CHAPTER XXX.

THE CONDITION OF EXILE.

The story that Callias had heard of the last days of his Master, and heard, of course, with many details which it is now impossible to reproduce, made, it need hardly be said, a profound impression on him. First and foremost--and this was what the dead man himself would have been most rejoiced to see--was the profound conviction that this teaching, inspired, as it was, with a faith which the immediate prospect of death had not been able to shake, was absolutely true. The young man can hardly be said to have had any feeling of religion in the sense in which we understand that word. To believe in the fables, grotesque or even immoral, which made up the popular theology, in gods who were only exaggerated men, stronger, indeed, but more cruel, treacherous, and lustful, was an impossibility. The poets’ tales of the Elysian plain and of the abyss of Tartarus had in no wise helped towards producing any emotions of the spiritual kind, any wish to dwell in an invisible world. The most sacred of these poets in his description of that world as another earth in which everything was feebler, paler, less satisfying than it is here, had certainly repelled rather than attracted him. Now this want had been supplied; the lofty teaching of duty, duty owed to country, kinsfolk, friends, fellow-citizens, fellow-men, that he had heard from the Master was now supplemented and sanctioned by this clear enunciation of a doctrine of immortality. The young man felt that he could face the world, whether it brought him prosperity or adversity, joy or sorrow, life or death, with a more equable soul or more assured spirit than he had ever dreamed could be possible.

His immediate duty, however, was less clear. When his country lay under the heel of the Spartan conqueror, Hermione had pointed out to him--not without sacrifice of herself, as he sometimes could not help feeling, what he owed to the city that had given him birth. But now, how did the case stand? Athens had suffered a second, a more fatal fall. She might repair her losses; she might retrieve defeat. But when she had definitely broken with right and truth, had deliberately chosen the worse rather than the better, what hope, what remedy was there? And what was the obligation on himself? Could he aspire to a career in a State which was so false to all the principles of life and government?

The two or three days that followed the conversation related in my last chapter were spent by the young Athenian in debating with himself the question: What am I to do? But the more he thought over the problem, the more complex and intricate did it seem to become. Just when he was beginning to despair, a solution, rude and peremptory, but satisfactory in so far as it admitted of no questioning, was forced upon him.

He had just risen on the morning of the fourth day, when a visitor was announced. It was Xenophon, looking, as Callias thought, serious, but not depressed.

“And what have you been doing these three days?” cried the newcomer.

“Thinking,” replied Callias.

“That is exactly what I have been doing myself, and I would wager my chance of being Archon next year, a very serious stake indeed, that we have had the same subject for our thoughts. You have been debating with yourself what you are to do?”

“Exactly so; and I am no nearer a conclusion than I was when I began.”

“Well, some one else has been good enough to save us the trouble of deciding. Listen to this. I have a friend in office, I should tell you, and he has given me an early copy of what will be soon known all over Athens. ‘It is proposed by Erasinides, son of Lysias, of the township of Colonus, that Xenophon, son of Grythus, of the township of Orchia, and Callias, son of Hipponicus, of the township of Eleusis,’ and some twenty others, whose names I need not trouble you with, ‘be banished from Athens for unpatriotic conduct, especially in aiding and abetting the designs of Cyrus, who was a notorious enemy of the Athenian people.’ Well; that is going to be proposed to the Senate to-day. My friend, who knows all about the strings, and how they are pulled, tells me that it is certain to be carried. In the course of a few days it will be brought before the Assembly, and I have no doubt whatever that it will be accepted.”

“But what have the Athenian people got to do with Cyrus, who is dead and gone, and can neither help nor hurt?”

“Ah! you don’t understand. The Lacedaemonians, you know, have declared war against the Persian King. Of course that gives the Athenians a chance of becoming his friends. It is true that things are not ripe just yet for anything decisive or public. We are allies with the Lacedaemonians, and can’t venture to quarrel with them. But this is a matter at which they cannot take offence, but which will most certainly please the Great King. He has not forgotten the Cyrus business, you may depend upon it, and it will delight him to hear of any who had a part in it suffering for their act. That is why we are to be banished. It is disgraceful, I allow, to find a great city banishing its citizens in order to curry favor with the barbarians; but it is a fact, and we must take it into account.”

“And what shall you do?”

“I shall go to Asia. I had intended to go in any case, for I have private affairs there, nothing less important, I may tell you in confidence, than marrying a wife. Then I shall find something to do with the Spartans, among whom I have some very good friends. Come with me. You too, might find a wife; that will be as you please; but anyhow I can guarantee you employment.”

“I confess,” said Callias, after meditating awhile, “that I do not feel greatly drawn by what you suggest. As for the wife, that prospect does not please me at all; and, as you know, I am not so much of a Spartan-lover[91] as you. You must let me think about it; you shall have a final answer to-morrow.”

When Xenophon had taken leave, Callias went straight to Hippocles, and happened to arrive just as a messenger was leaving the house with a note addressed to himself, and asking for an early visit. Callias related what he had just heard from Xenophon.

“You do not surprise me. In fact I also have had a private intimation from a member of the Senate that this is going to be done, and it is exactly the matter about which I wished to see you. But tell me, what does Xenophon advise?”

Callias told him.

“And you hesitate about accepting his offer?”

“Yes; I do more than hesitate; I feel more and more averse to it the more I think of it.”

“You are right; to take service with the Spartans must, almost of necessity, mean, sooner or later, some collision with your own country. It was this that ruined Alcibiades. If he could only have had patience, he could have saved himself and the Athenians too, but that visit to Sparta ruined both. No; I should advise you against Xenophon’s suggestion.”

“But where am I to go? I have thought of Syracuse. But I do not care to go back to Dionysius. He was all courtesy and kindness; but I felt suffocated in the air of his court. And we never feel quite safe with a tyrant.”

“I have thought of something else that might suit you. I am going to start in a few days’ time on a visit to my own native country, not to Poseidonia--I could not bear to see the barbarians masters there--but to Italy. There are other Greek cities which still hold their own, and they are well worth seeing. You might, too, if you choose, pay another visit to Rome. You will at least have the advantage of being out of this dismal round of strife to which Greece itself seems doomed. Our countrymen there have, I know, faults of their own; but they do contrive to live on tolerably good terms with each other.”

The plan proposed seemed to Callias to promise better than any that he could think of and he accepted the offer with thankfulness. A few days afterwards he was gazing for what he felt might well be the last time at the city of his birth. Bathed in the sunshine of a summer morning stood the Acropolis, crowned with its marble temples, and, towering above all, the gigantic statue of Athene the Champion, her outstretched spear-point flashing in the light. What glories he was leaving behind him! What lost hopes, what unfulfilled aspirations of his own! The tears of no unmanly emotion were in his eyes as he turned away, but not before he had caught sight of a well-known house by the harbor of Piraeus. This seemed to be the last drop of bitterness in his cup. She had lost him for his country’s sake, and now he had lost her, too. He turned and found himself face to face with Hermione! There was something in her look which made his heart thrill; but she did not give him time to speak.

“Callias,” she said, “you gave up what you said was dear to me,” and her blush deepened as she spoke, “for Athens’ sake. But now--if you have not forgotten--”

He needed to hear no more. The next moment, careless of the eyes of the old helmsman, he had clasped her in his arms.

“I can allow myself to love the exile,” she whispered in his ear.

FOOTNOTES:

[91] The Greek _philo-lacon_. The word had been applied to Cimon, son of Miltiades, who had always been a popular statesman and so might be used in a friendly way. If Callias had spoken of Xenophon as disposed to _laconismus_ it would have been almost an affront, this word meaning not so much admiration of Spartan ways of life as devotion to Spartan interests.

Author’s Postscript.

It is impossible for the writer of historical fiction, especially if he wishes to suggest to his readers as many subjects of interest as possible, to adapt the literary necessities of his work to fit in with the actual course of events. But he is bound to point out such departures from historical accuracy as he feels constrained to make. It is quite possible that a correction may serve to impress the real facts upon his readers more deeply than an originally accurate statement would have done. I therefore append to my tale a list of

_CORRIGENDA._

1. I was anxious to include the Battle of Arginusæ in my story. It was the first scene in the last act of the great drama of the Peloponnesian war. At the same time I felt bound, having made up my mind to give a description of a Greek comedy, to choose the _Frogs_. It has a literary interest such as no other Aristophanic play possesses, and it is at once more important and more intelligible to a modern reader. But to bring the two things together it was necessary to ante-date the representation of the play. I have put it in the year 406 B. C. It really took place in 405. I have also made the battle happen somewhat earlier than in all probability, it really did. The festival of the Great Dionysia, at which new plays were produced, was celebrated in March. We do not know precisely the date of Arginusæ, but it is likely that it was later in the year. A similar correction must be made about the embassy of Dionysius. It may have taken place when the play was really produced, but in 406 Dionysius was too busy with his war with Carthage to think of such things.

2. I have ante-dated, this time by several years, the capture of Poseidonia by the native Italians. Here again we have no record of the precise time; but it probably happened somewhat later in the century.

3. I do not know whether I am wrong in making Alcibiades escape from his castle in Thrace immediately after the battle Ægos Potami. Plutarch would give one rather to understand that he fled after the capture of Athens. It is quite possible, however, that he recognized the defeat as fatal to Athenian influence of the Thracian coast, and that feeling his own position to be no longer tenable, he retired from it at once.

4. I have taken some liberties with the text of Xenophon’s narrative. The trial of the generals by their own soldiers, the athletic sports, and the entertainment described in my story are all taken from the _Anabasis_, but they do not come so close together as I have found it convenient to put them.

5. It is a moot point among historians whether Xenophon returned to Athens after he had quitted the Ten Thousand. Mr. Grote thinks that he did; and his authority is perhaps sufficient to shelter such a humble person as myself. It has also been debated whether he was banished in 399 or some years later. I am inclined to think that here I am accurate.

6. I need hardly say that the Thracian national song is of my own invention. Xenophon simply says that the Thracian performers went off the stage singing the “Sitalces.” That this was a song celebrating the achievement of the king of that name (for which see a classical dictionary) cannot be doubted. But we know nothing more about it, and I have supplied the words.

7. It is not necessary to say that the “diary” of Callias is an invention. To be quite candid I do not think it was at all likely that a young soldier would have kept one, or even been able to write it up daily. But I wanted to give some prominent incidents from Xenophon’s story, and had not space for the whole, while a mere epitome would have been tedious.

8. I must caution my readers against supposing my hero to be historical. There was a Callias, son of Hipponicus, at this time, a very different man.

9. I have taken the defence of Socrates from Plato’s _Apology_, not from Xenophon. The former is immeasurably superior.

INDEX.

ÆGOS POTAMI, BATTLE OF, 148-150.

AGIS, 164.

ALCIBIADES. Home, 120 Appearance, 124 Career in Thrace, 134 Defense, 137-140 Farewell to his men, 151-154 Assassination, 190-194.

ALIEN, 21-22.

ANABASIS, THE, 209-211.

APATURIA, THE, 92.

APOLLODORUS, 301.

ARGOS, 164.

ARGINUSÆ, BATTLE OF, 51-57.

ARIÆUS, 210, 214, 215.

ARISTIDES, 169.

BISANTHE, 120.

CALENDAR, 223.

CALLICRATIDAS, 39, 44-50, 53, 55, 63.

CALLIXENUS, 93.

CHERSONESUS, 143.

CHIOS, 32, 62.

CHIRISOPHUS, 219.

CIMON, 52.

CLEARCHUS, 210, 213.

CLEON, 12.

CONON, 16, 17, 36.

COS, 89.

CRITIAS, 276, 277.

CRITO, 301, 304-320.

CUNAXA, BATTLE OF, 209-211.

CYBELE, 157.

CYRUS, 48, 49, 142, 153, 211.

CYRUS, THE YOUNGER, 207, 208, 211.

DELIUM, 130.

DIOMEDON, 54-57, 58.

DIONYSIUS, 2, 197, 199-206.

DRESS, 46.

EPHORS, 164.

EUPATRID, 114.

EURYPTOLEMUS, 94, 96, 99-101.

EXILE, 324.

GAMES. President, 242 Foot-races, 243, 244 The Pentathlon, 244 Leaping the Bar, 245 Running, 246 Quoit Throwing, 246-247 Hurling the Javelin, 247 Wrestling, 248, 249 Horse-race, 251.

GORDIUM, 155, 158.

GOVERNMENT. Public Guests, 66 Popular Trials, 90-102, 287-302 The Bema, 95 Balloting, 101-102 The Eleven, 102 Capital Punishment, 103.

HELLESPONT, 18, 120.

HERMÆ, 139.

HIPPOCRATES, 264.

HOUSES. Arrangement, 30, 34 Servants, 30 Clocks, 123.

HUNTING, 132, 133.

LYSANDER, 141, 142, 144, 160.

MARATHON, 32, 173, 179.

MEDICAL SCIENCE, 265, 266, 269, 271.

MONEY, 46.

MYRONIDES, 67.

MITYLENE, 16, 38, 43.

NAVY, 51, 52, 54.

NICIAS, 138.

NOTIUM, BATTLE OF, 26, 28.

OENOPHYTA, 67, 68.

OLIGARCHY, 276.

OMENS, 216, 218.

PAINTING, 127.

PARATHERÆA, THE, 27.

PAUSANIAS, 165.

PERSIANS, 48, 324.

PHARNABAZUS, 154.

PHASIS, RIVER, 232.

PHAEDO, 307, 308.

PHORMION, 52.

PLATO, 301.

POSEIDONIA, 22.

POTIDÆA, 130.

PROPONTIS, 120.

PROXENUS, 208, 215.

RHODES, 186.

RETREAT OF TEN THOUSAND, 212-237 Murder of the Generals, 214 Xenophon in Command, 216, 217 Plan of March, 219 First Skirmish, 220 Cavalry Organized, 221 Armenia, 228 Snowfall, 229 Banqueting In Villages, 231 Taking a Pass, 233 The Sea Reached, 236 At Trapezus, 237 Return to Greece, 280-285.

SACRIFICES, 241.

SAILING SEASON, 119.

SAMOS, 53.

SAMOTHRACE, 120.

SEUTHES, 133, 282-284.

SIEGE OF ATHENS, 162-171.

SMYRNA, 188.

SOCIAL LIFE. Calls, 33, 34 Knocking, 34, 279 At Table, 84, 125 Food, 35 Libations, 35, 40, 125 Banquets, 70-78, 258-262 Rhapsodist, 71 Dancers, 74, 261, 262 Colonial Society, 135 Hospitality, 239.

SOCRATES. Conversations, 82-86 Refusal to Sanction Illegal Motion, 98 Alcibiades’ Tribute, 129-131 Conduct during the Siege, 167 Dionysius Inquires About Him, 202 His Trial, 287-302 His Defense, 294-302 Conversation in Prison, 308-309 Last Day of Life, 310-318 Argument for Immortality, 312 Death, 318-320.

SPARTANS, 44.

SYBARIS, 22, 26.

SYRACUSE, 31, 193, 198.

TARSUS, 207.

TEN GENERALS, THE The System, 60 Report of Victory, 87, 88 The Trial Commenced, 90, 91 Plots, 92-94 Trial Continued, 95-101 The Verdict, 102 Punishment, 103.

THASUS, 119.

THEATER, THE The Curtain, 3 “The Frogs,” 3-11 Aristophanes, 11 Old Comedy and New, 11 The Audience, 12, 13 Arrangement, 15 Author as Prompter, 16.

THEMISTOCLES, 17.

THERAMENES, 60, 89, 168, 276.

THIRTY TYRANTS, 276.

THRACIANS. Intemperance, 126 Extravagance, 136.

THRASYBULUS, 60, 89.

TIGRIS, RIVER, 222.

TISSAPHERNES, 159, 212, 223.

TOWN HALL, 16, 66.

TRAPEZUS, 237.

WALLS, THE LONG, 109, 165.

WARFARE. Armor, 210, 221 Archers, 221 Cavalry, 221 Character of Mercenaries, 226.

WOMEN. In Lucania, 23-25 At Table, 34 Wine Drinking, 35 Marriage, 180-183 Dependence, 82-85.

XENOPHON. At the Banquet, 78 Describes Socrates, 79-81 Explains the Expedition against the Great King, 207 Elected a General, 217 Reproof of a Soldier, 225 Energy in the Cold Weather, 229, 230 Repartee with Chirisophus, 232 Answers Charges, 254-258.