Pericles, on advice from Aspasia, had written a message to the King Archon; he was beginning to believe, however tentatively, that the old Archon was not unfriendly to him. He had written:
“Our friends from Rome are desirous of meeting our government. They reverence the laws of Solon—which, regrettably, we do not obey. The Romans are under the misapprehension that we have a perfect government, based on the laws of Solon. Therefore, their aspirations for their own government are very high, and they dream of an excellent republic. It would be most cruel to disillusion them while they are in Athens. If we deceive them well enough they will return to Rome and found a republic worthy of the honor of honorable men. The eldest is one Diodorus who is a member of the Roman Senate. They are all men of principle and conviction and the sternest probity. Senator Diodorus has expressed a desire to address our government in solemn session. I pray that the Assembly will not be too rowdy and will control any spasm of risibility before these simple but stately men, and will answer their questions in all due sobriety, remembering always that they are our guests.”
Of a certainty, he thought, I am praying.
The Romans were intrigued by the Agora even if they found it somewhat noisy and boisterous. It was evident that they were accustomed to a more decorous way of commerce and shops and markets and offices. Pericles, seeing this, said, “The Athenians, as I told you before, are very animated and quick and vehement. If they appear to be quarreling, it is only their way of doing business and conducting negotiations.”
The Roman Senator said, giving him a grave glance of admiration, “It is not so with you, Pericles. Jove could not be more steadfast and serious.”
Pericles considered Zeus, whom the Romans had named Jove, or Jupiter. He was amused that the Romans had not, apparently, when adopting the Greek gods, also condoned Zeus’ livelier aspects concerning seductive maidens. Or it was possible that virtuous men averted their eyes at the implications, preferring to view the father of gods and men as white as Macedonian snows, which, thought Pericles, would make for a very dreary life on Olympus. Virtue, like truth, should have its discreet limits. These good men make me feel like a veritable reprobate and voluptuary, said Pericles to himself. May they return to Rome with their illusions intact!
The King Archon, and the lesser Archons and the Assembly and Ecclesia, met Pericles and the Romans with all ceremony and composure. Elaborate compliments were exchanged. Once Pericles caught the eye of the King Archon, who rarely smiled. But now there was a grandfatherly twinkle in his eyes which Pericles enjoyed but hoped the Romans had not discerned.
Pericles wished that Aspasia had had the ordering of the feast which was set before the Romans. The latter were astonished and somewhat appalled at the rich dishes, the profusion of different wines, the Syrian whiskey, the wreathed goblets of Egyptian glass glittering with jewels. They gazed at everything; they studied the fine tunics and togas of the other men, their gemmed armlets and rings and necklaces. Several wore a single gold earring set with bright stones, in the Egyptian manner. Many were perfumed. The Romans, frankly, did not know what to do with the silver bowls, floating with petals, which were set before them for the dipping of their fingers. They watched and followed suit, and looked dumbly at each other. Singing girls, indecorously dressed, played lutes and lyres and flutes, and smiled openly at any man who glanced at them. Pericles saw the Romans wince. The King Archon said to Pericles, “This is none of my doing, but our friends wish to impress the Romans, whom they consider country bumpkins.”
“I believe, alas,” Pericles replied, “that the Romans fear we are decadent.”
“And, in a measure, are we not?” asked the King Archon, to which Pericles had no answer. The King Archon said, “It might have been well had they visited Sparta instead of Athens.”
The Romans reservedly ate of the fine food, and drank very little of the wine and none of the whiskey. Their neighbors conversed with them in polite phrases and asked many questions of Rome and inclined their heads when answered. The Romans relaxed somewhat under all this pleasantness, and spoke of industrious Rome and the nobility of labor and commerce. They were proud of their engineers and their new aqueducts, and of the arch which they had perfected. At no time did they mention music or statues or poetry or philosophy. The Athenians looked at their calloused hands, at nails worn in the pursuit of productive work, and raised their own eyebrows. Manual labor was, to the Athenian, the province of slaves and not free men, who preferred to discuss politics and theories and philosophies and the theatre and the Olympiads. But sports, to the Romans, was not an aesthetic pursuit, during which one admired beautiful precision and physical perfection and dexterity. They viewed sports as a robust spectacle where the strongest won and not the most artistic, and skillful. Worse still, to the Athenians, was the Roman habit of admiring bloody gladiators.
Pericles was relieved when the moment had come for Senator Diodorus to address the assemblage. He rose in his subdued garments and looked about him in a sedate fashion. The Athenians had become somewhat vehement with wine, but when they saw the temperate, if weighty, countenance of the Senator they fell into reasonable attention.
He spoke without grandiloquence. “We Romans,” he said, “have founded a republic according to what we have heard of your holy Solon. Our knowledge was small until we came to your glorious city,” and he glanced kindly at Pericles, who bowed in his chair. “Now our knowledge is vastly increased, and we are full of admiration and respect.
“Our Constitution is not yet complete. But we are establishing a system of checks and balances. We intend to diffuse power so that no one body of Romans can assume tyranny over others. I will say it more plainly: We intend to protect all Romans against their government by establishing agents in government who will assiduously watch each other, so no one group will become too potent.”
The Athenians exchanged amused if careful glances, as do adults when an immature child speaks, but they saw that the Archon was looking at them sternly.
“Under that Constitution we are in the process of completing, there will be strong emphasis on the unity and sanctity of family life, of patriotism, of the inculcating of our children with reverence for their parents, the inviolate status of a man’s solemn word, self-control at all times, and, above all, the profound relationship between man and God.
“We Romans believe that the man who labors is the foundation of every just society, and by labor we mean every endeavor in which a man uses his mind and his hands, and respects the earth from which we have sprung. At no time will any man be permitted to oppress his neighbor, to exploit him, to defame him, to demean him. We will, at all times, strive for greatness and justice in our public and private lives, not the greatness of riches but the greatness of the familiar virtues. For he who is a good man, however humble, is more to be honored than a king.
“We know that all men are born free and that it is the sacred duty of government to protect that freedom before the Face of God. That is the foremost duty of government. When that duty is despised or obliterated all else will be lost, for nothing can flourish in the absence of liberty. Our courts will be courts to which any citizen can appeal if any of his rights are threatened. We will teach our people that self-rule and self-sacrifice are the marks of a dignified man who reveres his God, his country and his humanity, and that the man who does not possess these is not a man at all.
“We prize industry and honest commerce. We will strive to live at peace with our neighbors and not war against them unless we are attacked. We will have no foreign alliances which can lead to wars and dissensions and bankruptcy. We will treat other states with deference but avoid entanglements with them. We will not permit any politician or other unscrupulous man to rob one section of our citizens for the benefit of another section, through the seizing of their property which they have earned and giving it to others less prudent and industrious. If a man will not work, then he must starve, and no politician will be allowed to alleviate his state at the
expense of others. For we hold that what a man earns by his own labor belongs solely to him, and he shall not be plundered of it. It does not belong to the government; it does not belong to his neighbor. The rights of property will be protected at all times. If it becomes necessary for government to use a man’s land, for the building of aqueducts or other public services, then that government must pay that man in full. If he does not assent even then, he will be allowed to take his case to the courts.
“Remembering that ancient nations were destroyed by crushing taxes, we shall tax our people for only what is necessary for our military services, for the guarding of our city through a system of police, for clean water and streets, for the support of the courts, for sanitaria, for sound buildings, for fighters against fire. The stipends for those in public service will always be modest; the honor is almost enough.”
He looked earnestly at his audience; many were carefully studying their jeweled hands.
“Riches,” he said, “are not to be despised if they are acquired by superior work and intelligence. But the man who becomes rich by thievery and malfeasance in office or crafty dealings will be treated with contempt. He is a disgrace to his nation.
“In conclusion, then, we will build a state on the laws of your Solon, and the Constitution he desired will be ours. Frugality and thrift and open respect for neighbors will be taught our sons, and they will also be taught that law and order must rule lest we all perish in a welter of crime, and venal politicians become our masters “
He sat down, after bowing to his audience. They looked to the King Archon for a signal. All near him saw tears in his aged eyes. He lifted his hands and clapped them in applause and the audience, however reluctant, and highly amused, joined him.
He turned to the Romans and said, “May your city flourish, under God, and may your children’s children remember you with piety and gratitude and honor, and may they never forget what you will write on your Twelve Tables of Law. Your republic, I prophesy, will become the wonder of the world. So long as your people adhere to those Tables they will never decline nor will dust choke up your temples nor foul men rise to power, nor any just man become the slave of his avaricious neighbor.”
He turned to Pericles, and Pericles rose and bowed to the Romans and said in a voice no one had ever heard before, so moved was it:
“Go with God.”
When the Romans had departed Athens, heavy with gifts, Pericles said to Aspasia, “No. I did not introduce them to our philosophers, not even Anaxagoras, whom they would have admired for his very appearance if not for his theories. Nor did I introduce them to Socrates. But Pheidias visited them and they walked on the acropolis, which rendered them dumb for a space. Beloved, I kept them from our philosophers who only think and teach, estimable things without doubt, but not the kind which would have been appreciated by our Roman friends, who reverence work almost as much as they do their gods, and suspect theories and abstract ideas. Whether or not they will produce artists in their future I do not know. But they are men of a different character than ours. Who knows? They may become the rulers of the world, which would benefit most of us—if they keep to their Constitution.”
CHAPTER 12
Pericles had told the Romans, “You have asked me of Sparta. Spartans devote their lives to war, Athenians to politics.”
“But they are an industrious people,” Senator Diodorus had remarked.
“They are also lightless, grim, unrelenting, suspicious and their lives are unimaginative. Their government is all-powerful, an oligarchy, and so their people are virtual slaves, always in terror of those who rule them with so much gloom and ponderousness. I admit they are valorous and patriotic; but their existence is one of monotony, endless labor without the reward of laughter or any ease. Their surliness is famous. Their women do the work of men, the children are never permitted to be children. They are afflicted by a conviction that the rest of Greece is conspiring against them, whereas they, themselves, are conspiring to dominate our country. There is a kind of madness in their souls, a darkness of spirit. They believe they are superior to all other Greeks, and their tread is the tread of iron. They have no humor and I confess I am terrified of humorless men. They are dangerous. You have spoken of freedom as the breath of life. The Spartans do not regard freedom as desirable for their citizens, nor, in fact, for any other state. If they have any cherished belief it is that they are ordained to force their manner of living on the whole world.”
He thought of Sparta for a moment or two and then said, “I fear them, not so much for their arms but for their philosophy. They are both savage and spare, and they punish the slightest infractions of their stupefying laws with the utmost barbarism. They are becoming more and more aggressive; they have discovered that they can best conquer the world through commerce and trade, so now they are devoting all their energies—which are vast—to commerce and trade. Their single-mindedness is affrighting.”
“But you have said, Pericles, that the Spartans devote their lives to war.”
‘True. And there are more ways to war against envied neighbors than by the force of arms. That the Spartans have now learned. I honor labor as you honor it, but not the grinding labor of the Spartans directed against us.”
Years before this, Pericles knew that Sparta was not alone in envying and resenting Athenian maritime supremacy. Corinth and Megara, members of the Peloponnesian Confederacy, who were certain that Athens intended to drive them off the seas, listened to Spartan propaganda about the avarice of effete Athens. Sparta, herself, had had no desire to go to war with Athens at that particular time, but she goaded her allies to that end, preferring to pick up much of the spoils of any conflict, and keep her growing wealth and city and men safe. Knowing of this Pericles once said, “It reminds me of the old fable of a dog who had a rigorous master who denied him entrance at will to the pen of fat rabbits. On the other hand the wolves of the forest would chase the dog from their hunting territory. So the dog plotted and went to his master and said, ‘Lord, I listened last night when the moon was full to the wolves who are the rulers of the forest, and they conspired against you so that when you are in the fields they will attack and kill you and seize your domain.’ He then went to the wolves, cringing and fawning, and said, to the leader of the wolves, ‘Sire, I am of your kind though I live in the kennel of a man, and I heard him plotting with his wife that when the moon is waning he will come into your realm with arrow and sword and spear and kill you, and take your forest.’ So the man went forth with weapons to slay the wolves, and the wolves met him to dispatch him, and the man was slaughtered and the king of the wolves also, and the other wolves fled. Then the dog took over the pen of the fat rabbits and the domain of the man and drove off his wife. That dog is Sparta.”
This was inevitably repeated to the Spartans, and their oligarchy was enraged. The older Spartans were still gloating in memory of the defeat of Athens by Sparta and her allies, at Tanagra, when Pericles was still a young man. The oligarchy, that oppressive body of men which ruled Sparta, began to address their people in inflammatory language, and even the very young men who had not been born at the time of Tanagra or had been little children began to burn with fury against Athens, though she was also a member of the Peloponnesian Confederacy. The oligarchy had accused the younger Pericles of lusting for empire over all of the members of the Confederacy, and had declared that he was a bloody tyrant and vainly ambitious. Not only did the average Spartan believe this without doubts, but the other city-states believed it also, because of their envy. “If,” said the Spartans to their allies, “we defeated Athens before, we can do it again and once and for all quell her bold aspirations.”
So began the miserable sequence of erratic if desperate wars against Athens by members of the Confederacy, and which had plagued Pericles over many years. Sparta had confined herself to sporadic raids into Attica almost annually, while inciting her allies against Athens. Corinth and Megara were firmly and relentlessly crushed. Eventually At
hens retired from the Confederacy. In the meantime Sparta, who had suffered little during those long years, dreamed of driving Athens from the sea which was her domain, not by war but by seizing Athens’ ascendancy in commerce and trade.
To this end she fused all the energies of her men, demanding endless sacrifices of them and endless labor, stringent physical training and self-denial. Several generations ago she had been acknowledged the leader of Hellas because of her military superiority over her sister-states, and the magnificent valor of her fighting men. The Spartan people had never known freedom in the sense that Solon had intended for Athens. At one time the oligarchy had forbidden Spartans the possession of gold and silver and substituted iron for barter. Inevitably, wealth reached a few cunning hands, and the intended equalization of property was a failure. The oligarchies had been defeated by human nature, and for this they had become the laughter of Athens. Zeno of Elea, when instructing the young Pericles, had brought this emphatically to his pupil’s attention. “This should be a lesson for governments, but governments never learn anything and remember nothing. You cannot equalize men unless you chop off the higher heads and stretch, on a rack, those of lower mental stature. Both efforts are fatal.”
But still the later oligarchies thought longingly of the old days when there was a prohibition against the bequeathing or the gifting of land, and when lowly helots worked the land for a few selected and powerful Spartans. Still they lamented the fact that many citizens now owned precious metals. As the members of the oligarchy were only human also, they had no objection to acquiring fortunes for themselves though desiring that only they should possess them. “Are we a nation who loves banks, like the Athenians, and vast accumulations of wealth like them also—and the Persians, not to mention the Egyptians who coat their dead with gold? We are a stern and upright people. We believe in the equality of men, provided they are sound of body and mind. Why should any man aspire to rise above his fellows and gain greater rewards? It is a wicked injustice.”