Alcmaeon spoke the last words slowly, with a slight tremor in his voice.
“But why should my companions in the camp taunt me by saying that the Greeks are weak, effeminate, and cowardly?” asked Gannon.
“The Romans are a vulgar, brutal, and licentious people,” answered Alcmaeon. “Few of them understand the higher life, according to our philosophy. We have done nothing to cause the blush of shame, O my son. The Romans believe us weak because we have ceased to fight. Physical strength wanes with age, but the mind often retains its vigor. The Romans call us effeminate. Because our stomachs cannot hold as much wine as theirs do, are we soft? Because we, in our Pentathlons, run, jump, wrestle, throw the discus and javelin; and because the Romans in their games kill one another and drink one another’s blood, are we effeminate? Be proud to be called effeminate under such conditions, O my son!”
Alcmaeon became more earnest as he proceeded. Gannon turned so as to see his father’s face. Hera and Psyche leaned forward, with breathless attention.
“They call us cowards! Those who do so lie!” he continued. “Nations are not cowards if they are conquered while fighting to the death. We are Corinthians, O my children, and on the awful day when we were defeated by the Romans under the inhuman Mummius, the hopes of Greece fell. Our ancestors were sold as slaves. Our city was razed and burnt. By the gods of Olympus!” he exclaimed, “we were not cowards, and we are not cowards!”
This Alcmaeon said with such fervor that Gannon, filled with emotion, cried out, “O my father, I thank thee for those words!”
“What else have the Romans done besides conquer nations?” added Alcmaeon, stirred by Gannon’s enthusiasm. “The Iliad that appeared at the dawn of our history is still the dew that nourishes the very radicles of our souls. Have the Romans produced a Homer? Art became plastic in the quick fingers of the Greeks. Have the Romans produced a Praxiteles or a Scopas? Greek painting deceived human eyes. Have the Romans produced an Apelles? Where is the Roman Phidias, the Roman Demosthenes, the Roman Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides? Where are the Roman counterparts of the greatest men who ever reflected on human minds the light of the other world? Where, O my children, where is the Roman Socrates, the Roman Plato and Aristotle?”
“I understand thee now, my father! I understand thee now!” cried Gannon, carried to a higher plane of conception by his father’s superb climax. “I have fought my companions and have been beaten. Of a truth, words and thoughts are more powerful than brute force. My companions may ridicule my lack of physical strength, but they have become my friends. They now respect me.”
“Ay. The Romans understand not the finer and purer instincts, my son,” said Alcmaeon, flushed with indignation. “They are a coarse, vulgar, and brutal people; the Greeks are refined, elegant, and humane.”
With an effort to calm her father’s agitation, Psyche now interposed in a voice that seemed to sing rather than to speak: “But, my father, beauty is understood by both nations. Is it not so?”