Part 39 (1/2)
Men rushed for the last time to the shrines where their fathers had prayed,-the temples of Theseus, Olympian Zeus, Dionysus, Aphrodite. The tombs of the worthies of old, stretching out along the Sacred Way to Eleusis, where Solon, Clisthenes, Miltiades, and many another bulwark of Athens slept, had the last votive wreath hung lovingly upon them. And especially men sought the great temple of the ”Rock,” to lift their hands to Athena Polias, and vow awful vows of how harm to the Virgin G.o.ddess should be wiped away in blood.
So the throng pa.s.sed through the city and toward the sh.o.r.e, awaiting the fleet.
It came after eager watching. The whole fighting force of Athens and her Corinthian, aeginetan, and other allies. Before the rest raced a stately s.h.i.+p, the _Nausicaa_, her triple-oar bank flying faster than the spray.
The people crowded to the water's edge when the great trireme cast off her pinnace and a well-known figure stepped therein.
”Themistocles is with us!”
He landed at Phaleron, the thousands greeted him as if he were a G.o.d. He seemed their only hope-the Atlas upbearing all the fates of Athens. With the glance of his eye, with a few quick words, he chased the terrors from the strategi and archons that crowded up around him.
”Why distressed? Have we not held the Barbarians back n.o.bly at Artemisium?
Will we not soon sweep his power from the seas in fair battle?”
With almost a conqueror's train he swept up to the city. A last a.s.sembly filled the Pnyx. Themistocles had never been more hopeful, more eloquent.
With one voice men voted never to bend the knee to the king. If the G.o.ds forbade them to win back their own dear country, they would go together to Italy, to found a new and better Athens far from the Persian's power. And at Themistocles's motion they voted to recall all the political exiles, especially Themistocles's own great enemy Aristeides the Just, banished by the son of Neocles only a few years before. The a.s.sembly dispersed-not weeping but with cheers. Already it was time to be quitting the city.
Couriers told how the Tartar hors.e.m.e.n were burning the villages beyond Parnes. The magistrates and admirals went to the house of Athena. The last incense smoked before the image. The bucklers hanging on the temple wall were taken down by Cimon and the other young patricians. The statue was reverently lifted, wound in fine linen, and borne swiftly to the fleet.
”Come, _makaira_!” called Hermippus, entering his house to summon his daughter. Hermione sent a last glance around the disordered aula; her mother called to the bevy of pallid, whimpering maids. Cleopis was bearing Phnix, but Hermione took him from her. Only his own mother should bear him now. They went through the thinning Agora and took one hard look at each familiar building and temple. When they should return to them, the inscrutable G.o.d kept hid. So to Peiraeus,-and to the rapid pinnaces which bore them across the narrow sea to Salamis, where for the moment at least was peace.
All that day the boats were bearing the people, and late into the night, until the task was accomplished, the like whereof is not found in history.
No Athenian who willed was left to the power of Xerxes. One brain and voice planned and directed all. Leonidas, Ajax of the h.e.l.lenes, had been taken. Themistocles, their Odysseus, valiant as Ajax and gifted with the craft of the immortals, remained. Could that craft and that valour turn back the might of even the G.o.d-king of the Aryans?
CHAPTER XXV
THE ACROPOLIS FLAMES
A few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumph at Thermopylae. An expedition sent to plunder Delphi returned discomfited-thanks, said common report, to Apollo himself, who broke off two mountain crags to crush the impious invaders. But no such miracle halted the march on Athens. Botia and her cities welcomed the king; Thespiae and Plataea, which had stood fast for h.e.l.las, were burned. The Peloponnesian army lingered at Corinth, busy with a wall across the Isthmus, instead of risking valorous battle.
”By the soul of my father,” the king had sworn, ”I believe that after the lesson at Thermopylae these madmen will not fight again!”
”By land they will not,” said Mardonius, always at his lord's elbow, ”by sea-it remains for your Eternity to discover.”
”Will they really dare to fight by sea?” asked Xerxes, hardly pleased at the suggestion.
”Omnipotence, you have slain Leonidas, but a second great enemy remains.
While Themistocles lives, it is likely your slaves will have another opportunity to prove to you their devotion.”
”Ah, yes! A stubborn rogue, I hear. Well-if we must fight by sea, it shall be under my own eyes. My loyal Phnician and Egyptian mariners did not do themselves full justice at Artemisium; they lacked the valour which comes from being in the presence of their king.”
”Which makes a dutiful subject fight as ten,” quickly added Pharnaspes the fan-bearer.
”Of course,” smiled the monarch, ”and now I must ask again, Mardonius, how fares it with my handsome Prexaspes?”
”Only indifferently, your Majesty, since you graciously deign to inquire.”