It was while the army lay at Platæa that news came which might have shaken Glaucon’s purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylæ. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon avow his identity were dead. In the hurried conference of captains preceding the retreat, Leonidas had told his informant’s precise name only to Euboulus. And now Euboulus was slain, doubtless before any word from him of Glaucon’s deed could spread abroad. To Athenians Glaucon was still the “Traitor,” doubly execrated in this hour of trial. If he returned to his people, would he not be [pg 271]torn in pieces by the mob? But the young Alcmæonid was resolved. Since he had not died at Thermopylæ, no life in the camp of the Barbarian was tolerable. He would trust sovran Athena who had plucked him out of one death to deliver from a second. Therefore he nursed his strength—a caged lion waiting for freedom,—and almost wished the Persian host would advance more swiftly that he might haste onward to his own.
* * * * * * *
Glaucon had cherished a hope to see the whole power of the Peloponnesus in array in Bœotia, but that hope proved quickly vain. The oracle was truly to be fulfilled,—the whole of “the land of Cecrops” was to be possessed by the Barbarian. The mountain passes were open. No arrows greeted the Persian vanguard as it cantered down the defiles, and once more the king’s courtiers told their smiling master that not another hand would be raised against him.
The fourth month after quitting the Hellespont Xerxes entered Athens. The gates stood ajar. The invaders walked in silent streets as of a city of the dead. A few runaway slaves alone greeted them. Only in the Acropolis a handful of superstitious old men and temple warders had barricaded themselves, trusting that Athena would still defend her holy mountain. For a few days they defended the steep, rolling down huge boulders, but the end was inevitable. The Persians discovered a secret path upward. The defenders were surprised and dashed themselves from the crags or were massacred. A Median spear-man flung a fire-brand. The house of the guardian goddess went up in flame. The red column leaping to heaven was a beacon for leagues around that Xerxes held the length and breadth of Attica.
Glaucon watched the burning temple with grinding teeth. Mardonius’s tents were pitched in the eastern city by the [pg 272]fountain of Callirhoë,—a spot of fond memories for the Alcmæonid. Here first he had met Hermione, come with her maids to draw water, and had gone away dreaming of Aphrodite arising from the sea. Often here he had sat with Democrates by the little pool, whilst the cypresses above talked their sweet, monotonous music. Before him rose the Rock of Athena,—the same, yet not the same. The temple of his fathers was vanishing in smoke and ashes. What wonder that he turned to Artazostra at his side with a bitter smile.
“Lady, your people have their will. But do not think Athena Nikephorus, the Lady of Triumphs, will forget this day when we stand against you in battle.”
She did not answer him. He knew that many noblemen had advised Xerxes against driving the Greeks to desperation by this sacrilege, but this fact hardly made him the happier.
At dusk the next evening Mardonius suffered him to go with two faithful eunuchs and rove through the deserted city. The Persians were mostly encamped without the walls, and plundering was forbidden. Only Hydarnes with the Immortals pitched on Areopagus, and the king had taken his abode by the Agora. It was like walking through the country of the dead. Everything familiar, everything changed. The eunuchs carried torches. They wandered down one street after another, where the house doors stood open, where the aulas were strewn with the débris of household stuff which the fleeing citizens had abandoned. A deserter had already told Glaucon of his father’s death; he was not amazed therefore to find the house of his birth empty and desolate. But everywhere else, also, it was to call back memories of glad days never to return. Here was the school where crusty Pollicharmes had driven the “reading, writing, and music” into Democrates and himself between the blows. Here was the corner Hermes, before which he had sacrificed the day [pg 273]he won his first wreath in the public games. Here was the house of Cimon, in whose dining room he had enjoyed many a bright symposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the porticos where he had lounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestling ground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-hearted friends about “the war” and “the king,” in the days when the Persian seemed very far away. Last of all an instinct—he could not call it desire—drove him to seek the house of Hermippus.
They had to force the door open with a stone. The first red torch-light that glimmered around the aula told that the Eumolpid had awaited the enemy in Athens, not in Eleusis. The court was littered with all manner of stuff,—crockery, blankets, tables, stools,—which the late inhabitants had been forced to forsake. A tame quail hopped from the tripod by the now cold hearth. Glaucon held out his hand, the bird came quickly, expecting the bit of grain. Had not Hermione possessed such a quail? The outlaw’s blood ran quicker. He felt the heat glowing in his forehead.
A chest of clothes stood open by the entrance. He dragged forth the contents—women’s dresses and uppermost a white airy gauze of Amorgos that clung to his hands as if he were lifting clouds. Out of its folds fell a pair of white shoes with clasps of gold. Then he recognized this dress Hermione had worn in the Panathenæa and on the night of his ruin. He threw it down, next stood staring over it like a man possessed. The friendly eunuchs watched his strange movements. He could not endure to have them follow him.