The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great. Fuller Robert Higginson

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СКАЧАТЬ is afraid to propose war! He has offered no decree!" another citizen cried.

      These questions and a hundred others were discussed on every side with a violence that swept away all semblance of dignity or restraint. The factions quarrelled like children, and more than once came to blows in their eagerness, making it necessary for the Scythians of the public guard to separate them. At last the herald of the Epistate demanded in due form whether the Assembly desired any decree to be proposed. Far less than the required number of six thousand hands were raised in the affirmative, and the gathering was dissolved, eddying out of the enclosure in turbulent disorder.

      "Is that all?" asked Chares, rising and stretching himself with a yawn.

      "That is all," Clearchus replied sadly.

      "With a phalanx of ten thousand brave men I could take your Acropolis," Leonidas remarked, measuring the height above his head.

      "Yes, but where could you find them?" Aristotle said.

      "Who knows? Perhaps in the camp of Alexander," the Spartan replied.

      Ariston had slipped away into the crowd.

      CHAPTER V

      THE BANQUET

      On their way from the Theatre, Clearchus informed his friends of his decision to be married on the morrow.

      "Then we must feast to-night!" Chares cried promptly.

      "Very well," Clearchus said, "but you will have to make the arrangements for me, as I have other things to do."

      "Aristotle will take charge of the food and wine," said the Theban, eagerly, "if he is willing to assume such a responsibility; and I will provide the entertainment and send out the invitations. What do you say?"

      "Good," Clearchus replied; "that is, if Aristotle agrees."

      "I am willing," said the Stagirite.

      "It is settled, then," Chares declared. "Come, Leonidas, I shall need your help. Let us get to work."

      It was hardly sunset when the guests who had been bidden by Chares began to assemble at the house of Clearchus. A crimson awning had been drawn over the peristylium and the soft light of scores of lamps shone upward against it. Shrubs and flowering plants partly hid the marble columns. Medean carpets had been spread upon the floor. The tables, each with its soft couch, had been arranged in two parallel lines, joined at one end by those set for the host and the most honored of the guests. At the farther end of the space thus enclosed a fountain flung up a stream that sparkled with variegated colors.

      All had been prepared under the direction of Aristotle in such a manner as to gratify the senses without jarring upon the most sensitive taste. The masses of color and the contrasts of light and shade were grouped with subtle skill to create a pleasing impression. Slaves walked noiselessly across the hall, appearing and vanishing in the wall of foliage, bearing dishes of gold and of silver and flagons filled with rare wines. Softly, as from a distance, sounded the music of flutes and citharse.

      Clearchus and his guests, crowned with wreaths of myrtle, reclined upon the couches. Their talk ran chiefly upon the events of the day and the contest of oratory in the Assembly.

      "You Athenians ought to pass a law banishing all your speakers," Chares drawled. "Then there might be some chance that you would adopt a policy and stick to it. As it is, the infernal skill of these men makes you believe first one thing and then another, until you end by not knowing what to think."

      "You mean we have plenty of counsellors but no counsel," Clearchus replied.

      "That's it, exactly," Chares said. "And that man, Demosthenes, will bring you to grief yet, some day."

      "All your states have had their turn of power," Aristotle said, "and none has been able to keep it. There is another day coming and it will be the day of the Macedonian. He dreams of making you all one."

      "Let him keep away from my country with his dreams," Leonidas remarked.

      "There spoke the lion!" laughed Clearchus. "Stubborn to the last."

      "Did you hear what old Phocion said when he came out of the Theatre?" asked a young man with a shrill voice who sat on the right.

      "No; what was it?" Clearchus inquired.

      "Demosthenes wanted to know what he thought of his oration," the narrator said. "You know Demosthenes likes to hear himself praised and he would almost give his right hand for a compliment from Phocion, the 'pruner of his periods,' as he calls him. 'It was only indifferent,' the old fellow told him, 'but good enough to cost you your life.' You should have seen how pale Demosthenes grew; but Phocion put his hand on his shoulder and said, 'Never mind; for this once, I think I can save thee.'"

      "They say Phocion is an honest man," Chares remarked.

      "So he is," Aristotle replied. "And one of few."

      The young men who had assembled to honor the occasion listened eagerly to every word that fell from the lips of the man whose keen deductions and daring speculations had begun to open new pathways in every branch of human wisdom. The rivalry between the philosophers in Athens was even more keen than that between the orators, and each had his school of partisans and defenders.

      "Honesty is truth," said Porphyry, a young follower of Xenocrates, who had succeeded Plato in the Academy. "But what is truth? Have you Peripatetics discovered it yet?"

      "We are seeking, at least," Aristotle replied dryly, feeling that an attempt was being made to entrap him.

      "Democritus holds that truth does not exist," Porphyry ventured, unabashed.

      "Yes, and Protagoras maintains that we are the measure of all things and that everything is true or false, as we will," the Stagirite rejoined. "They are unfortunate, for if there were no truth, there would be no world. As for the Sceptics, they have not the courage of their doctrines; for which of them, being in Libya and conceiving himself to be in Athens, would think of trying to walk into the Odeum? And when they fall sick, do they not summon a physician instead of trusting to some person who is ignorant of healing to cure them? Those who search for truth with their eyes and hands only shall never find it, for there are truths which are none the less true because we cannot see nor feel them, and these are the greatest of all."

      "We might know the truth at last if we could find out what animates nature," Clearchus said. "Why do flowers grow and bloom? Why do birds fly and fishes swim?"

      "The marble statues of the Parthenon would have remained blocks of stone forever had not Phidias cut them out," Aristotle responded. "It was Empedocles who taught us that earth, air, fire, and water must form the limits of our knowledge; but who believes him now?"

      "Do you hold, then, with Anaxagoras of Clazomene, that all things are directed by a divine mind?" Porphyry asked.

      This question was followed by a sudden hush while Aristotle considered his answer. All present had heard whispers that the Stagirite in his teaching was introducing new Gods and denying the power of the old divinities. This was the crime for which Socrates had been put to death and Pericles himself had found it difficult to save Aspasia from the same fate when a similar charge was preferred against her. Aristotle felt his danger, for he knew that the jealous and powerful priesthood would be glad to catch him tripping, as indeed it did in later years.

      "It was Hermotimus, СКАЧАТЬ