But at the same instant he beheld, as he had done in his dream, the oil-jar suspended by a blue ribbon over the door of his house. He pressed his hands upon his eyes and, when he entered his lonely sleeping-room, he said, sighing:
“Polycles, you are a greater simpleton than I had supposed.”
XII.
The next morning the public criers summoned the citizens to a popular assembly, and soon after the streets were filled with young and old, rich and poor, who, amid hubbub, shrieks, and laughter, flocked towards the theatre, the place where popular assemblies were usually held in the smaller cities.
Thessaly, renowned for its beautiful river valley, its fine horses, and its powerful sorceresses, was at that time under the sole rule of Alexander of Pherae—a man who treated his subjects so harshly that he ordered some to be buried alive and had others dressed in bear-skins and torn to pieces by dogs. Like all tyrants, he lived in perpetual fear. He had so little faith in his own body guard that he had himself watched by a dog; he spent the night in the upper loft of his stately palace, that he might be able to draw the ladder up after him. The family to which he belonged had raised themselves from Tagoi, chiefs elected by the people, to sovereigns, and he himself, like his predecessor, had paved his way to power by murder.
But heavily as Alexander’s yoke rested upon the city of Pherae, it was comparatively little felt in Methone, though the latter was scarcely a day’s journey away. When the little city had sent its quota of men to the army and paid its taxes, the citizens had full liberty to attend to their own affairs, while the descendants of the original inhabitants of the country, as slaves, penestae, performed all the field work and drudgery. Whoever did not know better might have easily believed that Methone was a free state.
On the way to the place of assembly, Polycles followed the least frequented streets. Suddenly he signed to the slaves who accompanied him to keep back and, throwing his arm over Lycon’s shoulder, he said to him:
“My friend, I have important matters to discuss with you to-day! You know that Simonides, in his last will, left me his fortune and his daughter. But, as I am too old to marry a young wife, I want to ask if you are willing to take the girl with a dowry of eighteen talents?”
Lycon stopped, but did not utter a word in reply. If the rude statue of Poseidon in front of the temple of the god had suddenly descended from its pedestal and come towards him, he could not have been more speechless with bewilderment.
“That this may be done,” Polycles continued smiling, “I will adopt you as a son and make you my heir. True, I should have preferred a suitor who was the girl’s equal in birth, but as she seems to incline to you, I will submit to her wish.”