Pausanias, the Spartan by Lord Lytton

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The Regent's brow grew yet more troubled. "Cimon, of all the Greeks
out of Laconia, is the one whose word would weigh most in Sparta. But
my Spartans themselves are not suspected of privity and connivance in
this mission?"

"It is not said that they are."

Pausanias shaded his face with his hand for a moment in deep thought.
Gongylus continued--"If the Ephors recall thee before the Asian army
is on the frontier, farewell to the sovereignty of Hellas!"

"Ha!" cried Pausanias, "tempt me not. Thinkest thou I need other
tempter than I have here?"--smiting his breast.

Gongylus recoiled in surprise. "Pardon me, Pausanias, but temptation
is another word for hesitation. I dreamed not that I could tempt; I
did not know that thou didst hesitate."

The Spartan remained silent.

"Are not thy messengers on the road to the great king?--nay, perhaps
already they have reached him. Didst thou not say how intolerable to
thee would be life henceforth in the iron thraldom of Sparta--and
now?"

"And now--I forbid thee to question me more. Thou hast performed thy
task, leave me to mine."

He sprang with the spring of the mountain goat from the crag on which
he stood--over a precipitous chasm, lighted on a narrow ledge, from
which a slip of the foot would have been sure death, another bound yet
more fearful, and his whole weight hung suspended by the bough of the
ilex which he grasped with a single hand; then from bough to bough,
from crag to crag, the Eretrian saw him descending till he vanished
amidst the trees that darkened over the fissures at the foot of the
cliff.

And before Gongylus had recovered his amaze at the almost preterhuman
agility and vigour of the Spartan, and his dizzy sense at the
contemplation of such peril braved by another, a boat shot into the
sea from the green creek, and he saw Pausanias seated beside Lysander
on one of the benches, and conversing with him, as if in calm
earnestness, while the ten rowers sent the boat towards the fleet with
the swiftness of an arrow to its goal.

"Lysander," said Pausanias, "hast thou heard that the Ionians have
offered to me the insult of a mission to the Ephors demanding my
recall?"

"No. Who would tell me of insult to thee?"

"But hast thou any conjecture that other Spartans around me, and
who love me less than thou, would approve, nay, have approved, this
embassy of spies and malcontents?"

"I think none have so approved. I fear some would so approve. The
Spartans round thee would rejoice did they know that the pride of
their armies, the Victor of Plataea, were once more within their
walls."

"Even to the danger of Hellas from the Mede?"

"They would rather all Hellas were Medised than Pausanias the
Heracleid."

"Boy, boy," said Pausanias, between his ground teeth, "dost thou not
see that what is sought is the disgrace of Pausanias the Heracleid?
Grant that I am recalled from the head of this armament, and on the
charge of Ionians, and I am dishonoured in the eyes of all Greece.
Dost thou remember in the last Olympiad that when Themistocles, the
only rival now to me in glory, appeared on the Altis, assembled
Greece rose to greet and do him honour? And if I, deposed, dismissed,
appeared at the next Olympiad, how would assembled Greece receive
me? Couldst thou not see the pointed finger and hear the muttered
taunt--That is Pausanias, whom the Ionians banished from Byzantium.
No, I must abide here; I must prosecute the vast plans which shall
dwarf into shadow the petty genius of Themistocles. I must counteract
this mischievous embassy to the Ephors. I must send to them an
ambassador of my own. Lysander, wilt thou go, and burying in thy bosom
thine own Spartan prejudices, deem that thou canst only serve me by
proving the reasons why I should remain here; pleading for me, arguing
for me, and winning my suit?"

"It is for thee to command and for me to obey thee," answered
Lysander, simply. "Is not that the duty of soldier to chief? When
we converse as friends I may contend with thee in speech. When thou
sayest, Do this, I execute thine action. To reason with thee would be
revolt."

Pausanias placed his clasped hands on the young man's shoulder, and
leaving them there, impressively said--

"I select thee for this mission because thee alone can I trust. And of
me hast thou a doubt?--tell me."

"If I saw thee taking the Persian gold I should say that the Demon
had mocked mine eyes with a delusion. Never could I doubt,
unless--unless--"

"Unless what?"

'Thou wert standing under Jove's sky against the arms of Hellas."

"And then, if some other chief bade thee raise thy sword against me,
thou art Spartan and wouldst obey?"

"I am Spartan, and cannot believe that I should ever have a cause, or
listen to a command, to raise my sword against the chief I now serve
and love," replied Lysander.

Pausanias withdrew his hands from the young man's broad shoulder. He
felt humbled beside the quiet truth of that sublime soul. His own
deceit became more black to his conscience. "Methinks," he said
tremulously, "I will not send thee after all--and perhaps the news may
be false."

The boat had now gained the fleet, and steering amidst the crowded
triremes, made its way towards the floating banner of the Spartan
Serpent. More immediately round the General's galley were the vessels
of the Peloponnesian allies, by whom he was still honoured. A
welcoming shout rose from the seamen lounging on their decks as they
caught sight of the renowned Heracleid. Cimon, who was on his own
galley at some distance, heard the shout.

"So Pausanias," he said, turning to the officers round him, "has
deigned to come on board, to direct, I suppose, the manoeuvres for
to-morrow."

"I believe it is but the form of a review for manoeuvres," said
an Athenian officer, "in which Pausanias will inspect the various
divisions of the fleet, and if more be intended, will give the
requisite orders for a subsequent day. No arrangements demanding much
preparation can be anticipated, for Antagoras, the rich Chian, gives
a great banquet this day--a supper to the principal captains of the
Isles."

"A frank and hospitable reveller is Antagoras," answered Cimon. "He
would have extended his invitation to the Athenians--me included--but
in their name I declined."

"May I ask wherefore?" said the officer who had before spoken. "Cimon
is not held averse to wine-cup and myrtle-bough."

"But things are said over some wine-cups and under some
myrtle-boughs," answered Cimon, with a quiet laugh, "which it is
imprudence to hear and would be treason to repeat. Sup with me here on
deck, friends--a supper for sober companions--sober as the Laconian
Syssitia, and let not Spartans say that _our_ manners are spoilt by
the luxuries of Byzantium."

CHAPTER IV.

In an immense peristyle of a house which a Byzantine noble, ruined by
lavish extravagance, had been glad to cede to the accommodation of
Antagoras and other officers of Chios, the young rival of Pausanias
feasted the chiefs of the Aegean. However modern civilization may in
some things surpass the ancient, it is certainly not in luxury and
splendour. And although the Hellenic States had not, at that period,
aimed at the pomp of show and the refinements of voluptuous pleasure
which preceded their decline; and although they never did carry luxury
to the wondrous extent which it reached in Asia, or even in Sicily,
yet even at that time a wealthy sojourner in such a city as Byzantium
could command an entertainment that no monarch in our age would
venture to parade before royal guests, and submit to the criticism of
tax paying subjects.

The columns of the peristyle were of dazzling alabaster, with their
capitals richly gilt. The space above was roofless; but an immense
awning of purple, richly embroidered in Persian looms--a spoil of some
gorgeous Mede--shaded the feasters from the summer sky. The couches on
which the banqueters reclined were of citron wood, inlaid with ivory,
and covered with the tapestries of Asiatic looms. At the four corners
of the vast hall played four fountains, and their spray sparkled to a
blaze of light from colossal candelabra, in which burnt perfumed oil.
The guests were not assembled at a single table, but in small groups;
to each group its tripod of exquisite workmanship. To that feast
of fifty revellers no less than seventy cooks had contributed the
inventions of their art, but under one great master, to whose care
the banquet had been consigned by the liberal host, and who ransacked
earth, sky, and sea for dainties more various than this degenerate age
ever sees accumulated at a single board. And the epicure who has but
glanced over the elaborate page of Athenaeus, must own with melancholy
self-humiliation that the ancients must have carried the art of
flattering the palate to a perfection as absolute as the art which
built the Parthenon, and sculptured out of gold and ivory the Olympian
Jove. But the first course, with its profusion of birds, flesh, and
fishes, its marvellous combinations of forced meats, and inventive
poetry of sauces, was now over. And in the interval preceding that
second course, in which gastronomy put forth its most exquisite
masterpieces, the slaves began to remove the tables, soon to be
replaced. Vessels of fragrant waters, in which the banqueters dipped
their fingers, were handed round; perfumes, which the Byzantine marts
collected from every clime, escaped from their precious receptacles.

Then were distributed the garlands. With these each guest crowned
locks that steamed with odours; and in them were combined the flowers
that most charm the eye, with bud or herb that most guard from the
bead the fumes of wine: with hyacinth and flax, with golden asphodel
and silver lily, the green of ivy and parsley leaf was thus entwined;
and above all the rose, said to convey a delicious coolness to the
temples on which it bloomed. And now for the first time wine came to
heighten the spirits and test the charm of the garlands. Each, as the
large goblet passed to him, poured from the brim, before it touched
his lips, his libation to the good spirit. And as Antagoras, rising
first, set this pious example, out from the further ends of the
hall, behind the fountains, burst a concert of flutes, and the great
Hellenic Hymn of the Paean.

As this ceased, the fresh tables appeared before the banqueters,
covered with all the fruits in season, and with those triumphs in
confectionery, of which honey was the main ingredient, that well
justified the favour in which the Greeks held the bee.

Then, instead of the pure juice of the grape, from which the libation
had been poured, came the wines, mixed at least three parts with
water, and deliciously cooled.

Up again rose Antagoras, and every eye turned to him.

"Companions," said the young Chian, "it is not held in free States
well for a man to seize by himself upon supreme authority. We deem
that a magistracy should only be obtained by the votes of others.
Nevertheless, I venture to think that the latter plan does not always
ensure to us a good master. I believe it was by election that we
Greeks have given to ourselves a generalissimo, not contented, it
is said, to prove the invariable wisdom of that mode of government;
wherefore this seems an occasion to revive the good custom of tyranny.
And I propose to do so in my person by proclaiming myself Symposiarch
and absolute commander in the Commonwealth here assembled. But if ye
prefer the chance of the die--"

"No, no," cried the guests, almost universally; "Antagoras, the
Symposiarch, we submit. Issue thy laws."

"Hearken then, and obey. First, then, as to the strength of the wine.
Behold the crater in which there are three Naiades to one Dionysos. He
is a match for them; not for more. No man shall put into his wine more
water than the slaves have mixed. Yet if any man is so diffident of
the god that he thinks three Naiades too much for him, he may omit one
or two, and let the wine and the water fight it out upon equal terms.
So much for the quality of the drink. As to quantity, it is a question
to be deliberated hereafter. And now this cup to Zeus the Preserver."

The toast went round.

"Music, and the music of Lydia!" then shouted Antagoras, and resumed
his place on the couch beside Uliades.

The music proceeded, the wines circled.

"Friend," whispered Uliades to the host, "thy father left thee wines,
I know. But if thou givest many banquets like this, I doubt if thou
wilt leave wines to thy son."

"I shall die childless, perhaps," answered the Chian; "and any friend
will give me enough to pay Charon's fee across the Styx."

"That is a melancholy reflection," said Uliades, "and there is no
subject of talk that pleases me less than that same Styx. Why dost
thou bite thy lip, and choke the sigh? By the Gods! art thou not
happy?"

"Happy!" repeated Antagoras, with a bitter smile. "Oh, yes!"

"Good! Cleonice torments thee no more. I myself have gone through thy
trials; ay, and oftentimes. Seven times at Samos, five at Rhodes,
once at Miletus, and forty-three times at Corinth, have I been an
impassioned and unsuccessful lover. Courage; I love still."

Antagoras turned away. By this time the hall was yet more crowded,
for many not invited to the supper came, as was the custom with the
Greeks, to the Symposium; but these were all of the Ionian race.

"The music is dull without the dancers," cried the host. "Ho, there!
the dancing girls. Now would I give all the rest of my wealth to see
among these girls one face that yet but for a moment could make me
forget--" "Forget what, or whom?" said Uliades; "not Cleonice?"

"Man, man, wilt thou provoke me to strangle thee?" muttered
Antagoras.

Uliades edged himself away.

"Ungrateful!" he cried. "What are a hundred Byzantine girls to one
tried male friend?"

"I will not be ungrateful, Uliades, if thou stand by my side against
the Spartan."

"Thou art, then, bent upon this perilous hazard?"

"Bent on driving Pausanias from Byzantium, or into Hades--yes."

"Touch!" said Uliades, holding out his right hand. "By Cypris, but
these girls dance like the daughters of Oceanus; every step undulates
as a wave."

Antagoras motioned to his cup-bearer. "Tell the leader of that dancing
choir to come hither." The cupbearer obeyed.

A man with a solemn air came to the foot of the Chian's couch, bowing
low. He was an Egyptian--one of the meanest castes.

"Swarthy friend," said Antagoras, "didst thou ever hear of the Pyrrhic
dance of the Spartans?"

"Surely, of all dances am I teacher and preceptor."

"Your girls know it, then?"

"Somewhat, from having seen it; but not from practice. 'Tis a male
dance and a warlike dance, O magnanimous, but, in this instance,
untutored, Chian!"

"Hist, and listen." Antagoras whispered. The Egyptian nodded his head,
returned to the dancing girls, and when their measure had ceased,
gathered them round him.

Antagoras again rose.

"Companions, we are bound now to do homage to our masters--the
pleasant, affable and familiar warriors of Sparta."

At this the guests gave way to their applauding laughter.

"And therefore these delicate maidens will present to us that flowing
and Amathusian dance, which the Graces taught to Spartan sinews. Ho,
there! begin."

The Egyptian had by this time told the dancers what they were expected
to do; and they came forward with an affectation of stern dignity, the
burlesque humour of which delighted all those lively revellers. And
when with adroit mimicry their slight arms and mincing steps mocked
that grand and masculine measure so associated with images of Spartan
austerity and decorum, the exhibition became so humorously ludicrous,
that perhaps a Spartan himself would have been compelled to laugh at
it. But the merriment rose to its height, when the Egyptian, who had
withdrawn for a few minutes, reappeared with a Median robe and mitred
cap, and calling out in his barbarous African accent, "Way for the
conqueror!" threw into his mien and gestures all the likeness to
Pausanias himself, which a practised mime and posture-master could
attain. The laughter of Antagoras alone was not loud--it was low and
sullen, as if sobs of rage were stifling it; but his eye watched the
effect produced, and it answered the end he had in view.

As the dancers now, while the laughter was at its loudest roar,
vanished behind the draperies, the host rose, and his countenance was
severe and grave--

"Companions, one cup more, and let it be to Harmodius and Aristogiton.
Let the song in their honour come only from the lips of free citizens,
of our Ionian comrades. Uliades, begin. I pass to thee a myrtle bough;
and under it I pass a sword."

Then he began the famous hymn ascribed to Callistratus, commencing
with a clear and sonorous voice, and the guests repeating each stanza
after him with the enthusiasm which the words usually produced among
the Hellenic republicans:

I in a myrtle bough the sword will carry,
As did Harmodius and Aristogiton;
When they the tyrant slew,
And back to Athens gave her equal laws.

Thou art in nowise dead, best-loved Harmodius;
Isles of the Blessed are, they say, thy dwelling,
There swift Achilles dwells,
And there, they say, with thee dwells Diomed.

I in a myrtle bough the sword will carry,
As did Harmodius and Aristogiton,
When to Athene's shrine
They gave their sacrifice--a tyrant man.

Ever on earth for both of you lives glory,
O loved Harmodius, loved Aristogiton,
For ye the tyrant slew,
And back to Athens ye gave equal laws.

When the song had ceased, the dancers, the musicians, the attendant
slaves had withdrawn from the hall, dismissed by a whispered order
from Antagoras.

He, now standing up, took from his brows the floral crown, and first
sprinkling them with wine, replaced the flowers by a wreath of
poplar. The assembly, a little while before so noisy, was hushed into
attentive and earnest silence. The action of Antagoras, the expression
of his countenance, the exclusion of the slaves, prepared all present
for something more than the convivial address of a Symposiarch.

"Men and Greeks," said the Chian, "on the evening before Teucer led
his comrades in exile over the wide waters to found a second Salamis,
he sprinkled his forehead with Lyaean dews, being crowned with the
poplar leaves--emblems of hardihood and contest; and, this done, he
invited his companions to dispel their cares for the night, that their
hearts might with more cheerful hope and bolder courage meet what the
morrow might bring to them on the ocean. I imitate the ancient hero,
in honour less of him than of the name of Salamis. We, too, have a
Salamis to remember, and a second Salamis to found. Can ye forget
that, had the advice of the Spartan leader Eurybiades been adopted,
the victory of Salamis would never have been achieved? He was for
retreat to the Isthmus; he was for defending the Peloponnese, because
in the Peloponnesus was the unsocial selfish Sparta, and leaving the
rest of Hellas to the armament of Xerxes. Themistocles spoke against
the ignoble counsel; the Spartan raised his staff to strike him. Ye
know the Spartan manners. 'Strike if you will, but hear me,' cried
Themistocles. He was heard, Xerxes was defeated, and Hellas saved.
"I am not Themistocles; nor is there a Spartan staff to silence free
lips. But I too say, Hear me! for a new Salamis is to be won. What
was the former Salamis?--the victory that secured independence to the
Greeks, and delivered them from the Mede and the Medising traitors.
Again we must fight a Salamis. Where, ye say, is the Mede?--not at
Byzantium, it is true, in person; but the Medising traitor is here."

A profound sensation thrilled through the assembly.

"Enough of humility do the maritime Ionians practise when they accept
the hegemony of a Spartan landsman; enough of submission do the free
citizens of Hellas show when they suffer the imperious Dorian to
sentence them to punishments only fit for slaves. But when the Spartan
appears in the robes of the Mede, when the imperious Dorian places in
the government of a city, which our joint arms now occupy, a recreant
who has changed an Eretrian birthright for a Persian satrapy; when
prisoners, made by the valour of all Hellas, mysteriously escape the
care of the Lacedaemonian, who wears their garb, and imitates their
manners--say, O ye Greeks, O ye warriors, if there is no second
Salamis to conquer!"

The animated words, and the wine already drunk, produced on the
banqueters an effect sudden, electrical, universal. They had come to
the hall gay revellers; they were prepared to leave the hall stern
conspirators.

Their hoarse murmur was as the voice of the sea before a storm.

Antagoras surveyed them with a fierce joy, and, with a change of tone,
thus continued: "Ye understand me, ye know already that a delivery
is to be achieved. I pass on: I submit to your wisdom the mode of
achieving it. While I speak, a swift-sailing vessel bears to Sparta
the complaints of myself, of Uliades, and of many Ionian captains here
present, against the Spartan general. And although the Athenian chiefs
decline to proffer complaints of their own, lest their State, which has
risked so much for the common cause, be suspected of using the
admiration it excites for the purpose of subserving its ambition, yet
Cimon, the young son of the great Miltiades, who has ties of friendship
and hospitality with families of high mark in Sparta, has been persuaded
to add to our public statement a private letter to the effect, that
speaking for himself, not in the name of Athens, he deems our complaints
justly founded, and the recall of Pausanias expedient for the discipline
of the armament. But can we say what effect this embassy may have upon a
sullen and haughty government; against, too, a royal descendant of
Hercules; against the general who at Plataea flattered Sparta with a
renown to which her absence from Marathon, and her meditated flight from
Salamis, gave but disputable pretensions?"

"And," interrupted Uliades, rising, "and--if, O Antagoras, I may crave
pardon for standing a moment between thee and thy guests--and this is
not all, for even if they recall Pausanias, they may send us another
general as bad, and without the fame which somewhat reconciles our
Ionian pride to the hegemony of a Dorian. Now, whatever my quarrel
with Pausanias, I am less against a man than a principle. I am a
seaman, and against the principle of having for the commander of the
Greek fleet a Spartan who does not know how to handle a sail. I am an
Ionian, and against the principle of placing the Ionian race under the
imperious domination of a Dorian. Therefore I say, now is the moment
to emancipate our blood and our ocean--the one from an alien, the
other from a landsman. And the hegemony of the Spartan should pass
away."

Uliades sat down with an applause more clamorous than had greeted the
eloquence of Antagoras, for the pride of race and of special calling
is ever more strong in its impulses than hatred to a single man. And
despite of all that could be said against Pausanias, still these
warriors felt awe for his greatness, and remembered that at Plataea,
where all were brave, he had been proclaimed the bravest.

Antagoras, with the quickness of a republican Greek, trained from
earliest youth to sympathy with popular assemblies, saw that Uliades
had touched the right key, and swallowed down with a passionate gulp
his personal wrath against his rival, which might otherwise have been
carried too far, and have lost him the advantage he had gained.

"Rightly and wisely speaks Uliades," said he. "Our cause is that of
our whole race; and clear has that true Samian made it to you all, O
Ionians and captains of the seas, that we must not wait for the lordly
answer Sparta may return to our embassage. Ye know that while night
lasts we must return to our several vessels; an hour more, and we
shall be on deck. To-morrow Pausanias reviews the fleet, and we may be
some days before we return to land, and can meet in concert. Whether
to-morrow or later the occasion for action may present itself, is a
question I would pray you to leave to those whom you entrust with the
discretionary power to act."

"How act?" cried a Lesbian officer.

"Thus would I suggest," said Antagoras, with well dissembled humility;
"let the captains of one or more Ionian vessels perform such a deed of
open defiance against Pausanias as leaves to them no option between
death and success; having so done, hoist a signal, and sailing at once
to the Athenian ships, place themselves under the Athenian leader; all
the rest of the Ionian captains will then follow their example. And
then, too numerous and too powerful to be punished for a revolt, we
shall proclaim a revolution, and declare that we will all sail back
to our native havens unless we have the liberty of choosing our own
hegemon."

"But," said the Lesbian who had before spoken, "the Athenians as yet
have held back and declined our overtures, and without them we are not
strong enough to cope with the Peloponnesian allies."

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