Part 1 (1/2)
A Victor of Salamis.
by William Stearns Davis.
NOTE
The invasion of Greece by Xerxes, with its battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, forms one of the most dramatic events in history. Had Athens and Sparta succ.u.mbed to this attack of Oriental superst.i.tion and despotism, the Parthenon, the Attic Theatre, the Dialogues of Plato, would have been almost as impossible as if Phidias, Sophocles, and the philosophers had never lived. Because this contest and its heroes-Leonidas and Themistocles-cast their abiding shadows across our world of to-day, I have attempted this piece of historical fiction.
Many of the scenes were conceived on the fields of action themselves during a recent visit to Greece, and I have tried to give some glimpse of the natural beauty of ”The Land of the h.e.l.lene,”-a beauty that will remain when Themistocles and his peers fade away still further into the backgrounds of history.
W. S. D.
CHAPTER I
GLAUCON THE BEAUTIFUL
The crier paused for the fifth time. The crowd-knotty Spartans, keen Athenians, perfumed Sicilians-pressed his pulpit closer, elbowing for the place of vantage. Amid a lull in their clamour the crier recommenced.
”And now, men of h.e.l.las, another time hearken. The sixth contestant in the pentathlon, most honourable of the games held at the Isthmus, is Glaucon, son of Conon the Athenian; his grandfather-” a jangling shout drowned him.
”The most beautiful man in h.e.l.las!” ”But an effeminate puppy!” ”Of the n.o.ble house of Alcmaeon!” ”The family's accursed!” ”A great G.o.d helps him-even Eros.” ”Ay-the fool married for mere love. He needs help. His father disinherited him.”
”Peace, peace,” urged the crier; ”I'll tell all about him, as I have of the others. Know then, my masters, that he loved, and won in marriage, Hermione, daughter of Hermippus of Eleusis. Now Hermippus is Conon's mortal enemy; therefore in great wrath Conon disinherited his son,-but now, consenting to forgive him if he wins the parsley crown in the pentathlon-”
”A safe promise,” interrupted a Spartan in broadest Doric; ”the pretty boy has no chance against Lycon, our Laconian giant.”
”Boaster!” retorted an Athenian. ”Did not Glaucon bend open a horseshoe yesterday?”
”Our Mrocles did that,” called a Mantinean; whereupon the crier, foregoing his long speech on Glaucon's n.o.ble ancestry, began to urge the Athenians to show their confidence by their wagers.
”How much is staked that Glaucon can beat Ctesias of Epidaurus?”
”We don't match our lion against mice!” roared the noisiest Athenian.
”Or Amyntas of Thebes?”
”Not Amyntas! Give us Lycon of Sparta.”
”Lycon let it be,-how much is staked and by whom, that Glaucon of Athens, contending for the first time in the great games, defeats Lycon of Sparta, twice victor at Nemea, once at Delphi, and once at Olympia?”
The second rush and outcry put the crier nearly at his wits' end to record the wagers that pelted him, and which testified how much confidence the numerous Athenians had in their unproved champion. The brawl of voices drew newcomers from far and near. The chariot race had just ended in the adjoining hippodrome; and the idle crowd, intent on a new excitement, came surging up like waves. In such a whirlpool of tossing arms and shoving elbows, he who was small of stature and short of breath stood a scanty chance of getting close enough to the crier's stand to have his wager recorded. Such, at least, was the fate of a gray but dignified little man, who struggled vainly-even with risk to his long linen chiton-to reach the front.
”Ugh! ugh! Make way, good people,-Zeus confound you, brute of a Spartan, your big sandals crush my toes again! Can I never get near enough to place my two minae on that Glaucon?”
”Keep back, graybeard,” snapped the Spartan; ”thank the G.o.d if you can hold your money and not lose it, when Glaucon's neck is wrung to-morrow.”
Whereupon he lifted his own voice with, ”Thirty drachmae to place on Lycon, Master Crier! So you have it-”
”And two minae on Glaucon,” piped the little man, peering up with bright, beady eyes; but the crier would never have heard him, save for a sudden ally.