CHAPTER VII.

ASPASIA’S SCHOOL.

Years had passed since little Alcibiades wounded one of his companions in the Lyceum, by a cast of his disk.

The boy had grown into a youth and reached his majority, for he had attained his eighteenth year. According to Athenian custom, he had been introduced into the popular assembly with the other youths who became of age the same year, had been conducted, armed with spear and shield, to the sanctuary of Agraulos at the foot of the Acropolis, and there taken the solemn vow with which new Athenian citizens consecrated themselves to their native land—he had sworn not to use his weapons discreditably or desert his companion in battle, to fight for the sanctuaries and common welfare, that the commonwealth should, if possible, descend to later generations with increased power and honor, to obey the laws given by the people, and not suffer any one else to violate or cancel them.

But for the present, the native land to which young Alcibiades vowed fealty by this oath, made very moderate claims upon his zeal and efforts. The Peribolan service the Athenian youths, who had just attained their majority, were called upon to render, consisted in little expeditions for the interior security of the Attic country, and these were considered a pleasure rather than a burden.

The community allowed Cleinias’ son ample leisure to enjoy the pleasures of the golden days of youth. Young Callias, who called his father a niggard, had also grown up, and Pyrilampes’ son Demos, famous for his beauty, was also of the opinion that his father did not know how to make a proper use of his wealth. These three were inseparable. Xanthippus and Paralus were sometimes drawn in to help play some wild prank by Alcibiades, who grudged them the renown of virtue, but were forced to be content with a minor part. In the first place Telesippe’s children lacked intellect and cleverness, and secondly their purses were not so full as those of the sons of the two richest men in Athens, or even Alcibiades’, who on attaining his majority had come into full possession of his father’s property.

Alcibiades felt a peculiar affection for the young foreigner, whom Pericles had brought from the Samian war and reared in his own house, with his two sons and ward. But all the latter’s efforts to draw the dreamy, taciturn, somewhat clumsy youth into his gay circle, failed.

This same youth began to be the object of attention, not unmixed with awe, on account of a strange disease that attacked him. He developed the mysterious tendency known by the name of somnambulism. In the dead of night, when every one was asleep, he rose from his couch, walked with closed eyes through the moonlit peristyle, then ascended to the flat roof of the house, wandered about there for a time, and finally returned to his bed as unconsciously as he had left it. The news of the sleep-walker in Pericles’ house spread through Athens, and from that moment he began to be regarded with a certain touch of fear, as a person under the influence of evil powers.

If the boy Alcibiades had attracted general attention from the Athenians, he was naturally still more discussed when his chin became rough with the tender down of manhood. His whimsical conduct formed the daily topic of conversation, and after prematurely learning the charm associated with the reputation of an agreeable, good-for-nothing fellow, he not only imposed no restraint upon himself, but if he committed one wild prank, over which the Athenians shook their heads, made them forget it by inventing another still more outrageous. He knew that even the fault-finders secretly admired him. It often seemed, as if he were trying to discover whether he could do anything to make the Athenians really angry with him. Vain effort! No matter how wanton his conduct might be, he himself was always lovable.

Hipponicus still persisted in the idea that the fairest maiden in Greece, his daughter Hipparete, ought to become the wife of the handsomest Hellenic youth. He therefore made himself as agreeable to Alcibiades as possible, invited him frequently to his house, and treated him with almost a father-in-law’s affection.

Alcibiades made sport of him, as he did of every one else, and teased him with insolent jests. One day Hipponicus sent him a deliciously-cooked fish on a gold platter. Alcibiades kept the platter, and thanked Hipponicus by saying: “You are too kind to send so nice a fish besides the gold platter.”—Hipponicus laughed till his stout frame shook, and praised the wit of his daughter’s future husband to everybody.

The lovely girl herself, whose father had constantly pointed out Alcibiades as her future husband, was secretly in love with the handsome fellow. She had seen him several times at the public festivals. But he scoffed at the fair young maiden and preferred the beautiful, clever hetæræ, whose number was constantly increasing in the Athenian city.

Theodota, in particular, initiated the youth into all the mysteries of the gayest life. About ten years had passed since Alcamenes had asked the rich Corinthian for the beautiful woman, in payment for his admirable statue. She was perhaps no longer the fairest, but still the most famous of her companions.

To Alcibiades she was the centre of a seething whirlpool of gayety and pleasure—only the centre, however, while the circles constantly widened.

Diopeithes rubbed his hands contentedly, saying:

“Theodota will ruin Pericles’ promising ward for us.”

But real health, strength, and beauty are apparently sometimes incorruptible.

The dissolute Alcibiades bloomed like a rose in the morning dew. His cheek had the bloom moralists think it their duty to give to virtue, while not unfrequently the virtuous go about with the sallow faces and lustreless eyes the moralizer generally depicts when, with flaming words, he paints the frightful picture of the sensualist.

Theodota at first fulfilled her task towards the pleasure-loving youth with cheerful alacrity, but soon more passionate feelings began to stir in her heart. Poor woman! While it seemed the most enviable bliss to be loved by Alcibiades, it was certainly the worst misfortune to love him.

Alcibiades attained his majority a few days after Pericles and his wife returned from their journey to Elis. Although the youth, on taking possession of his father’s property, ceased to be an inmate of Pericles’ house, habit and affection, together with the charm Aspasia could not fail to exert over him, often brought him back to the threshold of the dwelling where he had grown up.

Need it be mentioned, that the spoiled favorite of the Graces thought he might even venture to approach Pericles’ beautiful wife with a shade of the kind of homage learned in Theodota’s school? But the lovely Milesian was still too young to find immature men attractive, too sensible to consider them desirable, and far too proud, in spite of the youth’s remarkable beauty, to allow herself to be harnessed before the triumphal car of a stripling with a downy beard. She well knew that no woman, not even she herself, could really catch, bind, and rule this impetuous youth. Far greater than the equivocal satisfaction of increasing the number of hearts he had won, was the charm of the thought of avenging her sex on him, and punishing him for the inconstancy she gave him no opportunity of testing in her own person. Therefore it did not occur to her to adopt the tone of maternal tenderness, apparently justified by the difference in age, beneath which the wooing of an elderly woman often conceals itself, or to seek the role of confidant. She answered his civilities merely by entirely overlooking them, treating him with maternal severity rather than maternal tenderness. This bewildered the victorious, spoiled conqueror. He felt secretly indignant, but the high regard he paid the Milesian was not diminished, but on the contrary unconsciously increased. So he was constantly drawn back to Aspasia, and pressed upon her the role of confidante she was far from seeking.

One day a rumor spread through Athens of a fresh prank of Alcibiades, better calculated to attract attention and employ every tongue than any of his previous ones. It was reported, that during a trip to Megara in the company of his chosen comrades, to transact some business, he had stolen a young girl whom he now kept concealed as a prisoner in Athens, to the no small wrath of the Megarians, who were always hostile to the Athenians.

Many already spoke of the open warfare, which would break out between Athens and her Dorian neighbor on account of this trick of an Athenian youth.

Alcibiades, when questioned, by no means denied the truth of the affair, and at last told the whole story in detail, nay with delight, to his maternal friend Aspasia.

“We had grown tired,” said he, “of the wearisome Peribolan service in the country districts, though we sometimes obtained a little variety by carousing with the vagabonds and robbers we should have caught, and instead of these preferred to hunt a Thracian maid in the groves of Phelleus or a sturdy Acharnian.

“So I determined to take a little sea-voyage of a few days, with my friends Callias and Demos. A long time before at our mutual expense, we had had a handsomely-ornamented, roomy, pleasure-boat built, which we sometimes used for fishing. We went on board this vessel with three pretty Ionians, who knew how to play and sing, a couple of hunting-dogs, some nets and javelins, for we intended to row along the coast, landing here and there to hunt. We passed through the straits of Salamis. Our boat, the ‘Bacchante,’ danced merrily over the waves. Her gayly-painted prow, which terminated in a Bacchante astride of a gilded panther, glittered in the sun. We had garlanded the mast with ivy and myrtle, as if it were a thyrsus. The bottom of the vessel was covered with carpets and soft cushions. We chatted, jested and sang; one of the three beauties played the flute, another the cithara, a third clashed cymbals, till the sea echoed the mirth and singing, and we were obliged to drive away the inquisitive dolphins, by striking them on the head with our oars, to keep them from jarring or overturning the barge.

“Coasting along the shore, we passed numerous country-houses and lingered a short time before one, to give the beauty who occupied it a serenade. We sang and played. The fair one was delighted to hear the music echoing from the sea, and see her young friends crowned with garlands. She stood smiling on the balcony of the house. We tossed up wreaths and kissed our hands to her, then went farther out to sea. The sun scorched, but we knew how to protect ourselves. Taking our upper garments, we stretched them over our heads like an awning. This made the barge look as if it were gayly supplied with sails and pennons, and the reflection of the purple in the sea dyed the waves. It seemed as if the clear, bell-like laugh of a siren must be heard. Those were Halcyon days, during which calms prevail and the halcyons brood. We had left the straits of Salamis behind, and the Megarian shore appeared on our right. Here the coast began to be lonely and monotonous, from time to time the sound of a shepherd’s flute reached us from the mountain heights, and we saw herds of cattle, lambs and goats grazing. We landed here and there, and enjoyed ourselves in many ways. We caught fish with hooks, lowered by long lines dropped from the rocks on the shore, and even caught some wild geese, ducks and bustards with snares.

“Just as we had entered our boat again to continue our way to Megara, we met a pleasure-barge no whit inferior to ours in elegance and luxurious adornment. In this superb vessel sat an elderly man, and by his side a beautiful girl, at sight of whom my heart kindled. The meeting was only too short. The two barges glided swiftly past each other; the Megarian turned around a projecting cliff and thus vanished from our eyes.

“We again landed, in a spot that particularly allured us. Close by was a wood, which our dogs instantly rummaged. In a few minutes they started a hare, we seized our nets and javelins and, in the hope of securing the animal, followed it, leaving our friends near the barge. The hare was driven away from the woods into the fields and pastures; but as the dogs, baying loudly, pursued, they raised a great commotion among the shepherds and flocks. It happened that one goatherd’s animals were scattered by the dogs rushing through their midst, and the startled goats ran down to the sea. Enraged by this dispersal of his herd, the fellow seized a sharp stone lying near, threw it at one of the dogs and wounded him fatally in the head. It was my faithful Phylax, endowed with all the qualities of an admirable hunter.

“When we saw the incident from the distance, we let the hare go and rushed furiously after the goatherd. But meantime the latter had summoned other shepherds to his protection, and we found ourselves confronted by a threatening band. At this moment a slave came running from a neighboring country-house to ask, in his master’s name, what this uproar meant. When we learned from the slave’s words that the shepherds were in the service of the owner of this country-house, we asked to speak with him to obtain satisfaction for the wounded animal. Following the slave we approached the country-house, a handsome dwelling that seemed to be the property of some rich man, and were no little surprised to see, strolling in the garden near the mansion, the very same old man and lovely child we had just met on the sea. We told the old man the story, and said we meant to take vengeance on the shepherd. The grey-beard, as a Megarian and foe of the Athenians, answered with sullen words. The shepherds, many of whom had followed at our heels, complained with loud outcries of the damage done their fields, the dispersal of their herds. Joined by the household slaves, who were encouraged by a sign from their master, they pressed upon us and amid violent abuse of the insolent Athenians, compelled us, by superior numbers, to retire without satisfaction.

“Greatly as the incident excited me, I had not neglected to cast a few glances at the youthful beauty, who had watched the conflict from the garden with mingled curiosity and terror. While returning with my companions, I told them of my resolution to avenge myself on the contemptible Megarian. I supposed the beautiful child to be some purchased slave; my plan was to remain concealed in the neighborhood with my companions for a time, watch for some moment when the country-house was unguarded and the girl alone in the garden, then hastily seize and bear her away.

“The desired opportunity came sooner than we had hoped. Before the second day elapsed we had grasped the girl, stopped her screams by fastening a bandage over her mouth, and borne her swiftly to the barge concealed beneath the cliff.

“Under the protection of the gathering dusk, we fled, with our fair prize on board, from the Megarian coast.”

“And the young girl?” asked Aspasia.

“Accommodated herself to her fate,” replied Alcibiades, “though she was no slave, as I supposed, but a freeborn maiden, the niece of the accursed Megarian. Her name is Simaitha, and I call her the fairest of all Hellenic—not women, but maidens.”

Megara! The word had a strange sound to Aspasia’s ear. She had listened to the bold youth’s story with evident interest, and now asked numerous questions about the young girl. Alcibiades gave an enthusiastic description of her.

Aspasia asked to see Simaitha. The youth willingly acceded to the request, and brought the Megarian to her. The girl’s beauty was so remarkable, that Aspasia marvelled, but in character she was like an unpolished gem. Had she not been reared in Megara! It was time for her to be snatched away, if this pearl were not to fade in seclusion.

The rich Megarian had received her into his house when a little child, and treated her better than a slave, but not like a daughter.

He seemed to have intended to rear her solely to be the helpless tool of his pleasure. The old Megarian bore no resemblance to the noble Milesian, Philammon, whom Aspasia had so warmly praised in relating the story of her youth to Pericles. Simaitha hated him, and declared she would rather kill herself than go back to his house. Aspasia’s keen eye perceived the germs of womanly charms of the highest order, in the character of this young girl, who had scarcely passed her fifteenth year. Her eyes were as radiant with intelligence, as her features with beauty. Aspasia longed to develop the beautiful bud, and speedily forming her plan, said to Alcibiades:

“This girl is yours, not so much by the robbery you committed, as her own firm resolve not to return to the Megarian’s house. But you are not yet worthy of her. Noble maidens, nay even Hipponicus’ affected little daughter, are far too good for youths like you. Women of Theodota’s stamp exist for the striplings of your character; you can, so to speak, sow your wild-oats with them. For the rest, you would not fully enjoy the possession of Simaitha as she now is. You would soon weary of her, for the germs of those qualities which are necessary, if disgust is not finally to win the mastery over love, are not yet developed in her character. Leave the child to me for a time. Trust the treasure you have won to my care, put out your capital at interest—you will receive it in due time from my hands with its value enhanced tenfold.”

Alcibiades was too young and too fickle, to find it a difficult task to deliver the young girl to Aspasia’s care.

“I am ready to put out my precious treasure at interest,” he replied. “I know I shall be richly repaid for the short sacrifice, which will not be complete, since you will doubtless allow me to see the lovely child in your house.”

“Why not?” answered Aspasia, “you can be a constant witness of her progress.”

Simaitha was brought to Aspasia. Pericles had at first refused his consent; but his disposition was wonderfully indulgent and, at Aspasia’s repeated entreaties, he at last gave the desired permission, coupled with the condition that the young girl’s stay in his house should last only until the question of surrendering her to the Megarians should be positively decided. Had not the Megarians been so bitterly hated in Athens, Pericles’ compliance in granting the maiden an asylum in his house, out of love for Aspasia, would doubtless have been more sharply condemned than was really the case.

People had long since began to talk of Aspasia’s school, and the name was now better justified than ever.

There were no less than four young girls in the earliest bloom of maidenhood, who lived in Aspasia’s house under the immediate training of the Milesian. Her nieces from Miletus, who had already been with her some time, were joined by Cora, the Arcadian girl, and the young stranger from Megara.

The name of school harmonized perfectly with Aspasia’s secret plans. Her personal efforts to ennoble and free the women of Athens had been attended with very doubtful success. But the ardent longing of her soul gave her no rest. She thought she had convinced herself that it was vain to try to transform mature women, the influence, she believed, must begin in early youth.

She did not wish to train hetæræ, but champions and allies, adapted by their intellect and beauty to gain influence as she herself had done. The school she established should keep alive what she transmitted, and diffuse it to wider circles. Through the operation of united powers, according to her belief, prejudices would at last be shattered, and the victory of intellect, beauty and womanhood secured.

Not in the foreground, yet not wholly alien to the thoughts of the aspiring though calculating Milesian, was the idea of the advantages which might arise from her school in other respects. Her pupils, like their mistress, might obtain for husbands powerful and influential men, who would strengthen Pericles’ authority and oppose the efforts of his enemies.

Did Pericles’ wife feel no scruple about gathering around her a number of young and charming girls, under her husband’s eyes? Nay, this proud, lofty soul, striving for a living influence, was elevated far above paltry considerations and petty feelings; she was not content with personal success like an ordinary woman, but lived and labored for a great idea. Besides, she knew that Aphrodite’s girdle was still in her power, that it had lost none of its old magic in her hand. She knew she would long remain the mistress among her pupils, that the latter must become what she was. With regard to Pericles, she had a firm conviction that nothing in the world would break or weaken the power of the spell with which she had ensnared his heart, and custom only made the stronger.

A caprice of nature had denied Aspasia the joys of maternity. She endured it without complaint. If she had not been permitted to train daughters into her own likeness, fate offered her a compensation in these promising girls, on whom she could try, to her heart’s content, the magic power of her shaping hand.

The Muses and Graces seemed to descend from Olympus and enter Aspasia’s service, as teachers in her school. There was given the great lesson of how nature is refined by noble art, and art must again become nature. There the unity of everything beautiful was understood and realized; there music became a dance of the soul, and dancing a music of the limbs—there beauty became poetry, and poetry beauty.

Aspasia’s endeavor was to rouse her pupils’ intellect through and for the sake of beauty, and then free their awakened minds.

But not only every kind of art served as a means of waking intelligence, many of the possessions of wisdom, knowledge, and science were borne like fructifying pollen, on the wings of Cupids, into Aspasia’s school. Nothing, except sternness, severity, gloom, was excluded. Gayety was proclaimed to be the chief law of beauty and life.

The principal lesson Aspasia taught her pupils, was the folly it would be to expect to win every success by their charms. She showed them that these would not long remain lovable, if dependent solely on themselves, and told them beauty was a virtue and must be learned, practised, cultivated, like any other. She made them perceive that intellect was the spice which, blended with beauty, kept it fresh. “A silly beauty soon grows old,” she said, “the charm that vulgarity surrounds like a dismal swamp, soon fades. Nothing so quickly destroys the bloom, as dull vegetation in mindless monotony. To be beautiful was not a condition, but an act. Beauty was the highest activity, and its efficiency depended upon the harmony of all the noblest agencies—upon a pleasant and harmonious activity of the body and soul. It was no dead object of admiration, no motionless light, but like the sunbeams, a living dance of rays, a shower of sparks.”

“Beauty cannot be directly bestowed,” she used also to say, “but ugliness can be everywhere stifled, subdued, diminished. You cannot too frequently cast a glance into the mirror—not to see how beautiful you are, but to surprise yourself in some moment of ugliness. Only in that way will you learn that no one is always beautiful, and no one is always ugly—that the flower of every beauty changes its form and color a hundred times a day, that left to itself it wavers helplessly, destitute of support or firmness; that a beauty, who sure of herself, can venture to fold her hands in her lap, is a dream of fools, and that to be beautiful is a difficult art even for the loveliest woman. Let not ugliness approach you under any form. Its shapes and disguises are countless. Ugliness is a demon with which we must struggle every day, if he is not to gradually overpower us. But most frequently of all, he turns his deadly weapons against the bloom of the body, from behind the shelter of the soul.”

Aspasia did not content herself with warning words, but actively aided her pupils in the strife against the malicious, threatening demon, pursuing the germs and traces of everything ugly, as the bailiff follows the thief. As school-masters hold a staff or rod, she carried in her hand a little silver mirror, and held it before the culprit in whom a spark of physical or mental ugliness appeared. Thus she taught the young girls self-control, suppression of every disfiguring caprice or passion, calmness, cheerfulness, noble symmetry of body and soul. One of Aspasia’s nieces, Drosis, developed a brilliant natural talent for dancing, Prasina, on the contrary, showed principally skill in singing and music. But Aspasia did not permit either to devote herself exclusively to the cultivation of such one-sided dexterity. She desired each to seek to please, not by the exercise of any one art, but by a harmoniously-developed personality. Devotion to a single art, she said, always led to neglect of the personality itself and its harmonious development.

Drosis was naturally bewitching by her grace. Her figure was tall and elegant, so ethereally light that she seemed, like a nymph, incapable of crushing a blade of grass or flower in walking over the fields. Her limbs possessed the slenderness, youthful delicacy, and graceful softness, which is far more alluring than voluptuous roundness.

Prasina resembled her, but had the advantage of the clear, silvery voice, with which she charmed every ear, while singing the songs of Sappho. Can there be anything sweeter than the voice of a girl of sixteen? Prasina’s sweet, melting, impassioned tones surpassed the songs of the nightingales in the valley of the Cephissus.

But charming Drosis and ardent Prasina were soon outstripped by the beautiful development of the budding maiden Simaitha. The loftiest charm of Hellenic form was embodied in her figure and features. Even the masters of the art of sculpture had scarcely dreamed of such marvellous purity of outline. She possessed the indescribable clearness, the lustrous yet somewhat dreamy freshness of the eye, that sometimes appears with a bewitching charm in girls of very tender years. But Simaitha most nearly resembled her mistress in mind and soul, as well as personal beauty. She seemed closely allied to her by the manner in which her thoughts and feelings were developing, and appeared destined to be no less perfect an embodiment of the real joy and beauty-loving Hellenic spirit, than was the Milesian herself. She grasped Aspasia’s thoughts with fervent enthusiasm, and her intelligence surpassed that of her companions. She loved the arts, and seemed to possess Aspasia’s incomparably keen and appreciative eye for sculpture. She also resembled her mistress in placing no value on any single personal talent, but developed all her powers in beautiful harmony. Thus she was the pearl of the Milesian’s school. Aspasia loved her with almost a mother’s tenderness, and fixed her fairest hopes upon her.

And Cora, the Arcadian girl? It was hard to say whether she ought to be included in Aspasia’s school. When the latter brought her from her Arcadian home, the very crudity of the material tempted her to exert her skill upon it. But this simplicity seemed to increase faster than the power of Aspasia’s forming art. Cora was the butt of her companions, who degraded her almost to the level of a servant. Yet there was something in the girl’s nature, which would not suffer her to sink entirely into a slave. She was not charming, possessed no symmetry of figure, was not even gay, but grave and thoughtful, and the peculiar traits of character she had brought to Athens remained unchanged. But she startled those who surrounded her by occasional flashes of intelligence and wit, which always bore traces of originality, and thereby aroused special interest. She seemed like a creature from some strange world, hitherto unknown.

Aspasia found it advisable, contrary to Athenian custom, to allow her pupils, in spite of their youth, free intercourse with the world and society. Her house was visited by men of commanding intellect, whose conversation early roused the young girls’ minds from the dull atmosphere of the commonplace. But feminine guests were not excluded. If any of these distinguished men wished to introduce a fair friend into this circle, the request was willingly granted. Among those who availed themselves of this permission was the young sculptor and architect, Callimachus, who had brought from Corinth to Athens an orphaned girl named Philandra, of remarkable beauty, whom he tenderly loved and intended to make his wife. Philandra, being of humble origin and still very young, lacked the culture requisite to make her worthy of him. How could she obtain this better than through intercourse with Aspasia’s circle, and the latter did not disdain to extend the influence of her school beyond the precincts of her house.

Philandra’s beauty was nobly proportioned, but somewhat voluptuous. She revealed a passionate, impetuous nature, and her stately figure made her seem older than her years.

Thus what might be termed a feminine Olympus was founded in Aspasia’s home. Alcibiades called the young girls by the names of the goddesses they most resembled. Artists drew inspiration from them for beautiful pictures, poets for graceful verses. But wantonness and everything ignoble was banished from this circle. Aspasia’s glance could hold even the bold Alcibiades in check, and the priestess of beauty always kept the reins of noble moderation in her hand. She was ever mindful of what she owed the honor of her husband’s house, and knew how to avoid increasing his doubts about the school she had assembled around her, to the point of discord and strife.

One day Alcibiades invited Aspasia and her young companions to take a voyage in his pleasure-barge. The Milesian accepted, on condition that none of his wild companions accompanied him.

On a fresh, bright summer morning Aspasia entered the vessel, with Drosis, Prasina, Simaitha, and Cora. Callimachus and Philandra joined them, the latter bringing a friend named Pasikompsa, who, like Philandra herself, had been introduced to Aspasia, and was considered by the latter worthy to be an associate of her pupils. No one else was in the barge except a few rowers.

They coasted along the shore, and soon reached the beautiful bay of Salamis. On the left was the green island, sparkling in the morning dew, on the right the Attic strand, to which descended the Ægaleon hills.

Nothing can afford more harmonious and pleasurable excitement to the soul, than an excursion on a sunny blue sea, and there could be no blue more exquisite than that of the bay of Salamis. Thus the party on Alcibiades’ galley were delightfully rocked by the sea and the waves of joy. Above their heads was the blue sky, beneath them the ethereal blue of the sea; they floated as it were between the heavens, swaying in a divine azure. Whether the blue of sky or sea was most beautiful they could not say, nor did they care to ask—they only saw that the birds sometimes plunged for a moment from the blue air into the blue sea, to taste its charm, while the fishes, on the contrary, sometimes leaped gayly a moment from the sea to dip their heads into the blue air, as if to obtain a fleeting draught of bliss.

The party on Alcibiades’ barge resembled these gay birds and fishes, rejoicing in the charms of sea and air. They absorbed all the bliss, yet gave it as little thought as the birds and fishes. Aspasia’s charming young companions gazed down from the deck into the beautiful waves, but only to see their pretty faces mirrored in them. Cora alone, when gazing into the water, saw not her own face but the sea itself. In her mind alone the spell of the sea was vivid and conscious.

The other girls were reflected in the sea, but the sea was reflected in Cora.

The impression produced upon her mind almost rose to terror, for she at last began to listen with a sort of dread for the sounds from the bottom of the water. When the others smilingly asked if she heard the voices of the alluring sirens rising from the depths, she assented, and the merry laughter of her companions echoed far over the waves.

Perhaps tempted by the melody of these voices, a dolphin gliding along the surface of the water accompanied the voyagers. A little bird that had wandered too far from land, perched on its back a moment to rest, without being noticed by the fish.

Just as the silvery laughter at Cora again rang out from Alcibiades’ barge, a large merchant-vessel passed. As it came very near, the crew of the merchant-man and the party in Alcibiades’ barge could see each other distinctly. The former were rude and savage in aspect, and gazed sullenly, almost threateningly, from under their bushy brows, like hawks, at the flock of doves in Alcibiades’ galley. But as the merchant-man rowed much faster, it soon left the barge behind, and the gay company paid no farther heed. Callimachus thought it was a Megarian trading-vessel.

They stopped in a small bay, and determined to land to spend some time on the tempting shore. It was the very spot where people point out the rock-chair of the Persian king, Xerxes, on the side of the Ægaleon mountains sloping towards the sea, the rock-chair on a lofty part of the shore the great king occupied when he reviewed his fleet before the decisive battle, and from which, first in the proud consciousness of victory, then with increasing terror, he gazed down at the battle tempest of Salamis.

Callimachus and Alcibiades accompanied Aspasia and the young girls up to this seat in the cliff, and Alcibiades invited Aspasia, as the most honored guest, to seat herself in it. She accepted it, and Callimachus took his place by her side. The young girls and Alcibiades reclined around her in a graceful group.

Clumps of sea-weed and myrtle-bushes, full of dark and light berries, grew between the cliffs.

A wondrous atmosphere of peace brooded over the sunny land and sparkling sea. Seen from this elevated spot, Salamis looked doubly charming. Between the island and the main-land lay the motionless blue waves. Silvery, glittering streaks here and there furrowed the azure surface, like shimmering bridges. There was no sound save the low rustling and grating of the slowly advancing and receding waves upon the sand below, and from time to time the scream of a sea-gull hovering around the cliff.

“By all the sea-nymphs!” said Alcibiades, “it is as peaceful and silent here as on the Sicilian shore. One might think the amorous Cyclops Polyphemus must be sitting somewhere near, gazing out upon the water where the image of Galatea is reflected, as she wanders over the flood. The rude shepherd’s dog runs barking down to meet her, but the nymph laughingly splashes the messenger of love with a rolling surge, so that he retreats whining.”

Indeed, a blissful stillness prevailed, which seemed as if it never had been and never could be interrupted.

Aspasia cast a glance from her rocky seat towards the mountains of the Peloponnesus.

“If it is possible,” she said, “to wash away from my soul all the peevish gloom I saw and experienced beyond those mountains, this hour will enable me to do so. The sea and air are too radiant for melancholy to gain any victory here. I boldly challenge you to battle, rude Peloponnesus.”

“And I too!” cried Alcibiades, clenching his fist at the mountains of Argolis.

“So do we all!” exclaimed the young girls laughing.

At this moment Aspasia’s eye, wandering towards the right, rested on the Megarian vessel, which now seemed very small in the distance. It appeared to be motionless. Aspasia’s proud, almost contemptuous glance roved quickly away. Her eyes flashed with a spark of the arrogance that filled the heart of the Persian king, when he sat on this rocky throne.

At a sign from Alcibiades, a slave brought a skin containing a delicious cordial, and soon beakers clinked against each other and songs echoed on the air. The joyous melody sounded sweetly amid the beautiful sea-solitude, and echoed far over the peaceful bay.

Urged on by the Dionysian spirit of revelry, the young girls dispersed, some wandering along the shore, some among the cliffs, where fragrant plants grew amid the stones. They were like hovering butterflies, teased and caught by Alcibiades.

Now they ran with merry shouts after some dead sea-creature, a polyp or dolphin, which formerly, dashing through the salt waves, had terrified the smaller fishes and borne the daughters of Nereus on its back, but at last been cast by a foaming wave in some fierce storm on the rocky strand. Then they sat down and Alcibiades told marvellous hunting-tales—for instance, how he had once caught on the sea-shore a large polyp and a hare at the same time. Drawing the polyp out of the water he hurled it on the land, where it chanced to fall upon a hare sleeping among the sea-weed, which was instantly seized by the polyp’s hundred arms.

Meantime Callimachus was talking with Aspasia.

The artist’s relation towards Pericles’ beautiful wife was of a somewhat singular nature. A cordial friendship bound him to Alcamenes, and being informed by the latter of everything that ever occurred between Agoracritus’ rival and the fair Milesian, he had brought with him from Corinth a prejudice, nay almost a secret anger against Aspasia. After the violent scene between Alcamenes and Aspasia at Olympia, of which Callimachus had also heard, he had joined his friend in a sort of league of vengeance against Aspasia. At Athens he approached the Milesian and, attracted by her magic spell, half forgot the thought of vengeance.

Aspasia herself turned the conversation upon Alcamenes, and praised the flight of his transforming imagination.

“You do well,” she said, “to be on friendly terms with this man, and it seems to me that a certain kinship of souls has drawn you together. For, like him, a desire to direct art into new channels seems to animate you.”

Aspasia in these words alluded to the fact, that Callimachus no longer contented himself with the chisel, but worked with the auger, executing the details of his labor with a wonderful diligence, a brilliant perfection, never before witnessed.

“If people acknowledge, that the art of sculpture has advanced by the industrious use of the auger,” said Callimachus, “I might also prove the kindred art of architecture profitable. My mind has long been occupied with a matter apparently very easy and simple, but in which—you’ll smile when you hear what it is—I cannot succeed. Progressive art seems to me to require a richer decoration for our pillars. The Ionian spiral is the utmost we have accomplished. That has satisfied us for centuries. Isn’t it time to venture above it with some bold design?”

“In the East,” replied Aspasia, “I saw the form of leaves and flowers applied with refined imagination to the decoration of capitals. We are timid, as you justly remark. Why don’t you venture upon what you think necessary?”

“Will you believe,” answered Callimachus, “that I have racked my brain about this matter? I have invented hundreds of forms, but hitherto not one has fully satisfied me.”

“Why do you seek to invent, discover, and draw the new form entirely from your own imagination?” asked Aspasia. “Nature is a great teacher, the architect as well as the sculptor must obtain his best designs by watching her. Keep your eyes open, and what you seek will meet you. Then you need only grasp it correctly and shape it to your wants.”

At this moment the pair were interrupted by the young girls, who said they had discovered a small monument in a pretty secluded nook of the rocky shore, and wanted to show it to Aspasia.

Aspasia and Callimachus accepted the invitation, and allowed the girls to guide them to the spot, where they had found the little monument. It lay concealed amid the rocks, and was almost hidden by an overhanging cliff. It consisted of a plain narrow stone, on which a short inscription was carved. On the slab stood a dainty basket, filled with faded wreaths and flowers. Aspasia tried to read the inscription, and deciphered half of the name of a young girl, but the task was difficult, for a luxuriant acanthus had not only covered the slab with its large, exquisitely-shaped leaves, but grown half over the basket. Its fresh, living green formed a striking contrast to the dead, withered flowers.

Aspasia and her companions expressed their surprise at finding a gravestone in such a place. But Callimachus said:

“The existence of this little monument was no secret to me.”

The young girls eagerly asked its origin, and Callimachus replied:

“The man who placed this slab and basket here was my friend, and I am one of the few to whom he confided its history.

“The friend of whom I speak,” he continued, “was an admirable Athenian youth, who earned his living by painting vessels and funeral urns with great skill. While living in Corinth he saw the fairest flower-girl in the city, and fell in love with her. But a young Spartan, who was staying in Corinth with some friends, also loved the girl and wished to make her his own. He succeeded in intimidating her by threats and violence, and was on the point of bearing her away from Corinth. The Athenian, furious with rage, fought with his rival and killed him. Then, to escape the vengeance of the dead man’s friends, he took the young girl, who returned his love and willingly accompanied him, entered a boat, and fled to his native Athens.

“The lovers coasted gayly along the shore—the youth’s heart was full of joy, and the young girl was radiant in the bloom of her bridal beauty. She had nothing except her loveliness, save the little basket filled with fresh flowers, just as she had carried it to market in Corinth on the morning her lover bore her away. The sea-spray dashed around the boat, and wet the roses in the basket. But as the youth snatched a saucy kiss from the girl’s lips, the basket fell over the edge of the boat into the sea. She hastily leaned forward to catch it, but stretching out her hand too far, lost her balance and fell into the waves. With a cry of despair, the youth flung himself into the sea, and after a long struggle grasped the maiden’s body and swam with it to the shore. Climbing up the cliff, with her senseless form clasped to his breast with his left arm, he laid her on a level portion of the rocky strand. Her eyes were closed, her face was pale, vainly he called her by a thousand loving names. He had saved only a corpse.

“All day long he sat motionless beside the lifeless form, then prepared to bury it. He hollowed a grave in the spot where he had brought her to land. What did he suddenly behold among the rocks? The basket of flowers had been carried to the shore, and was now wedged fast between the cliffs. He went down, and sighing mournfully, raised the little basket, still filled with fresh flowers, and placed it, bedewed with his tears, on the young girl’s grave. He went to Athens and soon returned, with this simple slab, to the secret grave, around which murmured the waves of the sea. He placed it here, and again set upon it the basket with its now withered flowers. The seclusion of the spot secures it from profaning hands, and the acanthus, as you see, has undertaken the part of protector, by almost covering both slab and basket with the tendrils of its superb foliage.”

The young girls listened attentively to Callimachus’ tale, and loudly lamented the sad fate of the lovers.

But Aspasia, after a pause, said:

“Spite of the sympathy awakened by your story, Callimachus, I cannot shut out the impression this flat, narrow stone, this monument for which nature has done far more than art, produces upon me, and will surely make upon all who behold it. How daintily the foliage of the acanthus twines above the white marble slab, around the graceful basket filled with withered flowers. Is not this one of the forms nature sometimes produces in a sportive mood, yet whose charm sculptors rarely equal by their inventive powers?”

Callimachus made no reply, but a thought darted through his brain like a flash of lightning.

He gazed a long time at the basket overgrown with foliage, then turning to Aspasia, exclaimed:

“Yes, Aspasia—this basket with the tendrils twining gracefully around it, is one of those forms, for which as you said, the sculptor must keep his eyes open, because he can learn from them—”

“And because,” interrupted Aspasia, smiling, “he may find in them what he has long sought in vain.”

Callimachus now enthusiastically poured forth the thought which filled his mind.

While he explained to the Milesian his idea of the new decoration for pillars, which was to step forth victoriously into the world of beauty, and whose renown would be forever blended with Callimachus’ name, the young girls disappeared to gather flowers, with which they intended to deck the Corinthian’s grave.

Soon they were again roving merrily along the shore like sea-nymphs, among whom Alcibiades renewed his rôle of the teasing, pursuing Triton.

Gradually, however, the simplicity and reserve of Cora, who was left behind on a lonely part of the shore, began to exert a stronger charm over the impetuous youth than the gayety of her companions.

The lovely Simaitha noticed that he attempted to draw the Arcadian into gay conversation, jested with her against her will, but without any touch of jealousy; for she resembled Aspasia in having little room in her proud soul for such an emotion. She too, seemed only capable of the love which does not disturb the cheerful repose of the mind. Besides, what a contemptible rival the shepherd’s child appeared to the most brilliant pearl in Aspasia’s school.

Transported from the world of reality, the party enjoyed the charming silence of the bay, which nothing could apparently disturb.

Yet hostile eyes were watching the group from a distance.

When the Megarian vessel passed Alcibiades’ pleasure-barge, one of the men on board gazed keenly into it, and said, in a hasty, eager tone to his companions:

“Did you see that Athenian youth roving about with the young hetæræ on the sea? That’s the bold, worthless ravisher, Alcibiades! I know him. I’ve seen him several times at Athens. And among the young girls was Simaitha—the stolen Simaitha!”

“What?” cried the Megarians, greatly excited. “What? Is that the bold fellow who stole the girl from Psaumias’ country-house, and still rejoices in his spoil unpunished?”

“Ay,” said the other, “he still enjoys his spoil unpunished, for he is under powerful protection. As you know, all the efforts of Psaumias and his fellow-citizens, who demanded the girl’s delivery from the insolent Athenians, were vain. Don’t these Athenian dogs always believe they can mock at the Megarian commonwealth? A time will come, to show them they were wrong in jeering at the Dorian city on their borders. But now, friends, as far as Simaitha is concerned, we must take advantage of the opportunity offered. That pleasure-barge, besides the beardless ravisher, contains only one unarmed man and the few slaves who are rowing. There are enough of us to capture the galley, if we choose to attack it, at any rate, to seize Simaitha and carry her back to Megara.”

This proposal pleased the Megarians, but while consulting how to attack the barge, Alcibiades’ party landed on the shore of the little bay. The Megarians perceived this from the distance.

“So much the better!” said their commander. “We’ll hide our vessel near the shore and follow our prey on the land. Most of us will leave the galley, and while single ones steal nearer the group, others can lie in ambush in pairs along the rocky shore, where the party are scattered. It will be easy to rush out at the right moment, and seize the girl for whom we have watched. The Athenian youths and their slaves will be unable to prevent it, nay perhaps will not see it, for if we choose a moment when Simaitha is separated from her companions, and the men’s attention is directed elsewhere, we may succeed in carrying her off unperceived and shall then be safe from pursuit. They won’t know what has become of the girl, until we have our prize in security. If we were compelled to use force, the youths might perhaps receive aid from some Athenian vessel passing this way, and rescue our booty before we could get back to our vessel, or put out to sea. So let us be cautious, and watch for a favorable opportunity.”

Such were the Megarian captain’s directions, and the men obeyed them. They concealed themselves singly or in pairs on the shore, or among the rocks, and from their hiding-places sharply watched the unconscious revellers.

The favorable moment for the Megarians was long in coming. At last it happened, that Simaitha, Drosis and Prasina, gathering flowers, unsuspiciously approached a rock behind which several of the crew were concealed. Alcibiades was a long distance away, absorbed in Cora, and Callimachus was still with Aspasia at the grave of the Corinthian girl.

The Megarians rushed out to seize Simaitha.

The latter, on seeing the savage looking men suddenly coming towards her, fled screaming with terror. Drosis and Prasina followed, also filling the air with loud cries for help.

But Simaitha far outstripped her two companions in their flight, and had already nearly reached the spot where Alcibiades lingered. The latter, as well as Callimachus and the rowers in the barge, heard the young girls’ shrieks, and quickly hurried up. Alcibiades always wore a dagger, and drawing it from the sheath, prepared to rush upon the robbers with the slaves, who were armed only with oars.

But the Megarians would not leave the spot without some prize. As Simaitha had escaped, they seized her companions, Drosis and Prasina, who in their terror, like frightened doves, had not so surely found the right path by which to fly.

Perceiving the danger in delay, and avoiding open strife for the reasons already mentioned, they dragged Drosis and Prasina away with them to the shore, leaped on board their vessel, and were speeding towards the bay of Megara, ere Alcibiades and his assistants could enter his barge to pursue them.

Yet the furious youth was about to throw himself blindly into the boat to follow the robbers. But when he prepared to do so, the young girls raised a loud outcry, lamenting that they would be left on shore and perhaps exposed to other lurking enemies. Yet he was prevented from taking them in the barge and thus pursuing the enemy, by their dread of being carried out to fall a prey to the foe. Callimachus, the rowers, and especially Aspasia, urged him to consider that pursuit was impossible, and plenty of ways and means would be found to chastise the insolence of the Megarians.

Aspasia had turned deadly pale at the sight of the Megarians’ deed, but the pallor was quickly succeeded by a vivid flush of anger. Yet she was the first to regain her composure, and almost smiled as she requested Alcibiades to return home without delay. All hurried to the barge, to hastily go back to Athens.

“Vengeance on the Megarians!” cried Alcibiades, standing erect in the vessel as it pushed off from the shore, and hurling a beaker against the steep cliff.

“May the pigmy defiance of Megara and her allies be shattered against the rocky brow of the Athenian Acropolis, as this beaker is broken against the cliff.”