V.
Lycon let himself be shown around the city by the boy he had found sleeping with his head against the door-post, and invented errands to many of the citizens but none of them recognized him.
Meantime his young slave, Paegnion, was sauntering idly about the house. He was tired, so he welcomed the event when some one unexpectedly spoke to him in the peristyle of the women’s apartment.
“What is your name, my lad?” asked a gay, musical voice from one of the little openings in the wall facing the peristyle.
Paegnion looked up. All he saw inside the small opening was a delicate white hand, which had drawn aside the Coan curtain, some shining braids of brown hair, a gold fillet, and a pair of mischievous black eyes, whose sparkle vied with the fillet.
“What is your name, my lad?” the voice repeated.
“Paegnion.”
“A pretty name! Are many boys in Athens called Paegnion as well as you?”
“Some, but not many.”
“Has your master a pretty name too?”
“He is called Lycon.”
“Has he no other name?”
Paegnion was silent.
“Well then!” said the gay voice in a strangely contemptuous tone, and the hand moved as though to close the curtain.
Paegnion feared the conversation was over.
“What do you mean?” he hastened to ask.
“I thought Attic youths were more clever than others—so clever that their masters could never conceal anything from them. Now I see that the Athenian lads are no brighter than our own.”
Paegnion felt a little nettled.
“I could answer you, if I chose,” he muttered roughly.
“And why don’t you choose, Paegnion?”
“Because I don’t want to be thrust through the breast with a long knife.”
“Empty threats! And you care for them? A boy like you isn’t easily killed.... No, say rather that you know nothing.”
And again the delicate hand moved as if to drop the curtain.
“But I do know something,” Paegnion hastened to reply. “He has, as you say, another name.”
“Who told you so?”
“He himself.”
“What did he say?”
“That I won’t tell.”
“Are you so timid, Paegnion? I thought the Attic boys were braver. Besides, what do you risk by telling me, a woman? I shall never see your master, never have a chance to speak to him—what do you fear?”
Paegnion reflected a moment.
“No!” he cried resolutely, “I dare not! He might find out.”
“That’s a pity! I thought you would earn some money. Look!” the young girl continued, holding out a number of small flat silver coins in a box and showing them to Paegnion, “here are twelve triobols.”
The lad gazed covetously at the glittering coins.
“Twelve triobols,” he repeated with a crafty smile, “and I am fifteen years old.”
“You shall have three more. But make haste, somebody might come. What did your master say?”
Paegnion looked around him.
“On the way here,” he whispered, advancing close to the wall, “my master rode for a time absorbed in thought; then he suddenly exclaimed: ‘No, I will not return as Zenon, but as Lycon.’”
“I knew it!” cried the girl and, forgetting the money, she clapped her hands so that the obols fell on the ground and rolled about in every direction.
Paegnion was not slow in picking up his treasure.
“The three triobols,” he then said, “the three triobols you promised me.”
The girl disappeared from the opening. A moment after a fold of the curtain was raised and, if Paegnion had had eyes for it, he might have seen a beautiful white arm bared to the shoulder, but the lad was more intent upon obols than arms.
At this moment the back door of the garden creaked on its rusty hinges, and Paegnion ran with all his might to the little guest-room at the corner of the house, which had been assigned to him and his master.
When Lycon—for it was he—was crossing the small courtyard on the way to the guest-room he saw that the household slaves, half a score in all, had assembled there. Some were carrying hay from a large cart into a barn, others were pouring water over the rude wheels, consisting of round wooden disks, to cleanse them from lumps of clay, and others were standing idle in the shade. But, whether busy or not, there was an air of malevolence about them and not one uttered a word. The prospect of forced labor in the Laurium mines rested like a dark cloud on every face.
The big swine-herd, Conops, held in his hand a bunch of dry leaves with which he was wiping the sweat from the heaving flanks of a mule.
Lycon passed quietly on to the guest-room, where he called to Conops in a curt, authoritative tone:
“Open the door. You see I am carrying something under my cloak.”
The huge fellow did not stir.
Lycon beckoned to the little boy and gave him his bundle.
“Don’t you know,” he then said to Conops, “that I am your master’s guest, and that you should obey a guest as you would your master himself?”
“Perhaps that is the custom in Athens,” replied Conops impudently, looking at the others. “In Methone slaves do what they choose.”
Lycon’s great hand suddenly fell upon Conops’ cheek. So violent was the blow that the swine-herd reeled several paces aside, struck his head against the stable-wall, and scratched one of his ears. Dizzy and confused as he was, he was servile enough to recognize in the hand that struck such a blow a superior power, which it would not do to defy.
“What a cuff!” he muttered, wiping away the blood which streamed from his ear upon his brown shoulder then, glancing at the others again, he added with evident admiration of the blow: “I never had such a knock before.”
“The door!” said Lycon curtly.
Conops opened it without a word.
Lycon now turned to the slaves and informed them that the order of the household must and should be restored. No one would be overburdened with work; but, if each did his share, there would seem to be less to be done. Then he represented to the slaves who had been born in Simonides’ house how shamefully they had behaved in consulting only their own convenience, while their master was ill and helpless, needing more than anything else careful attendance.
He soon succeeded in touching the hearts of the slaves and, when he perceived it, he added that Simonides would forgive and forget everything if within three days they would bring him the household instruments of punishment which they had thrown away and broken. If one of the older slaves fulfilled this demand, Simonides would make him overseer of the others, but should they persist in their negligence their master, with an Attic slave-dealer’s assistance, would sell them to the mines.