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 IDYLLS OF OLD GREECE.
 
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 ^biplls of ©16 Greece 
 
 BY 
 
 AMBROSE N. BLATCHFORD, B.A. 
 
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 SiMPKiN, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Limited
 
 
 TO THAT VERY POTENT FACTOR 
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 WHOSE INSIGHT PENETRATED, AND 
 
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 FOR THOSE OLD BOYS, WHO IN PLEASANT HOURS 
 
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 IN THE OLD TAVISTOCK GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 
 
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 The Author desires to express his 
 acknowledgment of the permission kindly 
 accorded by the Proprietors of the 
 "Boys' Oivn Paper'' fov the reprinting 
 of " Marathon " and " The Traitor 
 Gretk:'
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 MARATHON u 
 
 THE TRAITOR GREEK . . . -55 
 
 THE RESCUE-SHIP m
 
 Coiicevniiuj the Jfigbt. 
 
 n^HE men of the present have good 
 reason to confess the debt they 
 owe to ancient Greece ; and it is 
 scarcely too much to assert that, in 
 regard to art, to Hterature, and to 
 philosophy, their thanks are largely, 
 though by no means exclusively, due 
 to one city. 
 
 Athens has laid the whole civilised 
 world under obligations difhcult alike 
 to discharge, or to forget. 
 
 What we, to-day, should have been 
 
 13
 
 14 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 without her influence, and without 
 those " things of beauty " which her 
 genius cahed into being, it is vain to 
 conjecture. We may endeavour to 
 reahse, approximately at the best, 
 what her temples and her statues 
 must have been in the period of her 
 unrivalled prime : but this w^e surely 
 know, — that, although the once faultless 
 proportions of the fane may be marred 
 by the touch of time, or by the rude 
 blows of the invader — whether Mace- 
 donian or Roman, Barbarian or Turk, 
 — and although the life-like statues lie 
 dethroned from the pedestals whereon, 
 of old, they stood ; it is, nevertheless, 
 just these marvellous fragments of
 
 Concerning the Fight. 15 
 
 Greek art that still suffice to indicate 
 both model and method for the archi- 
 tect or for the sculptor of to-day. 
 Those time-worn yet majestic relics 
 are still so many inspirations to modern 
 genius, that yet finds rich content in 
 patiently setting itself to catch the 
 spirit embodied in those wonderful 
 creations. 
 
 Unique, too, in its character, is the 
 mark which Athens made for herself in 
 human history. Rome toiled hard 
 and long for her imperial position, and 
 long and proudly did she maintain it. 
 As century follows century we find the 
 City of the Seven Hills sedulously 
 developing her amazing resources, and
 
 1 6 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 persistently extending her sway. She 
 took time to cut her mighty name 
 deeply into history ; while it seems all 
 but incredible that the tiny span of 
 some seventy-five years embraced the 
 rise of Athens into power, the fruitage 
 of her almost fabulous genius, and her 
 swift but sure passage into decadence 
 and dependence. She flashes forth 
 like some vivid meteor of the night, 
 that leaves behind it the recollection of 
 a radiance, that dazzles and astounds 
 for a while, when it has itself fled out of 
 vision into darkness. 
 
 Western civilisation, too, owes to 
 Athens a tribute no less than that which 
 art and philosophy must consent to pay.
 
 Concerning the Fight. 17 
 
 History, on its living page, can re- 
 people for us the field whereon East 
 and West tried their first and all- 
 important fall with one another. Under 
 its enlightening guidance, one can see 
 tribe after tribe, nation after nation 
 enveloped wathin the Persian power, 
 compelled into a heterogeneous mass 
 beneath the standard of the Great 
 King, and launched, in turn, on Egypt, 
 on Phoenicia, and on Asia Minor. 
 Ever westward the host moves surely 
 on, until, some five centuries before our 
 era, Persian and Greek at last found 
 themselves confronting one another ; 
 and, as far as we can see, no possible 
 alternative was left them, but to fight
 
 1 8 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 their battle out, if the spirit of the 
 West would shake itself once and 
 forever free from Eastern sloth and 
 despotism. 
 
 How the approach of the great 
 conflict was heralded — in the cr}- of 
 the Ionian Greeks for freedom, and in 
 the tighter riveting of their Persian 
 fetters after their fruitless effort at 
 revolt, — every sixth form boy knows 
 well enough ; but after all, it was 
 nothing less than the future of Europe 
 which was at stake, when Miltiades 
 and his men so daringly sprang upon 
 the invading hordes at Marathon. 
 
 It may w^ell be that we, to-day, can 
 better estimate the wider issues in-
 
 Concerning the Fight. ig 
 
 volved, than could the heroic and self- 
 devoted patriots who played their part 
 in that fierce drama. True it is that 
 it was for Athens, and for her liberties, 
 that her own sons fought. It was for 
 Athens that the little band of Platgeans 
 — with an unreserved devotion un- 
 matched in Grecian story — formed in 
 line with the men of the city that had 
 proved herself their friend. It was 
 Athens who won, and was allowed, the 
 meed of triumph : the glory was all 
 her own, unshared even by puissant 
 Sparta, whose warriors lingered at 
 home, either bound by subservience to 
 their priests, or moved, as some have 
 suggested, by motives as despicable as
 
 20 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 they were selfish. No wonder that the 
 name of Marathon was ever afterwards 
 the proudest in the annals of the City 
 of the Violet Crown, or that the men 
 who had fought in that famed light 
 should be held in that well-deserved 
 honour, which their grateful fellow- 
 citizens were careful at every oppor- 
 tunity to express, and even to 
 emphasise. But such deeds are preg- 
 nant of widely reaching results, and 
 ihat this was the case in regard to the 
 victory at Marathon, the unfolding 
 pages of the book of time most amply 
 show. 
 
 Had Persia proved the conqueror, 
 what remained for Greece, and for the
 
 Concerning the Fight. 21 
 
 peoples west of her, but inevitable 
 submission, and the consequent putting 
 back of the hands on the dial-plate of 
 human progress ? 
 
 With Athens defeated, there would 
 have come into play a moral effect, 
 which would have gone far to weaken 
 the spirit of Sparta, who, with all her 
 loudly-vaunted pre-eminence in valour, 
 was by no means insensitive to nervous- 
 ness — as, for instance, when Pausanias, 
 by his shifting dispositions at Platsea, 
 endeavoured to confront the Athenians, 
 rather than his own Spartans, with the 
 chosen troops of Mardonius. Supreme 
 in Greece, nothing could have hindered 
 Persia from throwing her myriads upon
 
 2 2 Idylh of Old Greece. 
 
 Europe. Phoenicia was already at her 
 (Hsposal. The Greeks once reduced to 
 vassalage, could have been compelled 
 to furnish shipping an:iply sufficient to 
 strike at the coasts of the Mediter- 
 ranean, and to answer any challenge 
 that such a state as Carthage might 
 have dared to offer to the Persian 
 despot. To say that Rome was un- 
 ready for a trial of strength with such 
 an adversary is to say all too little, 
 since not till two centuries after 
 Marathon had been fought and won 
 had she made herself securely mistress 
 of the states and tribes of Italy alone. 
 Had it not been for that scanty band 
 of Athenians and Platasans, the shores
 
 Concerning the Fight. 23 
 
 of the Atlantic alone might have 
 arrested the Persian advance west- 
 ward. Speculation is not without its 
 attractions, it is true ; but it is well 
 within the bounds of possibility that 
 the future progress of the^ West in life, 
 in liberty, and, as many may think, in 
 religion also, was ensured when Athens 
 triumphantly drove back the Persian 
 invaders to their ships. 
 
 Round this great story of the past 
 there plays the unfading lustre of a 
 heroism that testifies to every age and 
 race what true men can reallv do, 
 encompassed though they be b}^ a 
 countless host of foreign foes, and 
 vexed with stealthy treason within
 
 24 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 their own walls. But the very know- 
 ledge that such traitors were at their 
 abominable work, in the city itself, must 
 have rendered Miltiades only the more 
 determined to give them as little time 
 as possible wherein to spread their 
 poison, or to paralyse the high-spirited 
 troops that had marched out to fight 
 the Persian at the shore whereon he 
 had dared to land. 
 
 Nor is it foreign to the matter to 
 note here, how for hundreds of years 
 Europeans have been wont to look 
 with perfect equanimity on any number 
 of Eastern enemies, no matter how 
 terribly disproportionate the odds 
 against themselves.
 
 Concernincr the Fi^ht. 
 
 In the apparently hopeless ratio of 
 one against eleven did those unblench- 
 ing Greeks join battle ; but, the struggle 
 once entered upon and decided, the full 
 sense of the superiority of Western 
 spirit, nerve, and muscle was acquired 
 also, and every subsequent conflict 
 served but to make that sense clearer. 
 Easterns, too, ver}' soon came to appre- 
 ciate it from their own side, until at 
 last we find an Asiatic princess rushing 
 away in fright when the Greek mer- 
 cenaries, in the days of Xenophon, did 
 but clash their weapons in the harmless 
 tumult of a grand review. But it must 
 be remembered in simple justice to the 
 Greeks, that, previous to the experience
 
 26 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 gained at Marathon, such a feehng 
 must have been largely unknown ; and 
 that one fact is enough to impress upon 
 the record of this historic struggle the 
 traces of the noblest self-devotion that 
 patriot soldiers can possibly manifest. 
 
 And striking is the contrast presented, 
 from any point of view, by the opposing 
 forces. The Persian, complacently 
 trusting in his multitudes, waiting in 
 almost sluggish confidence to be 
 attacked, hampered by his very sense 
 of invincibiHty, — because under it he 
 laid aside all thought of strategy, and 
 left himself utterly without verve,— a.nd 
 serenely relying on his corps cVclite, 
 the Persians and the Sacse, to inspire
 
 Concerning the Figlit. 27 
 
 the motley crowd of soldiery with some- 
 thing of their own stubborn, rather than 
 aggressive, valour. And the Greek, 
 contemplating with pride, not wholly 
 unmixed w^ith confidence, an army, 
 tiny indeed when contrasted with the 
 swarms of his antagonist, but in which 
 every heavy-armed man was, more or 
 less, a trained and seasoned athlete ; 
 for had it not been so, the Greek com- 
 mander had not ventured to fling his 
 men at the double over that mile that 
 separated the hostile forces, and to join 
 battle without one moment's breathing 
 time. 
 
 It will doubtless remain an interesting 
 matter of opinion as to the real cause
 
 28 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 that induced Miltiades to give battle 
 exactly when he did. 
 
 Military critics have reasonably sug- 
 gested the possible absence of a 
 considerable portion of the Persian 
 cavalry, not improbably for foraging 
 purposes. It might have been so, 
 especially when we reflect that the 
 Athenian strength lay in its infantry, 
 and so, to the Grecian leader, one 
 element at least of Persian preponder- 
 ance would have been temporarily, and 
 for him most opportunely, removed. 
 
 He relies entirely on the momentum 
 of each wing of his compact little force. 
 With fine strategy, he deliberately 
 weakens his own centre to tempt the
 
 Concerning the Fight. 29 
 
 strongest body of the enemy's troops 
 to indulge in the dangerous excitement 
 of a pursuit of the outnumbered Grecian 
 centre ; and, with the success of his plan, 
 the Persian wings, left unsupported by 
 their main body, fell confusedly together 
 like two tottering walls from which the 
 strengthening span of a reliable girder 
 has been suddenly removed. 
 
 Rolling their adversary's panic-stricken 
 wings together, not so much in light 
 as in demoralising rout, the Greeks 
 found themselves able to fasten on the 
 rear of those Persians who, lured from 
 their own position, were pressing after 
 the retiring Greek centre. That imme- 
 diate issue was soon decided, the
 
 30 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Persians desperately struggling back- 
 ward to the beach, and it was there, 
 in the wild effort to save their vessels, 
 that the fiercest and most sanguinary 
 conflict of the day really took place. 
 That "Battle at the Ships" lent 
 lasting inspiration to the Greek poet : for 
 there ^Eschylus himself was fighting, 
 while, close at his side, his own brother 
 Cynsegeirus, and many another hero, 
 was struck down. 
 
 And so the fight was fought, when 
 alas ! even as the plain resounded with 
 the cries of triumph, some mean-souled 
 traitor was found to hold aloft upon 
 Pentelicus a bright shield to tempt the 
 Persian fleet into the harbour of
 
 Concerning the Fight. 31 
 
 Phalerum before it was thought possible 
 that the patriot army could return to 
 defend the city. But yet again, fresh 
 astonishment fills us when we learn 
 how Miltiades, giving those perfectly 
 trained troops of his scarce a moment's 
 respite, marched swiftly homewards in 
 time to extinguish the last hopes of 
 invasion and of treason combined. 
 
 At once the resting-place of the hon- 
 oured dead, and the abiding memorial 
 of the valour of Athenian citizens, it is 
 nothing marvellous or unwonted to find 
 the spot itself invested with a supersti- 
 tious, yet at the same time most 
 reverent, awe.- The dark midnight 
 clouds, when unlit by the moonbeams,
 
 32 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 were held by a fancy born of patriotism, 
 and of religion, to envelop the dis- 
 embodied souls of those who had 
 perished in the great struggle. These 
 were now thought of as fighting their 
 battle over again, in the realm of the 
 spirit ; as any one might hear, so people 
 said, who found himself pursuing some 
 necessary errand, and traversing, with- 
 out intention or idle curiosity, that 
 plain at an hour at once so gloomy 
 and so weird. 
 
 Out of Time's ever-thickening veil, 
 the stirring memories of the fight would 
 still rise. It was a story that would be 
 enthusiastically and proudly handed 
 down from sire to son. It was the
 
 Concerning the Fight. 
 
 'JO 
 
 Athenian's glory in the days of his city's 
 magnificent but brief pre-eminence, and 
 it gilded with "the light of other dnys" 
 that sadder time, when beneath the 
 fatal disasters of the Peloponnesian 
 War, fomented against her by enemies 
 in whose jealous eyes that pre-eminence 
 was her worst crime, Athens sank m 
 weakness, never more to fill that loity 
 seat to which she had surely ascended 
 from the field of Marathon.
 
 MARATHON 
 
 490 B.C. 
 
 Told by Aristocles, who had served in the 
 battle as an Athenian officer, under Miltiades, 
 to his grandson Glaucus, at the outbreak of the 
 Peloponnesian War, B.C. 431 . 
 
 Like thunder rolling through a sky 
 With cloud long overcast, 
 
 I hear the sound the land around 
 Of war declared at last. 
 
 35
 
 36 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 For Theban hate, and Spartan pride, 
 
 And Corinth's crafty spite, 
 Have forced the State to look for 
 peace 
 
 Upon the field of fight. 
 
 But words are wind when blades are 
 
 out, 
 And passion pants for strife ; 
 Arm, Glaucus ! Hark ! th' Athenian 
 trump 
 Defies the Spartan fife ! 
 But Fate, have mercy ! Both brave 
 sons 
 To our dear land I gave, 
 And Victory rocked them to their rest 
 Beneath the Samian wave !
 
 Marathon. 37 
 
 Thou 'rt all that 's left me, Glaucus ! 
 
 And thou the foe must face ; 
 For Athens calls thee forth to fill 
 
 Thy gallant father's place. 
 His sword the sea-god keeps for aye ; 
 
 Bind thou thy grandsire's on, 
 And gird thee with the good tough brass 
 
 I wore at Marathon. 
 
 There, wand'rers say, when not a ray 
 
 May light the midnight sky, 
 The ghostly foemen wheel in air, 
 
 And lift their battle-cry. 
 And memory wakens in my soul 
 
 That din of conflict sore, 
 When Persian darts came hurtling thick 
 
 Upon our shields of yore.
 
 38 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 A lonely band we gathered there ; 
 
 'Twas Athens 'gainst a world ! 
 And fearless, in th' invaders' teeth 
 
 Their challenge back she hurled. 
 Those Spartans, tethered to their priests, 
 
 Stayed gaping at the moon ! 
 Alone the staunch Platseans ranged 
 
 With us that afternoon. 
 
 To cries of welcome, shouts of jo}^, 
 
 Resounding far and nigh, 
 The lads who wore the leathern helm 
 
 With steady swing went by. 
 For true and loyal to the last, 
 
 Plataea gave her all, 
 Content in that dread hour to share 
 
 Our triumph, or our fall !
 
 Marathon. 39 
 
 Those friendly spears, those few stout 
 hearts, 
 
 Were all our help that day. 
 When front to front, we dared a foe — 
 
 Eleven to one, men say ! 
 But Freedom's spirit fired our hearts, 
 
 And braced our arms with might. 
 And twenty slaves to one free man 
 
 Seemed scarce unequal fight ! 
 
 And never fairer day might shed 
 
 Its gentle radiance round ; 
 It lulled the breeze, it stilled the seas, 
 
 It breathed of rest profound. 
 With fitful murmur on the air 
 
 Was borne the insect's hum. 
 And faintly, softly, distantly, 
 
 We heard the Persian drum.
 
 40 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 The morn's parade, the daily drill, 
 
 Our ready troops had done : 
 With helmet doffed, within my tent — 
 
 In shelter from the sun — 
 I sat with Cyngegeirus, while 
 
 He touched his much-loved l3Te, 
 Whose strings his gifted hand could 
 sweep 
 
 In pathos, or in fire. 
 
 And sweet, but strangely sad, the scng 
 
 My comrade sang that day, — 
 How lonesome w^oman's loving heart 
 
 Bewailed her lord away : 
 And while that chief on Trojan strand 
 
 Led on his Greeks again, 
 A Lycian arrow drank his blood, 
 
 And stretched him by the main.
 
 Marathon. 41 
 
 In silence sank the trembling chords ; 
 
 No word the stillness broke : 
 A sense, all weird, of peril near 
 
 We felt, and neither spoke. 
 And close at hand, the while we mused, 
 
 The General's herald stood, 
 And stirring words he spake, that well 
 
 Might quicken warrior blood. 
 
 For somewhat 'mid the foe, that hour 
 
 Miltiades mis^ht mark ; 
 And, turning to Callimachus, 
 
 The cheery Polemarch 
 Said quickly : " Friend, this prize is 
 ours ! 
 
 Can'st mark the Persian horse ? 
 The Gods have sent them forafjins:, — 
 
 They lack nigh half their force !
 
 42 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 '' Turn out the troops at once ! Their 
 posts 
 
 Both men and leaders know. 
 'Tis on this moment Victory sits, 
 
 And asks but one bold blow ! 
 The centre with Themistocles, 
 
 And Aristides true ! 
 Platsea to the left ! the right 
 
 Falls, Polemarch, to you ! " 
 
 With winged words, from tent to tent 
 Sped on the chief's command : 
 
 " The longed-for hour has come ! Fall 
 in! 
 To arms ! To arms, men, stand ! " 
 
 And prompt the muster. Nor dismay. 
 Nor dread the heroes knew :
 
 Marathon. 43 
 
 But shield by shield, and brand by brand, 
 Athenian and Platsean stand ; 
 For stern defence of Motherland, 
 The sign for battle flew. 
 
 Now here, now there, flit lofty crests, 
 
 'Mid slanting, shimmering spears ; 
 Along the sky soars Freedom's cry 
 
 In proudly pealing cheers. 
 An instant's pause upon the hill, — 
 
 A clarion sharply rings, 
 And down the steel -fringed centre sweeps, 
 
 Down sweep the brass-clad wings. 
 
 Then bravely forward ! Faster yet, 
 
 And closer still we drew ; 
 We spoiled the range of their archers 
 strange, 
 
 And baffled shafts they threw :
 
 44 ■ Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 And lissome Greeks in armour bright, 
 
 And faultless in array, 
 Plunged deep within those dusky 
 ranks, 
 
 As falls in cloud the day. 
 
 On right, on left, the thronging hordes 
 In terror flinched, where flashed our 
 
 swords 
 That clove their thirsty way. 
 In groans died out their laughter 
 
 hoarse. 
 That hailed our onset's daring course ; 
 Their spears and bows, their foot, their 
 
 horse, 
 To wild confusion driven, perforce, 
 In hopeless disarray !
 
 Marathon. 45 
 
 We broke the flying Bactrian's bow ; 
 We laid the gilded Median low ; 
 
 When, to retrieve the day, 
 Full on our Grecian front o'erprest. 
 Outnumbered, struggling, sore distrest, 
 Dashed Persia's strongest and her best. 
 
 And backward thrust the fray ! 
 
 But scarce the charge their trumpet 
 
 sings, 
 When fiercely in their staggering wings 
 The Athenian spears drove deep their 
 stings, 
 And fright and fate they bore ! 
 The invader's star sank down in orloom, 
 That mocking triumph veiled his doom ; 
 The fight was ours once more !
 
 46 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 And Persians scattered, pierced, or 
 
 torn , 
 Their courage crushed, their splendour 
 
 shorn, 
 Like helpless brutes to shambles borne, 
 Lay smitten on the shore. 
 
 Around the field, triumphant shouts 
 Were thundering from our lips, 
 
 While stiff and slow the stricken toe, 
 
 As wounded wolves to covert 2:0, 
 Drew backward to their ships. 
 
 And on that fleet, in vengeful ire. 
 
 The victors rushed with axe and fire. 
 
 But vain in air were torches flung; 
 
 In vain the rattling weapons rung 
 Round men with death at bay !
 
 "And on that fleet, in vengeful ire, 
 The victors rushed with axe and fire.'" 
 
 Page 46.
 
 Marathon. 49 
 
 Ye Gods ! How well Despair can fight, 
 When naught is left to win but flight ! 
 How many gallant Greeks, ere night, 
 All stark and silent lay ! 
 
 For madly, blindly, battling on, 
 
 Aglow with shame and pain. 
 All breathless, spent with strife and 
 toil. 
 
 At last they gained the main. 
 But, lo ! as lengthening shadows fell 
 
 'Neath Autumn's drooping sun, 
 Some guilty hand, on distant height, 
 For Persia waved a buckler bright, 
 That sparkled with a treacherous light, 
 But sank, like Treason's hope, in night : 
 
 The despot's course was run !
 
 50 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 For spite of stress of battle o'er, 
 The weary victors homeward bore, 
 And scared the foe from Grecian shore, 
 And the great day was won ! 
 
 And faint, and fainter, rose and fell 
 
 The troops' departing tread. 
 Till soon, in muffling distance lost. 
 
 It left us with the dead. 
 For solemn trust was ours to keep. 
 
 While shadows hid the plain, 
 In sleepless guard that night among 
 
 The stricken and the slain. 
 
 The golden moon, the silver stars, 
 
 In pity lent their light. 
 
 While pain-wrung moan, or shriek, or 
 prayer, 
 
 Rose fitful on the night.
 
 Marathon. 51 
 
 And cold and white in marbled sleep, 
 
 Beside the watchfires, lay 
 The dead, whose dust yet hallows 
 
 The land they saved that day. 
 
 And while at Aristides' side 
 
 My vigil sad I kept, 
 The echo of a friend's sweet song 
 
 Most strangely o'er me swept. 
 His face, that gently smiled at Fate, 
 
 In vision beamed again. 
 Ah ! where w-as he who sang that morn ? 
 And woe for me in grief forlorn, 
 
 Upon that death-strewn plain ! 
 
 But calm for aye their happy lot, 
 
 On fair Elysian strand, 
 Who lived to serve, and nobly died, 
 
 To save their native land.
 
 52 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Howgreat theirdeecl, how deep their love 
 For homes where dear ones dwell ! 
 
 And seven times sacred to our hearts 
 The cause for which they fell ! 
 
 Majestic Athens ! Ruthless hands, 
 
 In Fate's resistless hour, 
 May tear from off thy peerless brow 
 
 The diadem of power ! 
 The sons of sires thy valour made 
 
 The lords of land and sea, 
 May load with chains thy radiant form 
 
 That breathes of liberty ! 
 
 But purer light than conquest's glare 
 Shall o'er thy name be cast ; 
 
 Nor crash of arms, nor bolt of doom 
 Can mar thy mighty past ! '
 
 Marathon. 53 
 
 Though statue, fane, and column fall — 
 
 In desolation hurled, — 
 Their very fragments still shall set 
 
 A pattern to a world ! 
 
 Immortal, 'mid the wrongs and tears 
 
 That cloud the tyrant's day, 
 Thy fire shall patriot hearts inspire 
 
 Where Freedom points the way ! 
 And, gleaming through the mists of time, 
 
 For ever shall shine on 
 The story of thy dauntless fight 
 
 At glorious Marathon !
 
 ON THE MAKING OF 
 TRAITORS. 
 
 'T^HE history of ancient Greece shows 
 clearly enough that the instances 
 of treasonable thought and practice 
 among the various communities of 
 that land are traceable to causes that 
 are to be found without, as well as 
 within, the personality of the plotters 
 themselves. In the perusal of a story 
 bright with so many splendid episodes 
 of valour and of self-devotion, it is with 
 
 57
 
 58 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 a. sense of disappointment and regret 
 that the student of the annals of the 
 various peoples gathered under the 
 Grecian name discovers that every 
 one of them is more or less charge- 
 able with the same failing ; Thebans, 
 Locrians, Argives, Athenians, and 
 Spartans furnishing us, unfortunately, 
 with a crop of traitors, ready to hand. 
 Most convincingly and graphically, 
 the late Emeritus-Professor F. W. 
 Newman has set forth the struggles 
 of Greece against unit}', in contrast 
 with the persistent efforts of ancient 
 Italy to the attainment of that advan- 
 tage ; and when we seek to account for 
 the unworthy and confusing part which
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 59 
 
 the traitor surely plays in old Greek 
 history, there seems to be a pre- 
 disposing cause for his appearance, 
 which may reasonably be connected 
 with that isolation, wherein, with 
 the rarest exceptions, every city and 
 territory stood, and that, too, willingly 
 and with set determination. 
 
 The supreme object, which the 
 Greek too frequently and disastrously 
 proposed to himself, was only the 
 advantage of his own particular town- 
 ship or state. To that end, and under 
 a spirit that was in reality, but not 
 confessedly, selfish, he was quite con- 
 tent to regard the common cause — 
 the common weal of Greece as a whole
 
 66. Idylls of Old Grxecc. 
 
 — as a matter of entirely secondary 
 import ; and the result of such a 
 feeling, most natural and understand- 
 able from certain points of view, is to 
 be seen in the uprise of one supremacy 
 after another, — Athenian, Spartan, or 
 Theban, as the case may be. 
 
 Such a spirit, however, cannot but 
 have involved the possibility of certain 
 prominent and aspiring citizens, who 
 loved their own state in their own 
 selfish way, finding themselves lacking 
 in whole - hearted devotion to the 
 general good, when there was the 
 most crying necessity for the display of 
 a wider patriotism. And this is sadly 
 shown to be the case at certain well-
 
 Oil the Making of Traitors. 6i 
 
 known periods of supreme crisis in the 
 fortunes of Ancient Greece. 
 
 In the case of the lesser Greek 
 states, naturally dazzled as these were 
 by the spectacle of the prestige, the 
 sway, and the commanding influence 
 of their more powerful neighbours, 
 one can understand, and even make 
 allowance for, this desire to improve 
 their own position, and to change their 
 "day of small things" into something 
 better. But such a disposition of mind 
 seems warranted only when we have 
 regard to the rivalries of the Greek 
 peoples among themselves ; and up to 
 that point there would appear a 
 slighter reprobation to be dealt out ;
 
 62 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 the contingency of such things being 
 Hnked indissolubly with human nature, 
 as we know it. 
 
 But all such pleas in arrest of judg- 
 ment fail at the very moment that 
 we are confronted with the workings 
 of this same spirit, engendered by these 
 inter-communal jealousies, in regard to 
 the attitude of Greeks towards Greece 
 as a whole, in presence of a common 
 external foe, such as Persia at one 
 time, Macedon subsequently, or later 
 still, Rome. 
 
 In this respect, alas ! the greater 
 states and the smaller communities 
 are alike guilty, and the proofs they 
 furnish are as lamentable as they are
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 63 
 
 disgraceful. Between the Locrian 
 Ephialtes, who revealed to Xerxes 
 that secret path across Cithseron — 
 and, by so doing, stabbed Greece in 
 the back at Thermopylae — and the 
 Spartan, Pausanias, who sank low 
 enough to traffic, for the selfish lord- 
 ship of all Greece, with her arch- 
 enemy, the Great King, detestation 
 is about equally divided, — bearing in 
 mind the fact that our judgment 
 nevertheless cannot fail to be in- 
 fluenced in the one case by the 
 reflection that the higher the posi- 
 tion of the plotter the more called- 
 for is our indignation at his moral 
 turpitude, and the greater our sense
 
 64 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 of satisfaction at his deserved retri- 
 bution. 
 
 It is not too much to say that 
 Sparta affords by far the worst and 
 the most glaring instance of treason 
 to Greece, and this not once or twice 
 merely, but throughout her history. 
 And the reason for such a charge is, 
 that she had no excuse for bargaining:; 
 with a foreigner. If she had an eye 
 to her own paramount authority, not 
 only in the Peloponnesus but through 
 all Greece, that authority was really 
 hers already. Among all the states it 
 was the custom, however unwarranted 
 that custom subsequently proved to 
 be, to regard her soldiery as invincible.
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 65 
 
 and her predominance as a thing 
 taken for granted, as well as deferred 
 to, in the councils of Greece. This 
 conventional position was tacitly ac- 
 corded to her, notwithstanding the 
 facts that she had come as a suppliant 
 for Athenian succour in the grave straits 
 to wdiich the Messenian War had 
 reduced her, that she had flinched 
 from the picked troops of Mardonius 
 at Platsea, that in the early days of 
 the Peloponnesian struggle Athens 
 had swept her triremes from the sea, 
 and that in a subsequent contest with 
 the dogged and thick-witted Boeotians 
 her military prestige was irretrievably 
 destroyed upon the field of Leuctra.
 
 66 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 As a treason -factory Sparta, con- 
 sidered in the light of her own pre- 
 eminence in Greece, stood egregiously 
 without excuse. The readiest homage, 
 the most openly accepted leadership 
 over a group of communities that she 
 might indeed be proud to lead, every- 
 thing, in fact, to which the noblest and 
 the most justifiable ambition of a true 
 Greek might aspire, was hers. That 
 was her proud position before the 
 Persian came, and that position she 
 continued to hold after the invader 
 had been triumphantly driven back to 
 Asia again ; and she would have con- 
 tinued to maintain her place had it 
 not been for the disgraceful treachery
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 67 
 
 of her own officer ; because it was to 
 that fact, as much as to anything else — 
 transferring as it did the staff of office 
 from the Spartan Pausanias to the 
 Athenian Cimon — that was due the 
 ripening of the Confederacy of Delos 
 into the Athenian hegemony. 
 
 It is true that " black sheep dwell 
 in every fold; " and of that, the very 
 name of Themistocles is proof enough 
 as far as Athens is chargeable with 
 the production of traitors. But, as 
 contrasted with Sparta, it may be 
 safely alleged that the spirit of the 
 Athenian people, the more generous 
 principles of their government, and the 
 comparative tolerance of their rule over
 
 68 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 the states that came to be dependent 
 on them, afforded a less congenial soil 
 for the growth of that ill weed, treason, 
 than did the rigidity and the essential 
 selfishness that characterised the laws 
 and the political institutions of the 
 Spartans. It is infinitely easier to 
 predicate treachery of a state, and of 
 a people generally, in regard to Sparta, 
 than to Athens. The individuality — 
 the strictly personal character — of the 
 treachery stands out far more clearly 
 from the background of Athenian life 
 and policy, than in the track of such 
 regrettable episodes in the Spartan 
 records. 
 
 One has to acknowledge that the
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 69 
 
 spirit of the two communities was 
 totally different. The history of Athens 
 may be vainly searched for the dis- 
 covery of a just parallel to the 
 calculating selfishness of Sparta, as 
 one of the Greek states, in those 
 crucial hours — precious as each hour, 
 then, truly was — that immediately 
 preceded that epoch-marking fight at 
 Marathon. Where, too, it may be 
 confidently asked, did Athens ever 
 deal by an ally as the Spartans dealt 
 by her, when, to divert the energies of 
 the Athenians from the blockade of 
 Thasos, they most dishonourably in- 
 vaded the territory of the Athenians, 
 with whom at that very time they were
 
 70 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 in actual alliance ? Athens, moreover, 
 was never chargeable with harbouring 
 such mistrust of a friend, as that which 
 met and checked the chivalrous Cimon, 
 when he led four thousand chosen 
 troops to the aid of Sparta in the 
 third Messenian war. In that instance 
 the conduct of the Spartan authorities 
 can only be accounted for by the vivid 
 remembrance of their own treacheries, 
 and by the fact that men are ever prone 
 to attribute to others the same motives, 
 and the same spirit by which they 
 know themselves to be actuated. The 
 •peace of Antalcidas, again, which made 
 it a comparatively easy thing for Persia 
 to intermeddle in matters of Greek
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 71 
 
 policy, was due to the determining 
 spirit of Sparta alone ; and in the 
 gallant stand which Thebes and Athens 
 together made against the despotism 
 of Philip of Macedon, Sparta held 
 sullenly aloof, and not a single soldier 
 of hers was found upon the fateful 
 field of Chseronea ; while, to crown 
 the miserable tale of Sparta's delin- 
 quencies, it was her voice that called 
 in the Roman, who speedily put a 
 period to the independence of Greece. 
 If, then, in view of such instances as 
 these, the treason of individual Spartans 
 demands explanation, it can be said 
 that in their case it certainly rested 
 upon conditions more favourable to its
 
 72 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 growth than could be found in the 
 spirit and in the methods of Athenian 
 government and social life. 
 
 Admitting freely all the records of 
 individual Spartan courage and dis- 
 cipline, which have gone to make the 
 name another word for valorous en- 
 durance, it nevertheless remains that 
 the spirit of Lacedaemonian education 
 and legislation (and, therefore, unavoid- 
 ably the spirit of its general policy) 
 was essentially narrow, selfish, and, 
 in the end, shortsighted. 
 
 The very institutions of Lycurgus 
 tended to defeat themselves, so far as 
 the permanent expression of the spirit 
 he sought to cultivate was concerned.
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 73. 
 
 Granted the higher quaUties with which 
 the Lacedaemonians were credited, it 
 is an incontestable fact that there were 
 no people in all Greece more accessible 
 to bribery. None were more coldly and 
 remorselessly cruel, simply because the 
 training provided for each Spartan was 
 essentially selfish. The bow, so to 
 speak, was strained to the breaking- 
 point, and, as a natural consequence, 
 it broke in one instance after another. 
 The system that was sacredly, but 
 most superstitiously, maintained b}^ the 
 banks of the Eurotas was like the couch 
 of the fabled Procrustes, — the short were 
 stretched out, and the men who were 
 cursed with a superfluity of inches were
 
 74 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 remorselessly abbreviated. Lookins^ 
 at the subject simply from the stand- 
 point of human nature, how glad such 
 folk would be to forget the lumps of 
 iron that represented the coin current, 
 and to betake themselves to the use 
 of the glittering and far more con- 
 venient counters of silver and of gold ! 
 A gnawing hunger might deprive even 
 the black broth of its bitterness ; but 
 the black broth was no bad preparation 
 for the enjoyment of more toothsome 
 food, and for the growing demand for 
 a more accomplished cook. And thus 
 the very rigidity of the long-vaunted 
 Spartan simplicity of life resulted in a 
 veritable craving for the luxuries of
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 75 
 
 self-induloence, when these thinsrs were 
 out of a Spartan's reach, whilst he 
 recklessly snatched at them, as soon 
 as he came within arm's leno-th of 
 the forbidden, and consequently more 
 coveted, fruit. In brief, a much 
 greater strain was laid on human 
 nature than it could bear, and, there- 
 fore, unlike the freer and more natural 
 life and institutions of Athens, the 
 Spartan habits and spirit were thus 
 better adapted for the making oi 
 traitors. 
 
 But, it may be urged, the Spartans 
 punished their traitors, even as did 
 the Athenians ; and that is quite true, 
 on]}' in the case of Sparta the "awful
 
 76 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 example" and the punishment do 
 not seem to have had any lastingly 
 salutary effect as far as the outcome 
 of the spirit of Sparta, as a state, is 
 observable. 
 
 It concerns the present subject, too, 
 to note how those Spartans were 
 ceaselessly on the watch against their 
 enemies ; and no greater or more 
 besetting anxiety had they than that 
 concerning the attitude of their own 
 vast slave population — the Helots. 
 That one fact furnished in itself an 
 education in suspicion of others, and 
 in ruthless self-regard. When it is 
 bluntly stated, as it must be, that no 
 single year presented an absolutely
 
 On the Making of Traitors. yj 
 
 ^' close season" for those poor Helots, 
 at the hands of their brutal and cal- 
 culating: lords, it is easv to see how 
 the spirit of their masters would be 
 hardened into the most remorseless 
 disdain for all the shame and the 
 sorrow that go to make up the burden 
 of slavery. 
 
 It is reasonable to assert that the 
 treatment of the Helots in Lace- 
 dsemon was less endurable and more 
 degrading than that of any other 
 slave population throughout the Hel- 
 lenic states. 
 
 To the Spartan, born to rule, and 
 educated to despise the useful and 
 honourable avocations of industrial
 
 78 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 and of agricultural life, there would 
 be little that savoured of surprise 
 in the contemplation of Persian arro- 
 gance, or of Persian cruelty to the 
 vanquished, to the captive, or to the 
 slave. 
 
 Sparta deliberately burdened her 
 citizens with all the drawbacks that 
 unavoidably attend a small ruling class, 
 which declares itself everywhere alike 
 the uncompromising foe of even the 
 mildest form of popular government. 
 By strict enactment she even forbade 
 a stranger to sojourn in her midst, lest 
 her own children, perchance, should 
 hear too much of the progress, the more 
 elastic social conditions, and the larger
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 79 
 
 liberty that obtained in other cities or 
 communities ! She encircled all the life 
 of those sons of hers with conditions 
 inflexible as iron, with the natural 
 result that they overleaped the barrier 
 as occasion served, and carried with 
 them, into the less circumscribed life 
 they entered, all a Spartan's disdain for 
 the suffering or loss of any who might 
 stand in his way, and all his wrongfully 
 suppressed appetite for the enjoyment 
 of the pleasant things of life, the abuse 
 of which alone constitutes their agency 
 for ill. 
 
 How was a fully-developed man 
 possible under such a regime ? One 
 cannot imagine such a possibility as a
 
 8o Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Spartan Pericles. The knowledge of 
 men and things, the ever-constant 
 feeling of patriotism to his own land, 
 blended with a perfect conversance 
 with Greek institutions everywhere, the 
 wide culture and the consuming love 
 of knowledge and of art, — all these are 
 things which only need to be named, 
 to make us realise at once the strong- 
 dividing line that marks off the Athenian 
 genius from the Spartan. Again, that 
 gentle courtesy, that unselfish patience, 
 that untainted service for the general 
 good, combine to set the unswerving 
 probity of Aristides in a light altogether 
 different, and more attractive than that 
 which falls on most of the recognised
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 8i 
 
 embodiments of Spartan virtue. There 
 was a freer and a more generous atmo- 
 sphere in Athenian public Hfe, wherein 
 treason found it more difficult to draw 
 its breath, but which certainly helped 
 to develop every sure and noble result 
 of freedom, as regards the intellect, the 
 spirit, and the life of the citizens of 
 such a city. That was the great end 
 at which Athens aimed, and that 
 entailed the assuring of content, and of 
 opportunity, for the humblest as well as 
 for the nobly born among her children. 
 That such a lofty ideal still entailed 
 difficulties, and drawbacks not a few, is 
 a fact indelibly written down by history; 
 but for all that. Liberty was then, as
 
 82 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 she is still, and will enduringl}^ prove to 
 be, the mother of the truest and most 
 unsullied patriotism, of the best and 
 strongest home life, and of the most 
 fruitful culture in art, in literature, and 
 in thought. 
 
 In the making of traitors, Athens 
 may be safely declared to have had 
 comparatively little share. Where the 
 man has leave to live and room to 
 grow, treason finds a resting-place 
 which can only be temporary and 
 infrequent ; whilst against the training 
 that is selfish, and against the com- 
 pression of the man into the system, 
 no pride of valour, or of race, can 
 prove a reliable panacea for the
 
 On the Making of Traitors. 83 
 
 evils of impatience, of deception, and 
 of treachery, which are the sad but 
 inevitable issue of such a code of 
 regulations for private and for public 
 life as that with which the name of 
 Sparta stands identified.
 
 THE TRAITOR GREEK. 
 
 Told at the time of the subjugation of Greece by 
 the Romans, whose intervention, tender Metellus, 
 Sparta had invited, B.C. 168. 
 
 The Spartan flute is silent, the Spartan 
 
 spirit dead, 
 And low beneath a stranger yoke the 
 
 Greek must bow his head. 
 From Macedon to Malea's Cape, from 
 
 Eastern shore to West, 
 There flashes in the sunlight the 
 
 Roman's conquering crest. 
 
 85
 
 86 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 And Sparta's street re-echoed the iron- 
 girt legion's tread, 
 And fierce and high the war horns 
 
 blared as they would wake the 
 
 dead : 
 But curtained close, in chamber cool, 
 
 a wounded warrior slept, 
 And o'er a father's couch his child 
 
 unwearying vigil kept. 
 From dreamy rest the sleeper stirred, 
 
 but woke to sorrow's pain, — 
 "Alas! poor Greece!" he murmured. 
 " Lost ! Vain every struggle ! vain ! 
 For dead'ning sloth, no less than Rome, 
 
 has burdened her with doom, 
 And shrouds a race of nerveless slaves 
 
 in Fate's unending gloom.
 
 The Traitor Greek. 87 
 
 And sternly true the dismal tale, how 
 
 blood-stained civil strife, 
 In blinding greed for selfish sway, 
 
 befouls a nation's life. 
 The Gods go forth from tottering walls; 
 
 they spurn our cankered pow'rs ; 
 They lay the sceptre of the world in 
 
 nobler hands than ours ! 
 
 'Twas when the beaten Persian fled 
 
 across the watery plains. 
 The lust for Persian splendour coursed 
 
 like venom through our veins. 
 Then fell that curse of Gods and men 
 
 on Sparta's ancient fame, 
 That lies, and shall for ever lie, upon 
 
 Pausanias' name !
 
 88 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 O Fates ungenerous ! Would to heav'n 
 
 dull Thebes had served your turn, 
 Or wily Athens taught her crew such 
 
 treachery to learn ! 
 What impious crime had Sparta wrought, 
 
 that Nemesis should claim 
 A dastard son of hers to light that torch 
 
 of blazing shame ? 
 Aye, boy, 'twas Treason's sick'ning 
 
 breath bedimmed our glorious 
 
 star, 
 And smothered in its fetid cloud the 
 
 glitt'ring spoils of war. 
 And shamed the deed of Sparta's King, 
 
 and his Three Hundred bright, 
 Who found their way to glory through 
 
 Thermopylae's red fight !
 
 The Traitor Greek. 89 
 
 And yet the gleam of ancient faith with 
 
 radiance breaks anew 
 From names that tell of brave old days 
 
 when man to man was true, — 
 When life was clean, and states were 
 
 great, and chieftains of renown 
 Were fearless in the might of right, and 
 
 trod the wicked down 1 
 
 Men tell us how the cheers that hailed 
 
 Platsea's famous day. 
 And urged the foe to faster flight, had 
 
 scarcely died away, 
 When vaunts of all his sword had 
 
 wrought, of life Greece owed to him, 
 With blunt contempt for others' toils, 
 
 began his soul to dim.
 
 90 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 The loud-lunged crowd with headlong 
 praise to greet the victor ran : 
 
 * Pausanias ! ' where was name like his ? 
 
 the hour had brought the man ! 
 And now let Athens prate no more of 
 
 deeds at Marathon ; . ' . 
 Pausanias' name was Sparta's fame ; 
 
 th' Athenian boast was gone ! 
 
 * That honest pride of his,' they cried, — 
 
 ' what was it but his right ? 
 And naught but mean and grudging 
 
 spleen such nobleness would slight ! ' 
 That flatterer's cup, so deadly sweet, he 
 
 could not put aside ; 
 He thirsted for it, quaffed his fill, — and 
 
 of its poison died.
 
 The Traitor Greek. gi 
 
 "Afar to distant fields of strife his bold 
 
 ambition flew, 
 And there, like Mede in arrogance, he 
 
 scorned his comrades true : — 
 Disdained to call himself a Greek, 
 
 despised the frugal fare. 
 And wallowed in voluptuousness 'mid 
 
 Eastern dainties rare. 
 With serfs and silver at his board, and 
 
 slave-girls at his call. 
 In all but name an Asian prince ! How 
 
 deep, how vile a fall ! 
 No direr change might Circe work at 
 
 her bewitching feast. 
 Where pleasure's magic wand trans- 
 formed the hero to the beast !
 
 92 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Suspicion stirred, and soon was heard 
 
 a whisper strange and low, 
 That, 'mid the Greek confederate spears, 
 
 he trafficked with the foe ! 
 And home to Sparta flew the word, 
 
 across th' /Ege3.n main, 
 That Persian gold had reached his 
 
 heart where Persian steel was 
 
 vain. 
 But hard it is to mark at noon a spot 
 
 upon the sun, 
 'Tis sorry work to pluck a leaf from 
 
 wreath by valour won, — 
 And thankless showed the grim resolve 
 
 to scan Pausanias' shame. 
 And link with lie of deepest dye the 
 
 story of his fame.
 
 The Traitor Greek. 93 
 
 To strike from loftiest seat the man 
 
 who wore a laurel crown ? 
 As soon might baying watch-dogs bring 
 
 a kingly lion down ! 
 But blindfold though great Justice be, 
 
 the Goddess gropes her way, 
 Unerring, through unwonted paths, and 
 
 fastens on her prey. 
 
 " Unlooked-for, at an Ephor's feet, a 
 
 trembling helot fell, — 
 With visage scared, and faltering tongue, 
 
 beseeching leave to tell 
 Of danger to the Greek, — of plot, 
 
 which none might know but he, — 
 Whereto, by hap most strange, the 
 
 Fates had left with him the key !
 
 94 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 The Ruler marked : ' Poor slave,' said 
 
 he, * thy trouble I divine. 
 Plots ? Dangers ? Nay, 'tis madness 
 
 breeds such words, such looks as 
 
 thine ! 
 Who owns thee ? Say ! — yet, sure thy 
 
 face I 've known in days gone past ! ' 
 ' My lord ! ' he cried . . . ' Pausanias ! ' 
 
 . . . the Ruler's heart beat fast ; 
 And straight in rising wrath he spake, — 
 
 ' How dar'st thou join a name 
 I 've trusted in, and loved of old, with 
 
 act or thought of shame ? 
 Why, slave ! Thy lies deserve the 
 
 whip, and thou shalt feel, at last, 
 How vain a wretched helot's word a 
 
 Spartan's faith to blast ! '
 
 The Traitor Greek. 95 
 
 With heart of truth, and Hp of fire, the 
 
 bondsman answered back, 
 ' 'Twere lack of wit, my lord, to threat 
 
 with brutal lash or rack : 
 Let Greece be lost ! let Furies hurl their 
 
 horrors on her head ! 
 What cares a slave, who knows no hope, 
 
 no rest, but with the dead ? 
 I tell thee, Ephor, man to man, 
 
 'twas kindness wrought through 
 
 thee 
 To me and mine, in evil time, that 
 
 brought me to thy knee : 
 Heav'n bless thy gracious lady's care, 
 
 that fed a poor slave's wife, 
 And famine-stricken little ones — the 
 
 lights of his dark life !
 
 96 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 The curse, that smites a thank- 
 less knave, had been my rightful 
 fate, 
 
 If flinty heart of mine had hid this 
 peril to thy state ! 
 
 How could I see thy noble house, and 
 all thou lov'st, struck down 
 
 Because a traitor Spartan plots to wear 
 a Persian crown ? 
 
 A word of mine thou may'st not take : 
 thy cruel law denies 
 
 That bondsmen's lips can utter truth, 
 or despots deal in lies ! 
 
 But witness, here, my vow to make 
 Pausanias own his guilt, — 
 
 And Sparta through his heart shall 
 drive her weapon to the hilt ! '
 
 The Traitor Greek. 97 
 
 The slave kept tryst : — one starless eve, 
 
 to lonely temple came 
 The stealthy rulers, one by one, the 
 
 damning proof to claim : 
 And ripened plots, and falsehoods black, 
 
 were whispered and confessed 
 That nigh had forced their angered 
 
 speech from out each throbbing 
 
 breast. 
 Then back they hied, with purpose dread 
 
 as clouds that o'er them hung : — 
 Amid the flashing tempest's roar was 
 
 loosed the silent tongue : 
 The word was ' Death,' without one 
 
 thought of pity ! — and again 
 The answering lightning split the night, 
 
 the thunder crashed again !
 
 98 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Confronted unaware, hard by Athene's 
 
 Brazen Fane, 
 The flurried coward told his crime, in 
 
 haggard glance of pain : 
 He fled like crafty fox unearthed, before 
 
 the raging crowd. 
 And Lacedaemon's very stones in judg- 
 ment cried aloud. 
 With frenzied rush he sprang within 
 
 the sanctuary door, 
 And clutched the altar, while he 
 
 prayed, as he 'd ne'er prayed 
 
 before, — 
 With useless words, with impious cries 
 
 before the Pow'rs divine, 
 He dared their very ministers to drag 
 
 him from the shrine.
 
 0, 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 «3 
 
 
 fa 
 
 
 ^
 
 The Traitor Greek. loi 
 
 In justice stern, in vengeance calm, the 
 
 rulers of the state, 
 With mercy banished from their souls, 
 
 had gathered at the gate : 
 The rattling bolt was hoarsely shot to 
 
 bar the outmost gate. 
 And, with a shriek, the culprit caught 
 
 the fashion of his fate ! 
 Lie there, Pausanias ! and know thy 
 
 self-allotted doom ! 
 This temple, where thou fled'st for life, 
 
 becomes thy living tomb ! 
 Lie there ! And know that food 
 
 nor drink thy lips shall enter 
 
 more ! 
 And die accurst ! ' So rang the voice 
 
 that awful threshold o'er. —
 
 102 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Upspringing from the altar's foot, in 
 
 fright and mad despair, 
 He shook with wild convulsive grip the 
 
 bars that caged him there : 
 He struck them, raved at Fate, then 
 
 gave the frantic struggle o'er. 
 And, spent with unavailing rage, fell 
 
 sobbing on the floor. 
 
 Again 'twas stillness, and anon the 
 
 crowd, with reverent mien. 
 Gave room, and through their midst made 
 
 way for Sparta's widowed Queen. 
 Once more the cowering victim raised 
 
 his hopeless, helpless gaze. 
 But, crimsoned with a darker shame, 
 
 crouched back in blank amaze.
 
 '' Sacred in her woe she stood." 
 
 Page 105.
 
 Tlic Traitor Greek. 105 
 
 And sacred in her woe she stood amid 
 
 the breathless throng, 
 While words of anger dire and deep 
 
 were trembling on her tongue. 
 No glimpse of yearning ruth, or 
 
 love, revived that shame -struck 
 
 one ; 
 The Spartan — not the woman, saw the 
 
 sinner — not the son ! 
 ' I recked not I should kneel,' she said, 
 
 ' to bless the lonesome day 
 That saw my kingly husband borne 
 
 along Death's muffled way ; 
 But, witness Heav'n ! how from my 
 
 soul I hail the kind decree 
 That shielded him from all the grief 
 
 this miscreant wrings from me !
 
 io6 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 The Gods forefend that such as 
 thou should'st stain a Spartan 
 sire, 
 
 But hound thee forth — debased, dis- 
 owned, thou Persian-hearted Har ! 
 
 The dead I summon back to earth, to 
 aid these lips of mine 
 
 To breathe a double curse on thee, thou 
 plague-spot on our line ! 
 
 Would'st dare to live — to revel on, amid 
 thy country's wreck ? 
 
 And help the tyrant Mede to plant his 
 foot upon her neck ? 
 
 The rocks I '11 tear to stones for walls to 
 hide thy fell disgrace. 
 
 Alone, without one friend, within thy 
 last dark dwelling-place.
 
 The Traitor Greek. 107 
 
 Despair all hope ! And may the Fates 
 
 thy misery prolong ! 
 And plunge thee down where traitors 
 
 howl beneath the Furies' thong ! 
 Dishonoured be thy corse — cast forth 
 
 unburied ! and thy name 
 Held up for ever to the world a by-word 
 
 and a shame ! ' 
 She ceased. With quivering hand 
 
 she grasped a stone that near her 
 
 lay, 
 And thrust it 'gainst the temple-door, 
 
 and moaned, — and went her way. 
 The portal walled, from riven roof full 
 
 many a wrathful eye 
 Was bent in patience pitiless to watch 
 
 the traitor die.
 
 io8 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 With feet of lead the torturing hours 
 
 came tramphng down his strength. 
 His piteous cries had sunk to sighs, — 
 
 the end was nigh at length : 
 The emptying glass of Time ran out, 
 
 and as the last grains hung, 
 Relentlessly from out the pile the 
 
 famished frame was flung. 
 
 " Perchance, when Sparta's glorious name 
 
 shall speak of ancient days. 
 When Rome's resplendent sun has shed 
 
 its last red flickering rays, — 
 When, gathering on the Northern hills 
 
 from forest and from glen. 
 Some wild barbarians yet shall give the 
 
 world a race of men, —
 
 The Traitor Greek. 109 
 
 When nobler heroes, strong of heart, 
 
 untainted, vahant, free, 
 And conquering, and to conquer still, 
 
 shall sweep o'er land and sea, — 
 When heav'n-born Freedom, at their 
 
 call, shall spread a tireless wing, 
 And every shore the ocean round with 
 
 songs of peace shall ring, — 
 When laws shall stand on truth and 
 
 right, and virtue mount the throne, 
 And love of country, not of gold, shall 
 
 call the world its own, — 
 Then in the ruler's stately court, and 
 
 in the peasant's cot. 
 At last, — in that fair, far-off time shall 
 
 traitors be forgot ! "
 
 THE RESCINDING OF A 
 rorULAR VOTE. 
 
 p E N U I N E admiration for the 
 spirit, and for many of the 
 characteristics of the Athenian people 
 by no means implies an attempt to 
 judge them by the standard of our 
 own day. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are striking in- 
 cidents in the annals of that most 
 brilliant of all the communities of the 
 
 ancient world, which remain unaffected 
 
 8 
 
 113
 
 114 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 by the touch of time, and which reflect 
 the varied pla}^ of that human nature, 
 the identity of which everywhere tends 
 to link the past and the present in one. 
 No more noteworthy instance of 
 this can perhaps be produced tlian 
 the spectacle afforded to us in the 
 passionate wrath of Athens at the 
 revolt of Mytilene, — the wild vengeance 
 which, according to the custom and 
 spirit of the times, she deemed herself 
 perfectly right in exacting from the 
 defeated rebels, and the sharp and 
 almost instant recoil of the democracy 
 from such sanguinary retribution, as 
 soon as ever it realised the awful con- 
 sequences of the sentence, for which
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 115 
 
 its indignant, and not wholly unjustifi- 
 able, anger was responsible. 
 
 For, it must be confessed that the 
 case of Athens was a strong one. 
 
 Not only the assigned cause put 
 forward by Mytilene for rebellion, but 
 the particular juncture chosen for its 
 initiation were such as might well have 
 inspired the bitter no less than the 
 reasonable resentment of the Athenian. 
 
 The condition of the city might 
 then have been regarded as almost 
 desperate. 
 
 Athens was literally faint from sick- 
 ness. A terrible visitation of the 
 plague had but recently been sweeping 
 off her inhabitants like flies — no less
 
 tt6 IdvJh of Old Gr£€C€. 
 
 than twentv' thousand Aictims attesting 
 the severity- of the blow which bade 
 .feir to paralyse her altogether, — and, 
 when we make allowance for the linger- 
 ing effects of the malady npon the 
 individual sHnivors and upon the 
 spirit of the people generall)', the 
 occasion must have seemed ill adapted 
 for an}' ag^essive efforts against her 
 enemies, or for the successful defeat of 
 any attack upon herself. Then, too, 
 the adversaries leagued in opposition 
 to her had been increasing both in 
 numbers and in audacit}-. She was 
 beset T^-ith difF.culties from without, 
 as well as T^dthin her ov\-n walls, and 
 these latter her foes must have come
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote, iij 
 
 to regard as tottering already to their 
 fall. ■ 
 
 Such was the unfortunate and de- 
 pressing condition of affairs when the 
 State was struck with sudden and 
 angry amazement at the unlooked-fori 
 and, it must be acknowledged, the 
 unwarranted revolt of the people of- 
 Mytilene. - ----;;:- 
 
 And the reason on which the rebels 
 based their action only tended to 
 intensify the exasperation naturally felt 
 at Athens. It was such, in fact, as 
 to provoke the astonishment even of 
 Sparta and her confederates, who, of 
 course, were none the less eager to 
 admit the Mytilena?ans to their alliance.
 
 Ii8 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Their concern lay only with the acces- 
 sion of a new and possibly effective 
 ally, and with the consequent delivery 
 of an unexpected and probably fatal 
 stroke, not only at the supremacy, 
 but at the very independence of the 
 Athenians. The justification of the 
 rebellion in Lesbos was of small enough 
 account with the antagonists of Athens ; 
 they availed themselves of it, as Athens 
 would promptly have done had she been 
 in their position, and that they proceeded 
 to do, leaving the revolutionaries to find 
 their own reasons for their conduct. 
 
 Very lame, at the best, was the 
 excuse which the leaders of that futile 
 rebellion were able to urge. They do
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 119 
 
 not appear to have had a single griev- 
 ance of which to complain. They 
 could not charge Athens, as far as they 
 themselves were concerned, with any 
 act of tyranny ; for, upon them at any 
 rate, the Athenian headship had rested 
 lightly. For, when they appealed for 
 succour before the representatives of 
 Sparta and her Peloponnesian allies, 
 they could plead in justification of their 
 act nothing whatever that Athens had 
 done in opposition to their particular 
 interests ; they produced nothing, in 
 fact, but indirect complaints as to her 
 method of dealing with other depen- 
 dencies, and fears, or fancies rather, 
 on their own part as to her proble-
 
 120 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 matical dealings with themselves at 
 some future time. Never, in fact, 
 were flimsier excuses for a wanton 
 rebellion ever alleged against a para- 
 mount state by people within its 
 accepted influence. 
 
 This very fact should temper our 
 judgment on the remorseless reprisal 
 determined upon by the Athenians in 
 the hour of their triumph. And, more- 
 over, when such action is calmly re- 
 viewed under the light afforded by the 
 practices and by the feelings of that day, 
 it is not possible to withhold our ready 
 admiration for a people humane enough 
 to regret, and morally brave enough to 
 reverse, a decision the results of which
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 121 
 
 they realised almost as soon as ever 
 the members of the Assembly that 
 decreed it had dispersed, and begun to 
 contemplate at their own hearthstones, 
 and in the presence of those near and 
 dear to them, the inevitable misery 
 they had invoked. 
 
 In a word they dared not, as 
 husbands, fathers, or sons, contemplate 
 the indiscriminate cruelty and the 
 disruption and desecration of family 
 life, which would ensue at Mytilene, on 
 the arrival there of the State-Trireme 
 bearing the decree ; for, further, it is to 
 be observed that the vessel had been 
 despatched that very day, with a 
 rapidity purposely designed to check
 
 122 Idylls of Old Greece, 
 
 any interference with the prompt 
 execution of so terrible a sentence as 
 that of death to every man, and 
 slavery for every woman and child. 
 No after-thought of mercy was to be 
 allowed to stand between such a fearful 
 doom and its ruthless accomplishment. 
 To such a pitch of anger had the 
 state been wrought ! And in the 
 contemplation of such an act, it may 
 not be without interest to observe that 
 there was no deliberative council — no 
 "second chamber" — to which such a 
 decree might be submitted for rejection, 
 or even for emendation. Here would 
 surely have been an instance in 
 which the essential and most desirable
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 123 
 
 function of another, and a consultative, 
 assembly might have been most wisely 
 and beneficially discharged. To any 
 who are inclined to " ask now of the 
 days that are past," such a reminiscence 
 is eloquent indeed. Had such a body 
 of statesmen or councillors existed, 
 that passionate vote of the popular 
 assembly would, in all probability, have 
 either been thrown out altogether, or 
 else discriminately amended; and dema- 
 gogues who played to the gallery, and 
 with whom self-advertisement as much 
 as statesmanship was an attraction, 
 would have been relegated to their 
 merited level. 
 
 And yet, on other grounds, one cannot
 
 124 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 regret the absence of any such merely 
 legislative check. Never did the 
 character of the Athenian people show 
 to greater advantage than in their quick 
 self-reproach and sorrow for a cruel 
 resolve, and in their frantic effort to 
 make manifest their instant repentance- 
 Such conduct revealed the triumph 
 of the people over themselves. It 
 was a tribute to the humanity of a 
 democracy ; it was the act of the 
 citizens themselves, — their own sub- 
 stitution of mercy for a blind revenge 
 that saw no difference between guilt 
 and innocency. And here, once again, 
 as in many another regard, the genius 
 of Athens, judged simply by the stand-
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 125 
 
 ard of life and conduct accepted 
 throughout Greece in those days, stands 
 out in bright and in astounding con- 
 trast with that of Sparta. 
 
 How cold-blooded, pitiless, and re- 
 gardless of devoted service rendered 
 ungrudingly to the cause of Greek 
 freedom, was the ruthless butchery of 
 the Platseans by the Spartan soldiery ! 
 How remorseless the blotting out of that 
 heroic little city from the map of Greece ! 
 The state that could not only decree 
 that, but actually perpetrate it, deserves 
 almost any fate ; and dark is the lot 
 of Sparta in our eyes to-day, when 
 we remember that the name of no 
 illustrious Spartan helps to add to the
 
 126 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 glory of Greece upon the fields of 
 thought, of literature, and of art. Such 
 immortality is the gift of liberty alone ; 
 and to the spirit of popular freedom 
 Sparta, to her own loss, was the sworn 
 and the constant foe. 
 
 It becomes the student not to forget, 
 in this connection, the attitude of 
 Eurymedon, who, with his Athenian 
 troops and sailors, coldly looked on 
 at the dreadful massacre in Cor- 
 cyra, where one political faction — 
 in that savagery born of party ran- 
 cour — slaughtered every member of 
 the opposing faction within reach. All 
 this is terribly and shamefully true ; 
 but accordinir to the moral code of
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 127 
 
 that age, mere spectators of that 
 sanguinary incident would be held as 
 occupying a different position to the 
 actual perpetrators of the deed, and 
 it would be consequently reasonable 
 to draw a distinction between the 
 abstention of Eurymedon at Corcyra 
 and the execution of the starving 
 garrison by Archidamus and his Spar- 
 tans at Plataea. 
 
 Nor is it pretended that Athens 
 exacted no punishment for the treachery 
 of Mytilene ; but what we do know is, 
 that to the credit of her citizens they 
 did shrink from sweeping all alike, 
 without discrimination as to their crime, 
 within one wild and passionately uttered
 
 128 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 condemnation. A thousand hostages, 
 comprising doubtless a number of the 
 actual ringleaders, together with their 
 Spartan abettor, Salaethus, paid with 
 their lives the penalty of their un- 
 successful revolt ; but in that day, 
 and in the judgment of the most 
 enlightened and humane amongst the 
 Greeks, such would have seemed by 
 no means an excessive requital for 
 ■an insurrection so completely without 
 justification. 
 
 The whole story presents us, in fact, 
 with one of the most noteworthy 
 episodes in old Greek history. We 
 see a city shaking itself from its 
 terrible sickness, facing a combination
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 129 
 
 of hostile powers, the fatal tightening 
 of whose grip seems imminent, and 
 confronting the added terror suddenly 
 sprung upon it by the treason of one 
 of its trusted dependencies, while its in- 
 satiable Peloponnesian foes close round 
 it, quietly and grimly expecting nothing 
 less than the speedy and irretrievable 
 collapse of the Athenian power. And 
 then, to the surprise of friends and 
 enemies alike, when all things seem 
 hopelessly adverse, we are confronted 
 with the stirring spectacle of Athens 
 rising to supremest effort, fitting out a 
 fresh fleet of one hundred new battle- 
 ships, crushing the rebellion in Mytilene 
 that at one time seemed to portend
 
 130 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 the doom of her empire, actually 
 sealing up the enemies' vessels in 
 their own ports, and defiantly harrying 
 the whole of the Peloponnesian coasts 
 with fire and sword. Such is the 
 picture with which history brings us 
 face to face, while our wonder is 
 deepened as we find that state, in the 
 very hour of her victory, exercising a 
 self-discipline in her chastisement of 
 the treachery of Lesbos which was as 
 exceptional, at the time, as it was 
 creditable. 
 
 It is refreshing to contemplate the 
 free and varied expression of national 
 feeling thus revealed by Athenian 
 public and private life ; whilst, in view
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 131 
 
 of the circumstances that led up to 
 the exciting despatch of a second 
 ship, the very next day, with an express 
 command reversing the terrible decision 
 promulgated only the day before, there 
 is a certain amount of satisfaction at 
 knowing that that first vote was stopped 
 by no administrative check or contriv- 
 ance, but by the spontaneous and 
 generous impulse of the Athenian 
 democracy itself. Had such action 
 proved futile, either to rescind the de- 
 cree, or to hinder the execution of it, a 
 dark stain would have forever and indeli- 
 bly rested upon the traditions of Athens. 
 But when the courage of the Ten 
 Generals had overridden the fear of
 
 132 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 the penalties, clearly enough indi- 
 cated by Thucydides as attaching to 
 any who might fail in the attempt to 
 reverse a popular decree, and when the 
 Assembly had purged itself of an act, 
 which even in those less humane times, 
 incurred the charge of blood-guiltiness, 
 as well as bad policy, the interest shifts 
 to the stirring scene of the instant 
 despatch to Lesbos of that Rescue- 
 ship, with orders to the Athenian com- 
 mander at Mytilene to stay his hand. 
 
 Probably such a vessel might be 
 found, not in the Piraeus, but rather 
 in the harbour of Munychia, which 
 was slightly nearer to the city, and 
 was devoted to the service of the
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 133 
 
 Athenian Admiralty; and heavy was 
 the task that lay before her. The 
 first vessel, despatched the day before^ 
 would have the start of her by some 
 twenty-four hours, or possibly a little 
 less. But if the sailors of that period 
 were of the same hearty and generous 
 spirit which we know to characterise 
 the sailors of to-day, they would have 
 relished little enough the wretched 
 business on which they were des- 
 patched. The fastest vessel in all 
 the Athenian fleet might well have 
 proved a laggard on such a thankless 
 errand. Anything like a breeze, or 
 even an air, from the eastward would 
 have materially tended to retard her
 
 134 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 passage across the ^gean, whilst, on 
 the other hand, a crew picked, every 
 man of them, for their muscle and 
 their known powers of endurance, and 
 enthusiastically eager for the race, 
 would settle themselves to their work 
 with a wild and joyous alacrity — in- 
 creased by promises of rich reward — 
 that would be of happiest augury for 
 the speed of the ship entrusted with 
 the word of mercy for the condemned 
 men, and for the wretched women and 
 children at Mytilene. To such con^ 
 ditions besetting the departure of the 
 second vessel may, without much tax 
 on the imagination, be added the 
 possible dropping of the easterly
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 135 
 
 breeze ; and if we suppose to our- 
 selves a ship stripped of every possible 
 encumbrance in the shape of masts, 
 spars, and sails, — as was the custom 
 of the Athenian navy, which in entering 
 on a sea fight usually relied upon oars 
 alone, — and cleared for a long and des- 
 perate stern chase over a smooth sea, 
 there would appear chance sufficient of 
 an arrival at Mytilene in time for the 
 reprieve to be delivered. 
 
 And such was happily the fact. If 
 it be surmised, for instance, that the 
 craft conveying the sentence loosed 
 from port on a Monday afternoon 
 about six o'clock, and that she be 
 allowed a speed of say five miles an
 
 136 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 hour on her miserable mission, she 
 might drop anchor off Mytilene about 
 two o'clock on the Wednesday after- 
 noon. Again, if it be imagined that 
 the second ship was lightened of 
 every unnecessary burden, that she 
 carried none other than the requisite 
 officers and crew, with some relief- 
 men to take a spell at an oar where 
 they might be wanted, that she rode 
 the calm sea very lightly and under 
 more favourable atmospheric condi- 
 tions than the first ship, we can think 
 of her arrival at her destination in 
 ample time to prevent the butchery 
 decreed. Moreover the execution of 
 some seven thousand victims must have
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 137 
 
 necessarily entailed time for prepara- 
 tion, and the authorities to whom the 
 fearful order had been delivered may- 
 well have found that not until the dawn 
 of the next day could the dispositions 
 for their dreadful work be matured. 
 
 Meanwhile, remembering the eager- 
 ness with which men set about the 
 undoing of their previous resolve, the 
 second vessel, bearing the reprieve^ 
 would, it may be thought, be sent 
 off somewhere, possibly, about three 
 o'clock on the Tuesday afternoon, and, 
 under the supposedly opportune condi- 
 tions, she may have maintained on 
 her happier voyage an average speed 
 throughout the passage of about seven
 
 138 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 and a half miles an hour, and such a 
 course would bring her into harbour at 
 Mytilene just as night was falling on the 
 Wednesday evening, some six hours or 
 so after the arrival of the order that had 
 plunged the wretched inhabitants of the 
 place into the agony of despair. 
 
 And here, as a matter of interest 
 to all concerned with naval affairs, it 
 may not be out of place to allude to 
 the names borne by some of those 
 old Athenian battleships in times so 
 far distant from our own. 
 
 With the names of the two State 
 triremes, viz., the " Paralus " and the 
 *' Salaminia," every reader of Greek 
 history must be more or less familiar ;
 
 The Rescinding of a Popular Vote. 139 
 
 but it is more than ordinarily inter- 
 esting to note that among the vessels 
 of that Greek state, so long recognised 
 as the Mistress of the Sea, we light 
 upon such names as " nZ/c?;," "H7e/idj^7," 
 
 <' EtfTrXo/a," " Oepmrela,'" and " 'EAey^epa," 
 
 which have figured upon our British 
 Navy list with no less honour, as 
 respectively the " Victory,'' the 
 ^^ Queen,'" the ^^ Bonaventure,'' the 
 ''Assistance,'' and the ''Liberty ;" 
 while under the titles of "-Ew^ovaa'^ and 
 ''n/)oj/o(a" one traces such designations 
 as the "Aid" and the "Foresight," 
 which figure in the records of that 
 old Armada fight, which will ever be 
 known as " England's Salamis."
 
 THE RESCUE-SHIP. 
 
 An episode of the Revolt of Mytilene against 
 Athens, B.C. 427. 
 
 The dying daylight softly played 
 
 On pile and pillar fair ; 
 But strange discordant sounds were 
 borne 
 
 On evening's peaceful air. 
 For fearful was the deed whereon 
 
 The sun that day looked down, 
 When Athens, reckless in her wrath, 
 
 Had soiled her Violet Crown. 
 
 141
 
 142 Idylls oj Old Greece. 
 
 It chanced the citizens had quelled 
 
 A fierce rebellious fray, 
 And bound, and humbled at their 
 feet 
 
 Proud Mytilene lay. 
 Indignant anger fired their hearts 
 
 To spare not, but to smite : 
 And outraged Athens nigh forgot 
 
 Her mercy in her might. 
 In vain the broken rebels prayed 
 
 Their conqueror to stay 
 The fatal sword of punishment 
 
 Uplifted but to sla3\ 
 Their destiny was " slavery 
 
 For woman and for child, 
 And death to every man," so ran 
 
 The judgment dread and wild !
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 143 
 
 No time for stir of gentler thought 
 
 Was giv'n by soft delay : 
 But, on the hour, to Lesbos straight 
 
 The doom was borne away. 
 And ready in Piraeus Bay, 
 
 All trim, and stored, and manned, 
 The Salaminia trireme rode, 
 
 A rope's length from the strand. 
 With dismal tardiness her crew 
 
 Unmoored the well-known barque, 
 That like a vulture toward his prey 
 
 Slow swooped on pinion dark. 
 The muttering multitude ashore 
 
 Had watched her out of sight, 
 Then homeward hied, while on their 
 wrath 
 
 Came down the quiet night.
 
 144 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 With eager steps and clamouring 
 tongues, 
 
 Returnin'^ crowds streamed in 
 Beneath the white Pirsean gate 
 
 That echoed back their din. 
 And stirred with Hke indignant ire, — 
 
 Regretting, doubting naught, — 
 Isagoras, the general, 
 
 His stately dwelling sought. 
 With haughty mien that brooked no 
 word 
 
 Of welcome from his slave, — 
 Forgetting, too, the kind caress 
 
 His faithful hound would crave, — 
 He passed along the corridor. 
 
 And where a fountain played. 
 He sauntered restlessly awhile 
 
 Beneath the dusky shade.
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 145 
 
 In satisfaction grim he mused 
 
 On vengeance rightly wrought, 
 And how on graceless rebels' heads 
 
 Meet chastisement was brought : 
 When, wondrously from chamber near 
 
 A lyre's sweet music stole. 
 And poured its all-subduing strain 
 
 Upon his angered soul. 
 He hearkened, while with mystic 
 charm 
 
 The notes around him rang ; 
 Divine that touch upon the strings, 
 
 Belov'd the voice that sang ! 
 " Irene ! Daughter mine ! " How soft 
 
 That dear one's name was breathed ! 
 
 Her heart made answer, while her 
 
 arms 
 
 Around his neck were wreathed. 
 10
 
 146 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 "Ah ! welcome, father! " Tremblingly 
 
 She cried. " For thou can'st say 
 How false the tale, so dread and 
 sad, 
 
 That rent my heart this day ! 
 Old Lydon, at the porch, declared 
 
 The Assembly, with one breath, 
 Had giv'n all Mytilene o'er 
 
 To bondage and to death. 
 It is not — sure, it cannot be 
 
 The truth ! Say 'tis not so ! 
 Athenians could not wreak revenge 
 
 So savage on a foe ! > 
 To cast the mother, wife, and maid 
 
 To tyrant's chain and thong, — 
 Thehusband, sire, and son despatched 
 
 In one red murdered throng ? "
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 147 
 
 With tearful earnestness she scanned 
 
 Her father's steadfast face : 
 Caressed the while, and folded close 
 
 In strong and dear embrace. 
 "Nay, child, "hefirmly said; "mourn not 
 
 Rebellion's rightful fate ! 
 Remember, Athens bares her sword 
 
 In justice, not in hate. 
 Be silent, dear one, as thou must, 
 
 At Mytilene's crime, 
 That struck against our state, and 
 struck 
 
 In most distressful time. 
 When round us closed a myriad foes 
 
 In threatening, tight'ning ring, — 
 'Twas then that rebel city chose 
 
 To wound with treason's sting !
 
 148 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Nay, more ! Bethink thee, how the 
 . plague 
 Had walked its death - strewn 
 way ! 
 How warriors' arms and women's 
 hearts 
 Alike grew weak that day ! 
 Accurst the guile that planned the 
 hour 
 And fashion of the blow ! 
 And well may retribution speed 
 
 To lay such traitors low ! " 
 As rushing winds in stillness die, 
 
 When dark clouds break in rain, — 
 As sinks in calm, when storms are 
 sped. 
 The loud resounding main, —
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 149 
 
 Her sorrow, mute, compassionate, 
 
 Her tears that softly fell, 
 Surprised and swayed her father's 
 mood 
 
 With all-subduing spell. 
 
 " My father ! " — with a gentle plea 
 Kind heav'n might urge — she 
 said, 
 "What thoughts, but thoughts of pity, 
 wait i 
 
 On memories of the dead ? 
 Oh, think once more of that dread 
 plague 
 
 That shadows yet our life, 
 
 That left me lone and sisterless,'- 
 And thee bereft of wife ! -
 
 150 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Our Medon, too, who rode with 
 thee 
 To foray, scorning fear. 
 And sighed away his bright young 
 life 
 Beneath a Spartan spear ! 
 'Twas hard to bear ! yet Fate might 
 — ; hold ■ . 
 A direr harm in store ; 
 Thou know'st how hving troubles 
 pain. 
 When dead ones are no more ! 
 For death has saved them from the 
 chain 
 The captive slave must wear : 
 The exile's lot, the victim's pain. 
 Can never touch them there !
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 153 
 
 Yet, think on me — the only one 
 
 Now left to thee in life ! 
 What woes were mine should Athens 
 fall 
 
 O'erwhelmed in fatal strife ? 
 The lot thou'dst dread for me, thy 
 child. 
 
 When thou wert in thy tomb, 
 Athenians, mad with ire, decree 
 
 For Mytilene's doom ! " 
 
 The maiden ceased : such moving 
 prayer 
 Her lips ne'er breathed before. 
 He trembled at her tone, her 
 touch. 
 With sense unfelt of yore. -
 
 154 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 For furious shouts of angry crowds 
 
 Had swept his soul along, 
 And passion's glare had dazzled him, 
 
 And blinded him to wrong ! 
 But face to face with her he held 
 
 More dear than all beside, 
 The veil was torn away : revenge 
 
 In her mild presence died ! 
 To desecrate such life as hers ? 
 
 To break her heart with woe ? 
 That flash of love revealed the ill 
 
 That smites a conquered foe ! 
 Each moment clearer showed the deed 
 
 In all its horror bare ! 
 For who that treasured hearth and 
 home 
 
 Dared realise it there ?
 
 - Tlie ResciiC'Ship. 155 
 
 'Twas done! aye, done beyond 
 recall ! 
 The ship, with that decree 
 Of death and grief, was speeding 
 on 
 Across ;the star-lit sea ! . _ 
 O'erborne with agony of soul, 
 
 That seemed as vain as deep^ 
 The humbled chief made vow to 
 heav'n. 
 That neither rest nor sleep 
 Should e'er be his,^ till Athens, 
 roused " 
 
 And smarting with her shame, 
 From that day's frenzied act^ of 
 blood 
 Had purged her ancient fame !
 
 156 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 With troubled spirit, straight from 
 home 
 He passed, with purpose strong, 
 Where murmurs floated strangely 
 
 by, 
 
 The wayfarers among : 
 And wondrously by whisper grave, 
 By gesture marked, 'twas shown 
 The selfsame pitying pow'r, that 
 changed 
 His heart, had touched their 
 own. 
 For, conscience-smitten citizens. 
 
 Abroad in moonlight bright. 
 Condemned that day's revengeful 
 deed, 
 Appealed for ruth and right.
 
 The Rescue-Ship. i^y 
 
 And prayed him, leader as he was, 
 To voice the commons' thought 
 That morning's sun again should 
 see 
 The State to council brought. 
 They recked not of the danger 
 sure 
 That hung o'er one and all. 
 When Fate might wait on men who 
 dared 
 The Assembly to recall ! 
 Why fear the hemlock's dead'ning 
 draught ? 
 Why falter in such cause ? 
 'T'were nobler far to die, than 
 live 
 Defiled by bloodstained laws ?
 
 158 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Scared sleep, that night, from gloomy 
 homes 
 On ruffled wing had fled : 
 Remorse came hand in hand with 
 grief, 
 That wailed as for the dead. 
 And many a heart lay stunned and 
 faint, 
 For spent was anger's flame — 
 As sick men lie in helplessness 
 When fever quits the frame. 
 
 In Mytilene's desperate need, 
 'Twas well the Generals Ten 
 
 Could cast aside the toils of fear, 
 And show themselves true men, —
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 159 
 
 Men, strong, and wise enough to 
 rein 
 The demagogue's rash pow'r, 
 While precious Hves by thousands 
 hung 
 On ev'ry flying hour ! 
 They flung away the timid plea. 
 For form and custom due, — 
 The cry of multitudes o'erbore 
 
 The scruples of the few ; 
 And naught compassion's path might 
 bar, 
 The while those leaders all 
 In hurried, anxious conclave, 
 vowed 
 The sentence to recall !
 
 i6o Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 'Twas dawn : uprolled the flashing sun 
 
 O'er ocean's purple rim, 
 And shot o'er earth theghttering shafts 
 
 That make the day-star dim. 
 And cheerily, at early morn, 
 
 From wakened mart and street, 
 Out rang the lusty heralds' cry. 
 
 That bade the Assembly meet. 
 Not all, alas ! with willing hearts 
 
 Pressed up that oft-trod hill : 
 Full many a soul on vengeance fell 
 
 Morosely brooded still. 
 And gen'rous hearts with courage high 
 
 Might well for pity plead. 
 When Gods in vain may strive with 
 men 
 
 Of base and brutal breed !
 
 The Rescue-Ship. i6i 
 
 That sea of faces — silent all, 
 
 And earnest as in pray'r — ■ 
 Befitted well the cause that found 
 
 The citizens drawn there. 
 Before them, void of gentler thought 
 
 That o'er so many swept. 
 At once the commons' boast and 
 bane, 
 
 Rude Cleon boldly stept. 
 That deed of yesterday was his ! 
 
 or, fired by vulgar hate, 
 'Twas he who bade the city hurl 
 
 Its victims to their fate. 
 Regret for that, his selfish thought 
 
 Interpreted full well, 
 
 And told him that same deed and he 
 
 Together stood or fell. 
 II
 
 1 62 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 With front of brass he faced the 
 throng, 
 And poured, in accents coarse, 
 The torrent of his ire and scorn 
 
 With all the wilder force, — 
 O'erwhelmed with sneers, weak fitful 
 fears 
 That now for respite cried, 
 And bade the State stand firm on 
 law. 
 Or quit her seat of pride. 
 With deft maliciousness of heart. 
 
 He dealt with practised hand 
 Such blows as demagogues can 
 deal, 
 And statesmen scarce withstand !
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 163 
 
 For, right confounded seemed with 
 
 wrong 
 On Cleon's wordy tongue, 
 And Mytilene's friends grew pale, 
 While loud the plaudits rung. 
 
 But stillness reigned, as rose in 
 
 air 
 
 Compassion's holy plea, — 
 Entreating Athens to reverse 
 
 That act of infamy — 
 Refuse, at once, to sacrifice 
 
 Such hecatomb of blood. 
 And stain with red revenge her 
 name 
 
 That yet had spotless stood.
 
 164 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 For all the craft of wolfish rage, 
 
 'Twas matched by nobler skill : 
 For Gods decree that good shall be 
 
 The conqueror of ill. 
 By hostile shout, by rapturous cheer. 
 
 That listening crowd was riven, — - 
 But words that scorch, and tones 
 that melt, 
 
 Their message home had driven. 
 Then fell a mighty calm : a voice 
 
 'Mid beating hearts was heard, 
 Invoking from the Fates one last 
 
 Irrevocable word ! 
 *' For Mercy?" Like some silvery beam 
 
 A myriad hands upflashed ! 
 ^' For Vengeance ?" Darkly, dreadfully, 
 
 Revenge with pity clashed !
 
 " To speed the blessed Rescue-Ship 
 
 Across the ^gean Main.''' 
 
 Page 167.
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 167 
 
 A moment's doubt, — and then a shout 
 Of triumph mounted high ! 
 
 For Athens saved her peerless fame, 
 And laid her fury by. 
 
 In loud delight the multitude 
 Rushed forth, and broke away: 
 
 And word, in headlong haste, went out 
 . The bloody deed to stay ! 
 
 'Twas outward through the harbour 
 ' gate, 
 
 And onward to the sea, 
 The herald horsemen galloped fast 
 
 To bear the glad decree. 
 And eager citizens in crowds 
 
 Came thronging road and plain, 
 To speed the blessed Rescue-ship 
 
 Across "the ^gean main.
 
 1 68 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 They sought a vessel fleet and staunch, 
 
 They called a stalwart crew, 
 To cleave the surge, and toss the spray, 
 
 Whate'er the wind that blew. 
 And 'mid the war-worn shipping 
 moored 
 
 At anchor in the Bay, 
 New-built, like greyhound clean and 
 trim, 
 
 The cruiser " Victory " lay. 
 
 The heralds hailed, — they leapt 
 aboard, — 
 They showed the State's decree, — 
 And straight her captain, Thoron, 
 made 
 Reply right cheerily, —
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 169 
 
 " 'Twas well for Mytilene's sake 
 
 We had not put to sea ! 
 And well that never mast, nor spar, 
 
 Nor sailing gear have we ! 
 The Gods themselves are with us — 
 
 The Brethren Twain behind, 
 And i^olus before our prow 
 
 Hath laid the Eastern wind ! 
 And feather-light the buoyant craft 
 
 Shall skim the glassy seas, 
 And oarsmen strong shall lift her 
 on 
 
 Like wild-bird on the breeze ! 
 Then call my trusty rowers all, 
 
 Pick'd men, all trained and true, — 
 And ne'er a man shall ship beside 
 
 The herald and the crew.
 
 170 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Away, aboard ! and drop the coast, 
 
 Before the sun be set ! 
 For all the " Salaniinia's'" start, 
 
 We '11 overhaul her yet ! " 
 
 Then pressing round that brawny 
 band 
 Of oarsmen on the quay, 
 Came they, whose hearts were with 
 their friends 
 In Lesbos far away. 
 They vowed reward of gold un- 
 . told. 
 With gifts of wine and food, 
 If. heart and strength availed to 
 save 
 That dreaded deed of bJood.
 
 Tlie Rescuc-Sliip. 171 
 
 Then fast aboard the man-o'-war 
 
 That hghtly pressed the sea, 
 The rowers at the master's call 
 
 Came tumbling joyfully. 
 And as they shipped their oars, the craft 
 
 Seemed quivering for the course. 
 As trembles 'neath a rider free 
 
 Some fleet and fiery horse. 
 And then, in awesome stillness 
 
 Was hush'd that mighty throng, 
 The while from Thoron 'mid the men 
 
 The word was passed along — 
 
 The flow'rs to wreathe, the pray'rs 
 
 . .' to breathe. 
 
 The votive cup to pour, — 
 And swift the splashing stern-rope 
 .... loosed 
 
 The good ship from the shore..
 
 172 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 " Giveway, ahead ! " Like clarion's note 
 
 The wished-for mandate rung, 
 
 And cheer on cheer, from myriad 
 throats, 
 
 An answer wildly flung : 
 O'er wharf and vessel, rock and tower, 
 
 It swelled with billowy thrill, 
 And echoed far and high along 
 
 Munychia's lofty hill. 
 Then flashed like silver in the sun 
 
 Full fifty oars a-side, 
 The while the noble craft began 
 
 To cleave the golden tide : 
 And through the roadstead, past the 
 mole. 
 
 With gathering way she bore, 
 As fainter through the distance fell 
 
 The clamour by the shore.
 
 Tlie Rescue-Ship. 173 
 
 Then down the blue Saronic Bay, 
 As 'mid the soil the plough, 
 
 She drove, and struck the lifting wave 
 
 In furrows from her prow : 
 
 And past Hymettus' spur, where 
 smoked 
 
 The Sacred Altars Four, 
 She sped on maiden voyage that day, 
 
 As ship ne'er sailed before ! 
 And Thoron watched his landmarks 
 far 
 
 In sunny haze grow dim, 
 Till dropping one by one they sank 
 
 Beneath the sea-line's rim, 
 And gloried in his chieftainship 
 
 Of such a barque and crew, 
 As from the swinging oars, astern 
 
 The glacing ripples flew.
 
 174 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 He little recked he bore that day 
 
 No warriors armed for fight, 
 While but a band of rowers manned 
 
 His cruiser for her flight ! 
 He lightly laughed, for Athens held 
 
 The lordship of the main. 
 And tethered foes like kennelled 
 hounds 
 
 Lay fretting at their chain. 
 What call for fear, though far or near 
 
 Some battleship might hail ? 
 'Twere but a jest, if ne'er a breeze 
 
 Might fill a stranger sail ! 
 What hope for lumb'ring Spartan hulk, 
 
 Or bragging Corinth's pride, 
 To grapple with a chase that slipped 
 
 Like dolphin through the tide ?
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 175 
 
 The rippling rush of parted seas, 
 That dashed the bows around, 
 The measured beat of pinewood 
 oars 
 Had music in their sound ; 
 He scanned the rowers, pulhng 
 all 
 With iron grip and swing, 
 As the throbbins^ vessel sprang with 
 leaps 
 That made the rowlocks ring ! 
 
 So, Southward, like majestic bird 
 That wings a tireless flight. 
 
 With feathering blades the good ship 
 flew 
 Before the westering light ;
 
 176 Idylls oj Old Greece. 
 
 And Eastward by the solemn steep 
 
 Of Sunium grim and high, 
 That showed like lonely watch-tower 
 black 
 Against the crimson sky. 
 Then wondrously rock, mountain, 
 shore 
 In peace were folded all. 
 With naught astir, — save from the 
 cliff 
 The weary sea-fowl's call — 
 Or where the murm'ring waters 
 lapped 
 The Naiads' haunts among — 
 Or where from Temple on the 
 hill 
 Arose the evening song.
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 177 
 
 Then mystic shadows silent came 
 
 Like vanguards of the night, 
 When Maoris robed in sombre 
 grey 
 
 Rose full upon their sight. 
 They caught the timid bleat of 
 flocks 
 
 From grassy knoll and dell, 
 With lowings of the sleepy kine 
 
 That floated from the fell. 
 
 Yet onward ever toiled that 
 
 crew 
 At speed they dared not slack, 
 And stripped like wrestler to the 
 
 waist. 
 
 Each oarsman bent his back, 
 12
 
 178 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 And thought on that Strength-giver 
 great 
 Amid the reeking hold, 
 Where panting breath and straining 
 hmb 
 Sore tale of labour told. 
 But still no wearying hand gave way, 
 
 And each pulled staunchly on, 
 While willing mates with morsels 
 plied 
 Those rowers one by one. 
 Without a pause, with hungry 
 mouths 
 They snatched the oiled meal. 
 And fed their fill, and quaffed the 
 wine 
 That turned their nerves to steel.
 
 The Rescue-Ship, 179 
 
 Then heart-of-grace they took, and 
 praised 
 The Goddess all divine 
 Who gave the corn ; and while they 
 blessed 
 The God who loved the vine, 
 The piper of the ship flung 
 out 
 A lightsome, lilting tune. 
 And joyously they shot away 
 To meet the rising moon. 
 
 Through airless night the pilot 
 steered 
 
 By that still orb that tells 
 Of icy blast, and snowy realm 
 
 Where stormy Boreas dwells.
 
 i8o Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Aloft, and mirrored in the deep, 
 
 The heav'nly watch-fires burn, 
 The while the notes of pipe and song 
 
 Fall faint and far astern. 
 And shimmering o'er the sky-line far 
 
 A beamy lustre lies. 
 And soon with lamp of ruddy gold 
 
 The moon lights up the skies — 
 As 'twere in pity, beckoning on 
 
 Where weeping Lesbos lay, 
 And smiling o'er the mariners 
 
 Along their weary way. 
 With softened ray the glory bathed 
 
 Geraestus' lonely hill, 
 Where gleamed Poseidon's temple 
 old 
 
 In radiance white and still.
 
 The Rescue-Ship. i8i 
 
 They might not stay, they could but 
 
 pray 
 . The God who filled the fane 
 To bind the treacherous sea, and 
 
 lay 
 His trident on the main. 
 
 And now, full flight, they course the 
 deep. 
 
 Like sea-gull on the wing, 
 And spurting sprays from bows and 
 blades 
 
 The lusty oarsmen fling. 
 Before the stem and far astern. 
 
 Like gems of liquid pearl, 
 Amid the moonbeams' mellow light 
 
 The dancing wavelets curl.
 
 1 82 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 Yet vain the night's reviving 
 breath 
 To cheer that flagging band, 
 For loos'ning grip on labouring 
 oar 
 Was laid by failing hand. 
 "Row on, brave hearts!" cried 
 Thoron, 
 •' 'Tis life or death, men ! Row ! " 
 And flashing through the sea's wide 
 waste 
 With gallant stroke they go. 
 Unceasing ever ! Not for them 
 
 The sleep the weary slept ! 
 For 'neath the setting moon, their 
 oars 
 A clanking rhythm kept,
 
 The Rescue-Ship. 183 
 
 Till broke the dawn in silver 
 light, 
 And showed where far away, 
 Like fleecy cloud 'twixt sea and 
 sky 
 Ionian Chios lay. 
 
 Then golden o'er the starboard 
 bow 
 
 Melsena's headland towered, — 
 And oh ! to rest in citron grove, 
 
 By vine and palm-tree bowered ! — 
 To bask awhile in beauty's smile, 
 
 As Chian maidens sang, 
 And through the glade, 'mid scent of 
 flow'rs 
 
 The merry music rang !
 
 184 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 With all the fiercer glare the sun 
 
 O'erpowered that choking throng, 
 And heavier grew the fearful task 
 
 To drive that ship along ! 
 In palsied pow'r, from nerveless hands, 
 
 Men dropped the wavering oar. 
 And lay as helpless as the dead 
 
 Who never might toil more ! 
 Once more the master's cheery call 
 
 Aroused the fainting crew. 
 And quick from stifling bench to bench 
 
 The ready helpers flew. 
 With frantic effort, once again, — 
 
 Teeth clenched, and quivering lip, — 
 They gave, like men, their sagging 
 strength 
 
 To speed that Rescue-ship.
 
 The Rescue-Ship. i'85 
 
 The Gods be praised ! At last they 
 made 
 The Lesbian mountain high ! 
 At last they rounded Malea's 
 cape 
 All white against the sky ! 
 At last, like wounded bird that 
 flags 
 On worn and quivering wing, 
 In Mytilene's Bay they dropped 
 With one last fluttering spring. 
 
 'Longside the '^ Salaminia'' there, 
 
 They let the anchor fall ; 
 While rapturous shouts of joy 
 arose 
 
 From shipping, shore, and wall.
 
 i86 Idylls of Old Greece. 
 
 For ne'er on land or ocean wide 
 
 A mightier race was run ! 
 And ne'er on great Olympia's course 
 
 A nobler prize was won ! 
 'Twas life to men fast pent within 
 
 Death's shadow till the morn ! 
 'Twas glad relief to woman's grief 
 
 In agony forlorn ! 
 And Athens saved her name from 
 shame, 
 
 And laid her fury down ; 
 And undefiled by vengeance wild 
 
 She wore her Violet Crown ! 
 
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