The Spartan Twins

by Lucy Fitch Perkins

The day had begun so early that it was still morning when Melas and the Twins left the house of Pericles and took their way toward the Agora, which was the business and social center of Athens. Here were the markets where everything necessary to the daily life of the Athenians was sold. The Twins had never dreamed there were so many things to be found in the world. Not only were there fruits, meats, fish, vegetables, and flowers, but there were stalls filled with beautiful pottery or with dyed and embroidered garments gorgeous in color, and even with books. The books were not bound as ours are. They were written on rolls of parchment and were piled up in the stalls like sticks of wood. Around the marketplace there were arcades supported by marble columns, and ornamented by rows of bronze statues. In the center stood a magnificent altar to the twelve Gods of Olympus, whom the people of Hellas believed to be the greatest of their many Gods. There were temples opening on the Agora, and beyond the temples there were the hills of Athens, with the Sacred Mount of the Acropolis, the holiest of all holy places, bounding it on the south.

Melas had seen all these sights before, but to the Twins it was like stepping right into the middle of an enchanted world. Melas took them each by the hand, and found an out-of-the-way corner near a stall where young girls were selling wreaths, and there they ate their luncheon, while they watched the people swarming about them.

The flowers-sellers, the bread-women, and some flute-girls were almost the only women in sight, but the whole Agora was full of men. There were fathers of families buying provisions for the day. Each was followed by a slave with a basket, for no Athenian gentleman would carry his own packages. There were always slaves to do that. There were grave men in long cloak-like garments with fillets around their heads who walked back and forth talking together. There were boys, followed by their "pedagogues," old slaves who carried their books for them, and saw to it that their young charges got into as little mischief as possible, as they went about the streets.

Suddenly at some signal which neither Melas nor the Twins saw, the whole crowd began to move toward the south.

"Where are they going?" asked Dion.

"Listen to that little Spartan savage," said one of the wreath-sellers, laughing. "He doesn't even know it's the regular festival of Athena. Run along, bumpkin, and see the sights."

Melas gave the girl a black look. He didn't like to have Dion called a "Spartan savage," nor a "bumpkin" either, but he knew very well Spartans might expect scant courtesy in Athens, so he said nothing, but he rose from his corner at once and, telling the children to follow, started after the crowd.

They reached the steep incline which led up to the Acropolis, and, still following the crowd, had gone part way to the summit, when there was a mighty pushing and jostling among the people, and loud voices cried, "Make way for the sacred procession." The crowd parted, and Melas and the Twins were pushed back toward one side, but as they were lucky enough to be on the border of the crowd, instead of being pressed farther back, they were able to see the sacred procession of the Goddess Athena as it mounted the long slope and disappeared through the great gate.

In one of the oldest temples on the Acropolis, called the Erechtheum, there was an ancient wooden statue of Athena which the Athenians believed had fallen from heaven. It was very sacred in their eyes, and every year they celebrated a festival when the robes and ornaments of the statue were taken off and cleaned. This year the maidens of Athens had embroidered a new and beautiful robe, and it was being carried in state to the temple to be offered to the Goddess and placed upon her statue.

The Twins had never seen so many people in all their lives before. The procession was headed by some of the chief men of Athens, and foremost among them the children recognized Pericles. Near him walked Anaxagoras the Philosopher, with Phidias, the great sculptor, and Ictinus, the architect of the new temple of which the Stranger had told the Twins on the spring evening so long before. There were also Sophocles the dramatist and Euripides the poet. Melas recognized them all, for they were known to every one and he had seen them at the house of Pericles or walking about the Agora on previous journeys. He pointed them out to the Twins.