A Victor of Salamis 8Book I · Democrates and the Tempter
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Literature · Adventure
A Victor of Salamis 8
Book I · Democrates and the Tempter
DavisEnglish
In the northern quarter of Athens the suburb of Alopece thrust itself under the slopes of Mt. Lycabettus, that pyramid of tawny rock which formed the rear bulwark, as it were, of every landscape of Athens. The dwellings in the suburb were poor, though few even in the richer quarters were at all handsome; the streets barely sixteen feet wide, ill-paved, filthy, dingy. A line of dirty gray stucco house-fronts was broken only by the small doors and the smaller windows in the second story. Occasionally a two-faced bust of Hermes stood before a portal, or a marble lion’s head spouted into a corner water trough. All Athenian streets resembled these. The citizen had his Pnyx, his Jury-Court, his gossiping Agora for his day. These dingy streets sufficed for the dogs, the slaves, and the women, whom wise Zeus ordered to remain at home.
Phormio the fishmonger had returned from his traffic, and sat in his house-door meditating over a pot of sour wine and watching the last light flickering on the great bulk of the mountain. He had his sorrows,—good man,—for Lampaxo his worthy wife, long of tongue, short of temper, thrifty and very watchful, was reminding him for the seventh time that he had sold a carp half an obol too cheap. His patience indeed that evening was so near to exhaustion that after cursing inwardly the “match-maker” who had saddled this Amazon upon him, he actually found courage for an outbreak. He threw up his arms after the manner of a tragic actor:—
“True, true is the word of Hesiod!”
“True is what?” flew back none too gently.
“ ‘The fool first suffers and is after wise.’ Woman, I am resolved.”
“On what?” Lampaxo’s voice was soft as broken glass.
“Years increase. I shan’t live long. We are childless. I will provide for you in my will by giving you in marriage to Hyperphon.”(3)
“Hyperphon!” screamed the virago, “Hyperphon the beggarly hunchback, the laughing-stock of Athens! O Mother Hera!—but I see the villain’s aim. You are weary of me. Then divorce me like an honourable man. Send me back to Polus my dear brother. Ah, you sheep, you are silent! You think of the two-minæ dowry you must then refund. Woe is me! I’ll go to the King Archon. I’ll charge you with gross abuse. The jury will condemn you. There’ll be fines, fetters, stocks, prison—”
“Peace,” groaned Phormio, terrified at the Gorgon, “I only thought—”
“How dared you think? What permitted—”
“Good evening, sweet sister and Phormio!” The salutation came from Polus, who with Clearchus had approached unheralded. Lampaxo smoothed her ruffled feathers. Phormio stifled his sorrows. Dromo, the half-starved slave-boy, brought a pot of thin wine to his betters. The short southern twilight was swiftly passing into night. Groups of young men wandered past, bound homeward from the Cynosarges, the Academy, or some other well-loved gymnasium. In an hour the streets would be dark and still, except for a belated guest going to his banquet, a Scythian constable, or perhaps a cloak thief. For your Athenian, when he had no supper invitation, went to bed early and rose early, loving the sunlight far better than the flicker of his uncertain lamps.
“And did the jury vote ‘guilty’?” was Phormio’s first question of his brother-in-law.
“We were patriotically united. There were barely any white beans for acquittal in the urn. The scoundrelly grain-dealer is stripped of all he possesses and sent away to beg in exile. A noble service to Athens!”
“Despite the evidence,” murmured Clearchus; but Lampaxo’s shrill voice answered her brother:—
“It’s my opinion you jurors should look into a case directly opposite this house. Spies, I say, Persian spies.”
“Spies!” cried Polus, leaping up as from a coal; “why, Phormio, haven’t you denounced them? It’s compounding with treason even to fail to report—”
“Peace, brother,” chuckled the fishmonger, “your sister smells for treason as a dog for salt fish. There is a barbarian carpet merchant—a Babylonian, I presume—who has taken the empty chambers above Demas’s shield factory opposite. He seems a quiet, inoffensive man; there are a hundred other foreign merchants in the city. One can’t cry ‘Traitor!’ just because the poor wight was not born to speak Greek.”
“I do not like Babylonish merchants,” propounded Polus, dogmatically; “to the jury with him, I say!”
“At least he has a visitor,” asserted Clearchus, who had long been silent. “See, a gentleman wrapped in a long himation is going up to the door and standing up his walking stick.”
“And if I have eyes,” vowed the juror, squinting through his hands in the half light, “that closely wrapped man is Glaucon the Alcmæonid.”
“Or Democrates,” remarked Clearchus; “they look much alike from behind. It’s getting dark.”
“Well,” decided Phormio, “we can easily tell. He has left his stick below by the door. Steal across, Polus, and fetch it. It must be carved with the owner’s name.”
The juror readily obeyed; but to read the few characters on the crooked handle was beyond the learning of any save Clearchus, whose art demanded the mystery of writing.
“I was wrong,” he confessed, after long scrutiny, “ ‘Glaucon, son of Conon.’ It is very plain. Put the cane back, Polus.”
The cane was returned, but the juror pulled a very long face.
“Dear friends, here is a man I’ve already suspected of undemocratic sentiments conferring with a Barbarian. Good patriots cannot be too vigilant. A plot, I assert. Treason to Athens and Hellas! Freedom’s in danger. Henceforth I shall look on Glaucon the Alcmæonid as an enemy of liberty.”
“Phui!” almost shouted Phormio, whose sense of humour was keen, “a noble conspiracy! Glaucon the Fortunate calls on a Babylonish merchant by night. You say to plot against Athens. I say to buy his pretty wife a carpet.”
“The gods will some day explain,” said Clearchus, winding up the argument,—and so for a little while the four forgot all about Glaucon.
Despite the cane, Clearchus was right. The visitor was Democrates. The orator mounted the dark stair above the shield-factory and knocked against a door, calling, “Pai! Pai!” “Boy! boy!” a summons answered by none other than the ever smiling Hiram. The Athenian, however, was little prepared for the luxury, nay splendour, which greeted him, once the Phœnician had opened the door. The bare chamber had been transformed. The foot sank into the glowing carpets of Kerman and Bactria. The gold-embroidered wall tapestries were of Sidonian purple. The divans were covered with wondrous stuff which Democrates could not name,—another age would call it silk. A tripod smoked with fragrant Arabian frankincense. Silver lamps, swinging from silver chains, gave brilliant light. The Athenian stood wonderbound, until a voice, not Hiram’s, greeted him.
“Welcome, Athenian,” spoke the Cyprian, in his quaint, eastern accent. It was the strange guest in the tavern by Corinth. The Prince—prince surely, whatever his other title—was in the same rich dress as at the Isthmus, only his flowing beard had been dyed raven black. Yet Democrates’s eyes were diverted instantly to the peculiarly handsome slave-boy on the divan beside his master. The boy’s dress, of a rare blue stuff, enveloped him loosely. His hair was as golden as the gold thread on the round cap. In the shadows the face almost escaped the orator,—he thought he saw clear blue eyes and a marvellously brilliant, almost girlish, bloom and freshness. The presence of this slave caused the Athenian to hesitate, but the Cyprian bade him be seated, with one commanding wave of the hand.
“This is Smerdis, my constant companion. He is a mute. Yet if otherwise, I would trust him as myself.”
Democrates, putting by surprise, began to look on his host fixedly.
“My dear Barbarian, for that you are a Hellene you will not pretend, you realize, I trust, you incur considerable danger in visiting Athens.”
“I am not anxious,” observed the Prince, composedly. “Hiram is watchful and skilful. You see I have dyed my hair and beard black and pass for a Babylonish merchant.”
“With all except me, philotate,—‘dearest friend,’ as we say in Athens.” Democrates’s smile was not wholly agreeable.
“With all except you,” assented the Prince, fingering the scarlet tassel of the cushion whereon he sat. “I reckoned confidently that you would come to visit me when I sent Hiram to you. Yes—I have heard the story that is on your tongue: one of Themistocles’s busybodies has brought a rumour that a certain great man of the Persian court is missing from the side of his master, and you have been requested to greet that nobleman heartily if he should come to Athens.”
“You know a great deal!” cried the orator, feeling his forehead grow hot.
“It is pleasant to know a great deal,” smiled back the Prince, carelessly, while Hiram entered with a tray and silver goblets brimming with violet-flavoured sherbet; “I have innumerable ‘Eyes-and-ears.’ You have heard the name? One of the chief officers of his Majesty is ‘The Royal Eye.’ You Athenians are a valiant and in many things a wise people, yet you could grow in wisdom by looking well to the East.”
“I am confident,” exclaimed Democrates, thrusting back the goblet, “if your Excellency requires a noble game of wits, you can have one. I need only step to the window, and cry ‘Spies!’—after which your Excellency can exercise your wisdom and eloquence defending your life before one of our Attic juries.”
“Which is a polite and patriotic manner of saying, dearest Athenian, you are not prepared to push matters to such unfortunate extremity. I omit what his Majesty might do in the way of taking vengeance; sufficient that if aught unfortunate befalls me, or Hiram, or this my slave Smerdis, while we are in Athens, a letter comes to your noble chief Themistocles from the banker Pittacus of Argos.”
Democrates, who had risen to his feet, had been flushed before. He became pale now. The hand that clutched the purple tapestry was trembling. The words rose to his lips, the lips refused to utter them. The Prince, who had delivered his threat most quietly, went on, “In short, good Democrates, I was aware before I came to Athens of our necessities, and I came because I was certain I could relieve them.”
“Never!” The orator shot the word out desperately.
“You are a Hellene.”
“Am I ashamed of it?”
“Do not, however, affect to be more virtuous than your race. Persians make their boast of truth-telling and fidelity. You Hellenes, I hear, have even a god—Hermes Dolios,—who teaches you lying and thieving. The customs of nations differ. Mazda the Almighty alone knoweth which is best. Follow then the customs of Hellenes.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“Plainer, then. You know the master I serve. You guess who I am, though you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?”
The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were pressed behind his head.
“I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.”
“Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry. You will find a Persian pays like the lord he is, and that his darics always ring true metal.”
“I’ll hear no more. I was a fool to meet Lycon at Corinth, doubly a fool to meet you to-night. Farewell.”
Democrates seized the latch. The door was locked. He turned furiously on the Barbarian. “Do you keep me by force? Have a care. I can be terrible if driven to bay. The window is open. One shout—”
The Cyprian had risen, and quietly, but with a grip like iron on Democrates’s wrist, led the orator back to the divan.
“You can go free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition. Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate. You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the Theseia you fed the poor of Athens on sixty oxen washed down with good Rhodian wine. All that made havoc in your patrimony.”
“By Zeus, you speak as if you lived all your life in Athens!”
“I have said ‘I have many eyes.’ But to continue. You gave the price of the tackling for six of the triremes with which Themistocles pretends to believe he can beat back my master. Worse still, you have squandered many minæ on flute girls, dice, cock-fights, and other gentle pleasures. In short your patrimony is not merely exhausted but overspent. That, however, is not the most wonderful part of my recital.”
“How dare you pry into my secrets?”
“Be appeased, dear Athenian; it is much more interesting to know you deny nothing of all I say. It is now five months since you were appointed by your sagacious Athenian assembly as commissioner to administer the silver taken from the mines at Laurium and devoted to your navy. You fulfilled the people’s confidence by diverting much of this money to the payment of your own great debts to the banker Pittacus of Argos. At present you are ‘watching the moon,’ as you say here in Athens,—I mean, that at the end of this month you must account to the people for all the money you have handled, and at this hour are at your wits’ ends to know whence the repayment will come.”
“That is all you know of me?”
“All.”
Democrates sighed with relief. “Then you have yet to complete the story, my dear Barbarian. I have adventured on half the cargo of a large merchantman bringing timber and tin from Massalia; I look every day for a messenger from Corinth with news of her safe arrival. Upon her coming I can make good all I owe and still be a passing rich man.”
If the Cyprian was discomposed at this announcement, he did not betray it.
“The sea is frightfully uncertain, good Democrates. Upon it, as many fortunes are lost as are made.”
“I have offered due prayers to Poseidon, and vowed a gold tripod on the ship’s arrival.”
“So even your gods in Hellas have their price,” was the retort, with an ill-concealed sneer. “Do not trust them. Take ten talents from me and to-night sleep sweetly.”
“Your price?” the words slipped forth involuntarily.
“Themistocles’s private memoranda for the battle-order of your new fleet.”
“Avert it, gods! The ship will reach Corinth, I warn you—” Democrates’s gestures became menacing, as again he rose, “I will set you in Themistocles’s hand as soon—”
“But not to-night.” The Prince rose, smiled, held out his hand. “Unbar the door for his Excellency, Hiram. And you, noble sir, think well of all I said at Corinth on the certain victory of my master; think also—” the voice fell—“how Democrates the Codrid could be sovereign of Athens under the protection of Persia.”
“I tyrant of Athens?” the orator clapped his hand behind his back; “you say enough. Good evening.”
He was on the threshold, when the slave-boy touched his master’s hand in silent signal.
“And if there be any fair woman you desire,”—how gliding the Cyprian’s voice!—“shall not the power of Xerxes the great give her unto you?”
Why did Democrates feel his forehead turn to flame? Why—almost against will—did he stretch forth his hand to the Cyprian? He went down the stair scarce feeling the steps beneath him. At the bottom voices greeted him from across the darkened street.
“A fair evening, Master Glaucon.”
“A fair evening,” his mechanical answer; then to himself; as he walked away, “Wherefore call me Glaucon? I have somewhat his height, though not his shoulder. Ah,—I know it, I have chanced to borrow his carved walking-stick. Impudent creatures to read the name!”
He had not far to go. Athens was compactly built, all quarters close together. Yet before he reached home and bed, he was fighting back an ill-defined but terrible thought. “Glaucon! They think I am Glaucon. If I chose to betray the Cyprian—” Further than that he would not suffer the thought to go. He lay sleepless, fighting against it. The dark was full of the harpies of uncanny suggestion. He arose unrefreshed, to proffer every god the same prayer: “Deliver me from evil imaginings. Speed the ship to Corinth.”
