“You may as well take it,” returned his host, “there is a good deal more here than I can take with me; and why should you not? For myself, I carry most of my possessions about with me in this fashion,”—and he showed a leather purse filled with pearls and precious stones. “Gold is too cumbrous to carry in any quantity. This no man will take as long as I am alive. Besides this, my worthy friend Hippocles, who, as you know, is as trustworthy as the treasury of Delphi, has most of my property in his hands. And, if we once get safely to Pharnabazus, we need not trouble any more about this matter. I must do the Persians the justice to say that they are always open-handed. And they can afford to be. It is not too much to say that for one talent of gold that we have in Greece they have at least a hundred. Any one who should have the ransacking of one of their great treasure cities—and they have others besides Susa; Babylon, for instance, and Persepolis and Pasargadæ—would see something that would astonish them. And”—he added, with a profound sigh—“if only things had gone straight, I might have been the man.”
The journey along the northern shore of the Propontis was accomplished in safety. No Spartan ship had as yet made its way so far eastward. At a little town on the Asiatic shore Alcibiades provided his party with horses for riding and serviceable mules for the conveyance of their baggage and of such a selection of his own possessions as he had thought it well to take with him. The old sailor Hipparchus here wanted to leave them, and to make his way to Byzantium, where he had relatives. The remainder Alcibiades addressed before setting out, to the following effect:
“We have to make our way to Gordium in Phrygia, for it is there that, if he keeps to his usual habits, we shall find the Satrap Pharnabazus. He is accustomed to winter there. But we shall not find it easy to get there. These Bithynians are not effeminate Asiatics, a hundred of whom will fly before five stout Greeks. They are Thracians from the other side of the sea, and we all know how hard are their heads, and how strong their arms. We cannot force our way through them; we must elude them if we can.”
The route which the party followed lay for some time within sight of the sea. This was commonly followed by travellers, as the mountaineers seldom ventured within the border of the maritime plain. When they had reached the head of the Gulf of Olbia they struck inland. The road usually followed would have taken them by the valley of Sangarius, a river which divides the great chain of the Mysian Olympus. Their guide strongly dissuaded them from taking it. It was constantly watched, he said, by the mountaineers. No one could hope to escape them, and only a very strong party could force its way through. The safest plan would be by certain paths which he knew, and by which they might hope to cross Olympus unmolested. Only hunters and shepherds know them, or a chance traveller on foot for whom it would not be worth the robbers’ while to wait. It was a toilsome and even dangerous journey. The first snows of Autumn had began to fall, and even the practical eye of the guide found it difficult to discover the path, while the sufferings of the travellers, who had to bivouac for several nights in the open air, with but scanty fire to warm them, were exceedingly severe. Still, but for one unlucky incident, it would have been accomplished in safety. The party was now half-way down the southern slopes of Olympus when they halted for the night at a roadside inn, or rather caravansary. They found the large reception chamber—it contained two only—already occupied by a party of the vagrant priests of Cybele. While Alcibiades and Callias found accommodation, such as it was, in the smaller room, the rest of the party were thrown upon the hospitality of the priests, unless indeed, they chose to bivouac outside. Unluckily, the priests were only too hospitable. They invited the new comers to an entertainment which was prolonged into a revel. During the passage of the mountains the allowances of food had been small, and for drink the party had had perforce to be satisfied with the wayside springs or even with melted snow. When they found themselves under shelter, in a room which was at least weather-tight, and warmed with a blazing fire, the sense of contrast tended to relax their powers of self-restraint. The priests had roasted a couple of sheep, and broached a cask of the heady wine of Mount Tmolus, with which a wealthy devotee had presented them. This they drank, and insisted on their guests drinking, unmixed. By the time the mutton bones had been picked bare, and the cask drained to its dregs, not a man out of the twelve was sober. A heavy slumber, lasting late into the morning, was the natural consequence of this debauch, and when the sleepers were at last aroused, they set about the preparation for a start in a very languid fashion. It was nearly noon before the party was fairly on its way. Darkness came on before the next stage could be reached. It was while the travellers were bivouacking in a wholly unprotected situation that a company of marauders, who had indeed been watching their movements for some days in the hopes of finding such an opportunity, fell upon them. The result was disastrous. Alcibiades and Callias, who had been sleeping with their horses picketed close to their camp fire, were roused by the noise, and springing to their saddles made their escape. Not one of their followers was equally fortunate. Some were cut down in their sleep, others as they were endeavoring to collect their senses. The sumpter-horses and their burdens of course fell into the hands of the assailants. It was only with what they carried on their own persons that the two survivors of the party made their way about six days afterward to the Satrap’s winter palace at Gordium.
CHAPTER XVII.
ATHENS IN THE DUST.
“I feel that my place is at Athens,” said Callias to his host a few days after their arrival.
“In spite of the past?”
“Yes. At such a time no one thinks of the past, but only of the future.”