III.
A few days after Lycon might have been seen with a large travelling-hat on his head riding along the road between Halus and Iton in the province of Phthiotis in Thessaly. He had sold his house in Athens and all his slaves except one, a slender boy named Paegnion who, carrying a bundle suspended from a stick over his shoulders, accompanied him. He himself had a similar bundle fastened to his horse; in his hand he held a switch cut from the trunk of a vine and, when his cloak blew aside, the handle of a short sword appeared in his belt. Beside Paegnion walked a young slave from Halus, who was to take the hired horse back.
It was a pleasant summer morning when Lycon rode down the stony road over a spur of Mt. Othrys.
Before him on his left hand rose huge limestone cliffs, their sides overgrown with poplar, plane, and ash-trees, and their summits covered with thorny tragacanth bushes. Far below, one smiling valley lay beside another and through them all the river Amphrysus wound in glittering curves. The morning mists still rested on the wide landscape, revealing, ever and anon, a glimpse of distant cities at the foot of the mountains and undulating plains, with yellow grain-fields and luxuriant vineyards, interspersed here and there with clumps of fig-trees and groves of dwarf and stone oaks. Far at the right the white marble temples of a city glimmered against the dark-blue waters of a bay in the Pagasaean gulf. On the other side of the valley rose lofty hills, and beyond them—at the farthest point of view—the two snow-capped peaks of Pelion towered into the air.
Lycon let his gaze wander over the broad, sun-steeped landscape, and inhaled with pleasure the pure mountain air. Freedom had never seemed to him more alluring. The nearer he approached Methone, the more anxiously he asked himself whether he, who for years had lived as a free citizen, must again sink into a wretched, subservient bondman. He fancied he already felt on his neck the pressure of the wooden ring by which sweet-toothed slaves were prevented from raising their hands to their lips; he imagined he had fetters on his limbs and the heavy block dragging after him, and he shuddered at the thought of the smoking iron and its hissing on the skin.
Who told him he would escape this punishment? Had he not stolen a second time?
“By Zeus!” he muttered, “I’m afraid I have made the dog’s throw.”[S]
[S] The worst throw in a game of dice.
But, remembering how he had altered during the past few years, he suddenly exclaimed: “No, I will not return as Zenon, but as Lycon.”
He had incautiously uttered the last words aloud and, starting, looked around him. The strange slave had paid no heed; but it was important for him to know whether Paegnion had heard them.