The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great. Fuller Robert Higginson
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!"