CLEANOR gladly accepted the warm invitation of the young Scipio again to become his guest. For the present the Greek's plans were uncertain. His most definite idea was to follow Theoxena and her daughter to Italy as soon as possible. It had been arranged that the two women should depart on the following day. He would have to look for his own passage to the favour of the general; all that he could do, therefore, was to hold himself in readiness to depart as soon as the opportunity should offer.
The day was not to pass, however, without giving quite a new aspect to the future. The two friends had been exchanging experiences, and were just thinking of sleep,—when Polybius entered the tent. After greeting Cleanor—whom he had not seen since they had parted in Egypt—in the kindest way, not, however, without a smiling rebuke for the trick which he had played, he explained his errand.
"I am going," he said, "as soon as is possible to Greece, where things are in a critical condition, and I want you to go with me. I come direct from the general, who has put a ship of war at my service, and who fully approves of your accompanying me. I was, he said, to tell you this from him. He also gave me another message for you. He wants you to give what help you can in the translation of this great book on Agriculture. There will be a committee appointed to carry it out, and you are to be on it if it pleases you. But that will wait, anyhow for a few months. The affair in Greece will not wait; the sooner we get there the better, if we are to do any good."
Nothing could have been more to Cleanor's mind than this proposal, and he promised to be ready to depart as soon as he was wanted. Accordingly the very next day, after bidding Theoxena and her daughter an affectionate farewell in the morning, he himself embarked about sunset with Polybius. For some time the voyage was fairly prosperous, if not very rapid. The wind came mostly from the north, with a touch of east in it. The ship had but a poor crew of rowers, and its sailing capacities were small. If the wind had more than one point from the east the sails had to be hauled down and the oars resorted to.
On the tenth day there came a change in the weather. The wind shifted suddenly to the south-west. This change was at first hailed with delight by everyone on board; by the rowers, who were rejoiced to be set free from their toil, by the passengers, who were beginning to be impatient of their tedious progress. But a wind from the south-west has always something dangerous about it. At daybreak a steady breeze, it grew before night into something like a gale, and it was accompanied by weather so thick that, failing any observation of either sun or stars, the captain lost his reckoning entirely.
After two days of this alarming uncertainty the weather cleared only just in time, as everyone on board saw plainly enough, to save the ship from a catastrophe. About three miles to the north the cliffs of Malia58 could be seen, crowned by the famous temple of Apollo, whose gilded roof showed itself when it was touched, from time to time, by some passing gleam of sunshine. On their right the cliffs of Cythera were visible. This was satisfactory in a way, but the plan of the voyage, which was to make for the western end of the Corinthian Gulf, had failed. The wind was blowing far too strongly to allow the captain to attempt a north-western course. He had, therefore, no alternative but to let it carry him up the Ægean. What had been lost was the safe and easy passage up the quiet landlocked waters of the gulf, and with it the certainty of reaching Corinth at or near the appointed time.
After a few hours the weather again changed for the worse. The clouds came lower, the wind rose. When night came all that the captain and the crew knew of their whereabouts was that they were not far from Melos, of which they had just caught a glimpse, in dangerous proximity, on their larboard bow. Melos, they knew, was not by any means on their straight course to Corinth. They were, indeed, being blown out of this more and more as time went on. The best they could hope for was that they might not be dashed on one of the rugged and inhospitable islands and islets with which the south-western Ægean was so thickly studded.
All night they scudded before the wind under one small sail, just enough to give some steering power to the rudder. More than once they heard the crash of unseen breakers on some unseen shore, and turned their course away from the warning sound. With the morning came another welcome change of weather. The wind dropped almost instantaneously; the sky cleared till not a cloud could be seen, and the sea, though the long rollers witnessed to its recent agitation, settled rapidly into calm.
About two miles to the north, yet seen so distinctly through the clear atmosphere of early spring that it seemed almost within a stone's-throw, lay a small island which Cleanor recognized at the first glance. Only one place in the world brought together so closely, within so small a space yet on a scale so magnificent, the two great elements of Greek life, commerce and religion. On the low-lying land of the west coast was to be seen the town of Delos, with its thickly-clustered dwellings. Almost, as it seemed, among these rose a forest of masts, for Delos was a mart of exchange for the trade of the Mediterranean, and the trade of the Mediterranean was practically the trade of the civilized world. Close behind the town, in all the splendour of its white Parian marble, rose the famous temple of the tutelary god of the isle, Phœbus Apollo, while nestling beside it were the smaller shrines of his twin sister Phœbe or Artemis and of Aphrodite. Behind these again was the hill of Cynthus, its steep declivity clothed with trees, among which gleamed here and there the white shining walls of buildings both sacred and secular.
"Delos!" cried the captain; "well, it might have been worse, and if we can only get out of the harbour as easily and quickly as it seems likely we shall get into it, we shall have nothing to complain of."
"Here," cried Cleanor to Polybius as they stood side by side on the galley's deck, "here is one of my dreams come to pass! I have always desired to see Delos, and here it is. Truly, here Greece is still to be seen in all its glory."
Polybius smiled somewhat bitterly. "There is very little of Greece, I fear, about Delos nowadays."
"But it belongs to Athens surely," broke in the young Greek, "just as it did in the best times of Greece."
"Yes, it belongs to Athens," replied his friend; "if that means that Athenian coin is circulated there, and the government is carried on in the name of the Athenian people. But Delos is Roman for all practical purposes. As for the Delians themselves, they were all deported twenty years ago, and this time unfortunately Apollo did not interfere.59 No, my dear friend, it is only the past of Delos that belongs to Greece, and that happily no power on earth can take from her. That, thank the gods, we can still enjoy."
Some hours were pleasantly spent by the two friends in examining the sights of the place. Polybius had been there two or three times before; Cleanor, who knew every reference to the sacred island,—from the young palm-tree to which Ulysses compared the fair Nausicaa onwards,—was prepared thoroughly to enjoy the guidance of so intelligent a companion. Later on in the day they strolled through the business town. Evidently it was a thriving place. The docks were crowded with ships, the wharves covered with merchandise of every kind, from the spices of the East to the ivory brought by African hunters from the great forests of the South. But there was little or nothing Greek about it. Two out of three among the huge factories which lined the harbour-side belonged to Roman traders. The others belonged to merchants of Tyre, of Antioch, of Joppa, of Alexandria, but it was the exception to find a Greek name among them. Cleanor could not help confessing to himself that another illusion was gone. The most famous seat of Greek life, whether sacred or secular, had passed into the power of the stranger.
The anxiety of the travellers to get to their journey's end was increased by all that they heard in the island. It was clear, by all accounts, that the fate of Corinth was imminent. But, much against their wills, their stay was prolonged. The ship had received so severe a buffeting during its voyage from Carthage that it could not be said to be seaworthy. It had to be laid up in dock and repaired. And then, when it was pronounced ready for sea, the weather made it absolutely impossible to start. The captain had been only too prescient when he doubted whether they should be able to get out of the harbour as easily as they got in.
There was, indeed, much to be seen in Delos, which was then at the height of its prosperity, and adorned with the offerings which the piety of more than five hundred years had heaped upon it. But Polybius and his companion were so impatient to reach their destination that the time seemed to hang heavily on their hands. Disturbing rumours, too, were current about the policy which Rome was likely to pursue at Corinth. That the city would speedily be captured was considered certain, and there were ominous conjectures as to its probable fate. One day the friends had accepted an invitation to dinner from Diagoras, the Athenian governor of the island, and Corinth was naturally the principal subject of conversation. What Diagoras had to say was alarming in the extreme.
"You have come from Carthage," he said. "Well, what you have seen there you will see again at Corinth. The capitalists and the commercial party have it all their own way at Rome now, and their policy is, of course, monopoly. Every trade rival must be put out of the way. Carthage has been destroyed. That was not, as you know, the doing of the nobles. Scipio and his friends were strongly against it. The capitalists carried it in the Senate, partly by their own votes, partly by the votes which they practically bought. I could tell you the men—and some of their names would surprise you—whose votes were purchased, and I could tell you the price that was paid for them. The same thing has happened over and over again. Listen to this. I must not tell you the name of my correspondent, but his authority is beyond all doubt:
"'The vote has gone as I expected. Corinth is to perish. The division was closer than in the Carthage affair, for the crime—I can call it nothing less—is more scandalous and more unprovoked. Carthage was once formidable, though she has long ceased to be so; Corinth never could have caused a moment's fear to Rome. It is simply the case of a trader burning down a rival's warehouse.'
"This letter I received last night," the governor continued, "and it appears to have been delayed on the way. The Senate's instructions to Mummius—it is he that is in command at Corinth, and a very different man from your Scipio, I fancy—must have reached him by this time."
"Then we are too late," said Polybius with a groan.
"Yes," replied the governor, "though I do not see what you could have done even if you had not been delayed. All that will be in your power will be to help individuals. I should recommend you, by the way, to go to Athens first, and get a safe-conduct and letters of introduction from the Roman agent there. These will make your task easier."
Two or three days after this conversation the travellers were able to make a start. A gentle breeze from the east carried them out of the harbour, and took them quickly to their journey's end.
THE news that met the travellers when they arrived at Athens was as bad as their worst fears had anticipated. The whole city was in mourning. One of her sister states—after herself the most splendid, and wealthy beyond anything to which she could pretend—had perished, and Athens, more generous than her rival had been in former days, grieved unfeignedly for her fate.60 It was a lamentable story of rashness, incapacity, and cowardice that Polybius and Cleanor had to listen to, and they heard it in full detail from a young soldier who had himself taken part in the campaign. At first the young man could hardly be persuaded to speak, so heartily ashamed was he of the conduct of his countrymen. At last, assured of the sympathetic temper of his hearers, he related a narrative, of which it will be sufficient for me to give an outline.
"I was one of the aides-de-camp to the general of the year, Critolaüs. Did you know him?"
"Yes," said Polybius, "only too well; a more incompetent fool never ruined the affairs of a state."
"Well," said the young soldier, "he has paid for his folly. Early in this year we marched out of our winter-quarters near Corinth to attack Heraclea in Thessaly, which had declared itself out of the League.61 We had just sat down before the town when news came that the Roman army was approaching. Immediately there was a scuttle. The general did not wait to hear what was the force of the enemy, but was off at once. Some of his officers begged him to make a stand at Thermopylæ. We were not all of us such curs as he. There really was a chance of holding the pass till we could get any help that might be forthcoming. Anyhow, it was a place where a Greek might fight with the best hope, and die with the most honour. But the general had no wish to fight, much less to die. He hurried through Thermopylæ, thinking to get back to the intrenched camp at Corinth in which we had wintered; but Metellus—he was in command of the Romans—was too quick for us. He overtook us when we had got about twenty miles from Thermopylæ, and there was a battle,—if you may call it a battle, when one side charges and the other runs away. The Thebans, it is true, held their ground. They may call the Thebans stupid, but they are wonderfully good soldiers. Yet what was the good of one corps standing firm when there was no one to back it up? As for Critolaüs, no one knows what became of him. He galloped off as soon as the Roman troops came in sight, and he has never been seen from that day to this.
"Well, nothing was left of the army but a few scattered troops and companies, and many of these were cut up, or taken prisoners one by one. I am bound to say that the Romans behaved very well. They offered quarter to anyone who would lay down his arms, and safety to every state that would submit. It was more than could be expected, for really they could have imposed any terms that they pleased. But our chiefs, led by Diæus, who had succeeded Critolaüs, were bent on securing their own lives. They were afraid that on some pretext they would be excepted in any amnesty that might be offered, and so they went on fighting. Diæus made a levy en masse of the whole population, and, besides, armed twelve thousand slaves, if you may call it arming a man to give him a blunt sword and a spear with a cracked shaft. Money he raised in any way he could; first he confiscated the property of all who belonged to the peace party, and made up what was wanting—and a good deal was wanting—by robbing his own friends. He took up his position on the Isthmus, close to what is left of the wall built in the Persian time.62 Everything went badly from the first. Our vanguard was near Megara, and, of course, we expected that it would make a stand, so as to give us a little time. It had a strong position which it might have held for at least three or four days. Well, it fled without so much as striking a blow.
"After this Metellus, who really behaved in the most moderate way, gave Diæus a chance. He sent envoys to offer terms, really liberal terms, too, which it would have been no dishonour for people much better off than we were to accept. To make them more acceptable, as he thought, these envoys were Greeks, men of the highest character. But our general would not listen to them. Not only that, but he charged them in the public assembly with being traitors, and they were all but killed in the riot that followed. Then we had yet another chance. Philo the Thessalian, than whom there is no man more honoured in Greece, came with conditions for an arrangement. Some of the general's own party were convinced. Old Stratius, who has never been a friend to Rome, as you know, actually grovelled on the ground, and caught Diæus by the knees, entreating him to give way. But it was all of no use. Philo had to go away without accomplishing anything. In fact, all this seemed only to make the man more furious. He had some of his own officers brought before a court-martial on the charge of being in communication with the enemy. Their real fault was that they had been imprudent enough to show that they were in favour of peace. One of them was found guilty and put to the torture. He bore it, I was told, without saying a word. Two others escaped with their lives, but only by paying a bribe—one a talent, the other forty minæ, for the man was as greedy as he was cruel, and he went on robbing and murdering with the sword within a foot of his own neck.
"Then we had another reprieve. There was a change of generals in the Roman army. Mummius, who had crossed from Italy, took over the command from Metellus. While new arrangements were being made the Romans sat still, and Diæus took the notion into his head that they were beginning to be afraid of us. Then there happened some small affair of outposts in which our cavalry got the best of it. It was but a trifle, not more than half a dozen men killed or wounded on either side, but it elated our chief beyond all measure. First he sent envoys to offer terms to the Romans. They were to evacuate Greece, and give hostages as guarantee that they would not return. If they did this, Diæus would allow them to depart in safety. It was the act of a madman, and, of course, Mummius did not even condescend to send back an answer.
"But it was a good thing for me. I, you see, was one of the envoys, and I did not go back with them. It was quite enough for me to go through the Roman camp, and see the admirable order and discipline, not to speak of the number of the men, to feel sure that we had not the shadow of a chance. I frankly told the Roman general, who seems a kind-hearted man, though somewhat of a boor, how I was situated. I was really serving under compulsion, a sort of hostage for my father, who is a leader of the peace party, and as he was out of danger now, living as he did in Northern Greece, and so not within reach of the League, I felt free to leave, without having to feel myself a deserter. The general was very kind, and advised me to leave the seat of war, where, indeed, it would have been painful for me to stay, whatever might happen. Accordingly I came to Athens; that is why I have the pleasure of seeing you to-day."
"And what has happened since?" asked Polybius.
"A despatch came in yesterday. Everything has gone as I expected. The League generals were as rash at the end as they were timorous at the beginning. They offered battle to the Romans though these were twice as strong in actual numbers, not to speak of being vastly superior in discipline and quality generally. The cavalry turned and fled without waiting to cross swords with the enemy. The infantry, who were mostly Thebans, behaved better, but the number of the enemy told against them. They were outflanked and broken. After that, of course, all was over. The general wrote that he held back his troops from the pursuit."
"And Diæus, what of him?" asked Polybius. "I hope the villain has had his deserts. How has Greece sinned against the gods that she should be cursed with having such fellows put in authority over her?"
"Nothing was known of what happened to him. But his body was not found among the dead."
Polybius and his companion were kept for three days longer in Athens, the Roman commissioner refusing them a permit to pass to the front. Mummius was still before the city. Till he had entered it the presence of strangers in the camp was considered to be inconvenient. Late in the evening of the third day a despatch arrived from him, dated from the citadel of Corinth. He explained that no resistance had been offered by the Greek army; but that, finding it difficult to believe that so strong a place could be given up without some attempt at defence, he had waited till he could be sure that no stratagem was intended. The city, he added, was perfectly quiet; all the leaders of the hostile army had either fallen in battle or were prisoners in his hands. Diæus was reported to have fled into Arcadia, and to have there committed suicide along with his wife, but the report was not at present confirmed.
The Roman commissioner immediately on receiving this news sent the desired permission to Polybius, and the two friends, who had everything in readiness for their journey, started at once. Travelling all night they reached Corinth, which was not more than thirty miles from Athens, shortly after dawn. The city presented a most lamentable appearance. The great market-place, and all the other squares and open spaces, were thronged with a helpless and miserable crowd of men, women, and children, of all ages and all ranks, doomed to the cruellest lot that humanity can endure. The Senate and People of Rome, provoked, it must be allowed, to the utmost by the insolence and folly of the Corinthians, had passed the savage decree that the whole population of the city should be sent to the slave-market.
The horrible business had already begun. The wretched victims had been divided into lots according to sex and age. The quæstor's clerks—the quæstor, it may be explained, was the officer who had charge of finance—were busy noting down particulars, and the loathsome crew of slave-dealers and their assistants, foul creatures that always followed close on the track of a Roman army, were appraising the goods which were soon to be offered for competition. Nobles of ancient houses, merchants, who but a month before could have matched their riches with the wealthiest capitalists of Rome, the golden youth of the most luxurious city of the world, and, saddest of all, delicate women, whose beauty had been jealously guarded even from sun and wind, stood helplessly exposed to the brutal gaze and yet more brutal handling of Egyptian and Syrian slave-dealers, barbarians to whom, in the haughty pride of their Hellenism, they would scarcely have conceded the title of man.
Cleanor recognized among the victims several whose acquaintance he had made during his brief sojourn in Corinth during the previous year. The contrast between their present degradation and the almost insolent pride of their prosperous days touched him to the heart. The emotion of Polybius was even more profound. Some of these men were lifelong friends. He had sat by their side at the council; he had been a guest at their hospitable tables. Some of them bore names associated with the greatest glories of Greece. To see them exposed for sale like so many sheep or oxen was a thing more strange and more horrible than he could have conceived to be possible.
Not less strange, if less harrowing, was the spectacle which presented itself to the two friends when they reached that quarter of the city in which the Roman soldiery had bivouacked. One of the first things that they saw was a group of soldiers off duty busy with a game of hazard. For the convenience of having a level surface on which to throw the dice they had stretched a canvas on the ground. Polybius, whose eye was caught by what looked like a figure on this improvised dice-table, approached and looked over the shoulder of one of the players to examine it more closely. He started back in amazement and horror.
"Great Zeus!" he cried, "what do you think it is, Cleanor, that these fellows have laid there to throw their dice upon? Why, it is one of the finest pictures in the world! It is the 'Dionysus' of Aristides! The city, I have been told, gave twenty talents for it to the artist, and, to my certain knowledge, might have sold it over and over again for twice as much if not more. Look at it. Did you ever see anything finer? See how the god is flinging himself from his car! See with what surprise Ariadne is turning to look at him! And the throng of nymphs and satyrs, did you ever behold such variety, such energy, such grace? And these barbarians are using it for a dice-table!"
"Hush!" said Cleanor warningly. "They may be barbarians, but they are our masters, and it is prudent to be civil."
Close by was another group which was amusing itself in precisely the same way. The picture was not, it is true, so famous a master-piece as the "Dionysus"—it was the "Hercules" of Polygnotus, but it was a work of art which meant a modest fortune to anyone who had had the luck to possess himself of it. As for the purpose which it was then serving, a table of gold would not have been so inappropriately costly. Anomalies of the same kind could be seen everywhere. Coverlets of the richest Tyrian purple, tapestries worked with figures as graceful and delicate as the most skilful brush of the painter could make them, embroidered robes that Pallas might have worked or Aphrodite worn, the treasures brought from the harems of Eastern kings, lay about to be trampled under the feet of Apulian herdsmen, Sabine ploughmen, and Campanian vine-dressers. To these sturdy peasants, ignorant of all arts but the soldiers, they were but gaudy-coloured cloths which might be put, in default of something more convenient, to the meanest purposes.
"Great Zeus!" cried Polybius, as he looked on the scene, "what a waste! It is better that anyone should have these treasures than that they should be wasted in this fashion. Let us see Mummius and give him an idea of what is going on."
SCIPIO had furnished Polybius with a letter addressed to Mummius, who, as one of the consuls of the year, was likely, sooner or later, to take command of the forces that were to operate against Corinth. Thanks to this he found no difficulty in obtaining for himself and Cleanor access to the great man. He had also the advantage of having made the consul's acquaintance during his sojourn in Italy. Mummius was a "new man",63 one of the class which their enemies describe as upstarts, their friends as "self-made men". He was rude and uncultured, with just so much education as enabled him to spell through a state document and sign his name. But if he was ignorant and unrefined, on the other hand he was honest, a plain man who did his duty up to his light, not given either to self-indulgence or greed, and humane at least up to the Roman average.
The friends found him immersed in business, a kind of business, too, with which he was wholly unfitted to deal. This, however, did not prevent him greeting Polybius in friendly fashion, and speaking a few words of welcome to Cleanor.
"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" he asked, when these salutations had been exchanged.
Polybius briefly described what he had seen, and suggested that some steps should be taken to put a stop to this waste of valuable property.
"This sort of thing is quite beyond me," exclaimed the consul in some irritation. "I don't understand what you mean by these treasures of art. However, I will see to it. But I have done a good stroke of business for the treasury. There are hundreds of statues about the city, which, indeed, is fairly blocked up with them. What they could want with so many I can't conceive. As for being statues of great men, as they tell me, I can hardly believe it. Why, the whole country is not a quarter of the size of Italy, and we haven't a half or anything like a half. But as to the statues. The agents of King Eumenes of Pergamus were here yesterday, and gave me five thousand sesterces apiece for the pick of a hundred statues. That makes a fine sum of money, more than a knight's qualification, as you know."64
"Five thousand apiece! is that all?" cried Polybius. "I don't know, of course, what the statues were, but I am pretty sure that King Eumenes would send an agent who knew what he was about. And if he had the first pick, I should say that the king has made the best bargain that he ever made in his life. Five thousand, indeed! It would not have been a bad stroke of business, I should say, if he had paid fifty thousand. I know that he gave double that to Diagoras of Rhodes for Myron's Dancing Faun."
"You astonish me," said Mummius. "I never dreamt of such sums. Why, at Interamna—my native place, you know—they put up a statue of my father, twice the size of life, and the sculptor thought himself very well paid with five thousand sesterces, the town finding the stone. But I suppose you know all about these things. However, I have passed my word, and I can't go back from my bargain. But the king didn't get quite the pick, as you call it. I sent Duilius my quæstor round the city to look about him and choose a cargo of specimens to send over to Rome. He told me that he knew something about these matters. And he can speak Greek, which is something."
At this point of the conversation one of the consul's lictors knocked at the door and announced that the transport contractors had called by appointment.
Polybius and his companion offered to go away. "No," said Mummius, "there is nothing private, and I have something else to say to you afterwards. Bring them in," he went on, speaking to the lictor.
The contractors were three in number, the owners of as many transport ships. They had undertaken to convey three ship-loads of statues to Rome. One of them had a catalogue of these works of art, which he handed to the consul. Mummius had another copy.
"Would you be good enough," he said to Polybius, "to go over the list with these gentlemen. You will tell me whether it is all right, and you will see what sort of choice Duilius has made."
The list contained some two hundred items in all, and there was scarcely one of them which Polybius did not know or had not heard as being a master-piece in its way. There were works amongst them of all the famous sculptors of Greece, from Phidias downwards—Polyclitus, Myron, Praxiteles, and the masters of the Rhodian and the Pergamene schools.
"Well," said the historian, when the list had been carefully gone through, "Duilius has done his business very well. He has got the pick of the treasures of Corinth. And King Eumenes, though he has done exceedingly well, can hardly have made the extravagantly good bargain that I thought. Yes, this is a very fine list indeed."
The consul's face grew visibly brighter.
"That is good hearing," he cried. "I sha'n't have done so badly after all; but I wish very much that I had seen you a little sooner. Now, my friends," he went on, addressing himself to the contractors, "you hear what this gentleman says. He is a friend of mine, and knows all about these matters. You understand that you have a very valuable cargo. Are your transports water-tight and seaworthy in every way?"
"Certainly, sir," said the spokesman of the three. "I don't believe you could find better ships between the Pillars and Tyre."
"Well, I hope they are what you say. But mind this, you are answerable for the cargo. I paid your price, and I expect you to do your work. Mind this, if you lose them, you will replace them with others just as good. Isn't that fair, Polybius?"
"Certainly, sir," said the Greek, preserving a quite masterly command of his countenance.
This business concluded, the consul went on:
"You have done me, or tried to do me, a good turn; I only wish that you had come a few hours sooner. Now I should like to show you that I am grateful. You have heard, I suppose, of Diæus?"
"Not a word, sir," replied the historian, "except that he disappeared after the battle."
"Well," said Mummius, "he is dead. He poisoned himself at some place in Arcadia. His property, of course, is confiscated. I am told that there are about thirty talents of silver and half a talent of gold. Whatever the amount, half of it is at your service."
"I thank you, sir," returned Polybius, "but I don't care to enrich myself with what has belonged to a countryman. Diæus was no friend of mine, but I should not like it to be said that I have been a gainer by his death."
"You are an honest man," cried the consul, "and I wish that there were more like you here, and, for the matter of that, at Rome. But can I do anything for you?"
"Yes, sir, you can," said Polybius. "Let me use this money to redeem some of these poor creatures who are to be sold. I know many of them; some I may almost call friends. It is heart-rending for one who has seen them as they were to see them as they are now."
"Good!" answered Mummius, "you shall have the whole of the money, and I will tell the quæstor to see that it goes as far as possible. There shall be no bidding against you. And now farewell; but you and your young friend must dine with me to-day."
THE entertainment which the consul provided for his guests was of the simplest and most frugal kind, in curious contrast with the costly plate on which it was served. His cook knew his tastes, which were those of the Sabine farming folk from whom he came, and catered for him accordingly; but the furnishing of the table was naturally that of the place where he was quartered, the official residence of the chief magistrate of Corinth, and this was filled with the finest specimens of the city's famous ware.65
The repast ended, the quæstor, who had been one of the guests, explained to Polybius what Mummius had instructed him to do. "The consul," he said, "has commissioned me to use forty talents of silver66 in redeeming slaves. You are to draw up a list, and as the sale begins the day after to-morrow, you should lose no time in doing so. As to the price, he has instructed the official agent to value the persons selected, so they will not be actually put up for sale. More than this the consul did not feel he could do. 'If I were to interfere with the prices,' he said, 'I should be making a very dangerous precedent. It must all be done on strict business principles.' A more scrupulously honourable man than Lucius Mummius does not live, though it must be allowed that he does not know much about art. However, you will have fairly easy terms, I don't doubt."
"I am greatly obliged to you," said Polybius. "And now there is another thing in which you can help me. My young friend here and I have been talking the matter over, and we are agreed in wanting to do something more in the same direction. He has been actually under the spear,67 and I, though I have never gone through that experience, know something of the bitterness of being at another man's bidding. Well, fate has dealt kindly with both of us, and we both want to show our gratitude. Between us we can raise another forty talents, and we want to use it in the same way. Our idea is this. The money that comes from Diæus' estate should, we think, be used on the public account. Our own we should employ as our private feelings may suggest. In the list that I shall draw up for the official agent I shall put the names of men whose official standing, or services to their country, or any other public reason, seem to call for their selection. In regard to our own money, we shall consider private friendship or acquaintance. Now, can you help us in laying this out to the best advantage?"
The quæstor reflected. "You must not go," he said after a pause, "to the agent. I feel quite sure that the consul would not like it. I do not see that you can do anything better, or, indeed, anything else than approach one of the slave-dealers. The way of these sales, I may say of all sales, is pretty much the same everywhere. There is a regular gang which has it all its own way. The members of it don't bid against each other, except where they have a commission to purchase this or that lot. But when an outsider tries to get anything for himself, they agree to run him up to a most extravagant price. Yes, you must get one of the dealers to take a friendly interest in you."
"And whom do you recommend?" asked Polybius.
"That is not so easy to say," replied the quæstor. "They are not a nice lot, as I dare say you know. Most of them would sell their own fathers and mothers. It is not an improving occupation. But, on the whole, I should recommend Judas the Jew. He has principles; very queer principles they are, but still they are something. Yes, Judas is your man. One of my orderlies shall bring him to you early to-morrow."
Early the next day, accordingly, Judas presented himself, showing a curious contrast, with his slight, wiry figure and keen intelligent face, to the stoutly-built, stolid-looking soldier who accompanied him.
"Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" he began. "There will be some bargains to be picked up, I dare say. But the really good things always fetch their price. There is never a glut of them."
Polybius had drawn up a list, which he proceeded to hand to the Jew. He had put down the names, and, as far as he knew or could guess them, the ages of the persons whom he wished to purchase. The Jew's eyes opened wider and wider as he read it.
"But what," he asked, his astonishment overcoming for the moment his usual somewhat servile civility, "what do you want with all these old men and women? They can't all be your fathers and mothers, and uncles and aunts. Excuse me, gentlemen," he added, recovering himself, "but this is not the sort of commission I am in the habit of getting from my customers."
Polybius explained, to the best of his power, his own and his friend's motives. As the Jew listened a gentler expression came into his face. "By the God of my fathers," he exclaimed when the historian had finished, "I have never come across such a thing in my life! I don't mean that I haven't known of sons buying back fathers and mothers and that sort of thing, but this is quite outside my experience. Well," he went on with a smile, "you will at all events find that your fancy won't cost you very dear. How much do you propose to spend?"
Polybius named the sum. "But of course," he added, "we must consider your commission. What will that be on this amount?"
Judas meditated a while. "By Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," he broke out after a time, "I won't take a drachma. I have been about the world in this line of business for thirty years, and I have never seen anything like it. I should not have supposed it possible," he muttered to himself in his own language, "that these Gentile dogs should have thought of such a thing. Well, I must not shame Father Abraham by behaving worse than they do. No, gentlemen," he went on, "I shall not charge anything for commission. This is a quite uncommon piece of business, and you must let me please myself by managing it in my own way. Well, you can get a whole ship-load of the old people for this money. Some of the young men will be more expensive. But the really costly articles are the young women, and I don't see one on your list. Depend upon it, you shall have your money's worth. There are some of the meanest scoundrels in the world in Corinth at this moment, but they know better than to bid against Judas."
When sundry details of business had been disposed of, the old Jew grew very communicative about his occupation. He had been a slave himself, carried away by some Syrian marauders in his childhood from a village of Galilee. Bought by a soldier, a captain in the army of the third Antiochus, he had regained his liberty in the rout which followed the victory of Magnesia. After this had come a period of service in the patriot armies raised by the Maccabee brothers. In this he gained some distinction, but he found himself destitute when a severe wound received at the battle of Elaim compelled him to give up the profession of arms. He had no relative in the world; his native place had absolutely perished. A countryman offered him a clerk's place. When he found that his new employer was a dealer in slaves he felt a strange thrill of pleasure. He was to make his living out of the miseries of these heathen who had marred his own life. To his own people he never ceased to be tender and generous. To the rest of the world he seemed to be absolutely callous and heartless. On this occasion he related to his hearers experiences so horrible that their blood ran cold at hearing them. His comments on these were often curiously cynical. "What a piece of folly it was that Flamininus committed at Chelys!" he remarked when some chance had brought the conversation round to that subject. Cleanor listened, we may be sure, with all his ears, when he caught the name. "In a fit of stupid passion he threw away at least fifty talents of good money. Imagine the absolute idiotcy of a man who kills some scores of able-bodied men when he might have sold them! What did he do it for? For revenge? Didn't he know that nine out of ten would far sooner have been killed than made slaves of? Why, I always have to watch any spirited young fellow for the first month or so lest he should slip out of my hands. After that they seem to lose heart, and can't even pluck up spirit enough to stab themselves. Of course the order to kill is never really carried out. The soldiers have a knack of stunning those whom they seem to kill. I have had some pretty cargoes of corpses who came to life again when they were safely out of the way. You give a soldier a hundred sesterces,68 and you get a stout young fellow whom you can sell for five thousand."
Polybius and Cleanor had the satisfaction of seeing their efforts crowned with even more success than they could have expected. The public agent had taken a very liberal view of his duties, and the Jew dealer had carried out his part of the business with great success. Nearly seven hundred of the oldest and most helpless victims of the siege were restored to freedom. It was but a small fraction of the miserable whole, but it was something to have done. None of the rescued captives knew the names of their benefactors, though somehow the secret leaked out afterwards, but the friends felt that their pains had been well bestowed and well rewarded when they stood by and marked, unmarked themselves, the happiness which they had been able to secure to their unfortunate compatriots.
If in this respect Polybius went, and was content to go, without the praises of his countrymen, there was another matter in the conduct of which he deservedly won almost universal applause. Some miserable sycophants—and sycophants were only too common among the Greeks of the time—proposed to Mummius that the statues of Philopœmen should be thrown down. He had been always, they alleged, an energetic opponent of Rome, and it was a contradiction that monuments erected in his honour should be permitted to stand now that Rome had finally triumphed. The consul, who, to tell the truth, had but the slightest acquaintance with even recent history, was at first impressed by the argument. This Philopœmen had been the chief of the Achæan League, and it was the Achæan League that had defended, or tried to defend, Corinth against him.
Polybius, who, of course, knew what was meditated, begged to be allowed to defend the departed patriot, and Mummius consented to hear him. A kind of impromptu court was constituted. The consul and his quæstor, with the legates or generals of division, formed the bench of judges. Polybius, who spoke with a depth of personal feeling that touched the hearts of all who heard him, delivered a most eloquent and convincing apology for the venerable man whom he had once been privileged to call his friend. He allowed that Philopœmen had struggled for the independence of Greece as long as that independence was possible. What honest Greek, he asked, could have done less? But he had always been an honourable enemy, and as soon as he saw that the true interests of his country demanded it he had always been a loyal ally. The judges gave an unanimous verdict in his favour.
"He was an honest man," said the consul with emphasis. "His statue shall remain standing here and everywhere, whatever may be thrown down, and as honest men are not too common, it shall be set up in every city of Greece."
It was now time for the friends to part. Polybius had received a commission from Rome to arrange the affairs of the other cities of the Peloponnese, and he would gladly have taken his young friend with him in the capacity of secretary. But Cleanor felt irresistibly called, and by more motives than one, to Italy. There awaited him there an honourable and lucrative employment, which would be all the more welcome because it was wholly remote from the scenes, so full of painful associations, through which he had passed during the last two years of his life. This, as my readers will remember, was the translation of the famous treatise on Agriculture. And he never forgot for a moment that Italy now contained the two beings who were dearest to him in the world. Corinth, which the savage decree of the Senate had doomed to the flames, both were anxious to leave without delay. They parted on the deck of the Ino, the ship which carried Polybius to Sicyon, the first city which he was to visit in his official capacity, and which was to take Cleanor further westward to Rome. "Farewell!" said Polybius. "I shall be busy with my history when these affairs are settled. Remember that you have promised to criticise it. I shall not like to give it to the world till it has had your approval."
THE Ino had a quick and prosperous voyage. But though Cleanor arrived safely at his destination, he learned, not without astonishment, that he had been running a very considerable danger of having a different ending to his travels. The Roman Republic was extending her borders in every direction, and was levelling to the dust the cities which had disputed with her the empire of the world, but she suffered herself to be insulted and her citizens and allies to be maltreated by insignificant enemies. While her legions and fleets were winning great victories abroad, her own coasts were harried by pirates. Near Ithaca the Ino picked up a boat in which were three sailors reduced to the last stage of exhaustion by hunger and thirst. The poor fellows, who were almost unconscious when they were taken on board, had a piteous story to tell when they had recovered sufficient strength to speak. They had been drifting about for nine days, and were the survivors of a company of nine, the crew of a trader of Patræ which was bound with a cargo of wine for Tarentum.
"We were overhauled," said the captain, who was one of the three, "when we had accomplished half our voyage by a Cilician pirate galley. They took what they wanted of my cargo, scuttled my ship, and being, for some reason or other, in high good-humour, instead of making us walk the plank, as is their common custom, let us take our chance in our boat, and even gave us a keg of water and a bag of biscuits. This was my first venture on my own account," said the man, with tears in his eyes, "and I have lost everything I had in the world. We pay taxes to the Romans; why don't they keep the seas safe for us?"
"Why, indeed?" said the captain of the Ino. "Things are far worse now," he continued, addressing himself to Cleanor, "than they were when I first began to sail these seas some thirty years ago. They used to be fairly well kept in those days by the Rhodian ships. It was very seldom that the pirates ever came west of Cyprus. But then Rhodes began to go down the hill. She was ruined by Delos being made a free port, and could not afford to keep up her fleet. Since then things have been going from bad to worse. You wouldn't believe, sir, the things that have happened almost in the sight of Rome. Two years ago half of a prætor's establishment was carried off as it was on its way along the coast-road from Barium to Brundisium, and it was only by good luck that they did not lay hands upon the great man himself. He happened to have gone on in advance instead of being behind, as was usual. Perhaps if they had caught him something might have been done. As it is, nobody seems to care."
The next day the Ino herself had what looked like a narrow escape. At daybreak the look-out man descried in the offing a craft of suspicious-looking build, long, and low in the water. It was then almost a dead calm, and if the stranger was a pirate, as seemed only too likely, her long sweeps would soon bring her dangerously near. "We will have a fight for it," said the captain, as he inspected his stock of arms.
Happily the occasion to use them never arrived. A brisk breeze sprang up as the sun rose higher, and the Ino, which was an excellent sailer, soon left the strange ship far behind. The same evening she was moored to one of the quays in the harbour of Brundisium. By noon next day Cleanor was well on his way along the great Appian Road to Rome.
It was yet early in the autumn, the unhealthiest time of the year, then as now, for the Italian capital, and the city was empty, as far at least as its wealthier inhabitants were concerned. The translation committee, however, was about to commence its work, which was considered to be urgent. Scipio, with the thoughtful kindness which was characteristic of him, had placed a villa of his own near Ostia at the disposal of the members, and they were able to devote themselves to their task under favourable conditions of health and quiet. Under these pleasant circumstances the work progressed rapidly. Cleanor's assistance was found to be of the greatest value. He was now equally familiar with the three languages, Carthaginian, Greek, and Latin. The first two had been spoken almost indifferently in his native town; the third he had learned grammatically in his childhood, and he had since acquired the colloquial use of it. It is easy to understand how useful an educated man, who had had these unusual advantages, could be in dealing with a book which was largely concerned with common things and the affairs of everyday life. Not one of his colleagues united in himself so many qualifications.
The time, taken up as it was with this occupation, passed quickly, and, on the whole, pleasantly enough. Still, the continuous labour, and the sedentary life, so unlike the continuous activity in which he had spent the preceding months, began to tell upon his health and spirits, and he was glad when the approach of the Holidays of Saturn69 promised an interval of rest and, possibly, a change of scene. It was with no small delight that early in December he received a letter from the younger Scipio. It was as follows:—
L. Cornelius Scipio to his friend Cleanor, heartily greeting.
This is but the third day since I arrived in Italy, and I hasten to make sure that we should meet as soon as possible. My aunt Cornelia, from whose villa at Misenum I am now writing, invites you, as I write at her request, to spend here the approaching holiday. She desires me to say that she now hears for the first time where you are and what you are doing. Other things concerning you have been told her, not without much praise, by some whose names I need not mention. Come, therefore, as soon as circumstances permit. That you will come welcome to many, and especially to me, be assured. Farewell!
CORNELIA, the "Mother of the Gracchi", was at this time not far from fifty years of age, but retained by favour of nature, often so capricious in what she gives or takes away, much of the beauty of youth. Left a widow with a numerous family—she had borne twelve children to her husband, but all had not survived—she had found a royal suitor in Ptolemy, king of Egypt. This suit it had probably not caused her any effort to decline. A daughter of the great Cornelian house would have disdained in any case an alliance with so doubtful a race as the Ptolemies, and this particular Ptolemy, whose bloated appearance had earned him the name of Physcon, was a degenerate scion of it. But Cornelia had had serious troubles. Of her twelve children two only were now alive, Tiberius, now a lad of seventeen, and Caius, a child of five. Both, indeed, gave the fairest promise; the elder, though he had but lately assumed the manly gown, had exhausted such education as Roman teachers could then supply, and was already an accomplished rhetorician; the younger was a boy of singular beauty and intelligence. But Cornelia, a remarkably clear-sighted woman, had already begun to view with alarm the rapid development of Tiberius's character. The young man's political tendencies were strongly marked, and they seemed likely to bring him into dangerous collision with the aristocratic traditions of his mother's house. As for Caius, he was self-willed and imperious to an extraordinary degree. Still, no mother could have been prouder of her children, as none certainly could have been more devoted to them.
At this particular time, however, when Cleanor paid his first visit to the villa at Misenum, all was brightness and gaiety. Theoxena and her daughter had learned by this time to feel themselves thoroughly at home in Cornelia's hospitable house. The elder woman had suffered so much in the past that the best happiness which could be hoped for her was peace; but Daphne had blossomed out into a most attractive personality. There was a peculiar radiance about her beauty, which had all the greater charm because the girl's own disposition and the gracious example of her hostess, a very pearl among women, tempered it with a certain air of virginal reserve. Cleanor she met at first with her old sisterly frankness, but there was an ardour in the young man's glance, and a thrill in his voice—though he vainly attempted to subdue them into the greeting of a respectful affection—which seemed to alarm her. As for Cleanor, after the first day spent in her company, he could doubt no longer as to the real nature of his feelings. Daphne would be thenceforward the one woman in the world for him.
The holiday, which was prolonged to the beginning of the new year, passed only too quickly. The days were spent either in hare-hunting—larger game was not to be found in a region already thickly populated—or in excursions on the water, which were favoured by weather that, though it was the depth of winter, was remarkably calm and warm. Possibly the most delightful expedition of the season was the ascent of Vesuvius, then clothed almost to the summit with lovely woods, and giving no sign of the hidden forces which, two centuries later, were to spread desolation over the fairest region of Italy.
The evenings were begun by a meal, simply yet elegantly served, at which the whole party assembled, even the little Caius being allowed to be present for at least a time. The meal over, there was no lack of entertainment. Tiberius was an accomplished reciter, and could give one of Terence's comedies with an artistic variety of voice and emphasis. Cleanor charmed the company with a passage from Homer, from Pindar, or from one of the great Athenian dramatists. Sometimes, by special request, he would dance the Pyrrhic dance, a pastime which in sterner Roman society would have more than savoured of frivolity. And now and then Daphne was persuaded to sing to the lute an exquisite little lyric from Stesichorus.
The last day of the year, which was also to be the last of the most delightful of visits, Cleanor determined to make as long as possible. Rising as soon as the first streaks of dawn began to show themselves in the sky, he began to explore more thoroughly than he had before an opportunity of doing, the beautifully ordered gardens which surrounded the villa. Following a path of velvet sward, sheltered on either side by shrubberies of box-wood, he came to a spot which gave him a wide prospect over the lovely bay of Naples. He noticed, but in the most casual way, the figure of a gardener, who was busy, as it seemed, in trimming the surrounding shrubs, the whole spot, except on that side which fronted the sea, being protected from the wind by a dense growth of box and laurel, arbutus and bay.
He threw himself down on a rustic bench and gazed on the scene before him. He was looking westward, and the sea at his feet lay in shadow, a dark purple in colour. In the distance the sun was just touching with golden light the crags of Prochyta and of the more remote Inarimé. For a time the beauty of the scene wholly occupied him, for nature stirred the hearts of the men of those days even as it stirs ours, though they had only begun to give their feelings articulate expression.
Then his thoughts recurred to what was the dominant emotion of the time with him, his love for Daphne. How, he asked himself, how should he make it known? How should he approach her? To speak directly, at least in the first instance, was not the custom of his race, though doubtless love, there as elsewhere, made exceptions of his own to the severest rule. Through her mother? But Theoxena was, he knew, only too thoroughly devoted to him. To her his wish would be a command; she would make it a matter of filial obedience with her daughter, and he wanted the voluntary submission that was wholly free. Through Cornelia? But would she favour such an alliance? She was a noble of the nobles, filled with the keenest sympathy for the people, but profoundly conscious of the social difference between her class and them, and with her own class she would certainly rank the well-born Cleanor.
Well, he said to himself, after a pause of reflection, which did not seem to make the matter clearer, "these things will settle themselves. I love her, and I think she loves me, so that nothing will keep us apart." And he broke into the beautiful choric song of the Antigone—for it was his habit, as it is the habit of all true lovers of poetry, thus to interrupt his solitary musings—
"O love invincible!"
After this came a stave of Alcæus, and after this again a piece of melodious tenderness from Sappho.
As he turned to retrace his steps to the house, for he had risen early, and the keen morning air made him feel that he had fasted long, he was startled to hear his name called from behind him, not the name by which he was known to the world, but the pet family name, which he had not heard since the home of his childhood had vanished in fire and blood.
"Cle," said the voice, and its tones seemed to be strangely familiar. He turned; no one was within sight but the gardener. The man had dropped the shears, and stood with his hands stretched out in a supplicating gesture.
"What is it?" he cried; "what or whom do you want?" He took two or three steps forward, and as he approached there seemed to be something strangely familiar in the figure before him.
"Yes, it is—" and the speaker swayed to and fro for a moment, and then fell unconscious to the ground. The wide-brimmed hat, which had been drawn down low over the face, to conceal, as it seemed, the features, was displaced by the fall, and revealed the graceful contour of the forehead, and the shapely head covered with short curls of sunny gold.
"Great Zeus!" cried Cleanor, as he lifted the prostrate figure from the ground. "Great Zeus! if I am not mad or dreaming, this is Cleoné come to life again."
Close by a tiny spring trickled down from a rock. Cleanor held his cap beneath it till it was half full, and dashed the water in his sister's face. She drew two or three deep breaths, and then opened her eyes. Vacant at first, for she could not remember where she was or what had happened, they soon became radiant with happy light.
"Dearest brother," she murmured, "have I found you again? But come to my little hut—it is close by. There you shall hear my story, and we will consider what is to be done."
Briefly put, for in the actual telling it was interrupted, as may be supposed, with numberless exclamations and questions, Cleoné's story was this:—
"I remember nothing after I was struck down by a blow from a soldier's sword in the market-place of Chelys, till I found myself in the hold of a ship at sea."
"Then you were not killed?" cried Cleanor.
"It seems not," said the girl with a merry laugh, "for even were I an Eurydice there was no Orpheus to bring me back from the house of Hades."
"Ah!" said the young man, "now I begin to understand what old Judas meant. He said, you must know, that they bribed the soldiers not to kill the prisoners, but to stun them."
"Well, as I was saying, I found myself in the hold of a ship which was evidently making very bad weather. I was lying with my head close to the deck, and I could hear two men talking just over me. There was such a roaring of the wind, and such a creaking of timbers, that I lost a good deal of what they said. Still I could make out something. Someone—I supposed it was the captain—was cursing his ill-luck. 'Here,' he said, 'is a bit of cursed spite—as good a speculation as ever I made in my life all comes to nothing. There are fifty as likely young fellows as I have had the handling of since I went into the business five-and-twenty years ago down there, and what is going to become of them? They are worth two hundred thousand sesterces if they are worth one, and now the whole lot is going to the bottom.' 'What is the odds?' growled the other, whom I took to be the steersman. 'What is the odds if you are going too?' 'I tell you what,' said the other again after a pause, 'you should give the fellows a chance. Open the hatches, and let them get to land if they can.' 'What is the good?' answered the captain sulkily; 'they may drown for all I care.' 'Nay, but you talk like a fool. If they live, they are still yours, and you may get hold of them, or, at least, of some of them again.' 'True,' said the owner, 'that is so. They shall have a chance.' A minute or two afterwards the hatches were opened, and the fellow cried, 'Up with you as quick as you can! The ship hasn't many minutes to float, and if you don't want to go to the bottom with her, now is your time.' About two score out of the fifty clambered upon deck. Some had never recovered from the blow which had stunned them—it can't be an easy thing to give just the right sort of stroke—and some, I take it, were so far gone with sea-sickness that they did not care to move. As for me, I felt a little dazed; sea-sickness never troubles me, as you know. We got up on deck only just in time, the ship was already close upon the rocks. The next minute she struck. What happened to the crew and to my companions is more than I can say; all I know is that I have never seen one of them since, except, indeed, some dead bodies that I found on the shore next morning. I had a desperate struggle to get to land, and, indeed, I never should have done it, though, as you know, I am no bad swimmer, but that an extra big wave threw me up almost high and dry, and I had just strength enough to crawl away out of reach of the sea. The rest of the night—it was about the middle of the third watch, as near as I could guess, when this happened—I passed in a thicket in a bed of dry leaves, where I slept as soundly as ever I did in my life. The next day I rigged myself out with clothes that I took from the dead men on the shore—it was no robbery, I thought, poor fellows! I found some money, too, in their pockets. Following a road which led inland, I came to a village where there was a tavern. Here I got some bread and a draught of sour wine. I thought it safest, I should tell you, to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and made them to understand by signs that I wanted something to eat and drink. I paid for what I had, but was careful to let the people know that I had very little, for I made up the few coppers that were wanted from one place and another. Then I got them to understand that I wanted to work for my living. First I made as if I were digging, then as if I were sawing wood. They happened to want someone, for it was a busy time of the year, and they saw that they could get the work done very cheaply, for they gave me no pay besides my food and lodging in an outhouse, which, happily, I had to myself. Here I stopped for about a month. Then I overheard some people talking of a great lady who lived in the neighbourhood. She was a widow, they said, and managed everything—house and garden and farm—all by herself. That, I thought to myself, is the place for me. Perhaps some day I shall be able to tell her my story. However, the day has never come. I got employment just in the same way as I did at the tavern, and I have the little hut to myself, where I look after some fowls and pigeons. But, somehow, I could never summon up courage to speak. However, I always went on hoping and hoping, and now, dearest Cleanor, that you are come, all will be right."
"Yes," said the young man, "and the first thing, my dear Cleoné, will be to get you some proper clothes."
The girl blushed.
"By Castor!" she said, "I had almost forgotten that I was dressed as a man. But how will you manage it?"
"Easily enough," replied her brother. "The lady Cornelia has an excellent housekeeper with whom I am in high favour; I don't doubt that she will let me have everything I want. But I must go; the sooner we manage this the better."
Poor Cleoné, woman-like, felt the courage which had never failed before desert her when she had to part even for half an hour with her long-lost brother. She clung to him, and wept piteously. "Don't leave me," she sobbed.
The young man, to whom this sort of thing was quite a new experience, looked at her with astonishment. "What, Cleoné, is the meaning of this after all you have gone through?"
"Yes," she said, smiling through her tears, "I am a fool. And besides," she went on, looking at her dirty and ragged garments, "I do want some decent clothes."
The good Pollia, who acted as wardrobe-keeper, mother-of-the-maids, and housekeeper in general to Cornelia, was not a little astonished when Cleanor asked her to supply him with the various articles of a young lady's toilet, not so numerous in those days, it should be mentioned, as they are now. He was a great favourite, however, and she asked no questions, probably thinking that some joke was being meditated. She searched accordingly among the treasures in her charge, and had no difficulty in finding all that was wanted.
Fashions did not change in those days as they change under the vagaries of modern taste. Women were careful, indeed perhaps more careful than they are now, to suit their dress to their age. But what the mother had worn at twenty, the daughter, reaching the same years, might wear without even the suspicion of oddity, and the garments might be handed down, if they were of the quality that was suited to so long a life, to yet another generation.