Lords of the World: A story of the fall of Carthage and Corinth

"So, sweetest and fairest, you have not forgotten me; you, as all men know, no one can forget. Why am I in such haste? Nay, dearest, look in your mirror for an answer. And besides, when you are mine, the Romans can have nothing more to say. Till to-morrow, then—but stay, let me give you a little token. Nay,"—and his voice changed in an instant to a note of horror—"what, pray, has changed my love-gift into this? Faugh!"

And with a gesture as of one who dashed something to the ground, he sank down upon the bed, and in another moment was sleeping again.5

Early the next morning the king's three sons, who had heard the physician's report of their father's health, arrived at the palace. Their emotion, as they knelt by the dying king, was genuine, though probably not very deep. The old man was perfectly self-possessed and calm.

"My sons," he said, "I have done my best for you. Probably you will not like it. What is there, indeed, that you would all like? But lay your hands on my head and swear that you will accept what I have done. What it is you had best not know till I am gone. But trust me that I have been just to all of you."

The princes took the oath.

"Cleanor here knows where I have put away my testament, but he is bound by me not to tell till I am buried. And now farewell! Don't wait for the end. You will have your hands full, I warrant, as soon as the tribes know that the old man is gone."

The princes left the room and the old man turned his face to the wall and seemed to sleep. All the rest of that day Cleanor watched, but noticed no change. Just before dawn he heard the sleeper draw two or three deep breaths. He bade the slave who was in waiting in the ante-chamber call the physician.

But the man of science found no movement either of pulse or heart. When he held a mirror to the mouth, there was not the faintest sign of breath upon it. The world had seen the last of one of the most wonderful of its veterans.

CHAPTER IV.
SCIPIO.

THE old king's body was roughly embalmed, in order to give some time before the celebration of the funeral. This was a more splendid and impressive ceremony than had ever been witnessed in that region. The news of Masinissa's death had been carried far into the interior with that strange, almost incredible rapidity with which great tidings commonly travel in countries that have no regular means of communication. The old man had been one of the most prominent figures in Northern Africa for a space more than equal to an ordinary lifetime. Nor had he been one of the rulers who shut themselves up in their palaces, and are known, not in their persons, but by their acts. His long life had been spent, one might say, in the saddle. There was not a chief in the whole region that had not met him, either as friend or as foe. Many had heard from their fathers or grandfathers the traditions of his craft as a ruler and his prowess as a warrior, and now they came in throngs to pay him the last honours. From the slopes of the Atlas range far to the west, and from the south as far as the edge of what is now called the Algerian Sahara, came the desert chiefs, some of them men who had never been seen within the walls of a city. For that day, at least, were suspended all the feuds of the country, many and deadly as they were. It was the greatest, as it was the last honour that could be paid to the great chief who had done so much to join these warring atoms into a harmonious whole.

The bier was carried by representatives of the states which had owned the late king's sway. Behind it walked his three sons; these again were followed by the splendid array of the war-elephants with their gorgeous trappings. The wise beasts, whom the degenerate successors of the old African races have never been able to tame,6 seemed to feel the nature of the occasion, and walked with slow step and downcast mien. Behind the elephants came rank after rank what seemed an almost interminable cavalcade of horsemen. The procession was finished by detachments of Roman troops, both infantry and cavalry, a striking contrast, with their regular equipment and discipline, to the wild riders from the plains and hills of the interior.

The funeral over, there was a great banquet, a scene of wild and uproarious festivity—a not unnatural reaction from the enforced gravity of the morning's proceedings. Cleanor, who had the sober habits which belonged to the best type of Greeks, took the first opportunity that courtesy allowed of withdrawing from the revel.

He made his way to a secluded spot which he had discovered in the wild garden or park attached to the palace, and threw himself down on the turf, near a little waterfall. The fatigues of the day, for he had taken a great part in the ordering of the morning's ceremonial, and the exhausting heat of the banqueting hall had predisposed him to sleep, and the lulling murmur of the water completed the charm.

When he awoke, he found that he was no longer alone. A stranger in Roman dress was standing by, and looking down upon him with a kindly smile. When the young Greek had collected his thoughts, he remembered that he had already seen and been impressed by the new-comer's features and bearing. Then it dawned upon him that he was the officer in command of the detachment of Roman soldiers that had been present at the obsequies of the king.

And, indeed, the man was not one to be hastily passed over, or lightly forgotten. In the full vigour of manhood—he was just about to complete his thirty-seventh year—he presented a rare combination of strength and refinement. His face had the regularity and fine chiselling of the Greek type, the nose, however, having something of the aquiline form, which is so often one of the outward characteristics of military genius. The beauty of the features was set off by the absence of moustache and beard, a fashion then making its way in Italy, but still uncommon elsewhere. To the Greek it at once suggested the familiar artistic conception of the beardless Apollo.

But the eyes were the most remarkable feature of the face. They expressed with a rare force, as the occasion demanded, kindliness, a penetrating intelligence, or a righteous indignation against evil. But over and above these expressions, they had from time to time a look of inspiration. They seemed to see something that was outside and beyond mortal limits. In after years it was often said of Scipio—my readers will have guessed that I am speaking of Scipio—that he talked with the gods. Ordinary observers did not perceive, or did not understand it. To a keen and sensitive nature, such as Cleanor's, it appealed with a force that may almost be called irresistible. All this did not reveal itself immediately to the young man, but he felt at once, as no one ever failed to feel, the inexplicable charm of Scipio's personality.

"So you too," said the Roman, "have escaped from the revellers?"

Cleanor made a movement as if to rise.

"Nay," said the other, "do not disturb yourself. Let me find a place by you;" and he seated himself on the grass. "What a home for a naiad is this charming little spring! But you will say that a Roman has no business to be talking of naiads. It is true, perhaps. Our hills, our streams, our oaks have no such presences in them. We have borrowed them from you. Our deities are practical. We have a goddess that makes the butter to come in the churn, curdles the milk for the cheese, and helps the cow to calve. There is not a function or an employment that has not got its patron or patroness. But we have not peopled the world of nature with the gracious and beautiful presences which your poets have imagined. Nor, I fancy," he added with a smile, "have your African friends done so."

Cleanor, who would in any case have been too courteous to show to a casual stranger the hostility which he cherished against the Roman nation, felt at once the charm of the speaker's manner. He was struck, too, by the purity of the Roman's Greek accent, and by the elegance of his language, with which no fault could have been found except, perhaps, that it was more literary than colloquial. He laughingly acknowledged the compliment which the Roman had paid to the poetical genius of his countrymen.

A brisk conversation on literary topics followed. Cleanor, who was of a studious turn, had spent a year at Athens, listening to the philosophical teachers who were the successors of Plato at the Academy, and another year at Rhodes, then the most famous rhetorical school in the world. Scipio, on the other hand, was one of the best-read men of his age. He was a soldier and a politician, and had distinguished himself in both capacities, but his heart was given to letters. In private life he surrounded himself with the best representatives of Greek and Roman culture. He now found in the young Greek, with whose melancholy history he was acquainted, a congenial spirit. Cleanor, on the other hand, who had something of the Greek's readiness to look down upon all outsiders as barbarians, was astonished to see how wide and how deep were the attainments of his new acquaintance.

The two thus brought together had many opportunities of improving the acquaintance thus begun. Scipio had to carry out the details of the division of royal functions mentioned in my last chapter. This was not a thing to be done in a day. The three brothers accepted the principle readily enough, though they felt that the one to whom the army had been allotted had the lion's share of power. But when the principles came to be applied there were endless jealousies and differences of opinion. It required all Scipio's tact and personal influence to keep the peace unbroken.

When this complicated business was finished, or at least put in a fair way of being finished, an untoward event cut short Scipio's sojourn in Africa. Two new commanders came out to take charge of the Roman army before Carthage. Scipio knew them to be rash and incompetent, and was unwilling to incur the responsibility of serving under them. Accordingly he asked for permission to resign his command—he held the rank of tribune.7 The consuls, on the other hand, were not a little jealous of their subordinate's reputation and, above all, of his name. A Scipio at Carthage had a prestige which no one else could hope to rival, and they were glad to get rid of him.

This interruption of an acquaintance which was rapidly ripening into friendship had an important bearing on Cleanor's life. If anyone could have reconciled him to Rome, Scipio was the man. Scipio gone, the old feelings, only too well justified as they were, revived in full force. Hostility to Rome became, indeed, the absorbing passion of his life. It was a passion, however, which he concealed with the finesse natural to his race. For the present his purpose could, he conceived, be better served outside the walls of Carthage than within them. Accordingly he accepted an offer from Mastanabal that he should undertake the duties of a private secretary.

CHAPTER V.
A GREAT SCHEME.

SCIPIO'S forebodings as to the incapacity of the new generals were rapidly justified. The siege operations had not been uniformly successful before they took over the command. There had been losses as well as gains. Still, on the whole, the besiegers had the balance of advantage. The defence had been broken down at more points than one. Carthage was distinctly in a worse position than it had been three months after the breaking out of the war. The besieged had done some damage to the Roman fleet, had burnt a considerable extent of siege-works, and had suffered a distinctly smaller loss in killed and wounded than they had been able to inflict on their assailants.

But if the damage that they suffered was less than that which they did, still it was less capable of being repaired, often indeed could not be repaired at all. If a ship was burnt, they could not build another; the losses of the garrison could not be filled up; the general waste of strength could not be repaired. Carthage, in short, had only itself to draw upon as a reserve; Rome had all the countries that bordered on the Mediterranean, from Greece westward. These were advantages which were certain to tell in the long run, but meanwhile much might occur to delay the final victory.

The first thing to happen in the Roman camp was that supplies began to fall short. The country round Carthage was, of course, so much wasted by this time that practically nothing could be drawn from it. Further off, indeed, there was plenty of food and forage, but the natives showed no readiness in bringing it into camp. The fact was that there was no market; buyers there were in plenty, but not buyers with money in hand, for the military chest was empty, and the pay of the soldiers months in arrear.

The consequence of this was that the Roman generals practically raised the siege of Carthage, and devoted their time and strength to reducing the Carthaginian towns, hoping thus to supply their wants. But in this attempt they made very little progress. They began by attacking the town of Clypea. Here they failed. The fleet could not make its way into the harbour, which the townspeople had effectually protected by sinking a couple of ships in the entrance, and the Roman engineers could not reach the walls of the town.

They had better fortune with another small town in the neighbourhood, though their success was gained in a not very creditable way. The townspeople were disposed to come to terms, and a conference between their representatives and the Roman generals was accordingly held. Terms were agreed upon, and the agreement had been actually signed, when some soldiers made their way into the town. The Romans at once broke up the meeting, and treated the place as if it had been taken by storm. This conduct was, of course, as unwise as it was wicked. Next to nothing was gained by the falsehood, while every Carthaginian dependency resolved to resist to the uttermost.

Hippo was the next place to be attacked. After Carthage and Utica—the Roman head-quarters were at Utica—Hippo was the largest and most important town in Northern Africa. Its docks, its harbour, its walls were on a grand scale. Two hundred years before, Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, in his desperate struggle with Carthage had made it the base of his operations. A lavish expenditure, directed by the best engineers of the time, had made it almost impregnable.

The Roman generals had, indeed, excellent reasons for attacking it. Till it was in their power, they could hardly hope to capture Carthage, for it stood almost between their own head-quarters and that city, and commanded the route by which stores had to be carried to the besieging army. But the Roman forces were quite unequal to the undertaking. Twice did the people of Hippo, helped by a sally from Carthage, destroy the siege-works, and when the time for retiring to winter quarters arrived, nothing had been accomplished by the besiegers.

All this did vast damage to the prestige of the Romans. Far-seeing persons were convinced, as I have said, that the future belonged to them; but ordinary observers began to think, and not without some excuse, that their decline had begun. Among these were two out of three sons of King Masinissa. Possibly dissatisfaction had something to do with their state of mind. Each had expected to get more than Scipio's award had given him; both grudged to Gulussa the command of the troops, suspecting that this meant in the end their own subjection to him. Gulussa himself seemed to be still loyal to Rome, but the general discontent had not failed to reach some of the high-placed officers in his army.

Cleanor was still with Mastanabal, and, of course, watched the progress of affairs with intense interest. His hopes rose high when tidings reached the palace that the Romans had abandoned the siege of Hippo. At the evening meal that day the subject was discussed, but in a very guarded way, for the prince was still, at least in name, an ally of Rome, and his young secretary, for this was the office which Cleanor now filled, was too discreet to ignore the fact. The hour for retiring had almost come when the confidential slave who waited on the prince hurriedly entered the chamber and placed a letter in his hands. It was a double tablet closely bound together with cords of crimson silk, these again being secured by seals. Hastily cutting the cords with the dagger which he carried at his waist, the prince read the communication with that impassive and inscrutable look which it is one of the necessities of a despotic ruler to acquire. Rising shortly after from table he bade the young Greek good-night, but added, as if by an after-thought, "But stay, I have a book, a new acquisition, to show you. Come into the library."

The library was a small inner room, of a semicircular shape, which opened out of the dining-hall. It had this great advantage, contemplated, no doubt, by the builder who designed it, that conversations held in it could not by any possibility be overheard. It had an outer wall everywhere except on the side which adjoined the dining-hall. It was built on columns, so that no one could listen beneath, and there was no storey over it. As long as the outer chamber was empty, absolute secrecy was ensured. Only a bird of the air could carry the matters discussed in it.

"Listen, Cleanor," said the prince, and proceeded to read the following letter:—

Hasdrubal, son of Gisco, to King Mastanabal greeting. Know that if you would save Africa, now, and now only, you have the opportunity. The Romans have fled from Hippo fewer by a third than when they first attacked it. Bithyas, commander of Gulussa's cavalry, has come over to us with seven hundred of his best troopers. Strike then along with us such a blow as shall rid us of this devouring Beast now and for ever. Else you shall yourself surely be devoured. Think not that when Carthage is destroyed, there shall be any hope left for Numidia. Farewell!

"What think you of this, Cleanor?" the king asked after a pause. "I know well enough that you have no liking for the Romans. Indeed, why should you? But you can judge of how things stand, judge, doubtless, better in some ways than I can, for there are many things that we kings never see. Speak frankly. No one can overhear us."

"Sire," replied the young Greek, "it wants, I fear, more wisdom than I possess to give you any profitable counsel. I hate Rome, but I fear her. She makes blunders without number, but always manages to succeed in the end. She chooses mere fools and braggarts for her generals, but always finds the right man at last. So I read her history. There was a time when everyone believed that Hannibal would make an end of her, and yet she survived. She lost army after army, yet conquered in the end. After a Flaminius and a Varro8 she found a Scipio. And she has a Scipio now. I saw him, sire, the other day, and felt that he was a great man."

"But he is too young," interrupted the king. "He wants some five years yet of the age when he can be put in chief command."

"True, sire; but when a man is absolutely necessary they will have him, be he young or old."

"Then there is their unending civil strife. What of that?"

"It makes for us, no doubt. But even that they can drop on occasion."

After a pause of some minutes Mastanabal spoke again.

"Then, what do you advise?"

"Sire," replied the young Greek, "I would advise you for the present to do nothing. Let me answer this letter in person, and answer it as I think best, if you can trust me so far. I have a plan, for I have been thinking of these matters night and day. But don't ask me what it is. It is better that you should know nothing about it. I will start at once. It might look well if you were to send some troopers in pursuit. Of course they must not catch me. Put Juba in command, and we may rely on their not being too active."

"Will you carry any token from me?" asked the king.

"No, sire, it is better not. Let me have the letter; that will be enough. Will you forgive me if I steal Whitefoot from her stable?"

"Take her or any other horse that you want. Have you money enough?"

"Ample, sire; your good father provided me with that."

"Then, farewell! You make me curious, but I suppose that I may not ask any questions. In any case, and whatever happens, count me as a sure friend."

Before midnight Cleanor was well on his way to Carthage. At the first signs of dawn he drew rein, and halted for the day at a small cluster of palms, where there was abundance of herbage for his horse. Starting again at nightfall he reached the camp of Hasdrubal just as the light was showing itself in the east. The camp, it should be explained, was pitched outside the city. The larger half of the Carthaginian army occupied it. The remainder of the troops were stationed within the walls under the command of another Hasdrubal.

Cleanor, who had contrived to learn something about the arrangements of the camp, gave himself up into the hands of the officer commanding an outlying picket. Hasdrubal's letter proved, as he had anticipated, a sufficient passport, and he was conducted, after taking a few hours' rest, into the general's presence.

The personality of Hasdrubal was not by any means attractive, and Cleanor could not help comparing his puny physique and sinister expression with the commanding figure and noble countenance of Scipio. The Carthaginian may be best described by saying that he resembled the more ignoble type of Jew. It is often forgotten that the Phœnician race, of which the Carthaginian people was the principal offshoot, was closely akin to the Hebrew in blood and language.9 Hasdrubal showed the relationship plainly enough. His black, ringlety hair, prominent nose, thick, sensual lips, and keen but shifty eyes, were just such as might have been seen at that day in the meaner quarters of Jerusalem or Alexandria (then become the second capital of the Jews), and at the present time in the London Whitechapel or the Roman Ghetto.

On the present occasion, however, Hasdrubal wore his most pleasing expression. He was genuinely delighted to see Cleanor, as much delighted as he was astonished, for he had taken it for granted that the young man had perished in the destruction of Chelys.

"Hail, Cleanor!" he cried with a heartiness that was not in the least affected. "What good fortune has restored you to us? we had long given you up as dead."

Cleanor gave him in the fewest possible words a sketch of what had happened.

"And what can I do for you?" continued Hasdrubal. "If, as I hope, you are come to join us, I can find plenty of work for you. Things are looking more bright for Carthage than they have done for years past. We shall soon have all Africa with us. When that happens the Romans will have nothing left them but the ground that they stand on, and even that, I hope, not very long. You have heard of Bithyas with his squadron coming over to us? We shall soon have the rest of Gulussa's army following him, and then there will be Gulussa himself and his brothers. You have been in Mastanabal's household; tell me how he stands."

Cleanor produced in answer Hasdrubal's own letter. "The king's position," he went on, "is a very difficult one, and he must act with the greatest caution in your interests as well as in his own. If he declares himself too soon, his brothers will most certainly take the other side. What is wanted is a combination so strong as to compel all the three to declare themselves together. He wishes well to you; that I can say positively."

"That is good as far as it goes, though I should have liked something more definite."

"May I put before you," said Cleanor, "an idea which has been working for some time in my head? I am afraid that it is somewhat presumptuous in a youth such as I am to discuss such things; still, if you are willing to hear—"

"Say on, my young friend," cried the Carthaginian; "a son of your house is not likely to say anything but what is worth hearing."

"I spoke of a combination which would enable Mastanabal to declare himself. Don't you think such a combination might be made among all those who hate Rome or fear her? First there is my own nation. The League10 is, I have heard, little satisfied with its powerful friends, and it needs only a little blowing to set that fire a-blazing. Then there are the Macedonians, who haven't forgotten that they were masters of the world not so very long ago. There is Syria, there is Egypt, both of them afraid of being swallowed up before long. There are the Jews, kinsmen of your own, I believe. Is it not so?"

"Yes," said the Carthaginian, "kinsmen, but not friends. I fear that we shall not get much help there."

"Then there is Spain. What do you know, sir, of Spain? Is there any chance of a rising?"

"The northern tribes11 still hold their own, but they will hardly go outside their own borders. They are quite content to be free themselves without thinking of others. Still, there is something that might be done in Spain. Only, unluckily, the Spaniards don't love us any more than they love the Romans. Perhaps they love us rather less. However, this is a promising scheme of yours, my young friend. Ah! if it had not been for you Greeks we should have had all the shores of the Sea12 long ago. We never could get you out of Sicily. It would be strange if you were now to make amends to us for all the mischief that you have done."

Cleanor, who had read history to some purpose, could not help thinking to himself that mankind would hardly have been better off than it was if Carthage had been mistress of the west. But he put away the thought. His lot was cast, and he could not, would not change it. The memory of the inexpiable wrong that he had suffered swept over his mind, and he set himself resolutely to carry out his purpose.

"And what do you suggest?" continued Hasdrubal.

"To go myself and see what can be done," replied the Greek.

"Good! And let no time be lost. I don't mean that you are one to lose time; that you certainly are not; I mean that we had better not say anything about this to the authorities inside the walls. There will be questions, debates, delays, nothing settled, I feel sure, till it is too late. You must go unofficially, but I will give you letters of commendation which you will find useful. Succeed, and there is nothing that you may not ask, and get, from Carthage and from me. When shall you be ready to start?"

"To-day."

"And whither do you propose to go first?"

"First, of course, to Greece; then to Macedonia. I hear that there is someone there who calls himself the son of King Philip, and that the Macedonians are flocking to his standard."

"So be it. Farewell; and Hercules be with you!"

CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSION.

CLEANOR'S interview with Hasdrubal was followed by a long conversation with one of his staff, Gisco by name, in which were discussed the best and safest means of crossing from Africa to Greece. The Greek might have had at his command the best and fleetest war-galley in the docks of Carthage, but the idea did not at all commend itself to him. The harbour was not actually blockaded—Roman seamanship was hardly equal to maintaining a blockade, which often means the imminent peril of lying off a lee-shore—but it was pretty closely watched; the sea in the neighbourhood was patrolled by Roman ships, and the chances were at least equal that a Carthaginian galley would be challenged and brought to bay before it could reach Europe, and more than likely that if so challenged it would be captured. Some kind of disguise seemed to be far more promising of safety, and the more obscure the disguise the better the promise.

A little fleet of vessels was about to sail from one of the coast villages for the autumn tunny-fishing, and Cleanor resolved to embark on one of them. It had been one of his boyish delights to spend a few days from time to time at sea, and he had a long-standing acquaintance, which might almost have been called a friendship, with the veteran master of one of these craft. The tunny-fishing had always been too long an affair for the lad, who had his duties at home to attend to. The boats were about a month or more from home if the shoals had to be followed far, for the tunny is a fish that lives mostly in deep water. But there was a standing engagement that some day or other, when he happened to have leisure sufficient, the thing was to be done. Syphax—this was the old fisherman's name—knew nothing about his visitor except that he was a merry, companionable lad who had a sufficient command of gold pieces. To politics he paid no attention whatever. If there was war, it made no difference to him except, possibly, to increase the market for his tunnies, and raise the price. Romans and Carthaginians agreed in liking his wares; if they paid honestly for them, it did not matter to the fisherman what they did in other matters.

When, therefore, two or three days after his visit to Hasdrubal's camp, the Greek knocked at the door of Syphax's little house by the sea, he received a hearty welcome, and was asked no inconvenient questions.

"You're just in time, young sir," cried the old man, "if you are come for the tunnies. We start at sunset, and, if we have luck, we shall be among them by dawn to-morrow. Just now the shoals are pretty near, and we may catch a boat-load before the new moon—it is just full to-day. But you are not in a hurry, I hope, if we should have to go further afield."

"All right, Syphax!" replied Cleanor. "I shall be able to see it through this time."

The old man, who had, indeed, the experience of sixty years to draw from, was quite right in his prediction that they would find themselves among the tunnies at dawn. They had been able to get over a considerable distance during the night. At first their progress had been slow, for it was a dead calm, and the sweeps had to be used. About midnight, when they were well out of the shelter of the land, a light breeze from the south sprang up. The broad lateen sail was gladly hoisted, and the little craft sped gaily along, making, with the wind due aft, some six or seven miles an hour. Cleanor, who had fallen asleep shortly after midnight, not a little fatigued by the share which he had insisted on taking in the rowing, was awakened, after what seemed to him five minutes of slumber, by the captain.

"See," cried the old man, "there they are yonder. Thanks to Dagon, we have got among them quite as soon as I hoped."

And sure enough, about three hundred yards off, just in a line with the sun, which was beginning to lift a crimson disk out of the sea, the water seemed positively alive with fish, little and big. The tunnies had got among a shoal of sardines, and were busy with the chase. Every now and then some score of small fry would throw themselves wildly out of the water to escape their pursuer; behind them the water swirled with the rush of some monster fish, whose great black fin might be discerned, by a keen eye, just showing above the surface. Elsewhere, one of the tunnies would leap bodily into the air, his silvery side gleaming in the almost level rays of the rising sun. The sail had already been lowered, and the sweeps, after some dozen strokes to give a little way to the vessel in the right direction, had been shipped again. In another minute the little craft had quietly glided into the middle of the shoal.

Cleanor, in spite of all the grave preoccupation of his mind, was still young enough to enjoy the brisk scene which followed. There were two ways of securing the fish: the harpoon was one; the hand-line was the other, the hook being baited with a small fish or with a bit of brilliant red cloth. Syphax and two of his sailors used the former. Cleanor and the third sailor, a young man of about the same age, as being not sufficiently expert with the harpoon, were furnished with hand-lines.

The fun was fast and furious. At his very first shot the captain drove his harpoon into the side of a huge tunny. So strong was the creature that it positively towed the boat after it for a few minutes. This gave to Cleanor's baited hook exactly the motion that was wanted. It was soon seized with a force which jerked the line out of his hand, and would infallibly have carried it away altogether, had it not been wound round his leg, more, it must be confessed, by accident than by design.

A sharp struggle followed. For some time the fisherman seemed to get no nearer to securing his fish. It would suffer itself to be drawn up a few yards, and would then by a fierce rush recover and even increase its distance. But the line was of a thickness and strength which allowed any strain to be put upon it, and the hook was firmly fastened into the leathery substance of the fish's mouth. The creature's only chance of escape was that the tremendous jerks it gave might flatten the barb of the hook. This did not happen, for Syphax took good care that all his tackle should be of the very best quality, and, after a conflict of half an hour, Cleanor had the satisfaction of seeing his prey turn helpless and exhausted on to its side. He drew it up close to the vessel, glad enough to give a little rest to his fingers, which were actually bleeding with the friction of the line. A sailor put his fingers into the animal's gills, and lifted it by a great effort over the gunwale. It weighed a little more than a hundred pounds.

The sport continued till noon, only interrupted by a few short intervals when the shoal moved away and had to be followed. By noon so many fish had been secured that it became necessary to take measures for preserving them. They were split open and cleaned. The choicest portions were immersed in casks which held a liquid used for pickling; other parts were salted lightly or thoroughly, according as they were intended for speedy consumption or otherwise.

"You have brought us good luck," said Syphax to his guest, as they shared the last meal after a day's hard work. "In all my experience—and it goes back sixty years at least—I don't remember getting such sport so soon. Another day or two of this and we shall have a full cargo, and may go home again."

He had hardly spoken when his eye was caught by a strange appearance in the water,—strange, that is, to Cleanor, but only too familiar and intelligible to the old man.

"Ah!" he cried, "I thought that it was too good to last. Do you see that eddy yonder? And look, there is the brute's back-fin."

"What is it?" asked Cleanor.

"A shark, of course," replied the old man. "They never bode any good to anyone. Dagon only knows where we shall find the tunnies again. They will be leagues away from here by sunrise to-morrow, and there is no telling what way they will go. However, we have done pretty well, even if we don't see them again this moon. To-night we will lie-to; it will be time enough in the morning to decide what is to be done."

Cleanor had begun to fear that his experiment might turn out to be a failure. Nothing, he knew, would induce the old man to sail another league away from home when once his cargo had been completed. Accordingly he had hailed the shark's appearance with delight as soon as he comprehended what it meant, and now he turned to sleep with a lighter heart.

Again did the old fisherman show himself a true prophet. The next morning, and for many mornings afterwards, not a tunny was to be seen. The weather, however, continued fine, and the little craft made its way in a leisurely fashion towards the north-east, a sharp look-out being kept by day, and, as far as was possible, by night, for the object of pursuit.

Two days had passed in this way when masses of floating sea-weed and flocks of gulls began to warn the captain that he was drawing near the land.

"We have been on the wrong tack," he said to Cleanor, "and must put her head about. We are more likely to find the fish in deep water than here."

"Where are we, then?" asked the Greek.

"Almost within sight of Lilybaeum, as far as I can guess."

Cleanor felt that it was time to act. "Will you do me a favour?" he said.

"Certainly," replied the old man, "if I possibly can."

"Well, then, put me ashore."

"That is easy enough, if I am not wrong in my guess as to our whereabouts. How long do you want to stay? I should not like to lose this fine weather. As for landing, I should have had to do that in any case, for we are getting short of water."

"I don't want you to wait for me. Only land me and leave me."

"What! Tired of the business, I suppose. Well, we have been a long time doing nothing, but we must come across the tunnies soon."

Cleanor, who was anxious above all things not to be thought to have any serious object in view, allowed that the time did seem a little long. He had friends and kinsfolk, too, in Sicily, he said, and it would be a pity to lose the opportunity of paying them a visit. It was arranged, accordingly, that he should be landed, and that the crew should replenish their water-casks at the same time. He parted with his friends on the best of terms. Two gold pieces to the captain and one to each of the crew sent them away in great glee, singing his praises as the most open-handed young sportsman that they had ever had to do with.

It is needless to relate in detail our hero's journey through Sicily. He bought a stout young horse, one of the famous breed of Sicilian cobs, at Agrigentum, near which place he had been landed, and reached Syracuse without further adventure. At Syracuse he found a merchant vessel about to start for Corinth, secured a berth in her, and reached that city after a rapid and prosperous voyage.

CHAPTER VII.
THE LAST OF THE GREEKS.

MOST of Cleanor's fellow-passengers on board the Nereid—for this was the name of the singularly un-nymphlike trading vessel that carried him to Corinth—were a curious medley of races and occupations. Corinth was the mart of the western world, and was frequented, for business or for pleasure, by all its races. There were soothsayers from Egypt, who found their customers all the more credulous because they boasted that they believed in nothing; Syrian conjurors; Hebrew slave-dealers; a mixed troop of commercial travellers; and a couple of grave-looking, long-bearded men who, in spite of their philosophers' cloaks, were perhaps the greediest, the most venal of all.

One passenger, however, was of a very different class. He was a Syracusan noble, erect and vigorous notwithstanding his seventy years, whose dignified bearing and refined features spoke plainly enough of high breeding and culture. He was a descendant of Archias, the Corinthian emigrant, who, some six centuries before, had founded the colony of Syracuse, and he was coming, as he told Cleanor, in whom he had discovered a congenial companion, on a religious mission. The tie that bound a Greek colony to the mother city had a certain sanctity about it. Sentiment there was, and the bond of mutual advantage; but there was more, a feeling of filial reverence and duty, which was expressed by appropriate solemnities.

"I am bringing," said Archias—he bore the same name as his far-away ancestor—"the yearly offering from Syracuse the daughter to Corinth the mother. I have done it now more than thirty times. But I feel a certain foreboding that I shall not come on the same errand again. If that means only that my own time is near, it is nothing. I have had my share of life. The gods have dealt bountifully with me, and if they call me I shall go without grumbling. But I can't help feeling that it is something more than the trifle of my own life that is concerned, that some evil is impending either over Syracuse or over Corinth. As for my own city, I don't see where the trouble is to come from. We have long since bowed our necks to the yoke, and we bear it without wincing. For bearable it is, though it is heavy. But for Corinth I own that I have many fears. She is restless, she is vain; she has ambitions to which she is not equal. The gods help her and save her, or take me away before my eyes see her ruin!"

As they were drawing near their journey's end Archias warmly invited his young friend to make his home with him during his stay in Corinth.

"I have an apartment," he said, "reserved for me in the home of the guest-friend of Syracuse. The city rents it for me, and makes me an allowance for the expenses of my journey. I feel bound to accept it, though, without at all wishing to boast of my wealth, I may say that I don't need it. You must not think that you are burdening a poor man—that is all. I can introduce you to everybody that is worth knowing in Corinth, and, if you have any business on hand, shall doubtless be able to help you. And it will be a pleasure, I assure you, to have a companion who is not wearied with an old man's complaints of the new times."

Cleanor thankfully accepted the invitation. When the Nereid reached the port of Corinth he found that the Syracusan's arrival had been expected. A chariot was in waiting at the quay to convey them to the city. At the apartment all preparations for the comfort of the guests were complete—it was a standing order that a provision sufficient for two should be made. First there was the bath,—more than usually welcome after the somewhat squalid conditions of life on board the merchantman,—and after the bath a meal, excellently cooked and elegantly served.

The meal ended, Cleanor felt moved to become more confidential with his new friend than he had hitherto been. Naturally he had been very reserved, giving no reason for Archias to suppose that he had other objects in his travels than amusement or instruction. But he felt that it would be somewhat ungracious to maintain this attitude while he was enjoying so kind and generous an hospitality. In a conversation that was prolonged far into the night he opened up his mind with considerable freedom. His precise schemes he did not mention; they were scarcely his own secret; and he said nothing about Hasdrubal, feeling—for he had studied history with intelligence and sympathy—that a Syracusan noble would scarcely look with favour on anything that came from Carthage, the oldest and bitterest enemy of his country. But he gave a general description of his hope and aim, a common union of the world under the leadership of the Greek race against the domination with which Rome was threatening it.

The Syracusan listened with profound attention. "It has done me good," he said, "to hear you. I did not know that such enthusiasm was to be found nowadays. The very word has gone out of fashion, I may say fallen into disrepute. It used to mean inspiration, now it means madness. Our young men care for nothing but sport, and even their sport has to be done for them by others. They have chariots, but they hire men to drive them; the cestus13 and the wrestling ring are left to professional athletes. The only game which they are not too languid to practise with their own hands is the kottabos, and the kottabos14 is not exactly that for which our fathers valued all these things, a preparation for war. I hate to discourage you, but I should be sorry to see you ruining your life in some hopeless cause."

"But, if I may say so much with all respect, isn't this exactly what has been said time after time? May there not be something better than you think, than anybody would think, in these frivolous young fellows? Who would have thought Alcibiades anything but a foolish fop, and yet what a soldier he was when the time came!"

"Well, I hope that you are right," replied the old man; "only your Alcibiades must make haste to show himself, or else it will be too late. But it is not only this, the folly and frivolity of the youth, that discourages me; it is the hopeless meanness and jealousy of the various states. If I could raise from the dead the very best leader a Greek city ever had, I should still despair. Now listen to the story that I have to tell you. Don't think that I am a mere grumbler, who does his best to discourage thoughts that are too high for him to understand; I speak from a bitter experience. But you shall hear.

"I am just old enough to remember the storm and sack of my native city by the Romans. I was but five years old, but even a child of five does not forget when he sees, as I saw, his father and his elder brother killed before his eyes. I should have been killed myself—for the soldiers, who had suffered terribly in the siege, spared no one—but for Marcellus himself.15 He let the slave who waited on me carry me off to his own hut. That worthy slave and his good wife kept me for five years out of their scanty wages—he was a workman in the stone-quarries, and she sold cakes to schoolboys in the streets—till I was ten years old. Then interest was made with the Senate at Rome, and part of the family property was given back to me. You will understand that I was very restless at Syracuse, but I could not move till I was twenty-five, for my father's will had fixed this age for my becoming my own master. It is a custom in our family, and I was too dutiful to think of breaking it. But the moment I became my own master I made haste to carry out a plan which I had been long thinking of. The famous soldier of the time was Philopœmen, the Arcadian. It was a privilege to serve under him as a volunteer, and there were always ten times more applications than there were places to fill. However, by great good luck, and partly, I may say, through my having had the good fortune to win the foot-race at Olympia, I was chosen. I landed here—it is more than forty-five years ago—and made my way to his home in Arcadia. He had himself just come back from Sparta, which he had brought over to the cause of Greece. Sparta, as I dare say you know, has always cared much for herself, and very little for anything or anybody else. I shall never forget what happened a few days after my arrival. The Spartans, or, I should rather say, the reforming party among the Spartans—for there never was a Greek city yet but had two parties in it at the very least—felt greatly obliged to him for what he had done, and determined to make him a present. Well, they sent three of their chief citizens to offer it to him. They came, and Philopœmen entertained them. Of course he knew nothing about the object of their coming, and they said nothing about it. They seemed ill at ease—that I could not help observing—though their host was all that was courteous and agreeable; but speak they couldn't. There was something about the man which positively forbade their mentioning such a matter. The next day they went away, leaving their offer unspoken. But as they could hardly go back to Sparta with this story, they put the matter into the hands of an old friend to carry out.

"It seems an easy thing to get rid of a pocketful of gold, but this man didn't find it so. Everything about Philopœmen was so simple, so frugal, he seemed so absolutely above things of the kind, that it was impossible to offer him money. The man went away without saying anything. He came a second time, and it was the same thing all over again. I don't say but what Philopœmen had now some inkling of what was on hand. There was a twinkle in his eye, as if he was enjoying some joke greatly. As for me, I was completely mystified. Then the three Spartans came back again, and this time they forced themselves to speak, and, of course, did it in the clumsiest, most brutal fashion. It was a large sum, too, a hundred and twenty talents,16 if I remember right.

"Philopœmen smiled. 'My friends,' he said, 'you would have laid out this money very badly if I were to take it. Don't buy your friends; you have them already. Buy your enemies.'

"And a good friend he showed himself. He wasn't in office then, and the President of the League, having a difference with the Spartans in some matter of no great importance, was all for using force.

"'Pray,' said Philopœmen to him, 'don't do anything of the kind. It is sheer madness to quarrel with a great Greek state, when the Romans are on the watch to take advantage of our divisions.'

"And when he found that speaking was of no use, he mounted his horse and rode straight to Sparta—I was with him—to warn them of what was going to be done. Sure enough, in the course of ten days or so, the President comes with some five thousand men of his own and half a Roman legion; but Sparta was ready. They had to go back again without doing any harm. Some two months afterwards he was chosen President—for the eighth time it was—very much against his will, for he had passed his seventieth year, and was hoping to spend the rest of his days in peace. But it was not to be. There was a revolution in Messene, one of the endless changes which tempt one to think, against one's own conscience, that the steady, fixed rule of an able, honest tyrant is the best kind of government that a state can have. The Messenians, accordingly, renounced the League. This might have been endured; but it was another matter when they proceeded to seize a strong place outside their own borders. Philopœmen was lying sick with fever at the time in Argos, but he left his bed immediately, and was on horseback in less than an hour. I was with him; indeed, I never left him of my own free will. Before nightfall we had reached his home in Arcadia, four hundred furlongs was the distance, and the roads about as rough and steep as you will find anywhere in Greece. The next day he sent round the city calling for volunteers. Some three hundred joined him—gentlemen, all of them, who furnished their own arms, and rode their own horses. We had a smart brush with the enemy, and got the better of them. But they were strongly reinforced, and as we were now heavily overmatched, Philopœmen gave the signal to fall back. His one thought now was to save the volunteers.

"'They are the heart's blood of the city,' he said to me, 'and they must not be wasted.'

"He placed himself with a few troopers, who formed his body-guard, in the rear, and protected their retreat. He was a famous swordsman, you must know, and old as he was, there were very few who cared to come to close quarters with him. But of course they had their darts, and he was soon wounded in several places, as, indeed, we all were. And then on some very rough ground his horse stumbled and threw him. He was an old man, you see, and he had had two days of hard riding, and the fever fit—which was of the ague kind, caught some years before when he was campaigning in Crete—was coming upon him.

"'Save yourselves,' he said to us; 'your country will want you for many years yet, but I am an old man.'

"However, he gave me leave to stay; the others he commanded on their obedience to go. When the enemy came up he had fainted. They thought he was dead, and began to strip him of his arms, but before they had finished he came to himself. My blood boils to this day when I think how they treated him. They bound his hands behind his back, and drove him before them on foot as he was, half-dead with fatigue and sickness.

"That night we bivouacked in the open. Some of the troopers had a feeling of pity or shame. One lent him his cloak to keep the cold off, though he had to go without one himself; another shared his ration of bread, dried meat, and rough wine with him. On the evening of the next day we came to Messene town, and I must do the townsfolk the justice to say that the sight was not at all to their liking. I heard many of them cursing the man—Deinocrates was his name, and he was as ill-conditioned a scoundrel as there was in Greece—who had given the orders for it to be done. Still, no one had the courage to interfere, and Deinocrates determined to finish matters before he was hindered; for he knew perfectly well that the League would spare nothing to get back their president.

He thrust him, therefore, into a dungeon that was called the Treasury, a dreadful hole without a window or door, but having the entrance to it blocked by a huge stone. "Deinocrates then held a hurried council with some of his own party. They voted with one accord for death. What followed I heard from the executioner himself, who was one of Deinocrates' slaves. His story was this:

"'My master said to me, 'Take this cup'—I guessed from the look and the smell that it was hemlock—'to the prisoner, and don't leave him till he drinks it.' I went in—it wanted but a little time to midnight—and found Philopœmen awake. 'Ah!' he said, when he saw me, 'your master is a generous man, and sends me, I doubt not, a draught of one of his richest vintages. But before I drink it, answer me, if you can, one question. Have any prisoners been brought in?' I said that I had not heard of any. 'None of the young horsemen that were with me?' I said that I had not seen them. He smiled and said, 'You bring good tidings. Things have not gone altogether ill with me.' Then he took the cup and drank it up without another word. This done he lay down again. I watched by him, but though I heard him breathing heavily he never moved. Just before cock-crow I judged that he died, for it was then that breathing ceased, and when I put my hand on his heart I could feel nothing.'

"That was the end of Philopœmen, 'the last of the Greeks', as I heard an enemy, a Roman, call him. And what, my dear young friend, can Greece do without Greeks?"

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CORINTHIAN ASSEMBLY.

CLEANOR was of far too sanguine a temperament to allow himself to be daunted by the gloomy reminiscences of his friend. "Things", he said to himself, "are altered since then. Rome is more manifestly formidable, for she has rid herself of more than one rival. The mere instinct of self-preservation must make those that are left unite."

Still, he could not hide from himself various discouraging facts that forced themselves upon his notice. In the first place Corinth, or, rather, the Corinthian people, disappointed him. The place itself was intensely interesting; he did not know whether to admire more the splendid remains of the past that it had to show, or the evidences of a prosperous present with which it abounded.

At one time he would make his way to the highest point of the citadel, the Acro-Corinthus, and look down upon the city, crowded as it was with temples, public halls, mansions, on which the wealth of centuries had been lavished. At another he would spend long hours in wandering about the docks, that one which brought to the "City of the Two Seas" the commerce of the West, or that other which was filled with the merchandise of the East.

There were vessels of all sizes and of every kind of rig, manned with seamen of every nationality, and bringing the merchandise of every country, from the Atlantic shores on the west to remote regions of the east of which no European knew except by repute. Blocks of tin and strings of amber from far-off islands of the north, ivory and precious stones from the African coasts far to the south of the Pillars of Hercules, iron from Elba, cattle and fruit from the Balearic Isles, wines from Sicily and the shores of the Adriatic, were among the most common articles in the western harbour; to the eastern harbour came silks from China, metal work from India,—then as now famous for the skill of its handicraftsmen,—dried fruits from Lesser Asia, salt and pickled fish from the Black Sea, wheat from Egypt, and wines, some of them the finest vintages in the world, from the islands of the Ægean. Corinth, then, was interesting enough, making the impression upon a stranger of being one of the busiest and wealthiest places in the world.

But what of the Corinthians? A more mixed, I may say mongrel, multitude could not be seen anywhere. Cleanor's first impression was that the population contained specimens of every nation upon earth—except Greeks. There were swarms of Asiatics from the Lesser Asia and from Syria, yellow-skinned Egyptians, Arabs and Moors showing every variety of brown, and negroes with their glossy black. In effective contrast to these might be seen a few Gauls, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, whose imposing stature seemed to dwarf to pigmies the crowds through which they shouldered their way. Now and then a Roman, conspicuous in his white toga edged with a narrow purple stripe,17 moved along with slow, dignified step, which seemed to speak of a man born to rule. It was curious to note the expression of fear and hatred with which he was regarded. Again and again, as he watched this motley crowd thronging the streets with an endless variety of costume, colour, and dress, Cleanor felt disposed to say, "Here is Corinth, but where are the Corinthians?" And when he did see specimens of the genuine Corinthian, he had to own to himself that they did not greatly impress him. The city had its gilded youth, most of them belonging to the second or third generations of families enriched by trade, but some claiming to be Bacchiadæ,18 or even descendants of the mythical Sisyphus who had founded the city some fourteen centuries before. A more debauched, spendthrift, and generally useless set he had never seen. They made no pretence to culture; they shuddered at the idea of a campaign; even the sports of the arena were too much for their effeminate frames. Cleanor felt his spirits sink and his hopes diminish day by day, for Corinth was now the capital of Greece. Archias, his host, watched him meanwhile with a compassionate interest. He had had something of the same enthusiasm himself in bygone days, and had known the inexpressible pain of having to own that it was a delusion.

"Do you know," he said to his young guest some ten days after their arrival, "that there is to be an important meeting of the Assembly to-morrow?"

"I heard Polemon say something about it to-day. He asked one of the young fellows who were playing at kottabos with him whether he thought of going, and seemed to surprise him very much by the question. Polemon, you see, has not been living in Corinth for much more than a year, and has not quite caught the high-toned Corinthian manner. He actually imagines it possible for a man to have some interest in public affairs. You should have heard the astonishment in his friend's voice when he answered him, 'Going to the Assembly, did you say? Why, my dear fellow, I have never been to the Assembly, and certainly never shall, till they make me Eparch or whatever they call it, when I shall have to, I suppose. And to-morrow of all days in the year! Why, don't you know that Pintocles of Megara is coming over with his champion team of quails, and that I am going to meet them with mine? We have a wager of a hundred gold pieces on the event. If one side kills all the birds on the other side, the loser is to pay double stakes. In any case the winner is to give a dinner to the loser and his friends. Going to the Assembly, indeed!' That is all that I have heard about it."

"Then I had better enlighten you," replied Archias. "You know that the Assembly has been called to hear the envoys from Rome state the terms which the Senate is willing to agree to. You ought to be there. You will find it very interesting, whatever these young gentlemen with their teams of fighting quails may think about it."

"Certainly I should like to go; but how am I to get in? At Athens they were very particular not to admit any one that was not a citizen."

"Don't trouble yourself on that score. Here they are not particular at all. Simply follow the crowd. There will be no one to stop you."

And so it turned out. There were door-keepers at the entrances to the vast amphitheatre in which the meeting of the Assembly was held, but they did not attempt to exclude anyone. Cleanor found himself, when he was seated, in the midst of a crowd almost as variegated and as polyglot as that at which he was accustomed to gaze in the streets. No one could suppose that any large proportion of them were genuine Corinthian citizens. The fourth hour19 was the time appointed for the commencement of business, and the multitude spent the interval much in the same way that a waiting crowd would do nowadays. They cheered or hissed any well-known citizen as he took his place, yelled out witticisms which seemed to please the more the coarser and more personal they were, sang songs with noisy choruses, and kept up generally an incessant uproar. Men carrying baskets of cakes and sweetmeats, or jars of wine, passed up and down the spaces between the blocks of seats, and did a brisk business in their respective wares.

A brief hush fell upon the noisy crowd when, after the signal had been given by the blast of a trumpet, the doors leading into what may be called the magistrates' box were thrown open, and the officials, who were to conduct the business of the day filed in. There was nothing noteworthy about their reception, but when the figures of the two Roman envoys became visible, a storm of groans and hisses broke out ten times louder and fiercer than the noisiest manifestation that had greeted the most unpopular Corinthian. The two Romans bore themselves with characteristic indifference, took their seats in the places allotted to them, and watched the furious multitude with the utmost unconcern.

After the howling and stamping had gone on for some quarter of an hour, the demonstration began to die away. One of the magistrates dropped a few grains of incense into a fire that was burning in front of him, and poured out a little wine, muttering at the same time an invocation to Zeus, the patron deity of Corinth. This was equivalent to our "opening the proceedings with prayer". This ceremony completed, a herald proclaimed that the Assembly was constituted, and the presiding magistrate stepped forward to open the proceedings.

His speech was of the briefest. "Citizens of Corinth," he said, "you are called together to-day to hear the terms on which the Senate and People of Rome are willing to make a treaty of perpetual friendship with you. They have sent two distinguished citizens, both members of the Senate, who will set the matter before you, and whom you will receive with that courtesy which it is the custom of Corinth to show to the ambassadors of other nations."

The Romans stepped to the front of the platform. They were met for a few moments with a renewal of the uproar which had greeted their first appearance. But the Assembly was genuinely anxious to hear what they had to say, and the disturbing element was hushed into silence.

Rome had paid the Greek people the compliment of sending them envoys who could address them in their own language. Titus Manlius—this was the name of the senior envoy—was one of the most cultured men of the time, one of the Scipio circle, and feeling a genuine admiration for Greece, for the Greece, i.e., of the past, for he had no little contempt for the Greece of the present. On the present occasion, however, he had every wish to please and conciliate.

When it was seen that he was going to address the Assembly without the aid of an interpreter, he was greeted with applause, which was renewed after he had uttered a few sentences with a fluency and purity of accent which much impressed his hearers, few of whom, indeed, could in these respects have rivalled him. When he went on, in a few well-turned phrases, to compliment his hearers on the dignity and antiquity of their city, and on the services which they had rendered to Greece in repelling the barbarians from without, and checking undue ambition from within, he was met with loud applause.

But after compliments came business, after sweets bitter. The first statement was that the Senate and People of Rome desired that every Greek city should enjoy complete freedom, electing its own magistrates, and being governed by its own laws.

This was received with some applause, though the Assembly was acute enough to be aware that a generality of this kind might not mean very much.

The speaker went on: "Every city may form such alliances as may seem expedient, provided only that they be not to the injury of the public peace. No city shall be compelled to enter into or to give up any alliance against its will."

At this there were loud expressions of disapproval. It was a cardinal point with the League, of which Corinth was the ruling member, that every city in Greece must join it. At this very time Sparta was insisting on her right to stand alone, and the other states, headed by Corinth, were insisting that she must join them. And now Rome had pronounced in favour of Sparta.

The third item in the programme pleased the audience still less, for it touched their pride at a very tender point. "A Roman garrison will occupy the citadel until affairs shall have been finally arranged. The occupation is for a time only, and will cease as soon as this may be done without injury to the public good."

But when the last condition was announced it was met with a perfect storm of rage. "Anxious to promote the general welfare of Greece, the Senate and People of Rome decree that the island of Delos shall be a free port."

This was a thing that everybody could understand. Freedom, after all, was not much more than a sentiment, and alliances were a matter for rulers to settle. Even a garrison in the citadel might be endured, for it meant the spending of a good deal of money. But Delos a free port! That was beyond all bearing. There was not a man in the whole of the Assembly but would be distinctly the poorer for it.

The Roman had scarcely sat down when Critolaüs, the president of the League, sprang to his feet, and poured out a furious oration, in which he denounced the hypocrisy, the arrogance, and the greed of Rome. As he spoke, the temper of his audience rose higher and higher. The whole multitude sprang to their feet, howling, and shaking their fists at the Romans as they sat calm and indifferent in their place. Still the crisis, dangerous as it looked, might have passed off but for the mischievous act of some half-witted fellow who had found his way into the Assembly.