Charles Hamilton Bromby

“ Alliance! With a people whose selfishness and craft made it better to have them as open enemies than as friends! Alliance! With a people who from the time when they had laid upon themselves the most sacred obligations, with all the solemn sanction of libations to the gods, had never ceased to break each separate clause and article of the treaty they then made; and who quite lately, when they renewed their promises, were, at that very time, intriguing with the enemies of Athens! ”

“ Next day he set out for home; and the people from the isles and colonies, and all the states of Greece, departed, and the Olympic vale became once more the quiet habitation only of the gods and their attendants.
He went back much in the same array as that in which he came, but with an added glory. He had come as a competitor, he returned a victor. Seated in his chariot, dressed in purple, the wild olive wreath upon his head, he entered Athens. If he had been a god, indeed, descending from Olympos, he could hardly have been more rapturously received. The city in one mass came out to meet him. ”

“ But if Athens had suffered much, Sparta, on the whole, had suffered more, and with less power to recuperate, for this is the weakness of an exclusive people such as the Spartans were. Like the Patriciate of Rome, they would admit no strangers to share their privileges. So if a generation of her men were weakened, or, as happened sometimes, well-nigh destroyed by war, she had to wait for another generation to grow up to supply the loss. Not so at Athens. There the gaps made in her ranks were constantly repaired by new-made citizens, who soon caught the spirit of the old Athenian traditions. ”

“ I and my ancestors before me found ourselves placed at the head of a democracy because of our known hatred of a tyranny. For, as amongst you it is your ancient oligarchy which saves your land from despotism, in Athens it is democracy which wards off this danger. We have striven to teach the people to rule themselves with moderation, that so they might conserve the Constitution as it came to them, in its grandeur and its liberty, that so they might stop the first efforts of a tyranny to raise its head, or scheme to bring about a revolution. It is these insidious foes we have ever fought ”

“ As Perikles had for his friend the learned and beautiful Aspasia, whose salon was frequented by the wit and genius of Greece, so his pupil formed a strong attachment to Timandra, and felt perhaps the truest love he ever felt for the fair Athenian. She, like Aspasia, was of the class which society at that time something more than tolerated. Doubtless she was fitter to become companion of the life and work of such a man, the confidante of his hopes and aspirations, than were the most part of the high-born Grecian ladies. ”

“ So Alkibiades, when he was thirteen, was taken by his paidagogos, Zopyros, from his mother’s house to live in the bustle and excitement of the great establishment of Perikles.
The brave Deinomaché tried hard to shed no tear as her son went off. ‘Better,’ she said, ‘for you, my child, to learn to lead the people, or to be a soldier like your father, with such a one as my kinsman Perikles, than to waste your boyhood here amongst old women.’ And indeed it did seem time some stronger will than his fond mother’s should rule the ardent, sometimes overbearing, boy. ”

“ During the fifty years which immediately preceded the period at which we now arrive Athens had risen from a level little higher than that of many of her neighbour towns to be the chief, the queen, of Hellas. Through an undiscoverable something in her people, through an innate power lying hid within her, through a succession of great men to lead her, through hard work and self-sacrifice, she had shot ahead of all her rivals. ”

“ Most of them, he said, knew not how to govern themselves, or persuade each other on the simplest questions; how could they govern others, or persuade the people as to what was best for their most vital interests? He had little regard for the oligarchs of Athens. But, anyhow, they were better than the mob. They had more to lose. And even they, foolish as they were, even they were more likely to go right in their opinions than the fickle populace, with their wavering, half-formed wishes. Alkibiades knew the advice he was sure to get from his old adviser. ”

“ The cavalry rode right up to them, calling to the Athenians to come out and fight them. The Keramik gate suddenly opened, and as if still instinct with the life that Alkibiades had breathed into their souls, his horsemen charged the enemy, and drove them off. Next day the Athenian hoplites marched out, and took their stand before the walls. Agis attacked them in vain, and, covered by the archers and peltasts from the walls, the hoplites did some execution on the invading army. The Spartan Agis thought it wiser for the present to return to his fortress at Dekeleia. ”

“ The sailors raised such loud cries of joy, when their strategos came on board, that their shouts were heard in the port, as with a head wind the Eros made for the isle of Samos.
The men of Samos were vainly vowing vengeance on the Persians if their chief was murdered. Just as the Eros was seen sailing towards the port, the women were thronging the temple of Heré, where the great bronze statue of Alkibiades, the liberator of Ionia, was to be erected next year, and were sending up prayers for his safety to the all-powerful Queen of Olympos, who was born, they said, at Samos. ”

“ Sokrates had come to watch mankind, and amongst them one he cared for more than all the rest.
It was no time now to notice Sokrates. The chariots were scarce three hundred yards to where the winning-post was waiting for them, when, as with a bound into the air, the four bay horses brought their car up to and right ahead of all the others, and shouts arose: ‘Boiotia’s beaten! Tolas comes in more than two chariot-lengths ahead! Athens and Alkibiades!’
He heard no more distinctly. The hills went round for a moment, a mist came over them ”

“ He saw the depth of the malice of Pythonikos—to get rid of him so that he might work out his machinations without hindrance. He remembered, too, the fickleness of the people—how they had turned on Perikles, after all he had done for them. And religious frenzy! who can stem that when once it rages in its delirious course let loose from rational control?
While here he was, as Kolyphôn had said, master of the situation. The whole of the fleet friendly. Most of the soldiers his own. The Argives and Mantineians cared more for him than for all the rest of the Athenians put together. ”

“ Poems of Homer that I love to read and hear recited say Zeus dwells on Mount Olympos; why cannot men go there and find him, and see the banquets of the gods? I think these things be but idle tales, and only Homer’s poetry, before men had our wisdom. And if Athene really lives in the Parthenon, why cannot I see her? Where are the great gods, Sokrates?’
‘They dwell not in the clouds, nor on Olympos’ top, lovely son of Kleinias! That was, but Homer’s image. They dwell around us, and within us, all day long. ”

“ Only Kolyphôn stood forth, known as the Silent One, and mildest of them all.
‘Oh, my strategos, speak but the word, and we will this moment publish through the fleet news of this dishonour done to us. The whole fleet is yours; ‘tis to you it owes its existence. This state trireme shall be sent back with a fitting message to your enemies, a word of courage to your friends. Say but the word, and we will put Nikias on board the Salaminia with Kryptos, and send him home—the best place for such as he.’
‘Peace!’ said Alkibiades. ‘We must obey the people. ”

“ Her sculptors, her painters, her architects, her orators, her tragedians, her comedians, her statesmen, her philosophers, at that time were the marvel of the world, as it seems they will remain that marvel for all time to come.
If it is hard to realize the pre-eminence of Athens in genius, who amongst us hath an imagination large enough to realize her outward show? Who is so vain as to attempt to picture it to others? ”

“ The Athenian left wing and centre, in which was Alkibiades, raising their loud shout to the god of war, came on in splendid style against the Korinthian right. Then Greek indeed joined Greek, and fought with more ferocious hatred in their hearts than they had ever felt against a common foe, when, fighting side by side, they had sent the Persian home again.
Modern warfare consists, for the most part, in well-drilled marksmen shooting at a distant mass scarce visible, and in receiving leaden pellets from an unseen enemy. ”

“ He had good reason to believe, if he appeared with that large fleet and all his soldiers at the port of Athens, nothing could resist him. Why, then, not take them there on his return to Samos? His power at Samos was secure, his popularity unbounded; his influence with Tissaphernes greater, at any rate, than that of any other. The condition of Athens was most critical. A strong man, backed as he would be, would soon restore her native energy and scare away the swarm of bats whose unclean wings now flapped about the sacred city. ”

“ The league of Delos, counterplot to the Peloponnesian confederacy, had placed Athens at its head, and Perikles was still in power.
Whenever a people has by self-restraint and long determined toil, patience, and courage, raised itself to wealth and greatness, the old and simple thoughts and ways soon begin to seem too small for them, the frugal practices of their forefathers all too poor. So life at Athens in the heyday of her splendour was very pleasant. ”

“ Even the women, tender nurses in distress, who know so well how to soothe our pains, when we can scarce tell what we want, whose constant care will watch and help when we are powerless—even women fled in horror from those stricken by that plague. There was none to help; there was little aid that could do any good. Nemesis, for all the too great pride and joy of Athens, poured forth the vials of her retribution.
Alkibiades had, indeed, an opportunity to show how he had profited by the lessons of his friend. ”

“ It is not pleasant to be shut up in prison for a fortnight, expecting every day that poison, or a dagger, will make that one your last. But even to that the prisoner gets accustomed in time, and the danger of assassination begins, at last, to lend some excitement to life, spent in the horrible monotony of such a situation. Alkibiades was not afraid of death. His determined resistance to it when it had been openly decreed against him by the Athenians, and secretly by king Agis and the Ephors at Sparta, was caused as much by the sense of the injustice of it as from any fear of death itself. ”

“ Friends and foes alike strove who could give him warmest welcome. None could keep at home on such a day. The people were seized with a joyful madness, like a troop of Bacchanals.
Afterwards, when enthusiasm had quieted, as all enthusiasms will in time, Pyromachos, the sculptor, was ordered by the city to design that wonderful bronze statue of Alkibiades, which represents him in a life-like attitude, himself driving the four-horse chariot with those noble animals by whose aid he won the chief prize at the ninetieth of the Olympic celebrations. ”

“ He knew he might have been their king, perhaps the founder of a kingly race, and the saviour of the people from themselves. But the splendour of his Athens, the largeness of her arts and literature, her greatness, which was 371to live for ever in the wonder of the ages and the races yet to come—these things had been grown and nurtured, they had flourished, in her free soil; they would be cramped and would perish under a fat and lazy despotism. His hand should never be the hand that killed them. ”

“ He distrusts the people; he says they will one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. And even if I could overcome the objections of Tissaphernes to a democracy, neither he nor I could induce the Persian king to treat with any but a kingly government, or at least an aristocracy. These things would have been hard for me to say or hear at one time, but,’ he added sadly, ‘I, too, have been taught to distrust the justice of the people.’
Nothing could have been more welcome to Peisandros and the other Athenian deputies from Samos. ”

“ Mindaros thought it must be the reinforcement he was expecting from Miletos, but as it came on before the wind, with all sails set, a purple ensign was run up—the well-known purple ensign—and the Eros came bursting through the waves, and on its prow, in shining panoply, thirsting for the fight, stood Alkibiades, his armour flashing in the red rays of the setting sun. ”

“ His greater opponents could not help admiring him: they were too generous to attack him secretly. It was one of the democracy who struck the first blow at Alkibiades. A poor potter named Hyperbolos, a maker of earthen lamps, the butt of Aristophanes, who, on the death of Kleon, had thought he ought to be chosen leader of the people, was put forward as the tool of others.
The secret remedy of ostracism had been invented as a last resource if ever the influence of any individual threatened to make his power greater than was becoming for a citizen in the democracy. ”