Hermione united in herself some of the happiest characteristics of the two races from which she sprang. Her father was a Greek of the Greeks. Poseidonia had been founded by Dorian settlers from Sybaris, who could not contrive to live on good terms with the Achaean Greeks that had become the predominant element in that city; and Hippocles, who claimed descent from the Messenian kings, yielded to none in nobility of birth. A purer type of the genuine Hellenes it would have been impossible to find. Pontia brought from the Lucanian hills, among which she had been reared, some of the best qualities, moral and physical, of the Italian race. The simplicity, frugality, and temperance which then and long after distinguished rural Italy, were to be seen in her united with a singular feminine charm not so often found among that somewhat rude population; until the close air of the Piraeus, ill-suited to a daughter of the hills, sapped her constitution, she had had a frame magnificently healthy and strong. To the daughter the climate which had shortened her mother’s days, happily did no harm. It was in fact her native air, and she throve in it. She was still undeveloped, for she had only just completed her sixteenth year; but she gave promise of remarkable beauty, and indeed, the promise was already more than half fulfilled. When she had performed the duty, sometimes imposed on the daughters of resident aliens,—it might be called, rather, privilege conceded to them—and walked in the great procession of the patron-goddess, holding a sunshade over some high-born Athenian maiden,[11] all the spectators agreed that the prize of beauty belonged to the stranger. Her stature reached the very utmost height that the canons of beauty conceded to women; so far she was more of an Athene than an Aphrodite. But her face and her whole bearing were exquisitely feminine. The sapphire-colored eyes, shaded by long drooping lashes, the forehead, broad and low with the clustering ringlets of light chestnut on either side, perfectly rounded cheeks, firm, delicate mouth, showing a glimpse, but only a glimpse of pearly teeth, and a faultlessly clear complexion, just tinted with the brown caught from Ægæan suns and winds—for she was dearly fond of a cruise in her father’s yacht—made up together a remarkable combination of charms.
Callias had seen her but once before, and that was on a melancholy occasion. He had been commissioned by the general in command to break to her father the death of her brother, killed as has been said, in the unlucky conflict at Notium. He had behaved there with conspicuous gallantry, having led the boarding party which captured the only Lacedaemonian galley that the Athenians had to set off against their own fifteen losses, and had fallen in the moment of victory. It was not the first time that he had shown distinguished valor, and it was for this reason, as well as on account of the high reputation of his father, that Alcibiades had sent Callias with a special message of condolence. The blow, which could not be softened by any delicacy in the telling, and for which the praises of the general were but a slight consolation, broke Hippocles down completely. It was then that Hermione showed the strength of her character. Tenderly attached herself to her brother she had come forward to support her broken-hearted father. With a patient endurance that was beyond all praise, she had battled with her own grief in the effort to help a sorrow even more agonizing than her own, till for very shame Hippocles had raised himself to bear his loss with resignation. The effort saved his life; for even the physicians had at one time been greatly alarmed. Callias, accustomed to think of women as encumbrances rather than helps in time of need was profoundly impressed by the girl’s demeanor. If he had been inclined, for a moment, to think that her singular self-possession indicated a want of womanly feeling, he would have been soon undeceived. Paying a visit of inquiry to the house next day, he found that Hermione’s endurance had not lasted beyond the occasion for which it was wanted. Her father received him, and told him that his daughter had broken down under the strain. “I was cowardly enough,” he said, “yesterday to rest upon her strength when I should have summoned up my own. The gods grant that I may not have taxed it overmuch, and that I may not lose both my children. I have learned that I ought not to have grudged my son to the city which has been a second mother to me; if only I have not learnt it at too terrible a price.” Callias had to leave Athens on the next day to rejoin the fleet, but he had the satisfaction of hearing before his departure that Hermione was on a fair way to recovery. Since then he had not been in Athens.
CHAPTER IV.
A COUNCIL.
The house of Hippocles was on a smaller scale than might have seemed suitable to his vast wealth. The fact was that both he and his daughter had simple tastes. They had a special dislike to the enormous establishments of slaves which it was the fashion for rich Athenians, whether of native or of foreign birth, to maintain. In each division of the house—for, it was divided after the usual Greek fashion, into two “apartments,” to use that word in its proper sense, belonging respectively to the men and the women[12]—there were but three or four inmates besides the master and mistress. Hippocles had his house steward and his personal attendant, both older than himself, long since emancipated, who had accompanied him from his Italian home, and a lad of seventeen, who was still a slave, but who, if he conducted himself well, would certainly earn his freedom by the time that he had reached the age of thirty. Hermione’s establishment, on the other hand, consisted of a lady who had just exchanged the post of governess, now no longer necessary, for that of companion or duenna, a housekeeper, and two domestics who may be described by the modern terms of lady’s-maid and house-maid. Stephanion, the companion, was of pure Athenian descent. She belonged to one of the many families which had been reduced to poverty by the war, and she had been glad to take employment in the house of the wealthy alien. She had more education than was commonly given to Athenian ladies, but this is not to say much, and Hermione would have fared but ill for teaching, according at least to our standard if her father had not always found time even in his busiest days, to supplement her education. The housekeeper was a Laconian woman. She, too, had found her way into the family through circumstances connected with the war. She had been nurse in a wealthy Athenian household. Before the war it had been the fashion, my readers should know, for the upper classes at Athens to get their nurses from Sparta. A true Spartan, a daughter that is, of the military aristocracy that ruled Laconia and its dependencies, it was, of course, impossible to obtain, but girls from the farmer class that cultivated the lands of their soldier masters often sought situations in other countries. This was the case with Milanion, who as the youngest of the five daughters of a Laconian farmer, had been delighted to find a place with an Athenian lady, Melissa, wife of Demochares, at a salary which almost equalled her father’s income. This was just before the commencement of the long war. She had been nurse to Melissa’s five children when the disastrous expedition to Sicily brought irretrievable ruin upon her employer’s family. Demochares was one of the army that surrendered with Nicias, was thrown with his comrades into that most dreadful of prisons, the stone-quarries of Syracuse, and died of a fever before the end of the year. His property had consisted, for the most part, of farms in the island of Chios, and when Chios revolted from Athens, the widow and her children were reduced to something very like poverty. Nothing was left to them but a small farm at Marathon, and as it so happened, the rent of the house which Hippocles unable, as has been said, to own real property in Attica, had been accustomed to hire. The establishment had to be broken up, the slaves being sold and the free persons looking for employment elsewhere. Milanion was about to return, much against her will, to Laconia, where her long residence at Athens would have rendered her an object of suspicion and dislike, when an opening suddenly presented itself in the family of Hippocles. Pontia’s long illness had come to a fatal end, and the widower was looking for an experienced woman to take charge of the young Hermione. Milanion seemed to him exactly the person that he wanted, and she, on the other hand, was delighted to come to him. As her charge grew older, her duties as nurse gradually changed into the duties of a housekeeper. She had come to her new situation accompanied by a middle-aged woman, a Marian by birth, Manto by name, whom Hippocles had bought, at her suggestion, at the sale of Demochares’ slaves. Manto had steadily refused the emancipation which her master had several times offered to her.
“No, sir,” she said, “I thank you very much, but I am better as I am. I desire nothing more than to live in your house, and, when my time comes, to die in it.”
“What if I should die first,” suggested the merchant.
“The gods know, my master, the gods know,” cried the poor woman in an agony. “But it is impossible; the gods would not do anything so cruel, so unjust. But, if you wish, you may put what you please into your will. As long as you live you are my master, and I am your slave.” So matters stood when my story opens. Perhaps it may be added that Manto’s condition did not prevent her tongue from being truthful; but affectionate, faithful, and honest, she allowed herself and was allowed—no unusual circumstance, yet she was under a system of slavery—a liberty of speech which in one free born would certainly have been impossible. Finally, to complete my account of the household, Hermione had for her maid a girl about a year older than herself. She too had come into the family along with Milanion and Manto. Demochares had bought her at the sale of the prisoners taken by the Athenians when a little Sicilian town was captured. She was then a singularly pretty child about seven years old, and Demochares had meant her to be a playfellow or plaything, as the case might be, of a daughter of his own of about the same age. She was of mixed race; her mother was a Sicanian, that is, one of the so-called aboriginal inhabitants of Sicily, her father a Carthaginian trader. She was now grown up into a handsome maiden, who with her raven-black hair, dark piercing eyes, and deep brunette complexion, made a remarkable contrast to the fair beauty of her mistress.
When Callias reached the house the hour was late, later than etiquette allowed for a visit, except from an intimate friend, or on a matter of urgent business. His business, however, was urgent, and he did not hesitate to knock, that is to strike the door sharply with a brass ring which was attached to it by a staple. The day-porter had gone home for the night, and the door was opened by the young slave mentioned above. He explained that his master was just about to sit down to his evening meal. “Take him my name,” said Callias, “and say that I come from the magistrates on an important matter of business.” The lad invited him to enter, and to take a seat in a small chamber which looked upon the central court of the andronitis, a grass plot, bordered on all sides by myrtle and orange. In a few minutes he returned, and invited the visitor to follow him. Callias crossed the court and passed through the door which led into the women’s apartment. Hippocles, it should be said, was accustomed to see visitors on business in the front or men’s portion of the dwelling, but spent his leisure time in the rooms assigned to his daughter. The two had just taken their places at the table, Hippocles reclining on a couch, Hermione sitting on a chair by his right hand, so that his face was turned towards her.[13] The steward had placed the first dish on the table, and was standing in front, with Hippocles’ personal attendant behind him. The latter at a sign from his master, prepared a place for the new-comer.