MOST of Cleanor's fellow-passengers on board the Nereid—for this was the name of the singularly un-nymphlike trading vessel that carried him to Corinth—were a curious medley of races and occupations. Corinth was the mart of the western world, and was frequented, for business or for pleasure, by all its races. There were soothsayers from Egypt, who found their customers all the more credulous because they boasted that they believed in nothing; Syrian conjurors; Hebrew slave-dealers; a mixed troop of commercial travellers; and a couple of grave-looking, long-bearded men who, in spite of their philosophers' cloaks, were perhaps the greediest, the most venal of all.
One passenger, however, was of a very different class. He was a Syracusan noble, erect and vigorous notwithstanding his seventy years, whose dignified bearing and refined features spoke plainly enough of high breeding and culture. He was a descendant of Archias, the Corinthian emigrant, who, some six centuries before, had founded the colony of Syracuse, and he was coming, as he told Cleanor, in whom he had discovered a congenial companion, on a religious mission. The tie that bound a Greek colony to the mother city had a certain sanctity about it. Sentiment there was, and the bond of mutual advantage; but there was more, a feeling of filial reverence and duty, which was expressed by appropriate solemnities.
"I am bringing," said Archias—he bore the same name as his far-away ancestor—"the yearly offering from Syracuse the daughter to Corinth the mother. I have done it now more than thirty times. But I feel a certain foreboding that I shall not come on the same errand again. If that means only that my own time is near, it is nothing. I have had my share of life. The gods have dealt bountifully with me, and if they call me I shall go without grumbling. But I can't help feeling that it is something more than the trifle of my own life that is concerned, that some evil is impending either over Syracuse or over Corinth. As for my own city, I don't see where the trouble is to come from. We have long since bowed our necks to the yoke, and we bear it without wincing. For bearable it is, though it is heavy. But for Corinth I own that I have many fears. She is restless, she is vain; she has ambitions to which she is not equal. The gods help her and save her, or take me away before my eyes see her ruin!"
As they were drawing near their journey's end Archias warmly invited his young friend to make his home with him during his stay in Corinth.
"I have an apartment," he said, "reserved for me in the home of the guest-friend of Syracuse. The city rents it for me, and makes me an allowance for the expenses of my journey. I feel bound to accept it, though, without at all wishing to boast of my wealth, I may say that I don't need it. You must not think that you are burdening a poor man—that is all. I can introduce you to everybody that is worth knowing in Corinth, and, if you have any business on hand, shall doubtless be able to help you. And it will be a pleasure, I assure you, to have a companion who is not wearied with an old man's complaints of the new times."
Cleanor thankfully accepted the invitation. When the Nereid reached the port of Corinth he found that the Syracusan's arrival had been expected. A chariot was in waiting at the quay to convey them to the city. At the apartment all preparations for the comfort of the guests were complete—it was a standing order that a provision sufficient for two should be made. First there was the bath,—more than usually welcome after the somewhat squalid conditions of life on board the merchantman,—and after the bath a meal, excellently cooked and elegantly served.
The meal ended, Cleanor felt moved to become more confidential with his new friend than he had hitherto been. Naturally he had been very reserved, giving no reason for Archias to suppose that he had other objects in his travels than amusement or instruction. But he felt that it would be somewhat ungracious to maintain this attitude while he was enjoying so kind and generous an hospitality. In a conversation that was prolonged far into the night he opened up his mind with considerable freedom. His precise schemes he did not mention; they were scarcely his own secret; and he said nothing about Hasdrubal, feeling—for he had studied history with intelligence and sympathy—that a Syracusan noble would scarcely look with favour on anything that came from Carthage, the oldest and bitterest enemy of his country. But he gave a general description of his hope and aim, a common union of the world under the leadership of the Greek race against the domination with which Rome was threatening it.
The Syracusan listened with profound attention. "It has done me good," he said, "to hear you. I did not know that such enthusiasm was to be found nowadays. The very word has gone out of fashion, I may say fallen into disrepute. It used to mean inspiration, now it means madness. Our young men care for nothing but sport, and even their sport has to be done for them by others. They have chariots, but they hire men to drive them; the cestus[13] and the wrestling ring are left to professional athletes. The only game which they are not too languid to practise with their own hands is the kottabos, and the kottabos[14] is not exactly that for which our fathers valued all these things, a preparation for war. I hate to discourage you, but I should be sorry to see you ruining your life in some hopeless cause."
"But, if I may say so much with all respect, isn't this exactly what has been said time after time? May there not be something better than you think, than anybody would think, in these frivolous young fellows? Who would have thought Alcibiades anything but a foolish fop, and yet what a soldier he was when the time came!"
"Well, I hope that you are right," replied the old man; "only your Alcibiades must make haste to show himself, or else it will be too late. But it is not only this, the folly and frivolity of the youth, that discourages me; it is the hopeless meanness and jealousy of the various states. If I could raise from the dead the very best leader a Greek city ever had, I should still despair. Now listen to the story that I have to tell you. Don't think that I am a mere grumbler, who does his best to discourage thoughts that are too high for him to understand; I speak from a bitter experience. But you shall hear.