Glory and the Lightning (85 page)

The King Archon, on hearing of the murder of his loved Helena, clenched his fists, wept alone, and said to himself, “At the end, my lustrous pomegranate, you have been the victor. For, if the gods are just, they will honor those who have died in the defense of freedom. But only God can give them complete honor.”

He, being a prudent man, made up his mind and grimly resolved that, for once, justice must prevail, despite the rabble.

He did not deceive himself that he was exceptional. History today, and history tomorrow, would prove that he was right. But, alas, not until all the heroes were slain, and the whole world brought to disaster and the eager fat multitude was enslaved, as they deserved to be enslaved.

Truth, he remembered, was always on trial, always murdered, always defamed and ridiculed. Those who lived for truth were endlessly in bondage and endlessly crushed. Was it, at last, worthy of pursuit? Only God knew.

When Aspasia and Pericles met in her cell, they were both stunned at the appearance of the other, for, in the short time of their separation, they had aged. Pericles was aghast at Aspasia’s emaciation, the lost brilliance of her complexion, her sunken eyes, and she, in turn, was stricken by his air of utter exhaustion and despondency and pallor. Deep clefts were in his cheeks, on his brow. There was much more white in his hair, and his lips were purplish.

She wept in his arms and said, “I have brought you nothing but calamity,” to which he replied, smoothing her hair, “You have brought me my life. If I had never known you I would still be in my present situation. Only you have given me comfort.”

He did not speak of the estrangement of his sons, nor of the mysterious plague which was beginning to seep through Athens from the east, and was already decimating his soldiers in the field. He sat with Aspasia on her bed and held her hands tightly and tried to smile in her devastated face, while she searched his own despairingly.

“Helena has been murdered,” she said, sobbing, “and only because she was my friend.”

“I know of her murder,” said Pericles. “I have posted an enormous reward for the apprehension of her assassins. No, it was not because of you, sweet. Do not be so egotistic,” and he attempted to laugh. “Helena has long been hated in the city because of her philanthropy, her enlightenment, her lack of sentimentality and mawkish speech, her courage, her refusal to lie charmingly, her open support of liberty and her friendship for me. She was hated and derided before you came to Athens. Her ultimate fate was certain. None of the multitude she has saved and delivered from suffering has uttered a single word of reproach for her murder, nor has cried out against it.” The bitterness in his voice was lethal and full of hate.

“I would that I were dead, too,” said Aspasia miserably.

“Nonsense. Would you leave me alone among my enemies, with none to console me? That is selfish of you.”

“You must not defend me,” she pleaded, clinging to him.

“You would ask me not to defend my very life?”

They spoke of their future together when all this was over, and they spoke of their son, Pericles, who was now home in his father’s house. “He declared to me today, the impudent lad, that his name will be greater than his father’s,” said Pericles and his face became affectionate and even a little humorous. “I told him he need not strive. I would not be famous in history.” They spoke of Aspasia’s school, which was under the stern guidance of her well-trained and loyal teachers. Then Pericles’ face changed subtly and became darker. “What would this world of savages be without teachers? And how do we repay them? With miserable stipends, if any, with contempt. Yet, they hold the future of men in their selfless hands.” He paused. “Do you recall, my treasure, one of your young ladies, named Iona, daughter of Glaucus, who is a minor magistrate?”

Aspasia, wondering why he should speak of trivialities in the midst of their sorrows and anxieties, said, “I know the girl. Her mother was a woman of mind, and before she died of the flux she forced her husband to promise to send Iona to my school. Unfortunately, the girl did not possess her mother’s intelligence and self-control. I dismissed her. That was a year ago. Why do you ask?”

But Pericles said, “Tell me of the girl’s character, not her lack of intelligence.”

More and more wondering, Aspasia replied, “She was, in addition to being remarkably sly and malicious, a trouble-maker. Discovering that she could not compete with her companions, and resentful of her teachers’ reproaches, she concocted scandals concerning both her teachers and companions. Strange to say, they were clever scandals, elaborately conceived, so that even I once believed one of her tales, so detailed were they and spoken with the utmost sincerity. She has the face of a nymph, the soul of a demon, and is soft-spoken, gentle in manner, apparently meek and earnest, and has a demure way of licking her lips. She deceived many for a considerable time. That is the high art of the wicked.”

“When you dismissed her, what did you say to her, Aspasia?”

She stared at him, greatly puzzled. “Why do you speak of the little wretch at all? I said to her, You are unfit to be among my maidens, about many of whom you have spread calumnies. Moreover, your mind is not extraordinary, except in the manner of evil. Therefore, you must leave us and return to your father’s house.’” She thought for a moment, then frowned. “Her father, Glaucus, whom she resembles, came to me in a great anger and demanded the reason for her dismissal. As I had been a friend of the girl’s dead mother I wished to spare her memory. I told Glaucus that I did not believe his daughter to possess the gifts necessary for her to become distinguished. Still angered, he left me.”

Aspasia concentrated her gaze on Pericles. “I do not understand. What is this girl to you, or her father?”

Pericles glanced away from her, evasively. “I have heard that Glaucus is seeking higher office. I wished to know if he were worthy to be presented to the voters.”

“Oh,” said Aspasia, ‘Tie has integrity enough—for a bureaucrat—if they have any integrity at all. He is very careful of himself and has a not inconsiderable intelligence.”

“A bad man with intelligence is only a little less dangerous than a bad man who is stupid,” said Pericles. He continued with an artless manner, “I think I will oppose his nomination.”

One of the military guards entered the cell with Aspasia’s dinner, which was well prepared and appetizing, for Pericles had brought it and it had been in an oven to keep it warm. The guard saluted Pericles respectfully, hesitated, then said, “It is the command of the King Archon, lord, that whosoever brings the Lady Aspasia food must first partake of some of it before she dines.”

Pericles smiled with gratitude at this care of his mistress, and said, “I cannot thank the King Archon enough.” He took a morsel of each of the dishes and the guard watched him with a sheepish expression of apology. Pericles winked at Aspasia who smiled for the first time since he had come to her. “Would it not be of interest to the great poets, Aspasia, if we died together of poison?”

She did not consider this amusing, nor did the guard. To please Pericles she forced herself to eat and to drink. Though it was now advanced spring, and the air outside was hot, the cell was pleasantly cool. At least, thought Pericles, my darling is safe in this guarded place, thanks to the King Archon. She is in no danger of being murdered as was Helena.

Aspasia asked of the war between Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies. Again, to spare her worry, he was evasive. “We are doing well enough,” he said. “Xanthippus is optimistic, but when was he ever not? I wish, however, he was not so hostile towards our kinsman, that beautiful reprobate, Alcibiades, who, himself, is a notable soldier. Paralus?” Pericles hesitated. “He believes his mother’s grief has not yet diminished enough so that he can leave her.”

He did not tell Aspasia that his military guard had been more than trebled, for the market rabble was becoming perilously inimical, and unusually vocal when seeing him in the Agora or on the streets. While he detested them he knew that they were not to blame. They were being incited by his enemies to the point of violence against his person.

When he left Aspasia, after sternly admonishing her that he would defend her despite her protests and tears, he found his soldiers perturbed. Iphis said, “General and lord, the rabble seems very restive today, since your return this morning. I have reports that many of them are armed, and threatening.”

Pericles was not a man to take threats lightly, even from rabble. So he pulled his hood over his face and kept his sword in his hand while his guard rode tightly about him. He had removed his helmet, the harder for his appearance to be recognized. But he was indeed recognized, for all the shade over his features, for a vast crowd was awaiting him near the prison, and bloodthirsty shouts roared to his ears from hundreds of voices.

“Tyrant! Despot! War-bringer! Robber of the treasury! Malefactor! Poisoner! Deceiver! Liar! Thief! Pervert! Defamer of the gods! Heretic! Shame of Athens! Traitor! Resign!”

And higher voices, “Impeach him! Exile him!”

“Aye!” screamed the crowd.

Iphis said, “Give the word, my general, and we will charge them.”

“No,” said Pericles. “It is not they who shout. It is the soft safe others who hide in their luxurious houses and meet in secret, and plot against Athens. Who dares accuse them, touch them? They are too rich, too powerful.”

But he wondered silently how long he could endure this infamy, the estrangement of his sons, his labor to save his country, the ingratitude of his people, and all the burdens which leadership had imposed on him and which had made him the loneliest of men, isolated, with few friends.

But now, above all, was his terror for Aspasia and he could think of nothing else.

He felt a momentary refreshment when he raised his eyes to the acropolis, that forest of statues and columns, of temples and gardens and fountains, and to the Parthenon where the enormous gold and ivory image of Athene Parthenos glittered in the sun. Her great face seemed to glow down on him, and he said to himself, “Above all things, protect my city and my people.” It seemed to him that she had the face of Helena, and his eyes moistened.

CHAPTER 18

The King Archon had miraculously recovered. It was true that when he appeared in court, before the whole Assembly and the Archons, they noted that he seemed somewhat distraught and absent, and that the rims of his eyes were sore and reddened, as if he had been weeping in the night. Otherwise, he was composed and compact as always and, for all he was a small man, he had immense dignity. It had been rumored for a few days that he had been stricken by the plague, which had already reached Athens, though it had not as yet been of considerable alarm to the physicians, who kept it from the people that their military had been widely afflicted.

The day was hot, the hall steaming, and every face was avid except the faces of Pericles’ friends. They had lined themselves against the wall and they gazed at him with deep distress. But he walked confidently in his robes of office, carrying his ivory wand of authority, his helmeted head higher than the heads of any of the others, his ravaged face noble and restrained, his eyes unmoved. He had refused the presence of a single guard, except those at the doors which were not his. However, he wore his sword under his cloak.

“Once let them see that I am afraid and they will be gleefully at my throat,” he had told the anxious Iphis. “One never flinches before mad dogs. It is too inciting.”

He now stood before the King Archon, whose gray face twitched involuntarily, but whose eyes met his with a steadfast gaze. They greeted each other formally. The King Archon said to the guards, “Bring in the prisoner, Aspasia of Miletus.”

Before Aspasia arrived Pericles studied the faces of the Archons who had brought charges against her of treason, vice, corruption, impiety and various minor crimes against Athens and her people. They stared at him, impassively. None were his friends. He did not believe that any of them was essentially corrupt or had been bribed; they had been compelled, by law, to have Aspasia arrested “on information.” He then studied the jury, that large body of men. They would do their duty, one way or another, after receiving dispassionate instruction from the King Archon.

Everyone was sweating in the smoldering heat except Pericles. He was cold with fear and dread. The charges against Aspasia were formidable, far more grave than the charges brought against Anaxagoras and Pheidias, for she was a foreign woman, and the metics were always suspect.

Pericles had warned Aspasia before he had left her on his last visit that she must appear tranquil and serene before this assemblage, that she must attend to her neglected appearance, that she must assume pride and fearlessness. He turned towards the door through which she would enter, and when she did enter he felt a weak surge of relief. For she seemed as a queen, tall and slender, clad gracefully but discreetly in a lilac tunic and a robe of white linen, her face calm and pure, her hair raised and bound in the Athenian fashion with white ribbons, her feet in light leather slippers, her manner distant. She had not reddened her cheeks or her lips, and they were as smooth and still as marble, and she had not used kohl on her eyes. She wore no jewels, at Pericles’ behest. “There is nothing so maddening to anyone, who cannot afford it, as jewelry on another.” Envy, he knew, was the most powerful emotion of men, and the most deadly.

When Aspasia was beside him it was as if she were merely an acquaintance of his, and she looked at him as if he were only her appointed defender. She bowed to him in silence, then folded her hands before her, and waited. All watched this encounter, the majority with enmity, the few with compassion and anger.

Pericles said to the King Archon, “Let the accusers of this woman speak, lord.”

The Eponymous Archon, who tried civil suits, stood up portentously, and addressed the King Archon. “The woman is accused of the corruption of young women in her house which she alleges is a school, of procuring them for unspeakable purposes for gain. The witness, the father of one girl who resisted pollution and so was dismissed from the house of Aspasia of Miletus, is here to testify. It was to me that he pressed charges. He desires redress, three thousand gold talents, for his daughter had been forcibly taken by three men in the house of Aspasia of Miletus, and has been ill in her father’s house ever since, overcome by shame.”