Alkibiades, a tale of the Great Athenian War

by Charles Hamilton Bromby

Through all that winter, and long after it, the siege of Potidaia lasted. Sokrates showed superhuman power of endurance, keeping his watch by night barefoot amid the ice and snow, in his only dress, which he wore summer and winter, in heat and cold alike, in the pelting rain and bitter winds. He showed endurance, too, in striving to win his scholar to a higher life, to nobler aims.

But Alkibiades in time grew tired of the siege. It was very well to do heroic deeds before the eyes of men, but to sit down before a stubborn town, month after month to go through the same tedious duties, without a chance of honour or distinction, that was a different thing. The siege got wearisome. With returning health and strength he began to long for the pleasures he had left behind at Athens. Moreover, the pest broke out amongst the besiegers and besieged. So he got leave, like many others, to return.

When he got back an awful change had come over the gay city. He had left it in its glory, triumphing in bravery and beauty; he came back to find it a place of mourning. The pest had come there, too, making havoc among the citizens, whose numbers were swelled by almost the whole rural population of the state. For the Lakedaimônian invasion of Attika had forced the country people into Athens, where they lay huddled up together in miserable hovels, in temples, in the porticos and colonnades. And the plague raged amongst them.

Men and women, old and young, and helpless children, all alike—the plague spared none of them. Rich and poor were doomed to the same fearful suffering. A burning torture took possession of their bodies, and defied all remedies. Physicians’ skill was of no avail. The plague demon baffled every precaution. Those who could get away left Athens, and many of them fell victims as they went, unhelped, uncared for by panic-stricken friends. In the town those who were forced to stay sat down in grim despair, waiting their turn for torture and for death.

A black veil hung over the gorgeous city. Like a faded beauty who long ago had decked herself out with ornaments and shone resplendent in her youth, the ornaments were there, the beauty gone—it seemed for ever. The dismayed people, who were stricken with a fever the like of which had not been seen before, and which has passed, as the Greeks themselves have passed, from earth, wallowed in their pain. They rushed to pools, to streams, to fountains, and in delirious feebleness fell headlong in and died. The waters thus polluted were a source for propagating the disease. The very water, gift of purity and cleanliness, became the channel of a loathsome death. An internal fire ate out the very core of life. A scream for drink, more drink, to quench the unextinguishable flame, which burnt from head to foot, through all the limbs, but most through the more vital parts, was heard above the wails and groans—was heard unheeded.

Even when recovery was possible the terrible phenomenon was seen of human beings who had lost all memory of everything that had gone before, all remembrance of their friends, all consciousness of the continuity of their existence, of their own names.

The birds and beasts that prey on human bodies and thrive on such occasions disappeared, either through disgust and satiety, or killed by the infection. Even the women, tender nurses in distress, who know so well how to soothe our pains, when we can scarce tell what we want, whose constant care will watch and help when we are powerless—even women fled in horror from those stricken by that plague. There was none to help; there was little aid that could do any good. Nemesis, for all the too great pride and joy of Athens, poured forth the vials of her retribution.

Alkibiades had, indeed, an opportunity to show how he had profited by the lessons of his friend. He had no fear and great generosity. Among the few who rose above the degrading influence of the terrible contagion no one was more active or persevering than was he. Undaunted by the weight of woe with which he had to deal, he attacked the unseen enemy as resolutely as he had fought Korinthians at Potidaia. While most men slunk away in dread, and others, despairing of their lives, sought to enjoy the short time left them in unsatisfying dissipation, and affected to ignore the danger by an assumed carelessness or noisy drunkenness, he was unwearied in the aid he brought to the panic-stricken people. The rich who had not fled barricaded themselves in their large houses, hoping thus to escape the plague, and many expired there alone. It was not to these he came, but to the poor, who had no palaces in which to stand a siege, to the poor, crowded together in their small tenements, lying helpless on their straw.

The poorer Athenian was accustomed to spend the greater part of his day out of doors. As soon as he rose in the early morning, putting on his simple dress, he was out in the fresh air. His work was done there; there he enjoyed his mid-day rest. If he was summoned to take part in the Assembly of the state, it was in the open air he heard and voted. If he had to try a fellow citizen, it was in a court roofed only by the canopy of heaven. Or when, his work and duty done, he assisted at a play of Sophokles or the broad satire of a comedy, it was under the blue sky he listened and applauded.

It was in unaccustomed confinement that these Greeks lay dying when Alkibiades came, bringing consolation and the sunlight of his radiant happiness. How many in after-years, in the conflict of party strife, when it was their turn to vote for or against him, remembered the god-like youth, who in the flush of strength, and victory, and beauty, had come like Hermes to them in their agony?