CHAPTER II
That which I am going to relate to you took place in the year in which Plato died. I was then in Halicarnassus engaged upon my part of the labour that was to produce at last the great tomb of King Mausolus the Long-haired. It was a thankless task if ever there was one. Scopas, who directed all of us, had decided to decorate the whole of the eastern front of the monument himself, so that from the early morning sunrise when they made the sacrifices the marbles of our master were resplendent in the full light and, truly, people saw little of the other work.
To his comrade of the chisel, Timotheus, he had given the lateral face of the monument, south; less interesting and more extended. Leochares was entrusted with the western front. As for me, I had taken that side others had not wished for—the northern, an enormous piece of work perpetually in the shadow.
(Pithis was also employed in raising a pyramid over this stately monument and the top was adorned by a chariot harnessed to four horses. The expenses of this edifice were immense, and this gave an occasion to the philosopher Anaxagoras to exclaim when he saw it: “How much money changed into stones!”)
During five years I sculptured Victories and Amazons that looked, in the sun, like living women; but each time it became necessary for me to fix one for ever in the shadow of the monument it seemed to me that the look of life died out of the stone form, and then my tears came. At last my task came to an end. I occupied myself with preparations for returning into Attica. In that year, as to-day, the Ægean Sea was not very safe. War everywhere and strife between one city and another. Athens besides was vanquished. The day upon which I wished to take my departure I could not find a ship-master, or owner of a privateer, who had any desire to go to the Piræus. The people of Caria, good dealers, turned towards the vanquisher, and from the time that the taking of Olynthus had let Chalcis fall into the hands of the Macedonians, all the merchants of Halicarnassus filled out their sails for Eubœa in order to sell there silken robes of Cos to the courtesans of Cnidus, where Venus was the chief deity.
I also departed for Chalcis. The voyage by sea was unpleasant to me. I was not treated well even in the little corner of the vessel that I professed to be satisfied with. My name in those days had not the same sound and fame as it has to-day and the great monument to Mausolus was too new and too near to men’s minds. The other voyagers upon the ship contented themselves with knowing that I was a citizen of Athens. That quite sufficed and they mocked, for Athens then was an unfortunate city. One morning when the sun was high we landed at Chalcis in the midst of an immense crowd in which I lost myself, and with pleasure. In questioning some one I learnt that there was outside the gates an extraordinary market. Philip, at the fall of Olynthus after having destroyed the city had led into captivity and slavery the whole of the population.
There were about forty-five thousand people. The slave-market to dispose of these had been on about two days and might last for three months. Also the city was thronged, full of strangers—purchasers and people suffering from curiosity. My interlocutor who was a dealer in wines did not complain, but he confided to me that his neighbour who sold slaves as a rule very dear was ruined. I heard the tavern-keeper say with many gestures: “Consider, a Thracian of twenty years of age one knows what he is worth, by all the Gods. When one has bought twelve to cultivate land one counts twelve bags of gold. Now mark the price, it has fallen to fifty drachmas. Judge of the others by that only. Such a thing has never been heard of. There are three thousand virgins for sale. They will go for twenty-five drachmas apiece, and please do not think that I speak rashly on the subject. Perhaps a few drachmas more may be got for those of the whitest skins. Ah! Philip is a great king indeed!”
This man wearied me and I separated from him and followed the multitude beyond the open gates of the city to the vast stretch of country where the Olynthians were camped. With great pains I wore myself a way through the many groups in movement. Suddenly I saw pass near me a procession that was extravagant and majestical. Before it the crowds parted to left and right.
Six Sarmatian slaves advanced in pairs, armed. Behind them a little Ethiopian held horizontally a long cross of cedar decorated with gold. It was the stick of the Master. Finally, gigantic and heavy, crowned with flowers, the beard impregnated with perfumes and clad in an enormous purple robe, I saw Parrhasius himself. He walked as though he scorned and spurned the earth beneath his feet. Each arm was around the shoulders of a beautiful girl. He was like the Indian Bacchus.
His eyes fell upon me and he said—
“If you are not Bryaxis who gave you permission to bear his face?”
“And you. If you are not the son of Semele who has given you that Dionysiac stature and that robe of purple woven by the Graces of Naxos?”
He then smiled upon me, and without lifting his arms away from their charming supports he seized and shook my hand, pressing it against the bared breast of one of his companions.
“Chariclo,”—this to the young girl upon his right,—“take an arm of my friend and let us continue our promenade. Soon the sun will become too fierce to be pleasant.”
We therefore as he wished went on enlaced. Parrhasius walked with a grand heavy balancing of the body, measured and pompous as an hexameter, the little steps of the women were as a dactyl. In a few words he inquired of my works and my life. At each of my responses he said with vivid words, “Yes. I understand perfectly.” He wished to cut short any lengthy speech. Then he began to speak of himself.
“Clearly understand that I have taken you under my protection,” said he. “For not one citizen of Athens, save myself alone, is out of danger when near the Macedonian. If the least little trouble had brought you before their Court of Justice I would not have given two copper coins for the value of your liberty. But now, maintain a tranquil mind.”
“I am not,” I responded, “of a fearsome nature, but here in the shadow of your mighty name——”
“Yes,” said Parrhasius. “When Philip knew that I was going to honour his new city he sent forward upon my route an officer of the palace. This man brought me royal presents, among others the six colossal men slaves and the two beautiful girls that you have seen. That is to say Force to open my path before me and Beauty to grace my person.”
“Girls of Macedonia?” I questioned.
“Macedonians of Rhodes,” came the laughing answer.
And then Parrhasius with a generous gesture of gift said—
“They shall both brighten your bed this night. As for me I have others left with my valuables. But you are alone, friend. Accept these rosy flowers of flesh from my hands. Their bright youthful skins will be strikingly beautiful contrasted with a couch of sombre purple....”
We approached the great market. He stopped and regarded me.
“Indeed, you do not even ask me what it is that I come here to seek!”
“I would not dare.”
“Can you divine it?”
“No; certainly not. I do not think you can want slaves, for Philip gives you his own. Nor girls, since as you say....”
“I have come from Athens to Chalcis to find a model, my friend. Now you seem to be surprised.”
“A model for you. Are there not any then between the Academe and the Piræus?”
“Yes: about half a million—for me,” he said majestically. “All Athens. And yet I seek a model at the sale of the Olythians. You shall hear why, and you will comprehend.”
Here he drew himself up proudly—
“I shall make a Prometheus.”
In saying this his face expressed the horror that the subject of Prometheus would have.
“There is a Prometheus (of some sort or the other) under every portico, as you know. Timagoras made and sold one; Apollodorus has attempted another. Zeuxis has believed that he has the power to ... but why bring back to our memory so much piteous painting. The Prometheus has never yet been given to the world.”
“That I fully believe,” I replied to the Master.
“They have represented peasants naked and attached to rocks made of wood. Their faces were distorted by a grimace of some sort, a mere face-ache. But, Prometheus the forger of fire, and creator of the man and his struggle with the eagle-god.... Ah! No one has yet created that, Bryaxis. Such a Prometheus, one of the greatest grandeur, I see as plainly before me, created by my brain, as I see your face. That is the type of Prometheus that I wish to nail to the walls of the Parthenon.”
Saying that he quitted the support of his girl companion, took his wand of wood and gold, and traced great waves of outline in the air.
“For two months I have worked upon my great scheme. I have found splendid rocks in the domain of Crates, at the Promontory of Astypolus. All these studies were finished, the foundation of my picture ready, the line of the figure in its place. All at once I find my way barred before me. I fail to find a head. If it was merely a question of a Hêrmes, an Apollo or Pan, all the citizens of Athens would be proud to pose before me. But to take for model a man whose face is shining with genius and to tie, or bind, him by the ankles, the hands, no, you can see that is not possible. One cannot dislocate his limbs like the limbs of a slave. We lack slaves who have the heads of freeborn Greeks. Ah, well, Philip brings us some like that, and I come to buy where Philip comes to sell.”
I shuddered.
“An Olynthian. One of the vanquished. But where do you intend to finish this picture?”
“At Athens.”
“Upon the soil of Athens your slave will be free.”
“He will be—when I wish it, and not before.”
“But then, if you treat your captive so, have you no fear whatever of what the laws will say?”
“The laws?” questioned Parrhasius with a smile. “The laws are in the hollow of my hand, even as are the folds of this mantle that I now throw over my shoulder, behind me!”
And with a magnificent movement he seemed at the same time to enwrap himself with purple and with the sun.