IV.
Simonides was just breakfasting. On seeing how weak and feeble he had become, Lycon could scarcely control his emotion, and it cut him to the heart when he saw the crooked mouth—the mark paralysis had stamped upon him for life.
“Thief!” he thought; “it is your work!” and he passed his big hand over his face to hide his tears. He longed to throw himself at his master’s feet and clasp his knees.
Simonides did not rise when Lycon entered, but gave him his hand and greeted him kindly.
“Welcome!” he said. “You are Phorion’s friend, I hear, and bring a greeting and message from him. How is his blind father? Does Praxagoras, the physician from Cos, think he will succeed in restoring his lost sight?”
Lycon could not answer; he knew nothing about Phorion’s father.
“How is his wife, who was so ill after the birth of her last child?”
Lycon knew nothing of Phorion’s wife either. He felt extremely uncomfortable, tried to turn the conversation into another channel and, by way of explanation, added carelessly:
“I know Phorion only in the market, the arcades, and other places where men daily meet in Athens. He has never spoken of his family.”
Simonides raised his head and looked intently at Lycon.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, apparently with some little disappointment. “I thought that you and Phorion were intimate friends. There is an old acquaintanceship between us, dating from the time when his father and I were both young.”
The conversation now took a different turn, as Simonides asked for news from Athens. This was a subject on which Lycon could talk, and the more freely because relieved from his worst fear. Simonides evidently had not recognized him. His long hair and thick beard, especially his heavy eyebrows, which he had had clipped very frequently to make them large and bushy, had entirely changed his appearance.
Simonides had offered his guest some refreshments after his journey. In the long time that elapsed before they were brought Lycon saw a confirmation of the bad condition of household affairs. He also noticed that two goblets stood on the little table; of course Simonides had had a companion at his meal, doubtless his daughter, Myrtale, who, according to the universal Hellenic custom, had left the room when the door-keeper announced a stranger. She was probably the young girl of whom he had caught a glimpse in the peristyle.
After the meal Simonides offered to let a slave called Conops show Lycon around the city. He called, but no one came. He rapped repeatedly on the floor with his cane: but no one seemed to hear—the veins on Lycon’s forehead swelled and his heavy eyebrows met in a frown.
“Wretches!” he muttered.
“Be not angry, Simonides,” he added warmly, clasping his hand in both his own, “be not angry if, though a stranger, I speak freely of things which do not concern me. Let me, I beg you, talk in your name to these sluggards. Imagine that I am your son and have returned from a long journey. Come! Lean on my arm, let us go about the house and see what the slaves are doing.”
Simonides fixed a puzzled glance upon Lycon.
“Stranger,” he said, “you speak singular words. You have not been half so long under my roof as the water-clock needs to run out, yet you seem to read the wishes of my soul. Who are you, young man? Your voice is strangely familiar, yet no ... you speak the Attic dialect so purely that Phorion, who was born in the city, has no better accent.”
With these words he rose slowly, by the help of his cane, and took Lycon’s arm.
“Another person,” he added, “might perhaps be angry with you or feel offended. I am neither. It is seldom, very seldom, that a careless youth has so much affection for a sick and feeble man. Come, my son—let me call you so—try whether you can help me to restore the discipline of the house, but do not suppose that the victory will be an easy one. Thistles which have grown all the year are not uprooted by the first jerk. If you could stay with me for a time—yet I will not urge you,” he added smiling faintly, “that you may not say you are drubbed into accepting the invitation. A resident of Athens will scarcely waste time on our little city.”
“Do you think so?” said Lycon, smiling. “I will gladly stay, if you believe that I can serve you.”
Simonides had difficulty in dragging himself onward. Fortunately the distance was not great; in ancient times the houses were small, supplied with numerous corners, it is true, but covering little space. Supported by Lycon’s arm, Simonides walked through the short colonnade outside of the men’s rooms; in the little peristyle of the women’s apartment, where he was forced to stop a moment to rest, no human being appeared and the small chambers occupied by the slaves,—half a score of dungeon-like cells,—all stood empty. The same state of affairs existed in the women’s work-room. In the door leading to the garden sat, or rather lay, one of the youngest slaves of the household, a light-haired boy seven or eight years old. He had leaned his head against the door-post and, overcome by the noonday heat, had fallen asleep.
“Look!” whispered Lycon, pointing to the boy, “fortune favors us. The sentinel is slumbering at his post. We shall come upon them unawares.”
Loud, merry talk reached them from the garden.
“Conops has slept on the bench long enough,” said a harsh voice, not without a shade of envy.
“How he snores!” added another.
“Only a swine-herd can snore like that.”
“Pour some wine into his mouth.”
“Tickle him on the nose with a straw.”
“Put a frog on his neck.”
The last proposal was greeted with shrill laughter.
Lycon pushed the sleeping boy away with his foot and, in the midst of the slaves’ noisy mirth, the master of the house and his guest suddenly stood among them.
A strange spectacle was presented to their eyes. On a roughly-made couch, which had been carried into the shade, lay the largest and strongest of the slaves, the swine-herd Conops, almost naked, snoring loudly with his mouth wide open. Close around him stood those who had proposed to wake him, and behind this group some half nude boys, lying flat on the ground, were playing dice, while a couple of older slaves sitting at a table were quietly drinking a tankard of wine which they had forgotten to mix with water. Still farther away some young men were romping on a bench beneath some blossoming Agnus-castus trees with two slave-girls who, at the sight of the new-comers, started up with a loud shriek and, covering their faces with their hands, fled around the nearest corner of the house.
Lycon did not speak a word to the slaves, but as he turned slowly with Simonides to go back to the dwelling by the same path, he said as though continuing an interrupted conversation:
“My advice is this: Sell them all to the mines in Laurium—they will be cured of laziness there—and buy new ones, even if you have to pay more for them.”
He had spoken loud enough for the nearest slaves to hear every word.
Work in the mines of Laurium was considered the hardest slave-labor in Hellas. What terror and consternation therefore seized upon the pampered, idle slaves in Simonides’ house at the prospect so suddenly opened before them.
A low, but eager murmur instantly arose behind the retreating figures. Many were talking at the same time and in an angry tone.
“Do you hear?” said Lycon to Simonides, “the medicine is beginning to work.”
The old man pressed his hand.