Callias: A Tale of the Fall of Athens Part 24

That night there was a great banquet. This served a double purpose.

Quarrels were made up, and some other difficult relations of the army to its neighbors were satisfactorily adjusted. The fact was, that the Greeks, partly from their want, and partly in the hope of filling their pockets after a long and profitless campaign, had been plundering right and left. The natives, on the other hand, had not been slow to retaliate. Plundering cannot be done satisfactorily in company; but any who ventured to do a little business on his own account ran a great chance of being cut off. Under these circ.u.mstances both parties thought it might be possible to come to an agreement. If the Greeks would not plunder, the natives would leave them unmolested and even furnish them with supplies. The chief of the country, accordingly, sent an emba.s.sy, with a handsome present of horses and robes of native manufacture. The generals entertained them at a banquet, to which, at the same time, they invited the most influential men of the army. The chief's proposals would be informally discussed, and proposed in regular form at a general meeting the next day.

The generals did their best to impress their guests. Meat, bread and wine were in plenty; and the eparch of Trapezus sent one of the magnificent turbots for which the waters of the Black Sea were famous.

All the plate that was in the camp was put into requisition to make as brave a show as possible; and, at the instance of Callias, some handsome vessels of gold and silver were lent by the town authorities.

But, in the eyes of the guests, the most impressive part of the entertainment was in the performances which followed it. The libation having been made and the hymn, which supplied the part of grace after meat, having been sung, some of the Thracian soldiers came upon the platform which had been prepared for the performers. They wore the usual armor of their country, a helmet, greaves, light cuira.s.s, and sword, and danced a national dance to the sound of a flute, leaping into the air with extraordinary nimbleness, and brandishing their swords. One pair of dancers were conspicuous for their agility. Faster and faster grew their movements, and with gestures of defiance they alternately retreated and advanced. At last, one of them, carried, it seemed, out of himself by his rage, thrust at his fellow with his sword. The man fell.

"He is killed!" screamed out the guests, and rose from their seats.

Indeed, the man had fallen so artistically and lay so still that any one would have thought that he had received a fatal blow. The Greeks, however, looked on unmoved, and the strangers, not knowing whether this wonderful people might not be wont to kill each other for the entertainment of their guests, resumed their seats. The dancer who had dealt the blow stripped the other of his arms, and hurried off, singing the Thracian national song:

"All praise to Sitalces, Invisible Lord, The spear point that errs not, The death-dealing sword, The chariot that scatters The close ranks of war, Red Ruin behind it, Blind Panic before!"

When he had left the stage a party of Thracians appeared and carried off the fallen man, who had remained without giving the slightest sign of life.

Another dance in armor succeeded, performed this time by aeolian tribesmen from the Menalian coast. A man came on the stage, and, laying aside his arms, made believe to drive a yoke of oxen, and to sow as he drove. Every now and then he looked round, with an admirable imitation of expecting some unpleasant interruption. This came in the shape of another armed man, who was supposed to represent a cattle-lifter. The ploughman caught up his arms, and ran to encounter him. The two fought in front of the team, keeping time as they struck and parried to the sound of the flute. At last the robber appeared to vanquish his adversary, to bind him, strip him of his arms, and drive off the team.

The next performer was a Mysian, who danced, again in armor, what we should call a _pas seul_. He had a light shield in each hand, and seemed to be fighting with two adversaries at once; his action was extraordinarily life-like and his agility almost more than human. In curious contrast with his performance was the stately movement of some Arcadians heavy-armed, who, with all the weight of their armor and accoutrements upon them, moved to the tune of the warriors' march with as much ease as if they had been perfectly unenc.u.mbered.

"Good Heavens!" cried one of the envoys to his next neighbor, "what men these are! Their armor seems not one whit heavier to them than a shirt, and they carry their swords and their spears as if they were twigs of osier."

One of the Mysians, whose dialect was not very different from that of the speaker, overheard the remark. "Ah!" he said to himself, "we will astonish these gentlemen still more."

He drew one of the Arcadians who had just performed, aside. "Send Cleone on the stage," he said.

Cleone was a dancing-girl, famous for her agility.

By good luck she was at hand, having indeed expected to perform for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the company. The Arcadian made her put on a light cuira.s.s of silvered steel, which she wore over a scarlet tunic. She had a short gilded helmet, buskins of purple, and sandals tied with crimson strings.

In her left hand she carried a small shield, and in her right, a light spear. Thus accoutred, she came on the stage and danced the Pyrrhic dance with tremendous applause from all the spectators.

The astonishment of the native guests was beyond all expression.

"What!" cried their chief, "do your women fight?"

"Of course," said the General whom he addressed, "of course they fight, and very pretty soldiers they make."

"Women soldiers!" gasped the man.

"Why," said his host, "did you not know that it was the women who routed the Great King, and drove him out of our camp?"

FOOTNOTES:

[76] The examination of accounts (euthuna) was one of the most important const.i.tutional usages in the Athenian commonwealth. All magistrates on coming out of office, and amba.s.sadors returning from a mission had to undergo it. The existence of this usage would make the difference in the eyes of an Athenian between a const.i.tutional and a despotic government.

The other Greek States, though we know but little of their internal arrangements, probably had some similar inst.i.tution.

[77] Rather more than 400.

CHAPTER XXVI.

INVALIDED.

Callias found it very hard to sit out the banquet and the entertainment that followed it. He had felt a headache before sitting, or to speak more correctly, lying down, and this grew so bad during the evening that he gladly took the earliest opportunity of leaving. The fact was that he had been ailing for some days; the excitement of the games had carried him through the labors of the day, but he suffered doubly from the reaction, and before nightfall he was seriously ill.

And now he found the advantage of having followed Xenophon's advice and taken up his quarters in the town. Had he been reduced to such nursing and attendance as the camp could have supplied, his chances of moving would have been small indeed. At the house of Demochares, on the contrary, he had everything in his favor, an exceptionally good nurse, and an exceptionally skillful physician. In those days neither branch of the healing art, for nursing has certainly as much to do with healing as physicking, was very successfully cultivated. Women nursed the sick, indeed, often with kindness and devotion, for woman's nature was substantially the same then as it is now, but they did it in a blind and ignorant fashion. As for the practice of medicine it was a ma.s.s of curious superst.i.tions and prejudices, leavened here and there with a few grains of experience, and, if the pract.i.tioner happened to have that inestimable quality, of good sense. Of systems there was only the beginning. The great physician Hippocrates had indeed acquired a vast reputation, and was beginning to influence the opinion of the faculty throughout Greece; but the medical profession has always been slow to adopt new ideas--what profession, indeed, has not?--the means of communication, too, were very limited, and as yet his teaching had had but little effect.

But Callias happened to be exceedingly fortunate both in his nurse and in his doctor. The house of Demochares was kept by his sister, a widow, who after her husband's death had returned to her old home, and had devoted herself to a life of kindness and charity. The young Athenian had won her heart, not only by his sunny temper and gracious manners, but by his resemblance to a son of her own whose early death--he had been slain in a skirmish with the barbarian neighbors of Trapezus--had been the second great sorrow of her life. His illness called forth her tenderest sympathies, and nothing could have exceeded the devotion with which she ministered to her patient.

The physician, Demoleon by name, was a very remarkable man. He was a native of the island of Cos, and was at this time between fifty and sixty years of age. He had been one of the first pupils of the famous Hippocrates, who was a native of the same island, and had lived on terms of great intimacy with his teacher whom he a.s.sisted in his private practice. When Hippocrates was summoned to the plague-stricken city of Athens, Demoleon accompanied him, and, by a curious coincidence, in the course of his residence there had treated the father of Callias.

Whatever the benefit that followed the prescriptions of Hippocrates, it is certain that the fact of his being called in to administer them by the most famous citizen of Greece, largely increased his reputation, and that even beyond the border of Greece. The great physician's return from Athens was speedily followed by an invitation from Artaxerxes, King of Persia.[78] The plague that had devastated Greece had pa.s.sed eastward, and was committing destructive ravages throughout the Persian Empire.

Artaxerxes implored Hippocrates to give him and his subjects the benefit of his advice. He offered at the same time the magnificent _honorarium_ of two talents of gold yearly.[79] The patriotism or the prudence of Hippocrates led him to refuse this offer, tempting as it was. He would not, he said, and doubtless with sincerity, give the benefit of his advice to the hereditary enemy of his country. At the same time, we may suppose, he reflected to himself that he would be putting himself, without any possibility of appeal, at the mercy of a tyrannical and unscrupulous master. But one of the Persian envoys succeeded in doing a little business of the same kind on his own account. He found the pupil less resolute against the temptations of a great bribe than the master had been. Accordingly he engaged Demoleon to come in the capacity of physician to himself and his household. The King would have the opportunity of availing himself of his advice if he pleased. Artaxerxes was disappointed at the refusal of Hippocrates, but he did not disdain the help of a man who had shared his practice, and was probably acquainted with his system. Demoleon prescribed at Susa and Persepolis the remedies which his master had employed at Athens, the burning of huge fires in the street and squares, and the use of an antidote. The pestilence either yielded to these influences, or, as is more probable, had exhausted its force. At any rate Demoleon got the credit of having vanquished the enemy, and was rewarded by a munificent present from the King and by an enormous practice.

He might have acc.u.mulated great wealth but for an unlucky complication for which he can scarcely be considered to have been to blame. Necessity sometimes compelled a departure, in the case of the physician, from the strict rules of seclusion with which the Persian women were surrounded.

Demoleon was called in to visit the daughter of a Persian n.o.ble. She was a beautiful girl, or rather would have been beautiful but for the fact that she was blind. It was a case of cataract, and the Greek physician, who was as bold as he was skillful, ventured on an operation which at that time had scarcely been attempted, or even thought of. It proved entirely successful. The grat.i.tude of the father was shown by a munificent present of gold and jewels; that of the daughter by the gift of her heart. One of the very first objects on which her eyes rested when the bandage was permitted to be removed was the form of the young physician who had restored to her one of the greatest joys of life.

Under any circ.u.mstances it was likely to please her; and Demoleon was in the bloom of early manhood, and his fair complexion and golden hair showed in attractive contrast to the swarthy hues of her countrymen. The result was that she fell deeply in love. Demoleon was not without prudence, and would have hesitated to listen to any promptings of his own heart, for he too had been greatly impressed by the beauty and grace as well as by the pathetic patience of the sufferer. Amestris--that was the young lady's name--guessed readily enough that the physician would not venture to speak, and she took the matter into her own hands. She did not speak herself; for that, pa.s.sionate as was her affection, would have been impossible; but she got some one to speak for her. Her nurse--the nurse was generally the _confidante_ of antiquity--undertook the task of communicating with the young man. One day she gave him a pomegranate, saying at the same time that he would find the fruit especially sweet. Her words would have seemed ordinary enough to any one that might have happened to hear them; but the young physician, whose feelings made him susceptible, suspected, he could not say why, a particular meaning. Opening the fruit he found a ring engraved with a single Greek word--_Be Bold_. The next day he thanked the giver of the fruit with emphasis. "It was sweet to the core," he said.

After that the affair proceeded rapidly. The young man, who, as may be guessed, did not hurry the case of his patient, found an opportunity of declaring his love, and in the following summer the two lovers fled together. All the arrangements had been carefully made. The girl feigned sickness, and the physician prescribed a residence among the hills and a simpler life and plainer diet than the patient was likely to get in her father's house. Her foster-mother was the wife of a sheep master who rented some extensive pasture on the hills of Southern Armenia, and it was settled that Amestris should pay her a visit. The lady was sent off under a small escort, no one dreaming that the family of an influential n.o.ble would be molested on its journey. Yet, curiously enough, a band of brigands was bold enough to enter the caravanserai where the party was lodging on the fourth night after their departure from Susa. Certainly the keeper of the inn, and, possibly, the commander of the escort, had been bribed--Demoleon's successful practice had put him in the command of as much money as he wanted. For a long time Amestris absolutely disappeared. Her father searched everywhere and offered munificent rewards for information, but he could find and hear nothing. No one knew that a couple of travellers, who might have been two brothers journeying in company and followed by three well armed servants, were in fact Demoleon, Amestris, and the pretended robbers.

The party followed much the same route as was afterwards taken by the Ten Thousand, and, after not a few hair-breadth escapes, arrived in safety at the same destination,--the city of Trapezus.

Three years of happiness followed. Then the beautiful Persian died. She never repented of having given her heart to the young physician, who was the best and most affectionate of husbands. But she missed her family and all the a.s.sociations of her early life, and pined away under the loss. Return was impossible; she could not go back without her husband, and to return with him would have been to expose him, if not herself, to the certainty of death. The hopelessness of the situation broke her heart; and all her husband's skill, even the more potent influence of her husband's love, failed to work a cure.

The widower could not prevail upon himself to leave the place where he had enjoyed his short-lived happiness. He might have gained wealth and fame in larger cities, but he preferred to spend the rest of his days at Trapezus. There, indeed, he was almost worshipped. He had a singularly light and skillful hand; his experience, though, of course, not so large as he might have collected elsewhere, was always ready for use; and he had the rare, the incommunicable gift of felicitous guessing--guessing we call it, but it is really the power of forming rapid conclusions from a number of trifling, often half discerned indications. Anyhow he achieved some very marvellous cures; performed with success operations which others did not venture to attempt; diagnosed diseases with remarkable skill, and was extraordinarily fertile in his expedients. It was specially characteristic of him that while he was never satisfied till he had thoroughly enquired into the causes of disease, he was unwearied in his efforts to relieve the inconvenience and painfulness of a patient's symptoms.

So alarming did the condition of Callias become after his return from the banquet, that Demoleon was called in without loss of time. All that he could do at the moment was to give a sleeping draught, intending to make a thorough examination of the case next morning.

Shortly after sunrise he was by the bedside. Callias was conscious enough to be able to describe his feelings; what he said indicated plainly enough that his illness had been developing for some days past, and had been postponed by sheer courage and determination. It was in fact something like what we call gastric fever; and the experienced physician saw enough to convince him that he should have a hard battle to fight. The patient was young, vigorous, apparently sound of const.i.tution, and, as far as he could learn, of temperate habits. All this was in favor of recovery; but it was not more than was needed to give a glimpse of hope.

Demochares, who had a strong regard for the young man, as indeed every one had that had been brought into contact with him, intercepted the physician as he was leaving the house after a prolonged examination of the patient.

"How do you find him?" he asked.

Demoleon shook his head. The gesture was not exactly despairing, but it indicated plainly enough that the situation was serious.

"You will put him all right before long?" returned the merchant, alarmed at the gravity of the physician's manner.

"All these things lie on the knees of the G.o.ds," said Demoleon, quoting from his favorite Homer. (It was a maxim of his that a man who did not know his Homer was little better than a fool.) It may be said that the physician was more than a little brusque in manner and speech. Twenty years of solitary life had made him so, for since his wife's death he had held aloof from all the social life of the place.

"What ails him?" enquired the merchant.

"A fever," was the brief reply.

"Does it run high?"

"Very high indeed."