Part 5 (2/2)

”What?” said the Spartan, ”do women wear such things? It is incredible.

I have always thought that things had changed for the worse at home, but we have not got as far as that. And now for your business.”

Hippocles explained that there was a dissatisfied party in Cos which was very anxious to get rid of Athenian rule. ”We are not strong enough,” he went on, ”to do it of ourselves, but send on a force and we will open the gates to you. Cos is a strong place now, since the Athenians fortified it, and, I should think, quite worth having.”

”And if we put you in power,” said the admiral, ”you would begin, I suppose, by putting all your opponents to death.”

Callicratidas was quite a different person from what Hippocles, with his former experience of Spartans in command, had expected to find. His disinterestedness, simplicity and directness were embarra.s.sing, and made him not a little ashamed of the part that he was playing. He would have dearly liked to speak out of his own heart to a man who was transparently honest and well-meaning, but in his position it was impossible.

”We have, as you may suppose, sir,” he said in answer to this last suggestion, ”a great many injuries to avenge, but we should not wish to do anything that does not meet with your approval.”

”The whole thing does not meet with my approval,” said the Spartan, ”I hate these perpetual plots; I hate to see every city divided against itself, and see the big persons in Greece hounding them on to b.l.o.o.d.y deeds, and making our own gain out of them. I wish to all the G.o.ds that I could do something to bring this wretched war to an end. Why should not Athens and Sparta be friends as they were in the old days? Surely that would be better than our going on flying at each others' throats as we have been doing for now nearly twenty years past, while the Persian stands by, and laughs to see us play his game. Where should we be--you seem an honest man, by your face, though I cannot say that I particularly like the errand on which you have come--where should we be, I ask, if we had shown this accursed folly twenty-odd years ago, when Xerxes brought up all Asia against us? As it was we stood shoulder to shoulder, and Greece was saved. And now we have to go cap in hand, and beg of the very Persians who are only biding their time to make slaves of us. I tell you, sir, I feel hot with shame at the thought of what I have had myself to put up with in this way. When I came here I found the pay-chest empty; I don't want to complain of anybody, so I won't say how this came about; but that was the fact, it was empty; the men had had no wages for some time, and they would very soon have had no food. I asked my officers for advice. 'You must go to Cyrus,' they said, 'Cyrus is paymaster.'[19] It was a bitter draught to swallow, but I managed to get it down. I went to his palace at Sardis. 'Tell your master,' I said to the slave who came to the door, a gorgeous creature whose dress I am sure I could not afford to buy, 'tell your master that Callicratidas, admiral of the Spartan fleet, is here, and wishes to speak with him.'

The fellow left me standing outside, and went to deliver his message.

After I had waited till my patience was almost exhausted, the man came back, and said 'Cyrus is not at leisure to see you. He is drinking.'

Well, I put up with that. 'Very good,' I said, 'I will wait till he has done drinking.' I thought that I would go earlier the next day, though even then it was scarcely an hour after noon. So I went at a time when I thought that he could not possibly have taken to his cups, and asked again to see him. This time they had not the grace even to make an excuse. 'Cyrus is not at leisure to see you,' was the answer, and nothing more. That was more than I could stand, and I went away. I vowed that day, and believe me it was not only because I had myself been insulted, that if I lived to go home, I would do my very best to bring Sparta and Athens together again. And now, sir, as to your business. I will send home a report of what you say. If the authorities direct me to take any action in the matter, I shall do my best to take it with effect, but I tell you frankly that this idea does not commend itself to me, and let me give you a bit of advice: do your best to make peace in your city, as I shall do my best to make peace in Greece. Depend upon it, that if we don't, we shall have some one coming down upon us from outside. It may be the Persian, though he does not seem to me to have improved as a soldier; it may be the Macedonian, who is a st.u.r.dy fellow, and helps us already to fight our battles. Whoever it is he will find us helpless with an endless quarrel and will make short work with us. And now good night.”

Hippocles left the Spartan admiral full of admiration for his manly and patriotic temper, and not at all pleased that he had been obliged to play a false part with a man so transparently honest.

About an hour after midnight the harbor was alarmed by the cry that the s.h.i.+p from Cos had parted from her moorings. Hippocles had taken advantage of a temporary increase in the force of the wind to cut his cables, and to drift toward the Athenian part of the harbor. n.o.body was able to answer the cry for help, even if it had not been purposely raised too late. The _Skylark_ had run the blockade, and Conon knew that he was to be relieved.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The instances in which a Spartan general sent to fill some office abroad seemed to lose all self-restraint and all sense of shame are deplorably numerous. Pausanias, the Spartan who commanded at Plataea, and was afterwards banished for treacherous dealings with the Persians, was the first conspicuous example of this national failing, as it may be called; but it was an example often followed. The Spartan governors in allied or conquered cities were almost proverbial for profligacy, tyranny and corruption.

[18] A seaman was paid four obols a day, the rate having been increased by the liberality of Cyrus from three to four. Five obols went to the drachma, and a hundred drachmas to the mina.

[19] This was the prince commonly called the younger Cyrus, the second of the two sons of Darius Nothus, King of Persia, by his Queen Parysatis. He had come down about a year and a half before the time of which I am writing to take the government of a large portion of Asia Minor, viz: Lydia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia. He was strongly pro-Spartan in his views, and as has been explained in a previous note, had increased the rate furnished by the Persian treasury to the Spartan fleet. But Lysander, in his anger at being suspended in the command, had, with the selfishness, characteristic of Spartan officers, paid back to Cyrus all the money that had been furnished for the pay of the sailors.

CHAPTER VI.

ARGINUSae.

At Athens, meanwhile, the relieving fleet was being fitted out with a feverish energy such as had never been witnessed within the memory of man. Nine years before, indeed, preparations on a larger scale, if cost and magnificence are to be taken into account, had been made for the disastrous expedition against Syracuse; but there was all the difference in the world between the temper of the city at the one time and at the other. Athens was at the height of her strength and her wealth when she sent out her armament, splendid, so to speak, with silver and gold, against Syracuse. It was a mighty effort, but she did it, one may almost say, out of the superfluity of her strength. Now she was sadly reduced in population and in revenue; she was struggling not for conquest but for life; she was making her last effort, and spending on it her last talent, her last man. To find a juster parallel it would have been necessary to go back a life-time, to the day when the Athenians gave up their homes and the temples of their G.o.ds to the Persian invaders, falling back on their last defences, the ”wooden walls” of their s.h.i.+ps.

Many men had heard from father or grandfather, it was just possible that one or two tottering veterans may have seen with their own eyes, how on that day a band of youths, the very flower of the Athenian aristocracy, headed by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, had marched with a gay alacrity through the weeping mult.i.tude, to hang up their bridles in the temple of Athene. For the time the G.o.ddess needed not hors.e.m.e.n but seamen, and they gave her the service that she asked for. Now the same sight was seen again. Again the knights, the well-born and wealthy citizens of Athens, dedicated their bridles to the patron G.o.ddess, and went to serve as mariners on board the fleet. Every s.h.i.+p that could float was hastily repaired and equipped. Old hulks that had been lying in dock since the palmy days when the veteran Phormion[20] led the fleet of Athens to certain victory, were launched again and manned. In this way the almost unprecedented number[21] of one hundred and ten triremes were got ready.

To man these a general levy of the population was made. Every one within the age of service not actually disabled by sickness, was taken to form the crews, and not a few who had pa.s.sed the limit volunteered. Even then the quota had to be made up by slaves, who were promised their freedom in return for their services. It was a stupendous effort, and one which Athens made with her own strength. These were not mercenaries, but her own sons whom she was sending out to make their last struggle for life.

Night and day the preparations were carried on, and before a month was out from the day on which the tidings of the disaster at Mitylene reached the city, the fleet was ready to sail. Its destination was Samos, an island that had remained faithful to Athens even after the disastrous end of the war in Sicily. Here it was joined by a contingent of forty s.h.i.+ps, made up of the same squadron scattered about the aegean, the two triremes of Diomedon[22] being among them. Diomedon was related to Callias, and the young man asked and obtained leave from the captain with whom he had sailed from Athens to transfer himself to his s.h.i.+p.

A battle was imminent. The Spartan admiral had left fifty s.h.i.+ps to maintain the blockade of Mitylene, and sailed to meet the relieving force. His numbers were inferior, but pride, and perhaps policy, forbade him to decline the combat. He had made a haughty boast to Conon, and he had to make it good. ”The sea is Sparta's bride,” he had said. ”I will stop your insults to her.” His fleet was now off Cape Malta, the south-eastern promontory of Lesbos. The Athenians had taken up their position at some little islands between it and the mainland, the Arginusae, or White Cliffs, as the name may be translated, a name destined to become notable as the scene of the great city's last victory.

Callicratidas had watched the arrival of the Athenians, and had concluded that, according to the usual custom of Greek sailors, they would take their evening meal on sh.o.r.e. Before long the fires lighted over all the group of islets showed that he was right. His own men had supped, and they were ordered to embark in all haste and make an attack which would probably be a surprise. What success his bold and energetic action would have had we can only guess. The stars in their courses fought against him. A violent thunderstorm with heavy rain came on, and prevented him from putting to sea.

The next day was fine and calm and the two fleets were early afloat.

Their arrangement and plan of action showed a curious contrast, a contrast such as was almost enough to make one of the great Athenian seamen of the past turn in his grave. The Athenian s.h.i.+ps were ma.s.sed together; the Spartans and their allies were formed in a single line.

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