XII.
The next morning the public criers summoned the citizens to a popular assembly, and soon after the streets were filled with young and old, rich and poor, who, amid hubbub, shrieks, and laughter, flocked towards the theatre, the place where popular assemblies were usually held in the smaller cities.
Thessaly, renowned for its beautiful river valley, its fine horses, and its powerful sorceresses, was at that time under the sole rule of Alexander of Pherae—a man who treated his subjects so harshly that he ordered some to be buried alive and had others dressed in bear-skins and torn to pieces by dogs. Like all tyrants, he lived in perpetual fear. He had so little faith in his own body guard that he had himself watched by a dog; he spent the night in the upper loft of his stately palace, that he might be able to draw the ladder up after him. The family to which he belonged had raised themselves from Tagoi, chiefs elected by the people, to sovereigns, and he himself, like his predecessor, had paved his way to power by murder.
But heavily as Alexander’s yoke rested upon the city of Pherae, it was comparatively little felt in Methone, though the latter was scarcely a day’s journey away. When the little city had sent its quota of men to the army and paid its taxes, the citizens had full liberty to attend to their own affairs, while the descendants of the original inhabitants of the country, as slaves, penestae, performed all the field work and drudgery. Whoever did not know better might have easily believed that Methone was a free state.
On the way to the place of assembly, Polycles followed the least frequented streets. Suddenly he signed to the slaves who accompanied him to keep back and, throwing his arm over Lycon’s shoulder, he said to him:
“My friend, I have important matters to discuss with you to-day! You know that Simonides, in his last will, left me his fortune and his daughter. But, as I am too old to marry a young wife, I want to ask if you are willing to take the girl with a dowry of eighteen talents?”
Lycon stopped, but did not utter a word in reply. If the rude statue of Poseidon in front of the temple of the god had suddenly descended from its pedestal and come towards him, he could not have been more speechless with bewilderment.
“That this may be done,” Polycles continued smiling, “I will adopt you as a son and make you my heir. True, I should have preferred a suitor who was the girl’s equal in birth, but as she seems to incline to you, I will submit to her wish.”
Lycon drew a long breath, and passed his huge hand over his face several times.
“I thank you, Polycles,” he said at last, “I thank you from my heart! But how is this to be? I am a freedman, it is true; but you forget....”
“I forget nothing,” answered Polycles. “But one thing you must know—the citizens must hear the whole story ... your condition of slave, your sin, and the punishment whose mark you bear. In a little place like Methone nothing can be hidden, so it is better to confess everything yourself rather than have it discovered by others. Besides, matters relating to inheritance, marriage, and other kindred affairs are often discussed in our popular assemblies. Here, where all the citizens know each other, no distinction is made between public and private business.”
In front of the theatre the city police were busily engaged in urging on the groups of gossiping, laughing citizens by threatening to mark them with ropes covered with red paint. These ropes left ugly stains on mantles, and the people therefore tried to avoid them.
But the largest crowd outside of the theatre was not disturbed by the police. It consisted of slaves waiting for the close of the assembly to attend their masters to the market, baths, or gymnasium. These slaves were no less merry than the citizens. Their attention was specially directed to the flat roofs of the nearest houses, where a group of young slave-girls were busily sunning rugs and cushions, to get an opportunity to see the throngs of men and be seen by them. Signs, not always the most seemly, were sometimes exchanged between the square before the theatre and the roofs.
At the entrance the recording clerk objected to admitting Lycon; but Polycles patted him on the shoulder, saying: “If this man isn’t a citizen of Methone, he will soon become one. Let him go in.”
The interior of the theatre presented a deep, semi-circular recess, surrounded by a mound of earth slanting upward, covered with stone benches, and supported by a thick encircling wall. About the center of the place, between the seats rising around, stood the altar, where, at the moment Polycles and Lycon entered, a priest in a long white robe, with a garland on his hair, was in the act of offering the customary sacrifice of purification. When this short ceremony was over the chief magistrate took his seat and a struggle, half jest, half earnest, followed, for all wanted places in the front row where they could hear best.
The chief magistrate opened the meeting by relating the misfortunes which had recently overwhelmed the place. When he spoke of the efficient service rendered by the boats during the flood, a smith rose in the crowd and in a deep voice shouted:
“Let us not forget the brave Athenian, Lycon. But for him many of us would have perished. It is he who saved us by first unmooring the boats.”
“Yes, yes, the smith is right!” responded many voices, with an earnestness which showed that the speakers themselves had been among the number of those rescued.
The dead and missing had not even one word of remembrance. Human life was of little value in those days. On the other hand, the magistrate did not forget to mention that the lands of the city had suffered very little damage, almost all of them having been too high to be reached by the flood. The shocks of earthquake had caused warm springs, which possibly possessed healing powers, to bubble up in many places, and in that case they might become a source of great wealth to the city and perhaps render it as much frequented as Aedepsus in Eubœa.
As exaggerated rumors of the injury sustained by the city had been in circulation, this report was received with joy, and the assembly was in the best humor when a tall, thin man, with hollow cheeks and a long beard, stepped forward saying:
“I am a friend of the simple, frugal customs of our ancestors.”
“That’s why you go ragged and shoeless,” shouted a youthful voice from one of the nearest passages between the seats.
The speaker was a little disconcerted, but recovered his composure.
“I do not favor the new custom of bestowing on any one who does the place a trifling service the high-sounding title of benefactor of the city, and overwhelming him with rewards and marks of distinction. If we keep on so there will soon be as many benefactors as citizens; one after another is not only released from paying taxes, but granted money to boot, while the really useful citizens, the instructors of youth and the people....”
“Who is that speaking?” asked a white-bearded old man on the front row of seats, holding his hand to his ear to catch the answer:
“That is the orator, Philopator,” replied the person addressed, with a scornful emphasis on the word “orator.”
“He’s also called the man with the mustard face,” added another.
As these explanations were given to a deaf man, Philopator could not avoid hearing them. Perceiving that the current of feeling was against him, he continued more rapidly with visible irresolution.
“The gods forbid that I should envy anybody. No one can feel a deeper reverence for actual services, deeds truly great, exploits really noble. But, my friends, is there anything great in saving a few people in a boat? That requires neither the sage’s sagacity, the warrior’s courage, nor the sacrifice of self. It is a thing any one can do, the ignorant as well as the expert.”
“Then you ought to have done it, Philopator,” shouted the smith’s deep voice, and as there was something in Philopator’s appearance that showed he had never handled an oar, the interruption caused immoderate laughter.
Philopator wiped the perspiration from his brow.
“I have never boasted of seamanship,” he replied.
The words were received with a fresh outbreak of mirth.
“You have talked enough!” cried a voice.
“We know what you want to say!” shouted a second.
“Back to your seat!” added a third.
Then, as the luckless orator still remained standing, a terrible tumult arose and at the same time deafening shouts burst like a gust of wind or a sudden tempest over the assembly.
The wretched Philopator, at whom hundreds of throats were yelling, became fairly frantic. He turned deadly pale, tore his hair, and ran to and fro in the level space as though out of his senses. As his voice would have been lost amid the shouts, he threw himself humbly on his knees and extended his arms towards the benches from which echoed the most furious cries. At last the storm subsided and the smith’s deep voice said:
“Go back to your seat, Philopator, that’s the best thing to do.”
The orator followed the good advice and, trembling from head to foot, slunk back to his place, where he cowered making himself as small as possible.
Polycles signed to Lycon to seat himself behind the bema, where he was concealed from every one; then he himself stepped forward, apparently as calm as when moving among the guests in front of his house.
“Fellow citizens,” he said, “I am no professional orator like Philopator yonder, but perhaps you will listen to me, since I wish to speak to you of a man who came to us in an evil time and who, within a few days, has become dear to the whole city.”
“Speak, speak!” shouted numerous voices.
“Much evil and much good can be told of him. I will begin with the evil.... You think Lycon is an Athenian—he is not. You think Lycon is a citizen—he is not that either. He is a freedman, who a little more than a month ago was a slave.”
This statement was followed by silence so profound that no one would have believed himself to be in the same place and among the same men who a short time before were yelling at Philopator. Amid the breathless expectation of the throng, external surroundings suddenly seemed like a revelation from another world. The wind was heard sighing through the tree-tops and the swallows twittering in the air. Many on the back seats rose and held their hands behind their ears, that they might not lose a single word.
Polycles did not spare Lycon, but told the people that his dead friend Simonides a few years before had bought a young slave named Zenon, who, after being branded for theft, had fled to Poseidon’s altar. For a long time Zenon had served his new master well; but when he saw a man from Hypata pay Simonides a large sum of money, he ran away with it during the night.
A movement passed through the assembly, one man muttered to another. Polycles foresaw a fresh storm.
“Friends and fellow citizens,” he said in a jesting tone; “we know each other, so I shall not ask you to keep quiet. On the contrary, I will beg you to chatter and yell to your hearts’ content, in order to have it over the sooner.”
Some of the men laughed; but most were already too angry to allow themselves to be softened by a jest.
“A branded slave!” cried some.
“And we have been permitted to do him honor!”
“Why did no one tell us?”
“Let us drive this Zenon out of the city!”
“We’ll stone him!”
“Truly a fine benefactor to add to the rest of the city’s benefactors!” shouted Philopator. But those who sat nearest seized his robe and forced him back into his seat. As he made wild gestures with his arms and assumed the air of a deeply injured man, the smith turned towards him.
“Philopator!”
He merely uttered the man’s name, but in precisely the same tone as if he had been a dog. Philopator made no reply, but shrunk into as small a space in his corner as possible.
At the sight of this submission, which could only be explained by a thorough respect for the smith’s brawny fists, a noisy expression of mirth ran through the assembly.
Polycles continued:
“I will now speak of Lycon’s good qualities,” and he related how the latter had been respected as a citizen and popular with all in Athens. “We Methonians,” he added, “have cause to be proud that an insignificant slave from this city was found worthy to associate with the leading men in Athens, so that he was daily seen arm in arm with the rich Timotheus, son of Conon.”
Polycles knew his fellow citizens, the Methonians. If anything could flatter their pride, it would be to have one of their own number, and a poor slave into the bargain, win favor and affection in Athens.
“Even if the man did once take what belonged to others,” observed a friendly philosopher, “there may be some good in him.”
“Yes, Lycon is really a good man,” replied Polycles, and now related how the latter, who was living so prosperously in Athens, had no sooner heard of Simonides’ illness and the slaves’ neglect than he sold everything he possessed and came to Methone to restore order in the household and obtain his master’s forgiveness.
“That was a noble act! Yes, by Zeus, a noble act!” shouted many voices.
Polycles then spoke of the flood and, by a clever inspiration, described how Philopator, who thought it was so easy to save a few people in a boat, would have behaved. At sight of the gigantic billow that rolled in, threatening to sweep everything away, he would surely have been no less disconcerted than at the storm which had recently burst upon him in the assembly. He would have fled at full speed up the street, but would have been overtaken by the water and met his death with the men in the boats. But how had Lycon behaved? Instead of flying before the flood, he had jumped into the nearest boat and, instead of thinking solely of himself, in the midst of the peril had remembered others and warned the men in the rest of the boats. “Had it not been for Lycon,” said Polycles, raising his voice, “not only would thirty men in the boats have perished, but a number of free citizens, as well as slaves, would have lost their lives in the flooded streets. For, on that day of misfortune, Lycon, with perhaps a score of boats, saved from about twenty flooded houses eighty citizens, men, women and children, besides more than two hundred and seventy slaves. So great is the number of those who owe their lives to Lycon.”
A deafening tumult of joy arose, a storm of applause, and it was long ere Polycles could again be heard.
“I think, therefore,” he added, “that Lycon has some claim—even if Philopator does not consider it—to deserve the name of benefactor of the city.”
Just at that moment a voice from one of the back seats shouted: “Where is Lycon? We want to see him.”
The cry was instantly taken up by all, and the whole theatre echoed with the call: “Where is Lycon?”
“It seems to me,” said Polycles, smiling, “that the very men who a short time ago wanted to drive Lycon out of the city and stone him, are now shouting the loudest.”
These words roused much noisy hilarity. The worthy Methonians could not help laughing themselves at the ease with which they passed from one extreme to the other.
“As I knew you would want to see Lycon,” Polycles added, “I have, with the chief magistrate’s permission, brought him with me.” He beckoned to Lycon and the latter, pale with emotion but apparently calm, now came forward before the rampart of human faces formed by the seats towering before him.
At the sight of Lycon’s frank, good-natured face and powerful form, a new and long continued storm of applause arose.
“Dear friends and fellow citizens,” Polycles began again, “I will propose to you to reward this man in a way that will bring no great expense upon the city and yet, perhaps, best suit his own wishes. Simonides, as you know, bequeathed me his fortune with his daughter. But, as I am too old to take a young wife and the girl has a fancy for Lycon, I thought of giving her to him in marriage, by which he will come into possession of the greater part of her property. But, to do this, you must make him a citizen; then I will adopt him as a son and name him my heir, that he may become a proper suitor. But to prevent any one in future from taunting Lycon with having been a branded slave, I propose to you that as a public reward, you bestow upon him exemption from taxes and a free maintenance in the Prytaneium.
“Lastly, let there be hung in the temple of Poseidon a tablet bearing a representation of Lycon’s deed at the time of the flood and a short account of his life, in which it should be stated that he had been a branded slave. Coming generations could then read there that the city of Methone did her duty even to the most insignificant person. This, dear fellow citizens, is my proposal concerning Lycon. If any one has a better plan to suggest, I will gladly recall it.”
The rope-maker, Socles, rose. He was a small, stout man, with big, prominent eyes and a wide half open mouth, which gave him an extremely foolish air.
“I can vote for no reward to this Lycon,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because, by Zeus, he seems to me one of the most foolish of men!... If he was living so merrily and contentedly at Athens as is said, why doesn’t he stay there? What does he want here of us?”
Lycon laughed and asked:
“Of what city is this man a native?”
“Of Chæroneia.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Lycon laughing, “I thought the man who reproached me for my return to Methone, the only good deed I ever performed, must be a—Bœotian!”
Socles did not know what to answer and, seeing him stand there with his mouth wide open, an image of Bœotian stupidity, the whole assembly burst into a roar of laughter, so scornful, noisy, deafening in its mirth, that it seemed as if every stone in the theatre was laughing.
Socles stood for a moment as though paralyzed with bewilderment. Then, wrapping his mantle around him, he started with crimson face for the nearest entrance, slipping through the crowd, striding over empty places in the stone benches, and forcing his way through the groups in the passages. It was done so quickly that it looked as if the fat little man was blown away over the seats by the unbridled laughter of the throng.
“Why, why, how he jumps!” shouted the smith, shaking with glee as, fairly convulsed with merriment, he loudly slapped his thigh.
“Lycon has made Socles a deer!” cried a second voice.
“He skips like a discus behind the mark!” added a third.
When silence was partially restored, the chief magistrate put Polycles’ proposal to vote. All raised their hands except Philopator. But when the smith, who still kept an eye on him, cleared his throat loudly and looked askance at him, Philopator’s hand also rose, though slowly and reluctantly.
The chief magistrate, a white-haired old man of venerable aspect, embraced Lycon in the presence of the whole assembly and said to him in a tone so loud and distinct that amid the deep silence it was heard in the most distant seats:
“You are now a citizen of Methone and a guest of the Prytaneium. May you have happiness and prosperity.”