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Pausanias, the Spartan; The Haunted and the Haunters

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton · English · Gutenberg #8573 · 465,972 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Pausanias, the Spartan; The Haunted and the Haunters

Author: Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

Editor: Earl of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton Lytton


        
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PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN.

THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS.

An Unfinished Historical Romance

BY

THE LATE LORD LYTTON

EDITED BY HIS SON




Dedication


TO

THE REV. BENJAMIN HALL KENNEDY, D.D.

CANON OF ELY,

AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

       *       *       *       *       *

MY DEAR DR. KENNEDY,

Revised by your helpful hand, and corrected by your accurate
scholarship, to whom may these pages be so fitly inscribed as to that
one of their author's earliest and most honoured friends,[1] whose
generous assistance has enabled me to place them before the public in
their present form?

It is fully fifteen, if not twenty, years since my father commenced
the composition of an historical romance on the subject of Pausanias,
the Spartan Regent. Circumstances, which need not here be recorded,
compelled him to lay aside the work thus begun. But the subject
continued to haunt his imagination and occupy his thoughts. He detected
in it singular opportunities for effective exercise of the gifts most
peculiar to his genius; and repeatedly, in the intervals of other
literary labour, he returned to the task which, though again and again
interrupted, was never abandoned. To that rare combination of the
imaginative and practical faculties which characterized my father's
intellect, and received from his life such varied illustration, the
story of Pausanias, indeed, briefly as it is told by Thucydides and
Plutarch, addressed itself with singular force. The vast conspiracy of
the Spartan Regent, had it been successful, would have changed the
whole course of Grecian history. To any student of political phenomena,
but more especially to one who, during the greater part of his life,
had been personally engaged in active politics, the story of such a
conspiracy could not fail to be attractive. To the student of human
nature the character of Pausanias himself offers sources of the
deepest interest; and, in the strange career and tragic fate of the
great conspirator, an imagination fascinated by the supernatural must
have recognized remarkable elements of awe and terror. A few months
previous to his death, I asked my father whether he had abandoned all
intention of finishing his romance of "Pausanias." He replied, "On the
contrary, I am finishing it now," and entered, with great animation,
into a discussion of the subject and its capabilities. This reply to my
inquiry surprised and impressed me: for, as you are aware, my father was
then engaged in the simultaneous composition of two other and very
different works, "Kenelm Chillingly" and the "Parisians." It was the
last time he ever spoke to me about Pausanias; but from what he then
said of it I derived an impression that the book was all but completed,
and needing only a few finishing touches to be ready for publication at
no distant date.

This impression was confirmed, subsequent to my father's death, by a
letter of instructions about his posthumous papers which accompanied
his will. In that letter, dated 1856, special allusion is made to
Pausanias as a work already far advanced towards its conclusion.

You, to whom, in your kind and careful revision of it, this unfinished
work has suggested many questions which, alas, I cannot answer, as
to the probable conduct and fate of its fictitious characters, will
readily understand my reluctance to surrender an impression seemingly
so well justified. I did not indeed cease to cherish it, until
reiterated and exhaustive search had failed to recover from the
"wallet" wherein Time "puts alms for oblivion," more than those few
imperfect fragments which, by your valued help, are here arranged in
such order as to carry on the narrative of Pausanias, with no solution
of continuity, to the middle of the second volume.

There the manuscript breaks off. Was it ever continued further? I know
not. Many circumstances induce me to believe that the conception had
long been carefully completed in the mind of its author; but he has
left behind him only a very meagre and imperfect indication of the
course which, beyond the point where it is broken, his narrative was
intended to follow. In presence of this fact I have had to choose
between the total suppression of the fragment, and the publication
of it in its present form. My choice has not been made without
hesitation; but I trust that, from many points of view, the following
pages will be found to justify it.

Judiciously (as I cannot but think) for the purposes of his fiction,
my father has taken up the story of Pausanias at a period subsequent
to the battle of Plataea; when the Spartan Regent, as Admiral of the
United Greek Fleet in the waters of Byzantium, was at the summit of
his power and reputation. Mr. Grote, in his great work, expresses the
opinion (which certainly cannot be disputed by unbiassed readers of
Thucydides) that the victory of Plataea was not attributable to any
remarkable abilities on the part of Pausanias. But Mr. Grote fairly
recognizes as quite exceptional the fame and authority accorded to
Pausanias, after the battle, by all the Hellenic States; the influence
which his name commanded, and the awe which his character inspired.
Not to the mere fact of his birth as an Heracleid, not to the lucky
accident (if such it were) of his success at Plataea, and certainly
not to his undisputed (but surely by no means uncommon) physical
courage, is it possible to attribute the peculiar position which
this remarkable man so long occupied in the estimation of his
contemporaries. For the little that we know about Pausanias we are
mainly dependent upon Athenian writers, who must have been strongly
prejudiced against him. Mr. Grote, adopting (as any modern historian
needs must do) the narrative so handed down to him, never once pauses
to question its estimate of the character of a man who was at one time
the glory, and at another the terror, of all Greece. Yet in comparing
the summary proceedings taken against Leotychides with the extreme,
and seemingly pusillanimous, deference paid to Pausanias by the Ephors
long after they possessed the most alarming proofs of his treason,
Mr. Grote observes, without attempting to account for the fact, that
Pausanias, though only Regent, was far more powerful than any Spartan
King. Why so powerful? Obviously, because he possessed uncommon force
of character; a force of character strikingly attested by every
known incident of his career; and which, when concentrated upon the
conception and execution of vast designs, (even if those designs be
criminal), must be recognized as the special attribute of genius.
Thucydides, Plutarch, Diodorus, Grote, all these writers ascribe
solely to the administrative incapacity of Pausanias that offensive
arrogance which characterized his command at Byzantium, and apparently
cost Sparta the loss of her maritime hegemony. But here is precisely
one of those problems in public policy and personal conduct which the
historian bequeathes to the imaginative writer, and which needs, for
its solution, a profound knowledge rather of human nature than of
books. For dealing with such a problem, my father, in addition to the
intuitive penetration of character and motive which is common to every
great romance writer, certainly possessed two qualifications special
to himself: the habit of dealing _practically_ with political
questions, and experience in the active management of men. His
explanation of the policy of Pausanias at Byzantium, if it be not (as
I think it is) the right one, is at least the only one yet offered. I
venture to think that, historically, it merits attention; as, from the
imaginative point of view, it is undoubtedly felicitous. By elevating
our estimate of Pausanias as a statesman, it increases our interest in
him as a man.

The Author of "Pausanias" does not merely tell us that his hero, when
in conference with the Spartan commissioners, displayed "great natural
powers which, rightly trained, might have made him not less renowned
in council than in war;" but he gives us, though briefly, the
arguments used by Pausanias. He presents to us the image, always
interesting, of a man who grasps firmly the clear conception of a
definite but difficult policy, for success in which he is dependent on
the conscious or involuntary cooperation of men impenetrable to that
conception, and possessed of a collective authority even greater than
his own. To retain Sparta temporarily at the head of Greece was an
ambition quite consistent with the more criminal designs of Pausanias;
and his whole conduct at Byzantium is rendered more intelligible than
it appears in history, when he points out that "for Sparta to maintain
her ascendancy two things are needful: first, to continue the war
by land, secondly, to disgust the Ionians with their sojourn at
Byzantium, to send them with their ships back to their own havens, and
so leave Hellas under the sole guardianship of the Spartans and their
Peloponnesian allies." And who has not learned, in a later school, the
wisdom of the Spartan commissioners? Do not their utterances sound
familiar to us? "Increase of dominion is waste of life and treasure.
Sparta is content to hold her own. What care we, who leads the Greeks
into blows? The fewer blows the better. Brave men fight if they must:
wise men never fight if they can help it." Of this scene and some
others in the first volume of the present fragment (notably the scene
in which the Regent confronts the allied chiefs, and defends himself
against the charge of connivance at the escape of the Persian
prisoners), I should have been tempted to say that they could not have
been written without personal experience of political life; if
the interview between Wallenstein and the Swedish ambassadors in
Schiller's great trilogy did not recur to my recollection as I write.
The language of the ambassadors in that interview is a perfect manual
of practical diplomacy; and yet in practical diplomacy Schiller had
no personal experience. There are, indeed, no limits to the creative
power of genius. But it is perhaps the practical politician who will
be most interested by the chapters in which Pausanias explains his
policy, or defends his position.

In publishing a romance which its author has left unfinished, I may
perhaps be allowed to indicate briefly what I believe to have been
the general scope of its design, and the probable progress of its
narrative.

The "domestic interest" of that narrative is supplied by the story of
Cleonice: a story which, briefly told by Plutarch, suggests one of
the most tragic situations it is possible to conceive. The pathos and
terror of this dark weird episode in a life which history herself
invests with all the character of romance, long haunted the
imagination of Byron; and elicited from Goethe one of the most
whimsical illustrations of the astonishing absurdity into which
criticism sometimes tumbles, when it "o'erleaps itself and falls o'
the other---."

Writing of Manfred and its author, he says, "There are, properly
speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him; and which,
in this piece also, perform principal parts. One under the name of
Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a
voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the
following is related:--When a bold and enterprising young man, he won
the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour,
and murdered his wife. But the murderer was the same night found dead
in the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be
attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and _these spirits haunted
him all his life after_. This romantic incident is rendered highly
probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance,
when turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the
fatal history of the King of Sparta. It is as follows: Pausanias, a
Lacedaemonian General, acquires glory by the important victory at
Plataea; but afterwards forfeits the confidence of his countrymen by
his arrogance, obstinacy, and secret intrigues with the common enemy.
This man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which
attends him to his end. For, while commanding the fleet of the allied
Greeks in the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a
Byzantine maiden. After long resistance, he at length obtains her from
her parents; and she is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly
desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in
the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his sleep;
apprehensive of an attack from murderers he seizes his sword, and
destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves him. Her shade
pursues him unceasingly; and in vain he implores aid of the gods and the
exorcising priests. That poet must have a lacerated heart who selects
such a scene from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his
tragic image with it."[2]

It is extremely characteristic of Byron, that, instead of resenting
this charge of murder, he was so pleased by the criticism in which
it occurs that he afterwards dedicated "The Deformed Transformed" to
Goethe. Mr. Grote repeats the story above alluded to, with all the
sanction of his grave authority, and even mentions the name of the
young lady; apparently for the sake of adding a few black strokes to
the character of Pausanias. But the supernatural part of the legend
was, of course, beneath the notice of a nineteenth-century critic; and
he passes it by. This part of the story is, however, essential to
the psychological interest of it. For whether it be that Pausanias
supposed himself, or that contemporary gossips supposed him, to be
haunted by the phantom of the woman he had loved and slain, the fact,
in either case, affords a lurid glimpse into the inner life of
the man;--just as, although Goethe's murder-story about Byron is
ludicrously untrue, yet the fact that such a story was circulated,
and could be seriously repeated by such a man as Goethe without being
resented by Byron himself, offers significant illustration both of
what Byron was, and of what he appeared to his contemporaries. Grote
also assigns the death of Cleonice to that period in the life of
Pausanias when he was in the command of the allies at Byzantium; and
refers to it as one of the numerous outrages whereby Pausanias abused
and disgraced the authority confided to him. Plutarch, however, who
tells the story in greater detail, distinctly fixes the date of its
catastrophe subsequent to the return of the Regent to Byzantium, as a
solitary volunteer, in the trireme of Hermione. The following is his
account of the affair:

"It is related that Pausanias, when at Byzantium, sought, with
criminal purpose, the love of a young lady of good family, named
Cleonice. The parents yielding to fear, or necessity, suffered him to
carry away their daughter. Before entering his chamber, she requested
that the light might be extinguished; and in darkness and silence she
approached the couch of Pausanias, who was already asleep. In so doing
she accidentally upset the lamp. Pausanias, suddenly aroused from
slumber, and supposing that some enemy was about to assassinate him,
seized his sword, which lay by his bedside, and with it struck the
maiden to the ground. She died of her wound; and from that moment
repose was banished from the life of Pausanias. A spectre appeared to
him every night in his sleep; and repeated to him in reproachful tones
this hexameter verse,_Whither I wait thee march, and receive the doom
thou deservest. Sooner or later, but ever, to man crime bringeth
disaster.'_

The allies, scandalized by this misdeed, concerted with Cimon, and
besieged Pausanias in Byzantium. But he succeeded in escaping,
Continually troubled by the phantom, he took refuge, it is said, at
Heraclea, in that temple where the souls of the dead are evoked. He
appealed to Cleonice and conjured her to mitigate his torment. She
appeared to him, and told him that on his return to Sparta he would
attain the end of his sufferings; indicating, as it would seem, by
these enigmatic words, the death which there awaited him. "This"
(adds Plutarch) "is a story told by most of the historians."[3]

I feel no doubt that this version of the story, or at least the
general outline of it, would have been followed by the romance had my
father lived to complete it. Some modification of its details would
doubtless have been necessary for the purposes of fiction. But that
the Cleonice of the novel is destined to die by the hand of her lover,
is clearly indicated. To me it seems that considerable skill and
judgment are shown in the pains taken, at the very opening of the book,
to prepare the mind of the reader for an incident which would have been
intolerably painful, and must have prematurely ended the whole narrative
interest, had the character of Cleonice been drawn otherwise than as we
find it in this first portion of the book. From the outset she appears
before us under the shadow of a tragic fatality. Of that fatality she
is herself intuitively conscious: and with it her whole being is in
harmony. No sooner do we recognise her real character than we perceive
that, for such a character, there can be no fit or satisfactory issue
from the difficulties of her position, in any conceivable combination
of earthly circumstances. But she is not of the earth earthly. Her
thoughts already habitually hover on the dim frontier of some vague
spiritual region in which her love seeks refuge from the hopeless
realities of her life; and, recognising this betimes, we are prepared
to see above the hand of her ill-fated lover, when it strikes her down
in the dark, the merciful and releasing hand of her natural destiny.

But, assuming the author to have adopted Plutarch's chronology,
and deferred the death of Cleonice till the return of Pausanias to
Byzantium (the latest date to which he could possibly have deferred
it), this catastrophe must still have occurred somewhere in the
course, or at the close, of his second volume. There would, in that
case, have still remained about nine years (and those the most
eventful) of his hero's career to be narrated. The premature removal
of the heroine from the narrative, so early in the course of it,
would therefore, at first sight, appear to be a serious defect in the
conception of this romance. Here it is, however, that the credulous
gossip of the old biographer comes to the rescue of the modern artist.
I apprehend that the Cleonice of the novel would, after her death,
have been still sensibly present to the reader's imagination
throughout the rest of the romance. She would then have moved through
it like a fate, reappearing in the most solemn moments of the story,
and at all times apparent, even when unseen, in her visible influence
upon the fierce and passionate character, the sombre and turbulent
career, of her guilty lover. In short, we may fairly suppose that,
in all the closing scenes of the tragedy, Cleonice would have still
figured and acted as one of those supernatural agencies which my
father, following the example of his great predecessor, Scott, did not
scruple to introduce into the composition of historical romance.[4]

Without the explanation here suggested, those metaphysical
conversations between Cleonice, Alcman, and Pausanias, which occupy
the opening chapters of Book II., might be deemed superfluous. But, in
fact, they are essential to the preparation of the catastrophe; and
that catastrophe, if reached, would undoubtedly have revealed to any
reflective reader their important connection with the narrative which
they now appear to retard somewhat unduly.

Quite apart from the unfinished manuscript of this story of Pausanias,
and in another portion of my father's papers which have no reference
to this story, I have discovered the following, undated, memorandum of
the destined contents of the second and third volumes of the work.


PAUSANIAS.

VOL. II.

Lysander--Sparta--Ephors--Decision to recall Pausanias.

Pausanias with Pharnabazes--On the point of success--Xerxes'
daughter--Interview with Cleonice--Recalled.

Sparta--Alcman with his family.

Cleonice--Antagoras--Yields to suit of marriage.

Pausanias suddenly reappears, as a volunteer--Scenes.


VOL. III.

Pausanias removes Cleonice, &c.--Conspiracy against him--Up to
Cleonice's death.

His expulsion from Byzantium---His despair--His journey into
Thrace--Scythians, &c.

Heraclea--Ghost.

His return--to Colonae.

Antagoras resolved on revenge--Communicates with Sparta.

The * * *--Conference with Alcman--Pausanias depends on Helots, and
money.

His return--to death.


This is the only indication I can find of the intended conclusion of
the story. Meagre though it be, however, it sufficiently suggests the
manner in which the author of the romance intended to deal with the
circumstances of Cleonice's death as related by Plutarch. With her
forcible removal by Pausanias, or her willing flight with him from the
house of her father, it would probably have been difficult to reconcile
the general sentiment of the romance, in connection with any
circumstances less conceivable than those which are indicated in the
memorandum. But in such circumstances the step taken by Pausanias migh
 have had no worse motive than the rescue of the woman who loved him
from forced union with another; and Cleonice's assent to that step might
have been quite compatible with the purity and heroism of her character.
In this manner, moreover, a strong motive is prepared for that sentiment
of revenge on the part of Antagoras whereby the dramatic interest of the
story might be greatly heightened in the subsequent chapters. The
intended introduction of the supernatural element is also clearly
indicated. But apart from this, fine opportunities for psychological
analysis would doubtless have occurred in tracing the gradual deterio-
ration of such a character as that of Pausanias when, deprived of the
guardian influence of a hope passionate but not impure, its craving for
fierce excitement must have been stimulated by remorseful memories and
impotent despairs. Indeed, the imperfect manuscript now printed, contains
only the exposition of a tragedy. All the most striking effects, all the
strongest dramatic situations, have been reserved for the pages of the
manuscript which, alas, are either lost or unwritten.

Who can doubt, for instance, how effectually in the closing scenes of
this tragedy the grim image of Alithea might have assumed the place
assigned to it by history? All that we now see is the preparation made
for its effective presentation in the foreground of such later scenes,
by the chapter in the second volume describing the meeting between
Lysander and the stern mother of his Spartan chief. In Lysander himself,
moreover, we have the germ of a singularly dramatic situation. How would
Lysander act in the final struggle which his character and fate are
already preparing for him, between patriotism and friendship, his
fidelity to Pausanias, and his devotion to Sparta? Is Lysander's father
intended for that Ephor, who, in the last moment, made the sign that
warned Pausanias to take refuge in the temple which became his living
tomb? Probably. Would Themistocles, who was so seriously compromised in
the conspiracy of Pausanias, have appearedand played a part in those
scenes on which the curtain must remain unlifted? Possibly. Is Alcman the
helot who revealed, to the Ephors, the gigantic plots of his master just
when those plots were on the eve of execution? There is much in the
relations between Pausanias and the Mothon, as they are described in the
opening chapters of the romance, which favours, and indeed renders almost
irresistible, such a supposition. But then, on the other hand, what genius
on the part of the author could reconcile us to the perpetration by his
hero of a crime so mean, so cowardly, as that personal perfidy to which
history ascribes the revelation of the Regent's far more excusable
treasons, and their terrible punishment?

These questions must remain unanswered. The magician can wave his wand
no more. The circle is broken, the spells are scattered, the secret
lost. The images which he evoked, and which he alone could animate,
remain before us incomplete, semi-articulate, unable to satisfy the
curiosity they inspire. A group of fragments, in many places broken,
you have helped me to restore. With what reverent and kindly care,
with what disciplined judgment and felicitous suggestion, you have
accomplished the difficult task so generously undertaken, let me here
most gratefully attest. Beneath the sculptor's name, allow me to
inscribe upon the pedestal your own; and accept this sincere assurance
of the inherited esteem and personal regard with which I am,

My dear Dr. Kennedy,

Your obliged and faithful

LYTTON.

GINTRA, _5 July, 1875_.


Notes:

[1] The late Lord Lytton, in his unpublished autobiographical memoirs,
describing his contemporaries at Cambridge, speaks of Dr. Kennedy as
"a young giant of learning."--L.

[2] Moore's "Life and Letters of Lord Byron," p. 723.

[3] Plutarch, "Life of Cimon."

[4] "Harold."



PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN




BOOK I.




CHAPTER I.


On one of the quays which bordered the unrivalled harbour of
Byzantium, more than twenty-three centuries before the date at which
this narrative is begun, stood two Athenians. In the waters of the
haven rode the vessels of the Grecian Fleet. So deep was the basin, in
which the tides are scarcely felt,[5] that the prows of some of the
ships touched the quays, and the setting sun glittered upon the smooth
and waxen surfaces of the prows rich with diversified colours and
wrought gilding. To the extreme right of the fleet, and nearly
opposite the place upon which the Athenians stood, was a vessel still
more profusely ornamented than the rest. On the prow were elaborately
carved the heads of the twin deities of the Laconian mariner, Castor
and Pollux; in the centre of the deck was a wooden edifice or pavilion
having a gilded roof and shaded by purple awnings, an imitation of the
luxurious galleys of the Barbarian; while the parasemon, or flag, as
it idly waved in the faint breeze of the gentle evening, exhibited the
terrible serpent, which, if it was the fabulous type of demigods and
heroes, might also be regarded as an emblem of the wily but stern
policy of the Spartan State. Such was the galley of the commander of
the armament, which (after the reduction of Cyprus) had but lately
wrested from the yoke of Persia that link between her European and
Asiatic domains, that key of the Bosporus--"the Golden Horn" of
Byzantium.[6]

High above all other Greeks (Themistocles alone excepted) soared the
fame of that renowned chief, Pausanias, Regent of Sparta and General
of the allied troops at the victorious battle-field of Plataea. The
spot on which the Athenians stood was lonely and now unoccupied, save
by themselves and the sentries stationed at some distance on either
hand. The larger proportion of the crews in the various vessels were
on shore; but on the decks idly reclined small groups of sailors, and
the murmur of their voices stole, indistinguishably blended, upon the
translucent air. Behind rose, one above the other, the Seven Hills, on
which long afterwards the Emperor Constantine built a second Rome; and
over these heights, even then, buildings were scattered of various
forms and dates, here the pillared temples of the Greek colonists,
to whom Byzantium owed its origin, there the light roofs and painted
domes which the Eastern conquerors had introduced.

One of the Athenians was a man in the meridian of manhood, of a calm,
sedate, but somewhat haughty aspect; the other was in the full bloom
of youth, of lofty stature, and with a certain majesty of bearing;
down his shoulders flowed a profusion of long curled hair, divided in
the centre of the forehead, and connected with golden clasps, in which
was wrought the emblem of the Athenian nobles--the Grasshopper--a
fashion not yet obsolete, as it had become in the days of Thucydides.
Still, to an observer, there was something heavy in the ordinary
expression of the handsome countenance. His dress differed from the
earlier fashion of the Ionians;[7] it dispensed with those loose linen
garments which had something of effeminacy in their folds, and was
confined to the simple and statue-like grace that characterised the
Dorian garb. Yet the clasp that fastened the chlamys upon the right
shoulder, leaving the arm free, was of pure gold and exquisite
workmanship, and the materials of the simple vesture were of a quality
that betokened wealth and rank in the wearer.

"Yes, Cimon," said the elder of the Athenians, "yonder galley itself
affords sufficient testimony of the change that has come over the
haughty Spartan. It is difficult, indeed, to recognize in this
luxurious satrap, who affects the dress, the manners, the very
insolence of the Barbarian, that Pausanias who, after the glorious day
of Plataea, ordered the slaves to prepare in the tent of Mardonius
such a banquet as would have been served to the Persian, while his own
Spartan broth and bread were set beside it, in order that he might
utter to the chiefs of Greece that noble pleasantry, 'Behold the
folly of the Persians, who forsook such splendour to plunder such
poverty.'"[8]

"Shame upon his degeneracy, and thrice shame!" said the young Cimon,
sternly. "I love the Spartans so well, that I blush for whatever
degrades them. And all Sparta is dwarfed by the effeminacy of her
chief."

"Softly, Cimon," said Aristides, with a sober smile. "Whatever
surprise we may feel at the corruption of Pausanias, he is not one who
will allow us to feel contempt. Through all the voluptuous softness
acquired by intercourse with these Barbarians, the strong nature of
the descendant of the demigod still breaks forth. Even at the distaff
I recognize Alcides, whether for evil or for good. Pausanias is one on
whom our most anxious gaze must be duly bent. But in this change of
his I rejoice; the gods are at work for Athens. See you not that,
day after day, while Pausanias disgusts the allies with the Spartans
themselves, he throws them more and more into the arms of Athens? Let
his madness go on, and ere long the violet-crowned city will become
the queen of the seas."

"Such was my own hope," said Cimon, his face assuming a new
expression, brightened with all the intelligence of ambition and
pride; "but I did not dare own it to myself till you spoke. Several
officers of Ionia and the Isles have already openly and loudly
proclaimed to me their wish to exchange the Spartan ascendancy for the
Athenian."

"And with all your love for Sparta," said Aristides, looking
steadfastly and searchingly at his comrade, "you would not then
hesitate to rob her of a glory which you might bestow on your own
Athens?"

"Ah, am I not Athenian?" answered Cimon, with a deep passion in his
voice. "Though my great father perished a victim to the injustice of
a faction--though he who had saved Athens from the Mede died in the
Athenian dungeon--still, fatherless, I see in Athens but a mother, and
if her voice sounded harshly in my boyish years, in manhood I have
feasted on her smiles. Yes, I honour Sparta, but I love Athens. You
have my answer."

"You speak well," said Aristides, with warmth; "you are worthy of the
destinies for which I foresee that the son of Miltiades is reserved.
Be wary, be cautious; above all, be smooth, and blend with men of
every state and grade. I would wish that the allies themselves should
draw the contrast between the insolence of the Spartan chief and the
courtesy of the Athenians. What said you to the Ionian officers?"

"I said that Athens held there was no difference between to command
and to obey, except so far as was best for the interests of Greece;
that--as on the field of Plataea, when the Tegeans asserted precedence
over the Athenians, we, the Athenian army, at once exclaimed, through
your voice, Aristides, 'We come here to fight the Barbarian, not to
dispute amongst ourselves; place us where you will'[9]:--even so now,
while the allies give the command to Sparta, Sparta we will obey. But
if we were thought by the Grecian States the fittest leaders, our
answer would be the same that we gave at Plataea, 'Not we, but Greece
be consulted: place us where you will!'"

"O wise Cimon!" exclaimed Aristides, "I have no caution to bestow on
you. You do by intuition that which I attempt by experience. But hark!
What music sounds in the distance? the airs that Lydia borrowed from
the East?"

"And for which," said Cimon, sarcastically, "Pausanias hath abandoned
the Dorian flute."

Soft, airy, and voluptuous were indeed the sounds which now, from the
streets leading upwards from the quay, floated along the delicious
air. The sailors rose, listening and eager, from the decks; there was
once more bustle, life, and animation on board the fleet. From several
of the vessels the trumpets woke a sonorous signal-note. In a few
minutes the quays, before so deserted, swarmed with the Grecian
mariners, who emerged hastily, whether from various houses in the
haven, or from the encampment which stretched along it, and hurried
to their respective ships. On board the galley of Pausanias there was
more especial animation; not only mariners, but slaves, evidently
from the Eastern markets, were seen, jostling each other, and heard
talking, quick and loud, in foreign tongues. Rich carpets were
unfurled and laid across the deck, while trembling and hasty hands
smoothed into yet more graceful folds the curtains that shaded the
gay pavilion in the centre. The Athenians looked on, the one with
thoughtful composure, the other with a bitter smile, while these
preparations announced the unexpected, and not undreaded, approach of
the great Pausanias.

"Ho, noble Cimon!" cried a young man who, hurrying towards one of the
vessels, caught sight of the Athenians and paused. "You are the very
person whom I most desired to see. Aristides too!--we are fortunate."

The speaker was a young man of slighter make and lower stature
than the Athenians, but well shaped, and with features the partial
effeminacy of which was elevated by an expression of great vivacity
and intelligence. The steed trained for Elis never bore in its
proportions the evidence of blood and rare breeding more visibly than
the dark brilliant eye of this young man, his broad low transparent
brow, expanded nostril and sensitive lip, revealed the passionate
and somewhat arrogant character of the vivacious Greek of the Aegean
Isles.

"Antagoras," replied Cimon, laying his hand with frank and somewhat
blunt cordiality on the Greek's shoulder, "like the grape of your own
Chios, you cannot fail to be welcome at all times. But why would you
seek us now ?"

"Because I will no longer endure the insolence of this rude Spartan.
Will you believe it, Cimon--will you believe it, Aristides? Pausanias
has actually dared to sentence to blows, to stripes, one of my own
men--a free Chian--nay, a Decadarchus.[10] I have but this instant
heard it. And the offence--Gods! the _offence!_--was that he ventured
to contest with a Laconian, an underling in the Spartan army, which
one of the two had the fair right to a wine cask! Shall this be borne,
Cimon?"

"Stripes to a Greek!" said Cimon. and the colour mounted to his brow.
"Thinks Pausanias that the Ionian race are already his Helots?"

"Be calm," said Aristides; "Pausanias approaches. I will accost him."

"But listen still!" exclaimed Antagoras eagerly, plucking the gown of
the Athenian as the latter turned away. "When Pausanias heard of the
contest between my soldier and his Laconian, what said he, think you?
'Prior claim; learn henceforth that, where the Spartans are to be
found, the Spartans in all matters have the prior claim.'"

"We will see to it," returned Aristides, calmly; "but keep by my
side."

And now the music sounded loud and near, and suddenly, as the
procession approached, the character of that music altered. The Lydian
measures ceased, those who had attuned them gave way to musicians of
loftier aspect and simpler garb; in whom might be recognized, not indeed
the genuine Spartans, but their free, if subordinate, countrymen of
Laconia; and a minstrel, who walked beside them, broke out into a song,
partially adapted from the bold and lively strain of Alcaeus, the first
two lines in each stanza ringing much to that chime, the two latter
reduced into briefer compass, as, with allowance for the differing laws
of national rhythm, we thus seek to render the verse:

SONG.

    Multitudes, backward! Way for the Dorian;
    Way for the Lord of rocky Laconia;
      Heaven to Hercules opened
        Way on the earth for his son.

    Steel and fate, blunted, break on his fortitude;
    Two evils only never endureth he--
      Death by a wound in retreating,
        Life with a blot on his name.

    Rocky his birthplace; rocks are immutable;
    So are his laws, and so shall his glory be.
      Time is the Victor of Nations,
        Sparta the Victor of Time.

    Watch o'er him heedful on the wide ocean,
    Brothers of Helen, luminous guiding stars;
      Dangerous to Truth are the fickle,
        Dangerous to Sparta the seas.

    Multitudes, backward! Way for the Conqueror;
    Way for the footstep half the world fled before;
      Nothing that Phoebus can shine on
        Needs so much space as Renown.

Behind the musicians came ten Spartans, selected from the celebrated
three hundred who claimed the right to be stationed around the king
in battle. Tall, stalwart, sheathed in armour, their shields slung at
their backs, their crests of plumage or horsehair waving over their
strong and stern features, these hardy warriors betrayed to the keen
eye of Aristides their sullen discontent at the part assigned to
them in the luxurious procession; their brows were knit, their lips
contracted, and each of them who caught the glance of the Athenians,
turned his eyes, as half in shame, half in anger, to the ground.

Coming now upon the quay, opposite to the galley of Pausanias, from
which was suspended a ladder of silken cords, the procession halted,
and opening on either side, left space in the midst for the commander.

"He comes," whispered Antagoras to Cimon. "By Hercules! I pray you
survey him well. Is it the conqueror of Mardonius, or the ghost of
Mardonius himself?"

The question of the Chian seemed not extravagant to the blunt son of
Miltiades, as his eyes now rested on Pausanias.

The pure Spartan race boasted, perhaps, the most superb models of
masculine beauty which the land blessed by Apollo could afford. The
laws that regulate marriage ensured a healthful and vigorous progeny.
Gymnastic discipline from early boyhood gave ease to the limbs, iron
to the muscle, grace to the whole frame. Every Spartan, being born to
command, being noble by his birth, lord of the Laconians, Master of
the Helots, superior in the eyes of Greece to all other Greeks, was at
once a Republican and an Aristocrat. Schooled in the arts that compose
the presence, and give calmness and majesty to the bearing, he
combined with the mere physical advantages of activity and strength a
conscious and yet natural dignity of mien. Amidst the Greeks assembled
at the Olympian contests, others showed richer garments, more
sumptuous chariots, rarer steeds, but no state could vie with Sparta
in the thews and sinews, the aspect and the majesty of the men.
Nor were the royal race, the descendants of Hercules, in external
appearance unworthy of their countrymen and of their fabled origin.

Sculptor and painter would have vainly tasked their imaginative minds
to invent a nobler ideal for the effigies of a hero, than that which
the Victor of Plataea offered to their inspiration. As he now paused
amidst the group, he towered high above them all, even above Cimon
himself. But in his stature there was nothing of the cumbrous bulk and
stolid heaviness, which often destroy the beauty of vast strength.
Severe and early training, long habits of rigid abstemiousness, the
toils of war, and, more than all, perhaps, the constant play of
a restless, anxious, aspiring temper, had left, undisfigured by
superfluous flesh, the grand proportions of a frame, the very
spareness of which had at once the strength and the beauty of one of
those hardy victors in the wrestling or boxing match, whose agility
and force are modelled by discipline to the purest forms of grace.
Without that exact and chiselled harmony of countenance which
characterised perhaps the Ionic rather than the Doric race, the
features of the royal Spartan were noble and commanding. His
complexion was sunburnt, almost to oriental swarthiness, and the
raven's plume had no darker gloss than that of his long hair, which
(contrary to the Spartan custom), flowing on either side, mingled
with the closer curls of the beard. To a scrutinizing gaze, the more
dignified and prepossessing effect of this exterior would perhaps have
been counterbalanced by an eye, bright indeed and penetrating, but
restless and suspicious, by a certain ineffable mixture of arrogant
pride and profound melancholy in the general expression of the
countenance, ill according with that frank and serene aspect which
best becomes the face of one who would lead mankind. About him
altogether--the countenance, the form, the bearing--there was that
which woke a vague, profound, and singular interest, an interest
somewhat mingled with awe, but not altogether uncalculated to produce
that affection which belongs to admiration, save when the sudden frown
or disdainful lip repelled the gentler impulse and tended rather to
excite fear, or to irritate pride, or to wound self-love.

But if the form and features of Pausanias were eminently those of
the purest race of Greece, the dress which he assumed was no less
characteristic of the Barbarian. He wore, not the garb of the noble
Persian race, which, close and simple, was but a little less manly
than that of the Greeks, but the flowing and gorgeous garments of the
Mede. His long gown, which swept the earth, was covered with flowers
wrought in golden tissue. Instead of the Spartan hat, the high Median
cap or tiara crowned his perfumed and lustrous hair, while (what
of all was most hateful to Grecian eyes) he wore, though otherwise
unarmed, the curved scimitar and short dirk that were the national
weapons of the Barbarian. And as it was not customary, nor indeed
legitimate, for the Greeks to wear weapons on peaceful occasions
and with their ordinary costume, so this departure from the common
practice had not only in itself something offensive to the jealous
eyes of his comrades, but was rendered yet more obnoxious by the
adoption of the very arms of the East.

By the side of Pausanias was a man whose dark beard was already sown
with grey. This man, named Gongylus, though a Greek--a native of
Eretria, in Euboea--was in high command under the great Persian king.
At the time of the barbarian invasion under Datis and Artaphernes,
he had deserted the cause of Greece and had been rewarded with the
lordship of four towns in Aeolis. Few among the apostate Greeks were
more deeply instructed in the language and manners of the Persians;
and the intimate and sudden friendship that had grown up between him
and the Spartan was regarded by the Greeks with the most bitter and
angry suspicion. As if to show his contempt for the natural jealousy
of his countrymen, Pausanias, however, had just given to the Eretrian
the government of Byzantium itself, and with the command of the
citadel had entrusted to him the custody of the Persian prisoners
captured in that port. Among these were men of the highest rank and
influence at the court of Xerxes; and it was more than rumoured that
of late Pausanias had visited and conferred with them, through the
interpretation of Gongylus, far more frequently than became the
General of the Greeks. Gongylus had one of those countenances which
are observed when many of more striking semblance are overlooked.
But the features were sharp and the visage lean, the eyes vivid and
sparkling as those of the lynx, and the dark pupil seemed yet more
dark from the extreme whiteness of the ball, from which it lessened or
dilated with the impulse of the spirit which gave it fire. There was
in that eye all the subtle craft, the plotting and restless malignity
which usually characterised those Greek renegades who prostituted
their native energies to the rich service of the Barbarian; and the
lips, narrow and thin, wore that everlasting smile which to the
credulous disguises wile, and to the experienced betrays it. Small,
spare, and prematurely bent, the Eretrian supported himself by a
staff, upon which now leaning, he glanced, quickly and pryingly,
around, till his eyes rested upon the Athenians, with the young Chian
standing in their rear.

"The Athenian Captains are here to do you homage, Pausanias," said he
in a whisper, as he touched with his small lean fingers the arm of the
Spartan.

Pausanias turned and muttered to himself, and at that instant
Aristides approached.

"If it please you, Pausanias, Cimon and myself, the leaders of the
Athenians, would crave a hearing upon certain matters."

"Son of Lysimachus, say on."

"Your pardon, Pausanias," returned the Athenian, lowering his voice,
and with a smile--"This is too crowded a council-hall; may we attend
you on board your galley?"

"Not so," answered the Spartan haughtily; "the morning to affairs, the
evening to recreation. We shall sail in the bay to see the moon rise,
and if we indulge in consultations, it will be over our winecups. It
is a good custom."

"It is a Persian one," said Cimon bluntly.

"It is permitted to us," returned the Spartan coldly, "to borrow from
those we conquer. But enough of this. I have no secrets with the
Athenians. No matter if the whole city hear what you would address to
Pausanias."

"It is to complain," said Aristides with calm emphasis, but still in
an undertone.

"Ay, I doubt it not: the Athenians are eloquent in grumbling."

"It was not found so at Plataea," returned Cimon.

"Son of Miltiades," said Pausanias loftily, "your wit outruns your
experience. But my time is short. To the matter!"

"If you will have it so, I will speak," said Aristides, raising his
voice. "Before your own Spartans, our comrades in arms, I proclaim our
causes of complaint. Firstly, then, I demand release and compensation
to seven Athenians, free-born and citizens, whom your orders have
condemned to the unworthy punishment of standing all day in the open
sun with the weight of iron anchors on their shoulders."

"The mutinous knaves!" exclaimed the Spartan. "They introduced into
the camp the insolence of their own agora, and were publicly heard in
the streets inveighing against myself as a favourer of the Persians."

"It was easy to confute the charge; it was tyrannical to punish words
in men whose deeds had raised you to the command of Greece."

"_Their_ deeds! Ye Gods, give me patience! By the help of Juno the
protectress it was this brain and this arm that--But I will not
justify myself by imitating the Athenian fashion of wordy boasting.
Pass on to your next complaint."

"You have placed slaves--yes, Helots--around the springs, to drive
away with scourges the soldiers that come for water."

"Not so, but merely to prevent others from filling their vases until
the Spartans are supplied."

"And by what right--?" began Cimon, but Aristides checked him with a
gesture, and proceeded.

"That precedence is not warranted by custom, nor by the terms of
our alliance; and the springs, O Pausanias, are bounteous enough to
provide for all. I proceed. You have formally sentenced citizens and
soldiers to the scourge. Nay, this very day you have extended the
sentence to one in actual command amongst the Chians. Is it not so,
Antagoras?"

"It is," said the young Chian, coming forward boldly; "and in the name
of my countrymen I demand justice."

"And I also, Uliades of Samos," said a thickset and burly Greek who
had joined the group unobserved, "_I_ demand justice. What, by the
Gods! Are we to be all equals in the day of battle? 'My good sir,
march here;' and, 'My dear sir, just run into that breach;' and yet
when we have won the victory and should share the glory, is one state,
nay, one man to seize the whole, and deal out iron anchors and tough
cowhides to his companions? No, Spartans, this is not your view of the
case; you suffer in the eyes of Greece by this misconduct. To Sparta
itself I appeal."

"And what, most patient sir," said Pausanias, with calm sarcasm,
though his eye shot fire, and the upper lip, on which no Spartan
suffered the beard to grow, slightly quivered--"what is your
contribution to the catalogue of complaints?"

"Jest not, Pausanias; you will find me in earnest," answered Uliades,
doggedly, and encouraged by the evident effect that his eloquence had
produced upon the Spartans themselves. "I have met with a grievous
wrong, and all Greece shall hear of it, if it be not redressed. My own
brother, who at Mycale slew four Persians with his own hand, headed a
detachment for forage. He and his men were met by a company of mixed
Laconians and Helots, their forage taken from them, they themselves
assaulted, and my brother, a man who has monies and maintains forty
slaves of his own, struck thrice across the face by a rascally Helot.
Now, Pausanias, your answer!"

"You have prepared a notable scene for the commander of your forces,
son of Lysimachus," said the Spartan, addressing himself to Aristides.
"Far be it from me to affect the Agamemnon, but your friends are less
modest in imitating the venerable model of Thersites. Enough" (and
changing the tone of his voice, the chief stamped his foot vehemently
to the ground): "we owe no account to our inferiors; we render no
explanation save to Sparta and her Ephors."

"So be it, then," said Aristides, gravely; "we have our answer, and
you will hear of our appeal."

Pausanias changed colour. "How?" said he, with a slight hesitation in
his tone. "Mean you to threaten me--Me--with carrying the busy tales
of your disaffection to the Spartan government?"

"Time will show. Farewell, Pausanias. We will detain you no longer
from your pastime."

"But," began Uliades.

"Hush," said the Athenian, laying his hand on the Samian's shoulder.
"We will confer anon."

Pausanias paused a moment, irresolute and in thought. His eyes glanced
towards his own countrymen, who, true to their rigid discipline,
neither spake nor moved, but whose countenances were sullen and
overcast, and at that moment his pride was shaken, and his heart
misgave him. Gongylus watched his countenance, and once more laying
his hand on his arm, said in a whisper--

"He who seeks to rule never goes back."

"Tush, you know not the Spartans."

"But I know Human Nature; it is the same everywhere. You cannot yield
to this insolence; to-morrow, of your own accord, send for these men
separately and pacify them."

"You are right. Now to the vessel!"

With this, leaning on the shoulder of the Persian, and with a slight
wave of his hand towards the Athenians--he did not deign even that
gesture to the island officers--Pausanias advanced to the vessel, and
slowly ascending, disappeared within his pavilion. The Spartans and
the musicians followed; then, spare and swarthy, some half score of
Egyptian sailors; last came a small party of Laconians and Helots,
who, standing at some distance behind Pausanias, had not hitherto been
observed. The former were but slightly armed; the latter had forsaken
their customary rude and savage garb, and wore long gowns and gay
tunics, somewhat in the fashion of the Lydians. With these last there
was one of a mien and aspect that strongly differed from the lowering
and ferocious cast of countenance common to the Helot race. He was
of the ordinary stature, and his frame was not characterised by any
appearance of unusual strength; but he trod the earth, with a firm
step and an erect crest, as if the curse of the slave had not yet
destroyed the inborn dignity of the human being. There was a certain
delicacy and refinement, rather of thought than beauty, in his clear,
sharp, and singularly intelligent features. In contradistinction from
the free-born Spartans, his hair was short, and curled close above a
broad and manly forehead; and his large eyes of dark blue looked full
and bold upon the Athenians with something, if not of defiance, at
least of pride in their gaze, as he stalked by them to the vessel.

"A sturdy fellow for a Helot," muttered Cimon.

"And merits well his freedom," said the son of Lysimachus. "I remember
him well. He is Alcman, the foster-brother of Pausanias, whom he
attended at Plataea. Not a Spartan that day bore himself more
bravely."

"No doubt they will put him to death when he goes back to Sparta,"
said Antagoras. "When a Helot is brave, the Ephors clap the black mark
against his name, and at the next crypteia he suddenly disappears."

"Pausanias may share the same fate as his Helot, for all I care,"
quoth Uliades. "Well, Athenians, what say you to the answer we have
received?"

"That Sparta shall hear of it," answered Aristides.

"Ah, but is that all? Recollect the Ionians have the majority in the
fleet; let us not wait for the slow Ephors. Let us at once throw off
this insufferable yoke, and proclaim Athens the Mistress of the Seas.
What say you, Cimon?"

"Let Aristides answer."

"Yonder lie the Athenian vessels," said Aristides. "Those who put
themselves voluntarily under our protection we will not reject. But
remember we assert no claim; we yield but to the general wish."

"Enough; I understand you," said Antagoras.

"Not quite," returned the Athenian with a smile. "The breach between
you and Pausanias is begun, but it is not yet wide enough. You
yourselves must do that which will annul all power in the Spartan, and
then if ye come to Athens ye will find her as bold against the Doric
despot as against the Barbarian foe."

"But speak more plainly. What would you have us do?" asked Uliades,
rubbing his chin in great perplexity.

"Nay, nay, I have already said enough. Fare ye well,
fellow-countrymen," and leaning lightly on the shoulder of Cimon, the
Athenian passed on.

Meanwhile, the splendid galley of Pausanias slowly put forth into the
farther waters of the bay. The oars of the rowers broke the surface
into countless phosphoric sparkles, and the sound they made, as they
dashed amidst the gentle waters, seemed to keep time with the song
and the instruments on the deck. The Ionians gazed in silence as the
stately vessel, now shooting far ahead of the rest, swept into the
centre of the bay. And the moon, just rising, shone full upon the
glittering prow, and streaked the rippling billows over which it had
bounded, with a light, as it were, of glory.

Antagoras sighed. "What think you of?" asked the rough Samian.

"Peace," replied Antagoras. "In this hour, when the fair face of
Artemis recalls the old legends of Endymion, is it not permitted to
man to remember that before the iron age came the golden, before war
reigned love?"

"Tush," said Uliades. "Time enough to think of love when we have
satisfied vengeance. Let us summon our friends, and hold council on
the Spartan's insults."

"Whither goes now the Spartan?" murmured Antagoras abstractedly, as
he suffered his companion to lead him away. Then halting abruptly, he
struck his clenched hand on his breast.

"O Aphrodite!" he cried; "this night--this night I will seek thy
temple. Hear my vows--soothe my jealousy!"

"Ah," grunted Uliades, "if, as men say, thou lovest a fair Byzantine,
Aphrodite will have sharp work to cure thee of jealousy, unless she
first makes thee blind."

Antagoras smiled faintly, and the two Ionians moved on slowly and in
silence. In a few minutes more the quays were deserted and nothing but
the blended murmur, spreading wide and indistinct throughout the camp,
and a noisier but occasional burst of merriment from those resorts
of obscener pleasure which were profusely scattered along the haven,
mingled with the whispers of "the far resounding sea."


Notes:

[5] Gibbon, ch. 17.

[6] "The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm
of the Bosphorus, obtained in a very remote period the denomination of
the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the
horn of a stag, or, as it should seem, with more propriety to that of
an ox."--Gib. c. 17; Strab. 1. x.

[7] Ion _apud_ Plut.

[8] Herod. ix. 82.

[9] Plut. in Vit. Arist.

[10] Leader of ten men.




CHAPTER II.


On a couch, beneath his voluptuous awning, reclined Pausanias. The
curtains, drawn aside, gave to view the moonlit ocean, and the dim
shadows of the shore, with the dark woods beyond, relieved by the
distant lights of the city. On one side of the Spartan was a small
table, that supported goblets and vases of that exquisite wine which
Maronea proffered to the thirst of the Byzantine, and those cooling
and delicious fruits which the orchards around the city supplied as
amply as the fabled gardens of the Hesperides, were heaped on the
other side. Towards the foot of the couch, propped upon cushions piled
on the floor, sat Gongylus, conversing in a low, earnest voice,
and fixing his eyes steadfastly on the Spartan. The habits of the
Eretrian's life, which had brought him in constant contact with
the Persians, had infected his very language with the luxuriant
extravagance of the East. And the thoughts he uttered made his
language but too musical to the ears of the listening Spartan.

"And fair as these climes may seem to you, and rich as are the gardens
and granaries of Byzantium, yet to me who have stood on the terraces
of Babylon and looked upon groves covering with blossom and fruit the
very fortresses and walls of that queen of nations,--to me, who have
roved amidst the vast delights of Susa, through palaces whose very
porticoes might enclose the limits of a Grecian city,--who have stood,
awed and dazzled, in the courts of that wonder of the world, that
crown of the East, the marble magnificence of Persepolis--to me,
Pausanias, who have been thus admitted into the very heart of Persian
glories, this city of Byzantium appears but a village of artisans and
fishermen. The very foliage of its forests, pale and sickly, the very
moonlight upon these waters, cold and smileless, ah, if thou couldst
but see! But pardon me, I weary thee?"

"Not so," said the Spartan, who, raised upon his elbow, listened to
the words of Gongylus with deep attention. "Proceed." "Ah, if thou
couldst but see the fair regions which the great king has apportioned
to thy countryman Demaratus. And if a domain, that would satiate
the ambition of the most craving of your earlier tyrants, fall to
Demaratus, what would be the splendid satrapy in which the conqueror
of Plataea might plant his throne?"

"In truth, my renown and my power are greater than those ever
possessed by Demaratus," said the Spartan musingly.

"Yet," pursued Gongylus, "it is not so much the mere extent of the
territories which the grateful Xerxes could proffer to the brave
Pausanias--it is not their extent so much that might tempt desire,
neither is it their stately forests, nor the fertile meadows, nor the
ocean-like rivers, which the gods of the East have given to the race
of Cyrus. There, free from the strange constraints which our austere
customs and solemn Deities impose upon the Greeks, the beneficent
Ormuzd scatters ever-varying delights upon the paths of men. All that
art can invent, all that the marts of the universe can afford of the
rare and voluptuous, are lavished upon abodes the splendour of which
even our idle dreams of Olympus never shadowed forth. There, instead
of the harsh and imperious helpmate to whom the joyless Spartan
confines his reluctant love, all the beauties of every clime contend
for the smile of their lord. And wherever are turned the change-loving
eyes of Passion, the Aphrodite of our poets, such as the Cytherean and
the Cyprian fable her, seems to recline on the lotus leaf or to rise
from the unruffled ocean of delight. Instead of the gloomy brows and
the harsh tones of rivals envious of your fame, hosts of friends
aspiring only to be followers will catch gladness from your smile or
sorrow from your frown. There, no jarring contests with little men,
who deem themselves the equals of the great, no jealous Ephor is
found, to load the commonest acts of life with fetters of iron custom.
Talk of liberty! Liberty in Sparta is but one eternal servitude; you
cannot move, or eat, or sleep, save as the law directs. Your very
children are wrested from you just in the age when their voices sound
most sweet. Ye are not men; ye are machines. Call you this liberty,
Pausanias? I, a Greek, have known both Grecian liberty and Persian
royalty Better be chieftain to a king than servant to a mob! But in
Eretria, at least, pleasure was not denied. In Sparta the very Graces
preside over discipline and war only."

"Your fire falls upon flax," said Pausanias, rising, and with
passionate emotion. "And if you, the Greek of a happier state, you who
know but by report the unnatural bondage to which the Spartans are
subjected, can weary of the very name of Greek, what must be the
feelings of one who from the cradle upward has been starved out of the
genial desires of life? Even in earliest youth, while yet all other
lands and customs were unknown, when it was duly poured into my ears
that to be born a Spartan constituted the glory and the bliss of
earth, my soul sickened at the lesson, and my reason revolted against
the lie. Often when my whole body was lacerated with stripes,
disdaining to groan, I yet yearned to strike, and I cursed my savage
tutors who denied pleasure even to childhood with all the madness
of impotent revenge. My mother herself (sweet name elsewhere) had no
kindness in her face. She was the pride of the matronage of Sparta,
because of all our women Alithea was the most unsexed. When I went
forth to my first crypteia, to watch, amidst the wintry dreariness of
the mountains, upon the movements of the wretched Helots, to spy upon
their sufferings, to take account of their groans, and if one more
manly than the rest dared to mingle curses with his groans, to mark
_him_ for slaughter, as a wolf that threatened danger to the fold; to
lurk, an assassin, about his home, to dog his walks, to fall on him
unawares, to strike him from behind, to filch away his life, to bury
him in the ravines, so that murder might leave no trace; when upon
this initiating campaign, the virgin trials of our youth, I first set
forth, my mother drew near, and girding me herself with my grandsire's
sword, 'Go forth,' she said, 'as the young hound to the chase, to
wind, to double, to leap on the prey, and to taste of blood. See, the
sword is bright; show me the stains at thy return,'"

"Is it then true, as the Greeks generally declare," interrupted
Gongylus, "that in these campaigns, or crypteias, the sole aim and
object is the massacre of Helots?"

"Not so," replied Pausanias; "savage though the custom, it smells not
so foully of the shambles. The avowed object is to harden the nerves
of our youth. Barefooted, unattended, through cold and storm,
performing ourselves the most menial offices necessary to life, we
wander for a certain season daily and nightly through the rugged
territories of Laconia.[11] We go as boys--we come back as men.[12]
The avowed object, I say, is increment to hardship, but with this is
connected the secret end of keeping watch on these half-tamed and
bull-like herds of men whom we call the Helots. If any be dangerous,
we mark him for the knife. One of them had thrice been a ringleader
in revolt. He was wary as well as fierce. He had escaped in three
succeeding crypteias. To me, as one of the Heraclidae, was assigned
the honour of tracking and destroying him. For three days and three
nights I dogged his footsteps, (for he had caught the scent of the
pursuers and fled,) through forest and defile, through valley and crag,
stealthily and relentlessly. I followed him close. At last, one evening,
having lost sight of all my comrades, I came suddenly upon him as I
emerged from a wood. It was a broad patch of waste land, through which
rushed a stream swollen by the rains, and plunging with a sullen roar
down a deep and gloomy precipice, that to the right and left bounded the
waste, the stream in front, the wood in the rear. He was reclining by
the stream, at which, with the hollow of his hand, he quenched his
thirst. I paused to gaze upon him, and as I did so he turned and saw
me. He rose, and fixed his eyes on mine, and we examined each other in
silence. The Helots are rarely of tall stature, but this was a giant.
His dress, that of his tribe, of rude sheep-skins, and his cap
made from the hide of a dog increased the savage rudeness of his
appearance. I rejoiced that he saw me, and that, as we were alone, I
might fight him fairly. It would have been terrible to slay the wretch
if I had caught him in his sleep."

"Proceed," said Gongylus, with interest, for so little was known of
Sparta by the rest of the Greeks, especially outside the Peloponnesus,
that these details gratified his natural spirit of gossiping
inquisitiveness.

"'Stand!' said I, and he moved not. I approached him slowly. 'Thou art
a Spartan,' said he, in a deep and harsh voice, 'and thou comest for
my blood. Go, boy, go, thou art not mellowed to thy prime, and thy
comrades are far away. The shears of the Fatal deities hover over the
thread not of my life but of thine.' I was struck, Gongylus, by
this address, for it was neither desperate nor dastardly, as I had
anticipated; nevertheless, it beseemed not a Spartan to fly from a
Helot, and I drew the sword which my mother had girded on. The Helot
watched my movements, and seized a rude and knotted club that lay on
the ground beside him.

"'Wretch,' said I, 'darest thou attack face to face a descendant of
the Heraclidae? In me behold Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus.'

"'Be it so; in the city one is the god-born, the other the
man-enslaved. On the mountains we are equals.'

"'Knowest thou not,' said I, 'that if the Gods condemned me to die
by thy hand, not only thou, but thy whole house, thy wife and thy
children, would be sacrificed to my ghost?"

"'The earth can hide the Spartan's bones as secretly as the Helot's,'
answered my strange foe. 'Begone, young and unfleshed in slaughter as
you are; why make war upon me? My death can give you neither gold nor
glory. I have never harmed thee or thine. How much of the air and sun
does this form take from the descendant of the Heraclidae?'

"'Thrice hast thou raised revolt among the Helots, thrice at thy voice
have they risen in bloody, though fruitless, strife against their
masters.'

"'Not at my voice, but at that of the two deities who are the war-gods
of slaves--Persecution and Despair.'[13] "Impatient of this parley, I
tarried no longer. I sprang upon the Helot. He evaded my sword, and
I soon found that all my agility and skill were requisite to save me
from the massive weapon, one blow of which would have sufficed
to crush me. But the Helot seemed to stand on the defensive, and
continued to back towards the wood from which I had emerged. Fearful
lest he would escape me, I pressed hard on his footsteps. My blood
grew warm; my fury got the better of my prudence. My foot stumbled;
I recovered in an instant, and, looking up, beheld the terrible club
suspended over my head; it might have fallen, but the stroke of death
was withheld. I misinterpreted the merciful delay; the lifted arm left
the body of my enemy exposed. I struck him on the side; the thick hide
blunted the stroke, but it drew blood. Afraid to draw back within
the reach of his weapon, I threw myself on him, and grappled to
his throat. We rolled on the earth together; it was but a moment's
struggle. Strong as I was even in boyhood, the Helot would have been
a match for Alcides. A shade passed over my eyes; my breath heaved
short. The slave was kneeling on my breast, and, dropping the club, he
drew a short knife from his girdle. I gazed upon him grim and mute. I
was conquered, and I cared not for the rest.

"The blood from his side, as he bent over me, trickled down upon my
face. "'And this blood,' said the Helot, 'you shed in the very moment
when I spared your life; such is the honour of a Spartan. Do you not
deserve to die?'

"'Yes, for I am subdued, and by a slave. Strike!'

"'There,' said the Helot in a melancholy and altered tone, 'there
speaks the soul of the Dorian, the fatal spirit to which the Gods have
rendered up our wretched race. We are doomed--doomed--and one victim
will not expiate our curse. Rise, return to Sparta, and forget that
thou art innocent of murder.'

"He lifted his knee from my breast, and I rose, ashamed and humbled.

"At that instant I heard the crashing of the leaves in the wood, for
the air was exceedingly still. I knew that my companions were at hand.
'Fly,' I cried; 'fly. If they come I cannot save thee, royal though I
be. Fly.'

"'And _wouldest_ thou save me!' said the Helot in surprise.

"'Ay, with my own life. Canst thou doubt it? Lose not a moment. Fly.
Yet stay;' and I tore off a part of the woollen vest that I wore.
'Place this at thy side; staunch the blood, that it may not track
thee. Now begone!'

"The Helot looked hard at me, and I thought there were tears in his
rude eyes; then catching up the club with as much ease as I this
staff, he sped with inconceivable rapidity, despite his wound, towards
the precipice on the right, and disappeared amidst the thick brambles
that clothed the gorge. In a few moments three of my companions
approached. They found me exhausted, and panting rather with
excitement than fatigue. Their quick eyes detected the blood upon the
ground. I gave them no time to pause and examine. 'He has escaped
me--he has fled,' I cried; 'follow,' and I led them to the opposite
part of the precipice from that which the Helot had taken. Heading the
search, I pretended to catch a glimpse of the goatskin ever and anon
through the trees, and I stayed not the pursuit till night grew dark,
and I judged the victim was far away."

"And he escaped?"

"He did. The crypteia ended. Three other Helots were slain, but not
by me. We returned to Sparta, and my mother was comforted for my
misfortune in not having slain my foe by seeing the stains on my
grandsire's sword, I will tell thee a secret, Gongylus"--(and here
Pausanias lowered his voice, and looked anxiously toward him)---"since
that day I have not hated the Helot race. Nay, it may be that I have
loved them better than the Dorian."

"I do not wonder at it; but has not your wounded giant yet met with
his death?"

"No, I never related what had passed between us to any one save
my father. He was gentle for a Spartan, and he rested not till
Gylippus--so was the Helot named--obtained exemption from the black
list. He dared not, however, attribute his intercession to the true
cause. It happened, fortunately, that Gylippus was related to my own
foster-brother, Alcman, brother to my nurse; and Alcman is celebrated
in Sparta, not only for courage in war, but for arts in peace. He is
a poet, and his strains please the Dorian ear, for they are stern and
simple, and they breathe of war. Alcman's merits won forgiveness for
the offences of Gylippus. May the Gods be kind to his race!"

"Your Alcman seems one of no common intelligence, and your gentleness
to him does not astonish me, though it seems often to raise a frown on
the brows of your Spartans."

"We have lain on the same bosom," said Pausanias touchingly, "and
his mother was kinder to me than my own. You must know that to those
Helots who have been our foster-brothers, and whom we distinguish by
the name of Mothons, our stern law relaxes. They have no rights
of citizenship, it is true, but they cease to be slaves;[14] nay,
sometimes they attain not only to entire emancipation, but to
distinction. Alcman has bound his fate to mine. But to return,
Gongylus. I tell thee that it is not thy descriptions of pomp and
dominion that allure me, though I am not above the love of power,
neither is it thy glowing promises, though blood too wild for a Dorian
runs riot in my veins; but it is my deep loathing, my inexpressible
disgust for Sparta and her laws, my horror at the thought of wearing
away life in those sullen customs, amid that joyless round of tyrannic
duties, in my rapture at the hope of escape, of life in a land which
the eye of the Ephor never pierces; this it is, and this alone, O
Persian, that makes me (the words must out) a traitor to my country,
one who dreams of becoming a dependent on her foe."

"Nay," said Gongylus eagerly; for here Pausanias moved uneasily,
and the colour mounted to his brow. "Nay, speak not of dependence.
Consider the proposals that you can alone condescend to offer to
the great king. Can the conqueror of Plataea, with millions for his
subjects, hold himself dependent, even on the sovereign of the East?
How, hereafter, will the memories of our sterile Greece and your
rocky Sparta fade from your mind: or be remembered only as a state of
thraldom and bondage, which your riper manhood has outgrown!"

"I will try to think so, at least," said Pausanias gloomily. "And,
come what may, I am not one to recede. I have thrown my shield into
a fearful peril; but I will win it back or perish. Enough of this,
Gongylus. Night advances. I will attend the appointment you have made.
Take the boat, and within an hour I will meet you with the prisoners
at the spot agreed on, near the Temple of Aphrodite. All things are
prepared?"

"All," said Gongylus, rising, with a gleam of malignant joy on his
dark face. "I leave thee, kingly slave of the rocky Sparta, to prepare
the way for thee, as Satrap of half the East."

So saying he quitted the awning, and motioned three Egyptian sailors
who lay on the deck without. A boat was lowered, and the sound of its
oars woke Pausanias from the reverie into which the parting words of
the Eretrian had plunged his mind.


Notes:

[11] Plat. Leg. i. p. 633. See also MŁller's Dorians, vol. ii. p. 41.

[12] Pueros puberos--neque prius in urbem redire quam viri facti
essent.--Justin, iii. 3.

[13] When Themistocles sought to extort tribute from the Andrians, he
said, "I bring with me two powerful gods--Persuasion and Force."
"And on our side," was the answer, "are two deities not less
powerful--Poverty and Despair!"

[14] The appellation of Mothons was not confined to the Helots who
claimed the connection of foster-brothers, but was given also to
household slaves.




CHAPTER III


With a slow and thoughtful step, Pausanias passed on to the outer
deck. The moon was up, and the vessel scarcely seemed to stir, so
gently did it glide along the sparkling waters. They were still within
the bay, and the shores rose, white and distinct, to his view. A group
of Spartans, reclining by the side of the ship, were gazing listlessly
on the waters. The Regent paused beside them.

"Ye weary of the ocean, methinks," said he. "We Dorians have not the
merchant tastes of the Ionians."[15]

"Son of Cleombrotus," said one of the group, a Spartan whose rank
and services entitled him to more than ordinary familiarity with the
chief, "it is not the ocean itself that we should dread, it is the
contagion of those who, living on the element, seem to share in its
ebb and flow. The Ionians are never three hours in the same mind."

"For that reason," said Pausanias, fixing his eyes steadfastly on the
Spartan, "for that reason I have judged it advisable to adopt a rough
manner with these innovators, to draw with a broad chalk the line
between them and the Spartans, and to teach those who never knew
discipline the stern duties of obedience. Think you I have done
wisely?"

The Spartan, who had risen when Pausanias addressed him, drew his
chief a little aside from the rest.

"Pausanias," said he, "the hard Naxian stone best tames and tempers
the fine steel;[16] but the steel may break if the workman be not
skilful. These Athenians are grown insolent since Marathon, and their
soft kindred of Asia have relighted the fires they took of old from
the Cecropian Prytaneum. Their sail is more numerous than ours; on the
sea they find the courage they lose on land. Better be gentle with
those wayward allies, for the Spartan greyhound shows not his teeth
but to bite."

"Perhaps you are right. I will consider these things, and appease the
mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals
of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy
themselves in perpetual holidays?--spend days at the banquet?--ransack
earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?--and shall they be the
equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are
wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well
have no fear of death? I hate these sleek and merry feast-givers; they
are a perpetual insult to our solemn existence."

There was a strange mixture of irony and passion in the Spartan's
voice as he thus spoke, and Thrasyllus looked at him in grave
surprise.

"There is nothing to envy in the woman-like debaucheries of the
Ionian," said he, after a pause.

"Envy! no; we only hate them, Thrasyllus Yon Eretrian tells me rare
things of the East. Time may come when we shall sup on the black broth
in Susa."

"The Gods forbid! Sparta never invades. Life with us is too precious,
for we are few. Pausanias, I would we were well quit of Byzantium. I
do not suspect you, not I; but there are those who look with vexed
eyes on those garments, and I, who love you, fear the sharp jealousies
of the Ephors, to whose ears the birds carry all tidings."

"My poor Thrasyllus," said Pausanias, laughing scornfully, "think you
that I wear these robes, or mimic the Median manners, for love of the
Mede? No, no! But there are arts which save countries as well as those
of war. This Gongylus is in the confidence of Xerxes. I desire to
establish a peace for Greece upon everlasting foundations. Reflect;
Persia hath millions yet left. Another invasion may find a different
fortune; and even at the best, Sparta gains nothing by these wars.
Athens triumphs, not Lacedaemon. I would, I say, establish a peace
with Persia. I would that Sparta, not Athens, should have that honour.
Hence these flatteries to the Persian--trivial to us who render
them, sweet and powerful to those who receive. Remember these words
hereafter, if the Ephors make question of my discretion. And now,
Thrasyllus, return to our friends, and satisfy them as to the conduct
of Pausanias." Quitting Thrasyllus, the Regent now joined a young
Spartan who stood alone by the prow in a musing attitude.

"Lysander, my friend, my only friend, my best-loved Lysander," said
Pausanias, placing his hand on the Spartan's shoulder. "And why so
sad?"

"How many leagues are we from Sparta?" answered Lysander mournfully.

"And canst thou sigh for the black broth, my friend? Come, how often
hast thou said, 'Where Pausanias is, _there_ is Sparta!'"

"Forgive me, I am ungrateful," said Lysander with warmth. "My
benefactor, my guardian, my hero, forgive me if I have added to your
own countless causes of anxiety. Wherever you are there is life, and
there glory. When I was just born, sickly and feeble, I was exposed
on Taygetus. You, then a boy, heard my faint cry, and took on me that
compassion which my parents had forsworn. You bore me to your father's
roof, you interceded for my life. You prevailed even on your stern
mother. I was saved; and the Gods smiled upon the infant whom the son
of the humane Hercules protected. I grew up strong and hardy, and
belied the signs of my birth. My parents then owned me; but still
you were my fosterer, my saviour, my more than father. As I grew up,
placed under your care, I imbibed my first lessons of war. By your
side I fought, and from your example I won glory. Yes, Pausanias, even
here, amidst luxuries which revolt me more than the Parthian bow and
the Persian sword, even amidst the faces of the stranger, I still feel
thy presence my home, thyself my Sparta."

The proud Pausanias was touched, and his voice trembled as he replied,
"Brother in arms and in love, whatever service fate may have allowed
me to render unto thee, thy high nature and thy cheering affection
have more than paid me back. Often in our lonely rambles amidst the
dark oaks of the sacred Scotitas,[17] or by the wayward waters of
Tiasa,[18] when I have poured into thy faithful breast my impatient
loathing, my ineffable distaste for the iron life, the countless and
wearisome tyrannies of custom which surround the Spartans, often have
I found a consoling refuge in thy divine contentment, thy cheerful
wisdom. Thou lovest Sparta; why is she not worthier of thy love?
Allowed only to be half men, in war we are demigods, in peace, slaves.
Thou wouldst interrupt me. Be silent. I am in a wilful mood; thou
canst not comprehend me, and I often marvel at thee. Still we are
friends, such friends as the Dorian discipline, which makes friendship
necessary in order to endure life, alone can form. Come, take up thy
staff and mantle. Thou shalt be my companion ashore. I seek one whom
alone in the world I love better than thee. To-morrow to stern duties
once more. Alcman shall row us across the bay, and as we glide along,
if thou wilt praise Sparta, I will listen to thee as the Ionians
listen to their tale-tellers. Ho! Alcman, stop the rowers, and lower
the boat."

The orders were obeyed, and a second boat soon darted towards the
same part of the bay as that to which the one that bore Gongylus had
directed its course. Thrasyllus and his companions watched the boat
that bore Pausanias and his two comrades, as it bounded, arrow-like,
over the glassy sea.

"Whither goes Pausanias?" asked one of the Spartans.

"Back to Byzantium on business," replied Thrasyllus.

"And we?"

"Are to cruise in the bay till his return.

"Pausanias is changed."

"Sparta will restore him to what he was. Nothing thrives out of
Sparta. Even man spoils."

"True, sleep is the sole constant friend the same in all climates."


Notes:

[15] No Spartan served as a sailor, or indeed condescended to any trade
or calling, but that of war.

[16] Pind. Isth. v. (vi.) 73.

[17] Paus. Lac. x.

[18] _Ib_., c. xviii.




CHAPTER IV


On the shore to the right of the port of Byzantium were at that time
thickly scattered the villas or suburban retreats of the wealthier and
more luxurious citizens. Byzantium was originally colonized by the
Megarians, a Dorian race kindred with that of Sparta; and the old
features of the pure and antique Hellas were still preserved in
the dialect,[19] as well as in the forms of the descendants of the
colonists; in their favourite deities, and rites, and traditions; even
in the names of places, transferred from the sterile Megara to that
fertile coast; in the rigid and helot-like slavery to which the native
Bithynians were subjected, and in the attachment of their masters to
the oligarchic principles of government. Nor was it till long after
the present date, that democracy in its most corrupt and licentious
form was introduced amongst them. But like all the Dorian colonies,
when once they departed from the severe and masculine mode of life
inherited from their ancestors, the reaction was rapid, the degeneracy
complete. Even then the Byzantines, intermingled with the foreign
merchants and traders that thronged their haven, and womanized by the
soft contagion of the East, were voluptuous, timid, and prone to every
excess save that of valour. The higher class were exceedingly wealthy,
and gave to their vices or their pleasures a splendour and refinement
of which the elder states of Greece were as yet unconscious. At a
later period, indeed, we are informed that the Byzantine citizens
had their habitual residence in the public hostels, and let their
houses--not even taking the trouble to remove their wives--to the
strangers who crowded their gay capital. And when their general found
it necessary to demand their aid on the ramparts, he could only secure
their attendance by ordering the taverns and cookshops to be removed
to the place of duty. Not yet so far sunk in sloth and debauch, the
Byzantines were nevertheless hosts eminently dangerous to the austerer
manners of their Greek visitors. The people, the women, the delicious
wine, the balm of the subduing climate served to tempt the senses
and relax the mind. Like all the Dorians, when freed from primitive
restraint, the higher class, that is, the descendants of the
colonists, were in themselves an agreeable, jovial race. They had that
strong bias to humour, to jest, to satire, which in their ancestral
Megara gave birth to the Grecian comedy, and which lurked even beneath
the pithy aphorisms and rude merry-makings of the severe Spartan.

Such were the people with whom of late Pausanias had familiarly mixed,
and with whose manners he contrasted, far too favourably for his
honour and his peace, the habits of his countrymen.

It was in one of the villas we have described, the favourite abode
of the rich Diagoras, and in an apartment connected with those more
private recesses of the house appropriated to the females, that two
persons were seated by a window which commanded a wide view of the
glittering sea below. One of these was an old man in a long robe that
reached to his feet, with a bald head and a beard in which some dark
hairs yet withstood the encroachments of the grey. In his well-cut
features and large eyes were remains of the beauty that characterised
his race; but the mouth was full and wide, the forehead low though
broad, the cheeks swollen, the chin double, and the whole form
corpulent and unwieldy. Still there was a jolly, sleek good humour
about the aspect of the man that prepossessed you in his favour. This
personage, who was no less than Diagoras himself, was reclining lazily
upon a kind of narrow sofa cunningly inlaid with ivory, and studying
new combinations in that scientific game which Palamedes is said to
have invented at the siege of Troy.

His companion was of a very different appearance. She was a girl who
to the eye of a northern stranger might have seemed about eighteen,
though she was probably much younger, of a countenance so remarkable
for intelligence that it was easy to see that her mind had outgrown
her years. Beautiful she certainly was, yet scarcely of that beauty
from which the Greek sculptor would have drawn his models. The
features were not strictly regular, and yet so harmoniously did each
blend with each, that to have amended one would have spoilt the whole.
There was in the fulness and depth of the large but genial eye, with
its sweeping fringe, and straight, slightly chiselled brow, more of
Asia than of Greece. The lips, of the freshest red, were somewhat
full and pouting, and dimples without number lay scattered round
them--lurking places for the loves. Her complexion was clear though
dark, and the purest and most virgin bloom mantled, now paler now
richer, through the soft surface. At the time we speak of she was
leaning against the open door with her arms crossed on her bosom, and
her face turned towards the Byzantine. Her robe, of a deep yellow, so
trying to the fair women of the North, became well the glowing colours
of her beauty--the damask cheek, the purple hair. Like those of the
Ionians, the sleeves of the robe, long and loose, descended to her
hands, which were marvellously small and delicate. Long earrings,
which terminated in a kind of berry, studded with precious stones,
then common only with the women of the East; a broad collar,
or necklace, of the smaragdus or emerald; and large clasps,
medallion-like, where the swan-like throat joined the graceful
shoulder, gave to her dress an appearance of opulence and splendour
that betokened how much the ladies of Byzantium had borrowed from the
fashions of the Oriental world. Nothing could exceed the lightness of
her form, rounded, it is true, but slight and girlish, and the high
instep, with the slender foot, so well set off by the embroidered
sandal, would have suited such dances as those in which the huntress
nymphs of Delos moved around Diana. The natural expression of her
face, if countenance so mobile and changeful had one expression more
predominant than another, appeared to be irresistibly arch and joyous,
as of one full of youth and conscious of her beauty; yet, if a cloud
came over the face, nothing could equal the thoughtful and deep
sadness of the dark abstracted eyes, as if some touch of higher and
more animated emotion--such as belongs to pride, or courage, or
intellect--vibrated on the heart. The colour rose, the form dilated,
the lip quivered, the eye flashed light, and the mirthful expression
heightened almost into the sublime. Yet, lovely as Cleonice was deemed
at Byzantium, lovelier still as she would have appeared in modern
eyes, she failed in what the Greeks generally, but especially the
Spartans, deemed an essential of beauty--in height of stature.
Accustomed to look upon the virgin but as the future mother of a race
of warriors, the Spartans saw beauty only in those proportions which
promised a robust and stately progeny, and the reader may remember
the well-known story of the opprobrious reproaches, even, it is said,
accompanied with stripes, which the Ephors addressed to a Spartan king
for presuming to make choice of a wife below the ordinary stature.
Cleonice was small and delicate, rather like the Peri of the Persian
than the sturdy Grace of the Dorian. But her beauty was her least
charm. She had all that feminine fascination of manner, wayward,
varying, inexpressible, yet irresistible, which seizes hold of the
imagination as well as the senses, and which has so often made willing
slaves of the proud rulers of the world. In fact Cleonice, the
daughter of Diagoras, had enjoyed those advantages of womanly
education wholly unknown at that time to the freeborn ladies of Greece
proper, but which gave to the women of some of the isles and Ionian
cities their celebrity in ancient story. Her mother was of Miletus,
famed for the intellectual cultivation of the sex, no less than for
their beauty--of Miletus, the birthplace of Aspasia--of Miletus,
from which those remarkable women who, under the name of Hetaerae,
exercised afterwards so signal an influence over the mind and manners
of Athens, chiefly derived their origin, and who seem to have inspired
an affection, which in depth, constancy, and fervour, approached to
the more chivalrous passion of the North. Such an education consisted
not only in the feminine and household arts honoured universally
throughout Greece, but in a kind of spontaneous and luxuriant
cultivation of all that captivates the fancy and enlivens the leisure.
If there were something pedantic in their affectation of philosophy,
it was so graced and vivified by a brilliancy of conversation, a charm
of manner carried almost to a science, a womanly facility of softening
all that comes within their circle, of suiting yet refining each
complexity and discord of character admitted to their intercourse,
that it had at least nothing masculine or harsh. Wisdom, taken lightly
or easily, seemed but another shape of poetry. The matrons of Athens,
who could often neither read nor write--ignorant, vain, tawdry, and
not always faithful, if we may trust to such scandal as has reached
the modern time--must have seemed insipid beside these brilliant
strangers; and while certainly wanting their power to retain love,
must have had but a doubtful superiority in the qualifications that
ensure esteem. But we are not to suppose that the Hetaerae (that
mysterious and important class peculiar to a certain state of society,
and whose appellation we cannot render by any proper word in modern
language) monopolized all the graces of their countrywomen. In the
same cities were many of unblemished virtue and repute who possessed
equal cultivation and attraction, but whom a more decorous life has
concealed from the equivocal admiration of posterity; though the
numerous female disciples of Pythagoras throw some light on their
capacity and intellect. Among such as these had been the mother of
Cleonice, not long since dead, and her daughter inherited and equalled
her accomplishments, while her virgin youth, her inborn playfulness
of manner, her pure guilelessness, which the secluded habits of the
unmarried women at Byzantium preserved from all contagion, gave to
qualities and gifts so little published abroad, the effect as it were
of a happy and wondrous inspiration rather than of elaborate culture.

Such was the fair creature whom Diagoras, looking up from his pastime,
thus addressed:--

"And so, perverse one, thou canst not love this great hero, a proper
person truly, and a mighty warrior, who will eat you an army of
Persians at a meal. These Spartan fighting-cocks want no garlic, I
warrant you.[20] And yet you can't love him, you little rogue."

"Why, my father," said Cleonice, with an arch smile, and a slight
blush, "even if I did look kindly on Pausanias, would it not be to my
own sorrow? What Spartan--above all, what royal Spartan--may marry
with a foreigner, and a Byzantine?"

"I did not precisely talk of marriage--a very happy state, doubtless,
to those who dislike too quiet a life, and a very honourable one, for
war is honor itself; but I did not speak of that, Cleonice. I would
only say that this man of might loves thee--that he is rich, rich,
rich. Pretty pickings at Plataea; and we have known losses, my child,
sad losses. And if you do not love him, why, you can but smile and
talk as if you did, and when the Spartan goes home, you will lose a
tormenter and gain a dowry."

"My father, for shame!"

"Who talks of shame? You women are always so sharp at finding oracles
in oak leaves, that one don't wonder Apollo makes choice of your sex
for his priests. But listen to me, girl, seriously," and here Diagoras
with a great effort raised himself on his elbow, and lowering his
voice, spoke with evident earnestness. "Pausanias has life and death,
and, what is worse, wealth or poverty in his hands; he can raise or
ruin us with a nod of his head, this black-curled Jupiter. They tell
me that he is fierce, irascible, haughty; and what slighted lover is
not revengeful? For my sake, Cleonice, for your poor father's sake,
show no scorn, no repugnance; be gentle, play with him, draw not down
the thunderbolt, even if you turn from the golden shower."

While Diagoras spoke, the girl listened with downcast eyes and flushed
cheeks, and there was an expression of such shame and sadness on her
countenance, that even the Byzantine, pausing and looking up for a
reply, was startled by it.

"My child," said he, hesitatingly and absorbed, "do not misconceive
me. Cursed be the hour when the Spartan saw thee; but since the Fates
have so served us, let us not make bad worse. I love thee, Cleonice,
more dearly than the apple of my eye; it is for _thee_ I fear, for
thee I speak. Alas! it is not dishonour I recommend, it is force I
would shun."

"Force!" said the girl, drawing up her form with sudden animation.
"Fear not that. It is not Pausanias I dread, it is--"

"What then?"

"No matter; talk of this no more. Shall I sing to thee?"

"But Pausanias will visit us this very night."

"I know it. Hark!" and with her finger to her lip, her ear bent
downward, her cheek varying from pale to red, from red to pale, the
maiden stole beyond the window to a kind of platform or terrace that
overhung the sea. There, the faint breeze stirring her long hair, and
the moonlight full upon her face, she stood, as stood that immortal
priestess who looked along the starry Hellespont for the young
Leander; and her ear had not deceived her. The oars were dashing in
the wave's below, and dark and rapid the boat bounded on towards the
rocky shore. She gazed long and steadfastly on the dim and shadowy
forms which that slender raft contained, and her eye detected amongst
the three the loftier form of her haughty wooer. Presently the thick
foliage that clothed the descent shut the boat, nearing the strand,
from her view; but she now heard below, mellowed and softened in the
still and fragrant air, the sound of the cithara and the melodious
song of the Mothon, thus imperfectly rendered from the language of
immortal melody.

  SONG.

  Carry a sword in the myrtle bough,
  Ye who would honour the tyrant-slayer;
  I, in the leaves of the myrtle bough,
  Carry a tyrant to slay myself.

  I pluck'd the branch with a hasty hand,
  But Love was lurking amidst the leaves;
  His bow is bent and his shaft is poised,
  And I must perish or pass the bough.

  Maiden, I come with a gift to thee,
  Maiden, I come with a myrtle wreath;
  Over thy forehead, or round thy breast
  Bind, I implore thee, my myrtle wreath.[21]

  From hand to hand by the banquet lights
  On with the myrtle bough passes song:
  From hand to hand by the silent stars
  What with the myrtle wreath passes? Love.

  I bear the god in a myrtle wreath,
  Under the stars let him pass to thee;
  Empty his quiver and bind his wings,
  Then pass the myrtle wreath back to me.

Cleonice listened breathlessly to the words, and sighed heavily as
they ceased. Then, as the foliage rustled below, she turned quickly
into the chamber and seated herself at a little distance from
Diagoras; to all appearance calm, indifferent and composed. Was it
nature, or the arts of Miletus, that taught the young beauty the
hereditary artifices of the sex?

"So it is he, then?" said Diagoras, with a fidgety and nervous
trepidation. "Well, he chooses strange hours to visit us. But he
is right; his visits cannot be too private. Cleonice, you look
provokingly at your ease."

Cleonice made no reply, but shifted her position so that the light
from the lamp did not fall upon her face, while her father, hurrying
to the threshold of his hall to receive his illustrious visitor, soon
re-appeared with the Spartan Regent, talking as he entered with the
volubility of one of the parasites of Alciphron and Athenaeus.

"This is most kind, most affable. Cleonice said you would come,
Pausanias, though I began to distrust you. The hours seem long to
those who expect pleasure."

"And, Cleonice, _you_ knew that I should come," said Pausanias,
approaching the fair Byzantine; but his step was timid, and there was
no pride now in his anxious eye and bended brow.

"You said you would come to-night," said Cleonice, calmly, "and
Spartans, according to proverbs, speak the truth."

"When it is to their advantage, yes,"[22]said but with respect to
others, they consider honourable whatever pleases them, and just
whatever is to their advantage."

Pausanias, with a slight curl of his lips; and, as if the girl's
compliment to his countrymen had roused his spleen and changed his
thoughts, he seated himself moodily by Cleonice, and remained silent.

The Byzantine stole an arch glance at the Spartan, as he thus sat,
from the corner of her eyes, and said, after a pause--

"You Spartans ought to speak the truth more than other people, for you
say much less. We too have our proverb at Byzantium, and one which
implies that it requires some wit to tell fibs."

"Child, child!" exclaimed Diagoras, holding up his hand reprovingly,
and directing a terrified look at the Spartan. To his great relief,
Pausanias smiled, and replied--

"Fair maiden, we Dorians are said to have a wit peculiar to ourselves,
but I confess that it is of a nature that is but little attractive to
your sex. The Athenians are blander wooers."

"Do you ever attempt to woo in Lacedaemon, then? Ah, but the maidens
there, perhaps, are not difficult to please."

"The girl puts me in a cold sweat!" muttered Diagoras, wiping his
brow. And this time Pausanias did not smile; he coloured, and answered
gravely--

"And is it, then, a vain hope for a Spartan to please a Byzantine?"

"You puzzle me. That is an enigma; put it to the oracle."

The Spartan raised his eyes towards Cleonice, and, as she saw the
inquiring, perplexed look that his features assumed, the ruby lips
broke into so wicked a smile, and the eyes that met his had so much
laughter in them, that Pausanias was fairly bewitched out of his own
displeasure.

"Ah, cruel one!" said he, lowering his voice, "I am not so proud of
being Spartan that the thought should console me for thy mockery."

"Not proud of being Spartan! say not so," exclaimed Cleonice. "Who
ever speaks of Greece and places not Sparta at her head? Who ever
speaks of freedom and forgets Thermopylae? Who ever burns for glory,
and sighs not for the fame of Pausanias and Plataea? Ah, yes, even in
jest say not that you are not proud to be a Spartan!"

"The little fool!" cried Diagoras, chuckling, and mightily delighted;
"she is quite mad about Sparta--no wonder!"

Pausanias, surprised and moved by the burst of the fair Byzantine,
gazed at her admiringly, and thought within himself how harshly the
same sentiment would have sounded on the lips of a tall Spartan
virgin; but when Cleonice heard the approving interlocution of
Diagoras, her enthusiasm vanished from her face, and putting out her
lips poutingly, she said, "Nay, father, I repeat only what others say
of the Spartans. They are admirable heroes; but from the little I have
seen, they are--"

"What?" said Pausanias eagerly, and leaning nearer to Cleonice.

"Proud, dictatorial, and stern as companions."

Pausanias once more drew back.

"There it is again!" groaned Diagoras. "I feel exactly as if I were
playing at odd and even with a lion; she does it to vex me. I shall
retaliate and creep away."

"Cleonice," said Pausanias, with suppressed emotion, "you trifle with
me, and I bear it."

"You are condescending. How would you avenge yourself?"

"How!"

"You would not beat me; you would not make me bear an anchor on the
shoulders, as they say you do your soldiers. Shame on you! _you_ bear
with me! true, what help for you?"

"Maiden," said the Spartan, rising in great anger, "for him who loves
and is slighted there is a revenge you have not mentioned."

"For him who _loves!_ No, Spartan; for him who shuns disgrace and
courts the fame dear to gods and men, there is no revenge upon women.
Blush for your threat."

"You madden, but subdue me," said the Spartan as he turned away. He
then first perceived that Diagoras had gone--that they were alone.
His contempt for the father awoke suspicion of the daughter. Again he
approached and said, "Cleonice, I know but little of the fables of
poets, yet is it an old maxim often sung and ever belied, that love
scorned becomes hate. There are moments when I think I hate thee."

"And yet thou hast never loved me," said Cleonice; and there was
something soft and tender in the tone of her voice, and the rough
Spartan was again subdued.

"I never loved thee! What, then, is love? Is not thine image always
before me?--amidst schemes, amidst perils of which thy very dreams
have never presented equal perplexity or phantoms so uncertain, I am
occupied but with thee. Surely, as upon the hyacinth is written the
exclamation of woe, so on this heart is graven thy name. Cleonice, you
who know not what it is to love, you affect to deny or to question
mine."

"And what," said Cleonice, blushing deeply, and with tears in her
eyes, "what result can come from such a love? You may not wed with
the stranger. And yet, Pausanias, yet you know that all other love
dishonours the virgin even of Byzantium. You are silent; you turn
away. Ah, do not let them wrong you. My father fears your power. If
you love me you are powerless; your power has passed to me. Is it not
so? I, a weak girl, can rule, command, irritate, mock you, if I will.
You may fly me, but not control."

"Do not tempt me too far, Cleonice," said the Spartan, with a faint
smile.

"Nay, I will be merciful henceforth, and you, Pausanias, come here
no more. Awake to the true sense of what is due to your divine
ancestry--your great name. Is it not told of you that, after the
fall of Mardonius, you nobly dismissed to her country, unscathed and
honoured, the captive Coan lady?[23] Will you reverse at Byzantium
the fame acquired at Plataea? Pausanias, spare us; appeal not to my
father's fear, still less to his love of gold."

"I cannot, I cannot fly thee," said the Spartan, with great emotion.
"You know not how stormy, how inexorable are the passions which
burst forth after a whole youth of restraint. When nature breaks the
barriers, she rushes headlong on her course. I am no gentle wooer;
where in Sparta should I learn the art? But, if I love thee not as
these mincing Ionians, who come with offerings of flowers and song,
I do love thee with all that fervour of which the old Dorian legends
tell. I could brave, like the Thracian, the dark gates of Hades, were
thy embrace my reward. Command me as thou wilt--make me thy slave in
all things, even as Hercules was to Omphale; but tell me only that I
may win thy love at last. Fear not. Why fear me? in my wildest moments
a look from thee can control me. I ask but love for love. Without thy
love thy beauty were valueless. Bid me not despair."

Cleonice turned pale, and the large tears that had gathered in her
eyes fell slowly down her cheeks; but she did not withdraw her hand
from his clasp, or avert her countenance from his eyes.

"I do not fear thee," said she, in a very low voice. "I told my father
so; but--but--" (and here she drew back her hand and averted her
face), "I fear myself."

"Ah, no, no," cried the delighted Spartan, detaining her, "do not fear
to trust to thine own heart. Talk not of dishonour. There are"
(and here the Spartan drew himself up, and his voice took a deeper
swell)--"there are those on earth who hold themselves above the
miserable judgments of the vulgar herd--who can emancipate themselves
from those galling chains of custom and of country which helotize
affection, genius, nature herself. What is dishonour here may be glory
elsewhere; and this hand, outstretched towards a mightier sceptre than
Greek ever wielded yet, may dispense, not shame and sorrow, but glory
and golden affluence to those I love."

"You amaze me, Pausanias. _Now_ I fear you. What mean these mysterious
boasts? Have you the dark ambition to restore in your own person that
race of tyrants whom your country hath helped to sweep away? Can you
hope to change the laws of Sparta, and reign there, your will the
state?"

"Cleonice, we touch upon matters that should not disturb the ears of
women. Forgive me if I have been roused from myself."

"At Miletus--so have I heard my mother say--there were women worthy to
be the confidants of men."

"But they were women who loved. Cleonice, I should rejoice in an hour
when I might pour every thought into thy bosom."

At this moment there was heard on the strand below a single note from
the Mothon's instrument, low, but prolonged; it ceased, and was again
renewed. The royal conspirator started and breathed hard.

"It is the signal," he muttered; "they wait me. Cleonice," he said
aloud, and with much earnestness in his voice, "I had hoped, ere we
parted, to have drawn from your lips those assurances which would give
me energy for the present and hope in the future. Ah, turn not from me
because my speech is plain and my manner rugged. What, Cleonice, what
if I could defy the laws of Sparta; what if, instead of that gloomy
soil, I could bear thee to lands where heaven and man alike smile
benignant on love? Might I not hope then?"

"Do nothing to sully your fame."

"Is it, then, dear to thee?"

"It is a part of thee," said Cleonice falteringly; and as if she had
said too much, she covered her face with her hands.

Emboldened by this emotion, the Spartan gave way to his passion and
his joy. He clasped her in his arms--his first embrace--and kissed,
with wild fervour, the crimsoned forehead, the veiling hands. Then,
as he tore himself away, he cast his right arm aloft.

"O Hercules!" he cried, in solemn and kindling adjuration, "my
ancestor and my divine guardian, it was not by confining thy labours
to one spot of earth, that thou wert borne from thy throne of fire to
the seats of the Gods. Like thee I will spread the influence of my
arms to nations whoso glory shall be my name; and as thy sons, my
fathers, expelled from Sparta, returned thither with sword and spear
to defeat usurpers and to found the long dynasty of the Heracleids,
even so may it be mine to visit that dread abode of torturers and
spies, and to build up in the halls of the Atridae a power worthier of
the lineage of the demigod. Again the signal! Fear not, Cleonice, I
will not tarnish my fame, but I will exchange the envy of abhorring
rivals for the obedience of a world. One kiss more! Farewell!"

Ere Cleonice recovered herself, Pausanias was gone, his wild and
uncomprehended boasts still ringing in her ear. She sighed heavily,
and turned towards the opening that admitted to the terraces. There
she stood watching for the parting of her lover's boat. It was
midnight; the air, laden with the perfumes of a thousand fragrant
shrubs and flowers that bloom along that coast in the rich luxuriance
of nature, was hushed and breathless. In its stillness every sound was
audible, the rustling of a leaf, the ripple of a wave. She heard the
murmur of whispered voices below, and in a few moments she recognised,
emerging from the foliage, the form of Pausanias; but he was not
alone. Who were his companions? In the deep lustre of that shining and
splendid atmosphere she could see sufficient of the outline of their
figures to observe that they were not dressed in the Grecian garb;
their long robes betrayed the Persian.

They seemed conversing familiarly and eagerly as they passed along the
smooth sands, till a curve in the wooded shore hid them from her view.

"Why do I love him so," said the girl mechanically, "and yet wrestle
against that love? Dark forebodings tell me that Aphrodite smiles not
on our vows. Woe is me! What be the end?"


Notes:

[19] "The Byzantine dialect was in the time of Philip, as we know from
the decree in Demosthenes, rich in Dorisms."--MŁller on the Doric
Dialect.


[20] Fighting-cocks were fed with garlic, to make them more fierce.
The learned reader will remember how Theorus advised Dicaeopolis to
keep clear of the Thracians with garlic in their mouths.--See the
Acharnians of Aristoph.

[21] Garlands were twined round the neck, or placed upon the bosom
(Greek: upothumiades). See the quotations from Alcaeus, Sappho, and
Anacreon in Athenaeus, book xiii. c. 17.

[22] So said Thucydides of the Spartans, many years afterwards. "They
give evidence of honour among themselves, but with respect to others,
they consider honourable whatever pleases them, and just whatever is
to their advantage."--See Thucyd. lib. v.

[23] Herod, ix.




CHAPTER V.


On quitting Cleonice, Pausanias hastily traversed the long passage
that communicated with a square peristyle or colonnade, which again
led, on the one hand, to the more public parts of the villa, and,
on the other, through a small door left ajar, conducted by a back
entrance, to the garden and the sea-shore. Pursuing the latter path,
the Spartan bounded down the descent and came upon an opening in the
foliage, in which Lysander was seated beside the boat that had been
drawn partially on the strand.

"Alone? Where is Alcman?"

"Yonder; you heard his signal?"

"I heard it."

"Pausanias, they who seek you are Persians. Beware!"

"Of what? murder? I am warned."

"Murder to your good name. There are no arms against appearances."

"But I may trust thee?" said the Regent, quickly, "and of Alcman's
faith I am convinced."

"Why trust to any man what it were wisdom to reveal to the whole
Grecian Council? To parley secretly with the foe is half a treason to
our friends."

"Lysander," replied Pausanias, coldly, "you have much to learn before
you can be wholly Spartan. Tarry here yet awhile."

"What shall I do with this boy?" muttered the conspirator as he strode
on. "I know that he will not betray me, yet can I hope for his aid? I
love him so well that I would fain he shared my fortunes. Perhaps by
little and little I may lead him on. Meanwhile, his race and his name
are so well accredited in Sparta, his father himself an Ephor, that
his presence allays suspicion. Well, here are my Persians."

A little apart from the Mothon, who, resting his cithara on a fragment
of rock, appeared to be absorbed in reflection, stood the men of the
East. There were two of them; one of tall stature and noble presence,
in the prime of life; the other more advanced in years, of a coarser
make, a yet darker complexion, and of a sullen and gloomy countenance.
They were not dressed alike; the taller, a Persian of pure blood, wore
a short tunic that reached only to the knees: and the dress fitted to
his shape without a single fold. On his round cap or bonnet glittered
a string of those rare pearls, especially and immemorially prized in
the East, which formed the favourite and characteristic ornament of
the illustrious tribe of the Pasargadae. The other, who was a Mede,
differed scarcely in his dress from Pausanias himself, except that he
was profusely covered with ornaments; his arms were decorated with
bracelets, he wore earrings, and a broad collar of unpolished stones
in a kind of filagree was suspended from his throat. Behind the
Orientals stood Gongylus, leaning both hands on his staff, and
watching the approach of Pausanias with the same icy smile and
glittering eye with which he listened to the passionate invectives
or flattered the dark ambition of the Spartan. The Orientals saluted
Pausanias with a lofty gravity, and Gongylus drawing near, said: "Son
of Cleombrotus, the illustrious Ariamanes, kinsman to Xerxes, and of
the House of the Achaemenids, is so far versed in the Grecian tongue
that I need not proffer my offices as interpreter. In Datis, the Mede,
brother to the most renowned of the Magi, you behold a warrior worthy
to assist the arms even of Pausanias."

"I greet ye in our Spartan phrase, 'The beautiful to the good,'" said
Pausanias, regarding the Barbarians with an earnest gaze. "And I
requested Gongylus to lead ye hither in order that I might confer with
ye more at ease, than in the confinement to which I regret ye are
still sentenced. Not in prisons should be held the conversations of
brave men."

"I know," said Ariamanes (the statelier of the Barbarians), in the
Greek tongue, which he spoke intelligibly indeed, but with slowness
and hesitation, "I know that I am with that hero who refused to
dishonour the corpse of Mardonius, and even though a captive I
converse without shame with my victor."

"Rested it with me alone, your captivity should cease," replied
Pausanias. "War, that has made me acquainted with the valour of the
Persians, has also enlightened me as to their character. Your king has
ever been humane to such of the Greeks as have sought a refuge near
his throne. I would but imitate his clemency."

"Had the great Darius less esteemed the Greeks he would never have
invaded Greece. From the wanderers whom misfortune drove to his
realms, he learned to wonder at the arts, the genius, the energies of
the people of Hellas. He desired less to win their territories than
to gain such subjects. Too vast, alas, was the work he bequeathed to
Xerxes."

"He should not have trusted to force alone," returned Pausanias.
"Greece may be won, but by the arts of her sons, not by the arms
of the stranger. A Greek only can subdue Greece. By such profound
knowledge of the factions, the interests, the envies and the
jealousies of each, state as a Greek alone can possess, the mistaken
chain that binds them might be easily severed; some bought, some
intimidated, and the few that hold out subdued amidst the apathy of
the rest."

"You speak wisely, right hand of Hellas," answered the Persian, who
had listened to these remarks with deep attention. "Yet had we in our
armies your countryman, the brave Demaratus."

"But, if I have heard rightly, ye too often disdained his counsel.
Had he been listened to there had been neither a Salamis nor a
Plataea.[24] Yet Demaratus himself had been too long a stranger to
Greece, and he knew little of any state save that of Sparta. Lives he
still?"

"Surely yes, in honour and renown; little less than the son of Darius
himself."

"And what reward would Xerxes bestow on one of greater influence
than Demaratus; on one who has hitherto conquered every foe, and now
beholds before him the conquest of Greece herself?"

"If such a man were found," answered the Persian, "let his thought
run loose, let his imagination rove, let him seek only how to find a
fitting estimate of the gratitude of the king and the vastness of the
service."

Pausanias shaded his brow with his hand, and mused a few moments; then
lifting his eyes to the Persian's watchful but composed countenance,
he said, with a slight smile--

"Hard is it, O Persian, when the choice is actually before him, for a
man to renounce his country. There have been hours within this very
day when my desires swept afar from Sparta, from all Hellas, and
rested on the tranquil pomp of Oriental Satrapies. But now, rude and
stern parent though Sparta be to me, I feel still that I am her son;
and, while we speak, a throne in stormy Hellas seems the fitting
object of a Greek's ambition. In a word, then, I would rise, and yet
raise my country. I would have at my will a force that may suffice to
overthrow in Sparta its grim and unnatural laws, to found amidst its
rocks that single throne which the son of a demigod should ascend.
From that throne I would spread my empire over the whole of Greece,
Corinth and Athens being my tributaries. So that, though men now,
and posterity here-after, may say, 'Pausanias overthrew the Spartan
government,' they shall add, 'but Pausanias annexed to the Spartan
sceptre the realm of Greece. Pausanias was a tyrant, but not a
traitor.' How, O Persian, can these designs accord with the policy of
the Persian king?"

"Not without the authority of my master can I answer thee," replied
Ariamanes, "so that my answer may be as the king's signet to his
decree. But so much at least I say: that it is not the custom of the
Persians to interfere with the institutions of those states with which
they are connected. Thou desirest to make a monarchy of Greece, with
Sparta for its head. Be it so; the king my master will aid thee so to
scheme and so to reign, provided thou dost but concede to him a
vase of the water from thy fountains, a fragment of earth from thy
gardens."

"In other words," said Pausanias thoughtfully, but with a slight
colour on his brow, "if I hold my dominions tributary to the king?"

"The dominions that by the king's aid thou wilt have conquered. Is
that a hard law?"

"To a Greek and a Spartan the very mimicry of allegiance to the
foreigner is hard."

The Persian smiled. "Yet, if I understand thee aright, O Chief, even
kings in Sparta are but subjects to their people. Slave to a crowd at
home, or tributary to a throne abroad; slave every hour, or tributary
for earth and water once a year, which is the freer lot?"

"Thou canst not understand our Grecian notions," replied Pausanias,
"nor have I leisure to explain them. But though I may subdue Sparta to
myself as to its native sovereign, I will not, even by a type, subdue
the land of the Heracleid to the Barbarian."

Ariamanes looked grave; the difficulty raised was serious. And here
the craft of Gongylus interposed.

"This may be adjusted, Ariamanes, as befits both parties. Let
Pausanias rule in Sparta as he lists, and Sparta stand free of
tribute. But for all other states and cities that Pausanias, aided by
the great king, shall conquer, let the vase be filled, and the earth
be Grecian. Let him but render tribute for those lands which the
Persians submit to his sceptre. So shall the pride of the Spartan be
appeased, and the claims of the king be satisfied."

"Shall it be so?" said Pausanias.

"Instruct me so to propose to my master, and I will do my best to
content him with the exception to the wonted rights of the Persian
diadem. And then," continued Ariamanes, "then, Pausanias, Conqueror
of Mardonius, Captain at Plataea, thou art indeed a man with whom the
lord of Asia may treat as an equal. Greeks before thee have offered
to render Greece to the king my master; but they were exiles and
fugitives, they had nothing to risk or lose; thou hast fame, and
command, and power, and riches, and all----"

"But for a throne," interrupted Gongylus.

"It does not matter what may be my motives," returned the Spartan
gloomily, "and were I to tell them, you might not comprehend. But so
much by way of explanation. You too have held command?"

"I have."

"If you knew that, when power became to you so sweet that it was as
necessary to life itself as food and drink, it would then be snatched
from you for ever, and you would serve as a soldier in the very ranks
you had commanded as a leader; if you knew that no matter what your
services, your superiority, your desires, this shameful fall was
inexorably doomed, might you not see humiliation in power itself,
obscurity in renown, gloom in the present, despair in the future? And
would it not seem to you nobler even to desert the camp than to sink
into a subaltern?"

"Such a prospect has in our country made out of good subjects fierce
rebels," observed the Persian.

"Ay, ay, I doubt it not," said Pausanias, laughing bitterly. "Well,
then, such will be my lot, if I pluck not out a fairer one from the
Fatal Urn. As Regent of Sparta, while my nephew is beardless, I am
general of her armies, and I have the sway and functions of her king.
When he arrives at the customary age, I am a subject, a citizen, a
nothing, a miserable fool of memories gnawing my heart away amidst
joyless customs and stern austerities, with the recollection of the
glories of Plataea and the delights of Byzantium. Persian, I am filled
from the crown to the sole with the desire of power, with the tastes
of pleasure. I have that within me which before my time has made
heroes and traitors, raised demigods to Heaven, or chained the lofty
Titans to the rocks of Hades. Something I may yet be; I know not what.
But as the man never returns to the boy, so never, never, never once
more, can I be again the Spartan subject. Enough; such as I am, I can
fulfil what I have said to thee. Will thy king accept me as his ally,
and ratify the terms I have proposed?"

"I feel well-nigh assured of it," answered the Persian; "for since
thou hast spoken thus boldly, I will answer thee in the same strain.
Know, then, that we of the pure race of Persia, we the sons of those
who overthrew the Mede, and extended the race of the mountain tribe,
from the Scythian to the Arab, from Egypt to Ind, we at least feel
that no sacrifice were too great to redeem the disgrace we have
suffered at the hands of thy countrymen; and the world itself were too
small an empire, too confined a breathing-place for the son of
Darius, if this nook of earth were still left without the pale of his
dominion."

"This nook of earth? Ay, but Sparta itself must own no lord but me."

"It is agreed."

"If I release thee, wilt thou bear these offers to the king,
travelling day and night till thou restest at the foot of his throne?"

"I should carry tidings too grateful to suffer me to loiter by the
road."

"And Datis, he comprehends us not; but his eyes glitter fiercely on
me. It is easy to see that thy comrade loves not the Greek."

"For that reason he will aid us well. Though but a Mede, and not
admitted to the privileges of the Pasargadae, his relationship to the
most powerful and learned of our Magi, and his own services in war,
have won him such influence with both priests and soldiers, that I
would fain have him as my companion. I will answer for his fidelity to
our joint object."

"Enough; ye are both free. Gongylus, you will now conduct our friends
to the place where the steeds await them. You will then privately
return to the citadel, and give to their pretended escape the probable
appearances we devised. Be quick, while it is yet night. One word
more. Persian, our success depends upon thy speed. It is while the
Greeks are yet at Byzantium, while I yet am in command, that we should
strike the blow. If the king consent, through Gongylus thou wilt have
means to advise me. A Persian army must march at once to the Phrygian
confines, instructed to yield command to me when the hour comes to
assume it. Delay not that aid by such vast and profitless recruits
as swelled the pomp, but embarrassed the arms, of Xerxes. Armies too
large rot by their own unwieldiness into decay. A band of 50,000,
composed solely of the Medes and Persians, will more than suffice.
With such an army, if my command be undisputed, I will win a second
Plataea, but against the Greek."

"Your suggestions shall be law. May Ormuzd favour the bold!"

"Away, Gongylus. You know the rest."

Pausanias followed with thoughtful eyes the receding forms of Gongylus
and the Barbarians.

"I have passed for ever," he muttered, "the pillars of Hercules. I
must go on or perish. If I fall, I die execrated and abhorred; if I
succeed, the sound of the choral flutes will drown the hootings. Be it
as it may, I do not and will not repent. If the wolf gnaw my entrails,
none shall hear me groan." He turned and met the eyes of Alcman, fixed
on him so intently, so exultingly, that, wondering at their strange
expression, he drew back and said haughtily, "You imitate Medusa, but
I am stone already."

"Nay," said the Mothon, in a voice of great humility, "if you are of
stone, it is like the divine one which, when borne before armies,
secures their victory. Blame me not that I gazed on you with triumph
and hope. For, while you conferred with the Persian, methought the
murmurs that reached my ear sounded thus: 'When Pausanias shall rise,
Sparta shall bend low, and the Helot shall break his chains.'"

"They do not hate me, these Helots?"

"You are the only Spartan they love."

"Were my life in danger from the Ephors--"

"The Helots would rise to a man."

"Did I plant my standard on Taygetus, though all Sparta encamped
against it--"

"All the slaves would cut their way to thy side. O Pausanias, think
how much nobler it were to reign over tens of thousands who become
freemen at thy word, than to be but the equal of 10,000 tyrants."

"The Helots fight well, when well led," said Pausanias; as if to
himself. "Launch the boat."

"Pardon me, Pausanias. but is it prudent any longer to trust Lysander?
He is the pattern of the Spartan youth, and Sparta is his mistress. He
loves her too well not to blab to her every secret."

"O Sparta, Sparta, wilt thou not leave me one friend?" exclaimed
Pausanias. "No, Alcman, I will not separate myself from Lysander, till
I despair of his alliance. To your oars! be quick."

At the sound of the Mothon's tread upon the pebbles, Lysander, who had
hitherto remained motionless, reclining by the boat, rose and advanced
towards Pausanias. There was in his countenance, as the moon shining
on it cast over his statue-like features a pale and marble hue, so
much of anxiety, of affection, of fear, so much of the evident,
unmistakable solicitude of friendship, that Pausanias, who, like most
men, envied and unloved, was susceptible even of the semblance of
attachment, muttered to himself, "No, thou wilt not desert me, nor I
thee."

"My friend, my Pausanias," said Lysander, as he approached, "I have
had fears--I have seen omens. Undertake nothing, I beseech thee, which
thou hast meditated this night."

"And what hast thou seen?" said Pausanias, with a slight change of
countenance.

"I was praying the Gods for thee and Sparta, when a star shot suddenly
from the heavens. Pausanias, this is the eighth year, the year in
which on moonless nights the Ephors watch the heavens."

"And if a star fall they judge their kings," interrupted Pausanias
(with a curl of his haughty lip) "to have offended the Gods, and
suspend them from their office till acquitted by an oracle at Delphi,
or a priest at Olympia. A wise superstition. But, Lysander, the night
is not moonless, and the omen is therefore nought."

Lysander shook his head mournfully, and followed his chieftain to the
boat, in gloomy silence.


Note:

[24] After the action at Thermopylae, Demaratus advised Xerxes to send
three hundred vessels to the Laconian coast, and seize the island of
Cythera, which commanded Sparta. "The profound experience of Demaratus
in the selfish and exclusive policy of his countrymen made him argue
that if this were done the fear of Sparta for herself would prevent
her joining the forces of the rest of Greece, and leave the latter a
more easy prey to the invader."--_Athens, its Rise and Fall_. This
advice was overruled by Achaemenes. So again, had the advice of
Artemisia, the Carian princess, been taken--to delay the naval
engagement of Salamis, and rather to sail to the Peloponnesus--the
Greeks, failing of provisions and divided among themselves, would
probably have dispersed.





BOOK II.




CHAPTER I.


At noon the next day, not only the vessels in the harbour presented
the same appearance of inactivity and desertion which had
characterised the preceding evening, but the camp itself seemed
forsaken. Pausanias had quitted his ship for the citadel, in which
he took up his lodgment when on shore: and most of the officers
and sailors of the squadron were dispersed among the taverns and
wine-shops, for which, even at that day, Byzantium was celebrated.

It was in one of the lowest and most popular of these latter resorts,
and in a large and rude chamber, or rather outhouse, separated from
the rest of the building, that a number of the Laconian Helots were
assembled. Some of these were employed as sailors, others were the
military attendants on the Regent and the Spartans who accompanied
him.

At the time we speak of, these unhappy beings were in the full
excitement of that wild and melancholy gaiety which is almost peculiar
to slaves in their hours of recreation, and in which reaction of
wretchedness modern writers have discovered the indulgence of a native
humour. Some of them were drinking deep, wrangling, jesting, laughing
in loud discord over their cups. At another table rose the deep voice
of a singer, chanting one of those antique airs known but to these
degraded sons of the Homeric Achaean, and probably in its origin
going beyond the date of the Tale of Troy; a song of gross and rustic
buffoonery, but ever and anon charged with some image or thought
worthy of that language of the universal Muses. His companions
listened with a rude delight to the rough voice and homely sounds, and
now and then interrupted the wassailers at the other tables by cries
for silence, which none regarded. Here and there, with intense and
fierce anxiety on their faces, small groups were playing at dice; for
gambling is the passion of slaves. And many of these men, to whom
wealth could bring no comfort, had secretly amassed large hoards at
the plunder of Plataea, from which they had sold to the traders of
Aegina gold at the price of brass. The appearance of the rioters was
startling and melancholy. They were mostly stunted and undersized,
as are generally the progeny of the sons of woe; lean and gaunt with
early hardship, the spine of the back curved and bowed by habitual
degradation; but with the hard-knit sinews and prominent muscles which
are produced by labour and the mountain air; and under shaggy and
lowering brows sparkled many a fierce, perfidious, and malignant eye;
while as mirth, or gaming, or song, aroused smiles in the various
groups, the rude features spoke of passions easily released from the
sullen bondage of servitude, and revealed the nature of the animals
which thraldom had failed to tame. Here and there however were to be
seen forms, unlike the rest, of stately stature, of fair proportions,
wearing the divine lineaments of Grecian beauty. From some of these a
higher nature spoke out, not in mirth, that last mockery of supreme
woe, but in an expression of stern, grave, and disdainful melancholy;
others, on the contrary, surpassed the rest in vehemence, clamour,
and exuberant extravagance of emotion, as if their nobler physical
development only served to entitle them to that base superiority.
For health and vigour can make an aristocracy even among Helots. The
garments of these merrymakers increased the peculiar effect of their
general appearance. The Helots in military excursions naturally
relinquished the rough sheep-skin dress that characterised their
countrymen at home, the serfs of the soil. The sailors had thrown off,
for coolness, the leathern jerkins they habitually wore, and, with
their bare arms and breasts, looked as if of a race that yet shivered,
primitive and unredeemed, on the outskirts of civilization.

Strangely contrasted with their rougher comrades, were those who,
placed occasionally about the person of the Regent, were indulged with
the loose and clean robes of gay colours worn by the Asiatic slaves;
and these ever and anon glanced at their finery with an air of
conscious triumph. Altogether, it was a sight that might well have
appalled, by its solemn lessons of human change, the poet who would
have beheld in that embruted flock the descendants of the race over
whom Pelops and Atreus, and Menelaus, and Agamemnon the king of men,
had held their antique sway, and might still more have saddened the
philosopher who believed, as Menander has nobly written, 'That Nature
knows no slaves.'

Suddenly, in the midst of the confused and uproarious hubbub, the door
opened, and Alcman the Mothon entered the chamber. At this sight the
clamour ceased in an instant. The party rose, as by a general impulse,
and crowded round the new comer.

"My friends," said he, regarding them with the same calm and frigid
indifference which usually characterised his demeanour, "you do well
to make merry while you may, for something tells me it will not last
long. We shall return to Lacedaemon. You look black. So, then, is
there no delight in the thought of home?"

"_Home!_" muttered one of the Helots, and the word, sounding drearily
on his lips, was echoed by many, so that it circled like a groan.

"Yet ye have your children as much as if ye were free," said Alcman.

"And for that reason it pains us to see them play, unaware of the
future," said a Helot of better mien than his comrades.

"But do you know," returned the Mothon, gazing on the last speaker
steadily, "that for your children there may not be a future fairer
than that which your fathers knew?"

"Tush!" exclaimed one of the unhappy men, old before his time, and
of an aspect singularly sullen and ferocious. "Such have been your
half-hints and mystic prophecies for years. What good comes of them?
Was there ever an oracle for Helots?"

"There was no repute in the oracles even of Apollo," returned Alcman,
"till the Apollo-serving Dorians became conquerors. Oracles are the
children of victories."

"But there are no victories for us," said the first speaker
mournfully.

"Never, if ye despair," said the Mothon loftily. "What," he added
after a pause, looking round at the crowd, "what, do ye not see that
hope dawned upon us from the hour when thirty-five thousand of us were
admitted as soldiers, ay, and as conquerors, at Plataea? From that
moment we knew our strength. Listen to me. At Samos once a thousand
slaves--mark me, but a thousand,--escaped the yoke--seized on arms,
fled to the mountains (we have mountains even in Laconia), descended
from time to time to devastate the fields and to harass their
ancient lords. By habit they learned war, by desperation they grew
indomitable. What became of these slaves? were they cut off? Did they
perish by hunger, by the sword, in the dungeon or field? No; those
brave men were the founders of Ephesus."[25]

"But the Samians were not Spartans," mumbled the old Helot.

"As ye will, as ye will," said Alcman, relapsing into his usual
coldness. "I wish you never to strike unless ye are prepared to die or
conquer."

"Some of us are," said the younger Helot.

"Sacrifice a cock to the Fates, then."

"But why, think you," asked one of the Helots, "that we shall be so
soon summoned back to Laconia?"

"Because while ye are drinking and idling here--drones that ye
are--there is commotion in the Athenian bee-hive yonder. Know that
Ariamanes the Persian and Datis the Mede have escaped. The allies,
especially the Athenians, are excited and angry; and many of them are
already come in a body to Pausanias, whom they accuse of abetting the
escape of the fugitives."

"Well?"

"Well, and if Pausanias does not give honey in his words,--and few
flowers grow on his lips--the bees will sting, that is all. A trireme
will be despatched to Sparta with complaints. Pausanias will be
recalled--perhaps his life endangered."

"Endangered!" echoed several voices.

"Yes. What is that to you--what care you for his danger? He is a
Spartan."

"Ay," cried one; "but he has been kind to the Helots."

"And we have fought by his side," said another.

"And he dressed my wound with his own hand," murmured a third.

"And we have got money under him," growled a fourth.

"And more than all," said Alcman, in a loud voice, "if he lives, he
will break down the Spartan government. Ye will not let this man die?"

"Never!" exclaimed the whole assembly. Alcman gazed with a kind of
calm and strange contempt on the flashing eyes, the fiery gestures of
the throng, and then said, coldly,

"So then ye would fight for one man?"

"Ay, ay, that would we."

"But not for your own liberties, and those of your children unborn?"

There was a dead silence; but the taunt was felt, and its logic was
already at work in many of these rugged breasts.

At this moment, the door was suddenly thrown open; and a Helot, in the
dress worn by the attendants of the Regent, entered, breathless and
panting.

"Alcman! the gods be praised you are here. Pausanias commands your
presence. Lose not a moment. And you too, comrades, by Demeter, do you
mean to spend whole days at your cups? Come to the citadel; ye may be
wanted."

This was spoken to such of the Helots as belonged to the train of
Pausanias.

"Wanted--what for?" said one. "Pausanias gives us a holiday while he
employs the sleek Egyptians."

"Who that serves Pausanias ever asks that question, or can foresee
from one hour to another what he may be required to do?" returned the
self-important messenger, with great contempt.

Meanwhile the Mothon, all whose movements were peculiarly silent and
rapid, was already on his way to the citadel. The distance was not
inconsiderable, but Alcman was swift of foot. Tightening the girdle
round his waist, he swung himself, as it were, into a kind of run,
which, though not seemingly rapid, cleared the ground with a speed
almost rivalling that of the ostrich, from the length of the stride
and the extreme regularity of the pace. Such was at that day the
method by which messages were despatched from state to state,
especially in mountainous countries; and the length of way which was
performed, without stopping, by the foot-couriers might startle the
best-trained pedestrians in our times. So swiftly indeed did the
Mothon pursue his course, that just by the citadel he came up with the
Grecian captains who, before he joined the Helots, had set off for
their audience with Pausanias. There were some fourteen or fifteen
of them, and they so filled up the path, which, just there, was not
broad, that Alcman was obliged to pause as he came upon their rear.

"And whither so fast, fellow?" said Uliades the Samian, turning round
as he heard the strides of the Mothon.

"Please you, master, I am bound to the General."

"Oh, his slave! Is he going to free you?"

"I am already as free as a man who has no city can be."

"Pithy. The Spartan slaves have the dryness of their masters. How,
sirrah! do you jostle me?"

"I crave pardon. I only seek to pass."

"Never! to take precedence of a Samian. Keep back."

"I dare not."

"Nay, nay, let him pass," said the young Chian, Antagoras; "he will
get scourged if he is too late. Perhaps, like the Persians, Pausanias
wears false hair, and wishes the slave to dress it in honour of us."
"Hush!" whispered an Athenian. "Are these taunts prudent?"

Here there suddenly broke forth a loud oath from Uliades, who,
lingering a little behind the rest, had laid rough hands on the
Mothon, as the latter once more attempted to pass him. With a
dexterous and abrupt agility, Alcman had extricated himself from the
Samian's grasp, but with a force that swung the captain on his knee.
Taking advantage of the position of the foe, the Mothon darted onward,
and threading the rest of the party, disappeared through the
neighbouring gates of the citadel.

"You saw the insult?" said Uliades between his ground teeth as he
recovered himself. "The master shall answer for the slave; and to me,
too, who have forty slaves of my own at home!"

"Pooh! think no more of it," said Antagoras gaily; "the poor fellow
meant only to save his own hide."

"As if that were of any consequence! my slaves are brought up from the
cradle not to know if they have hides or not. You may pinch them by
the hour together and they don't feel you. My little ones do it, in
rainy weather, to strengthen their fingers. The Gods keep them!"

"An excellent gymnastic invention. But we are now within the citadel.
Courage! the Spartan greyhound has long teeth."

Pausanias was striding with hasty steps up and down a long and narrow
peristyle or colonnade that surrounded the apartments appropriated to
his private use, when Alcman joined him.

"Well, well," cried he, eagerly, as he saw the Mothon, "you have
mingled with the common gangs of these worshipful seamen, these new
men, these Ionians. Think you they have so far overcome their awe
of the Spartan that they would obey the mutinous commands of their
officers?"

"Pausanias, the truth must be spoken--Yes!"

"Ye Gods! one would think each of these wranglers imagined he had a
whole Persian army in his boat. Why, I have seen the day when, if in
any assembly of Greeks a Spartan entered, the sight of his very hat
and walking-staff cast a terror through the whole conclave." "True,
Pausanias; but they suspect that Sparta herself will disown her
General."

"Ah! say they so?"

"With one voice."

Pausanias paused a moment in deep and perturbed thought.

"Have they dared yet, think you, to send to Sparta?"

"I hear not; but a trireme is in readiness to sail after your
conference with the captains."

"So, Alcman, it were ruin to my schemes to be
recalled--until--until--"

"The hour to join the Persians on the frontier--yes."

"One word more. Have you had occasion to sound the Helots?"

"But half an hour since. They will be true to you. Lift your right
hand, and the ground where you stand will bristle with men who fear
death even less than the Spartans."

"Their aid were useless here against the whole Grecian fleet; but in
the defiles of Laconia, otherwise. I am prepared then for the worst,
even recall."

Here a slave crossed from a kind of passage that led from the outer
chambers into the peristyle.

"The Grecian captains have arrived to demand audience."

"Bid them wait," cried Pausanias, passionately.

"Hist! Pausanias," whispered the Mothon. "Is it not best to soothe
them--to play with them--to cover the lion with the fox's hide?"

The Regent turned with a frown to his foster-brother, as if surprised
and irritated by his presumption in advising; and indeed of late,
since Pausanias had admitted the son of the Helot into his guilty
intrigues, Alcman had assumed a bearing and tone of equality which
Pausanias, wrapped in his dark schemes, did not always notice, but at
which from time to time he chafed angrily, yet again permitted it,
and the custom gained ground; for in guilt conventional distinctions
rapidly vanish, and mind speaks freely out to mind. The presence of
the slave, however, restrained him, and after a momentary silence his
natural acuteness, great when undisturbed by passion or pride, made
him sensible of the wisdom of Alcman's counsel.

"Hold!" he said to the slave. "Announce to the Grecian Chiefs that
Pausanias will await them forthwith. Begone. Now, Alcman, I will
talk over these gentle monitors. Not in vain have I been educated in
Sparta; yet if by chance I fail, hold thyself ready to haste to Sparta
at a minute's warning. I must forestall the foe. I have gold, gold;
and he who employs most of the yellow orators, will prevail most with
the Ephors. Give me my staff; and tarry in yon chamber to the left."


Note:

[25] Malacus ap. Athen. 6.




CHAPTER II


In a large hall, with a marble fountain in the middle of it, the
Greek captains awaited the coming of Pausanias. A low and muttered
conversation was carried on amongst them, in small knots and groups,
amidst which the voice of Uliades was heard the loudest. Suddenly the
hum was hushed, for footsteps were heard without. The thick curtains
that at one extreme screened the door-way were drawn aside, and,
attended by three of the Spartan knights, amongst whom was Lysander,
and by two soothsayers, who were seldom absent, in war or warlike
council, from the side of the Royal Heracleid, Pausanias slowly
entered the hall. So majestic, grave, and self-collected were the
bearing and aspect of the Spartan general, that the hereditary awe
inspired by his race was once more awakened, and the angry crowd
saluted him, silent and half-abashed. Although the strong passions,
and the daring arrogance of Pausanias, did not allow him the exercise
of that enduring, systematic, unsleeping hypocrisy which, in relations
with the foreigner, often characterised his countrymen, and which,
from its outward dignity and profound craft, exalted the vice into
genius; yet trained from earliest childhood in the arts that hide
design, that control the countenance, and convey in the fewest words
the most ambiguous meanings, the Spartan general could, for a brief
period, or for a critical purpose, command all the wiles for which the
Greek was nationally famous, and in which Thucydides believed that,
of all Greeks, the Spartan was the most skilful adept. And now, as,
uniting the courtesy of the host with the dignity of the chief, he
returned the salute of the officers, and smiled his gracious welcome,
the unwonted affability of his manner took the discontented by
surprise, and half propitiated the most indignant in his favour.

"I need not ask you, O Greeks," said he, "why ye have sought me.
Ye have learnt the escape of Ariamanes and Datis--a strange and
unaccountable mischance."

The captains looked round at each other in silence, till at last every
eye rested upon Cimon, whose illustrious birth, as well as his known
respect for Sparta, combined with his equally well-known dislike of
her chief, seemed to mark him, despite his youth, as the fittest
person to be speaker for the rest. Cimon, who understood the mute
appeal, and whose courage never failed his ambition, raised his head,
and, after a moment's hesitation, replied to the Spartan:

"Pausanias, you guess rightly the cause which leads us to your
presence. These prisoners were our noblest; their capture the reward
of our common valour; they were generals, moreover, of high skill and
repute. They had become experienced in our Grecian warfare, even by
their defeats. Those two men, should Xerxes again invade Greece, are
worth more to his service than half the nations whose myriads crossed
the Hellespont. But this is not all. The arms of the Barbarians we can
encounter undismayed. It is treason at home which can alone appal us."

There was a low murmur among the Ionians at these words. Pausanias,
with well-dissembled surprise on his countenance, turned his eyes from
Cimon to the murmurers, and from them again to Cimon, and repeated:

"Treason! son of Miltiades; and from whom?"

"Such is the question that we would put to thee, Pausanias--to thee,
whose eyes, as leader of our armies, are doubtless vigilant daily and
nightly over the interests of Greece."

"I am not blind," returned Pausanias, appearing unconscious of the
irony; "but I am not Argus. If thou hast discovered aught that is
hidden from me, speak boldly."

"Thou hast made Gongylus, the Eretrian, governor of Byzantium; for
what great services we know not. But he has lived much in Persia."

"For that reason, on this the frontier of her domains, he is better
enabled to penetrate her designs and counteract her ambition."

"This Gongylus," continued Cimon, "is well known to have much
frequented the Persian captives in their confinement."

"In order to learn from them what may yet be the strength of the king.
In this he had my commands."

"I question it not. But, Pausanias," continued Cimon, raising his
voice, and with energy, "had he also thy commands to leave thy galley
last night, and to return to the citadel?"

"He had. What then?"

"And on his return the Persians disappear--a singular chance, truly.
But that is not all. Last night, before he returned to the citadel,
Gongylus was perceived, alone, in a retired spot on the outskirts of
the city."

"Alone?" echoed Pausanias.

"Alone. If he had companions they were not discerned. This spot was
out of the path he should have taken. By this spot, on the soft soil,
are the marks of hoofs, and in the thicket close by were found these
witnesses," and Cimon drew from his vest a handful of the pearls, only
worn by the Eastern captives.

"There is something in this," said Xanthippus, "which requires at
least examination. May it please you, Pausanias, to summon Gongylus
hither?"

A momentary shade passed over the brow of the conspirator, but the
eyes of the Greeks were on him; and to refuse were as dangerous as to
comply. He turned to one of his Spartans, and ordered him to summon
the Eretrian.

"You have spoken well, Xanthippus. This matter must be sifted."

"With that, motioning the captains to the seats that were ranged round
the walls and before a long table, he cast himself into a large chair
at the head of the table, and waited in silent anxiety the entrance of
the Eretrian. His whole trust now was in the craft and penetration of
his friend. If the courage or the cunning of Gongylus failed him--if
but a word betrayed him--Pausanias was lost. He was girt by men who
hated him; and he read in the dark fierce eyes of the Ionians--whose
pride he had so often galled, whose revenge he had so carelessly
provoked--the certainty of ruin. One hand hidden within the folds of
his robe convulsively clinched the flesh, in the stern agony of his
suspense. His calm and composed face nevertheless exhibited to the
captains no trace of fear.

The draperies were again drawn aside, and Gongylus slowly entered.

Habituated to peril of every kind from his earliest youth, the
Eretrian was quick to detect its presence. The sight of the silent
Greeks, formally seated round the hall, and watching his steps and
countenance with eyes whose jealous and vindictive meaning it required
no Oedipus to read, the grave and half-averted brow of Pausanias, and
the angry excitement that had prevailed amidst the host at the news of
the escape of the Persians--all sufficed to apprise him of the nature
of the council to which he had been summoned.

Supporting himself on his staff, and dragging his limbs tardily along,
he had leisure to examine, though with apparent indifference, the
whole group; and when, with a calm salutation, he arrested his steps
at the foot of the table immediately facing Pausanias, he darted
one glance at the Spartan so fearless, so bright, so cheering, that
Pausanias breathed hard, as if a load were thrown from his breast, and
turning easily towards Cimon, said--

"Behold your witness. Which of us shall be questioner, and which
judge?"

"That matters but little," returned Cimon. "Before this audience
justice must force its way."

"It rests with you, Pausanias," said Xanthippus, "to acquaint the
governor of Byzantium with the suspicions he has excited."

"Gongylus," said Pausanias, "the captive Barbarians, Ariamanes and
Datis, were placed by me especially under thy vigilance and guard.
Thou knowest that, while (for humanity becomes the victor) I ordered
thee to vex them by no undue restraints, I nevertheless commanded thee
to consider thy life itself answerable for their durance. They have
escaped. The captains of Greece demand of thee, as I demanded--by what
means--by what connivance? Speak the truth, and deem that in falsehood
as well as in treachery, detection is easy, and death certain."

The tone of Pausanias, and his severe look, pleased and re-assured all
the Greeks, except the wiser Cimon. who, though his suspicions were a
little shaken, continued to fix his eyes rather on Pausanias than on
the Eretrian.

"Pausanias," replied Gongylus, drawing up his lean frame, as with the
dignity of conscious innocence, "that suspicion could fall upon me, I
find it difficult to suppose. Raised by thy favour to the command
of Byzantium, what have I to gain by treason or neglect? These
Persians--I knew them well. I had known them in Susa--known them
when I served Darius, being then an exile from Eretria. Ye know, my
countrymen, that when Darius invaded Greece I left his court and
armies, and sought my native land, to fall or to conquer in its cause.
Well, then, I knew these Barbarians. I sought them frequently; partly,
it may be, to return to them in their adversity the courtesies shown
me in mine. Ye are Greeks; ye will not condemn me for humanity and
gratitude. Partly with another motive. I knew that Ariamanes had the
greatest influence over Xerxes. I knew that the great king would
at any cost seek to regain the liberty of his friend. I urged upon
Ariamanes the wisdom of a peace with the Greeks even on their
own terms. I told him that when Xerxes sent to offer the ransom,
conditions of peace would avail more than sacks of gold. He listened
and approved. Did I wrong in this, Pausanias? No; for thou, whose deep
sagacity has made thee condescend even to appear half Persian, because
thou art all Greek--thou thyself didst sanction my efforts on behalf
of Greece."

Pausanias looked with a silent triumph round the conclave, and
Xanthippus nodded approval.

"In order to conciliate them, and with too great confidence in their
faith, I relaxed by degrees the rigour of their confinement; that was
a fault, I own it. Their apartments communicated with a court in which
I suffered them to walk at will. But I placed there two sentinels in
whom I deemed I could repose all trust--not my own countrymen--not
Eretrians--not thy Spartans or Laconians, Pausanias. No; I deemed that
if ever the jealousy (a laudable jealousy) of the Greeks should demand
an account of my faith and vigilance, my witnesses should be the
countrymen of those who have ever the most suspected me. Those
sentinels were, the one a Samian, the other a Plataean. These men
have betrayed me and Greece. Last night, on returning hither from the
vessel, I visited the Persians. They were about to retire to rest, and
I quitted them soon, suspecting nothing. This morning they had fled,
and with them their abetters, the sentinels. I hastened first to send
soldiers in search of them; and, secondly, to inform Pausanias in his
galley. If I have erred, I submit me to your punishment. Punish my
error, but acquit my honesty."

"And what," said Cimon, abruptly, "led thee far from thy path, between
the Heracleid's galley and the citadel, to the fields near the temple
of Aphrodite, between the citadel and the bay? Thy colour changes.
Mark him, Greeks. Quick; thine answer."

The countenance of Gongylus had indeed lost its colour and hardihood.
The loud tone of Cimon--the effect his confusion produced on the
Greeks, some of whom, the Ionians less self-possessed and dignified
than the rest, half rose, with fierce gestures and muttered
exclamations--served still more to embarrass and intimidate him. He
cast a hasty look on Pausanias, who averted his eyes. There was a
pause. The Spartan gave himself up for lost; but how much more was
his fear increased when Gongylus, casting an imploring gaze upon the
Greeks, said hesitatingly--

"Question me no farther. I dare not speak;" and as he spoke he pointed
to Pausanias.

"It was the dread of thy resentment, Pausanias," said Cimon coldly,
"that withheld his confession. Vouchsafe to re-assure him."

"Eretrian," said Pausanias, striking his clenched hand on the table,
"I know not what tale trembles on thy lips; but, be it what it may,
give it voice, I command thee." "Thou thyself, thou wert the cause
that led me towards the temple of Aphrodite," said Gongylus, in a low
voice.

At these words there went forth a general deep-breathed murmur. With
one accord every Greek rose to his feet. The Spartan attendants in the
rear of Pausanias drew closer to his person; but there was nothing
in their faces--yet more dark and vindictive than those of the other
Greeks--that promised protection. Pausanias alone remained seated and
unmoved. His imminent danger gave him back all his valour, all his
pride, all his passionate and profound disdain. With unbleached cheek,
with haughty eyes, he met the gaze of the assembly; and then waving
his hand as if that gesture sufficed to restrain and awe them, he
said--

"In the name of all Greece, whose chief I yet am, whose protector I
have once been, I command ye to resume your seats, and listen to the
Eretrian. Spartans, fall back. Governor of Byzantium, pursue your
tale."

"Yes, Pausanias," resumed Gongylus, "you alone were the cause that
drew me from my rest. I would fain be silent, but----"

"Say on," cried Pausanias fiercely, and measuring the space between
himself and Gongylus, in doubt whether the Eretrian's head were within
reach of his scimitar; so at least Gongylus interpreted that freezing
look of despair and vengeance, and he drew back some paces. "I place
myself, O Greeks, under your protection; it is dangerous to reveal the
errors of the great. Know that, as Governor of Byzantium, many things
ye wot not of reach my ears. Hence, I guard against dangers while ye
sleep. Learn, then, that Pausanias is not without the weakness of his
ancestor, Alcides; he loves a maiden--a Byzantine--Cleonice, the
daughter of Diagoras."

This unexpected announcement, made in so grave a tone, provoked a
smile amongst the gay Ionians; but an exclamation of jealous anger
broke from Antagoras, and a blush partly of wounded pride, partly of
warlike shame, crimsoned the swarthy cheek of Pausanias. Cimon, who
was by no means free from the joyous infirmities of youth, relaxed his
severe brow, and said, after a short pause--

"Is it, then, among the grave duties of the Governor of Byzantium to
watch over the fair Cleonice, or to aid the suit of her illustrious
lover?"

"Not so," answered Gongylus; "but the life of the Grecian general is
dear, at least, to the grateful Governor of Byzantium. Greeks, ye know
that amongst you Pausanias has many foes. Returning last night from
his presence, and passing through the thicket, I overheard voices at
hand. I caught the name of Pausanias. 'The Spartan,' said one voice,
'nightly visits the house of Diagoras. He goes usually alone. From the
height near the temple we can watch well, for the night is clear;
if he goes alone, we can intercept his way on his return.' 'To the
height!' cried the other. I thought to distinguish the voices, but the
trees hid the speakers. I followed the footsteps towards the temple,
for it behoved me to learn who thus menaced the chief of Greece. But
ye know that the wood reaches even to the sacred building, and the
steps gained the temple before I could recognize the men. I
concealed myself, as I thought, to watch; but it seems that I was
perceived, for he who saw me, and now accuses, was doubtless one of
the assassins. Happy I, if the sight of a witness scared him from the
crime. Either fearing detection, or aware that their intent that night
was frustrated--for Pausanias, visiting Cleonice earlier than his
wont, had already resought his galley--the men retreated as they
came, unseen, not unheard. I caught their receding steps through the
brushwood. Greeks, I have said. Who is my accuser? in him behold the
would-be murderer of Pausanias!"

"Liar," cried an indignant and loud voice amongst the captains, and
Antagoras stood forth from the circle.

"It is I who saw thee. Darest thou accuse Antagoras of Chios?"

"What at that hour brought Antagoras of Chios to the temple of
Aphrodite?" retorted Gongylus.

The eyes of the Greeks turned toward the young captain, and there
was confusion on his face. But recovering himself quickly, the Chian
answered, "Why should I blush to own it? Aphrodite is no dishonourable
deity to the men of the Ionian Isles. I sought the temple at that
hour, as is our wont, to make my offering, and record my prayer."

"Certainly," said Cimon. "We must own that Aphrodite is powerful at
Byzantium. Who can acquit Pausanias and blame Antagoras?"

"Pardon me--one question," said Gongylus. "Is not the female heart
which Antagoras would beseech the goddess to soften towards him that
of the Cleonice of whom we spoke? See, he denies it not. Greeks, the
Chians are warm lovers, and warm lovers are revengeful rivals."

This artful speech had its instantaneous effect amongst the younger
and more unthinking loiterers. Those who at once would have
disbelieved the imputed guilt of Antagoras upon motives merely
political, inclined to a suggestion that ascribed it to the jealousy
of a lover. And his character, ardent and fiery, rendered the
suspicion yet more plausible. Meanwhile the minds of the audience had
been craftily drawn from the grave and main object of the meeting--the
flight of the Persians--and a lighter and livelier curiosity had
supplanted the eager and dark resentment which had hitherto animated
the circle. Pausanias, with the subtle genius that belonged to him,
hastened to seize advantage of this momentary diversion in his favour,
and before the Chian could recover his consternation, both at the
charge and the evident effect it had produced upon a part of the
assembly, the Spartan stretched his hand, and spake.

"Greeks, Pausanias listens to no tale of danger to himself. Willingly
he believes that Gongylus either misinterpreted the intent of some
jealous and heated threats, or that the words he overheard were not
uttered by Antagoras. Possible is it, too, that others may have sought
the temple with less gentle desires than our Chian ally. Let this
pass. Unworthy such matters of the councils of bearded men; too much
reference has been made to those follies which our idleness has
given birth to. Let no fair Briseis renew strife amongst chiefs and
soldiers. Excuse not thyself, Antagoras; we dismiss all charge against
thee. On the other hand, Gongylus will doubtless seem to you to have
accounted for his appearance near the precincts of the temple. And
it is but a coincidence, natural enough, that the Persian prisoners
should have chosen, later in the night, the same spot for the steeds
to await them. The thickness of the wood round the temple, and the
direction of the place towards the east, points out the neighbourhood
as the very one in which the fugitives would appoint the horses. Waste
no further time, but provide at once for the pursuit. To you, Cimon,
be this care confided. Already have I despatched fifty light-armed men
on fleet Thessalian steeds. You, Cimon, increase the number of the
pursuers. The prisoners may be yet recaptured. Doth aught else remain
worthy of our ears? If so, speak; if not, depart."

"Pausanias," said Antagoras, firmly, "let Gongylus retract, or not,
his charge against me, I retain mine against Gongylus. Wholly false
is it that in word or deed I plotted violence against thee, though of
much--not as Cleonice's lover, but as Grecian captain--I have good
reason to complain. Wholly false is it that I had a comrade. I was
alone. And coming out from the temple, where I had hung my chaplet,
I perceived Gongylus clearly under the starlit skies. He stood in
listening attitude close by the sacred myrtle grove. I hastened
towards him, but methinks he saw me not; he turned slowly, penetrated
the wood, and vanished. I gained the spot on the soft sward which the
dropping boughs make ever humid. I saw the print of hoofs. Within the
thicket I found the pearls that Cimon has displayed to you. Clear,
then, is it that this man lies--clear that the Persians must have fled
already--although Gongylus declares that on his return to the citadel
he visited them in their prison. Explain this, Eretrian!"

"He who would speak false witness," answered Gongylus, with a firmness
equal to the Chian's, "can find pearls at whatsoever hour he pleases.
Greeks, this man presses me to renew the charge which Pausanias
generously sought to stifle. I have said. And I, Governor of
Byzantium, call on the Council of the Grecian Leaders to maintain my
authority, and protect their own Chief."

Then arose a vexed and perturbed murmur, most of the Ionians siding
with Antagoras, such of the allies as yet clung to the Dorian
ascendancy grouping round Gongylus. The persistence of Antagoras had
made the dilemma of no slight embarrassment to Pausanias. Something
lofty in his original nature urged him to shrink from supporting
Gongylus in an accusation which he believed untrue. On the other hand,
he could not abandon his accomplice in an effort, as dangerous as it
was crafty, to conceal their common guilt.

"Son of Miltiades," he said after a brief pause, in which his
dexterous resolution was formed, "I invoke your aid to appease a
contest in which I foresee no result but that of schism amongst
ourselves. Antagoras has no witness to support his tale, Gongylus none
to support his own. Who shall decide between conflicting testimonies
which rest but on the lips of accuser and accused? Hereafter, if the
matter be deemed sufficiently grave, let us refer the decision to the
oracle that never errs. Time and chance meanwhile may favour us in
clearing up the darkness we cannot now penetrate.

For you, Governor of Byzantium, it behoves me to say that the escape
of prisoners entrusted to your charge justifies vigilance if not
suspicion. We shall consult at our leisure whether or not that course
suffices to remove you from the government of Byzantium. Heralds,
advance; our council is dissolved."

With these words Pausanias rose, and the majesty of his bearing, with
the unwonted temper and conciliation of his language, so came in aid
of his high office, that no man ventured a dissentient murmur.

The conclave broke up, and not till its members had gained the outer
air did any signs of suspicion or dissatisfaction evince themselves;
but then, gathering in groups, the Ionians with especial jealousy
discussed what had passed, and with their native shrewdness ascribed
the moderation of Pausanias to his desire to screen Gongylus and avoid
further inquisition into the flight of the prisoners. The discontented
looked round for Cimon, but the young Athenian had hastily retired
from the throng, and, after issuing orders to pursue the fugitives,
sought Aristides in the house near the quay in which he lodged.

Cimon related to his friend what had passed at the meeting, and
terminating his recital, said:

"Thou shouldst have been with us. With thee we might have ventured
more." "And if so," returned the wise Athenian with a smile, "ye would
have prospered less Precisely because I would not commit our country
to the suspicion of fomenting intrigues and mutiny to her own
advantage, did I abstain from the assembly, well aware that Pausanias
would bring his minion harmless from the unsupported accusation of
Antagoras. Thou hast acted with cool judgment, Cimon. The Spartan is
weaving the webs of the Parcae for his own feet. Leave him to weave
on, undisturbed. The hour in which Athens shall assume the sovereignty
of the seas is drawing near. Let it come, like Jove's thunder, in a
calm sky."




CHAPTER III.


Pausanias did not that night quit the city. After the meeting, he held
a private conference with the Spartan Equals, whom custom and the
government assigned, in appearance as his attendants, in reality as
witnesses if not spies of his conduct. Though every pure Spartan, as
compared with the subject Laconian population, was noble, the republic
acknowledged two main distinctions in class, the higher, entitled
Equals, a word which we might not inaptly and more intelligibly render
Peers; the lower, Inferiors. These distinctions, though hereditary,
were not immutable. The peer could be degraded, the inferior could
become a peer. To the royal person in war three peers were allotted.
Those assigned to Pausanias, of the tribe called the Hylleans, were
naturally of a rank and influence that constrained him to treat them
with a certain deference, which perpetually chafed his pride and
confirmed his discontent; for these three men were precisely of
the mould which at heart he most despised. Polydorus, the first in
rank--for, like Pausanias, he boasted his descent from Hercules--was
the personification of the rudeness and bigotry of a Spartan who had
never before stirred from his rocky home, and who disdained all that
he could not comprehend. Gelon, the second, passed for a very wise
man, for he seldom spoke but in monosyllables; yet, probably, his
words were as numerous as his ideas. Cleomenes, the third, was as
distasteful to the Regent from his merits as the others from their
deficiencies. He had risen from the grade of the Inferiors by his
valour; blunt, homely, frank, sincere, he never disguised his
displeasure at the manner of Pausanias, though, a true Spartan
in discipline, he never transgressed the respect which his chief
commanded in time of war.

Pausanias knew that these officers were in correspondence with Sparta,
and he now exerted all his powers to remove from their minds any
suspicion which the disappearance of the prisoners might have left in
them.

In this interview he displayed all those great natural powers which,
rightly trained and guided, might have made him not less great in
council than in war. With masterly precision he enlarged on the
growing ambition of Athens, on the disposition in her favour evinced
by all the Ionian confederates. "Hitherto," he said truly, "Sparta has
uniformly held rank as the first state of Greece; the leadership of
the Greeks belongs to us by birth and renown. But see you not that the
war is now shifting from land to sea? Sea is not our element; it is
that of Athens, of all the Ionian race. If this continue we lose our
ascendancy, and Athens becomes the sovereign of Hellas. Beneath the
calm of Aristides I detect his deep design. In vain Cimon affects the
manner of the Spartan; at heart he is Athenian. This charge against
Gongylus is aimed at me. Grant that the plot which it conceals
succeed; grant that Sparta share the affected suspicions of the
Ionians, and recall me from Byzantium; deem you that there lives one
Spartan who could delay for a day the supremacy of Athens? Nought
save the respect the Dorian Greeks at least attach to the General
at Plataea could restrain the secret ambition of the city of the
demagogues. Deem not that I have been as rash and vain as some hold me
for the stern visage I have shown to the Ionians. Trust me that it was
necessary to awe them, with a view to maintain our majesty. For Sparta
to preserve her ascendancy, two things are needful: first, to continue
the war by land; secondly, to disgust the Ionians with their sojourn
here, send them with their ships to their own havens, and so leave
Hellas under the sole guardianship of ourselves and our Peloponnesian
allies. Therefore I say, bear with me in this double design; chide me
not if my haughty manner disperse these subtle Ionians. If I bore with
them to-day it was less from respect than, shall I say it, my fear
lest you should misinterpret me. Beware how you detail to Sparta
whatever might rouse the jealousy of her government. Trust to me,
and I will extend the dominion of Sparta till it grasp the whole
of Greece. We will depose everywhere the revolutionary Demos, and
establish our own oligarchies in every Grecian state. We will Laconize
all Hellas."

Much of what Pausanias said was wise and profound. Such statesmanship,
narrow and congenial, but vigorous and crafty, Sparta taught in later
years to her alert politicians. And we have already seen that, despite
the dazzling prospects of Oriental dominion, he as yet had separated
himself rather from the laws than the interests of Sparta, and still
incorporated his own ambition with the extension of the sovereignty of
his country over the rest of Greece.

But the peers heard him in dull and gloomy silence; and, not till he
had paused and thrice asked for a reply, did Polydorus speak.

"You would increase the dominion of Sparta, Pausanias. Increase of
dominion is waste of life and treasure. We have few men, little gold;
Sparta is content to hold her own." "Good," said Gelon, with impassive
countenance. "What care we who leads the Greeks into blows? the fewer
blows the better. Brave men fight if they must, wise men never fight
if they can help it."

"And such is your counsel, Cleomenes?" asked Pausanias, with a
quivering lip.

"Not from the same reasons," answered the nobler and more generous
Spartan. "I presume not to question your motives, Pausanias. I leave
you to explain them to the Ephors and the Gerusia. But since you press
me, this I say. First, all the Greeks, Ionian as well as Dorian,
fought equally against the Mede, and from the commander of the Greeks
all should receive fellowship and courtesy. Secondly, I say if Athens
is better fitted than Sparta for the maritime ascendancy, let Athens
rule, so that Hellas be saved from the Mede. Thirdly, O Pausanias, I
pray that Sparta may rest satisfied with her own institutions, and
not disturb the peace of Greece by forcing them upon other States and
thereby enslaving Hellas. What more could the Persian do? Finally,
my advice is to suspend Gongylus from his office; to conciliate the
Ionians; to remain as a Grecian armament firm and united, and so
procure, on better terms, peace with Persia. And then let each State
retire within itself, and none aspire to rule the other. A thousand
free cities are better guard against the Barbarian than a single State
made up of republics overthrown and resting its strength upon hearts
enslaved."

"Do you too," said Pausanias, gnawing his nether lip, "Do you too,
Polydorus; you too, Gelon, agree with Cleomenes, that, if Athens is
better fitted than Sparta for the sovereignty of the seas, we should
yield to that restless rival so perilous a power?"

"Ships cost gold," said Polydorus. "Spartans have none to spare.
Mariners require skilful captains; Spartans know nothing of the sea."

"Moreover," quoth Gelon, "the ocean is a terrible element. What can
valour do against a storm? We may lose more men by adverse weather
than a century can repair. Let who will have the seas. Sparta has her
rocks and defiles."

"Men and peers," said Pausanias, ill repressing his scorn, "ye little
dream what arms ye place in the hands of the Athenians. I have done.
Take only this prophecy. You are now the head of Greece. You surrender
your sceptre to Athens, and become a second-rate power."

"Never second rate when Greece shall demand armed men," said Cleomenes
proudly.

"Armed men, armed men!" cried the more profound Pausanias. "Do you
suppose that commerce--that trade--that maritime energy--that fleets
which ransack the shores of the world, will not obtain a power greater
than mere brute-like valour? But as ye will, as ye will."

"As we speak our forefathers thought," said Gelon.

"And, Pausanias," said Cleomenes gravely, "as we speak, so think the
Ephors."

Pausanias fixed his dark eye on Cleomenes, and, after a brief pause,
saluted the Equals and withdrew. "Sparta," he muttered as he regained
his chamber, "Sparta, thou refusest to be great; but greatness is
necessary to thy son. Ah, their iron laws would constrain my soul! but
it shall wear them as a warrior wears his armour and adapts it to his
body. Thou shalt be queen of all Hellas despite thyself, thine Ephors,
and thy laws. Then only will I forgive thee."




CHAPTER IV.


Diagoras was sitting outside his door and giving various instructions
to the slaves employed on his farm, when, through an arcade thickly
covered with the vine, the light form of Antagoras came slowly in
sight.

"Hail to thee, Diagoras," said the Chian, "thou art the only wise man
I meet with. Thou art tranquil while all else are disturbed; and,
worshipping the great Mother, thou carest nought, methinks, for the
Persian who invades, or the Spartan who professes to defend."

"Tut," said Diagoras, in a whisper, "thou knowest the contrary: thou
knowest that if the Persian comes I am ruined; and, by the gods, I am
on a bed of thorns as long as the Spartan stays."

"Dismiss thy slaves," exclaimed Antagoras, in the same undertone; "I
would speak with thee on grave matters that concern us both."

After hastily finishing his instructions and dismissing his slaves,
Diagoras turned to the impatient Chian, and said:

"Now, young warrior, I am all ears for thy speech."

"Truly," said Antagoras, "if thou wert aware of what I am about to
utter, thou wouldst not have postponed consideration for thy daughter,
to thy care for a few jars of beggarly olives."

"Hem!" said Diagoras, peevishly. "Olives are not to be despised; oil
to the limbs makes them supple; to the stomach it gives gladness. Oil,
moreover, bringeth money when sold. But a daughter is the plague of
a man's life. First, one has to keep away lovers; and next to find
a husband; and when all is done, one has to put one's hand in one's
chest, and pay a tall fellow like thee for robbing one of one's own
child. That custom of dowries is abominable. In the good old times a
bridegroom, as was meet and proper, paid for his bride; now we poor
fathers pay him for taking her. Well, well, never bite thy forefinger,
and curl up thy brows. What thou hast to say, say."

"Diagoras, I know that thy heart is better than thy speech, and that,
much as thou covetest money, thou lovest thy child more. Know, then,
that Pausanias--a curse light on him!--brings shame upon Cleonice.
Know that already her name hath grown the talk of the camp. Know that
his visit to her the night before last was proclaimed in the Council
of the Captains as a theme for jest and rude laughter. By the head
of Zeus, how thinkest thou to profit by the stealthy wooings of this
black-browed Spartan? Knowest thou not that his laws forbid him to
marry Cleonice? Wouldst thou have him dishonour her? Speak out to him
as thou speakest to men, and tell him that the maidens of Byzantium
are not in the control of the General of the Greeks."

"Youth, youth," cried Diagoras, greatly agitated, "wouldst thou bring
my grey hairs to a bloody grave? wouldst thou see my daughter reft
from me by force--and--"

"How darest thou speak thus, old man?" interrupted the indignant
Chian. "If Pausanias wronged a virgin, all Hellas would rise against
him."

"Yes, but not till the ill were done, till my throat were cut, and my
child dishonoured. Listen. At first indeed, when, as ill-luck would
have it, Pausanias, lodging a few days under my roof, saw and admired
Cleonice, I did venture to remonstrate, and how think you he took it?
'Never,' quoth he, with his stern quivering lip, 'never did conquest
forego its best right to the smiles of beauty. The legends of
Hercules, my ancestor, tell thee that to him who labours for men,
the gods grant the love of women. Fear not that I should wrong thy
daughter--to woo her is not to wrong. But close thy door on me; immure
Cleonice from my sight; and nor armed slaves, nor bolts, nor bars
shall keep love from the loved one,' Therewith he turned on his heel
and left me. But the next day came a Lydian in his train, with a
goodly pannier of rich stuffs and a short Spartan sword. On the
pannier was written '_Friendship_,' on the sword '_Wrath_,' and Alcman
gave me a scrap of parchment, whereon, with the cursed brief wit of a
Spartan, was inscribed '_Choose_!' Who could doubt which to take? who,
by the Gods, would prefer three inches of Spartan iron in his stomach
to a basketful of rich stuffs for his shoulders? Wherefore, from that
hour, Pausanias comes as he lists. But Cleonice humours him not, let
tongues wag as they may. Easier to take three cities than that child's
heart."

"Is it so indeed?" exclaimed the Chian, joyfully; "Cleonice loves him
not?"

"Laughs at him to his beard: that is, would laugh if he wore one."

"O Diagoras!" cried Antagoras, "hear me, hear me. I need not remind
thee that our families are united by the hospitable ties; that amongst
thy treasures thou wilt find the gifts of my ancestors for five
generations; that when, a year since, my affairs brought me to
Byzantium, I came to thee with the symbols of my right to claim thy
hospitable cares. On leaving thee we broke the sacred die. I have one
half, thou the other. In that visit I saw and loved Cleonice. Fain
would I have told my love, but then my father lived, and I feared lest
he should oppose my suit; therefore, as became me, I was silent. On
my return home, my fears were confirmed; my father desired that I, a
Chian, should wed a Chian. Since I have been with the fleet, news has
reached me that the urn holds my father's ashes." Here the young Chian
paused. "Alas, alas!" he murmured, smiting his breast, "and I was not
at hand to fix over thy doors the sacred branch, to give thee the
parting kiss, and receive into my lips thy latest breath. May Hermes,
O father, have led thee to pleasant groves!"

Diagoras, who had listened attentively to the young Chian, was touched
by his grief, and said pityingly:

"I know thou art a good son, and thy father was a worthy man, though
harsh. It is a comfort to think that all does not die with the dead.
His money at least survives him."

"But," resumed Antagoras, not heeding this consolation,--"but now I
am free: and ere this, so soon as my mourning garment had been lain
aside, I had asked thee to bless me with Cleonice, but that I feared
her love was gone--gone to the haughty Spartan. Thou reassurest me;
and in so doing, thou confirmest the fair omens with which Aphrodite
has received my offerings. Therefore, I speak out. No dowry ask I with
Cleonice, save such, more in name than amount, as may distinguish the
wife from the concubine, and assure her an honoured place amongst my
kinsmen. Thou knowest I am rich; thou knowest that my birth dates
from the oldest citizens of Chios. Give me thy child, and deliver her
thyself at once from the Spartan's power. Once mine, all the fleets of
Hellas are her protection, and our marriage torches are the swords of
a Grecian army. O Diagoras, I clasp thy knees; put thy right hand in
mine. Give me thy child as wife!"

The Byzantine was strongly affected. The suitor was one who, in birth
and possessions, was all that he could desire for his daughter; and at
Byzantium there did not exist that feeling against intermarriages with
the foreigner which prevailed in towns more purely Greek, though in
many of them, too, that antique prejudice had worn away. On the other
hand, by transferring to Antagoras his anxious charge, he felt that he
should take the best course to preserve it untarnished from the fierce
love of Pausanias, and there was truth in the Chian's suggestion. The
daughter of a Byzantine might be unprotected; the wife of an Ionian
captain was safe, even from the power of Pausanias. As these
reflexions occurred to him, he placed his right hand in the Chian's,
and said:

"Be it as thou wilt; I consent to betroth thee to Cleonice. Follow me;
thou art free to woo her."

So saying, he rose, and, as if in fear of his own second thoughts, he
traversed the hall with hasty strides to the interior of the mansion.
He ascended a flight of steps, and, drawing aside a curtain suspended
between two columns, Antagoras, who followed timidly behind, beheld
Cleonice.

As was the wont in the domestic life of all Grecian states, her
handmaids were around the noble virgin. Two were engaged on
embroidery, one in spinning, a fourth was reading aloud to Cleonice,
and that at least was a rare diversion to women, for few had the
education of the fair Byzantine. Cleonice herself was half reclined
upon a bench inlaid with ivory and covered with cushions; before her
stood a small tripod table on which she leant the arm, the hand of
which supported her cheek, and she seemed listening to the lecture
of the slave with earnest and absorbed attention, so earnest, so
absorbed, that she did not for some moments perceive the entrance of
Diagoras and the Chian.

"Child," said the former--and Cleonice started to her feet, and stood
modestly before her father, her eyes downcast, her arms crossed upon
her bosom--"child, I bid thee welcome my guest-friend, Antagoras of
Chios. Slaves, ye may withdraw."

Cleonice bowed her head; and an unquiet, anxious change came over her
countenance.

As soon as the slaves were gone, Diagoras resumed--

"Daughter, I present to thee a suitor for thy hand; receive him as I
have done, and he shall have my leave to carve thy name on every tree
in the garden, with the lover's epithet of 'Beautiful,' attached to
it. Antagoras, look up, then, and speak for thyself."

But Antagoras was silent; and a fear unknown to his frank hardy nature
came over him. With an arch smile, Diagoras, deeming his presence no
longer necessary or expedient, lifted the curtain, and lover and maid
were left alone.

Then, with an effort, and still with hesitating accents, the Chian
spoke--

"Fair virgin,--not in the groves of Byzantium will thy name be first
written by the hand of Antagoras. In my native Chios the myrtle trees
are already eloquent of thee. Since I first saw thee, I loved. Maiden,
wilt thou be my wife?"

Thrice moved the lips of Cleonice, and thrice her voice seemed to fail
her. At length she said,--"Chian thou art a stranger, and the laws of
the Grecian cities dishonour the stranger whom the free citizen stoops
to marry."

"Nay," cried Antagoras, "such cruel laws are obsolete in Chios. Nature
and custom, and love's almighty goddess, long since have set them
aside. Fear not, the haughtiest matron of my native state will not be
more honoured than the Byzantine bride of Antagoras."

"Is it in Sparta only that such laws exist?" said Cleonice, half
unconsciously, and to the sigh with which she spoke a deep blush
succeeded.

"Sparta!" exclaimed Antagoras, with a fierce and jealous pang--"Ah,
are thy thoughts then upon the son of Sparta? Were Pausanias a Chian,
wouldst thou turn from him scornfully as thou now dost from me?"

"Not scornfully, Antagoras," answered Cleonice (who had indeed averted
her face, at his reproachful question; but now turned it full
upon him, with an expression of sad and pathetic sweetness), "not
scornfully do I turn from thee, though with pain; for what worthier
homage canst thou render to woman, than honourable love? Gratefully do
I hearken to the suit that comes from thee; but gratitude is not the
return thou wouldst ask, Antagoras. My hand is my father's; my heart,
alas, is mine. Thou mayst claim from him the one; the other, neither
he can give, nor thou receive."

"Say not so, Cleonice," cried the Chian; "say not, that thou canst not
love me, if so I am to interpret thy words. Love brings love with the
young. How canst thou yet know thine own heart? Tarry till thou hast
listened to mine. As the fire on the altar spreads from offering to
offering, so spreads love; its flame envelops all that are near to it.
Thy heart will catch the heavenly spark from mine."

"Chian," said Cleonice, gently withdrawing the hand that he sought to
clasp, "when as my father's guest-friend thou wert a sojourner within
these walls, oft have I heard thee speak, and all thy words spoke the
thoughts of a noble soul. Were it otherwise, not thus would I now
address thee. Didst thou love gold, and wooed in me but the child of
the rich Diagoras, or wert thou one of those who would treat for
a wife, as a trader for a slave, invoking HerŤ, but disdaining
Aphrodite, I should bow my head to my doom. But thou, Antagoras,
askest love for love; this I cannot give thee. Spare me, O generous
Chian. Let not my father enforce his right to my obedience."

"Answer me but one question," interrupted Antagoras in a low voice,
though with compressed lips: "Dost thou then love another?"

The blood mounted to the virgin's cheeks, it suffused her brow,
her neck, with burning blushes, and then receding, left her face
colourless as a statue. Then with tones low and constrained as his
own, she pressed her hand on her heart, and replied, "Thou sayest it;
I love another."

"And that other is Pausanias? Alas, thy silence, thy trembling, answer
me."

Antagoras groaned aloud and covered his face with his hands; but after
a short pause, he exclaimed with great emotion, "No, no--say not that
thou lovest Pausanias; say not that Aphrodite hath so accurst thee:
for to love Pausanias is to love dishonour."

"Hold, Chian! Not so: for my love has no hope. Our hearts are not our
own, but our actions are."

Antagoras gazed on her with suspense and awe; for as she spoke her
slight form dilated, her lip curled, her cheek glowed again, but
with the blush less of love than of pride. In her countenance, her
attitude, there was something divine and holy, such as would have
beseemed a priestess of Diana.

"Yes," she resumed, raising her eyes, and with a still and mournful
sweetness in her upraised features. "What I love is not Pausanias, it
is the glory of which he is the symbol, it is the Greece of which he
has been the Saviour. Let him depart, as soon he must--let these eyes
behold him no more; still there exists for me all that exists now--a
name, a renown, a dream. Never for me may the nuptial hymn resound, or
the marriage torch be illumined. O goddess of the silver bow, O
chaste and venerable Artemis! receive, protect thy servant; and ye,
O funereal gods, lead me soon, lead the virgin unreluctant to the
shades."

A superstitious fear, a dread as if his earthly love would violate
something sacred, chilled the ardour of the young Chian; and for
several moments both were silent.

At length, Antagoras, kissing the hem of her robe, said,--

"Maiden of Byzantium,--like thee then, I will love, though without
hope. I will not, I dare not, profane thy presence by prayers which
pain thee, and seem to me, having heard thee, almost guilty, as
if proffered to some nymph circling in choral dance the moonlit
mountain-tops of Delos. But ere I depart, and tell thy father that my
suit is over, O place at least thy right hand in mine, and swear to
me, not the bride's vow of faith and troth, but that vow which a
virgin sister may pledge to a brother, mindful to protect and to
avenge her. Swear to me, that if this haughty Spartan, contemning
alike men, laws, and the household gods, should seek to constrain thy
purity to his will; if thou shouldst have cause to tremble at power
and force; and fierce desire should demand what gentle love would but
reverently implore,--then, Cleonice, seeing how little thy father can
defend thee, wilt thou remember Antagoras, and through him, summon
around thee all the majesty of Hellas? Grant me but this prayer, and I
leave thee, if in sorrow, yet not with terror."

"Generous and noble Chian," returned Cleonice as her tears fell upon
the hand he extended to her,--"why, why do I so ill repay thee? Thy
love is indeed that which ennobles the heart that yields it, and her
who shall one day recompense thee for the loss of me. Fear not the
power of Pausanias: dream not that I shall need a defender, while
above us reign the gods, and below us lies the grave. Yet, to appease
thee, take my right hand, and hear my oath. If the hour comes when
I have need of man's honour against man's wrong, I will call on
Antagoras as a brother."

Their hands closed in each other; and not trusting himself to speech,
Antagoras turned away his face, and left the room.




CHAPTER V.


For some days, an appearance at least of harmony was restored to the
contending factions in the Byzantine camp.

Pausanias did not dismiss Gongylus from the government of the
city; but he sent one by one for the more important of the Ionian
complainants, listened to their grievances, and promised redress. He
adopted a more popular and gracious demeanour, and seemed, with a
noble grace, to submit to the policy of conciliating the allies.

But discontent arose from causes beyond his power, had he genuinely
exerted it, to remove. For it was a discontent that lay in the
hostility of race to race. Though the Spartan Equals had preached
courtesy to the Ionians, the ordinary manner of the Spartan warriors
was invariably offensive to the vain and susceptible confederates of
a more polished race. A Spartan, wherever he might be placed,
unconsciously assumed superiority. The levity of an Ionian was ever
displeasing to him. Out of the actual battle-field, they could have no
topics in common, none which did not provoke irritation and dispute.
On the other hand, most of the Ionians could ill conceal their
disaffection, mingled with something of just contempt at the notorious
and confessed incapacity of the Spartans for maritime affairs, while a
Spartan was yet the commander of the fleet. And many of them, wearied
with inaction, and anxious to return home, were willing to seize any
reasonable pretext for desertion. In this last motive lay the real
strength and safety of Pausanias. And to this end his previous policy
of arrogance was not so idle as it had seemed to the Greeks, and
appears still in the page of history. For a Spartan really anxious to
preserve the preeminence of his country, and to prevent the sceptre of
the seas passing to Athens, could have devised no plan of action more
sagacious and profound than one which would disperse the Ionians, and
the Athenians themselves, and reduce the operations of the Grecian
force to that land warfare in which the Spartan pre-eminence was
equally indisputable and undisputed. And still Pausanias, even in his
change of manner, plotted and intrigued and hoped for this end. Could
he once sever from the encampment the Athenians and the Ionian allies,
and yet remain with his own force at Byzantium until the Persian army
could collect on the Phrygian frontier, the way seemed clear to his
ambition. Under ordinary circumstances, in this object he might easily
have succeeded. But it chanced that all his schemes were met with
invincible mistrust by those in whose interest they were conceived,
and on whose co-operation they depended for success. The means adopted
by Pausanias in pursuit of his policy were too distasteful to the
national prejudices of the Spartan government, to enable him to elicit
from the national ambition of that government sufficient sympathy
with the object of it. The more he felt himself uncomprehended and
mistrusted by his countrymen, the more personal became the character,
and the more unscrupulous the course, of his ambition. Unhappily for
Pausanias moreover, the circumstances which chafed his pride, also
thwarted the satisfaction of his affections and his criminal ambition
was stimulated by that less guilty passion which shared with it the
mastery of a singularly turbulent and impetuous soul. Not his the love
of sleek, gallant, and wanton youth; it was the love of man in his
mature years, but of man to whom love till then had been unknown. In
that large and dark and stormy nature all passions once admitted took
the growth of Titans. He loved as those long lonely at heart alone can
love; he loved as love the unhappy when the unfamiliar bliss of the
sweet human emotion descends like dew upon the desert. To him Cleonice
was a creature wholly out of the range of experience. Differing in
every shade of her versatile humour from the only women he had known,
the simple, sturdy, uneducated maids and matrons of Sparta, her
softness enthralled him, her anger awed. In his dreams of future
power, of an absolute throne and unlimited dominion, Pausanias beheld
the fair Byzantine crowned by his side. Fiercely as he loved, and
little as the _sentiment_ of love mingled with his _passion_, he yet
thought not to dishonour a victim, but to elevate a bride. What though
the laws of Sparta were against such nuptials, was not the hour
approaching when these laws should be trampled under his armed heel?
Since the contract with the Persians, which Gongylus assured him
Xerxes would joyously and promptly fulfil, Pausanias already felt, in
a soul whose arrogance arose from the consciousness of powers that had
not yet found their field, as if he were not the subject of Sparta,
but her lord and king. In his interviews with Cleonice, his language
took a tone of promise and of hope that at times lulled her fears, and
communicated its sanguine colourings of the future to her own dreams.
With the elasticity of youth, her spirits rose from the solemn
despondency with which she had replied to the reproaches of Antagoras.
For though Pausanias spoke not openly of his schemes, though his
words were mysterious, and his replies to her questions ambiguous
and equivocal, still it seemed to her, seeing in him the hero of all
Hellas, so natural that he could make the laws of Sparta yield to the
weight of his authority, or relax in homage to his renown, that she
indulged the belief that his influence would set aside the iron
customs of his country. Was it too extravagant a reward to the
conqueror of the Mede to suffer him to select at least the partner of
his hearth? No, Hope was not dead in that young breast. Still might
she be the bride of him whose glory had dazzled her noble and
sensitive nature, till the faults that darkened it were lost in the
blaze. Thus insensibly to herself her tones became softer to her stern
lover, and her heart betrayed itself 

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