The last Athenian

Front matter

THE LAST ATHENIAN.

TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH OF

VICTOR RYDBERG.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. — ATHENS, — A MORNING FIFTEEN HUNDRED YEARS

II. — THE MEETING IN THE MARKET 34

Chapter I

ATHENS. A MORNING FIFTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 3 ; O' *

“How is it, Charmides, has the God of the grape a son ? ”

“ Truly, Olympiodorus, you have the troublesome habit of asking more than your friends can answer. It is easier to ferret out the pedigree of the Athenian dogs than that of the gods of Olympus. But why this question? Do you intend to busy yourself with mythology ? ”

“No, by Jove, not I! I leave that to Chrysanteus and his beautiful daughter. I only mean that if there he such a son, I shall this very day write a song in his honor. His surname I have v\Te&&yf—Distributor-of-the-morning-pang.

God of penitence and the blues , the Olympic Forehead-smith l Oh, my Charmides, if this doleful god he not yet born, would he might quickly see the light of day ! I feel my head is pregnant with him ! 19

“ Very possible. Jove produced the goddess of wisdom from his head ; why then should not Olympiodorus ”

“Exactly, I shall not be surprised if the Forehead-smith, as well as she, step forth in panoply, astonishing the world with anvil under arm and hammer in hand.”

“ Compose yourself, my friend. The morning air should

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chase away these mythologic fantasies. How freshly the wind blows from the sea ! It is delightful to inhale it.”

“ Ah ! you are right. The morning hour is glorious — a discovery in natural history of which I shall tell my friends. How long is the shadow ? ”

“ It draws near the closing of the market,” answered Charmides, as with practised eye he measured the sun’s altitude above the olive-girt Lycahettus. “Let us go to the market-place. We can drop in at Lysis, on the way, and empty a glass of iced Lesbian.”

“ A good idea, it will relieve the pangs of delivery ! Hallo, Charmides ! better scatter your gold in some Danae’s lap, than here in the street ! You dropped a ring there ! It lies at your feet.”

“ Ah ! Rachel’s ring ! The pledge of my little J ewish flame,” said Charmides to himself, as he picked it up and fastened it to his gold necklace.

“ Praised be your sharp eyes, Olympiodorus ! I would not have lost this jewel for my Cappadocian Achilles.”

“I understand you, you second Alcihiades. Ah, thrice happy friend ! You drank last eve like Milo the Crotonian, hut wine is to you as the dewdrop to the rose, you greet the morning all the more fresh and radiant. How was it ? Did not our good host, the proconsul, that Falernian sack, fall ^at last under the table ? My recollections of last night are like shadows wandering by Lethe’s strand.”

“ You remember well enough. But do not abuse our Annaeus Domitius ! He is a remarkable man.”

“ Yes, he has remarkable luck at dice ! ”

“ I do not now mean the talent-: — ”

“ Did he win again last night ? ”

“ An inconsiderable sum. My pleasure-boat struck her colors for some caniculce ,* as he calls them.”

* “Pups.” The unlucky throws of the dice, so called by Roman gamesters.

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“ An inconsiderable sum ! Your brilliant pleasure-boat ! Ah ! your confidence is wonderful, but you have a goldbringing Pactolus to dip from,” adding to himself; “this gold-flood must soon dry up. Ah me ! Where shall I next year find another Charmides ? V

“ What I wonder at in our proconsul ” continued Charmides, “ is his power of self command. The fetters which the god of wine lays upon such a man are but flower-chains he can sunder at will. He lay last night upon a sofa, the cup fallen from his hand, the wreath down against his nose, — his eyes half closed and his tongue lolling feebly to the tones of the Lydian flute in the most laughable attempt to follow its strains, when the porter announced that an imperial courier awaited him. Our Annseus Domitius sprang up like a feather, put the wreath aside, arranged his mantle, strode with majestic step out into the hall, received the letter, read it by the gleam of the altar-lamp and despatched the bearer, only to return and renew the drinking-bout.”

“Well, and the contents of the letter?”

“ Bah ! what a question ! Go to the Sphinx of Egypt and learn, if you can, the riddle of nature.”

“I judge that Julian — ”

“ Silence ! Speak not that name,” interrupted Charmides, looking around.

“Accursed Forehead-smith! How is it Charmides, am I not invited to your villa to day ? I have an inkling of certain words from your godly mouth concerning green trees and British oysters.”

“ Exactly.”

“ But Myro and Praxinoa ? ”

“ They accompany us.”

“ Glorious ! ”

“ And with some others of our friends have appointed a meeting at the steps of the Acropolis, an hour after the closing of the market.

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“ Good.”

“You must not prepare yourself for anything extraordinary, Olympiodorus. All will he simple and country-like.

“ Excellent! I long only for nature and innocence. I with joy will tend your oxen, shear your sheep, and drink water from the same fountain with your herds. Water! Drink for the gods ! — I hate,-— ah, cursed Forehead-smith, — all drinks except water ! I discern at this moment my true calling, — a herdsman,— a new Daphnis ! — You must let some Testylis or Amaryllis initiate me into the mysteries of cheese-making. I renounce culture and hasten to Nature’s motherly bosom. Apollo was a herdsman ; Paris as well ; herdsman was, —

“ That youth, whom Cypris herself in the Phrygian wood followed after;

The wood in$ its depths saw her joy, and the wood saw also her sorrow ;

Herdsman Endymion was and with cattle he slept when Selene ISager to kiss his dear ruby lips, stepped down from the heavens, Qlhea) lamented a herdsman and Thunderer’s self as an eagle Circling flew around Ida’s top for a beautiful shepherd.”*

Why should not Olympiodorus condescend to the crook and pipe? But one word, Charmides, have you quails, fighting-cocks, and dice in your Arcadia ? ”

“ Be at ease ! I share your dislike of the proconsul’s low tastes, since I have known Athenagoras.”

“ Charmides, you must present me to that wonderful mortal. It seems like a tale, all this about liis wisdom and secret festivities. Is it so utterly impossible to be admitted into his order ? ”

“ He chooses his acquaintances himself. The old philosopher did the same, often upon incomprehensible grounds, so you can console yourself, if —

“Pshaw! I will make his acquaintance! By the way, at the next races I shall enter my Bellerophon, silver-white,

*Theocritus.

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curly-maned, built to cleave the air like an arrow. Do you think I can match him against the proconsul’s Thracian stallion ? ”

“ Yes, with certainty.”

u I hope so.”

The two youths now found themselves in front of the conversation-hall of Lysis, — one of those picture-decked haunts, so dear to the Athenians, and of which the city possessed more than the year has days. A multitude of customers were already on the spot and strolled, conversing, in the portico, or sat without, in the shade of an awning hung from the beams, enjoying their breakfast of bread dipped in wine.

After they had refreshed thermselves with ice-cold Lesbian, they turned their steps toward the market-place.

Here surged an eager crowd, for the ever-shortening shadow of the temple-crowned Acropolis reminded both buyer and seller that the hour approached when they must withdraw. • Fishermen in red caps and short tunics held up from their movable tanks squirming fish, announcing with loud cries, that it was now full moon and their wares at the best. Peddlers darted about -with samples of their goods ; young girls, offering flowers, wreaths and fillets, wandered between the long lines of wagons, which, while the .mules were feeding behind, captivated the eye with lemons, peaches, figs and vegetables. From other wagons the contents of pressed wine-sacks spouted into receiving vessels. A few steps in advance, just around the colossal statue of the Market-Hermes, — standing on the same spot as in the days of Aristophanes, — meat and sausage hawkers cried their wares, arranged in pillars and festoons, to numerous customers. Among these the rich slaves were the most vociferous, — for here if anywhere, the weight of the purse decided that of the man. While the slave, his purchases finished, turned homeward with a full basket on his head, the poor 2

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citizen stole away with his scanty bit under his mantle, lucky if a hole therein did not disclose a full-blooded Athenian’s humiliation. Farther on where the multitude was less numerous, potters, workers in stucco and glass merchants stood between rows of their merchandise, often finished in the most artistic manner. Still farther away from the liveliest swarm of busy, gesticulating people, — around the triumphal arch, raised to commemorate the defeat of Cassander’s horsemen, were glittering booths where costly cloths from Asia and the Isles, incense and ointment from India and Arabia, jeweled ornaments and articles to suit every extravagant taste, attracted well-dressed purchasers of either sex.

Charmides and Olympiodorus, — who before we met them had visited the bath and the hair-dresser, — now strolled along, increasing the number of young fops, who by some remarkable dispensation of fate, were awake thus early in the forenoon. Without any errand other than to swell the throng and appease their curiosity, they elbowed their way through the chaffering groups, now nodding at some fair maid from the quarter Scambonidae, now criticising the slave-girls exposed for sale, who offered freely to the view every form of female beauty from the blushing Syrian to the dark Ethiopian. The foreign merchants were also worthy of a glance. Here among a hundred others in the variegated mass, might be seen the lively, slender Alexandrian, who, though born not far from the Pyramids, yet with his ancient Grecian habit claimed descent from the most cultivated race in the world, and, if questioned on his birth would answer that he was a Macedonian Hellen ; — the coarse-limbed Illyrian in his humble woollen mantle with its red border, proof of his free birth ; men from the boundaries of Persia, easily recognized by their shaggy, coneshaped caps, flowered coats and roomy trousers tied above the ankle ; the proud Spaniard, whose bright mantle of

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woven bombast, bore witness, like Seneca’s tragedy, to his countrymen’s taste for the showy ; the long-bearded Jew in a dark caftan lined with skins ; and, to close the enumeration, the luxurious half-Hellen from Asia, with perfumed locks, gold rings in his ears, and tunic sweeping to his feet.

Coming from the Piraean street, a man wended his way across the market-place. The throng opened willingly for him, the eye of every bystander was fastened upon his lofty, majestic figure, draped by the mantle, while many greeted him as he strode along.

“ Chrysanteus,” muttered Charmides, his face darkening.

“ Who is he ? ” whispered strangers, following him with their eyes till he vanished in the press. The answer came “ Chrysanteus the archon, — the rich Chrysanteus,” “ Chrysanteus the philosopher, the arch-heathen ! ” The last of these replies came from a Christian.

Now the bell of the market-policeman sounded through the din, and in a few moments, all the booths were taken down, all the wagons harnessed, and the many-colored multitude swallowed up in the mouths of Piraean street, Ceramicus, and the other avenues leading on either side from the Acropolis. Immediately afterward, the arms of a number of city slaves were in motion, polishing the stone pavement of the market, while water-carts crossed and recrossed, pouring forth a fine dewy rain, soon drunk up by breezes from the sea.

The market, just now in dishabille, — and in that garb nearly unknown to the great mass of the Athenians who loved their morning dreams, regained, as by the stroke of a wand, its usual aspect, better according with its memory and dignity as the heart of the city of Minerva.

A beholder choosing his position in front of the temple of Zeus Eleutheros, or the royal tribunal, which bounded the market on the south, would have seen to the right the town-house, the temple of justice, the metroon and the

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temple of Apollo, a line of colonnades in the dull gleam of the different varieties of marble, all reposing in the shadows of the Acropolis, — while to the left the sun shone upon the blue-white pillars of the gallery of painting, and in the background of the picture cast a flood of rays over the Areopagus and the temple of the war-god lying at its foot.

The surroundings of these noble forms of architecture, colonnades on colonnades where the Corinthian magnificence yielded to the Doric majesty, and this in turn to the light Ionic grace, gave to the vast and now nearly desolate market-place arched by the deep blue of heaven, an indescribable air of mournful grandeur. This was greatly enhanced by the bronze and marble statues, which, now the populace had departed, alone peopled the market, surrounding it, pedestal to pedestal, in silent solemn lines. There they stood, their countenances stamped with Olympian peace, yet penetrated, as antiques always are, by a shade of sadness, — the ghosts of the mighty spirits of the past. They seemed indeed, as dreamily they gazed on the sunbeam’s play and the shadow’s path over this memorable spot, — to be raised above the changes of time, — blessed in themselves.

Gradually this picture was filled with life. From the stately street Ceramicus, descended groups of citizens to meet on the market and discuss the news of the day and the business of the state. Among these Athenians, the stranger, had he an eye for such things, might still admire the Attic refinement in manner and speech, whose like was never found elsewhere, and the tasteful and chaste simplicity in dress that had been pressed out of the rest of the world by the daughter of despotism, — barbaric luxury. A sacrificial procession passed silent and unnoticed, — so unnoticed that it might have excited pity — between these groups, towards the marble steps of the Propylsea. In the colon-

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nade of the picture gallery were assembled a master in Stoic philosphy and a number of hearers, mostly sons of Roman sepators and other noble youths come to Athens to receive the wisdom of Greece. For this city was yet side by side with Alexandria, a centre of antique culture, a university for the Roman Empire, outshining its rival with memories of the heroes of thought and life’s philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus. Long after the Christian Church had become triumphant, long after the last heathen altar, that of Victory, had been broken down at Rome, there was yet burning in the quiet, almost forgotten city by the gulf of Saronicus, the lamp of heathen philosophy, watched by holy memories, fed by the last drops of the oil of investigation, till, when ready to die of itself, it was put out by a blast from despotism ; — the pious world, obedient without the contradiction of a single voice, accepting the creed, credo quia absurdum.* Before this, at the time of our story, the teachings of Epicurus were still read in his celebrated gardens ; still were the doctrines of “ Plato the Godlike ” expounded on the very spot where he himself, seven centuries before, had proclaimed them under the plane trees of tlitf Academy ; still strolled the disciples of Zeno among the master-pieces of Pamphilus and Polygnotus in the same colonnade that, tenanted by few but God-like figures, had given name to their school.t

In the north-eastern quarter of the city, the bells began ringing from a Christian Church. The air, pure and elastic, wafted the mighty vibrations wide over the land. They resounded in the porticos, were broken against the chalky steeps of the Acropolis, and rebounding, were heard like deep foreboding sighs pressed from the bronze bosom of Pallas Athene, as, shining in the sun, a beacon for

* An expression ascribed to church-father Tertullian, though it is not found word for word in his writings, t The name of the Stoics is derived from their painting gallery Stoa poikile, ” — “ variegated colonnade.”

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sailors far beyond the Sunium cape she raised her colossal form from the summit of the cliff, and with helm-covered head looked down over the gable of the Parthenon, upon her charge, — the city, at her feet.

Chapter II. The Meeting On The Market

S ^ JL& *

The bells were yet ringing, when Charmides and his friends assembled on the marble steps of the Propylaea. It was the Christians’ day of rest and praise ; they appeared, family after family, passing over the market on their way to church. The procession was numerous, and presaged that Athens herself, the bulwark of heathendom, might soon enough perhaps be in the possession of an enemy, not bursting in from without, but growing up within its very entrenchments. At Rome on the Tiber and Rome on the Bosphorus, in all the densely populated cities of the great Empire, the Christians were already superior in numbers. There, with the Emperor and the court as examples, many of the rich and noble had gradually gathered around the cross ; there every one, with a spark of ambition in his bosom, had hastened to acknowledge a religion which was the only condition for preferment ; there finally a countless number of the children of necessity had found themselves incapable of resisting the gift of a garment and twenty pieces of gold, the bait wherewith Constantine, a new fisher of men unto the Lord, drew up souls from the depths of paganism. At Athens the case was different. It lay without the circle of the immediate influence of the Imperial court. Philosophy had in this its mother-earth, put forth its firmest roots, and at that hour still bore flowers.

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The Athenian was held to the faith of his fathers by glorious historic recollections, and by the enchanting power of philosophy and art. He found it hard to condemn Pericles and Aristides, or to regard Socrates and Plato as the tools of evil spirits ; he would not willing^ pull down his temples, the master-pieces of architecture, or break asunder his statues, the wonder of sculpture. Therefore the greater portion of cultivated Athenians were still attached to the old religion, ennobled by a clearer consciousness of God, and imbued with philosophy. Many professed this ancient belief with greater affection than ever, because its existence was threatened, and with it, as they felt, the only salvation for human worth, freedom of thought, and declining culture. But all those, to whom research, enjoyment of art and historic memories were as if they had never existed; all those, who were consumed by a hidden fire, by remorse for sins, for which they saw no reconciliation, by the terrible stings of conscience, or by fear of annihilation — all these, in number as the sands of the se^, had hastened to exchange for the certainty of reconciliation and eternal life, a belief which was only fitted for great souls, for jojmus, happy and harmonious beings, or for the thoughtless and giddy. The old belief offered little comfort to the weak who felt themselves trampled under in the struggle of life, to the poor and wretched, the guilty and contrite, or, in a word, to the great, masses of the human race, in that hard, unhappy, chaotic period.

Let us return to the market, that at this moment presented a picture of striking contrasts. The temples’ lordly colonnades, the statues of gods, philosophers, poets, heroes, lighted by a genial sun, overarched by a smiling heaven — and within this frame, plaited with the glad beauty of nature and art, — the multitude of church going Christians, who came streaming down from the quarters Colyttus and Scambonidse, — a serious, ay, sad throng — the women veiled, and

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most of the men enveloped in coarse mantles. There were tattered vagabonds by the side of the Imperial officers in glittering Asiatic uniforms, — fanatics, covered with filth, and bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, side by side with brilliant palanquins born# by slaves, in which noble Christian dames were reposing ; — all this passed before the eye, while the air quivered with the consecrated metal’s exhorting call.

The group on the marble steps did not lessen the impression of this picture, antique in architecture, romantic in figures. The young Epicureans stood jesting around a palanquin, between whose curtains appeared now a gleam of that Coan tissue, which for its transparency was called linen mist ; now a snow-white jeweled arm, and now a girl’s curly head, which belonged to no less a person than Praxinoa, Athen’s fairest courtesan. While her friend or perhaps rival, Myro, was yet awaited, the slaves led forward Thessalian horses covered with elegant blankets.

Charmides, the, chief figure in the group, wore a white tunic held together by a golden meander-stitched girdle about the waist, and falling in rich folds to the knee, while over his waist-coat was a Tyrian mantle, carefully thrown across one shoulder. A gold chain, to which his signet-ring was fastened, hung around his neck. His nether limbs, bared from the knee to the silk shoe which covered the foot, had a marble-like gleam, which only exercise and the polishing by batli-slaves with oils, essences and pumice-stone could bring about. The friends of Charmides were clad very nearly as he. Together, they formed a brilliant, but, to the passing Christians, by no means edifying spectacle.

•‘Alas, these people,” said Praxinoa, speaking of the Christians ; “ their looks frighten me. Handsome Charmides, draw the curtains. I shall faint if I have to see their unhappy faces.”

When Praxinoa called Charmides “ handsome,” this term

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of ordinary politeness was here applied with truth. His figure, possessing the natural nobility of the Grecian type, was developed by gymnastic exercise to a symmetry, worthy being chiseled in marble ; his features were regular, yet their regularity did not hinder the free play of intelligence ; in his face there was an extraordinary mingling of levity with decision, austerity and pride, and his whole being, from the glance of his eye to the .muscle-play in his limbs, bore witness to the tragic strife, in which nature slowly tiring, but yet victorious, contests the effects of persistent debauchery.

“ By Bacchus ! ” exclaimed Olympi’odorus, casting a glance over the market as he arranged his horses’ harness, u there is the proconsul himself.”

“ Where ? ”

“ By Market-Hermes’ statue ; he is standing by the side of a palanquin and conversing with the lady in it.”

“ Bight. I see him.”

“ That is Eusebia’s palanquin,” said Charmides, “ I recognize it.”

“ Aha ! But just look at our Annaeus Domitius ! I believe, by Juno, that he is catching a curtain lecture from his pretty wife, in the open market,” remarked one of the youths.

“Hot to be wondered at,” replied another.

“ I fancy, nevertheless, that they have reason on both sides to forgive each other. How is it, Charmides? Does the pious Eusebia continue her endeavors to convert you ? ”

“ Ho,” answered Charmides, “ we both grew weary of the attempt. Eusebia is very fickle ”

“ And you are fidelity itself ! ”

“And she probably,” added Charmides, “has a more amiable proselyte in view.”

“ Look ! Here is Myro at last ! Welcome you the fourth among the Graces ! ”

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“ Welcome, beam of day, that never shone more brightly for our town,” declaimed Olympiodorus, and continued in spite of Myro’s fan, that threateningly circled in the neighborhood of his mouth,

u Come, O Goddess, now and from torment’s heavy Bonds us loose ! Accomplish the prayer, which our hearts’ Tender longings bid thee accomplish ; — fondly Fight yet by our side.”*

As Myro had arrived, the company was complete. The youths mounted their horses, the slaves lifted Praxinoa’s palanquin upon their shoulders and the procession set itself in motion.

Let us leave it and repair to Annaeus Domitius, to hear how it went with the curtain lecture, about which one of Charmides’ friends was wicked enough to give his opinion.

We approach Annaeus Domitius with that consideration which his social position should inspire. He is proconsul over Achaia, and the first in the second class of great dignitaries of the Roman Empire, with the right to be called illustris and clarissimus ; his genealogy includes the philosopher Seneca among its younger names, and establishes his descent from a family already respected in the days of the Republic. His robe is worked with palm-leaf and stars ; the half-boots which indicate his senatorship, glisten with purple, and are decked, according to the custom of nobiles, with golden crescents, held to portray his high birth, which would entitle his soul after death to a place over the moon in the neighborhood of the stars, or since Annaeus is a Christian and such an interpretation unworthy of him, — rather convey a timely warning that under the moon, that ever-changing orb, dwelt no one free from fate. But enough, the crescents are there, and for their meaning, it may be whatever you like. Two slaves bore a censer with burning incense in the path of the proconsul, and

* Sappho.

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were now standing at a respectful distance, talking with Eusebia’s palanquin-bearers. Annaeus Domitius is a man < f forty, of* ordinary height, but more than ordinary flesh. His paunch would grace neither Hermes nor Apollo, but on the other hand would not misbecome an old Faun. The proconsul’s crown is bald, his face holds up the merry superfluity of a double chin, and his eyes are lively and intelligent. Roue, gourmand, the calculating man of the world are all seen in him, if the light does not deceive us. The lines around the mouth still give evidence of the last souper, the lax features tell tales of nightly orgies or, — if one believe the proconsul’s own explanation to his wife, — of nightly studies, which, according to the same authority, embraced theology, and were conducted in the most profound secresy. But the profile of Annaeus is full of power, and the eyes are alone sufficient to give life and expression to this fat corporosity.

But now a glance at his spouse Eusebia, called the “ beautiful,” and, yet oftener, the “ devout.” She is a Roman, of perhaps twenty-seven years, with an aquiline nose, large dark eyes, and little, pouting, ruby-red lips. Eusebia is on her way to church which she never neglects, when Peter, the orthodox, — that is to say at that time the Homoiousian* bishop, the heart-piercing admonisher, the lightning rebuker, is to preach. Her costume is that of a penitent —

* The Christian church at the time of this story was divided into two principal sects, which contended against each other. Homoousian and Hoinoiousian. It is not the fault of the author that these parties are to the sight only divided by a little i ; but in such a case it is an excusable pedantry if he beg the reader to give attention to this difference, otherwise so easily overlooked, so that the parties, be not to their mutual vexation, confounded with one another; I could indeed have called the former orthodox, a name to which they have the victor’s claim, and then have named the latter, Half-Arians. But the altar of victory, to the joy of all, is broken down, and no one is bound to offer on its ruins. (The Ho-moousians maintained that the Son had the same essence with the Father, in opposition to the Ho-moi-ousians — who held that the Son was like the Father in essence but not the same. — Tr.)

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and how well it becomes her, though not* consisting of a thread more than the black robe, falling ungirdled to her feet, and flowing so softly about her voluptuous form ! Not even a linen tunic under this garment ! Like a pall on a new-fallen snow-drift, its color contrasts with the alabaster of neck and arms, that Juno might have envied, not to speak of so charming a little nothing as a hare foot, peeping forth whenever its fair possessor turns herself on the cushions of the litter. Diadem, ear-rings, necklace, bracelets, rings, — all these vain frivolities, even to her jeweled fan, are left at home upon the toilet table. Eusebia’s dark locks flow in free waves around her shoulders, and her Angers, robbed of their diamonds, have no other ornament than their natural beauty and the slight rosy tinge the toilet-pencil has given their nails. Her cheek, otherwise warmly colored by health and youth, is to-day somewhat pale, — for paleness becomes the penitent. Art has here, with a few light strokes of a pencil, dipped in white paint, fulfilled a desire, which nature, left to itself, for the moment could not satisfy.