She thought of a fragment which Sappho of Lesbos had written: “Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bittersweet.”
Again, she was frightened and was full of the instinct for flight. Then a deep sweetness came to her, a surrendering sweetness, and she wept and smiled, then slept, and dreamt that she was a girl again in a moonlit grove of myrtles.
PART THREE
Pericles and Aspasia
“Not houses finely roofed or the stones of walls well-builded, nay, nor canals and dockyards, make the City. But men able to use their opportunity.”
ALCACUS (611-580 B.C.)
CHAPTER 1
Daedalus, father of Dejanira, stood before the King Archon, shaking with hysterical rage, and cried, “It is infamous! A man in his position, who takes a notorious harlot, an open courtesan, to his bed and often to his house, should be impeached by virtuous citizens! At the very least, the ostraka should be used against him. He is a public outrage; he is a spendthrift; he is devious and unapproachable. He is robbing the treasury of the labor of the people, for his fantasies in architecture and his patronage of low artists and sculptors and barefoot philosophers!” Daedalus almost choked with his rage; he had become incoherent. When he could find his breath he burst out again: “A harlot, a notorious and infamous woman, who flaunts the modest feminine decencies and flaunts herself in public and debauches young girls! There is not a woman of immaculate morals who does not avert her eyes at the mention of her impious name! The people despise Pericles and demand redress and his removal from public office.”
The King Archon stroked his beard and reflected on such as Daedalus, who demand civic virtue at all times but have their secret and not so dainty vices. Was there envy here, and inner torment, as well as rage? Those who proclaimed their humility, like Daedalus, were frequently inordinately proud, though they had little reason for pride. The King Archon, always seeking to know the weaknesses and the characters of men, understood that what a man denounced were his own wickednesses. In denouncing them in others he absolved himself of his own guilt. Daedalus would bear watching.
The King Archon said in a conspicuously moderate voice, to express his disapproval of Daedalus’ excesses, “Go to. There is not a man of any distinction, or wealth, who does not have a hetaira. This is accepted. Do we not all marry stupid or illiterate women of family and money to breed us sons and enhance our wealth and govern our households? And do we not all, in flight from what we have married, acquire us a beautiful and loving and intelligent woman to soothe our exacerbated senses? Who can blame us? Custom forces upon us less than delectable wives, with less than the intelligence of donkeys but who know the measure of every pot and a thousand ways to cook beans and keep records of expenditures. They may be virtuous—but gods! how they bore us!—and this may be the unpardonable sin of virtue. We may be sure that the sons they bear us are truly our sons; beyond that, their mothers are intolerable. Then our priests prate of ‘the constant elevation of mankind through each generation.’! What liars and fools. A donkey breeds a donkey. There will be no ‘elevation’ of mankind until the time a man carefully selects a wife who has more than money or kitchen aptitudes, and has a mind. Then, indeed, shall we breed superior sons and daughters and not mundane animals who cannot distinguish between the light of the sun and darkness. So far the human race recognizes darkness only because it augurs their mindless slumbers, and the sunlight only that it increases their crops.
“Pericles is like all of us. He has fled from stolid women and their meek whinings, and their shrill little rages. Why, then, should he be singled out for blame? It is hypocrisy to do so. To denounce him is to betray our own iniquities.” He smiled at Daedalus slyly, and the other’s skeleton features flushed with harsh scarlet.
The King Archon continued: “You may deplore Aspasia. At the very least she is educating young ladies who will not merely stink of the kitchen, the barnyard and the breeding pens. They will be a joy to their husbands. They even may make their husbands so fascinated by them that they will eschew the hetairai and even harlots. As Pericles has said, women belong to the human race also, a saying that some may doubt, considering their wives. At the best, intelligent women may give us sons fit to be called members of humanity, and daughters who will not only possess beauty but be entertaining. Let me ask you this, Daedalus: Do you consider your wife to be enthralling?”
Daedalus suddenly looked sick. Yet he became even more infuriated, and his mouth kept opening and shutting soundlessly, which the King Archon thought a blessing.
“You have called Aspasia impious, Daedalus. In what manner? She is teaching the girls in her school to question and not merely to accept. If that is impiety, let us have more of it, especially among our sons.
“We publicly deplore love between men and men, and have penalties against it, though it flourishes. Have you ever considered why? Again, it is a flight from our women, who have nothing to say of relevance, but babble only of slaves, records, fashions, children or other inconsequential. Would you prefer the perversion of the love between those of the same sex to the open preference for that which is ordained by nature: the love between a man and a woman? I confess I prefer the latter. I have my own hetaira.
“You have said that the people despise and hate Pericles, our Head of State, that they demand his impeachment or ostracism. Who are the people you speak of, Daedalus? The market rabble, who want no monuments to glory and history and the gods, but only the satisfactions of their bellies? Shall we descend to the pigpens which infest our society, or shall we raise our eyes to the dreams of Pericles? Is a fat and well-fed beggar, who lives on the industry of others, preferable to a man of vision, a man who works in honor and sobriety, and loves his country not for what his country can do for him but what he can do for his country? Those who regard their country only as a smelly trough in which they can wallow and devour are a terrible danger to all of us. A man should justify his birth by his life and his accomplishments, even if they are humble. The world did not ask him to be born. So, he must prove that he has a right to live, not by the capers of his parents in their bed, but by the quality of his existence.
“Those who love Pericles and would defend him to the death are not only intellectual aristocrats but men who earn their own living with pride and work and dedication, whether it be at the loom or in the field, in the manufactories or in the shops or the vineyards. These we dare not offend, for they are the life of our nation, our city-state. They are the hope of our survival through the ages. But the market rabble are our death.”
Daedalus swallowed with difficulty and found his voice. “There is always the ostraka to be used against officials or persons like Pericles.”
The King Archon sighed both with exasperation and disgust. “If it were possible, and left solely to my judgment, I would not permit the ostraka to be employed by men who cannot read or write, and so have no clarity as to the significance of their votes. I would permit a citizen to vote only if he has been measured for his intelligence, his awareness of why and for whom he votes, and is literate. Voting is an awesome duty and a momentous privilege. It should be confined to the responsible who see less their own advantage and more the advantage of their country. I fear, alas, that this is an impossible dream.”
He saw that Daedalus was still having difficulty in speaking, and he waited with obvious patience. He saw that Daedalus had not listened to him in the least, and that he was concerned only with his furies and his emotions.
So the King Archon, who was a benevolent man for all his stern principles, said, “Let me refill your goblet with this good wine from my own vineyards. Wine is the blood of old age.”
“I am no drunkard!” cried Daedalus, with an offensive gesture.
The King Archon refilled his own goblet. “Nor am I,” he said in an equable tone which did not entirely cover his anger. “Moderation in all things. Is that not the saying of us Greeks? I am never immoderate,” and he looked meaningly at Daedalus. But the latt
er had never considered himself immoderate so the rebuke did not touch him.
Daedalus said, clenching his fists on the table before him, “Pericles, it is said, would marry that woman—that woman for whom he had his marriage to my daughter annulled! If that is not a public scandal then nothing is!”
The King Archon smiled. “Have no fear of a marriage between them. Had not Pericles, himself, a few years ago, ordained, with the approval of the Assembly, that no Athenian citizen may marry a foreign woman? Aspasia is an Ionian. Therefore, he cannot marry her. He is a prudent statesman; for him to repudiate his own law would indeed cause an outcry, and justly so, for many are the Athenians who cannot marry the women they love, for they are foreigners. They have obeyed the law. Therefore, Pericles must obey the law. When rulers flout the laws they have personally fostered they are criminals. Pericles is no criminal.”
Then his kind face became stern and hard. “There is the matter of your grandson, Callias. He has been proscribed from the meanest and lowest of gaming tables, and taverns, and from nearly every establishment in the Agora. That is because of his furious conduct, his arrogance, his reliance on his riches—”
“He is but a youth!” shouted Daedalus, forgetting the superior position of the King Archon. “It is but his high spirits, his young exuberance!”
“Youth is the time for discipline, for the exercise of self-control,” said the King Archon, and his eyes darkened. “If a man does not learn these in his youth, he will never learn them. You speak of high spirits and young exuberance. Was it those which caused him almost to murder a man in a tavern? Had he not been rich, as you have mentioned, and had you not interceded, he would have gone to prison. For the honor of his own sons, the half brothers of Callias, Pericles also interceded, though, I believe, with reluctance.” He shook his head. “That is the one thing which vexed me concerning Pericles.”
“You have always, lord, had a high regard for him!” said Daedalus, forgetting his own prudence for a moment.
“Of a certainty. He is a man of public justice, of civic virtue, in larger matters. I would have done as he has done.” He became weary of Daedalus.
Daedalus stood up. “I will have vengeance,” he blurted, and without permission he almost ran from the room, despite his rage, his robes flowing back from his emaciated figure. The King Archon laughed a little, and called for his scribes and for the lawyers, who had more important matters to discuss with him.
“Was that the Archon, Daedalus, who blew from here like Boreas, lord?” asked a young lawyer.
“It was. He is an old man. Yet he sprang from this room as if pursued by Nemesis,” said another.
“I fear he was,” said the King Archon, smiling. Then he thought of Callias, whose petty crimes and insane assumptions and malignities, his cunning and coarsenesses, his joy in cruelties, his swaggerings and roughness, had earned him a dissolute fame of his own in Athens. Only his riches, and his family, protected him from the wrath of many. They often saw him drunken on the streets, or belaboring the slaves who carried his elaborate litter, or stabbing innocent street dogs, or reeling after young maidens accompanied only by women attendants. He was infamous and avoided, and this inflamed him.
The King Archon said, “It is often that from a man’s own loins comes his ruin.”
It was only with his mother and his grandparents in the house of Daedalus that Callias was accorded any tolerance. His rude appearance, his bulky body, his stolid countenance were exceptionally like his mother’s, but he did not have her docility, her capacity to love and to endure. He heard her wails over her lost sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, and he hated his brothers, for he wanted all attention and affection on himself, though he had none to give, himself. He knew that Dejanira preferred her other children above him, those youths who were the sons of Pericles. Often he had fantasies in the night of murdering them. He listened to the stammering diatribes of his grandfather against Pericles, and the weeping denunciations of his grandmother, and he pondered. Not only had he loathed Pericles and envied his half brothers for their beauty, but the father had shown his detestation of him while he had lived in the house of Pericles. He had enormous vanity; he was convinced that his aspect was that of a prince, and that his intellect surpassed that of anyone in Athens. Though tutors had despaired of him, and though students had driven him from the colonnades of the Agora where they were listening to philosophers, he considered them lamentable fools, and had cursed them for their shouts of derision. His tongue was full of blasphemies, and threats. He had already killed two inoffensive slaves, one an old man, the other a child. Though Athenians did not regard slaves as human, but only as things, they were appalled. Callias believed that all envied him, which pleased him, and he was the bitterest enemy of all who dared to belittle or laugh at him. Both these crimes against him he had encountered in the house of Pericles, in the person of Pericles, himself, and his half brothers.
His deepest hatred was concentrated on the lofty Head of State. He became certain that not only was Pericles his enemy but that Pericles was hated by the whole of Athens. So, for many midnights, he pondered on Pericles, after listening in the dining hall to the imprecations of Daedalus on his former son-in-law. What would cause Pericles the agony he deserved? To lift one’s hand against the Head of State or even an official of government meant execution. Even an open threat was punishable. Callias believed himself as invincible as Hercules, so great was his egotism. But something warned him not even to speak of Pericles with so much as an oath, in public or in private, among his debauched companions. Pericles was famous for his ruthlessness.
So Callias concentrated on Pericles, and listened to the outcries of Daedalus against him, and the whore, Aspasia, who had displaced his mother, as he had been taught to believe. The shame of Dejanira became his. How dared such a woman sit on the chairs his mother had sat upon, and lie in the bed of Pericles? Dejanira’s degradation became his. Was not Aspasia the infamy of Athens, as well as a notorious courtesan, of whom the lewdest stories were told? She was also impious, it was openly declared, and the mortification of all pure women. Pericles loved her. It was enough.
Callias began to plot. Should he cause the death of Aspasia it would not only mortally wound Pericles but it would bring accolades from Athenians on her assassin. At one stroke he would avenge himself on Pericles and become the hero of Athens. Pericles would not dare to seek revenge on him, no matter the loftiness of his position. So Callias believed.
But how contrive the opportunity of murdering her? She had guards about her house and her abominable school, which had inspired the indignation of good citizens. She never went abroad unattended. Virtuous Athenians might find her contemptible, and comic poets might lash at her with witty verses on the stage and in the taverns—even before Pericles, himself—yet she was feared as the mistress of the most potent Head of State. She was also courted and admired by the patrons of her dinners. No one, not even her most intense enemies, could deprecate her beauty, which was renowned in Athens.
Her beauty. To destroy that was to destroy the woman, herself, make her repulsive to Pericles, visit him with mourning and despair, cause even the most devoted to turn from her with pity and revulsion. Slow though the wits of Callias were, they were also cunning and dogged.
He went, hooded and alone, to the dark abode of an old woman notable for her brews and her potions. Many called her Hecate, and she had even preened herself on the name, and had cackled. Her house was avoided, not only at night but by day also, for it was rumored that she could cast evil spells. Nevertheless, she had her customers who went to her for love philters and amulets and curses upon their enemies. Barren women visited her, and became fertile. She told fortunes, and multitudes whispered that she was a seeress. Officials considered her mad and so did not apprehend her, for they had heard that she was lavish with gifts to the temples. She was rich, if not honored. There were those who said she was one of the Sibyls in disguise. Her house was set in a grove of heavy sycamores and g
uarded by fierce dogs on chains, which she could loose in an instant—it was said—by uttering a single guttural word. The house, though small, was luxurious and filled with treasures given to her by grateful patrons. Daedalus, who proclaimed himself above superstition, had execrated her, calling her the scandal of Athens.
Callias trusted no one, so he did not send a slave to acquaint Hecate that she was about to be visited by a noble lord. Slaves babbled. If his grandfather heard that his grandson had visited such an ominous woman he would be wrathful, even with him, and declare him a disgrace. Besides, Daedalus was an Archon, who had public responsibilities, and was a cautious man. Callias knew that Daedalus had tried to injure Pericles through Aspasia, but only by way of legal channels, and that furtively.
It must be done by the utmost stealth, so that none would suspect the son of an aristocratic house.
Callias, though rich, was frugal. He thought of intimidating Hecate with threats, when he found himself, still hooded, in her house, his features hidden, and so to force her to accept only a gold coin or two. But she insisted on fifty gold crowns, and when he complained that he was a poor man, she laughed at him and offered to set one of her snarling wolflike dogs on him and drive him off. He had worn humble clothing, but she saw that his large hands had never labored, but were soft and fat, and she heard his voice, which, though coarse, was not the voice of a peasant or small shopkeeper.