CHAPTER VIII.

CALLICRATES’ MULE.

According to Aspasia’s supposition, it was an easy-matter for Pericles to demand the restoration of the stolen girls by the Megarians; for at that time, from various reasons, the chastisement of the Megarians was the watch-word of the day in Athens.

But the Megarians answered, that they would not fail to restore Drosis and Prasina, who for the present were placed as hostages in the keeping of a distinguished fellow-citizen, as soon as Simaitha, stolen by an Athenian youth, had been restored to them. But Simaitha herself pleaded earnestly against this rendition, and found powerful support in Aspasia. The young girl from Megara had become the Milesian’s favorite.

The Megarians were as much hated at Athens, as the Athenians at Megara. Pericles had more than one motive for procuring a popular decree, which prohibited them from entering the harbor or market of Athens, not only until they had delivered up the young girls, but also given the Athenians satisfaction in some other matters.

This exclusion from the Athenian market was sensibly felt by the Megarians, and it was believed they would not long defy it.

Yet, as it was to be feared that the Megarians would secretly apply to Sparta to seek her active mediation, while a somewhat serious quarrel with Corinth, and the revolt of the Attic colony of Potidæa aroused a certain degree of uneasiness among the Athenians, the enemies of Pericles and Aspasia availed themselves of the opportunity to stir up the people against them. The public peace of Hellas, they declared, was threatened by the arrogance of this foreign woman and the licentiousness of her friends, and now, for the sake of two little stolen hetæræ, Pericles hurled among the Greeks, like a firebrand, the popular decree against the Megarians.

Great and popular statesman do not always oppose national laws, because they know that the people finally follow their guidance with a sort of blind confidence, and the peril of these laws is counterbalanced by their personal influence, at least while they stand at the helm. But the timid ask what will happen, as soon as men of this stamp, perhaps summoned from the world by death, no longer hold the reins of the community in their firm grasp. On the other hand, the friends of the people who are solicitous for the preservation of popular rule, perceive in this silent subservience of the public to the will and opinions of a single prominent man the greatest danger to freedom. So it happened, that the omnipotent Pericles was secretly opposed by the champions of free popular government, as well as by the oligarchist party.

Cleon, the tanner, Lysicles, the sheep-dealer, and Pamphilus the sausage-maker, believed that the wisdom of an individual was more dangerous to the state than the folly of the multitude, and whenever they found an opportunity, renewed their warnings to their fellow-citizens against the “new Pisistratus.”

People of the stamp of Cleon, Lysicles, and Pamphilus already sometimes ventured to declaim violently against Pericles in the popular assembly.

Pericles did not look indifferently upon the perplexities prepared for him by many things in Aspasia’s conduct, and Alcibiades’ wanton behavior. Aspasia was unassailable. The storm may uproot oaks, but not break down flowers. But Pericles gravely pointed out to Alcibiades the dissoluteness, by which in part this unpleasant Megarian difficulty had been caused, admonished him to emulate his forefathers by rendering service to his native land, and strive for the distinction of praiseworthy deeds.

“That I will!” replied Alcibiades, in a tone of mingled jest and earnest. “But who is to blame save you, Pericles, that I find no opportunity to distinguish myself by glorious deeds? How long must we drag out our lives in this wearisome peace? Give me a fleet, and I’ll conquer Carthage and Sicily. But you even refuse the few paltry vessels with three banks of oars, necessary to restore the two bright-eyed little maidens, Drosis and Prasina, from their captivity in miserable Megara. There is nothing left, if I want to serve my native land, except to go to Sparta and carry off the king’s wife, that I may blend the Dorian blood with Ionian for the benefit of the Athenians. Surely, Pericles, I don’t lack the desire for action—”

“Mere gushing impulse, without dignity or earnestness of mind,” said Pericles, “will never accomplish anything useful, but merely prove destructive. Your advantages, Alcibiades, are no hope, but a danger to your native land, so long as they are united with vices like yours.”

“Is it a vice,” cried Alcibiades, “to love pleasure, and isn’t youth the best time for enjoyment?”

“You are mistaken,” replied Pericles gravely; “youth is not the time for enjoyment, but the time to prepare body and mind for the pleasures of life. It is the time to develop the capacity for enjoyment, not to dull it. You think you are finding pleasure, youthful son of Cleinias. But your tasting of every cup of joy is nothing more than boyish wantonness, thoughtless sport.”

“The gods give us but one life to enjoy!” said Alcibiades.

“For that very reason,” replied Pericles, “we ought not to squander, but to preserve it.”

Such was the tenor of Pericles’ conversation with the youth, but the latter went from the statesman to his friend Theodota, smilingly repeated the words, and added:

“I now see my old friend, my beloved Socrates, is really wiser than Pericles or any of the other wise men in Athens, for he alone understood long ago—that all warnings of that kind, addressed to Cleinias’ son, were vain and foolish—”

Some time had elapsed since Pericles and his wife returned to Athens from Elis, and the priest of Erechtheus secretly entered into a conspiracy at Eleusis with the enemies of the noble pair.

Diopeithes, however, had not failed to profit by the interval. The weapons for the first assault were already forged. He had availed himself of Pericles’ absence from Athens, to come forward in the popular assembly with the proposition of a law against those who derided the religion of the Attic country, and the philosophers whose teachings were opposed to the belief in the gods, inherited from their forefathers. The priest of Erechtheus stood before the multitude with the authority of one inspired by a god, and his language was so impassioned, so spiced with threats and prophecies of evil, that he actually succeeded in obtaining for his law the decisive majority of votes on the Pnyx.

Since that day the sword of Damocles hung over Anaxagoras’ gray head. Diopeithes’ shaft was first aimed at him; but his designs went still farther. He secretly courted allies and assistants, leagued himself with Pericles’ enemies of every kind.

The wrath in his soul daily found fresh food, for before his eyes the hated Callicrates still walked among the swarming crowd of workmen on the summit of the Acropolis, urging forward the magnificent propylæa, under the direction of Mnesicles, with the same zeal he had formerly bestowed on the temple of Pallas. Callicrates was an abomination to the priest, so too were the laborers, who by day pursued their hated work, but at night lay asleep in throngs on the piles of stones or sand. Another abomination was the old mule who, as has already been mentioned, could not endure the involuntary leisure of its age, but according to ancient habit, wandered about on the Acropolis, and to whom had been granted the favor of having all the injuries it might do by grazing and nibbling the property of others, made good at the public expense.

Great results spring from small causes, says the proverb.

Grown saucy by the public favor shown by the Athenian people, Callicrates’ mule, wandering over the Acropolis, continued the unruly conduct by which it had long since exasperated Diopeithes to the utmost, fearlessly approaching the sanctuary of the Erechtheum, and seeming to find nothing so dainty as the plants that grew within the precincts of the temple. It did not fear the venomous looks Diopeithes cast at it, and scarcely heeded the blows with which the temple-servants tried to drive it away. It sometimes snuffed at the cakes placed by the devout as offerings on the altar of Zeus, which stood in the open air before the Erechtheum. If Diopeithes complained of the sacrilege to Callicrates, the latter, shrugging his shoulders, appealed to the animal’s legal privileges and the willingness of the public treasurer to make good any damages it might commit. Thus, gaining little by his complaints, the priest had long since vowed vengeance against the bold creature.

But the latter, running blindly to destruction and unconsciously filling the measure of crime, one day ventured through a door accidentally left open and unwatched, into the inmost sanctuary of the Erechtheum and Athena Polias. The horrified temple-servants found it insolently snuffing at a fresh wreath, they had twined, that very morning, around the ancient wooden statue of the goddess. The next day Diopeithes secretly lured Callicrates’ mule towards him, and flung the animal a cake. In the evening of the same day the creature was found lying dead on the steps of the Parthenon.

One of Callicrates’ workmen had seen the priest of Erechtheus toss the mule food, and all were convinced that it had fallen a victim to Diopeithes’ vengeance.

Some vowed to punish him for it, gathered before the Erechtheum, and loaded the priest with loud invectives. Had not Mnesicles come up just in time, Diopeithes would have fared ill at the laborers’ hands.

The cup of wrath in the priest’s breast was now full. He could no longer delay giving vent to it, commencing the great, long-plotted work of vengeance.

It was a stormy night, the sky was shrouded in darkness and rent clouds floated over the moon, when three men assembled for a secret interview in the dreary grotto of the Eumenides on the hill of the Areopagus.

One of the trio was Diopeithes, who had invited the other two to meet him there; for intercourse with his secret allies on the Acropolis was too much exposed to the keen eyes of Callicrates.

The second of the three persons, who met on the hill of Ares, was the oligarch Thucydides, whom Pericles had overthrown. He and Diopeithes were the first to enter the grotto, and the third now came gliding in, half disguised, like a nocturnal thief. The oligarch glanced at this third person with a certain shade of curiosity. Diopeithes had not mentioned his name. But when the new-comer confronted the other two men in the secret grotto, and his face became visible in a ray of light from the moon, which chanced to shine out for a moment, the oligarch started back indignantly, while a scornful smile hovered around his lips.

He had recognized the coarse features of the tanner Cleon, who was mortally hated by himself and the whole oligarchist party, whose rude violence was exerted on the Pnyx in boisterous speech to carry far beyond all proper limits the popular rule established by Pericles, but curbed and directed by his wise judgment

Full of amazement and anger, the oligarch turned to Diopeithes:

“With what man,” he cried, “do you bring me in contact?”

But Cleon also put on an air of astonishment, and smiling derisively, cried in the same breath:

“You offer Cleon, the man of the people, a strange ally, Diopeithes!”

“I did not invite you here to fight out the old battle between oligarchy and the popular government,” said the priest of Erechtheus. “I summoned you to a common warfare against common foes.”

“Shall I fight enemies for the benefit of a man worse than they?” said the oligarch.

“Shall I destroy foes?” said Cleon, “with the aid of the very person most hateful to me among them all?”

Such were the exclamations of the two men in the first moment of meeting.

But, after an hour spent in secret conversation, during which the crafty, malicious priest of Erechtheus talked most, a keen eye, had one been watching the rocky hill of Ares on that gloomy night, would have seen the two men clasp hands, though hastily and without any real cordiality.

Diopeithes evidently did not meddle with political affairs. He stood on as good terms with the fierce demagogue Cleon, as with the oligarch Thucydides. He fought, at least so he declared, solely for the respect due the gods of the country and their sanctuaries. Neither the demagogue nor the oligarch had any scruples about supporting him in the conflict if, as they supposed, they thereby gained a by no means contemptible ally for the prosecution of their own plans. But in fact both were merely tools in the hands of the far more cunning priest, whose sole object was to ruin his personal enemies, Anaxagoras, Phidias, and Aspasia.

To destroy them, he must entangle them in dangerous indictments, and in order to indict them had secured a law specially adapted to them. But to accomplish their condemnation he was obliged to be sure of the people.

He was compelled to gain influence over the votes of the multitude, but to do this needed confederates and allies.

This was the cause of his friendships, his secret intercourse with persons of the most different character. His first, as it were preparatory assault, was to be directed at Anaxagoras, then a blow, which could not fail to also strike Pericles, would be dealt Aspasia. Lastly, the most difficult, apparently impossible thing, would be attempted, and all powers united to accomplish the overthrow of Pericles, beloved by the great majority of the Athenian nation.

He traced out all the Milesian’s foes in Athens, and secretly gathered them around him, divided and commanded them like a well-arranged army, and used each individual as a combatant and messenger in different circles.

Through the priestess of Athena Polias, he stood in close relations with the feminine world of Athens, Telesippe and Elpinice. He formed connections with gloomy Agoracritus, became the ally of Cratinus, Hermippus, and other comic poets, who were doubly enraged against Aspasia, since owing to her complaints, Pericles had at last determined to limit the lawlessness of the comic stage. His relations extended to mad Menon, the ex-slave, the eccentric man known to the whole city and popular with the dregs of the populace, who willingly aided every intrigue, and cheerfully undertook to stir up the people by malicious, sarcastic remarks, rude jests, and coarse inventions against the philosophers and Pericles’ wife.

Scarcely a month had passed since the meeting of the three men on the hill of Ares, yet the larger portion of the Athenian populace was pervaded with a leaven of hostility towards Aspasia and Pericles’ best friend.

As for Anaxagoras, it was agreed that he was a denier of the gods.

There was scarcely a person, who did not remember some bold assertion he had heard from the philosopher’s lips on the Agora, in the Lyceum, or some other public place. What had formerly scarcely been heeded, nay received by some with applause, was thought suspicious by the fickle populace, now that their mood was changed, and hatred of the philosopher had been sowed among the people by Cleon, who was secretly in league with Diopeithes.

Late one evening, when the streets of Athens were deserted, a man walking with hasty noiseless steps, glancing round him in fear of being seen, and evidently seeking the protection of the darkness, which surrounded him from the clouded sky, came from the street of Tripods, in the direction of the Ilissus.

He was not attended by the slave who, bearing a torch, usually walked behind a nocturnal pedestrian. When this man had reached the Ilissus, he crossed it and continued his way to the Itonian gate, where stood only a few insignificant dwellings.

He knocked at the door of one of these unpretending houses, and exchanged a few words with the slave who opened it.

The latter led him into the old man’s sleeping-room, a poorly furnished apartment, where he lay on a couch.

This old man was Anaxagoras, and his nocturnal visitor, Pericles.

The philosopher looked somewhat surprised at the appearance of the friend whom he had not seen for some time, and by whom he supposed himself almost forgotten.

“It is no pleasant message that occasions me to disturb your slumber,” said Pericles, “but it may seem to you a cheering omen, that it is I who bring it. Nor have I come solely as a messenger, but also as counsellor and helper.”

“If it is only bad news that brings Pericles to his old friend Anaxagoras,” replied the old man, “that too is welcome. Say plainly and without reserve, what you have to tell.”

“The ambitious Cleon, who as I know is secretly instigated by the priest of Erechtheus, has to-day accused you before the archon Basileus of denial of the gods.”

“Denial of the gods,” said Anaxagoras calmly, “according to Diopeithes’ law, is punishable with death. A slight punishment for an old man.”

“A venerable gray head threatened,” replied Pericles, “awakens more sympathy than a youthful one. Yet I would answer for the safety of your life with my own. I would myself appear before your judges as your intercessor and, if it should prove necessary, offer my head for yours. But what I shall be unable to prevent is this, that you will be placed in prison until your case is decided—and this dreary, pitiless imprisonment may last a long time.”

“Let me be imprisoned,” replied Anaxagoras. “What will it avail me to have my feet free, if my words are not?”

“That will pass!” replied Pericles. “Your words will also be restored to liberty, and the gnawing mouse will obtain the law the priest of Erechtheus artfully won from the intimidated people, while I was far away from Athens and could not throw my words into the scale. But for the present yield to the necessities of the moment. Rise, and bind the sandals on your feet. Leave Athens secretly, without delay. Everything is prepared for your flight. Yonder, in the lonely bay of Phalerum, a vessel waits to bear you wherever you choose. I have arranged everything with my friend Cephalus, and he will himself accompany you to your chosen asylum. It is hard for me to come to a feeble old man’s couch at night, and say: ‘Rise and depart.’ But I must do it. In the secret gloom of night, I will myself take you down to the bay of Phalerum, where Cephalus awaits you.”

“I have no important reason for going,” replied Anaxagoras, “far less for staying; for I am old and all the roads in the world lead to the final rest of Hades. If the man is waiting for me in a vessel in the bay of Phalerum, why should I make him wait in vain? Take me to the Mysian coast, to Lampsacus. There dwell men, who are friendly to me. There they can bury me and place above my grave the word truth, that the grandsons of the Athenians may read it when they visit Lampsacus, and see that on the shore of the Hellespont, near the country of the barbarians, an asylum was not grudged to truth, and a dying old man who preached it. Call my slave, Pericles, and tell him to bind the sandals on my feet, pack in a bundle the second chiton yonder and the few books I possess, and go with me down to the sea and farther, if he chooses.”

The old philosopher, with Pericles’ assistance, rose from his couch, let the slave bind the sandals on his feet, put on his chiton, and in a few moments was ready to set out.

Then the two men, followed by the slave, walked silently through the Itonian gate under the shelter of the darkness, and down the dreary road beside the long wall to the bay of Phalerum.

Reaching it, they found Cephalus in a nook surrounded by rocks, where the sea plashed dreamily upon the shore. The two men greeted each other with a silent pressure of the hand.

Anaxagoras stood ready to take leave of Pericles, and enter the vessel.

As they clasped hands in farewell, Pericles gazed with deep emotion at the old man, thus cast forth in the gloom of night into a foreign land and on a heaving sea.

“Why do you pity me?” said the sage. “Nothing in the world finds me unprepared. During my long life I have destroyed, bit by bit, everything in us which is capable of suffering. As an impetuous youth, I suffered much, saw how alluring was life, but also how frivolous and vain. Then I gradually threw everything aside, and plunged deeper and deeper into the quiet gulfs of undesiring contemplation. So I have grown old and my body is decaying, but the firm pillar of indestructible peace remains immovably fixed in my soul. You Athenians imagine you are sending me forth on the unstable sea, and remain behind on the firm land. But in fact it is I, who from the solid strand see you tossing on the wild surges of life. To you, my friend, a different fate from mine has been allotted. You have yearned for beauty, happiness, gayety, pleasure, authority, fame. You cling to a beautiful woman, who has ensnared your senses, a woman fair enough to bless you. I call you blessed, but can I also call you happy? He who enjoys is blessed, but no one is happy save he who can lose nothing, and whom life has no power to disappoint, because he asks nothing of it.”

“Fate allots different paths to mortals,” replied Pericles. “I have aspired to many things, attained many things, but the last moment closes the account, and death alone settles the sum of life. I cling, as you say, to a woman. I have formed with her a bond of a new nature, for the beautiful, free, and noble enjoyment of life. We are united in testing a new thing, but how the trial will result, I do not yet know. Many an element of perplexity interferes, a bitter drop sometimes falls into the cup of joy, and a feeling akin to anxiety steals over me. Have I perhaps set an undue value on beauty, life, happiness and their shining promises? Whatever may happen, the die is cast, and my lot must be manfully fulfilled.”

Thus Pericles and Anaxagoras poured forth to each other the inmost depths of their souls, as they stood together in the silent night, and said farewell beside the waves.

Then they remembered their warm friendship of four and twenty years, and embraced and kissed each other.

Anaxagoras once more glanced back at the dim outlines of the city, saying:

“Farewell, thou city of Pallas Athena! Farewell, Attic soil, which has so long been hospitable to me! Thou hast afforded a place for my germs of thought. Good and evil spring forth at the same time from the seeds sown by mortal hands, but only the good lasts forever. Calmly, and with many a wish for thy happiness, I descend into the tossing ship and, as an old man, again trust to the same surges that bore me in my youthful vigor to thy strand.”

With these words, the sage of Clazomenæ entered the vessel.

Again he waved his hand to Pericles, then the sound of oars echoed on the air—there was a low plash of surf—and the vessel glided silently and swiftly across the gray surface of the water out towards the dark open sea.

A few sea-birds in the clefts of the rocky shore were roused from their sleep, fluttered their wings a little, and then slumbered again.

Pericles stood on the lonely strand, gazing after the fast disappearing ship.

Then, absorbed in thought, he returned to the city, fanned by the first cool breeze of the gray dawn.

On reaching the Agora, he saw that in spite of the early hour, a throng of people were pressing around the so-called royal hall.

The crowd were staring at a paper containing a publication of the archon. It was the copy of a public accusation.

As the throng was great and those in the rear became impatient, a tall man read aloud in a stentorian voice this impeachment, which was hung before the official seat of the archon Basileus in the royal hall.

It ran as follows:

“Accusation, signed and defended by oath of Hermippus, son of Lysis, against Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus of Miletus—Aspasia is guilty of the crime of not acknowledging the gods of the country, of having spoken irreverently of the sacred customs of the Athenians, and joined the debates and views of the philosophers who denied the gods. She is also guilty of seducing and corrupting young people by dangerous speeches, especially young girls, whom she has in her house, as well as leading freeborn women to insubordination and immodesty. Punishment: death.”

These words echoed loudly over the market-place just as Pericles passed, unobserved by the throng, whose attention was fixed upon the royal hall. He turned pale.

“Hurrah!” shouted some one in the crowd. “That will fall into Pericles’ conjugal happiness like a thunderbolt into a dove’s nest.”

“And Hermippus, the accuser!” exclaimed a second. “Hermippus, the comic poet!”

“That was to be expected!” replied a third. “I heard it myself from Hermippus’ lips, after Pericles, at Aspasia’s instigation had clipped the wings of comedy. ‘Ah, well!’ said he; ‘if our mouths are shut on the stage, we’ll open them in the Agora.’”

Rarely had any accusation excited the minds of the Athenians to such an extent, rarely had party strife been kindled to such a degree, as by the indictment of Pericles’ wife, and people looked forward with no little impatience to the day when the complaint would be officially dealt with before the Heliastæ.

At the same time Phidias returned from Olympia to Athens, and Diopeithes was no little enraged to see the man he hated again walking over the Acropolis, talking with Mnesicles and Callicrates, and aiding by his counsel the work on the propylæ.

One day Diopeithes, standing behind the pillars of the Erechtheum, saw Phidias in the company of his former favorite, Agoracritus. The two men walked up and down for some time between the Parthenon and Erechtheum, engaged in eager conversation, then approached a block of marble, close by the priest of Erechtheus, whom they did not see, sat down on it and quietly continued their talk. It was an easy matter for Diopeithes to hear the whole.

“The plastic art of the Athenians is beginning to take strange paths,” said Agoracritus. “On seeking Athens once more after many a pilgrimage, I find singular work exhibited in the studios of many of my younger fellow-artists. Where has the old sublimity and dignity vanished? Have you seen Stypax’s entrail-roaster? We devoted our best efforts to the statues of gods and heroes, and now all the subtleties of the art are employed to represent a miserable slave, who is puffing out his cheeks to blow the fire over which he is roasting entrails. Strongylion’s art is essaying the task of casting the Trojan horse in bronze. From the hands of Demetrius I saw an old man with a bald head, swollen veins, and a beard in which single hairs seemed blown apart from the mass by the wind.”

“Sculptors would not create such things,” said Phidias, “if they were not beginning to please the Athenians. Who could fail to perceive the degeneration gradually stealing into the heart and veins of the Athenian nation? As in sculpture hideous things are beginning to appear beside beautiful ones, so on the Pnyx the noisy outcries of a Cleon are becoming audible beside the Olympic oratory of the noble Pericles. Formerly we had but one Hipponicus and one Pyrilampes, now we have hundreds.”

“Luxury and pleasure are gaining too much preponderance,” said Agoracritus. “And who first publicly preached the message of luxury and pleasure-seeking? Since Pericles’ friend once snatched the prize from my—I might almost say your—work in favor of the insolent Alcamenes, rage against the alluring woman has never left my soul. When she contemptuously called my Aphrodite a Nemesis, the thought darted through my brain: ‘Ay, she shall be a Nemesis to you! You shall feel the power of the avenging goddess!’ And indeed, vengeance is approaching with slow, but sure and steady steps.”

“The gods will judge equally and justly!” replied Phidias gravely. “And if they subdue the Milesian’s smiling insolence, they will also punish the secret malice of that Diopeithes, whose ally your thirst for vengeance has made you. Whatever we may have to censure and avenge in Pericles’ wife, do not forget, that but for her brave and encouraging words, the pinnacles of our Parthenon would not tower here completed, and that we have had no fiercer opponent of this very work, than the malignant priest of Erechtheus.”

“So you put yourself forward as the friend and protector of the Milesian?” said Agoracritus.

“Not so!” replied Phidias. “I like Aspasia as little as Diopeithes, and shall avoid both by instantly leaving Athens for Olympia, which has grown dear to me. I have found the Elians more grateful than the Athenians. I have done enough, it seems to me, for Athens. The remnant of my days I will consecrate to Hellas, leaving Athens to its Aspasias, demagogues, drunkards, and spiteful, worthless, revengeful priests of Erechtheus!”

“You did right to turn your back on Athens;” said Agoracritus, “the Athenians might perhaps have weakened and corrupted even your art—according to their latest taste, you would perhaps be compelled to carve Priapus instead of the Olympic gods.”

“Or the loathsome, misshapen form of yonder beggar, who is basking on this pure height like a salamander escaped from some marsh!” replied Phidias, pointing to the well-known cripple Menon, who was lying in the sun between the pillars.

The beggar had heard Phidias’ words, scowled, clenched his fist, and muttered a curse.

Phidias and Agoracritus rose, and taking a step farther in the direction of the Erechtheum, saw Diopeithes standing behind the pillars.

“Why, see how watchful the owls of the Erechtheum are!” said Phidias.

The embarrassed listener cast a sullen glance of hatred at the sculptor, saying:

“The owls of the Erechtheum have sharp beaks and talons! Take heed that they don’t rend your eyes.”

The sculptor merely repeated the Homeric saying:

“Pallas Athena never suffers me to tremble!”

“Very well!” murmured Diopeithes, when the two men had turned away. “Rely on the protection of your Pallas, I will depend upon the power of mine. The preparations for the decisive battle between your gold and ivory botchwork, and the ancient divine statue within the sacred halls of the Erechtheum have been made long enough.”

He was just turning away, when mad Menon, still abusing Phidias in a soliloquy, struck his crutch against one of the smooth polished pillars, breaking off a fragment.

Perceiving this, Diopeithes approached; the eyes of the mad beggar and the priest of Erechtheus met.

They knew each other.

Menon, as has already been mentioned, had once been tortured with the other slaves of his accused master. Hellenic slaves were never questioned before a court, except with the rack. So under the torture Menon made his deposition, and on the strength of the deposition the Athenian was acquitted. But from the time of that painful examination, the slave’s limbs withered and he became a cripple. His master, out of sympathy, released him, and at his death bequeathed him a considerable sum, which the half-crazy Menon threw into the gulf of Barathron, preferring to wander among the Athenians as an idle beggar. Part of the time he lived on the food placed upon the graves of the dead. When freezing in winter, he warmed his palsied limbs beside the smith’s forge or the public baker’s oven. His favorite spot was a gloomy place in Melitæ, where the bodies of executed criminals and the ropes and clothes of suicides were thrown. He carefully collected the ropes, and counted them daily. A dog that had grown mangy, and therefore been driven away by its master, attached itself to him, and the pair became inseparable. Menon had a spiteful, malicious nature, and it seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure when he could cause discord or other mischief among the people. He seemed filled with a secret desire for vengeance, and everything he did appeared calculated to avenge slavery on the free oppressors. The cripple intentionally pretended to be more insane than he really was, in order to hurl the sharpest truths into the Athenians’ faces, and especially to be permitted many liberties, that would not have been forgiven any one in his sober senses. He was always to be seen on the Agora or in other public places, and had become perfectly at home on the Acropolis, where he wandered among the throng of workmen. He liked every spot, where there was a crowd and he could play his spiteful part.

But he found special enjoyment on the Acropolis, from the moment he perceived that the priest of Erechtheus, Diopeithes, and the architect, Callicrates, were bitter enemies. He seemed to find his chief occupation in fomenting quarrels between the temple-servants and Callicrates’ workmen, willingly allowing himself to be used as a tale-bearer or spy. He served both parties, and hated both, as he hated all men who were freeborn and Athenians.

Diopeithes himself sometimes talked with him, and soon perceived the usefulness of this tool. The man was always among the people, watching and listening to everything. No one thought himself obliged to conceal aught from the imbecile, and the biting wit of his evil tongue made him liked as well as feared in the market-place and the streets.

So Menon and Diopeithes knew and understood each other perfectly. The instinct of secret rage and vengeance made the priest and the lame beggar allies.

“You are angry with Phidias?” Diopeithes began.

“May the hell-dog seize him with its hundred jaws! Arrogant scoundrel! Always pushed me out of the door, when he saw me warming myself at the melting-furnace in his workshop—jeered at my deformity. ‘You are a monster, Menon,’ said he ‘a horror’—he wanted to see nothing but Olympic gods and goddesses around him—ha! ha! ha! May lightning blast him, him and all the Athenians!”

“So you often lingered in his studio?”

“He didn’t always see me—but I saw him—Menon knows how to lurk in corners—saw him carrying on his foolish shining work—saw him and his pupils at work on the white stone, and the bronze, and the ivory, and the shining gold—”

“Did you see him working with the gold?”

A strange light gleamed in the priest’s eyes, as he uttered the words.

“Did you see him working with the gold, Menon?” he repeated, his eyes glowing mysteriously; “with the shining gold the city of the Athenians delivered to him, that he might shape from it and ivory the statues of the gods on the Acropolis.”

“Of course, of course—with the shining gold of the Athenians—saw him wallowing in whole heaps of gold and ivory—that sparkled, that glittered—”

“Did all the shining gold go into the melting-furnace, Menon? Didn’t some of it stick to the fingers of those who worked with it?”

At this crafty question, the beggar grinned cunningly at the priest. A fiendish light flashed in his eyes.

“Ha, ha, ha,” he cried, laughing. “Menon knows how to crouch, to watch—saw him work, even when he thought himself alone and unnoticed—saw him secretly open chests where the hidden treasure glittered—ha! ha! ha!—the bright gold—the Athenians’ gold—he stared at it like a griffin guarding treasure—seized it as if with claws—so—he foamed at the mouth when he saw me—pushed me out of doors—wouldn’t let me warm myself. Wait, you rascal—flash your eyes, you gray old griffin!”

Again the beggar raised his crutch menacingly against the Parthenon, as if longing to shatter it, in defiance of its creator.

After a short pause, the priest advanced still nearer and whispered:

“Hark ye, Menon, would you say what you have just said on the Agora—before all the Athenians?”

“Before the Athenians—before the twenty thousand scurvy knaves of Athenians—may the plague destroy them!”

From the hour of this interview, tidings spread through Athens of the harsh, proud, offensive words Phidias had uttered against his fellow-artists and the whole Athenian nation. It was related how he had abused popular government, and scorning his native land, praised the Elians, vowing to turn his back on Athens, and henceforth consecrate his services to other Hellenes. At the same time rumors were whispered, that all the gold delivered to him at the public expense had not found its way into his melting-furnace.

Like evil seed, these words sprung up amid the Athenian populace in poisonous weeds of rage and hostility against the noble, quiet creator of the Parthenon.

The day had come on which Aspasia’s case was to be decided before the Heliastæ, under the superintendence of the archon Basileus, [9] in one of the courts of justice in the Agora.

From early dawn the populace surged around the court of justice.

Aspasia was the only calm and composed person among the Athenians on that day. She stood in the upper room of the house, gazing through a window-like opening upon the throng moving towards the Agora.

Her face was somewhat pale, but not from fear, for a contemptuous smile hovered around her lips.

Pericles approached.

He was far paler than Aspasia, and an expression of deep earnestness rested upon his features, as he silently gazed upward at the cloudy sky. It was a gray day. Flocks of cranes were flying from Strymon across Attica, and their croaking seemed to forebode rain.

A long procession of elderly men now passed up the streets. They were the Heliastæ, who were to try Aspasia—the judges before whom Pericles’ wife was to appear, by whom her sentence would be spoken.

“Look at those old fellows!” said Aspasia, smiling. “Half of them wear shabby cloaks, and look hungry and lean as they walk, leaning on the long Athenian staff, which Phidias did not spare the friends of beauty, even on the frieze of the Parthenon. Some are chewing garlic, and carrying between their lips the dirty oboles they are to receive in payment for this day’s work.”

“They are men of the people,” replied Pericles, shrugging his shoulders. “They are men of the Athenian people, who once pleased you and for whose sake, as you told me, you left the Persian court and your beautiful Miletus and, urged by longing, came across the sea to seek and live among them.”

Aspasia made no reply.

“These garlic-chewing Athenians, who carry long staffs and hold oboles in their mouths,” continued Pericles, “are the same whose symmetry and unaffected dignity seemed to you worthy of admiration, whose patriotism touched you, whose taste for art not only seemed to you peerless in the works of sculptors and poets, but also in their enthusiasm, their subtle power of seeing, hearing, enjoying—”

“But I now know,” interrupted Aspasia, “that the much-praised, refined Attic nation still has a remnant of rudeness, I may say barbarism.”

“There is nothing perfect under the sun,” said Pericles, “and brilliant lights are associated with the darkest shadows. I remember having recently seen a strange statue in one of our sculptors’ studios—a figure with wings on its shoulders and the hoofs of a goat. The Athenian nation seems like this mongrel. It is winged for the loftiest flight, but also walks on goats’ hoofs. For the rest, consider that the greatest merits of the Athenian nation are exclusively its own, but it shares its weaknesses with others. And as the fairest woman is still always a woman, the most gifted nation is still a nation, burdened with the weaknesses and passions of those called the people, the masses, the great multitude.”

“The Athenian nation,” cried Aspasia indignantly, “is more thankless, fickle, frivolous, swayed by every breath, than any other.”

“But it is amiable,” said Pericles, with a slight touch of sarcasm, “and pleasure-loving, and gay, and an enthusiastic friend and patron of the beautiful. What do you want more, Aspasia? Haven’t you yourself often laughed at and derided the poor thinker, Socrates, because he seemed to demand of the Athenians other virtues than those I have just named?”

Aspasia turned proudly away, as if offended.

“It is time to go to court in the Agora, where the judges await you,” said Pericles after a pause. “Have you no fear, Aspasia? Your features betray none. Will you leave me to bear all the anxiety alone?”

“I fear the odor of garlic in those rooms,” replied Aspasia, “far more than the sentence that may be passed upon me by the lips of those men. I still feel animated by the same courage, that inspired me amid the throng at Megara and in the streets of Eleusis.”

During this conversation, the Heliastæ had reached the court-room, as well as the archon Basileus with several subordinate officials, public clerks, and witnesses. Outside the court-room, the throng of people swarmed in eager excitement. There was a confused murmur of opinions, wishes, predictions. Friends and foes of the accused, as well as impartial judges, were heard among them.

“Do you know why they accused Anaxagoras and Aspasia?” cried one. “Because they wanted to strike Pericles in a sensitive spot, and dared not attack him personally. There is no man in Athens, who would venture openly to assail Pericles.”

“But couldn’t it be done?” cried a crafty little man with cunning eyes, coming forward. “Couldn’t it be done? Could not a better and more exact account be required of Pericles, after his long years of rule, than he has hitherto rendered? Don’t items occur in his accounts with the mere note: judiciously employed? What does judiciously employed mean, I ask? Eh? Can dust be more insolently strewn in people’s eyes? Do you hear, judiciously employed?”

So saying, the man continued his way through the crowd, asking everywhere what judiciously employed meant?

“Those are the sums,” replied one person mysteriously, “Pericles used to silence influential men in the Peloponnesus, that they might do Athens no harm—”

“That they might not prevent the establishment of tyranny at Athens!” observed the crafty little man with a scornful laugh. “If you suppose the learned Pericles, when he whispers with his friend, is only calculating the length of a flea’s foot or the width of a gnat’s rump, you are greatly mistaken. He has long talked foolishly about the unity of the whole Hellenic country—he would like, to put it briefly, to become ruler of all Hellas. His wife, the Milesian, placed this worm in his ear, and it has now crept into his brain and made him mad. This hetæra yearns for nothing less than a crown—she would fain be called a queen—queen of Hellas—her countrywoman’s laurels won’t let her rest.”

Such were the words of the sharp-tongued scenter of tyrants. But in the court-room in the Agora, the judges already sat on their benches, waiting for the commencement of the trial. The presiding officer was the archon Basileus, surrounded by clerks and servants.

The court-room was surrounded by bars, a latticed door affording ingress only to those summoned by the archon.

Opposite the seats of the judges a somewhat lofty stage was erected for the accused as well as for the complainant, thus rendering their figures visible and their voices audible for a long distance.

On one of these elevated platforms sat Hermippus, a man of morose nature, whose piercing eye roved restlessly around.

On the other Aspasia was seated, with Pericles beside her, for as a woman and especially a foreigner, she was obliged to be represented by a man who was a native citizen.

It was a touching spectacle to many hearts, to see the fairest and most gifted woman of her time, the wife of the great Pericles, on the platform as an indicted prisoner.

The fact that Pericles sat beside her increased the serious, moving character of the scene.

The judges, and the majority of the people, felt a sort of pride in seeing that even the most powerful were compelled to appear before their tribunal, submit to the omnipotent civil law.

Hermippus gazed maliciously at the beautiful woman, whose face was overspread by a slight pallor, that scarcely diminished the expression of resolute will which rested on her features.

The archon Basileus now opened the examination by calling upon the complainant to take an oath, that he had only made the accusation for the sake of truth and justice. The judges themselves, on entering upon their office, had taken the oath of justice and conscientiousness.

The archon next ordered one of the public clerks to read aloud, first the accusation, and then the refutation.

Then he requested the complainant to prove his accusation, verbally and in detail.

Hermippus rose. His speech was full of sarcasm. The people felt transported to the comic stage. He discussed in sharp, incisive words the acts on which, according to his assertion, the accusation against Aspasia rested: how at Eleusis she had spoken irreverently, before all the people, of the Eleusinian gods and the sacred customs of the country; how she had held intercourse with Sophists, with Anaxagoras, Socrates, especially Protagoras, that most eloquent denier of the gods, who had lived for some time at Athens, but was at present wandering in other Hellenic cities, preaching heresies and corrupting youth; how she had directed all her efforts to inciting Athenian women to rebel against the laws of the country, and once at the Thesmophorian festival stood forth before all the Athenian women to induce them to overthrow the venerable laws that hallowed marriage and family life; how she had lured freeborn women into her home, to teach them the arts of the hetæra, and at last gone so far as to keep in her house a number of young girls, for the sole purpose of alluring the distinguished men of Athens.

Hermippus brought forward as witnesses many of those who had heard the remarks Aspasia made at Eleusis; but allowed the written depositions of some of them to be read aloud by the public clerk. The instigation of the women to a conspiracy against the laws of the state he proved by several women, who had taken part in the Thesmophorian festival. The attempt to corrupt freeborn women he corroborated by the written deposition of Xenophon’s wife, which had been extorted by Telesippe and Cimon’s sister. With regard to the young girls in Aspasia’s house, he appealed to the general knowledge of the Athenians, and did not neglect to bring into special prominence the fact that, for the sake of one of these girls, the Athenian commonwealth had recently been involved in by no means safe complications with Megara, and the allies of this hostile Dorian city.

He closed with the statement that Aspasia had committed a threefold crime—against faith in the gods and the religion of the country, against the government and the dignity of its laws, against propriety and morality, then requested a number of edicts to be read aloud by the clerk, and proved that, according to the Athenian code, all these acts were punishable, and since death was the penance assigned to most, Aspasia’s life, after being convicted of these crimes, was forfeited to the law. Lastly, with raised voice and passionate excitement, he entreated the judges to guard the most sacred thing a commonwealth possessed, chastise the insolence of the foreigner who sought the overthrow of the statutes inherited from their forefathers, and not allow the Athenian government, hitherto loved and blessed by the gods, to perish in the school of insubordination, contempt of law, and denial of the gods.

Hermippus’ passionate speech made a deep impression on the judges, most of whom were elderly men from the lower classes of the people. A murmur rose among the crowd beyond the barriers, who had listened silently to Hermippus’ explanation.

“Hermippus has spoken admirably—his argument was sharp and convincing—he has the law on his side—the Milesian’s life is forfeited.”

After Hermippus had concluded and resumed his seat, Pericles rose.

The deepest silence instantly prevailed, and every one listened intently for the first words from the lips of Aspasia’s husband.

Pericles seemed changed. He did not appear as he looked when standing before the people on the orator’s platform upon the Pnyx, announcing his opinions with dignified composure, secure of success. For the first time his calmness seemed feigned, and a slight tremor in his voice was audible when he began to speak.

He denied Aspasia’s guilt and, taking up one accusation after the other, sought to prove, that only the exaggeration of hatred could drag her conduct within the limits of crime worthy of death. Where he could not deny that the letter of the Athenian law was against her, he appealed from her acts to her noble intentions, and tried to show that noble deeds could never be criminal.

But this time there was something uncertain in the argument of the famous orator, who bore the surname of the Olympian. It could not fail to be noticed, that his words produced but a slight impression upon his hearers. Was the secret emotion that possessed his mind too powerful?

At last Pericles followed Hermippus’ example, and closed his argument with an address to the judges, which coming from the heart, appealed to the heart.

He said: “This woman is my wife. If she is guilty of the crime of which that man accuses her, I am her accomplice. Hermippus accuses us of having diminished the consideration paid to the gods, impaired the authority of the government, injured modesty and morality. Men of Athens! If I can be permitted to arrogate to myself any part of the fame you have bestowed on my impetuous deeds, I have not diminished the splendor of the divinities of this country, but glorified them as no one else has done, by the erection of superb temples and statues on the Acropolis and at Eleusis. I have not injured the state, but fought for it in battle, I have broken the power of the oligarchs, and given liberty to the people. I have not lessened, but promoted morality, by seeking to spread among you the love of the noble and beautiful, the eternal conquerors of everything rude and base. In such efforts, men of Athens, this woman, Aspasia of Miletus, has not hindered, but supported and encouraged me. No small part of what will perhaps glorify the people and city of the Athenians forever is due to her. The memory of her name will always be connected, not with the decline of this commonwealth, but with its noblest prosperity, power, and splendor. These are deeds, men of Athens, and we both believe we have rendered services to the nation and city of the Athenians. But that Hermippus comes to you and cries: ‘Tear Pericles’ chosen wedded wife from his breast, and drag her to death before his eyes.’”

With these words a tear shone in Pericles’ eye.

A tear in the eye of the quiet, dignified Pericles! A tear in the Olympian’s eye! It produced the effect of something not imaginable according to any ordinary law of nature. It was bewildering, like a miraculous apparition, a meteor, a sign sent by the gods.

Those who had seen with their own eyes the tear that had sparkled for a moment in Pericles’, to be instantly crushed again, looked gravely at each other and whispered:

“Pericles wept.”

From the court-room to the Agora the words spread:

“Pericles wept.”

From the Agora the tidings ran in a short time through the whole city of Athens:

“Pericles wept.”

At the same time the news reached Athens of a naval battle at Sybota, in which Athenian vessels had helped the Corinthians conquer the Corcyræans. But the people only half listened to the tale—they were talking of Pericles’ tear.

Hermippus’ speech before the Heliastæ had been closed by the running out of the sand in the hour-glass, Pericles’ was ended by a tear.

At a sign from the archon, a servant came forward and distributed the votes among the judges, handing each a white and black stone, one for acquittal and one for condemnation.

Then the Heliastæ left their seats, approached a bronze urn and threw a white or black stone into it. The other pebble was flung into another, wooden vessel.

The first voting was to decide the question of guilt or innocence, the second was intended in case of guilt, to determine the punishment of the accused person.

The votes of the Heliastæ were now delivered, and the black and white stones instantly counted before the archon’s eyes.

The gaze of all was fixed with intense eagerness on the black and white stones rolling out of the urn.

Behold! the white lots of life increased in number, victoriously outshining the dark stones of death.

Pericles’ wife was acquitted. The heavy weight of the hero’s tear had fallen with decisive power into the scales of Themis.

The verdict announced by the archon’s lips was carried, as if on wings, over the whole Agora.

Aspasia rose. A faint flush suffused her face. Her glance, sparkling with brighter radiance, wandered for a moment toward the Heliastæ. Then she mutely held out her hand to Pericles, who led her away. A veil covered her face, as she passed through the crowd.

The clear-voiced greeting of the Athenians received Pericles in the Agora.

In every street through which he passed with his veiled wife on his way home, all kinds of remarks, according to the mood of the individual, were whispered or uttered aloud.

But one exclamation was constantly repeated:

“What a superb woman Aspasia always is!”

This exclamation at last gained the upper hand over all others, and only mad Menon shouted an insulting epithet after the beautiful Milesian as she passed him.

Suddenly, emerging from the crowd, Socrates stood beside Pericles and Aspasia.

“I congratulate you, Aspasia!” he said, joining them. “What hours of torture these have been to your friends.”

“Where were you, when the verdict was given?” asked Aspasia.

“Among the people!” replied Socrates.

“And what did you hear among the people all this time?”

“Many and various things,” answered Socrates; “but at last only two sentences remained and passed from lip to lip.”

“And what were they?”

“‘Pericles wept!’ and ‘what a beautiful woman Aspasia is!’

“Strange coincidence!” continued Socrates in his fantastic, reflective way. “Aspasia is the most beautiful woman, and the happy husband of the fairest wife wept. Take care, Aspasia, that this tear of Pericles is his last! It is only a first tear which is sublime, the second would be ridiculous. Only the first touches, moves—a second has no effect. Pericles must never be permitted to weep again! Do you hear, Aspasia? Pericles must never be permitted to weep again.”

“Is it I, who force tears from Pericles’ eyes?” asked Aspasia, secretly offended.

“I assert nothing, except that Pericles must never be permitted to weep again!” replied Socrates, and vanished amid the crowd.

Aspasia was greatly excited, “What? The hostile Athenian populace had acquitted her, and from amid the throng of reconciled enemies stepped forth a friend, to accuse her in words full of evil foreboding.”

“You know the strange fellow!” said Pericles. “Have patience with him. You are well aware he means kindly by us both.”

But Aspasia was angry. A long-cherished idea of punishing the strange mortal for the bold license of his tongue, awoke with redoubled power in the brain of the high-spirited woman, as she walked proudly, secure of victory, by her husband’s side.

Two men followed the pair at some distance, a scornful smile hovered around their lips as they whispered together.

It was Diopeithes and the oligarch Thucydides.

“The woman has escaped us,” said the oligarch, with a gloomy look.

“So much the worse for her!” replied the priest. “You know the people. If she had been condemned, they would pity her and Pericles; now she has been acquitted they will instantly say the judges were too lenient, and that Pericles’ power is growing more and more dangerous, if a criminal is released for his sake.”

“Triumph for to-day!” continued Diopeithes, shaking his fist at Aspasia’s husband. “The arrows you turned from your wife’s head, will strike yours only the more surely.”