Pausanias, the Spartan by Lord Lytton

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"You puzzle me. That is an enigma; put it to the oracle."

The Spartan raised his eyes towards Cleonice, and, as she saw the
inquiring, perplexed look that his features assumed, the ruby lips
broke into so wicked a smile, and the eyes that met his had so much
laughter in them, that Pausanias was fairly bewitched out of his own
displeasure.

"Ah, cruel one!" said he, lowering his voice, "I am not so proud of
being Spartan that the thought should console me for thy mockery."

"Not proud of being Spartan! say not so," exclaimed Cleonice. "Who
ever speaks of Greece and places not Sparta at her head? Who ever
speaks of freedom and forgets Thermopylae? Who ever burns for glory,
and sighs not for the fame of Pausanias and Plataea? Ah, yes, even in
jest say not that you are not proud to be a Spartan!"

"The little fool!" cried Diagoras, chuckling, and mightily delighted;
"she is quite mad about Sparta--no wonder!"

Pausanias, surprised and moved by the burst of the fair Byzantine,
gazed at her admiringly, and thought within himself how harshly the
same sentiment would have sounded on the lips of a tall Spartan
virgin; but when Cleonice heard the approving interlocution of
Diagoras, her enthusiasm vanished from her face, and putting out her
lips poutingly, she said, "Nay, father, I repeat only what others say
of the Spartans. They are admirable heroes; but from the little I have
seen, they are--"

"What?" said Pausanias eagerly, and leaning nearer to Cleonice.

"Proud, dictatorial, and stern as companions."

Pausanias once more drew back.

"There it is again!" groaned Diagoras. "I feel exactly as if I were
playing at odd and even with a lion; she does it to vex me. I shall
retaliate and creep away."

"Cleonice," said Pausanias, with suppressed emotion, "you trifle with
me, and I bear it."

"You are condescending. How would you avenge yourself?"

"How!"

"You would not beat me; you would not make me bear an anchor on the
shoulders, as they say you do your soldiers. Shame on you! _you_ bear
with me! true, what help for you?"

"Maiden," said the Spartan, rising in great anger, "for him who loves
and is slighted there is a revenge you have not mentioned."

"For him who _loves!_ No, Spartan; for him who shuns disgrace and
courts the fame dear to gods and men, there is no revenge upon women.
Blush for your threat."

"You madden, but subdue me," said the Spartan as he turned away. He
then first perceived that Diagoras had gone--that they were alone.
His contempt for the father awoke suspicion of the daughter. Again he
approached and said, "Cleonice, I know but little of the fables of
poets, yet is it an old maxim often sung and ever belied, that love
scorned becomes hate. There are moments when I think I hate thee."

"And yet thou hast never loved me," said Cleonice; and there was
something soft and tender in the tone of her voice, and the rough
Spartan was again subdued.

"I never loved thee! What, then, is love? Is not thine image always
before me?--amidst schemes, amidst perils of which thy very dreams
have never presented equal perplexity or phantoms so uncertain, I am
occupied but with thee. Surely, as upon the hyacinth is written the
exclamation of woe, so on this heart is graven thy name. Cleonice, you
who know not what it is to love, you affect to deny or to question
mine."

"And what," said Cleonice, blushing deeply, and with tears in her
eyes, "what result can come from such a love? You may not wed with
the stranger. And yet, Pausanias, yet you know that all other love
dishonours the virgin even of Byzantium. You are silent; you turn
away. Ah, do not let them wrong you. My father fears your power. If
you love me you are powerless; your power has passed to me. Is it not
so? I, a weak girl, can rule, command, irritate, mock you, if I will.
You may fly me, but not control."

"Do not tempt me too far, Cleonice," said the Spartan, with a faint
smile.

"Nay, I will be merciful henceforth, and you, Pausanias, come here
no more. Awake to the true sense of what is due to your divine
ancestry--your great name. Is it not told of you that, after the
fall of Mardonius, you nobly dismissed to her country, unscathed and
honoured, the captive Coan lady?[23] Will you reverse at Byzantium
the fame acquired at Plataea? Pausanias, spare us; appeal not to my
father's fear, still less to his love of gold."

"I cannot, I cannot fly thee," said the Spartan, with great emotion.
"You know not how stormy, how inexorable are the passions which
burst forth after a whole youth of restraint. When nature breaks the
barriers, she rushes headlong on her course. I am no gentle wooer;
where in Sparta should I learn the art? But, if I love thee not as
these mincing Ionians, who come with offerings of flowers and song,
I do love thee with all that fervour of which the old Dorian legends
tell. I could brave, like the Thracian, the dark gates of Hades, were
thy embrace my reward. Command me as thou wilt--make me thy slave in
all things, even as Hercules was to Omphale; but tell me only that I
may win thy love at last. Fear not. Why fear me? in my wildest moments
a look from thee can control me. I ask but love for love. Without thy
love thy beauty were valueless. Bid me not despair."

Cleonice turned pale, and the large tears that had gathered in her
eyes fell slowly down her cheeks; but she did not withdraw her hand
from his clasp, or avert her countenance from his eyes.

"I do not fear thee," said she, in a very low voice. "I told my father
so; but--but--" (and here she drew back her hand and averted her
face), "I fear myself."

"Ah, no, no," cried the delighted Spartan, detaining her, "do not fear
to trust to thine own heart. Talk not of dishonour. There are"
(and here the Spartan drew himself up, and his voice took a deeper
swell)--"there are those on earth who hold themselves above the
miserable judgments of the vulgar herd--who can emancipate themselves
from those galling chains of custom and of country which helotize
affection, genius, nature herself. What is dishonour here may be glory
elsewhere; and this hand, outstretched towards a mightier sceptre than
Greek ever wielded yet, may dispense, not shame and sorrow, but glory
and golden affluence to those I love."

"You amaze me, Pausanias. _Now_ I fear you. What mean these mysterious
boasts? Have you the dark ambition to restore in your own person that
race of tyrants whom your country hath helped to sweep away? Can you
hope to change the laws of Sparta, and reign there, your will the
state?"

"Cleonice, we touch upon matters that should not disturb the ears of
women. Forgive me if I have been roused from myself."

"At Miletus--so have I heard my mother say--there were women worthy to
be the confidants of men."

"But they were women who loved. Cleonice, I should rejoice in an hour
when I might pour every thought into thy bosom."

At this moment there was heard on the strand below a single note from
the Mothon's instrument, low, but prolonged; it ceased, and was again
renewed. The royal conspirator started and breathed hard.

"It is the signal," he muttered; "they wait me. Cleonice," he said
aloud, and with much earnestness in his voice, "I had hoped, ere we
parted, to have drawn from your lips those assurances which would give
me energy for the present and hope in the future. Ah, turn not from me
because my speech is plain and my manner rugged. What, Cleonice, what
if I could defy the laws of Sparta; what if, instead of that gloomy
soil, I could bear thee to lands where heaven and man alike smile
benignant on love? Might I not hope then?"

"Do nothing to sully your fame."

"Is it, then, dear to thee?"

"It is a part of thee," said Cleonice falteringly; and as if she had
said too much, she covered her face with her hands.

Emboldened by this emotion, the Spartan gave way to his passion and
his joy. He clasped her in his arms--his first embrace--and kissed,
with wild fervour, the crimsoned forehead, the veiling hands. Then,
as he tore himself away, he cast his right arm aloft.

"O Hercules!" he cried, in solemn and kindling adjuration, "my
ancestor and my divine guardian, it was not by confining thy labours
to one spot of earth, that thou wert borne from thy throne of fire to
the seats of the Gods. Like thee I will spread the influence of my
arms to nations whoso glory shall be my name; and as thy sons, my
fathers, expelled from Sparta, returned thither with sword and spear
to defeat usurpers and to found the long dynasty of the Heracleids,
even so may it be mine to visit that dread abode of torturers and
spies, and to build up in the halls of the Atridae a power worthier of
the lineage of the demigod. Again the signal! Fear not, Cleonice, I
will not tarnish my fame, but I will exchange the envy of abhorring
rivals for the obedience of a world. One kiss more! Farewell!"

Ere Cleonice recovered herself, Pausanias was gone, his wild and
uncomprehended boasts still ringing in her ear. She sighed heavily,
and turned towards the opening that admitted to the terraces. There
she stood watching for the parting of her lover's boat. It was
midnight; the air, laden with the perfumes of a thousand fragrant
shrubs and flowers that bloom along that coast in the rich luxuriance
of nature, was hushed and breathless. In its stillness every sound was
audible, the rustling of a leaf, the ripple of a wave. She heard the
murmur of whispered voices below, and in a few moments she recognised,
emerging from the foliage, the form of Pausanias; but he was not
alone. Who were his companions? In the deep lustre of that shining and
splendid atmosphere she could see sufficient of the outline of their
figures to observe that they were not dressed in the Grecian garb;
their long robes betrayed the Persian.

They seemed conversing familiarly and eagerly as they passed along the
smooth sands, till a curve in the wooded shore hid them from her view.

"Why do I love him so," said the girl mechanically, "and yet wrestle
against that love? Dark forebodings tell me that Aphrodite smiles not
on our vows. Woe is me! What be the end?"

Notes:

[19] "The Byzantine dialect was in the time of Philip, as we know from
the decree in Demosthenes, rich in Dorisms."--Mueller on the Doric
Dialect.

[20] Fighting-cocks were fed with garlic, to make them more fierce.
The learned reader will remember how Theorus advised Dicaeopolis to
keep clear of the Thracians with garlic in their mouths.--See the
Acharnians of Aristoph.

[21] Garlands were twined round the neck, or placed upon the bosom
(Greek: upothumiades). See the quotations from Alcaeus, Sappho, and
Anacreon in Athenaeus, book xiii. c. 17.

[22] So said Thucydides of the Spartans, many years afterwards. "They
give evidence of honour among themselves, but with respect to others,
they consider honourable whatever pleases them, and just whatever is
to their advantage."--See Thucyd. lib. v.

[23] Herod, ix.

CHAPTER V.

On quitting Cleonice, Pausanias hastily traversed the long passage
that communicated with a square peristyle or colonnade, which again
led, on the one hand, to the more public parts of the villa, and,
on the other, through a small door left ajar, conducted by a back
entrance, to the garden and the sea-shore. Pursuing the latter path,
the Spartan bounded down the descent and came upon an opening in the
foliage, in which Lysander was seated beside the boat that had been
drawn partially on the strand.

"Alone? Where is Alcman?"

"Yonder; you heard his signal?"

"I heard it."

"Pausanias, they who seek you are Persians. Beware!"

"Of what? murder? I am warned."

"Murder to your good name. There are no arms against appearances."

"But I may trust thee?" said the Regent, quickly, "and of Alcman's
faith I am convinced."

"Why trust to any man what it were wisdom to reveal to the whole
Grecian Council? To parley secretly with the foe is half a treason to
our friends."

"Lysander," replied Pausanias, coldly, "you have much to learn before
you can be wholly Spartan. Tarry here yet awhile."

"What shall I do with this boy?" muttered the conspirator as he strode
on. "I know that he will not betray me, yet can I hope for his aid? I
love him so well that I would fain he shared my fortunes. Perhaps by
little and little I may lead him on. Meanwhile, his race and his name
are so well accredited in Sparta, his father himself an Ephor, that
his presence allays suspicion. Well, here are my Persians."

A little apart from the Mothon, who, resting his cithara on a fragment
of rock, appeared to be absorbed in reflection, stood the men of the
East. There were two of them; one of tall stature and noble presence,
in the prime of life; the other more advanced in years, of a coarser
make, a yet darker complexion, and of a sullen and gloomy countenance.
They were not dressed alike; the taller, a Persian of pure blood, wore
a short tunic that reached only to the knees: and the dress fitted to
his shape without a single fold. On his round cap or bonnet glittered
a string of those rare pearls, especially and immemorially prized in
the East, which formed the favourite and characteristic ornament of
the illustrious tribe of the Pasargadae. The other, who was a Mede,
differed scarcely in his dress from Pausanias himself, except that he
was profusely covered with ornaments; his arms were decorated with
bracelets, he wore earrings, and a broad collar of unpolished stones
in a kind of filagree was suspended from his throat. Behind the
Orientals stood Gongylus, leaning both hands on his staff, and
watching the approach of Pausanias with the same icy smile and
glittering eye with which he listened to the passionate invectives
or flattered the dark ambition of the Spartan. The Orientals saluted
Pausanias with a lofty gravity, and Gongylus drawing near, said: "Son
of Cleombrotus, the illustrious Ariamanes, kinsman to Xerxes, and of
the House of the Achaemenids, is so far versed in the Grecian tongue
that I need not proffer my offices as interpreter. In Datis, the Mede,
brother to the most renowned of the Magi, you behold a warrior worthy
to assist the arms even of Pausanias."

"I greet ye in our Spartan phrase, 'The beautiful to the good,'" said
Pausanias, regarding the Barbarians with an earnest gaze. "And I
requested Gongylus to lead ye hither in order that I might confer with
ye more at ease, than in the confinement to which I regret ye are
still sentenced. Not in prisons should be held the conversations of
brave men."

"I know," said Ariamanes (the statelier of the Barbarians), in the
Greek tongue, which he spoke intelligibly indeed, but with slowness
and hesitation, "I know that I am with that hero who refused to
dishonour the corpse of Mardonius, and even though a captive I
converse without shame with my victor."

"Rested it with me alone, your captivity should cease," replied
Pausanias. "War, that has made me acquainted with the valour of the
Persians, has also enlightened me as to their character. Your king has
ever been humane to such of the Greeks as have sought a refuge near
his throne. I would but imitate his clemency."

"Had the great Darius less esteemed the Greeks he would never have
invaded Greece. From the wanderers whom misfortune drove to his
realms, he learned to wonder at the arts, the genius, the energies of
the people of Hellas. He desired less to win their territories than
to gain such subjects. Too vast, alas, was the work he bequeathed to
Xerxes."

"He should not have trusted to force alone," returned Pausanias.
"Greece may be won, but by the arts of her sons, not by the arms
of the stranger. A Greek only can subdue Greece. By such profound
knowledge of the factions, the interests, the envies and the
jealousies of each, state as a Greek alone can possess, the mistaken
chain that binds them might be easily severed; some bought, some
intimidated, and the few that hold out subdued amidst the apathy of
the rest."

"You speak wisely, right hand of Hellas," answered the Persian, who
had listened to these remarks with deep attention. "Yet had we in our
armies your countryman, the brave Demaratus."

"But, if I have heard rightly, ye too often disdained his counsel.
Had he been listened to there had been neither a Salamis nor a
Plataea.[24] Yet Demaratus himself had been too long a stranger to
Greece, and he knew little of any state save that of Sparta. Lives he
still?"

"Surely yes, in honour and renown; little less than the son of Darius
himself."

"And what reward would Xerxes bestow on one of greater influence
than Demaratus; on one who has hitherto conquered every foe, and now
beholds before him the conquest of Greece herself?"

"If such a man were found," answered the Persian, "let his thought
run loose, let his imagination rove, let him seek only how to find a
fitting estimate of the gratitude of the king and the vastness of the
service."

Pausanias shaded his brow with his hand, and mused a few moments; then
lifting his eyes to the Persian's watchful but composed countenance,
he said, with a slight smile--

"Hard is it, O Persian, when the choice is actually before him, for a
man to renounce his country. There have been hours within this very
day when my desires swept afar from Sparta, from all Hellas, and
rested on the tranquil pomp of Oriental Satrapies. But now, rude and
stern parent though Sparta be to me, I feel still that I am her son;
and, while we speak, a throne in stormy Hellas seems the fitting
object of a Greek's ambition. In a word, then, I would rise, and yet
raise my country. I would have at my will a force that may suffice to
overthrow in Sparta its grim and unnatural laws, to found amidst its
rocks that single throne which the son of a demigod should ascend.
From that throne I would spread my empire over the whole of Greece,
Corinth and Athens being my tributaries. So that, though men now,
and posterity here-after, may say, 'Pausanias overthrew the Spartan
government,' they shall add, 'but Pausanias annexed to the Spartan
sceptre the realm of Greece. Pausanias was a tyrant, but not a
traitor.' How, O Persian, can these designs accord with the policy of
the Persian king?"

"Not without the authority of my master can I answer thee," replied
Ariamanes, "so that my answer may be as the king's signet to his
decree. But so much at least I say: that it is not the custom of the
Persians to interfere with the institutions of those states with which
they are connected. Thou desirest to make a monarchy of Greece, with
Sparta for its head. Be it so; the king my master will aid thee so to
scheme and so to reign, provided thou dost but concede to him a
vase of the water from thy fountains, a fragment of earth from thy
gardens."

"In other words," said Pausanias thoughtfully, but with a slight
colour on his brow, "if I hold my dominions tributary to the king?"

"The dominions that by the king's aid thou wilt have conquered. Is
that a hard law?"

"To a Greek and a Spartan the very mimicry of allegiance to the
foreigner is hard."

The Persian smiled. "Yet, if I understand thee aright, O Chief, even
kings in Sparta are but subjects to their people. Slave to a crowd at
home, or tributary to a throne abroad; slave every hour, or tributary
for earth and water once a year, which is the freer lot?"

"Thou canst not understand our Grecian notions," replied Pausanias,
"nor have I leisure to explain them. But though I may subdue Sparta to
myself as to its native sovereign, I will not, even by a type, subdue
the land of the Heracleid to the Barbarian."

Ariamanes looked grave; the difficulty raised was serious. And here
the craft of Gongylus interposed.

"This may be adjusted, Ariamanes, as befits both parties. Let
Pausanias rule in Sparta as he lists, and Sparta stand free of
tribute. But for all other states and cities that Pausanias, aided by
the great king, shall conquer, let the vase be filled, and the earth
be Grecian. Let him but render tribute for those lands which the
Persians submit to his sceptre. So shall the pride of the Spartan be
appeased, and the claims of the king be satisfied."

"Shall it be so?" said Pausanias.

"Instruct me so to propose to my master, and I will do my best to
content him with the exception to the wonted rights of the Persian
diadem. And then," continued Ariamanes, "then, Pausanias, Conqueror
of Mardonius, Captain at Plataea, thou art indeed a man with whom the
lord of Asia may treat as an equal. Greeks before thee have offered
to render Greece to the king my master; but they were exiles and
fugitives, they had nothing to risk or lose; thou hast fame, and
command, and power, and riches, and all----"

"But for a throne," interrupted Gongylus.

"It does not matter what may be my motives," returned the Spartan
gloomily, "and were I to tell them, you might not comprehend. But so
much by way of explanation. You too have held command?"

"I have."

"If you knew that, when power became to you so sweet that it was as
necessary to life itself as food and drink, it would then be snatched
from you for ever, and you would serve as a soldier in the very ranks
you had commanded as a leader; if you knew that no matter what your
services, your superiority, your desires, this shameful fall was
inexorably doomed, might you not see humiliation in power itself,
obscurity in renown, gloom in the present, despair in the future? And
would it not seem to you nobler even to desert the camp than to sink
into a subaltern?"

"Such a prospect has in our country made out of good subjects fierce
rebels," observed the Persian.

"Ay, ay, I doubt it not," said Pausanias, laughing bitterly. "Well,
then, such will be my lot, if I pluck not out a fairer one from the
Fatal Urn. As Regent of Sparta, while my nephew is beardless, I am
general of her armies, and I have the sway and functions of her king.
When he arrives at the customary age, I am a subject, a citizen, a
nothing, a miserable fool of memories gnawing my heart away amidst
joyless customs and stern austerities, with the recollection of the
glories of Plataea and the delights of Byzantium. Persian, I am filled
from the crown to the sole with the desire of power, with the tastes
of pleasure. I have that within me which before my time has made
heroes and traitors, raised demigods to Heaven, or chained the lofty
Titans to the rocks of Hades. Something I may yet be; I know not what.
But as the man never returns to the boy, so never, never, never once
more, can I be again the Spartan subject. Enough; such as I am, I can
fulfil what I have said to thee. Will thy king accept me as his ally,
and ratify the terms I have proposed?"

"I feel well-nigh assured of it," answered the Persian; "for since
thou hast spoken thus boldly, I will answer thee in the same strain.
Know, then, that we of the pure race of Persia, we the sons of those
who overthrew the Mede, and extended the race of the mountain tribe,
from the Scythian to the Arab, from Egypt to Ind, we at least feel
that no sacrifice were too great to redeem the disgrace we have
suffered at the hands of thy countrymen; and the world itself were too
small an empire, too confined a breathing-place for the son of
Darius, if this nook of earth were still left without the pale of his
dominion."

"This nook of earth? Ay, but Sparta itself must own no lord but me."

"It is agreed."

"If I release thee, wilt thou bear these offers to the king,
travelling day and night till thou restest at the foot of his throne?"

"I should carry tidings too grateful to suffer me to loiter by the
road."

"And Datis, he comprehends us not; but his eyes glitter fiercely on
me. It is easy to see that thy comrade loves not the Greek."

"For that reason he will aid us well. Though but a Mede, and not
admitted to the privileges of the Pasargadae, his relationship to the
most powerful and learned of our Magi, and his own services in war,
have won him such influence with both priests and soldiers, that I
would fain have him as my companion. I will answer for his fidelity to
our joint object."

"Enough; ye are both free. Gongylus, you will now conduct our friends
to the place where the steeds await them. You will then privately
return to the citadel, and give to their pretended escape the probable
appearances we devised. Be quick, while it is yet night. One word
more. Persian, our success depends upon thy speed. It is while the
Greeks are yet at Byzantium, while I yet am in command, that we should
strike the blow. If the king consent, through Gongylus thou wilt have
means to advise me. A Persian army must march at once to the Phrygian
confines, instructed to yield command to me when the hour comes to
assume it. Delay not that aid by such vast and profitless recruits
as swelled the pomp, but embarrassed the arms, of Xerxes. Armies too
large rot by their own unwieldiness into decay. A band of 50,000,
composed solely of the Medes and Persians, will more than suffice.
With such an army, if my command be undisputed, I will win a second
Plataea, but against the Greek."

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