Pausanias, the Spartan by Lord Lytton

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"So be it, then," said Aristides, gravely; "we have our answer, and
you will hear of our appeal."

Pausanias changed colour. "How?" said he, with a slight hesitation in
his tone. "Mean you to threaten me--Me--with carrying the busy tales
of your disaffection to the Spartan government?"

"Time will show. Farewell, Pausanias. We will detain you no longer
from your pastime."

"But," began Uliades.

"Hush," said the Athenian, laying his hand on the Samian's shoulder.
"We will confer anon."

Pausanias paused a moment, irresolute and in thought. His eyes glanced
towards his own countrymen, who, true to their rigid discipline,
neither spake nor moved, but whose countenances were sullen and
overcast, and at that moment his pride was shaken, and his heart
misgave him. Gongylus watched his countenance, and once more laying
his hand on his arm, said in a whisper--

"He who seeks to rule never goes back."

"Tush, you know not the Spartans."

"But I know Human Nature; it is the same everywhere. You cannot yield
to this insolence; to-morrow, of your own accord, send for these men
separately and pacify them."

"You are right. Now to the vessel!"

With this, leaning on the shoulder of the Persian, and with a slight
wave of his hand towards the Athenians--he did not deign even that
gesture to the island officers--Pausanias advanced to the vessel, and
slowly ascending, disappeared within his pavilion. The Spartans and
the musicians followed; then, spare and swarthy, some half score of
Egyptian sailors; last came a small party of Laconians and Helots,
who, standing at some distance behind Pausanias, had not hitherto been
observed. The former were but slightly armed; the latter had forsaken
their customary rude and savage garb, and wore long gowns and gay
tunics, somewhat in the fashion of the Lydians. With these last there
was one of a mien and aspect that strongly differed from the lowering
and ferocious cast of countenance common to the Helot race. He was
of the ordinary stature, and his frame was not characterised by any
appearance of unusual strength; but he trod the earth, with a firm
step and an erect crest, as if the curse of the slave had not yet
destroyed the inborn dignity of the human being. There was a certain
delicacy and refinement, rather of thought than beauty, in his clear,
sharp, and singularly intelligent features. In contradistinction from
the free-born Spartans, his hair was short, and curled close above a
broad and manly forehead; and his large eyes of dark blue looked full
and bold upon the Athenians with something, if not of defiance, at
least of pride in their gaze, as he stalked by them to the vessel.

"A sturdy fellow for a Helot," muttered Cimon.

"And merits well his freedom," said the son of Lysimachus. "I remember
him well. He is Alcman, the foster-brother of Pausanias, whom he
attended at Plataea. Not a Spartan that day bore himself more
bravely."

"No doubt they will put him to death when he goes back to Sparta,"
said Antagoras. "When a Helot is brave, the Ephors clap the black mark
against his name, and at the next crypteia he suddenly disappears."

"Pausanias may share the same fate as his Helot, for all I care,"
quoth Uliades. "Well, Athenians, what say you to the answer we have
received?"

"That Sparta shall hear of it," answered Aristides.

"Ah, but is that all? Recollect the Ionians have the majority in the
fleet; let us not wait for the slow Ephors. Let us at once throw off
this insufferable yoke, and proclaim Athens the Mistress of the Seas.
What say you, Cimon?"

"Let Aristides answer."

"Yonder lie the Athenian vessels," said Aristides. "Those who put
themselves voluntarily under our protection we will not reject. But
remember we assert no claim; we yield but to the general wish."

"Enough; I understand you," said Antagoras.

"Not quite," returned the Athenian with a smile. "The breach between
you and Pausanias is begun, but it is not yet wide enough. You
yourselves must do that which will annul all power in the Spartan, and
then if ye come to Athens ye will find her as bold against the Doric
despot as against the Barbarian foe."

"But speak more plainly. What would you have us do?" asked Uliades,
rubbing his chin in great perplexity.

"Nay, nay, I have already said enough. Fare ye well,
fellow-countrymen," and leaning lightly on the shoulder of Cimon, the
Athenian passed on.

Meanwhile, the splendid galley of Pausanias slowly put forth into the
farther waters of the bay. The oars of the rowers broke the surface
into countless phosphoric sparkles, and the sound they made, as they
dashed amidst the gentle waters, seemed to keep time with the song
and the instruments on the deck. The Ionians gazed in silence as the
stately vessel, now shooting far ahead of the rest, swept into the
centre of the bay. And the moon, just rising, shone full upon the
glittering prow, and streaked the rippling billows over which it had
bounded, with a light, as it were, of glory.

Antagoras sighed. "What think you of?" asked the rough Samian.

"Peace," replied Antagoras. "In this hour, when the fair face of
Artemis recalls the old legends of Endymion, is it not permitted to
man to remember that before the iron age came the golden, before war
reigned love?"

"Tush," said Uliades. "Time enough to think of love when we have
satisfied vengeance. Let us summon our friends, and hold council on
the Spartan's insults."

"Whither goes now the Spartan?" murmured Antagoras abstractedly, as
he suffered his companion to lead him away. Then halting abruptly, he
struck his clenched hand on his breast.

"O Aphrodite!" he cried; "this night--this night I will seek thy
temple. Hear my vows--soothe my jealousy!"

"Ah," grunted Uliades, "if, as men say, thou lovest a fair Byzantine,
Aphrodite will have sharp work to cure thee of jealousy, unless she
first makes thee blind."

Antagoras smiled faintly, and the two Ionians moved on slowly and in
silence. In a few minutes more the quays were deserted and nothing but
the blended murmur, spreading wide and indistinct throughout the camp,
and a noisier but occasional burst of merriment from those resorts
of obscener pleasure which were profusely scattered along the haven,
mingled with the whispers of "the far resounding sea."

Notes:

[5] Gibbon, ch. 17.

[6] "The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm
of the Bosphorus, obtained in a very remote period the denomination of
the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the
horn of a stag, or, as it should seem, with more propriety to that of
an ox."--Gib. c. 17; Strab. 1. x.

[7] Ion _apud_ Plut.

[8] Herod. ix. 82.

[9] Plut. in Vit. Arist.

[10] Leader of ten men.

CHAPTER II.

On a couch, beneath his voluptuous awning, reclined Pausanias. The
curtains, drawn aside, gave to view the moonlit ocean, and the dim
shadows of the shore, with the dark woods beyond, relieved by the
distant lights of the city. On one side of the Spartan was a small
table, that supported goblets and vases of that exquisite wine which
Maronea proffered to the thirst of the Byzantine, and those cooling
and delicious fruits which the orchards around the city supplied as
amply as the fabled gardens of the Hesperides, were heaped on the
other side. Towards the foot of the couch, propped upon cushions piled
on the floor, sat Gongylus, conversing in a low, earnest voice,
and fixing his eyes steadfastly on the Spartan. The habits of the
Eretrian's life, which had brought him in constant contact with
the Persians, had infected his very language with the luxuriant
extravagance of the East. And the thoughts he uttered made his
language but too musical to the ears of the listening Spartan.

"And fair as these climes may seem to you, and rich as are the gardens
and granaries of Byzantium, yet to me who have stood on the terraces
of Babylon and looked upon groves covering with blossom and fruit the
very fortresses and walls of that queen of nations,--to me, who have
roved amidst the vast delights of Susa, through palaces whose very
porticoes might enclose the limits of a Grecian city,--who have stood,
awed and dazzled, in the courts of that wonder of the world, that
crown of the East, the marble magnificence of Persepolis--to me,
Pausanias, who have been thus admitted into the very heart of Persian
glories, this city of Byzantium appears but a village of artisans and
fishermen. The very foliage of its forests, pale and sickly, the very
moonlight upon these waters, cold and smileless, ah, if thou couldst
but see! But pardon me, I weary thee?"

"Not so," said the Spartan, who, raised upon his elbow, listened to
the words of Gongylus with deep attention. "Proceed." "Ah, if thou
couldst but see the fair regions which the great king has apportioned
to thy countryman Demaratus. And if a domain, that would satiate
the ambition of the most craving of your earlier tyrants, fall to
Demaratus, what would be the splendid satrapy in which the conqueror
of Plataea might plant his throne?"

"In truth, my renown and my power are greater than those ever
possessed by Demaratus," said the Spartan musingly.

"Yet," pursued Gongylus, "it is not so much the mere extent of the
territories which the grateful Xerxes could proffer to the brave
Pausanias--it is not their extent so much that might tempt desire,
neither is it their stately forests, nor the fertile meadows, nor the
ocean-like rivers, which the gods of the East have given to the race
of Cyrus. There, free from the strange constraints which our austere
customs and solemn Deities impose upon the Greeks, the beneficent
Ormuzd scatters ever-varying delights upon the paths of men. All that
art can invent, all that the marts of the universe can afford of the
rare and voluptuous, are lavished upon abodes the splendour of which
even our idle dreams of Olympus never shadowed forth. There, instead
of the harsh and imperious helpmate to whom the joyless Spartan
confines his reluctant love, all the beauties of every clime contend
for the smile of their lord. And wherever are turned the change-loving
eyes of Passion, the Aphrodite of our poets, such as the Cytherean and
the Cyprian fable her, seems to recline on the lotus leaf or to rise
from the unruffled ocean of delight. Instead of the gloomy brows and
the harsh tones of rivals envious of your fame, hosts of friends
aspiring only to be followers will catch gladness from your smile or
sorrow from your frown. There, no jarring contests with little men,
who deem themselves the equals of the great, no jealous Ephor is
found, to load the commonest acts of life with fetters of iron custom.
Talk of liberty! Liberty in Sparta is but one eternal servitude; you
cannot move, or eat, or sleep, save as the law directs. Your very
children are wrested from you just in the age when their voices sound
most sweet. Ye are not men; ye are machines. Call you this liberty,
Pausanias? I, a Greek, have known both Grecian liberty and Persian
royalty Better be chieftain to a king than servant to a mob! But in
Eretria, at least, pleasure was not denied. In Sparta the very Graces
preside over discipline and war only."

"Your fire falls upon flax," said Pausanias, rising, and with
passionate emotion. "And if you, the Greek of a happier state, you who
know but by report the unnatural bondage to which the Spartans are
subjected, can weary of the very name of Greek, what must be the
feelings of one who from the cradle upward has been starved out of the
genial desires of life? Even in earliest youth, while yet all other
lands and customs were unknown, when it was duly poured into my ears
that to be born a Spartan constituted the glory and the bliss of
earth, my soul sickened at the lesson, and my reason revolted against
the lie. Often when my whole body was lacerated with stripes,
disdaining to groan, I yet yearned to strike, and I cursed my savage
tutors who denied pleasure even to childhood with all the madness
of impotent revenge. My mother herself (sweet name elsewhere) had no
kindness in her face. She was the pride of the matronage of Sparta,
because of all our women Alithea was the most unsexed. When I went
forth to my first crypteia, to watch, amidst the wintry dreariness of
the mountains, upon the movements of the wretched Helots, to spy upon
their sufferings, to take account of their groans, and if one more
manly than the rest dared to mingle curses with his groans, to mark
_him_ for slaughter, as a wolf that threatened danger to the fold; to
lurk, an assassin, about his home, to dog his walks, to fall on him
unawares, to strike him from behind, to filch away his life, to bury
him in the ravines, so that murder might leave no trace; when upon
this initiating campaign, the virgin trials of our youth, I first set
forth, my mother drew near, and girding me herself with my grandsire's
sword, 'Go forth,' she said, 'as the young hound to the chase, to
wind, to double, to leap on the prey, and to taste of blood. See, the
sword is bright; show me the stains at thy return,'"

"Is it then true, as the Greeks generally declare," interrupted
Gongylus, "that in these campaigns, or crypteias, the sole aim and
object is the massacre of Helots?"

"Not so," replied Pausanias; "savage though the custom, it smells not
so foully of the shambles. The avowed object is to harden the nerves
of our youth. Barefooted, unattended, through cold and storm,
performing ourselves the most menial offices necessary to life, we
wander for a certain season daily and nightly through the rugged
territories of Laconia.[11] We go as boys--we come back as men.[12]
The avowed object, I say, is increment to hardship, but with this is
connected the secret end of keeping watch on these half-tamed and
bull-like herds of men whom we call the Helots. If any be dangerous,
we mark him for the knife. One of them had thrice been a ringleader
in revolt. He was wary as well as fierce. He had escaped in three
succeeding crypteias. To me, as one of the Heraclidae, was assigned
the honour of tracking and destroying him. For three days and three
nights I dogged his footsteps, (for he had caught the scent of the
pursuers and fled,) through forest and defile, through valley and crag,
stealthily and relentlessly. I followed him close. At last, one evening,
having lost sight of all my comrades, I came suddenly upon him as I
emerged from a wood. It was a broad patch of waste land, through which
rushed a stream swollen by the rains, and plunging with a sullen roar
down a deep and gloomy precipice, that to the right and left bounded the
waste, the stream in front, the wood in the rear. He was reclining by
the stream, at which, with the hollow of his hand, he quenched his
thirst. I paused to gaze upon him, and as I did so he turned and saw
me. He rose, and fixed his eyes on mine, and we examined each other in
silence. The Helots are rarely of tall stature, but this was a giant.
His dress, that of his tribe, of rude sheep-skins, and his cap
made from the hide of a dog increased the savage rudeness of his
appearance. I rejoiced that he saw me, and that, as we were alone, I
might fight him fairly. It would have been terrible to slay the wretch
if I had caught him in his sleep."

"Proceed," said Gongylus, with interest, for so little was known of
Sparta by the rest of the Greeks, especially outside the Peloponnesus,
that these details gratified his natural spirit of gossiping
inquisitiveness.

"'Stand!' said I, and he moved not. I approached him slowly. 'Thou art
a Spartan,' said he, in a deep and harsh voice, 'and thou comest for
my blood. Go, boy, go, thou art not mellowed to thy prime, and thy
comrades are far away. The shears of the Fatal deities hover over the
thread not of my life but of thine.' I was struck, Gongylus, by
this address, for it was neither desperate nor dastardly, as I had
anticipated; nevertheless, it beseemed not a Spartan to fly from a
Helot, and I drew the sword which my mother had girded on. The Helot
watched my movements, and seized a rude and knotted club that lay on
the ground beside him.

"'Wretch,' said I, 'darest thou attack face to face a descendant of
the Heraclidae? In me behold Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus.'

"'Be it so; in the city one is the god-born, the other the
man-enslaved. On the mountains we are equals.'

"'Knowest thou not,' said I, 'that if the Gods condemned me to die
by thy hand, not only thou, but thy whole house, thy wife and thy
children, would be sacrificed to my ghost?"

"'The earth can hide the Spartan's bones as secretly as the Helot's,'
answered my strange foe. 'Begone, young and unfleshed in slaughter as
you are; why make war upon me? My death can give you neither gold nor
glory. I have never harmed thee or thine. How much of the air and sun
does this form take from the descendant of the Heraclidae?'

"'Thrice hast thou raised revolt among the Helots, thrice at thy voice
have they risen in bloody, though fruitless, strife against their
masters.'

"'Not at my voice, but at that of the two deities who are the war-gods
of slaves--Persecution and Despair.'[13] "Impatient of this parley, I
tarried no longer. I sprang upon the Helot. He evaded my sword, and
I soon found that all my agility and skill were requisite to save me
from the massive weapon, one blow of which would have sufficed
to crush me. But the Helot seemed to stand on the defensive, and
continued to back towards the wood from which I had emerged. Fearful
lest he would escape me, I pressed hard on his footsteps. My blood
grew warm; my fury got the better of my prudence. My foot stumbled;
I recovered in an instant, and, looking up, beheld the terrible club
suspended over my head; it might have fallen, but the stroke of death
was withheld. I misinterpreted the merciful delay; the lifted arm left
the body of my enemy exposed. I struck him on the side; the thick hide
blunted the stroke, but it drew blood. Afraid to draw back within
the reach of his weapon, I threw myself on him, and grappled to
his throat. We rolled on the earth together; it was but a moment's
struggle. Strong as I was even in boyhood, the Helot would have been
a match for Alcides. A shade passed over my eyes; my breath heaved
short. The slave was kneeling on my breast, and, dropping the club, he
drew a short knife from his girdle. I gazed upon him grim and mute. I
was conquered, and I cared not for the rest.

"The blood from his side, as he bent over me, trickled down upon my
face. "'And this blood,' said the Helot, 'you shed in the very moment
when I spared your life; such is the honour of a Spartan. Do you not
deserve to die?'

"'Yes, for I am subdued, and by a slave. Strike!'

"'There,' said the Helot in a melancholy and altered tone, 'there
speaks the soul of the Dorian, the fatal spirit to which the Gods have
rendered up our wretched race. We are doomed--doomed--and one victim
will not expiate our curse. Rise, return to Sparta, and forget that
thou art innocent of murder.'

"He lifted his knee from my breast, and I rose, ashamed and humbled.

"At that instant I heard the crashing of the leaves in the wood, for
the air was exceedingly still. I knew that my companions were at hand.
'Fly,' I cried; 'fly. If they come I cannot save thee, royal though I
be. Fly.'

"'And _wouldest_ thou save me!' said the Helot in surprise.

"'Ay, with my own life. Canst thou doubt it? Lose not a moment. Fly.
Yet stay;' and I tore off a part of the woollen vest that I wore.
'Place this at thy side; staunch the blood, that it may not track
thee. Now begone!'

"The Helot looked hard at me, and I thought there were tears in his
rude eyes; then catching up the club with as much ease as I this
staff, he sped with inconceivable rapidity, despite his wound, towards
the precipice on the right, and disappeared amidst the thick brambles
that clothed the gorge. In a few moments three of my companions
approached. They found me exhausted, and panting rather with
excitement than fatigue. Their quick eyes detected the blood upon the
ground. I gave them no time to pause and examine. 'He has escaped
me--he has fled,' I cried; 'follow,' and I led them to the opposite
part of the precipice from that which the Helot had taken. Heading the
search, I pretended to catch a glimpse of the goatskin ever and anon
through the trees, and I stayed not the pursuit till night grew dark,
and I judged the victim was far away."

"And he escaped?"

"He did. The crypteia ended. Three other Helots were slain, but not
by me. We returned to Sparta, and my mother was comforted for my
misfortune in not having slain my foe by seeing the stains on my
grandsire's sword, I will tell thee a secret, Gongylus"--(and here
Pausanias lowered his voice, and looked anxiously toward him)---"since
that day I have not hated the Helot race. Nay, it may be that I have
loved them better than the Dorian."

"I do not wonder at it; but has not your wounded giant yet met with
his death?"

"No, I never related what had passed between us to any one save
my father. He was gentle for a Spartan, and he rested not till
Gylippus--so was the Helot named--obtained exemption from the black
list. He dared not, however, attribute his intercession to the true
cause. It happened, fortunately, that Gylippus was related to my own
foster-brother, Alcman, brother to my nurse; and Alcman is celebrated
in Sparta, not only for courage in war, but for arts in peace. He is
a poet, and his strains please the Dorian ear, for they are stern and
simple, and they breathe of war. Alcman's merits won forgiveness for
the offences of Gylippus. May the Gods be kind to his race!"

"Your Alcman seems one of no common intelligence, and your gentleness
to him does not astonish me, though it seems often to raise a frown on
the brows of your Spartans."

"We have lain on the same bosom," said Pausanias touchingly, "and
his mother was kinder to me than my own. You must know that to those
Helots who have been our foster-brothers, and whom we distinguish by
the name of Mothons, our stern law relaxes. They have no rights
of citizenship, it is true, but they cease to be slaves;[14] nay,
sometimes they attain not only to entire emancipation, but to
distinction. Alcman has bound his fate to mine. But to return,
Gongylus. I tell thee that it is not thy descriptions of pomp and
dominion that allure me, though I am not above the love of power,
neither is it thy glowing promises, though blood too wild for a Dorian
runs riot in my veins; but it is my deep loathing, my inexpressible
disgust for Sparta and her laws, my horror at the thought of wearing
away life in those sullen customs, amid that joyless round of tyrannic
duties, in my rapture at the hope of escape, of life in a land which
the eye of the Ephor never pierces; this it is, and this alone, O
Persian, that makes me (the words must out) a traitor to my country,
one who dreams of becoming a dependent on her foe."

"Nay," said Gongylus eagerly; for here Pausanias moved uneasily,
and the colour mounted to his brow. "Nay, speak not of dependence.
Consider the proposals that you can alone condescend to offer to
the great king. Can the conqueror of Plataea, with millions for his
subjects, hold himself dependent, even on the sovereign of the East?
How, hereafter, will the memories of our sterile Greece and your
rocky Sparta fade from your mind: or be remembered only as a state of
thraldom and bondage, which your riper manhood has outgrown!"

"I will try to think so, at least," said Pausanias gloomily. "And,
come what may, I am not one to recede. I have thrown my shield into
a fearful peril; but I will win it back or perish. Enough of this,
Gongylus. Night advances. I will attend the appointment you have made.
Take the boat, and within an hour I will meet you with the prisoners
at the spot agreed on, near the Temple of Aphrodite. All things are
prepared?"

"All," said Gongylus, rising, with a gleam of malignant joy on his
dark face. "I leave thee, kingly slave of the rocky Sparta, to prepare
the way for thee, as Satrap of half the East."

So saying he quitted the awning, and motioned three Egyptian sailors
who lay on the deck without. A boat was lowered, and the sound of its
oars woke Pausanias from the reverie into which the parting words of
the Eretrian had plunged his mind.

Notes:

[11] Plat. Leg. i. p. 633. See also Mueller's Dorians, vol. ii. p. 41.

[12] Pueros puberos--neque prius in urbem redire quam viri facti
essent.--Justin, iii. 3.

[13] When Themistocles sought to extort tribute from the Andrians, he
said, "I bring with me two powerful gods--Persuasion and Force."
"And on our side," was the answer, "are two deities not less
powerful--Poverty and Despair!"

[14] The appellation of Mothons was not confined to the Helots who
claimed the connection of foster-brothers, but was given also to
household slaves.

CHAPTER III

With a slow and thoughtful step, Pausanias passed on to the outer
deck. The moon was up, and the vessel scarcely seemed to stir, so
gently did it glide along the sparkling waters. They were still within
the bay, and the shores rose, white and distinct, to his view. A group
of Spartans, reclining by the side of the ship, were gazing listlessly
on the waters. The Regent paused beside them.

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