CHAPTER XI.

THE SATYR AND THE BACCHANTE.

On the eventful night, when Simaitha was crowned queen of pleasure at the joyous banquet in Pericles’ house, and the torches of thronging Bacchantes glittered in every street in Athens, a bird of evil omen, one of the gloomy owls perched on the shadowed frieze of the Parthenon, upon the silent, lonely Acropolis, repeatedly uttered its awful, boding cry.

The festal tumult arose in a subdued hum from the city streets, blending strangely with the nocturnal cry of the owl from the frieze of the Parthenon, which echoed from the heights of the Acropolis like a message of death.

It was indeed a note of doom.

At the very moment Alcibiades and his companions, in the climax of reckless mirth, raised their beakers at the banquet at Pericles’ house, and drank the health of the radiant queen of pleasure—at that very moment Phidias was dying in prison; the immortal master of the Parthenon, who some time before had been attacked by a wasting disease, gave up his great soul.

But at the very hour the loftiest soul among the Greeks, the most famous centre of Athenian creative genius passed from earth amid the gloom of a dungeon, and Aspasia exclaimed: ‘You are no longer a Greek’—in that hour it seemed as if a rent passed not only through the bond that united Pericles and Aspasia, but through the heart of the Hellenic world—as if its star darkened; and with the victorious cry of the owl on the Parthenon blended the malicious laughter of evil demons hovering in the air around the height of the Acropolis.

The priest of Erechtheus woke at the owl’s cry. To him, it seemed to say:

“Cheer up, your time has come.”

The demons whispered to each other: “At last power to burst forth is given us. Let us swoop down on Athens, on Hellas!”

At the head of these ranks of demons flew discord and the plague.

The latter spread its black pinions and, in advance of all the rest, soared over the city of Athens, shrouded in the darkness of night, but resounding with bacchanalian mirth.

The fiend was searching for the spot where the festal gayety foamed most brightly—found it, and darted like a vulture upon the radiant young queen of pleasure in Pericles’ house.

The fairest of the young Hellenic women, to whom, as Alcibiades said, the future belonged, was the first prey of the demon.

There are times when great physical evil is added to secret corruption, revolutions of the moral nature, perplexities and degeneration, when the harmony and order of the spiritual and physical world are disturbed at the same time.

Such a period now dawned for Athens—for all Hellas.

To the secret corruptions of the community, slowly and gradually prepared by increasing luxury and pleasure-seeking, by the numbers of reckless demagogues, and especially by the natural course of human affairs, which necessarily leads from full bloom to decay and degeneration—to this secret corruption were added the outbreak of bloody feuds among the various nations of Hellas, from which none emerged as victor, while they gradually destroyed the prosperity and welfare of all, and the horrors of the plague, the destroying pestilence.

The Hellenic “Kalokagathia” was to be shaken—no longer could Hellenic life boast of “a sound mind in a sound body.”

The news of the first case of plague in Pericles’ house had spread through the whole city of the Athenians, and reckless bacchanalian festivity instantly gave way to pallid fear and paralyzing anxiety.

Other fatal shafts of the death-angel followed, and in a few days the plague was raging violently, unfolding all its horrors.

As had happened with Simaitha, the disease broke out with intense heat in the head, together with inflammatory swelling in the throat. Bloody matter was discharged from the jaws, the mouth, and even the tongue. Then the chest was attacked, and violent coughing expelled a little thin saliva. A loud roaring in the ears followed, convulsive twitching of the hands, trembling of the whole body, feelings of fear and restlessness increasing to madness, consuming thirst, internal fever so great that it drove many to the cisterns. Sometimes, descending to the bowels, the disease caused severe vomiting. The skin was flushed, at times turned dark-blue, ulcers and pimples broke out; yet it seems as if this, like other pestilential diseases mentioned by the ancients, lacked the boils, recognized as the most prominent symptom of the dreaded scourge of the nations known in later times under the name of the Eastern plague.

The sickness usually lasted a week, then came death with hollow eyes, sharpened nose, and cold body, very harsh to the touch. Even those who recovered did not escape easily; for the corruption often spread to the very ends of the limbs—the feet, hands, and other members were withered, paralyzed, or blighted. Sight was often lost. Memory and reason suffered; convalescents frequently became idiotic, and some on rising from their sick-beds did not remember their own names.

All remedies were ineffectual. By Hippocrates’ advice large fires were lighted, as it had been noticed that smiths, working constantly near the fire, were rarely ill.

But the power of the disease only increased. As knowledge proved powerless, people sought aid from superstition. Never were the countless ceremonies of expiations, purifications, conjurations, at the command of the Greeks, so zealously practised. During the first weeks the city resounded with lamentations for the dead, and was filled with funeral processions following to graves or funeral pyres those snatched away by the plague.

But when the number of deaths increased, and the contagion emanating from the sick or corpses spread terror and consternation, many died alone in deserted houses, or even in the streets, and the sacred rights were neglected. The obolus for the ferryman of the nether world was no longer placed in the dead man’s mouth, the cake to quiet Cerberus no longer put in his hand, he was no longer bathed and rubbed with fragrant ointment, no longer handsomely clothed, garlanded with ivy, and laid on a couch in the peristyle of the house. Wailing mourners no longer preceded the funeral train, the corpse was no longer honored by a long procession of mourners, funeral banquets, funeral sacrifices, and the sombre garments usually worn by the survivors. Hurriedly, noiselessly, almost without followers, the countless corpses were borne out, buried in graves, or laid on funeral pyres. At last even this duty to the dead, long considered by the Hellenes the most sacred of all, was neglected. The bodies lay corrupting in heaps. Corpses were found in empty temples, whither the sick had perhaps dragged themselves to implore the help of the gods; many were also discovered near the fountains to which, consumed by inward fever, they had crawled to moisten their parched lips; and to realize the extremity of horror, dead bodies were even found in the cisterns themselves, into which the delirious, burning with internal fever, had plunged. Soon the refreshing water of the wells was regarded with suspicion and terror—it might be defiled by the abomination of corruption.

The streets were piled with the corpses of those who had dragged themselves there, been borne lifeless from the houses and hastily thrown down, or hurled themselves from the roofs in desperate fear.

When these corpses were collected, the Hellenes’ aversion to touching dead bodies, mingled with the fear of infection, so confused their minds, that in frantic haste the dying were thrown among the dead, the unconscious among the rotting.

Where relations had erected a funeral pile to burn a dead body, others pressed forward with other corpses and tried to throw them into the flames, until the fire was stifled by the number of bodies, and a fierce conflict arose around the burning pyre.

People thought they noticed, that not even birds of prey and wild beasts would touch the unburied bodies of those who died by the plague. If they did, they quickly fell victims to the disease and perished. This also frequently happened to dogs.

The fear of contagion estranged men. The Agora was deserted, the gymnasia were empty, the people no longer ventured to assemble on the Pnyx. The doors of the houses were either firmly locked to prevent all approach, or stood wide open because the interior was deserted. Terror even loosened the ties of blood. Many saw themselves abandoned to their slaves, who now avenged themselves for former oppression by disobedience, defiance, theft, and insolent plunder.

In the minds of some, irritation alternated with dull resignation. Not a few sought to deaden their senses by reckless dissipation and the unbridled enjoyment of pleasure. Courage or forgetfulness was sought in intoxication.

Mad Menon stood forth as a fearless, laughing despiser of peril, and was to be found wherever the horrors of the pestilence were greatest. He seemed to be most fond of lingering among corpses, and was often seen sitting on a heap of dead bodies, as if enjoying the misery, and jeering at the cowards who fled from the dead and him, the infected one. When it was seen that he, who with drunken insolence defied danger, was spared, the number of those who did the same increased. Soon the streets and squares were abandoned to intoxicated vagabonds, who pledged Queen Plague and defied her terrors. These were the people, who for gold would carry the dead out of the houses or pick them up in the streets and take them to be buried or burned. They practised their trade with the rude temerity of men, who will not risk their lives gratis. They demanded and received whatever they chose, robbed and practised every kind of violence in the houses into which their calling led them. There was no fear of the law for the activity of the courts had long since ceased, and the criminal thought that the pestilence would either snatch away those who might accuse him, or spare him the necessity of defending himself.

But it was not merely poor men, who gave themselves up to dissipation, the rich did the same, especially young men, who tried in this way to arm themselves against the horrors which surrounded them. Many saw themselves suddenly made rich by inheriting the property of their parents, brothers and sisters or relations. But as they could not help fearing that they might suffer the same fate as those from whom they obtained their wealth, they tried to enjoy the gifts of fortune as much as possible, and squandered them in dissolute pleasure. The sight of these persons so speedily enriched, aroused in others the expectation of rejoicing in a similar destiny; expectation gave birth to hope and criminal wishes.

Thus moral restraints were gradually loosened, and the survivors rejoiced in the advantages which fell to them from the excess of universal death.

But if the pestilence and its results appeared to increase the longing for pleasure in many hearts, here as well as everywhere else the rule asserted itself that contrasts appear side by side or blend with each other. With unbridled acts and the dissolution of all restraints, gloomy superstition extended its reign farther and farther. Those who still avoided intoxication and excesses, sought a new safeguard and consolation in exaggerated piety, superstitious reverence for the gods.

Men like Diopeithes came forward, who represented the misfortune sent upon Athens as a punishment for the contempt of the gods hitherto displayed, and directed the fury of the populace against those pointed out by the priest of Erechtheus and his companions, as the principal causes of the divine wrath.

The mystic worship of Sabazius was again remembered and the Metragyrtan, who was hurled into the gulf of Barathron by the saucy, drunken Ithyphallians. Many now thought they had perhaps been wrong in rejecting this savior Sabazius, the deliverer from all misfortunes, and believed the crime committed upon the innocent Metragyrtan was the real cause of the wrath of the gods, and especially the vengeance of the insulted Sabazius. To reconcile him, they said, was now the first duty and the only remedy for the destroying plague. A foreign woman named Ninos, living in Athens, who understood all sorts of charms and mysterious things, proclaimed herself a priestess of Sabazius. To be consecrated to this god, was soon regarded as a means of sanctification and deliverance. The initiation was accompanied by strange rites: deer-skins were hung around the persons to be consecrated, a sacred potion handed them to drink, they were rubbed with mud and clay, and a serpent was drawn over their bosoms. During this time they sat on the ground and, when the ceremony was ended, rose with the exclamation: “I escaped evil and gained the good.” A nocturnal festival blended gloomy rites with sensual orgies. Thus the excesses and superstition, to which the distress caused by the plague urged bewildered minds, were united in the worship of Sabazius. Processions in honor of Cybele and Sabazius were frequently seen. There were many who followed the example of the Metragyrtans, danced the Sicinnis, scourged and mutilated themselves. The devotees of the Phrygian god also boasted of healing the plague, placed the sick in chairs, and danced around them with a wild uproar. To mingle in these circles was considered a safeguard against the disease.

To such a point had the Athenian nation come.

What Aspasia feared and thought she could prevent, happened—strange, gloomy ideas entered the bright and beautiful world of Greece, ideas which, though they did not instantly obtain an entire victory, served to indicate in what way the Hellenic nation was to be obscured, like a bright star by gloomy clouds.

While the terrible pestilence was spreading dull despair and gloomy delusions, and paving the way for foreign superstition, by no means harmless like the native one, but which gnawed the roots of healthy life, terrors of another kind lurked around the Attic country.

War had recently broken out. The Peloponnesians attacked the rural districts of Attica and forced its population into the city, but a strong fleet, this time commanded by Pericles, set sail, and its successes on the coast of the Peloponnesus again compelled the Spartan king to hastily return home. But Potidæa still resisted, Corinth must be besieged, and the fires of insurrection blazed forth here and there in the colonies and allied cities.

To remove Aspasia and his two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, from the most perilous place, Pericles had assigned his country-house to them for a residence during the time of his absence. Aspasia moved there with her whole household, but evil pursued her. After Simaitha’s death, Drosis and Prasina were also snatched away from the seminary of grace animated by intellect. They had been released from imprisonment at Megara by the victorious Pericles, only to fall victims, in their youthful bloom, to the destroying angel of the plague at Athens.

Whoever had power to do so fled from the infested city to the rural districts, like Aspasia and her companions, or to the neighboring islands, where the danger seemed less.

Aspasia’s circle of friends was broken up. Euripides had previously left Athens. He had become a misanthrope, lived at Salamis in complete seclusion and preferred to spend his time in the grotto on the shore, where amid the wild roar of battle he had first seen the light of the world. Here he sat alone, pursuing his meditations, with his eyes fixed upon the sea, desiring to hear nothing of Athens, except what was whispered by the waves, which rolling thence broke in foam at his feet.

Sophocles still lived in his rural retirement on the shores of the Cephissus, untouched by the scourge fate swung over the Athenians. Cheerful wisdom remained faithful to him and taught him to escape Pericles’ destiny, by allowing nothing to become too dear to his heart, or permitting the seriousness of life to obtain too much power over his mind.

The scourge also spared Socrates’ head, although he did not leave the brooding place of the pestilence, but fearlessly walked through the streets of Athens, did not avoid his fellow-men, and rendered help wherever he could.

Meantime Alcibiades had married Hipponicus’ daughter, the blooming Hipparete.

He too, with his old insolence, defied the terrors of the plague, though he saw that the wrath of the gods did not spare the Ithyphallians, and the pestilence snatched from his side one of his favorite companions, young Demos, Pyrilampes’ son. When Pericles departed with the fleet, Alcibiades accompanied him. Thus the priests of Sabazius could pursue their proselyting, without fearing the wild Ithyphallians and the gulf of Barathron.

The plague yielded a little, but only enough to make individuals remember the commonwealth, and permit the Athenians to turn their eyes from what immediately affected them to the troubles threatening at a greater distance. The renewed peril of war found cowardly hearts; the number of men capable of bearing arms was diminished by the plague, which also prevailed on the fleet before Potidæa. Pericles was successful with his fleet on the Peloponnesian coast. But when all Hellas, divided into parties, was gradually drawn into the confusion, what did it avail if the battle died out in one place, since it was renewed in another, everywhere engaging not only the two enemies, but also their allies, while these alliances themselves constantly wavered and altered. It was no longer possible for one individual to command; what was gained at one place was lost at a more distant spot, nowhere did the enemy make a stand for a decisive battle, the great Hellenic war was divided into countless individual conflicts.

At the news that the cowardly population of Athens had entered into negotiations with Sparta, Pericles hastened his return. He expected to encourage them and prevent disgraceful despair; but the Athenians, wearied by the heavy visitation of fate, received the secret plans of Diopeithes and the demagogues more favorably than ever.

The priest of Erechtheus had been attacked by the plague and recovered. Since that time his fanatical zeal had increased, for he saw in this deliverance from mortal peril a direct sign from the gods.

One day a group of citizens chanced to be assembled around a man in the Agora, for they had gradually ventured to approach each other, though a short time before one shrank from another, as they fled from the plague itself.

The person who stood in the midst of the little throng of listeners, was one of the bold free-thinkers, whose tongues seemed to have been unloosed again. He not only ventured to denounce the demagogues and eagerly support Pericles, but also to condemn the superstition to which the Athenians had fallen victims. As there were many adherents of Diopeithes and Cleon among his auditors, a violent dispute arose and the free-thinker was finally seized and maltreated by his opponents.

At this moment the priest of Erechtheus came up, accompanied by a number of his friends and followers.

When he heard that the assaulted man had defended Pericles and called the Athenians’ confidence in their gods petty superstition, the priest’s features assumed an expression of menacing, gloomy excitement.

He rolled his eyes upward for some time, as if spiritually holding intercourse with the divine powers, then turning to the people, began:

“Know, Athenians, that last night the gods sent me a dream, and have now led me to this spot just at the right time. During a long series of years, sin has been heaped on sin at Athens. Sophists and deniers of the gods have deluded you, hetæræ have ruled you, temples and statues of the gods have been erected, not in honor of the gods, but for empty display and the destruction of simple modes of thought and the pious manners of our ancestors. You are now suffering the punishment of your degeneration, denial of the gods, and luxury. It is not the first time that the wrath of the gods has been visited on the Hellenes, and you well know in what way their anger was appeased in our forefathers’ time. You know that the gods could sometimes be conciliated only by the greatest of all propitiatory sacrifices, a human victim. Seize this denier of the gods—his life is forfeit according to the law, for his criminal blasphemy. He is a criminal, condemned to death. But instead of suffering his punishment by the hand of the executioner, let him according to the ancient, half-forgotten custom, be offered as a propitiatory sacrifice, conducted through the streets with songs and music, burned and transformed to ashes, scattered to the winds.”

More and more persons had collected while the priest was talking. Among them was Pamphilus. The latter, on hearing that a friend and defender of Pericles was to be killed, instantly supported the plan.

“The funeral pyres on which the bodies of those who die by the plague are consumed, burn night and day on the opposite bank of the Ilissus. Room can be found for this man on one of the piles of wood blazing so merrily.”

With these words he was the first to seize the culprit, and a number of the fiercest among his companions prepared to help him drag the unfortunate man away.

Pericles now entered the Agora on the way to the Bouleuterion, saw the tumult, and asked its cause.

The excited crowd loudly replied that the gods demanded a propitiatory sacrifice, and they were preparing to offer one in the person of Megillus, the blasphemer and denier of the gods.

Pericles, with a restraining gesture, forced his way into the crowd, but Diopeithes confronted him.

For the first time the two men, on whom rested the guidance of the great battle fought at Athens for years, and whose decision was constantly growing nearer, stood personally face to face, as if in a duel.

“Back, Alcmæonid!” cried the priest of Erechtheus. “Do you even now seek to deprive the gods of what is their due, a due they imperiously demand? Do you wish to prevent the Athenian nation from seeking propitiation for their sins and final deliverance from the woe into which no one but yourself has plunged it? Do you not see whither your blindness has led this people, once so beloved by the gods? It is your work if they have turned from the old pious customs, yearned for wealth, luxury, and idle display, followed a false light and listened to the words of the despisers of the gods.”

“And you, Diopeithes?” replied Pericles with grave but calm resolution; “whither do you mean to lead the Athenian people? To the fanatical murder of citizens—to the renewal of savage, inhuman abominations, from which, maturing to a purer morality, the Hellenic mind turned with horror centuries ago.”

“Thank the gods, Pericles!” cried Diopeithes, “that they have delivered this man into our hands—thank the gods if they are willing, for the present, to be content with this man’s blood. For if they demanded of us the real criminal, the guiltiest man in the Athenian nation, do you know whom we should be compelled to seize and commit to the flames? As the prophet Teresias once cried to the boastful Œdipus, we should be obliged to say to you, Alcmæonid, you are the criminal, you are the cause of the wrath of the gods! An ancient curse rests upon your race! Through you, through your companions and friends Athens has become impious, through you the trouble of war has burst upon us, and the worst scourge in the hands of the gods, the plague, can be averted by no other atonement than your blood.”

“If it is as you say,” replied Pericles quietly, “release yonder man, and sacrifice him who seems to you most guilty.”

With these words Pericles released the condemned man from Pamphilus’ grasp. The latter, grinning with satisfaction, freed his former victim and, delighted by the exchange, did not neglect to seize the hated strategus.

“Why do you delay?” said Pericles to the perplexed, mute, motionless Athenians. “Do you suppose I merely offer myself to be spared by you? Believe me, men of Athens, it seems almost a matter of indifference whether you spare me or drag me to death! I meant to guide Athens to the fairest happiness, the brightest renown, the full light of truth and freedom, and I now perceive that a change ordained by the gods—or is it a primeval curse that clings to the whole course of nature?—again seizes upon us and leads us back to darkness and confusion; that it is not only external calamity, which is bursting over Hellas, but gloomy powers are also conquering those of light within us! I shall thank the gods, if I do not survive the splendor and bloom of my native land! Kill me!”

The Athenians still stood silent and motionless. Pamphilus became impatient.

A man now stepped forth from the crowd, and making a movement to depart, said:

“If you want to kill Pericles, do it without me. I won’t see it. When I was sorely wounded at Thrace, he dragged me away with his own hands, while all the others fled before the greatly superior number of assailants and wanted to leave me in the enemy’s power.”

“I’ll go too,” said a second. “He pardoned me in the Samian war, when the other strategi wanted to sentence me to death for a slight crime.”

“I’ll have nothing to do with the matter either,” said a third; “Pericles aided me by his intercession, when I couldn’t get my just rights from the magistrates of Athens.”

“Nor I! Nor I!” echoed from the throng, and the number of men who separated from the crowd constantly grew larger.

“No Athenian ever put on mourning through any intentional fault of Pericles!” resounded on all sides. Pamphilus clung convulsively to his victim, who threatened to escape him.

“Let Pericles go, Pamphilus!” cried several. Others joined in the shout, and at last the call echoed in a loud chorus:

“Let Pericles go, Pamphilus!”

Even in their worst moments, the Athenians could not attack this man.

“You have conquered again!” cried Diopeithes scornfully. “But perhaps this is the last of your triumphs. I shall cast the guilt on your head, if the gods remain unappeased and continue to scourge us.”

A short time after this event, Pericles’ two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, were attacked by the plague and fell victims to it.

The priest of Erechtheus pointed with satisfaction to the public curse of the gods, who had at last destroyed the race of the Alcmæonidæ.

The pestilence again increased. Diopeithes and his followers constantly reminded the people of the neglected propitiatory sacrifice, and Pericles, who had prevented it. The offence and the wrath of the gods seemed credible, after the misfortune that appeared to have been sent to this man by the divinities.

The Athenians’ minds were more darkened than ever, and the field was left to Pericles’ enemies.

The latter, who after so much calamity, was now shaken by the sudden death of his offspring and the ruin of his family, allowed matters, with a sort of indifference, to take their course. The moment of dealing the blow long prepared by his enemies, had arrived.

The motion to deprive him of his office of strategus, and all other dignities conferred upon him, was proposed with insolence and malice in a thinly-attended popular assembly and carried in dull bewilderment.

Was Pericles, after decades of glorious government, to again become a simple Athenian citizen? Was Diopeithes at last victorious?

Come on then, men who talk so grandiloquently to the people, Cleon, Lysicles, Pamphilus, loquacious orators and counsellors on the Pnyx—place yourselves at the head of the fleet and army! Seize the reins that have escaped from the hands of the imperious Pericles!

In the Agora, the unwearied Pamphilus, gathering a throng of the people around him, eagerly vaunted his friend Cleon’s vocation for the command of the people, and praised his courage, intellect and talents.

After a long and eager conversation with those assembled, a poor man of strange, half-savage appearance suddenly stepped forward, and eagerly began to proclaim his opinions.

“Fellow citizens!” he cried, “we have deposed Pericles, we, the Athenian people. This was well, in so far that Pericles might perceive we still have popular government in Athens. So far, I say, it was well. But in other respects it’s a very queer thing to saw off a leg, when on the point of running races at Olympia—and after we have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, and the ox, as the saying goes, is to be had for a song, and sausage-makers want us to believe they have bird’s milk to sell.”

“A cur should rend you, you scoundrel!” angrily interrupted the man from the dregs of the people. “Will you be quiet?”

“No, I won’t!” replied the half-savage man. “I’m as much an Athenian citizen as anybody, and fear no one. I’m a man from Halimus. I was a ribbon-dealer, and have seen better days; but after my wife and children died of the plague and I barely escaped from my sick-bed, I left everything and engaged myself as a corpse-bearer, that is, I help carry the bodies of those who have died of the plague to the funeral pyres.”

At this remark all shrank timidly away, and held aloof from any contact with his person.

The ex-ribbon-dealer was not at all disturbed, but continued:

“I boast of being a man of experience in political affairs. Fifteen years ago I was on the Pnyx, among those who determined upon the building of the Parthenon, and granted the judges’ pay and the money for the plays. I’ve always done my duty as a citizen and had an eye upon the welfare of the community, and I tell you the Peloponnesians are no cattle and sheep, to let Cleon the tanner dress their hides without ceremony. And if Pericles’ two sons died of the plague, we ought to pity the unfortunate man, the childless father, instead of humiliating him and looking upon the matter as if he ought to be insulted and persecuted, as one marked out for the anger of the gods.”

“Enough of Pericles,” shrieked Pamphilus, again interrupting the ribbon-dealer. “We want to hear no more about Pericles. He’s good for nothing. He’s ill, we hear. What use is a sick man to us?”

“Take care, Pamphilus!” cried the other; “they say a sick lion’s remedy is to eat a baboon.”

“Do you mean to insult me?” cried the sausage-maker, raising his foot as if to kick his enemy.

“Come on!” cried the ribbon-dealer, “I’ll beat you till your skin is purple—I’ll tear the lungs out of your body and twist your giblets!”

Pamphilus timidly shrunk back from the corpse-bearer’s touch.

“Back!” he cried, “back! Don’t dare to lay your poisonous hands on the body of an Athenian citizen! Back, scoundrel! Wretch, most miserable of men!”

“Why?” cried the corpse-bearer, grinning. “Perhaps you’ll be obliged to let me touch you! I hope to get dozens of such fellows as you in my cart! But for the rest, I repeat: it was well to depose Pericles, that he may see we can dispose him if we choose; but after he has perceived it, the best thing we can do is to appoint him again and give him the fleet, for we can’t do without him, I say—there’s nobody like him, and every one who carries a club is by no means a hero.”

It was a difficult matter to contest the logic of the words uttered in his queer, but honest fashion, by the half-crazed peddler from Halimus.

In fact, whoever in Athens desired war, could not help wishing also for Pericles. Potidæa had fallen at last—hope again stirred, though only with a feeble flutter of the wings. The mood of the volatile Athenian populace quickly changed again.

The next day the Athenians flocked to the Pnyx and reappointed Pericles to his offices and dignities.

They thought it was the old Pericles, to whom they were confiding themselves, but they were mistaken.

Sophocles was the first, who brought his friend tidings of the people’s new resolution.

“The Athenians have restored everything to you!” said the poet, congratulating him.

“Everything,” replied Pericles, smiling bitterly, “except confidence in them, in the prosperity of Athens, and in myself!

“Diopeithes still triumphs!” he continued. “He is apparently vanquished again, but we are really the conquered party in Athens. True, Diopeithes and his party did not reach their nearest goal, but the work at which he and his adherents have long labored was not lost on the Athenian people.”

“Banish these sad forebodings from your heart!” cried Sophocles. “Athens and Hellas are still at the apex of their splendor: they will yet mature many a noble thing, win many a wreath of fame. We, who have been permitted to see the rarest flower unfold, ought not to complain—”

“But we also perceived the worm within this fairest flower!” replied Pericles. “The evil days have not yet arrived, but a dark future casts its shadow far in advance. We strove to reach a lofty summit of joyous liberty, beauty and knowledge. The dream of beauty has been realized—but the others are melting away in darkness and confusion. The spring of a nation’s life, it seems, is short, and its blossoms wither ere they are fully open.”

Such were the words uttered by Pericles to the noblest of his friends, on the day of his reappointment.

Again the ravages of the destroying plague increased.

At the change of the moon the night was gloomy and tempestuous. A chill wind blew over Attica from the ravines and peaks of the Pindus. The waves beat sullenly against the stone dykes at the Piræeus. The ships in the harbor rocked, the beams creaked, their oars rattled. The winds wandered like ghosts through the deserted streets of Athens, playing with the open doors of abandoned dwellings, and wailing through the empty peristyles. Sometimes it was impossible to distinguish between the howling and moaning of the gale, or the sighs and lamentations of mourning mothers. Black clouds swept over the pinnacles, pediment, and marble statues of the Parthenon. The shields, hung as offerings on the architrave, beat against it with a clanking sound. Nocturnal birds shrieked. The huge statue of Athena Promachus, armed with spear and helm, trembled on its granite pedestal.

On this dark stormy night, when every one remained in-door and the streets were entirely deserted, a man urged by a strange restlessness, wandered through the streets. This man was Socrates. The old habit of wandering about at night, while eagerly pursuing a train of thought, had not become unfamiliar to him—though he was rather pursued by the thoughts, than following them. So on this evening also he wandered blindly, as if impelled towards some unknown goal.

He found himself on the desolate shore of the Ilissus, where lay the charred remains of funeral pyres, and mad Menon crouched amid mounds of ashes and glimmering embers. The lunatic grinned, fanned the coals with his breath, and warmed himself at them, sometimes taking a sip from a flask of noble Chian, stolen from a house depopulated by the plague, whose provisions easily became the prey of vagabonds.

Here and there, as Socrates hurried onward through the darkness, his foot struck against half-burned, blackened limbs.

Again he aimlessly pursued his way, until the perfume of violets suddenly attracted him. He approached it, and found a fountain wreathed with violets in the Athenian fashion. The flowers had a strange odor. Socrates stooped to cool his burning brow, and his parched lips sought the refreshing water. But here also death confronted him, and the strange odor blended with the fragrance of the violets was soon explained. The sullied waters bore a corpse, one of the unfortunates, whose terrible longing for cooling drink urged them, even in the death agony, to the fountains.

Shuddering, Socrates started back, then calming himself plucked one of the violets, gazed thoughtfully at it a long time, and said:

“Oh, ye Attic violets, who will henceforth praise ye and the violet-wreathed Athenians, if your famed spicy fragrance is so horribly mingled with the odor of corruption?”

He rushed on farther through the streets, where doors were banging in the gale, and mothers seemed to be vying with the wind in bitter wailing. Gazing up at the Acropolis, he saw the black, jagged clouds that, like spirits of evil, flitted with the hovering night-birds around the gigantic statue of Athena Promachus.

Socrates dashed along as if the evil spirits he fancied he beheld, had descended and were pursuing him. Suddenly he found himself before Pericles’ house.

He stood still. How often he had crossed this threshold, and what a long time had now elapsed since he entered the dwelling!

Involuntarily, almost unconsciously he approached the door, and noticed that it was not closed, but seemed forgotten, neglected, without a porter.

He went into the entrance-hall, but it was deserted. No sound reached him from within. The stillness that surrounded him was horrible.

The dim light of a few flickering lamps streamed from the peristyle.

A shiver ran through his frame, he knew not why, yet some unknown power urged him onward.

In the centre of the peristyle was a couch piled with purple cushions, on which lay a lifeless form wrapped in gleaming white robes—the brow wreathed with the green tendrils of the ivy.

By the couch sat a woman with bowed head, pale and silent as a marble statue.

Socrates stood at the back of the peristyle as if spellbound. His eyes rested fixedly, like those of a person who had lost his senses, upon the corpse and the woman beside it.

This pallid, motionless woman was Aspasia; the garlanded corpse on the purple couch, Pericles the Olympian.

Lifeless lay the Alcmæonid, the leader of the immortal band of lofty spirits that glorified Greece forever—the hero of a golden age of mankind, which still bears his name, which he had fostered in Hellas, and with whose decline he passed away.

The body of the heroic man, felled by the shaft of the destroying angel, looked even taller and more stately than before. But, as in life, an expression of gentleness rested upon the face. Even the plague had not marred his noble features. It seemed as if death had not overthrown and crushed the Olympian, but restored the enfeebled man to his full grandeur. The features of the corpse beamed with the cheerful repose that the living man had recently lost, the discord that had stolen into the soul of Aspasia’s husband seemed soothed.

What were the pallid Aspasia’s thoughts beside Pericles’ bier?

A brilliant succession of lofty, noble, beautiful memories was passing through her mind.

She recalled the moment in Phidias’ studio, when this man’s fiery glance met hers for the first time, where after a manly, earnest struggle for the grandeur and power of Athens, beauty threw her fetters around him.

His image hovered before her, now as he stood on the orator’s platform upon the Pnyx and carried the people with him—now, as full of enthusiasm, he walked with her over the height of the Acropolis, rejoicing in the glorious work rising before his eyes—now, as again seized by the longing for action, he strove for new laurels at Samos—now, as inspired with glowing ardor at Miletus, fulfilling the fairest human destiny, he drained the intoxicating beaker of joy with her on the flowery summit of life—now, as he formed their marriage-bond on the Acropolis, in the presence of newly-completed, immortal creations, his soul filled with lofty thoughts and hopes—

He hovered before her mind in his noble grandeur, his bewitching power over men, his susceptibility and fervor, his manly dignity—at once gentle, wise, heroic—the ideal of the true Hellene, too full of mind and soul to develop into rude heroism, and yet also too full of animation, too energetic to find entire satisfaction in effeminate pleasure, in the magic spell of love and beauty.

Then his image hovered before her memory as he walked by her side through the fields of the Peloponnesus, while light shadows of earnestness flitted more and more frequently over his brow, as thrilled by the most secret life and web of advancing time, foreboding a new, graver, sorrowful future, he silently concealed his deepest feelings till he ceased to be a Greek, in the mind and opinion of the beautiful woman with whom he had formed the gay, joyous bond of love, and after having experienced in his own soul the course of development of Hellenic life, overpowered by sorrowful presentiments, sank with the power and grandeur of his native land.

As Aspasia’s eyes rested on the face of the lifeless Pericles, Socrates fixed his gaze on her pale countenance.

She seemed to him like an embodied Hellas, sitting mournfully beside the bier of her noblest son.

How pallid and earnest were the features of this beautiful woman, this once joyous Hellas!

Aspasia now raised her eyes, met Socrates’ gaze, and exchanged a long, long look with him.

No words could express the emotion that found vent in that long, earnest gaze.

Not a syllable, only this one look, was exchanged between the pair; then Socrates vanished. He had appeared like a ghostly shade—and noiselessly vanished. Aspasia, motionless and pale as marble, again sat alone beside the death-bed of the great Hellene.

Socrates, deeply moved, continued his nocturnal walk, hurrying aimlessly through the streets without any note of time.

The force of the wailing, moaning gale had lessened. The nocturnal pilgrim found everything still more silent and lonely. It was long after midnight, and an almost imperceptible streak of grey in the east announced the approach of dawn, though darkness, the darkness of night, still rested upon the streets of Athens. A few setting stars twinkled through the torn clouds.

Suddenly a man apparently ready for travelling, appeared before Socrates, accompanied by a slave. The expression of his features was harsh, stern, almost gloomy. He gazed intently at Socrates.

The truth-seeker looked up as the other stopped his progress, and recognized Agoracritus.

“Where are you going this dark night?” the latter asked his former companion in Phidias’ studio.

“Pressing business summoned me to Athens,” he continued, as Socrates made no reply; “but I am hurrying to get out of the infected city. I shall go to Rhamnus to do what has been asked of me for so many years—provide my goddess erected there with the external symbols, that will transform her from an Aphrodite to a Nemesis. I have delayed long—but now something urges me to gratify people. The men of Athens must no longer doubt that Nemesis really stands among them, instead of smiling Aphrodite. I owe a debt of gratitude to this goddess, who moves with slow, but steady tread! Has she not avenged me on the woman I hate? The goddess of retribution has taken up her abode with Pericles and Aspasia. I even heard a few days ago, that the plague had attacked Pericles and thrown him on a sick-bed—”

Socrates looked up into Agoracritus’ face and said in a low tone:

“He is dead.”

Agoracritus was silent in amazement.

Both walked side by side for a time without speaking.

“Dead?” asked Agoracritus.

“I saw him myself,” replied Socrates in a hollow tone.

Again both were silent.

At last Agoracritus began:

“You have seen Pericles dead; it has fallen to my lot to see Phidias perish before my eyes in prison. I was with him in his last hours; for on hearing that he was seriously ill I hurried to him. People told me that he disdained all medicine, and every kind of aid. Pericles sent Hippocrates to him; but he began to talk with the physician about the proportions of the forms and lines of the human body. Even on his sick-bed, his mind was solely occupied with what had formerly been his only care.

“When I came, those who were about him in the prison told me that he frequently raved in the delirium of fever, and rarely recognized any one. I went in and found him dying. At first he knew me, but gradually his thoughts became confused by feverish visions. He talked continually of vast temples, gold and ivory statues, and marble friezes—gave directions to his pupils as if he were still in his studio, urged them to work, scolded the idlers, gave precise directions about how they should do this or that thing, and was angry if they did not work exactly as he desired. Often he expressly named me or Alcamenes. At last he seemed to be entirely alone with his shining statues, and his gods and goddesses; Pallas Athena and his Olympic Zeus made themselves manifest to him. It appeared as if, while he was dying, the deities of Olympus all descended and stood around his couch, visible to him alone, for he looked about him with a radiant face, hailed them, and addressed them by their names. Finally, Pallas Athena seemed to remain alone with him and beckon to him, for he suddenly said: ‘Whither dost thou wish to lead me? I come!’ Then he raised himself a little, as if to go with her, but sank back and his eyes grew dim. [10]

“He died in the midst of his feverish dream; a beautiful death, like a Hellene, while the fairest light of Hellas shone around him, and the gods snatched him away from earth to Olympus, at the very moment when the night of woe was closing over Athens, so that he saw nothing of it, but passed away with unshadowed mind.

“At first it caused me deep grief to see this man lie dying in prison; for after he had created the Athena Promachus on the citadel, the Athena Parthenos, the Parthenon itself, the Olympic Zeus at Olympia, and so many magnificent works no one has ever surpassed and no one ever will excel, whereby Hellas is principally glorified, his reward from men was to die dishonored and alone, amid the gloom of his dungeon.

“But when I saw him die, I felt an emotion not unmingled with consolation and, after closing the master’s eyes and kissing his brow, walked silently away and only pitied Hellas, and all of us who are left behind, after the best and greatest have departed.”

After Agoracritus had finished his tale, the two men walked on thoughtfully side by side for some time, then parted.

Agoracritus went northward toward Rhamnus, but Socrates, urged by his secret emotion, continued his walk, and ere he had advanced many paces saw a blazing funeral pyre, on which numerous bodies had been thrown, among which he beheld mad Menon lying.

The man, senseless from intoxication, had been found lying asleep among the dead bodies by the corpse-bearers, who had flung the apparently lifeless form on a pile of wood, where the flames were already surrounding him.

A dog circled, whining, around the funeral pyre.

The flames now reached the madman. At this moment, the dog also sprang upon the pile of wood, and was burnt with its master.

A strange feeling took possession of Socrates. “Now you are free, Menon!” said he.

“Now you are free!” he repeated several times, as with burning brow he continued his way. “Will a time ever come when all slaves are made free?” he thought—“or all freedmen slaves?” he added reflectively.

He now wandered through distant streets, no longer within the precincts of the city itself, but where the country residences of the Athenians and gardens alternated with open fields.

A swallow flying upward announced the dawn of day.

Socrates, as if guided by his demon, reached a house pervaded by a certain tumult.

Many persons were coming and going.

It was the residence of Ariston, a noble Athenian.

Socrates stood still and heard from those passing in and out, that a little son had been born to Ariston during the night. After so many images of death, there was a birth, an awakening life.

Again some mysterious impulse stirred in Socrates breast. He entered his friend’s house.

The child was in the peristyle, lying in its nurse’s arms. An elderly man, who looked like a seer or priest, had just bent his snow-white head over it and was gazing attentively at it. Socrates also looked at the infant, which had a broad beautiful brow, a thinker’s brow, and whose face seemed irradiated with a mild, lofty earnestness by no means childlike.

Suddenly a bee flew in—a bee from Hymettus—one of the much-praised Attic bees, buzzed around the child and brushed its lips, but lightly and harmlessly, as if kissing it, then flitted away again.

At this spectacle the gray-headed seer said:

“The kiss of a Hymettus bee is a sign from the gods. Words alluring as virgin honey will one day drip from this infant’s lips.”

The sight of the child impressed Socrates strangely. He could not interpret the emotion that filled his breast, but the future will bring its explanation.

The boy, who lay before the eyes of the restless truth-seeker, was to proclaim a new message when he had matured in to a youth.

His lips dripped with Attic virgin honey. With the sweetest eloquence he will preach the bitterest doctrines.

He will teach that the body is the prison of the soul and the soul, releasing itself, must soar upward into the spiritual world. He will teach that Eros despises the earth, and must ascend into the bright realm of eternal ideas, shining in changeless beauty—

And this lesson will find an echo on near and distant strands, become the watchword of a new time, and conquer the world on the lips of a Galilean.

But with it, in a new meaning, will also triumph the teachings of the priests of Sabazius and the Metragyrtans, the gloomy doctrine of self-torture and self-mutilation.

Socrates, absorbed in thought, left Ariston’s house and reached a height from which he beheld Attica and the sea, steeped in the light of morning.

A vessel was sailing towards Sunium and, lost in meditation, he unconsciously gazed steadily at it.

This ship bore the “Satyr” and the “Bacchante”—bore Manes and Cora northward towards a new home.

They set forth, holding in their breasts the germ of a future allotted to the effort to erect a kingdom of goodness upon the ruins of beauty.

They set forth, blessed by their earnest love.

From the bay they looked back, gazing for the last time at the city of the Athenians, as they left it forever.

A thin, light cloud was rising into the pure, clear morning air, not far from the Acropolis. It came from the funeral pyre, which was consuming the lifeless body of Pericles into sacred ashes.

This little cloud rose and hovered around the pinnacles of the Acropolis.

Manes and Cora followed it with their eyes, as it floated about the white marble brow of the sacred citadel of Pallas.

But the tiny cloud melted away, and the pinnacles and pediment of the Parthenon and newly-finished Propylæ stood forth with marvellous distinctness in the clear light.

The immortal coronet of the mountain towered high above the chaos and confusion of the Athenian city, and the children of men.

From the ruins of the perishable an imperishable work, victorious in eternal serenity, rose in Hellas. It seemed to say:

“I am raised above the changeful destiny of men, and their petty misery. I shall shine through the centuries. I shall be always here. I shall be like the magical light upon the mountains of Hellas, and the eternal glitter of the waters in her gulfs.”

Nations aspire towards the good and the beautiful.

The good is human and noble—but the beautiful is divine and immortal.

END.

NOTES

[1] A commander of military forces on land and sea.

[2] For most of the quotations from Sophocles’ plays the translator is indebted to Franklin’s version.

[3] The details of this description of the naval battle of Tragia are purely imaginary, solely intended to serve the necessities of the romance by displaying the character of Pericles, when engaged in energetic action.

[4] Scorpio, a military engine.—Smith’s Dicty. Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[5] Charis, (Χάρις), the personification of Grace and Beauty, which the Roman poets translate by Gratia, and we after them by Grace.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog. and Myth.

[6] Phallus, the symbol of the fertility of nature. (Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.)

[7] Agones (ἀγῶνες), the general term among the Greeks for the contests at their great national games.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[8] Brauronia (βραυρώνια), a festival celebrated in honor of Artemis Brauronia, in the Attic town of Brauron (Herod, vi. 138), where, according to Pausanias (i. 23. § 9, 33. § 1, iii. 16. § 6, viii. 46. § 2), Orestes and Iphigeneia, on their return from Tauris, were supposed by the Athenians to have landed, and left the statue of the Taurian goddess. (See Müller, Dor. i. 9. § 5 and 6.) It was held every fifth year, under the superintendence of ten ἱεροποιοί (Pollux, viii. 9, 31); and the chief solemnity consisted in the circumstance that the Attic girls between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in crocus-coloured garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary (Suidas, s. v. Ἄρκτος; Schol. on Aristoph. Lysistr. 646), where they were consecrated to the goddess. During this act the ἱεροποιοί sacrificed a goat and the girls performed a propitiatory rite in which they imitated bears.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[9] The functions of the βασιλεύς, or King Archon, were almost all connected with religion: his distinguishing title shows that he was considered a representative of the old kings in their capacity of high priest, as the Rex Sacrificulus was at Rome. Thus he presided at the Lenæan, or older Dionysia; superintended the mysteries and the games called λαμπαδηφορίαι, and had to offer up sacrifices and prayers in the Eleusinium, both at Athens and Eleusis. Moreover, indictments for impiety, and controversies about the priesthood were laid before him; and, in cases of murder, he brought the trial into the court of the Areopagus, and voted with its members. His wife, also, who was called βασίλισσα or βασίλιννα, had to offer certain sacrifices, and therefore it was required that she should be a citizen of pure blood, without stain or blemish.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[10] A: “Egeria” (Eger, 1875) as well as the collection of epic poems entitled “Orient and Occident” by K. V. von Hansgirg contain a poem called “Phidias,” in which, as in “Aspasia,” Pallas Athena appears to the dying sculptor. Hansgirg himself, in the latter volume, page 79, names 1874 as the date of the composition of this poem. My narration of the death of Phidias, on the contrary, was written in 1873, and as the entire romance was lying in the office of the Vienna “Neuen freien Presse,” I can appeal to the testimony of those who had the work in their hands, to prove that though many alterations were subsequently made in the MS. of “Aspasia” this particular scene then existed word for word precisely as it now appears in print, so that no suggestion can have been obtained from Hansgirg’s poem.