Pausanias, the Spartan by Lord Lytton

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"Ye weary of the ocean, methinks," said he. "We Dorians have not the
merchant tastes of the Ionians."[15]

"Son of Cleombrotus," said one of the group, a Spartan whose rank
and services entitled him to more than ordinary familiarity with the
chief, "it is not the ocean itself that we should dread, it is the
contagion of those who, living on the element, seem to share in its
ebb and flow. The Ionians are never three hours in the same mind."

"For that reason," said Pausanias, fixing his eyes steadfastly on the
Spartan, "for that reason I have judged it advisable to adopt a rough
manner with these innovators, to draw with a broad chalk the line
between them and the Spartans, and to teach those who never knew
discipline the stern duties of obedience. Think you I have done
wisely?"

The Spartan, who had risen when Pausanias addressed him, drew his
chief a little aside from the rest.

"Pausanias," said he, "the hard Naxian stone best tames and tempers
the fine steel;[16] but the steel may break if the workman be not
skilful. These Athenians are grown insolent since Marathon, and their
soft kindred of Asia have relighted the fires they took of old from
the Cecropian Prytaneum. Their sail is more numerous than ours; on the
sea they find the courage they lose on land. Better be gentle with
those wayward allies, for the Spartan greyhound shows not his teeth
but to bite."

"Perhaps you are right. I will consider these things, and appease the
mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals
of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy
themselves in perpetual holidays?--spend days at the banquet?--ransack
earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?--and shall they be the
equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are
wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well
have no fear of death? I hate these sleek and merry feast-givers; they
are a perpetual insult to our solemn existence."

There was a strange mixture of irony and passion in the Spartan's
voice as he thus spoke, and Thrasyllus looked at him in grave
surprise.

"There is nothing to envy in the woman-like debaucheries of the
Ionian," said he, after a pause.

"Envy! no; we only hate them, Thrasyllus Yon Eretrian tells me rare
things of the East. Time may come when we shall sup on the black broth
in Susa."

"The Gods forbid! Sparta never invades. Life with us is too precious,
for we are few. Pausanias, I would we were well quit of Byzantium. I
do not suspect you, not I; but there are those who look with vexed
eyes on those garments, and I, who love you, fear the sharp jealousies
of the Ephors, to whose ears the birds carry all tidings."

"My poor Thrasyllus," said Pausanias, laughing scornfully, "think you
that I wear these robes, or mimic the Median manners, for love of the
Mede? No, no! But there are arts which save countries as well as those
of war. This Gongylus is in the confidence of Xerxes. I desire to
establish a peace for Greece upon everlasting foundations. Reflect;
Persia hath millions yet left. Another invasion may find a different
fortune; and even at the best, Sparta gains nothing by these wars.
Athens triumphs, not Lacedaemon. I would, I say, establish a peace
with Persia. I would that Sparta, not Athens, should have that honour.
Hence these flatteries to the Persian--trivial to us who render
them, sweet and powerful to those who receive. Remember these words
hereafter, if the Ephors make question of my discretion. And now,
Thrasyllus, return to our friends, and satisfy them as to the conduct
of Pausanias." Quitting Thrasyllus, the Regent now joined a young
Spartan who stood alone by the prow in a musing attitude.

"Lysander, my friend, my only friend, my best-loved Lysander," said
Pausanias, placing his hand on the Spartan's shoulder. "And why so
sad?"

"How many leagues are we from Sparta?" answered Lysander mournfully.

"And canst thou sigh for the black broth, my friend? Come, how often
hast thou said, 'Where Pausanias is, _there_ is Sparta!'"

"Forgive me, I am ungrateful," said Lysander with warmth. "My
benefactor, my guardian, my hero, forgive me if I have added to your
own countless causes of anxiety. Wherever you are there is life, and
there glory. When I was just born, sickly and feeble, I was exposed
on Taygetus. You, then a boy, heard my faint cry, and took on me that
compassion which my parents had forsworn. You bore me to your father's
roof, you interceded for my life. You prevailed even on your stern
mother. I was saved; and the Gods smiled upon the infant whom the son
of the humane Hercules protected. I grew up strong and hardy, and
belied the signs of my birth. My parents then owned me; but still
you were my fosterer, my saviour, my more than father. As I grew up,
placed under your care, I imbibed my first lessons of war. By your
side I fought, and from your example I won glory. Yes, Pausanias, even
here, amidst luxuries which revolt me more than the Parthian bow and
the Persian sword, even amidst the faces of the stranger, I still feel
thy presence my home, thyself my Sparta."

The proud Pausanias was touched, and his voice trembled as he replied,
"Brother in arms and in love, whatever service fate may have allowed
me to render unto thee, thy high nature and thy cheering affection
have more than paid me back. Often in our lonely rambles amidst the
dark oaks of the sacred Scotitas,[17] or by the wayward waters of
Tiasa,[18] when I have poured into thy faithful breast my impatient
loathing, my ineffable distaste for the iron life, the countless and
wearisome tyrannies of custom which surround the Spartans, often have
I found a consoling refuge in thy divine contentment, thy cheerful
wisdom. Thou lovest Sparta; why is she not worthier of thy love?
Allowed only to be half men, in war we are demigods, in peace, slaves.
Thou wouldst interrupt me. Be silent. I am in a wilful mood; thou
canst not comprehend me, and I often marvel at thee. Still we are
friends, such friends as the Dorian discipline, which makes friendship
necessary in order to endure life, alone can form. Come, take up thy
staff and mantle. Thou shalt be my companion ashore. I seek one whom
alone in the world I love better than thee. To-morrow to stern duties
once more. Alcman shall row us across the bay, and as we glide along,
if thou wilt praise Sparta, I will listen to thee as the Ionians
listen to their tale-tellers. Ho! Alcman, stop the rowers, and lower
the boat."

The orders were obeyed, and a second boat soon darted towards the
same part of the bay as that to which the one that bore Gongylus had
directed its course. Thrasyllus and his companions watched the boat
that bore Pausanias and his two comrades, as it bounded, arrow-like,
over the glassy sea.

"Whither goes Pausanias?" asked one of the Spartans.

"Back to Byzantium on business," replied Thrasyllus.

"And we?"

"Are to cruise in the bay till his return.

"Pausanias is changed."

"Sparta will restore him to what he was. Nothing thrives out of
Sparta. Even man spoils."

"True, sleep is the sole constant friend the same in all climates."

Notes:

[15] No Spartan served as a sailor, or indeed condescended to any trade
or calling, but that of war.

[16] Pind. Isth. v. (vi.) 73.

[17] Paus. Lac. x.

[18] _Ib_., c. xviii.

CHAPTER IV

On the shore to the right of the port of Byzantium were at that time
thickly scattered the villas or suburban retreats of the wealthier and
more luxurious citizens. Byzantium was originally colonized by the
Megarians, a Dorian race kindred with that of Sparta; and the old
features of the pure and antique Hellas were still preserved in
the dialect,[19] as well as in the forms of the descendants of the
colonists; in their favourite deities, and rites, and traditions; even
in the names of places, transferred from the sterile Megara to that
fertile coast; in the rigid and helot-like slavery to which the native
Bithynians were subjected, and in the attachment of their masters to
the oligarchic principles of government. Nor was it till long after
the present date, that democracy in its most corrupt and licentious
form was introduced amongst them. But like all the Dorian colonies,
when once they departed from the severe and masculine mode of life
inherited from their ancestors, the reaction was rapid, the degeneracy
complete. Even then the Byzantines, intermingled with the foreign
merchants and traders that thronged their haven, and womanized by the
soft contagion of the East, were voluptuous, timid, and prone to every
excess save that of valour. The higher class were exceedingly wealthy,
and gave to their vices or their pleasures a splendour and refinement
of which the elder states of Greece were as yet unconscious. At a
later period, indeed, we are informed that the Byzantine citizens
had their habitual residence in the public hostels, and let their
houses--not even taking the trouble to remove their wives--to the
strangers who crowded their gay capital. And when their general found
it necessary to demand their aid on the ramparts, he could only secure
their attendance by ordering the taverns and cookshops to be removed
to the place of duty. Not yet so far sunk in sloth and debauch, the
Byzantines were nevertheless hosts eminently dangerous to the austerer
manners of their Greek visitors. The people, the women, the delicious
wine, the balm of the subduing climate served to tempt the senses
and relax the mind. Like all the Dorians, when freed from primitive
restraint, the higher class, that is, the descendants of the
colonists, were in themselves an agreeable, jovial race. They had that
strong bias to humour, to jest, to satire, which in their ancestral
Megara gave birth to the Grecian comedy, and which lurked even beneath
the pithy aphorisms and rude merry-makings of the severe Spartan.

Such were the people with whom of late Pausanias had familiarly mixed,
and with whose manners he contrasted, far too favourably for his
honour and his peace, the habits of his countrymen.

It was in one of the villas we have described, the favourite abode
of the rich Diagoras, and in an apartment connected with those more
private recesses of the house appropriated to the females, that two
persons were seated by a window which commanded a wide view of the
glittering sea below. One of these was an old man in a long robe that
reached to his feet, with a bald head and a beard in which some dark
hairs yet withstood the encroachments of the grey. In his well-cut
features and large eyes were remains of the beauty that characterised
his race; but the mouth was full and wide, the forehead low though
broad, the cheeks swollen, the chin double, and the whole form
corpulent and unwieldy. Still there was a jolly, sleek good humour
about the aspect of the man that prepossessed you in his favour. This
personage, who was no less than Diagoras himself, was reclining lazily
upon a kind of narrow sofa cunningly inlaid with ivory, and studying
new combinations in that scientific game which Palamedes is said to
have invented at the siege of Troy.

His companion was of a very different appearance. She was a girl who
to the eye of a northern stranger might have seemed about eighteen,
though she was probably much younger, of a countenance so remarkable
for intelligence that it was easy to see that her mind had outgrown
her years. Beautiful she certainly was, yet scarcely of that beauty
from which the Greek sculptor would have drawn his models. The
features were not strictly regular, and yet so harmoniously did each
blend with each, that to have amended one would have spoilt the whole.
There was in the fulness and depth of the large but genial eye, with
its sweeping fringe, and straight, slightly chiselled brow, more of
Asia than of Greece. The lips, of the freshest red, were somewhat
full and pouting, and dimples without number lay scattered round
them--lurking places for the loves. Her complexion was clear though
dark, and the purest and most virgin bloom mantled, now paler now
richer, through the soft surface. At the time we speak of she was
leaning against the open door with her arms crossed on her bosom, and
her face turned towards the Byzantine. Her robe, of a deep yellow, so
trying to the fair women of the North, became well the glowing colours
of her beauty--the damask cheek, the purple hair. Like those of the
Ionians, the sleeves of the robe, long and loose, descended to her
hands, which were marvellously small and delicate. Long earrings,
which terminated in a kind of berry, studded with precious stones,
then common only with the women of the East; a broad collar,
or necklace, of the smaragdus or emerald; and large clasps,
medallion-like, where the swan-like throat joined the graceful
shoulder, gave to her dress an appearance of opulence and splendour
that betokened how much the ladies of Byzantium had borrowed from the
fashions of the Oriental world. Nothing could exceed the lightness of
her form, rounded, it is true, but slight and girlish, and the high
instep, with the slender foot, so well set off by the embroidered
sandal, would have suited such dances as those in which the huntress
nymphs of Delos moved around Diana. The natural expression of her
face, if countenance so mobile and changeful had one expression more
predominant than another, appeared to be irresistibly arch and joyous,
as of one full of youth and conscious of her beauty; yet, if a cloud
came over the face, nothing could equal the thoughtful and deep
sadness of the dark abstracted eyes, as if some touch of higher and
more animated emotion--such as belongs to pride, or courage, or
intellect--vibrated on the heart. The colour rose, the form dilated,
the lip quivered, the eye flashed light, and the mirthful expression
heightened almost into the sublime. Yet, lovely as Cleonice was deemed
at Byzantium, lovelier still as she would have appeared in modern
eyes, she failed in what the Greeks generally, but especially the
Spartans, deemed an essential of beauty--in height of stature.
Accustomed to look upon the virgin but as the future mother of a race
of warriors, the Spartans saw beauty only in those proportions which
promised a robust and stately progeny, and the reader may remember
the well-known story of the opprobrious reproaches, even, it is said,
accompanied with stripes, which the Ephors addressed to a Spartan king
for presuming to make choice of a wife below the ordinary stature.
Cleonice was small and delicate, rather like the Peri of the Persian
than the sturdy Grace of the Dorian. But her beauty was her least
charm. She had all that feminine fascination of manner, wayward,
varying, inexpressible, yet irresistible, which seizes hold of the
imagination as well as the senses, and which has so often made willing
slaves of the proud rulers of the world. In fact Cleonice, the
daughter of Diagoras, had enjoyed those advantages of womanly
education wholly unknown at that time to the freeborn ladies of Greece
proper, but which gave to the women of some of the isles and Ionian
cities their celebrity in ancient story. Her mother was of Miletus,
famed for the intellectual cultivation of the sex, no less than for
their beauty--of Miletus, the birthplace of Aspasia--of Miletus,
from which those remarkable women who, under the name of Hetaerae,
exercised afterwards so signal an influence over the mind and manners
of Athens, chiefly derived their origin, and who seem to have inspired
an affection, which in depth, constancy, and fervour, approached to
the more chivalrous passion of the North. Such an education consisted
not only in the feminine and household arts honoured universally
throughout Greece, but in a kind of spontaneous and luxuriant
cultivation of all that captivates the fancy and enlivens the leisure.
If there were something pedantic in their affectation of philosophy,
it was so graced and vivified by a brilliancy of conversation, a charm
of manner carried almost to a science, a womanly facility of softening
all that comes within their circle, of suiting yet refining each
complexity and discord of character admitted to their intercourse,
that it had at least nothing masculine or harsh. Wisdom, taken lightly
or easily, seemed but another shape of poetry. The matrons of Athens,
who could often neither read nor write--ignorant, vain, tawdry, and
not always faithful, if we may trust to such scandal as has reached
the modern time--must have seemed insipid beside these brilliant
strangers; and while certainly wanting their power to retain love,
must have had but a doubtful superiority in the qualifications that
ensure esteem. But we are not to suppose that the Hetaerae (that
mysterious and important class peculiar to a certain state of society,
and whose appellation we cannot render by any proper word in modern
language) monopolized all the graces of their countrywomen. In the
same cities were many of unblemished virtue and repute who possessed
equal cultivation and attraction, but whom a more decorous life has
concealed from the equivocal admiration of posterity; though the
numerous female disciples of Pythagoras throw some light on their
capacity and intellect. Among such as these had been the mother of
Cleonice, not long since dead, and her daughter inherited and equalled
her accomplishments, while her virgin youth, her inborn playfulness
of manner, her pure guilelessness, which the secluded habits of the
unmarried women at Byzantium preserved from all contagion, gave to
qualities and gifts so little published abroad, the effect as it were
of a happy and wondrous inspiration rather than of elaborate culture.

Such was the fair creature whom Diagoras, looking up from his pastime,
thus addressed:--

"And so, perverse one, thou canst not love this great hero, a proper
person truly, and a mighty warrior, who will eat you an army of
Persians at a meal. These Spartan fighting-cocks want no garlic, I
warrant you.[20] And yet you can't love him, you little rogue."

"Why, my father," said Cleonice, with an arch smile, and a slight
blush, "even if I did look kindly on Pausanias, would it not be to my
own sorrow? What Spartan--above all, what royal Spartan--may marry
with a foreigner, and a Byzantine?"

"I did not precisely talk of marriage--a very happy state, doubtless,
to those who dislike too quiet a life, and a very honourable one, for
war is honor itself; but I did not speak of that, Cleonice. I would
only say that this man of might loves thee--that he is rich, rich,
rich. Pretty pickings at Plataea; and we have known losses, my child,
sad losses. And if you do not love him, why, you can but smile and
talk as if you did, and when the Spartan goes home, you will lose a
tormenter and gain a dowry."

"My father, for shame!"

"Who talks of shame? You women are always so sharp at finding oracles
in oak leaves, that one don't wonder Apollo makes choice of your sex
for his priests. But listen to me, girl, seriously," and here Diagoras
with a great effort raised himself on his elbow, and lowering his
voice, spoke with evident earnestness. "Pausanias has life and death,
and, what is worse, wealth or poverty in his hands; he can raise or
ruin us with a nod of his head, this black-curled Jupiter. They tell
me that he is fierce, irascible, haughty; and what slighted lover is
not revengeful? For my sake, Cleonice, for your poor father's sake,
show no scorn, no repugnance; be gentle, play with him, draw not down
the thunderbolt, even if you turn from the golden shower."

While Diagoras spoke, the girl listened with downcast eyes and flushed
cheeks, and there was an expression of such shame and sadness on her
countenance, that even the Byzantine, pausing and looking up for a
reply, was startled by it.

"My child," said he, hesitatingly and absorbed, "do not misconceive
me. Cursed be the hour when the Spartan saw thee; but since the Fates
have so served us, let us not make bad worse. I love thee, Cleonice,
more dearly than the apple of my eye; it is for _thee_ I fear, for
thee I speak. Alas! it is not dishonour I recommend, it is force I
would shun."

"Force!" said the girl, drawing up her form with sudden animation.
"Fear not that. It is not Pausanias I dread, it is--"

"What then?"

"No matter; talk of this no more. Shall I sing to thee?"

"But Pausanias will visit us this very night."

"I know it. Hark!" and with her finger to her lip, her ear bent
downward, her cheek varying from pale to red, from red to pale, the
maiden stole beyond the window to a kind of platform or terrace that
overhung the sea. There, the faint breeze stirring her long hair, and
the moonlight full upon her face, she stood, as stood that immortal
priestess who looked along the starry Hellespont for the young
Leander; and her ear had not deceived her. The oars were dashing in
the wave's below, and dark and rapid the boat bounded on towards the
rocky shore. She gazed long and steadfastly on the dim and shadowy
forms which that slender raft contained, and her eye detected amongst
the three the loftier form of her haughty wooer. Presently the thick
foliage that clothed the descent shut the boat, nearing the strand,
from her view; but she now heard below, mellowed and softened in the
still and fragrant air, the sound of the cithara and the melodious
song of the Mothon, thus imperfectly rendered from the language of
immortal melody.

SONG.

Carry a sword in the myrtle bough,
Ye who would honour the tyrant-slayer;
I, in the leaves of the myrtle bough,
Carry a tyrant to slay myself.

I pluck'd the branch with a hasty hand,
But Love was lurking amidst the leaves;
His bow is bent and his shaft is poised,
And I must perish or pass the bough.

Maiden, I come with a gift to thee,
Maiden, I come with a myrtle wreath;
Over thy forehead, or round thy breast
Bind, I implore thee, my myrtle wreath.[21]

From hand to hand by the banquet lights
On with the myrtle bough passes song:
From hand to hand by the silent stars
What with the myrtle wreath passes? Love.

I bear the god in a myrtle wreath,
Under the stars let him pass to thee;
Empty his quiver and bind his wings,
Then pass the myrtle wreath back to me.

Cleonice listened breathlessly to the words, and sighed heavily as
they ceased. Then, as the foliage rustled below, she turned quickly
into the chamber and seated herself at a little distance from
Diagoras; to all appearance calm, indifferent and composed. Was it
nature, or the arts of Miletus, that taught the young beauty the
hereditary artifices of the sex?

"So it is he, then?" said Diagoras, with a fidgety and nervous
trepidation. "Well, he chooses strange hours to visit us. But he
is right; his visits cannot be too private. Cleonice, you look
provokingly at your ease."

Cleonice made no reply, but shifted her position so that the light
from the lamp did not fall upon her face, while her father, hurrying
to the threshold of his hall to receive his illustrious visitor, soon
re-appeared with the Spartan Regent, talking as he entered with the
volubility of one of the parasites of Alciphron and Athenaeus.

"This is most kind, most affable. Cleonice said you would come,
Pausanias, though I began to distrust you. The hours seem long to
those who expect pleasure."

"And, Cleonice, _you_ knew that I should come," said Pausanias,
approaching the fair Byzantine; but his step was timid, and there was
no pride now in his anxious eye and bended brow.

"You said you would come to-night," said Cleonice, calmly, "and
Spartans, according to proverbs, speak the truth."

"When it is to their advantage, yes,"[22]said but with respect to
others, they consider honourable whatever pleases them, and just
whatever is to their advantage."

Pausanias, with a slight curl of his lips; and, as if the girl's
compliment to his countrymen had roused his spleen and changed his
thoughts, he seated himself moodily by Cleonice, and remained silent.

The Byzantine stole an arch glance at the Spartan, as he thus sat,
from the corner of her eyes, and said, after a pause--

"You Spartans ought to speak the truth more than other people, for you
say much less. We too have our proverb at Byzantium, and one which
implies that it requires some wit to tell fibs."

"Child, child!" exclaimed Diagoras, holding up his hand reprovingly,
and directing a terrified look at the Spartan. To his great relief,
Pausanias smiled, and replied--

"Fair maiden, we Dorians are said to have a wit peculiar to ourselves,
but I confess that it is of a nature that is but little attractive to
your sex. The Athenians are blander wooers."

"Do you ever attempt to woo in Lacedaemon, then? Ah, but the maidens
there, perhaps, are not difficult to please."

"The girl puts me in a cold sweat!" muttered Diagoras, wiping his
brow. And this time Pausanias did not smile; he coloured, and answered
gravely--

"And is it, then, a vain hope for a Spartan to please a Byzantine?"

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