Pausanias, the Spartan by Lord Lytton

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As soon as Lysander left the chamber,

Agesilaus spoke:--

"Ye will pardon me, Ephors, if I bade my son speak thus boldly. I need
not say I am no vain, foolish father, desiring to raise the youth
above his years. But making allowance for his partiality to the
Regent, ye will grant that he is a fair specimen of our young
soldiery. Probably, as he speaks, so will our young men think. To
recall Pausanias is to disgrace our general. Ye have my mind. If the
Regent be guilty of the darker charges insinuated--correspondence with
the Persian against Greece--I know but one sentence for him--Death.
And it is because I would have ye consider well how dread is such a
charge, and how awful such a sentence, that I entreat ye not lightly
to entertain the one unless ye are prepared to meditate the other. As
for the maritime supremacy of Sparta, I hold, as I have held before,
that it is not within our councils to strive for it; it must pass from
us. We may surrender it later with dignity; if we recall our general
on such complaints, we lose it with humiliation."

"I agree with Agesilaus," said another, "Pausanias is an Heracleid; my
vote shall not insult him."

"I agree too with Agesilaus," said a third Ephor; "not because
Pausanias is the Heracleid, but because he is the victorious general
who demands gratitude and respect from every true Spartan."

"Be it so," said Periclides, who, seeing himself thus outvoted in the
council, covered his disappointment with the self-control habitual to
his race. "But be we in no hurry to give these Ionian legates their
answer to-day. We must deliberate well how to send such a reply as may
be most conciliating and prudent. And for the next few days we have
an excuse for delay in the religious ceremonials due to the venerable
Divinity of Fear, which commence to-morrow. Pass we to the other
business before us; there are many whom we have kept waiting.
Agesilaus, thou art excused from the public table to-day if thou
wouldst sup with thy brave son at home."

"Nay," said Agesilaus, "my son will go to his pheidition and I to
mine--as I did on the day when I lost my first-born."

CHAPTER III.

On quitting the Hall of the Ephors, Lysander found himself at once on
the Spartan Agora, wherein that Hall was placed. This was situated on
the highest of the five hills, over which the unwalled city spread its
scattered population, and was popularly called the Tower. Before the
eyes of the young Spartan rose the statues, rude and antique, of
Latona, the Pythian Apollo, and his sister Artemis;--venerable images
to Lysander's early associations. The place which they consecrated was
called Chorus; for there, in honour of Apollo, and in the most pompous
of all the Spartan festivals, the young men were accustomed to lead
the sacred dance. The Temple of Apollo himself stood a little in the
background, and near to it that of Hera But more vast than any image
of a god was a colossal statue which represented the Spartan people;
while on a still loftier pinnacle of the hill than that table-land
which enclosed the Agora--dominating, as it were, the whole
city--soared into the bright blue sky the sacred Chalcioecus, or
Temple of the Brazen Pallas, darkening with its shadow another fane
towards the left dedicated to the Lacedaemonian Muses, and receiving a
gleam on the right from the brazen statue of Zeus, which was said by
tradition to have been made by a disciple of Daedalus himself.

But short time had Lysander to note undisturbed the old familiar
scenes. A crowd of his early friends had already collected round the
doors of the Archeion, and rushed forward to greet and welcome him.
The Spartan coldness and austerity of social intercourse vanished
always before the enthusiasm created by the return to his native city
of a man renowned for valour; and Lysander's fame had come back to
Sparta before himself. Joyously, and in triumph, the young men bore
away their comrade. As they passed through the centre of the Agora,
where assembled the various merchants and farmers, who, under the name
of Perioeci, carried on the main business of the Laconian mart, and
were often much wealthier than the Spartan citizens, trade ceased its
hubbub; all drew near to gaze on the young warrior; and now, as they
turned from the Agora, a group of eager women met them on the road,
and shrill voices exclaimed: "Go, Lysander, thou hast fought well--go
and choose for thyself the maiden that seems to thee the fairest. Go,
marry and get sons for Sparta."

Lysander's step seemed to tread on air, and tears of rapture stood in
his downcast eyes. But suddenly all the voices hushed; the crowds
drew back; his friends halted. Close by the great Temple of Fear, and
coming from some place within its sanctuary, there approached towards
the Spartan and his comrades a majestic woman--a woman of so grand a
step and port, that, though her veil as yet hid her face, her form
alone sufficed to inspire awe. All knew her by her gait; all made way
for Alithea, the widow of a king, the mother of Pausanias the Regent.
Lysander, lifting his eyes from the ground, impressed by the hush
around him, recognised the form as it advanced slowly towards him,
and, leaving his comrades behind, stepped forward to salute the mother
of his chief. She, thus seeing him, turned slightly aside, and paused
by a rude building of immemorial antiquity which stood near the
temple. That building was the tomb of the mythical Orestes, whose
bones were said to have been interred there by the command of the
Delphian Oracle. On a stone at the foot of the tomb sate calmly down
the veiled woman, and waited the approach of Lysander. When he came
near, and alone--all the rest remaining aloof and silent--Alithea
removed her veil, and a countenance grand and terrible as that of a
Fate lifted its rigid looks to the young Spartan's eyes. Despite
her age--for she had passed into middle life before she had borne
Pausanias--Alithea retained all the traces of a marvellous and almost
preterhuman beauty. But it was not the beauty of woman. No softness
sate on those lips: no love beamed from those eyes. Stern,
inexorable--not a fault in her grand proportions--the stoutest heart
might have felt a throb of terror as the eye rested upon that pitiless
and imposing front. And the deep voice of the Spartan warrior had a
slight tremor in its tone as it uttered its respectful salutation.

"Draw near, Lysander. What sayest thou of my son?"

"I left him well, and--"

"Does a Spartan mother first ask of the bodily health of an absent
man-child? By the tomb of Orestes and near the Temple of Fear, a
king's widow asks a Spartan soldier what he says of a Spartan chief."

"All Hellas," replied Lysander, recovering his spirit, "might answer
thee best, Alithea. For all Hellas proclaimed that the bravest man at
Plataea was thy son, my chief."

"And where did my son, thy chief, learn to boast of bravery? They tell
me he inscribed the offerings to the gods with his name as the victor
of Plataea--the battle won not by one man but assembled Greece. The
inscription that dishonours him by its vainglory will be erased. To be
brave is nought. Barbarians may be brave. But to dedicate bravery to
his native land becomes a Spartan. He who is everything against a foe
should count himself as nothing in the service of his country."

Lysander remained silent under the gaze of those fixed and imperious
eyes.

"Youth," said Alithea, after a short pause, "if thou returnest to
Byzantium, say this from Alithea to thy chief:--'From thy childhood,
Pausanias, has thy mother feared for thee; and at the Temple of Fear
did she sacrifice when she heard that thou wert victorious at Plataea;
for in thy heart are the seeds of arrogance and pride; and victory to
thine arms may end in ruin to thy name. And ever since that day does
Alithea haunt the precincts of that temple. Come back and be Spartan,
as thine ancestors were before thee, and Alithea will rejoice and
think the Gods have heard her. But if thou seest within thyself one
cause why thy mother should sacrifice to Fear, lest her son should
break the laws of Sparta, or sully his Spartan name, humble thyself,
and mourn that thou didst not perish at Plataea. By a temple and from
a tomb I send thee warning.' Say this. I have done; join thy friends."

Again the veil fell over the face, and the figure of the woman
remained seated at the tomb long after the procession had passed on,
and the mirth of young voices was again released.

CHAPTER IV.

The group that attended Lysander continued to swell as he mounted the
acclivity on which his parental home was placed. The houses of the
Spartan proprietors were at that day not closely packed together as in
the dense population of commercial towns. More like the villas of a
suburb, they lay a little apart, on the unequal surface of the rugged
ground, perfectly plain and unadorned, covering a large space with
ample court-yards, closed in, in front of the narrow streets. And
still was in force the primitive law which ordained that doorways
should be shaped only by the saw, and the ceilings by the axe; but in
contrast to the rudeness of the private houses, at every opening in
the street were seen the Doric pillars or graceful stairs of a temple;
and high over all dominated the Tower-hill, or Acropolis, with the
antique fane of Pallas Chalcioecus.

And so, loud and joyous, the procession bore the young warrior to the
threshold of his home. It was an act of public honour to his fair
repute and his proven valour. And the Spartan felt as proud of that
unceremonious attendance as ever did Roman chief sweeping under arches
of triumph in the curule car.

At the threshold of the door stood his mother--for the tidings of his
coming had preceded him--and his little brothers and sisters. His step
quickened at the sight of these beloved faces.

"Bound forward, Lysander," said one of the train; "thou hast won the
right to thy mother's kiss."

"But fail us not at the pheidition before sunset," cried another.
"Every one of the obe will send his best contribution to the feast to
welcome thee back. We shall have a rare banquet of it."

And so, as his mother drew him within the doors, his arm round her
waist, and the children clung to his cloak, to his knees, or sprung up
to claim his kiss, the procession set up a kind of chaunted shout, and
left the warrior in his home.

"Oh, this is joy, joy!" said Lysander, with sweet tears in his eyes,
as he sat in the women's apartment, his mother by his side, and the
little ones round him. "Where, save in Sparta, does a man love a
home?"

And this exclamation, which might have astonished an Ionian--seeing
how much the Spartan civilians merged the individual in the state--was
yet true, where the Spartan was wholly Spartan, where, by habit and
association, he had learned to love the severities of the existence
that surrounded him, and where the routine of duties which took him
from his home, whether for exercises or the public tables, made yet
more precious the hours of rest and intimate intercourse with his
family. For the gay pleasures and lewd resorts of other Greek cities
were not known to the Spartan. Not for him were the cook-shops and
baths and revels of Ionian idlers. When the State ceased to claim him,
he had nothing but his Home.

As Lysander thus exclaimed, the door of the room had opened
noiselessly, and Agesilaus stood unperceived at the entrance, and
overheard his son. His face brightened singularly at Lysander's words.
He came forward and opened his arms.

"Embrace me now, my boy! my brave boy! embrace me now! The Ephors are
not here."

Lysander turned, sprang up, and was in his father's arms.

"So thou art not changed. Byzantium has not spoiled thee. Thy name
is uttered with praise unmixed with fear. All Persia's gold, all the
great king's Satrapies could not medize my Lysander. Ah," continued
the father, turning to his wife, "who could have predicted the
happiness of this hour? Poor child! he was born sickly. Hera had
already given us more sons than we could provide for, ere our lands
were increased by the death of thy childless relatives. Wife, wife!
when the family council ordained him to be exposed on Taygetus, when
thou didst hide thyself lest thy tears should be seen, and my voice
trembled as I said 'Be the laws obeyed,' who could have guessed that
the gods would yet preserve him to be the pride of our house? Blessed
be Zeus the saviour and Hercules the warrior!"

"And," said the mother, "blessed be Pausanias, the descendant of
Hercules, who took the forlorn infant to his father's home, and who
has reared him now to be the example of Spartan youths."

"Ah," said Lysander, looking up into his father's eyes, "if I can ever
be worthy of your love, O my father, forget not, I pray thee, that it
is to Pausanias I owe life, home, and a Spartan's glorious destiny."

"I forget it not," answered Agesilaus, with a mournful and serious
expression of countenance. "And on this I would speak to thee. Thy
mother must spare thee awhile to me. Come. I lean on thy shoulder
instead of my staff."

Agesilaus led his son into the large hall, which was the main chamber
of the house; and pacing up and down the wide and solitary floor,
questioned him closely as to the truth of the stories respecting the
Regent which had reached the Ephors.

"Thou must speak with naked heart to me," said Agesilaus; "for I tell
thee that, if I am Spartan, I am also man and father; and I would
serve him, who saved thy life and taught thee how to fight for thy
country, in every way that may be lawful to a Spartan and a Greek."

Thus addressed, and convinced of his father's sincerity, Lysander
replied with ingenuous and brief simplicity. He granted that Pausanias
had exposed himself with a haughty imprudence, which it was difficult
to account for, to the charges of the Ionians. "But," he added, with
that shrewd observation which his affection for Pausanias rather than
his experience of human nature had taught him--"But we must remember
that in Pausanias we are dealing with no ordinary man. If he has
faults of judgment, which a Spartan rarely commits, he has, O my
father, a force of intellect and passion, which a Spartan as rarely
knows. Shall I tell you the truth? Our State is too small for him.
But would it not have been too small for Hercules? Would the laws of
Aegimius have permitted Hercules to perform his labours and achieve
his conquests? This vast and fiery nature suddenly released from the
cramps of our customs, which Pausanias never in his youth regarded
save as galling, expands itself, as an eagle long caged would
outspread its wings."

"I comprehend," said Agesilaus thoughtfully, and somewhat sadly.
"There have been moments in my own life when I regarded Sparta as a
prison. In my early manhood I was sent on a mission to Corinth. Its
pleasures, its wild tumult of gay licence dazzled and inebriated me.
I said, 'This it is to live.' I came back to Sparta sullen and
discontented. But then, happily, I saw thy mother at the festival of
Diana--we loved each other, we married--and when I was permitted to
take her to my home, I became sobered and was a Spartan again. I
comprehend. Poor Pausanias! But luxury and pleasure, though they charm
awhile, do not fill up the whole of a soul like that of our Heracleid.
From these he may recover; but Ambition--that is the true liver of
Tantalus, and grows larger under the beak that feeds on it. What is
his ambition, if Sparta be too small for him?

"I think his ambition would be to make Sparta as big as himself."

Agesilaus stroked his chin musingly.

"And how?"

"I cannot tell, I can only guess. But the Persian war, if I may judge
by what I hear and see, cannot roll away and leave the boundaries
of each Greek State the same. Two States now stand forth prominent,
Athens and Sparta. Themistocles and Cimon aim at making Athens the
head of Hellas, Perhaps Pausanias aims to effect for Sparta what they
would effect for Athens."

"And what thinkest thou of such a scheme?"

"Ask me not. I am too young, too inexperienced, and perhaps too
Spartan to answer rightly."

"Too Spartan, because thou art too covetous of power for Sparta."

"Too Spartan, because I may be too anxious to keep Sparta what she
is."

Agesilaus smiled. "We are of the same mind, my son. Think not that the
rocky defiles which enclose us shut out from our minds all the ideas
that new circumstance strikes from Time. I have meditated on what thou
sayest Pausanias may scheme. It is true that the invasion of the Mede
must tend to raise up one State in Greece to which the others will
look for a head. I have asked myself, can Sparta be that State? and my
reason tells me, No. Sparta is lost if she attempt it. She may become
something else, but she cannot be Sparta. Such a State must become
maritime, and depend on fleets. Our inland situation forbids this.
True we have ports in which the Perioeci flourish; but did we use them
for a permanent policy the Perioeci must become our masters. These
five villages would be abandoned for a mart on the sea-shore. This
mother of men would be no more. A State that so aspires must have
ample wealth at its command. We have none. We might raise tribute from
other Greek cities, but for that purpose we must have fleets again,
to overawe and compel, for no tribute will be long voluntary. A state
that would be the active governor of Hellas must have lives to spare
in abundance. We have none, unless we always do hereafter as we did
at Plataea, raise an army of Helots--seven Helots to one Spartan. How
long, if we did so, would the Helots obey us, and meanwhile how would
our lands be cultivated? A State that would be the centre of Greece,
must cultivate all that can charm and allure strangers. We banish
strangers, and what charms and allures them would womanize us. More
than all, a State that would obtain the sympathies of the turbulent
Hellenic populations, must have the most popular institutions. It
must be governed by a Demus, We are an Oligarchic Aristocracy--a
disciplined camp of warriors, not a licentious Agora. Therefore,
Sparta cannot assume the head of a Greek Confederacy except in the
rare seasons of actual war; and the attempt to make her the head of
such a confederacy would cause changes so repugnant to our manners and
habits, that it would be fraught with destruction to him who made the
attempt, or to us if he succeeded. Wherefore, to sum up, the ambition
of Pausanias is in this impracticable, and must be opposed."

"And Athens," cried Lysander, with a slight pang of natural and
national jealousy, "Athens then must wrest from Pausanias the hegemony
he now holds for Sparta, and Athens must be what the Athenian ambition
covets."

"We cannot help it--she must; but can it last?--Impossible. And woe to
her if she ever comes in contact with the bronze of Laconian shields.
But in the meanwhile, what is to be done with this great and awful
Heracleid? They accuse him of medising, of secret conspiracy with
Persia itself. Can that be possible?

"If so, it is but to use Persia on behalf of Sparta. If he would
subdue Greece, it is not for the king, it is for the race of
Hercules."

"Ay, ay, ay," cried Agesilaus, shading his face with his hand. "All
becomes clear to me now. Listen. Did I openly defend Pausanias before
the Ephors, I should injure his cause. But when they talk of his
betraying Hellas and Sparta, I place before them nakedly and broadly
their duty if that charge be true. For if true, O my son, Pausanias
must die as criminals die."

"Die--criminal--an Heracleid--king's blood--the victor of Plataea--my
friend Pausanias!"

"Rather he than Sparta. What sayest thou?"

"Neither, neither," exclaimed Lysander, wringing his
hands--"impossible both."

"Impossible both, be it so. I place before the Ephors the terrors of
accrediting that charge, in order that they may repudiate it. For the
lesser ones it matters not; he is in no danger there, save that of
fine. And his gold," added Agesilaus with a curved lip of disdain,
"will both condemn and save him. For the rest, I would spare him the
dishonour of being publicly recalled, and to say truth, I would save
Sparta the peril she might incur from his wrath, if she inflicted on
him that slight. But mark me, he himself must resign his command,
voluntarily, and return to Sparta. Better so for him and his pride,
for he cannot keep the hegemony against the will of the Ionians,
whose fleet is so much larger than ours, and it is to his gain if his
successor lose it, not he. But better, not only for his pride, but
for his glory and his name, that he should come from these scenes of
fierce temptation, and, since birth made him a Spartan, learn here
again to conform to what he cannot change. I have spoken thus plainly
to thee. Use the words I have uttered as thou best may, after thy
return to Pausanias, which I will strive to make speedy. But while
we talk there goes on danger--danger still of his abrupt recall--for
there are those who will seize every excuse for it. Enough of these
grave matters: the sun is sinking towards the west, and thy companions
await thee at thy feast; mine will be eager to greet me on thy return,
and thy little brothers, who go with me to my pheidition, will hear
thee so praised that they will long for the crypteia--long to be men,
and find some future Plataea for themselves. May the gods forbid it!
War is a terrible unsettler. Time saps States as a tide the cliff. War
is an inundation, and when it ebbs, a landmark has vanished."

CHAPTER V.

Nothing so largely contributed to the peculiar character of Spartan
society as the uniform custom of taking the principal meal at a public
table. It conduced to four objects: the precise status of aristocracy,
since each table was formed according to title and rank,--equality
among aristocrats, since each at the same table was held the equal of
the other--military union, for as they feasted so they fought, being
formed into divisions in the field according as they messed together
at home; and lastly, that sort of fellowship in public opinion
which intimate association amongst those of the same rank and habit
naturally occasions. These tables in Sparta were supplied by private
contributions; each head of a family was obliged to send a certain
portion at his own cost, and according to the number of his children.
If his fortune did not allow him to do this, he was excluded from the
public tables. Hence a certain fortune was indispensable to the pure
Spartan, and this was one reason why it was permitted to expose
infants, if the family threatened to be too large for the father's
means. The general arrangements were divided into syssitia, according,
perhaps, to the number of families, and correspondent to the divisions
or obes acknowledged by the State. But these larger sections were
again subdivided into companies or clubs of fifteen, vacancies being
filled up by ballot; but one vote could exclude. And since, as we have
said, the companies were marshalled in the field according to their
association at the table, it is clear that fathers of grave years and
of high station (station in Sparta increased with years) could not
have belonged to the same table as the young men, their sons. Their
boys under a certain age they took to their own pheiditia, where the
children sat upon a lower bench, and partook of the simplest dishes
of the fare. Though the cheer at these public tables was habitually
plain, yet upon occasion it was enriched by presents to the
after-course, of game and fruit.

Lysander was received by his old comrade with that cordiality in which
was mingled for the first time a certain manly respect, due to feats
in battle, and so flattering to the young.

The prayer to the Gods, correspondent to the modern grace, and the
pious libations being concluded, the attendant Helots served the black
broth, and the party fell to, with the appetite produced by hardy
exercise and mountain air.

"What do the allies say to the black broth?" asked a young Spartan.

"They do not comprehend its merits," answered Lysander.

CHAPTER VI.

Everything in the familiar life to which he had returned delighted the
young Lysander. But for anxious thoughts about Pausanias, he would
have been supremely blest. To him the various scenes of his early
years brought no associations of the restraint and harshness which
revolted the more luxurious nature and the fiercer genius of
Pausanias. The plunge into the frigid waters of Eurotas--the sole bath
permitted to the Spartans[1] at a time when the rest of Greece had
already carried the art of bathing into voluptuous refinement--the
sight of the vehement contests of the boys, drawn up as in battle, at
the game of football, or in detached engagements, sparing each other
so little, that the popular belief out of Sparta was that they were
permitted to tear out each other's eyes,[2] but subjecting strength to
every skilful art that gymnastics could teach--the mimic war on the
island, near the antique trees of the Plane Garden, waged with weapons
of wood and blunted iron, and the march regulated to the music of
flutes and lyres--nay, even the sight of the stern altar, at which
boys had learned to bear the anguish of stripes without a murmur--all
produced in this primitive and intensely national intelligence an
increased admiration for the ancestral laws, which, carrying patience,
fortitude, address and strength to the utmost perfection, had formed a
handful of men into the calm lords of a fierce population, and placed
the fenceless villages of Sparta beyond a fear of the external
assaults and the civil revolutions which perpetually stormed the
citadels and agitated the market-places of Hellenic cities. His was
not the mind to perceive that much was relinquished for the sake of
that which was gained, or to comprehend that there was more which
consecrates humanity in one stormy day of Athens, than in a serene
century of iron Lacedaemon. But there is ever beauty of soul where
there is enthusiastic love of country; and the young Spartan was wise
in his own Dorian way.

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