Ariston, uncle of Clearchus and formerly guardian of his fortune, sat at his work-table before a mass of papyri closely written with memoranda and accounts. His house stood by itself in a quarter of the city that had once been fashionable but now was occupied chiefly by the poorer class of citizens. Its front was without windows and its stone walls were yellowed and stained with age. Its seclusion seemed to be emphasized by the bustle of life that surrounded it and in which it had no part.
The room in which Ariston sat was evidently used as an office, for rows of metal-bound boxes of various shapes and sizes were piled along its walls. A statuette of Hermes stood in one corner upon its pedestal, and its sightless eyes seemed bent upon the thin, gray face of the old man as he leaned with his elbows upon the top of the table, polished by long use. Lines of care and anxiety showed themselves at the corners of his mouth and about his restless eyes. The light of the swinging lamp that illuminated the small room, even in the daytime, made shadowy hollows at his temples and beneath his cheek-bones.
Little was known of the personal concerns of the old man in Athens. Although he mingled with the other citizens without apparent reserve, he never discussed his own affairs. The general impression was that he was a good Athenian who had been faithful to the trust reposed in him, and who had won a modest competence of his own for the support of his age. This idea was encouraged by the parsimonious habits of his life and by the trifling but cautious ventures that he sometimes made in the commercial activity of the city. His most conspicuous characteristic, in the minds of his acquaintances, was his mania for gathering information concerning not only Athens and Greece, but distant lands and strange peoples as well. This was looked upon as a harmless and even useful occupation, and it accounted for his evident fondness at times for the company of strangers, who, no doubt, contributed to the satisfaction of his curiosity.
Great would have been the astonishment if some orator had announced to the Athenian Assembly that the humble old man was really one of the richest citizens of Athens, as well as the best informed concerning the plans and hopes of the rulers of the world and of the probable current of coming events. Laughter would have greeted the assertion that much of the merchandise which found its way to the Piræus belonged to him and that the profits realized from the sale of silks and spices, corn and ivory, went into his coffers. Yet these statements would have been true a year before. In Athens the rich were required to contribute to the public charges in proportion to their wealth, and the saving that Ariston was able to effect by making his investments abroad and concealing them through various stratagems from the knowledge of his neighbors was sufficient, in his opinion, to compensate him for the trouble and the risks that such a course involved. He would rather have suffered his fingers to be hacked off one by one than part with the heavy, shining bars of gold that his prudence and foresight had amassed.
If the history of each separate coin and bar could have been told, it would have revealed secrets which their master had forced himself to forget. Some of them were the price of flesh and blood; some had been gained by violence upon the seas or among the trackless wastes of the desert; some had been won at the expense of honor and truth; for in his earlier years Ariston had been both bold and unscrupulous in his cunning, and his craving for riches had always been insatiable. As his years and his wealth increased he became more circumspect and conservative. He even sought to expiate some of his earlier faults by furtive sacrifices to the Gods, and especially to Hermes, whose image he cherished.
But the Gods had turned their faces from him, and his repentance, if repentance it could be called, had been unavailing. Misfortune had come upon him, and calamity seemed always to be lying in wait for him. If his vessels put to sea, they were sunk in storms or captured by pirates. His factories and warehouses were burned; his caravans were lost; his debtors defaulted; and if he purchased a cargo of corn, its price at the Piræus was certain to be less than the price he had paid for it in the Hellespont. One after another the precious bars which had cost him so much to obtain were sent to save doubtful ventures and losing investments, until at last all were gone. Sitting in his dingy room, on the day of the arrival of Chares and Leonidas at the house of Clearchus, he was at last in a worldly sense what his neighbors thought him to be; and the marble face of Hermes, with its painted eyes, smiled malignly at him from its corner.
But there was still hope left to him. Although the widespread web of his enterprises had been rent and torn by misfortune, there yet remained enough to build upon securely if he had but a few more of the yellow bars to tide over his present distress. Without them he might keep afloat for a few months longer; but the end would be utter ruin. At least he still owned the great dyeing establishment in Tyre, which had never failed to yield him a handsome revenue. He recalled how he had taken it from Cepheus for one-fourth its real value. It was no concern of his that Cepheus had stolen it from young Phradates. What did the details of the transaction matter now, since they were known only to himself and to Cepheus, who would not be likely to reveal them, and to Mena the Egyptian, the young man's steward? Mena had stolen so much himself from the spendthrift that he would never dare to tell what he knew. And yet the fellow had it in his power to rob Ariston of the last remnant of his fortune.
A discreet knock interrupted Ariston's reflections. He brushed his parchments and papyri hastily into an open box that stood beside his chair and closed the lid. "Enter!" he commanded.
An aged slave opened the door. "Mena, of Tyre," he said.
Cold sweat broke out on Ariston's forehead, but he gave no outward sign of his consternation. "Bring him hither," he directed.
The Egyptian, who had been watching the sluggish goldfish floating in the weed-grown cistern of the court, entered the room with an air of importance. He turned his alert face, with its sharp, inquiring features, upon Ariston.
"Greeting!" he said, extending his hand. "It is long since we have seen thee in Tyre."
"Yes," Ariston replied, leading him to a seat opposite his own, "I am getting too old for travel."
"You have indeed grown older since I saw you last," Mena said, looking at him attentively. "I hope it is not because Fortune has been unkind."
Ariston winced, and the change in his expression was not lost upon the shrewd Egyptian.
"What brings you here?" he asked, shifting the subject.
"We are travelling, my beloved master and I," Mena answered.
"Phradates is with you, then?" the old man asked with an alarm that he was unable to conceal.
The steward paused before he answered, gazing at Ariston with eyes half closed and a faint smile upon his lips.
"Phradates is here," he said at last. "I know of what you are thinking. We have been friends too long to have secrets from each other. You need have no fear. Cepheus is dead and I have too many causes to despise Phradates to take his part."
He paused again and suddenly his face became convulsed with a spasm of hatred.
"I could strangle him!" he cried, clenching his hands as though he felt his master's throat beneath his fingers.
Ariston breathed more freely. At any rate, his property in Tyre was safe.
"Why don't you do it, then?" he asked coolly.
"Because the time has not yet come!" Mena replied fiercely. "For every insult that he has given me and for every blow that he has made me feel, he shall suffer tenfold! His fortune is dwindling, and in the end it will be mine. Then let him ask Mena for aid!"
"I did not know that you had so much courage," Ariston remarked.
"I have not watched you in vain," Mena replied, "and it is to you that I now come for assistance."
"To me!" Ariston exclaimed.
"To you," Mena repeated. "Be not alarmed, for what I have to propose will be for our mutual benefit. Phradates has been throwing money right and left since we set out from Tyre. Great sums he spent in Crete and still greater in Corinth. Since his arrival here he has been fleeced without mercy. You will understand that I have tried to protect him, but merely to save him from injury. He might have lost his life only this morning had I not been there to guard him from an attack by two desperate characters with a crowd of slaves, who set upon us while we were returning from the dice. Luckily, I succeeded in beating them off, but the noble Phradates was thrown from his chair and his noble nose was battered. Soon he will be in want of more money. Of the property that remains to him, he has quarries on Lebanon, which employ a thousand slaves, silk mills in Old Tyre, where as many more are kept busy, and a score of ships in the trade with Carthage. He believes the value of the quarries and the mills to be only half what it really is and reports have been made to him that two-thirds of the vessels of his fleet have been lost. All this he will pledge for anything that it will bring when he learns that his money is gone. It is for us to get possession of that pledge. I have a few talents, but not enough. I will take care that the loan is never repaid and our success is certain. What do you say?"
Ariston looked at the statue of Hermes. It was a fancy of his that he could draw either a favorable or an adverse augury from the expression on the face of the God as it showed in the wavering light of the lamp. He could detect no change in the mocking smile that seemed to hover about the marble lips. It left him with no conclusion.
"What you have told me," he said to Mena, "makes it necessary for me to tell you something in return. I am a ruined man."
"Ruined! You!" Mena exclaimed incredulously.
"It is true," Ariston replied. "Of all that I had, nothing remains to me intact except the dye-house in Tyre and a small fleet of corn ships that has but now arrived from the Euxine. The worst is that I have debts that must be met if I am to save other ventures."
"But you have the property of your nephew to draw upon," Mena suggested.
"I had it," the old man said, "but it was turned over to him more than a year ago. Since then all my losses have befallen."
"But you are his heir," the Egyptian replied meaningly. "Is he married?"
"No; but he soon will be," Ariston replied.
The two men exchanged glances, reading each other's thoughts in their eyes. Neither cared to put into words what was in his mind.
"Leave it to me," Ariston said at last. "I think it can be managed. Clearchus knows nothing of my affairs, and if I can once more get control of the property all will be well. I think we may safely assume that he will not marry. For the rest, we must wait and see. Let us talk of this pledge that Phradates is to make for our security."
He produced his tablets and a stylus and the conspirators were soon buried in a mass of calculations. When Mena took his leave, every detail had been arranged.
Hardly had Mena disappeared in the direction of the Agora when a man of unusual stature, with brawny arms and a heavy black beard, turned into the street in which Ariston lived and stood staring doubtfully about him. There was a hint of the sea in his sunburned face and rough garments.
"If you are looking for the Piræus, my friend, you will not find it here," said a fruit dealer who chanced to meet him.
"What do you know of the Piræus, grasshopper?" returned the stranger, halting and looking at the merchant with contempt. "I am searching for the house of Ariston, son of Xenas. Do you know where in this accursed street it is?"
"Tut, tut; fair words, my friend," the merchant replied, carefully keeping his distance. "What do you want with Ariston?"
"That is his affair and mine, but not yours," growled the stranger.
"I'll warrant it is nothing good," the fruit dealer said, "but you will find his house at the end of the street, near the wall."
Without stopping to thank him, the stranger strode on in the direction that he had indicated. The merchant stood for a moment gazing after him, wondering whence he came and what he wanted; but finding no answer to these questions in his own mind, he shook his head like a man who is assured of the existence of something that should not be and continued on his way to his shop in the Agora to relate his suspicions.
Ariston himself came to the door in response to the stranger's knock. He was admitted at once and without a word. Ariston led him in silence to his own room and seated him in the chair that Mena had occupied half an hour before. Instead of summoning a slave, the old man went himself to fetch a flask of wine and a trencher of bread and cheese.
"Can it be done?" he asked in an eager voice, leaning forward in his favorite attitude with his elbows on the table while the other ate and drank.
"It can be done, but it will not be easy," his guest replied.
"Not easy to carry off a woman who has only slaves to guard her?" Ariston exclaimed. "Are your men cowards, then, Syphax?"
"No, my men and I are not cowards, old Skinflint," Syphax said, "but you may as well understand now that we do not intend to risk our lives for nothing."
He delivered this speech with the blustering air of a bully, gazing boldly into the old man's face. Ariston, naturally of small stature, looked more than ever shrunken and withered in contrast with his companion; but at the sound of the other's threatening tone, his face hardened and there came a cold gleam into his eyes.
"I am glad you are not afraid, Syphax," he said in a voice so soft that it sounded almost caressing. "Have you forgotten Medon? Your eyes saw his death. He was a brave man, too, your old chief. I think I can hear him yet as he called upon the Gods in his torture. They could not help him. Poor Medon!"
The face of Syphax paled under its tan at the recollection that Ariston had conjured up and an involuntary shudder ran through him. His bold eyes wavered before the persistent stare of the little old man, whom he could have crushed in one of his hands.
"What are you willing to pay?" he asked hoarsely, pushing away his food half finished.
"You would do it for nothing, if I asked you, Syphax," the old man replied, still in the same soft voice, "but I have no wish to be hard with you. This is a matter in which I have a deep interest and I am willing to pay well for it. When you have taken her safely on board, you will sail to Halicarnassus, where you will search out Iphicrates, son of Conon, and give him this letter. If he finds you have done your work well, he will pay you a talent in silver. But if the girl has been harmed in any way, not a drachma will you get and worse will befall you than befell Medon."
"The work is worth five times as much," Syphax grumbled with downcast eyes, "but I suppose I have no choice."
"None, my dear Syphax, and I am a poor man," said Ariston. "Let us regard the matter as settled. Now, how do you intend to proceed?"
Syphax roused himself like a man whose professional skill has been called upon.
"The house stands thus," he said, indicating its position on the table with a huge finger. "On this side is the grove where I and a dozen of my men will lie hidden with the litter. One of my fellows will scale the roof and let himself down inside. He will open the door to us and the thing will be over in a moment."
"Where will you embark?" the old man asked, nodding approval.
"My ship will be lying off-shore with a boat in waiting. We will carry her in the litter to this spot, about two stadia beyond the Piræus, which we shall have to pass. We shall make the attack soon after the middle watch of the night when the moon will be low."
"You should have been a general, Syphax," the old man said. "You have a better head for strategy than most of those the Athenians employ. Go to your work and forget nothing. I must attend the Assembly, where Demosthenes is to stir up the citizens against Alexander, son of Philip. They say the boy is dead."
"Alexander dead!" Syphax exclaimed.
"The story is that he was killed by the Illyrians, and Demosthenes has a man who saw him die," Ariston replied indifferently. "I think the man is lying and that Demosthenes knows it. But these affairs have nothing to do with you. Be off to your business."
When the adventurer had gone, Ariston returned to his room and prepared to write. From his expression of content, it was evident that he was satisfied with what had been done.
"To Iphicrates, son of Conon," his letter ran. "I am sending to you Syphax, a freebooter from Rhodes, who will deliver to you a young woman. You will take her into your house and guard her with care until you hear from me again. Syphax will present to you an order for a talent of silver. Defer the payment until you have the girl, and then do with him as you will. As a pirate and a robber, he has richly merited death. May the Gods protect you."
As Ariston was carefully sealing this letter, a gaunt, sour-visaged woman entered the room. She was his wife and the one person on earth in whom he had confidence. Like most secretive men with whom duplicity is a daily study, he sometimes felt the need of telling the truth, if only to note the effect of his schemes upon another's mind. But even to his wife, whose covetousness was equal to his own, he never revealed all that was in his brain. Her lonely life was spent in a constant endeavor to piece out from what he imparted to her the full extent of his plans. She admired his intellect, but deep in her heart she feared him, and, womanlike, she was tormented by the suspicion that somewhere she had a rival to whom he told what he concealed from her. The consciousness of her own deficiency of charms made her manner all the more harsh and forbidding. As soon as she entered the room she noted that he was in an easy mood, and she made haste to take advantage of it.
"Who were these men?" she asked. "What are you about now?"
"Affairs of state, Xanthe, that are not for women to know," he said mockingly.
"All that concerns you concerns me," she replied. "Am I to do the work of a slave here like a mole in the dark? Who are these women you were talking of with that evil-looking man?"
"So you were listening!" Ariston said with a frown.
"Yes, I was, if you must know it," Xanthe said defiantly. "Do you think I am to know nothing? If you had consulted more freely with me before, we would not now be the paupers that we are, and many times I have told you this, but you will not listen to me because I am a woman."
There was something in this remonstrance that made an impression upon Ariston's mind, smarting as he was over the loss of his fortune. It might have been better, after all, if he had told her more.
"We were talking of only one woman," he said, with an impulse of frankness. "She is Artemisia."
"Artemisia!" Xanthe exclaimed. "Don't try to deceive me. Why should you wish Artemisia to be carried off? Is not Clearchus to make her his wife?"
"It is for that very reason," Ariston replied. "I do not wish him to do so."
"Why not?" Xanthe demanded in a tone of suspicion.
"Sit down and let us talk rationally," Ariston said. "Suppose they marry and have children. His property would be lost to us forever."
"That is true," Xanthe assented. "I had not thought of that, and we need it so much more than he. If he should die, would it belong to us?"
"It would," her husband answered, "and now you know why I wish to prevent the marriage."
He rose, and she aided him to adjust the folds of his himation.
"I am going to the Assembly," he said. "If we have war with Macedon, the price of corn will advance. Look to the house and let none enter while I am away."
It was not until after he had gone that Xanthe began to wonder how she and Ariston were to profit by preventing the marriage, since their nephew would still be alive and in the possession of his property. It could not be that Ariston intended to have him slain. She shuddered at the thought, for she was fond of Clearchus, and he had always been kind to her. Besides, such a crime could not be committed without almost certain detection. Ariston must have formed some other scheme for bringing about his object. She reproached herself for not having questioned him on this point while he was in a frame of mind to answer. The opportunity might not occur again and she could only guess at what was to come. The half-confidence that he had given her left her more watchful and suspicious than ever.
Syphax meantime had found his way back to the Agora and was about to enter a wine-shop when he felt some one pluck him by the elbow. Glancing back, his eyes met those of Mena.
"Ah, my fox," he exclaimed, "what brings you to Athens?"
"Necessity and my master," Mena replied. "And you?"
Syphax shook his head and made as if to move away, but Mena was not to be denied. An hour later they were still together, sitting side by side in a corner of the wine-shop, and it was fortunate for Ariston that the Egyptian was his ally instead of his enemy, for all that Syphax could tell, he knew.
In the Theatre of Dionysus the citizens of Athens were gathering for the purpose of deciding whether to break their treaty with Macedon and by one stroke revenge upon Alexander the wrongs and humiliations that his father had made them suffer. Ariston walked through the spacious Agora, surrounded by colonnades and embellished by the statues of heroes and the Gods. The shopkeepers and merchants were closing their places of business and joining in the human tide that was setting all in the same direction.
Everywhere Ariston heard repeated the assertion that Alexander was dead. The news was announced in tones of joy, and invariably it was accompanied by an expression of desire for war while the enemy was still unprepared. There seemed to be only one opinion among the people. It was manifested in the clamor of gay and careless confusion that betrayed the nervous tension of the throng.
Ariston's face became more thoughtful as he proceeded. He had no doubt of what the Assembly would do if unchecked, and he foresaw the downfall of his plans. A declaration of war with Macedon would be fatal. Whatever the issue of such a conflict might be, it would certainly delay Alexander's invasion of Persia and keep Clearchus at home. He must be rid of Clearchus at all hazards, and without violence.
Moreover, he knew that the report of Alexander's death was false. It was impossible that any person in Athens should have been able to obtain information later than that which had been brought to him. He felt assured that the young king was fighting his way out of Illyria, with every prospect of escape, and that the report of his death had been started by Demosthenes as a stratagem to dispose the minds of the people to war. By preventing the success of this plan, he reflected, he would not only be serving his own ends, but also performing a public service. Such a coincidence had happened rarely enough in his career.
But he knew it would be useless to attempt any contradiction of the report at that moment. He was too thoroughly acquainted with the characteristics of his countrymen to think of it. They wished to believe and they would not allow that wish to be thwarted. He must watch and wait.
Pushing through the chattering crowd, he entered the Theatre. Before him, in a great semicircle, hewn partly out of the solid rock of the southeastern pitch of the Acropolis, he saw row on row and tier above tier of his fellow-citizens,—the brilliant, unstable, cowardly, heroic, passionate, generous, cruel democracy of Athens. Above them towered the crag which they had crowned with triumphs of art and architecture beyond the power of the world to equal, guarded by the wonderful Athene, whose creator they had sent to die in prison. On the left the great temple of Olympian Zeus raised its massive fluted columns. In the Theatre where they sat their fathers had hissed or applauded the masterpieces of tragedy and comedy. The babel of talk and of light-hearted laughter, the shifting of many-hued garments under the intense blue arch of the sky, reminded Ariston of the fickle sunlit waves of the Ægean.
The cloud that for years had overshadowed Athens had been removed. Philip, the tenacious, subtle, resourceful monarch of barbarous Macedon, had fallen under the dagger of Pausanias, who had doubtless been inspired by the Gods to punish him for his crimes against the Athenians. Little by little, with a purpose that never swerved, he had made himself master of their fairest possessions. Time and again they had sought to shake him off with brief outbursts of restless fury; but he held what he had won, and in the lull that followed the storm he had never failed to creep nearer to their citadel. His advance seemed to them as inevitable as fate.
Now he was gone, resigning his power and his ambitions to his son, Alexander, a boy of twenty years, whom all Athens knew as a foolish and rash youth. After laying claim to the honors that his father had forced the states of Hellas to bestow upon him, he had marched into the unknown wilderness of the north with his army and there had perished. His fate had been told only in rumors at first, but had not Demosthenes talked with a fugitive from the Macedonian camp, who had seen him fall beneath a stone? Every Athenian felt that the time had come to place the name of his city once more at the head of the civilized world. Already the Thebans, aided by their subsidies, had risen against the barbarian garrison and had shut the Macedonians in the Cadmea. The reverses of the past had been forgotten and the lively imaginations of the Athenians had carried them halfway to the goal of their hopes.
Ariston gazed about him at the shifting throng as though in search of some one. The priests of Ceres, Athene, and Zeus stood talking in groups with the officials of the city, or had already taken their places in the cushioned marble arm-chairs, with curved backs, that formed the first row of seats. Presently the old man caught sight of Clearchus, and his friends, Chares and Leonidas. With them sat a young man of singular appearance whom Ariston did not recognize. He wore a splendid mantle of purple, embroidered with gold, a profusion of rings flashed upon his fingers, and the odor of costly perfumes hung about him like a cloud. It seemed as though he sought in his costume to make up for the deficiencies of nature, for in figure he was short and stout, with legs and arms of disproportionate slenderness, and his narrow eyes were set beneath a square forehead from the top of which the hair had been shaved.
"Greeting, uncle," Clearchus said cordially, as the old man forced his way toward them.
Ariston sat down on the broad marble step in the space that Clearchus made for him. He found himself between his nephew and the stranger.
"This is Aristotle of Stagira, but more recently of Pella," Clearchus said. "He can talk to you by the hour, if he chooses, about Alexander, whom you so much admire."
"Is he really dead, as they say he is?" Ariston asked doubtfully.
"I do not know," lisped Aristotle. "It is his habit always to expose himself in battle."
"Can he make himself master of Hellas?" Ariston asked again.
"Only the Gods can answer that," Aristotle replied. "It is safe to say that what human ambition can accomplish, he will do. He was my pupil, and there are those who maintain that he knows more than his master!"
Although the philosopher spoke with a smile, there was a trace of irony in his tone that did not escape the alert Athenian.
"You hear that?" he cried, turning to Clearchus. "Here is a boy who begins by conquering his instructor. Where will he end?"
"They say he has ended already, up there among the savages," Chares said lazily.
"I'll lay you a box of Assyrian ointment that Alexander is still alive," Aristotle said.
"It's a wager," the Theban cried. "And the box shall be of gold."
"There goes Callicles. Hi, there, old Twenty Per Cent!" cried a youth who was sitting in front of them.
"By the Styx, I wish I had what I owe him!" Chares remarked fervently.
A young man with oiled and curled ringlets, wearing a long silken robe, and carrying a cane inlaid with mother-of-pearl, pushed toward them, followed by a slave laden with cushions for him to sit upon.
"Do you know what Phocus has done now?" he asked in an affected voice.
"No," said Chares, coldly.
"He happened to go to the Lyceum the other day, and he overheard Theodorus, the atheist, say that if it was praiseworthy to ransom a friend from the enemy, it would also be commendable to rescue a sweetheart from bondage. What does he do but buy Tryphonia her freedom from old Mnemon. He vows that he will marry her."
Having imparted this bit of gossip, the youth lounged away to repeat it.
"Who is that young man with the red chiton?" Leonidas asked.
"He is Ctesippus, son of Chabrias," Clearchus replied. "He has spent twenty thousand talents of gold since his father died—he and Phocus together. He thinks he knows more about war than his father knew. He drives poor Phocion almost distracted with his advice whenever there is a campaign; and Phocion endures it because he is his father's son."
Throughout the Theatre rose the hum of gossip and malicious small talk. Chares listened with indolent contempt. Leonidas studied the faces of the men who had won distinction in war, such as Diopethes, Menestheus, and Leosthenes, whom Clearchus pointed out to him. Aristotle continued to lisp to Ariston concerning Macedon. The attention of the crowd was diverted by the arrival of the Lexiarchs with their scarlet cords. Stretching them across the narrow streets, they had been driving the stragglers into the Assembly like sheep. The laggard whose garments showed a trace of the dye with which the cords were covered was forced to pay a fine.
"Look; there's Phaon with the red stripe on his back!" Chares cried, standing up to get a better view.
A roar of laughter greeted the victim as he entered and his name was repeated from all sides.
"Were you asleep, Phaon? Did your wife keep you at home? You should drink less wine in the morning!" shouted his acquaintances.
Another unfortunate came to divert attention from Phaon, and still others, until all the citizens were accounted for. The tumult was succeeded by a hush as the white-robed priests solemnly advanced into the open space in the middle of the semicircle, carrying a bleating lamb. After an invocation to Athene, they cut the animal's throat before the altar and sprinkled its blood in every direction upon the pavement. The oldest of the priests then stood forth, raised his hands, and looking upward, cried the accustomed formula:—
"May the Gods pursue to destruction, with all his race, that man who shall act, speak, or plot anything against this State!"
The priests then slowly withdrew, and a herald mounted the bema to announce, on behalf of the Proedri, the occasion of the Assembly. He declared the question to be whether the treaty with Macedon should be maintained or set aside, and he added that the Senate of the Areopagus had referred the matter to the decision of the people without expressing its opinion.
He was followed by a second herald, representing the Epistate, who, with a loud voice, called upon any citizen above the age of fifty years to speak his mind, others to follow in accordance with their ages. As he ceased and descended, all eyes were turned toward a portion of the Theatre where sat a gray-haired man, with shoulders slightly stooped, a sloping forehead, and a retreating chin, partly hidden by a close-cropped beard.
"Demosthenes! Demosthenes!" came from every part of the horseshoe.
The man to whom Athens turned in this crisis of her affairs sat unmoved and apparently oblivious to the demand of the crowd. Accustomed as they were to the oratorical combats of the Theatre, the citizens understood that Demosthenes had determined to reserve to himself the advantage of speaking last. They turned, therefore, to his chief opponent and called upon Æschines.
With an affectation of carelessness, Æschines ascended the bema and plunged at once into his argument, like a man who speaks what first occurs to his mind. The burden of his contention was that Athens was bound by her oath to observe her treaty with Macedon. To break it, he declared, would be to sink to the depth of dishonor and to make the name of the city a byword throughout the world. As he elaborated point after point in his reasoning, all tending to confirm and enforce his conclusions, it was plain that he was making an impression in spite of the fact that all who heard him knew that he had been in Philip's pay. He painted in dark colors the cost and danger of the war that would follow the violation of the treaty and closed with a florid appeal for constancy and forbearance, which he called the first of virtues.
He was succeeded by the dandy, Demades, whose robes of embroidered linen trailed upon the ground, but who sustained the argument against war with sledge-hammer blows of rhetoric. Glaucippus, Eubulus, Aristophon, and other orators, less famous, sat nodding their heads among their pupils and admirers, who clustered about them criticising or commending each period that fell from the lips of the speakers.
Watching the effect of the speeches, the partisans of Demosthenes, fearful that it might be disastrous to permit his opponents to hold the attention of the people any longer, renewed their shouts for him. The Assembly joined them. It had heard enough of the peace party, and it was eager to know how Demosthenes would answer.
There had been hardly any cessation of the talk and laughter. Many persons even moved about through the audience, chatting with their friends, and the Scythians, whose duty it was to maintain order, did not venture to interfere with them. Everywhere there was talk of the advantages of peace. The fever for war had cooled before the logic of oratory. Ariston, keenly attentive to all that was passing, was among those who left his place and wandered about the amphitheatre, pausing here and there to exchange a few words with an acquaintance. Behind him, like a ripple on the surface of a lake, there spread through the crowd the news that the story of Alexander's death was a falsehood contrived by the friends of Macedon to entrap the republic into war.
Before the old man had returned to his seat, the contradiction had reached Demosthenes, elaborated into every semblance of truth. He saw that it was believed and that he had been robbed of the main theme of his speech; for he could not prove that Alexander was dead. In response to the cries of the multitude, he rose, and there was no pretence in the reluctance with which he walked with head bent toward the benia, considering what he should say. As he ascended, the shouting died away, and for the first time there was absolute stillness in the Theatre.
"Athenians!" he began, in a voice of moderate pitch, but of a resonant tone that carried it to all parts of the circle, "by all means we should agree with those who so strenuously advise an exact adherence to our oaths and treaties—if they really believe what they say. For nothing is more in accord with the character of democracy than the maintenance of justice and honesty. But let not the men who urge us to be honest, embarrass us and our deliberations by harangues which their own actions contradict."
Ariston glanced about him with alarm, which was intensified as the orator, with consummate skill, built up the argument that, having bound himself by the treaty to maintain the liberties of Greece, Alexander had violated his oath by reinstating the tyrants of Messene and by disregarding other specific clauses. Artfully exaggerating the Macedonian aggressiveness, recalling by flattering allusions the great days of Athens, raising the hope of victory if war should be declared, Demosthenes presented the situation to the Assembly in such a light as to make it seem that Athens not only had a right to take up arms against Macedon, but that it was her plain duty to begin the attack. This impression grew out of his words without apparent effort to convey it. There was nothing in his speech to indicate that he was a special pleader presenting only one side of the case. He seemed the personification of candor and fairness. As his voice and gestures became more animated, and the flood of his marvellous eloquence swept over them, it appeared to his fellow-citizens that the men who had given expression to the desire for peace must be charlatans or worse, who had been bribed by Macedonian gold, as in fact many of them had been, to betray them into the hands of the enemy. In words that none but he knew how to choose, he raised the spectre that had been laid by the death of Philip and made it more threatening than it had ever been before.
Under the magic spell of his voice old thoughts and feelings stirred and woke in the hearts of the Athenians. For an hour they became once more the men of Platæa and Salamis and of the hundred bloody fields upon which they had measured their strength with that of their ancient foes from the Peloponnesus. Their former greatness of soul flamed up like a flash from a dying fire.
While Demosthenes spoke, not a word was uttered in the group around Clearchus. The young man sat with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, tingling with a desire to sacrifice life itself, if need there were, to revenge the wrongs of Athens and crush the insolent Macedonian. Leonidas listened with hands clenched and with every nerve at tension, like a hound of pure race straining at his leash toward the quarry. Aristotle was gravely attentive, and even Chares, though he could not be aroused from his lazy pose, followed the oration with evident enjoyment.
When Demosthenes ended and came down from the bema, the Assembly drew a long breath, and instantly each man fell to discussing with his neighbor what was best to be decided. Suddenly they realized with astonishment that Demosthenes had failed to propose any decree and that they had nothing before them upon which they might vote.
"I thought he was going to tell us how Alexander died!" Demades sneered.
"What has become of his witness of whom we have heard so much?" a leather-dealer asked.
"He is afraid to propose war! He has offered no decree!" another citizen cried.
These questions and a hundred others were discussed on every side with a violence that swept away all semblance of dignity or restraint. The factions quarrelled like children, and more than once came to blows in their eagerness, making it necessary for the Scythians of the public guard to separate them. At last the herald of the Epistate demanded in due form whether the Assembly desired any decree to be proposed. Far less than the required number of six thousand hands were raised in the affirmative, and the gathering was dissolved, eddying out of the enclosure in turbulent disorder.
"Is that all?" asked Chares, rising and stretching himself with a yawn.
"That is all," Clearchus replied sadly.
"With a phalanx of ten thousand brave men I could take your Acropolis," Leonidas remarked, measuring the height above his head.
"Yes, but where could you find them?" Aristotle said.
"Who knows? Perhaps in the camp of Alexander," the Spartan replied.
Ariston had slipped away into the crowd.