shame suffused my cheeks! then have Farewell for the present! the feelings which this anniversary awakened, and our conversation has embittered!-Enough! When thou shalt one day collect my ashes-when the accusations of my enemies are heard more loud than now-then wilt thou have some grounds more than hitherto thou knewest of to urge in my defence; but then, too, wilt thou recall one point, wherein I blushed not to be my own accuser! Far from Athens-for the second time an exile-his country still possessed the heart of Alcibiades. And still, at Sparta and Samos, at Athens and Miletus, in Europe and in Asia, he had his correspondents and intelligencers. He, in his Thracian hold, often knew before the Attic council what was doing in the fleet, and before the Athenian commanders what was doing in the city. The Peloponnesian war was raging with unmitigated fury. Twenty-five years had not abated the vehemence of mutual hatred in the bosoms of the great belligerents. Athens, so frequently on the brink of destruction, makes one more convulsive effort has one more day of triumph. Seventy-seven vessels of the enemy sunk or taken the Spartan admiral drowned-the Spartan squadron reduced to a single galley-the whole Asian coast strewn with wreck and corses-such was the tale of ARGINUS.E. But oh the accursed spirit of democracy, and its accursed instruments! Every reader of ancient annals knows what followed this splendid victory, and how it was accomplished. When we call to mind that the successful commanders-charged with omitting to collect the bodies of the Athenian slain, and to save the survivors out of the lost vessels, an omission for which tempestuous weather was responsible-when we call to mind that these gallant men, these preservers of their country-all of them, at least, whom the sovereign people could lay hold of-were delivered over, for their reward, under a mockery of legal form, to the hands of the executioner-let us never forget, at the same time, that the scoundrel demagogues, who led the multitude in this act of execrable wickedness, could effect nothing until they called into operation the assistance of the BALLOT. Away now, sapient Grote! Down with the heads-and a little more-of the next republican effusion you intend to read to the House of Commons-and pray don't leave out the battle of Argi nusæ. The transports of indignation with which Alcibiades heard this news we will not describe. His first consolation was a present made him by Timandra. Returning from one of his Thracian campaigns, he was greeted by the smiles of a daughter, born during his brief absence. That daughter was the celebrated LAIS. Believe us, good reader, we beseech thee. Timandra was her mother, on first-rate evidence; and Plutarch makes a slight mistake in calling Sicily her birth-place. Winter passes away. Spring arrives. The fleet of Athens is at Egospotami, in the Thracian Chersonese, not far from Alcibiades. At the head of the hostile navy is Lysander, too terrible an "opposite" for the six commanders of the Athenian force. Three days' observation of the manoeuvres on either side make this plain to the Son of Clinias. On the fourth he mounts his swiftest horse-the gift of Seuthes-and gallops off for Egospotami. The sun has long gone down, and he has not yet returned. Towards midnight an anxious group assemble in the chamber of Timandra. Antisth. One hour later, and I give up all hope. Dioph. Perhaps 'tis a propitious sign, that they let him not depart so soon. Tim. My heart presages the contrary. For many a fight already have I seen him sail, and trembled less than to-day, when he mounted horse. Who can hate him more bitterly than they do? They who foresee-in his restoration to Athens-the obscuration of their own renown! Who-(A noise without). All at once. O that that were he! Slave (entering). My mistress, our lord is just returned. Tim. Away, away to meet him! Slave. He is already here. (ALCIBIADES rushes in. His hair disordered. His eye restless. whole appearance singularly wild). His Tim. Welcome, welcome, thou vagrant! I began to fear thou would'st not keep thy word. (Embracing him, and then first perceiving his plight). But how Alc. O away, away with your eyes! Not Alcibiades, only his shadow has returned. To-day, to-day, has my country for the first time cast me off; and ripe for the sickle of destruction do I leave her. Antisth. and Dioph. By thy life and ours, what has befallen thee? Alc. (laughing bitterly). O, me nothing! At least, nothing for the present; though more-all the morefor the future. Ah, I hear them already rustling, the wings of approaching ruin! I see her already overthrown -the queen of cities, the sovereign of islands, the pearl in the girdle of the Graces! Witness for me, ye righteous gods, I have done what became me! Guiltless of my country's fall have I returned from thence. Tim. What, then, they have not listened to thee?-have not followed thine advice? Alc. No! that have they not! And yet, if ever words flowed convincingly from Grecian lips-if ever warrior offered himself for noble deeds if ever truth arrayed herself upon the side of patriot's counsel-such case this day was mine. But in vain, all in vain! The times, when Orpheus moved rocks, are gone! O Diophantes, O Antistheus, remember my words!a few days more, and Lysander has destroyed their last defence-throws chains upon the citizens of Athensand fire into her ships, her havens, and her citadel. O my country, my country! to what blind guides dost thou commit thyself, since thou hast slain or banished those who saw ! Dioph. And wilt thou not yet tell us what thy counsel was? Alc. O, willingly! Look here! In this letter, which you, Antistheus, brought me, Seuthes proffers an army of four thousand men to my free disposal. That I should lead them-and that he himself should be henceforth an ally of the Athenians-were his sole conditions. (With a forced calmness). They rejected his offer with a sort of sneering acknowledgment. (Again with heat). That their present position was full of danger—their conduct inconsiderate-Lysander's apparent quiet formidable-all this I proved to them by arguments, at which envy itself could only show its teeth, not laugh-and they were silent! That, if they would sail for Sestos, and take me along with them, I would there, within three days, force the enemy to combat, or to a surrender of his conquests-that, with a stout band of well-armed Thracians, I would fall upon his camp, and compel him to abandon it;-for this I pledged myself, and was able to have kept my pledge. Then, with an insolent tone, with eyes that gladly would have wounded, words that gladly would have slain, Tydeus at last arose, and bade me depart. The rest assented. Conon alone was silent. Still I lingered, still I warned them--and obeyed not till my own life was in danger, and the furious Menander had ten times bawled to me that they—not 1 -were generals there. Antisth. The blinded Tim. (interrupting). Say rather the far-sighted! Scandalous, in truth, was their conduct; yet thou needest, O Alcibiades, to cast only a glance upon their hearts and their condition, and thou wilt find thyself ready enough to confess they act but as they must. Alc. As they must? Tim. Unquestionably! Must they not fear, that in victory every honour would fall to thy share, in defeat every disgrace to theirs? Must they not a thousand times rather see their country in danger, than thee at its head? Must they not-But how is this? Ye good gods, do I behold aright? Or does this flickering light deceive me? Alc. Well, then what see'st thou ? Tim. Tears in thine eyes! Tears -the first thou hast shed in Thrace; the first since Antiochus fell! Must I dry these also for thee, Son of Clinias? : Alc. O that thou couldst! But the fall of a hundred Antiochuses-dear as a single one was to me!-were nothing to the fall of Athens. Tim. Inexplicable being! So indifferent to thine own misfortunes, and often so sensitive to those of others. To think of the countenance with which you said, Timandra, we must once more be wanderers! The tranquillity with which you announced to us all both your banishments Alc. (interrupting). Was far less heroic than this solitary-solitary tear -for Athens' coming ruin. I, I alone then suffered; and what I suffered was too little to affect me. Even out of Athens I was still Alcibiades. Every path-every kingdom-every corner of the world-stood open to me; friends near and far, who knew and loved me; mighty commonwealths that prized me, that would fain behold me at their armies' head; monarchs who needed a commander ;—all these were proud to tender me a refuge and protection. Mine own arm could combatperience has shown how gallantly! But be all this as nothing! Suppose myself annihilated. I am soldier enough not to shrink from death; and Greece is not so poor in great men, that the loss of one should destroy her. But Athens! Athens ! With thee falls Grecia's freedom. Who shall raise thee again, thou noble city, when thou once hast sunk? Who shall reinstate the cedar a storm has rooted from the earth? -ex Tim. What melancholy pictures of a too hasty fancy art thou creating for thyself! Has not many a tempest passed over Athens, and yet she is blooming? Already has she fallen and risen again. Antisth. Risen again, like a second Antæus, with redoubled strength. Alc. Fallen? Risen again? Know ye what ye say? Tim. Undoubtedly. Do you forget her history in the Persian war? Was she not twice in ashes, and yet rose she not more stately from the ruin? Alc. O no, Timandra! O no, my friend! No foolish Xerxes, coward and incendiary, is now the foe of Athens. 'Tis the SPARTAN, the most terrible of all. Not against lifeless walls alone will he war. To crush the Constitution of Athens-at least to cripple it for ever-will be his aim. Blind rage is formidable. It sweeps along like a hail-storm, devastating where it falls, but confined in its compass, and short in its duration. But envious spite enervates by degrees its victim, until the last strength is drained away, and dead for ever it sinks down. O fate of Messenia, terrible to all posterity, soon, I fear me, wilt thou be renewed in the calamity of Athens. Tim. And if it be so, think not thou on her misfortune, but on her ingratitude alone. Why-as I have already asked thee twenty times in vain-why dost thou lament for a state that has twice banished thee? twice threatened thy life? which thou couldst save, but not improve? Why torment thyself about a people that has so oft repaid thy benefits with injury? that even now rejects thy counsel? that, didst thou ten times again pluck it from the jaws of destruction, would soon forget its preserver, for the next good fluteplayer? Leave them to mourn and vex themselves who have to thank Athens for favours! Dioph. By thy head, Son of Clinias, Timandra is right. First of men, for whom all Greece is too little, listen to thy friends, and forget Athens. Alc. Senseless!-forget that it is my country! that I owe to it the first, the costliest of blessings-life. Tim. Country! Life!-Chimeras! would Prodicus exclaim. Alc. And truly too, were it mere existence that I spoke of. But no where out of Athens could Alcibiades have been Alcibiades. With this peo ple alone could my virtues have met with love, my faults with forgiveness. Here alone there flourished, for my ripening youth, arts and sciences in union. Here alone I found ample verge for noble enterprise and soulentrancing pleasure. Here there tended me a Pericles, who brought me up; a Socrates, who taught me; friends that thronged around me in the fight and in the feast; maids that kissed away from my brow the wrinkles of disquietude; a populace that adored my very humours that shouted out so often let Nicias the sober be silent, let Alcibiades the reveller speak! O here, here only could the germ of so many self-opposing impulses wax strong, expand, and flourish. Tim. Dreamer! And is Athens then alone the cradle of great men? Have Sparta, Argos, Corinth, none such upon their roll of citizens? Imagine thee born there-trained there-imagine thee the son of some Thracian churl-what matters it? Even thus wouldst thou have risen into the hero and the states man. Alc. Very possibly-but never into that, which Athens made me! Renowned alike amid men and maidens; victor where the myrtle-branch went round; victor where swords clashed and helmets rung; softest of the soft, and boldest of the bold. O Timandra how often must I repeat it to thee and to thy friends?-to be a hero, and nothing but a hero, was never my design. To be first in virtue and in pleasure, that did I wish that did I achieve and there I find my consolation, even in this melancholy hour. Name me a delight-I have enjoyed it; a virtue-I have practised it. But name me too-if thou canst-another commonwealth in Greece, where such opportunities for both can be found. Thou art silent! Ungrateful! Thou art already convinced; and yet I have kept back my strongest arguments. Was it not at Athens that we met each other? Was it not there you learned the thousand arts that have chained princes to your car? that allured me to select thee from hundreds of thy sisters? and that bless us yet? O for that cause, for that cause alone, shall Athens be the city of my soul, so long as a nerve thrills, or a pulse throbs in me. Let destiny do her worst upon me! To cross my plans may be but sport to her; but thee-'tis Atropos alone shall tear thee from me! Lysander conquers. Alcibiades flees to Bithynia-to Phrygia. We are drawing nearer and nearer to a close. Pharnabazus receives him with open arms and eager hospitality—as warm as Tissaphernes had ever displayed. The consummation is drawing nearer still. Groaning under the influence of victorious Sparta, and the iron rule of her Thirty Tyrants, captive-prostrate-Athens will not yet abandon hope, as long as she knows that Alcibiades, in any quarter of the world, survives. Lysander receives private orders from the magistrates of Lacedemon, to insist upon his death. He transmits them to the Persian Satrap. Alcibiades had just quitted Pharnabazus on his way to the throne of the Great King. At the evening banquet, when the goblet had already been ten times filled and drained,-when the senses of the Satrap were more than half confused,-when jealous courtiers had been spurting out fresh poison against the Son of Clinias, and their master had suffered it in silence,-at that moment the Spartan messengers renewed their demand, and required, with Spartan haughtiness, immediate acquiescence or dismissal. For a few minutes Pharnabazus still was mute-then came to the resolve we might anticipate from a barbarian and a Satrap. Yet it was with a shaking hand, and almost weeping eyes, that he signed the fatal order. His uncle Sysamithres was appointed to see it put in execution. Tranquilly, mean while, did Alcibiades pursue his journey. That hate, jealousy, and artifice were brewing machinations against him that Sparta and her thirty deputies at Athens would hunt after his blood-all this he easily conjectured; but he either apprehended not so rapid a pursuit,—or thought, as at other times, a danger despised was already overcome. This time, alas! he was mistaken. He had not yet passed the boundaries of Phrygia before Sysamithres and his band of twenty men came up with him. Yet not once did these assassins dream of attacking him in front. Not for a moment did they feel emboldened to assault with warriors' weapons the man who was travelling through the country with one friend and a woman. Alcibiades had spent the night in one of the small huts of a paltry hamlet. A warning vision, that disturbed his first hours of repose, he disregarded. Just as a light morning slumber had stolen more soothingly upon his senses, he was wakened by a startling noise. He looked up, and beheld a bright wreath of fire darting from point to point along the opposite wall. Before he could utter a word, Timandra was roused by the same horrid spectacle, and shrieked, half dead with terror, " Almighty powers, what is that?" "Treachery," answered Alcibiades, with his mind already perfectly collected-sprang up, and called upon his friend, still sleeping unconscious in the neighbouring room. Whatever clothes and furniture he spied around, he seized and threw upon the flame. His persuasive voice calmed the plaints of Timandra-his example, the agony of Diophantes. His left hand wrapt in his mantle, with his right he brandished his sword. Thus he broke through the fire, and bore Timandra forth unharmed. Diophantes, too, was safe. The murderers had surrounded the house: they started to see, unhurt and undismayed, him whom they deemed already sacrificed. As the angry eye of a despot scatters the herd of his slaves, so did his glance disperse them. No one laid hand upon him; no one struck a blow. Not till they were again at a distance, and secure from his dreaded blade, did they turn and pour in their arrows. Of the twenty, two transfixed him. Without a groan or a sigh-yet stricken to death-he sank upon the ground. The assassins marked his fall, and fled as if Revenge were at their heels. With a thrilling scream of anguish, Timandra threw herself beside her lover. His wounds were bleeding inwardly-in the region of the heart. For a season he lay senseless. Yet once more did the voice of Timandra unseal his eyes: he clasped her hand with a dying effort. "Farewell, beloved! Tell it, one day, to Athens, that I fell true to her; and that-that-a crowd of murderers dared to strike me only-FROM A DISTANCE!" Ah! how she rent her hair! how she wrung her hands! how she tore her bosom! how she called on heaven and on Hades to yield him back again! When, at last, her consciousness returned,-when she found that the latest flutter of the pulse was gone that he was dead, irrecoverably dead,--she spread over the body, to cover it from every insulting eye, her richest robes, and burned it amid the brands of the yet flaming house. "He died," she exclaimed," as he lived with the feeling of his worth!" Diophantes, in the stupefaction of a waking trance, assisted her mechanically. It was when the fire enwrapped the corse of his friend, and some of the neighbouring Phrygians hastened to aid in the final ceremonies, that he first recovered voice and recollection. "I was thy follower here, and I will not desert thee yonder!" He said; and before any one could hinder him, had fallen on his sword. One urn received the ashes of both. Never did Timandra forget her beloved. She conveyed to Athens his salutation and his dying words. The whole people re-echoed her cry:-" He fell as he lived with the feeling of his worth!" Attica bewailed in him her own expiring greatness-Greece, her foremost general. Sparta herself, now that she could no longer fear him, bore to his merits the emphatic testimony"He was a MAN and a HERO!" States soon forget their benefactors. The hearts of individuals are sometimes more faithful. There was not a friend of Alcibiades that ever ceased to cherish his memory. From the moment of his death, Timandra refused every offer of love, shunned all society, and Lais was soon altogether an orphan. |