries which he had traversed, the products of their soil, the habits of the natives, in a word, as to all his experiences. He expressed a great delight at hearing of the rich collection of curious objects which the king was making for him, and exhorted his young visitor never to let either the duties or the pleasures of a military life interfere with his persistent observation of nature. “If the king’s designs are carried out,” he said, “if the gods permit him to go as far as I know he purposes to go, he and those who go with him will have the chance of solving many problems which at present are beyond all explanation. This is a world in which every one may do something; and I implore you not to miss your chance. Mind that nofact, however insignificant it may seem, is unworthy of attention. Once the followers after wisdom began with theories; I begin with facts, and I take it that I cannot have too many of them.”
Charidemus then put to the philosopher a question on Greek politics, which he had been specially instructedto ask. It was, in effect, whether Alexander had any reason to dread a coalition of the Greek states taking advantage of his occupation in his schemes of conquest to assail him in the rear. “I stand aloof from politics,” was the answer of Aristotle. “No one, either now, or when I was in this city before, ever heard me express an opinion on any political subject; no one ever ventured to put me down as a Macedonian or an anti-Macedonian partisan. But though I stand aloof, I observe, and observe, perhaps, all the better. Tell the king that he need have no fear of a coalition against him. Here in Athens there will be no movement in that direction. The parties are too equally balanced; and the patriots, even if they were stronger than they are, would not stir. As for Sparta, it is sullen and angry; but the Spartans have long since lost their vigour. No; tell the king that his danger is at home. His mother and his regent[39]are deadly foes. He must be friendly to both, and this it will require all his practical wisdom to do. And let him beware of plots. Plots are a poisonous weed that grows apace in an Eastern soil. And he has theories about men which may be a source of peril to him. I have often told him that there are two races, the free by nature and the slave by nature, races which are pretty well equivalent, I take it, to Greeksand barbarians. He thinks that he can treat them both as equal. I fear that if he tries the experiment he will alienate the one and not conciliate the other. But it is useless to talk on this subject. If I have not been able to persuade him. I do not suppose that you can. But you can at least tell him from me to beware.”
From Athens Charidemus went to Pella. Alexander was perfectly well aware of the state of affairs at home. The letters of his mother, Olympias, had been full of the bitterest complaints against Antipater the regent, and the ill-feeling between the two was a source of serious danger, especially in view of the concealed disaffection of some of his own kinsmen. Charidemus, whose sagacity and aptitude for affairs the king’s penetration had noticed, came to observe these facts for himself. This was, in fact, the secret errand which Alexander had entrusted to him. No one would suspect that a serious political mission had been confided to one so young; the fact that he had been brought up in Greece had detached him from native parties; in fact, he would have especially favourable opportunities of observing the set of feeling in Macedonia, while he was engaged in his ostensible occupation of looking after the reinforcements and stores which were to be sent out to Alexander in the spring.
Whilst he was thus employed he found the winter pass rapidly away. At the same time he had noparticular reason for regretting his absence from the army. It was engaged in the important but tedious work of establishing a perfectly solid base of operations. Alexander felt that he must have Lesser Asia thoroughly safe behind him, and he employed the earlier part of the year[40]in bringing about this result. But the romantic part of the expedition was yet to come. The great battle or battles which the Persian king was sure to fight for his throne were yet in the future. The treasures of Persepolis and Ecbatana, Babylon, and Susa, were yet to be ransacked; and all the wonders of the further East were yet to be explored. A letter from Charondas, which was put by a courier into the young man’s hand on the very eve of his departure from Pella, will tell us something about the doings of the army during this interval. It ran thus—