A Victor of Salamis

The chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before the _Bozra_ had submitted to her fate, she had led the _Nausicaä_ and her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more...

Sunrise. The _Nausicaä_ was ready. Ameinias the navarch walked the deck above the stern-cabin with nervous strides. All that human forethought could do to prepare the ship had l...

In a tent at the lower end of the long stadium stood Glaucon awaiting the final summons to his ordeal. His friends had just cried farewell for the last time: Cimon had kissed hi...

Even whilst the boat pulled out to the trader, Hiram suggested that since his superior’s “unfortunate scruples” forbade them to shed blood, at least they could disable the most...

As Glaucon slept he found himself again in Athens. He was on the familiar way from the cool wrestling ground of the Academy and walking toward the city through the suburb of Cer...

The night after his adventure on the hill slope Democrates received in his chambers no less an individual than Hiram. That industrious Phœnician had been several days in Trœzene...

The stranger drew back the shaggy cap. Simonides and Themistocles saw a young, well-formed man. With his thick beard and the flickering cabin lamps it was impossible to discover...

Before the house six riders were reining,—five Scythian “bowmen” of the constabulary of Athens, tow-headed Barbarians, grinning but mute; the sixth was Democrates. He dismounted...

A rugged mountain, an inaccessible morass, and beyond that morass the sea: the mountain thrusting so close upon the morass as barely to leave space for a narrow wagon road. This...

Morning at last, ruddy and windy. The Persian host had been long prepared. The Tartar cavalry with their bulls-hide targets and long lances, the heavy Persian cuirassiers, the M...

At last the lotus-eating ended. Repeated messengers told how Xerxes was quitting Babylon, was holding a muster in Cappadocia, and now was crossing Asia Minor toward Sardis. Mard...

All through that year to its close and again to the verge of springtime the sun made violet haze upon the hills and pure fire of the bay at Eleusis-by-the-Sea. Night by night th...

A few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumph at Thermopylæ. An expedition sent to plunder Delphi returned discomfited—thanks, said common report, to...

A hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they caught the _Bozra_. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted prize; the luckless crew could...

In Athens! Shall one mount the Acropolis or enter the market place? Worship in the temple of the Virgin Athena, or descend to the Agora and the roar of its getters and spenders?...

Every morning the golden majesty of the sun rose above the wall of Hymettus, but few could lift their hands to Lord Helios and give praise for another day of light. “Each sunris...

The Acropolis of Athens rises as does no other citadel in the world. Had no workers in marble or bronze, no weavers of eloquence or song, dwelt beneath its shadow, it would stan...

For the fourth time the subaltern who stood at Eurybiades’s elbow turned the water-glass that marked the passing of the hours. The lamps in the low-ceiled cabin were flickering...

The day that disloyal Thebes surrendered came the tidings of the crowning of the Hellenes’ victories. At Mycale by Samos the Greek fleets had disembarked their crews and defeate...

Flowers on every head, flowers festooned about each pillar, and flowers under foot when one crossed the Agora. Beneath the sheltering porticos lurked bright-faced girls who pelt...

Near Naxos, Brasidas, after vainly trying to make a friendly haven, bade his sailors undergird the ship with heavy cables, for the timbers seemed starting. Finally he suffered h...

Glaucon’s longing for the old life ebbed and flowed. Sometimes the return of memory maddened him. Who had done it?—had forged that damning letter and then hid it with Seuthes? T...

Once more the Persians pressed into Attica, once more the Athenians,—or such few of them as had ventured home in the winter,—fled with their movables to Salamis or Peloponnesus,...

A cluster of white stuccoed houses with a craggy hill behind, and before them a blue bay girt in by the rocky isle of Salamis—that is Eleusis-by-the-Sea. Eastward and westward s...

On the evening of the Panathenæa, Bias, servant of Democrates, had supped with Phormio,—for in democratic Athens a humble citizen would not disdain to entertain even a slave. Th...

Democrates fronted ruin. What profit later details from Socias of the capture of the merchantman? Unless three days before the coming festival of the Panathenæa the orator could...

It is easy to praise the blessings of peace. Still easier to paint the horrors of war,—and yet war will remain for all time the greatest game at which human wits can play. For i...

In the northern quarter of Athens the suburb of Alopece thrust itself under the slopes of Mt. Lycabettus, that pyramid of tawny rock which formed the rear bulwark, as it were, o...

Hellas was saved. But whether forever or only for a year the gods kept hid. Panic-stricken, the “Lord of the World” had fled to Asia after the great disaster. The eunuchs, the h...

There was ceaseless coming and going outside the Precinct of Poseidon. Following much the same path just taken by Simonides and his new friends, two other men were walking, so d...

“They are dead; even so perish all of your Eternity’s enemies,” rejoined Mardonius, close by. The bow-bearer himself was covered with blood and dust. A Spartan sword had grazed...

When Glaucon awoke to consciousness, it was with a sense of absolute weakness, at the same moment with a sense of absolute rest. He knew that he was lying on pillows “softer tha...

The lad who sidled up to Democrates was all but a hunchback. His bare arms were grotesquely tattooed, clear sign that he was a Thracian. His eyes twinkled keenly, uneasily, as i...

Democrates surpassed himself when arraigning the knavish contractor. “Nestor and Odysseus both speak to us,” shouted Polus in glee, flinging his black bean in the urn. “What elo...

Never since Salamis had Persian hopes been higher than that night. What if the Spartans were in the field at last, and the incessant skirmishing had been partly to Pausanias’s a...

Despite exile, life had moved pleasantly for Hermippus’s household that spring. The Trœzenians had surpassed all duties to Zeus Xenios—the stranger’s god—in entertaining the out...

Leonidas was taken. Themistocles was left,—left to bear as crushing a load as ever weighed on man,—to fight two battles, one with the Persian, one with his own unheroic allies,...

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 t...

Themistocles had started from Oropus with Simonides, a small guard of mariners, and a fettered prisoner, as soon as the _Nausicaä’s_ people were a little rested. Half the night...

It had come at last,—the hour wise men had dreaded, fools had scoffed at, cowards had dared not face. The Barbarian was within five days’ march of Attica. The Athenians must bow...

After the _Nausicaä_ had returned that night to Salamis, after the old men and the women had laughed and wept over the living,—they were too proud to weep over the dead,—after t...

XV. THE LOTUS-EATING AT SARDIS 165 XVI. THE COMING OF XERXES THE GOD-KING 174 XVII. THE CHARMING BY ROXANA 186 XVIII. DEMOCRATES’S TROUBLES RETURN 197 XIX. THE COMMANDMENT OF XE...

XXXI. DEMOCRATES SURRENDERS 333 XXXII. THE STRANGER IN TRŒZENE 343 XXXIII. WHAT BEFELL ON THE HILLSIDE 350 XXXIV. THE LOYALTY OF LAMPAXO 360 XXXV. MOLOCH BETRAYS THE PHŒNICIAN 3...

V. HERMIONE OF ELEUSIS 51 VI. ATHENS 62 VII. DEMOCRATES AND THE TEMPTER 74 VIII. ON THE ACROPOLIS 84 IX. THE CYPRIAN TRIUMPHS 95 X. DEMOCRATES RESOLVES 106 XI. THE PANATHENÆA 11...