Glory and the Lightning (63 page)

“My father has few,” Xanthippus would say, with a taunting but affectionate twinkle.

“Ah, but they are true friends! They would die for him. Choose your friends as you would choose a jewel of great price. He who says he has many friends, and boasts of them, is laughable and to be pitied, for he is deluded. A pleasing presence at his table, who drinks his wine copiously and assures him of love, often laughs at him in private as a naive fool, and is ready with slander either out of envy or malice.”

As Xanthippus was approaching marriageable age, for he was seventeen, Aspasia would introduce him to some of her maiden students in the gardens of her house. Athens professed to be outraged at this impropriety. A young man of family did not choose his bride. That was the prerogative of his parents, and the parents of the girl. However, the parents of Aspasia’s students did not object, for was not Xanthippus the son of Pericles? Moreover, were they, the parents, not themselves enlightened? Too, Aspasia never permitted Xanthippus to be alone with any of her students. This was not because of seemliness but because she knew human nature, and remembered Thalias. Youth was hot enough without providing it with encouraging opportunities, and the maidens had been entrusted to her care.

Daedalus, hearing through the gossip of slaves that his grandsons were being taught impiety and corruption by Aspasia, brought himself to confront Pericles in Pericles’ own house. It had been the first impulse of Pericles to refuse him an audience, then he relented and received Daedalus with iced courtesy and offered him refreshments. But Daedalus, more vitriolic with age, furiously declined. “I will not dine in this infamous house!” he shrieked. “I have degraded myself in behalf of my grandsons, and it is a vomit in my mouth.”

“Visit the latrines, then. I will wait,” replied Pericles. “I am Head of State. You are but an Archon, and I have politely granted you permission to speak to me.”

They both stood in the atrium, for Daedalus would not sit. His usual high color had paled to a deathliness. Pericles felt some pity for this old man, and so stood in a waiting attitude, his arms folded over his chest.

“My grandson, Xanthippus, visits the young courtesans in the house of that unspeakable woman, Aspasia! It is rumored that he will even marry one of them!”

Pericles’ mouth became fixed as marble. “The young ladies in Aspasia’s school are of aristocratic names and of impeccable houses. Shall I inform the parents of those maidens that you have slandered them, have called them concubines and harlots? Their fathers are powerful, as you are not powerful, and they would destroy you.”

Daedalus trembled with fear. He flung out his arms. “I do not mean the students,” he stammered. “It is said that Xanthippus is induced to consort with the female slaves in that house.”

“Of a certainty, that is a lie, and that you know, Daedalus.”

“I would believe anything of that woman!”

Pericles controlled himself. “The Lady Aspasia has enabled Xanthippus to know the daughters of great families and to choose a bride for himself. He has taste and discrimination. Of a surety, if he chooses a maiden who is a student of Aspasia’s, he will not commit the appalling folly of marrying a stupid and ugly woman. His son will be no Callias, whose name is infamous in Athens, so much so that no gentleman will consider him as a husband for his daughter, in spite of his inherited riches.”

“His name is not infamous! He has been the victim of pestilential people! If he has done foolish things it is because he was distraught over the dishonor done to his family! Has he not vitals, not emotions, that he cannot be overcome with shame and sorrow? His riches have been held against him. No matter. He is living in loneliness and sadness on Cyprus, and that is the only reason he cannot marry an Athenian maiden, for what parents would permit their daughter to share exile?”

Pericles laughed lightly. “I know he is living in luxury in Cyprus. He is flattered there and fawned upon. He is no wandering vagabond. His house is magnificent, and full of slaves. He entertains lavishly. Many an Athenian maiden of a great house would be permitted to marry him and with alacrity. He does not desire marriage. He has concubines. I have sent emissaries to Cyprus to hint that if he desires he may be recalled to Athens. He has repudiated them. He can commit licence in Cyprus which he could not commit here. What! You did not know this?”

“I do not believe it!” cried Daedalus. “We receive mournful letters from him, stained with his tears, for he longs for his family.”

“You believe I am lying?” asked Pericles in a dangerous voice. Daedalus flinched, and retreated a step before that face.

“Perhaps he is exaggerating,” he said. “But what man does not want to return to his loving family?”

“Callias,” said Pericles.

Daedalus cast down his eyes and he trembled. Then he looked up to see the mingled derision and sympathy in Pericles’ eyes.

Pericles said, “I have told you. He could marry—if he wished.” He paused. “He could return soon—if he wished. He does not wish.”

Daedalus was distracted. He flung out his arms, despairingly. “You have called my daughter, Dejanira, stupid and ugly. She is virtuous and faithful. Are these not gracious attributes?”

Pericles closed his eyes for a moment, wearied. “I grant you that Dejanira has virtues. They do not appeal to me. I am grateful to her for my sons. I respect her name. We had no quarrels. But all that is past. I have given you time, and it is precious to me. I must ask you to leave.”

Daedalus started away, then swung around, his garments flurried. “I will not forget!” he exclaimed, raising his hand in an oath. “I will not forget! I implore the vengeance of the gods—in whom you and that woman do not believe! They will not be mocked.”

He trotted from the atrium and into the outdoor portico, where his litter awaited him. Once behind the curtains he burst into tears, and his mouth moved with imprecations. He was not without power, and Pericles had many enemies. He began to plot. His old face twisted and contorted with hatred.

Aspasia took Pericles by the hand at sunset and led him into the cool tranquility of her gardens. There, near the altar to the Unknown God, stood the huge marble statue of a wasp, which Pheidias had personally designed two years ago. Seeing this, Pericles was again disturbed, remembering what Aspasia had escaped. He held her in his arms and said, “I will defend you, my beloved, against all evils.”

“Do you expect evils?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

He hesitated. “Man is intrinsically evil—all men. I have heard it said, by the Jews, that man is evil from his birth and wicked from his youth. It was asserted by their fabulous Solomon. I believe it. A man who is not alert to the innate viciousness of his brothers is a fool. Men are iniquitous by nature. They do wrong not because they have been wronged, but because it gives them pleasure and satisfaction. If they do not have enemies they invent them. This is true of nations as well as mankind.”

Aspasia looked at the myrtle trees whose leaves were plated gold in the sunset. “It is a beautiful world,” she murmured. “Why is it that only man is unregenerate?”

“It is his nature,” said Pericles. He paused. “The Jews say that God will be born to this world in a near century.” He laughed a little. “Be sure that men will murder Him, as they murdered Osiris, for virtue is the one crime that men cannot endure.”

Aspasia saddened. “You have no faith in your fellow man, beloved.”

“That is because I know him, only too well. Enough. The plans for the acropolis have all been completed. The marble is ready. I have given orders that only free men must build the temples, for temples raised by slaves are abhorrent to me. God did not intend that men be slaves. Solon deplored slavery. So do I. But it has come to me that multitudes of men crave that they be slaves of government, in order that they may not be forced to think and act with responsibility and order their own lives. It is easier to crouch on your knees and be fed by government than it is to stand on your feet and find your own sustenance. Was it not Anaxagoras who said that nature takes the path of least resistance? So do men. To resist government is arduous and perilous. To obey is to eat in slavish peace, and be forgotten by bureaucrats. That is no mean advantage in itself!”

Aspasia said, as she had said many times before, “Why is it, then, that you remain as Head of State?”

He answered as he had answered before, “I must do my best for my dream of a united Greece. City-states are always in danger, especially from each other. They can also be divided, too, by exterior enemies, who are lustful for treasure. A united nation is strong. I do not admire Sparta, nor Macedonia. But wise men can compromise and come to terms, whatever their differences. Did we not once in our near past cleave together to fight off the Persian? If we can do that in emergency we can do that again as reasonable men. Athenians stood with Leonidas, the Spartan, and we despise Spartans for their rigorous discipline and their iron determination to order the lives of all their people, men and women, male and female children. Who among us has not laughed at Spartan maidens, who compete with their brothers in athletics and work? They wear male tunics. They have muscles, and their skins are brown with the sun, and coarsened. They have grim faces. Laugh though we do, we must remember that we are not empowered by the gods to order the affairs of other nations. That is preening assumption. Let each nation live in peace with the government it desires. That does not negate union against enemies, or commerce.”

There are always wars, thought Aspasia. The Greek city-states were always in dispute with their sister states. It is wearisome to remember all the petty but cruel wars. Let Homer glorify them, and speak of the arts of war. They are only tragedies. However, only women with sons and husbands realize this. She thought of Lysistrata and her women who had refused their beds to their husbands unless they concluded peace. She thought of the barbarian Roman women, who, captured by the Sabines, and who had had children by them, threw their infants before the horses of the Romans and the Sabines and defied them to trample on the childish flesh. What had restrained their men, fevered and exalted by the hope of battle? Was it the power of women, after all? Aspasia pondered. Thargelia had said that the hope of the world was in women’s hands. Aspasia did not entirely believe this, except that men could be seduced in the beds of women, if the women were artful enough. Certainly men were not merciful enough to spare children. Aspasia sighed. She loved Pericles with a passion and a devotion she had not known for Al Taliph. Still, as he was a man, she did not entirely trust him to know the urges of a woman’s heart. Then she smiled.

The father of gods and men, Zeus, was afraid of his wife, Hera, who ruled him as he ruled the world.

“Why do you smile, my golden one?” asked Pericles.

“I am thinking of our son,” she replied.

He was astonished, and seized her arm. “Our son?” he exclaimed.

She bent her head.

“I have waited to tell you, lord. I am with child. I am certain it will be a son—your son and mine.”

When he did not speak but only gazed at her with enlarged pale eyes, she said, “We will call him Pericles, after his illustrious father.”

He frowned, released her arm, and removed himself a pace. “He will not be legitimate.”

Aspasia touched his arm. “You can adopt him, sire. Then he will be truly yours.” She felt some anxiety. Was he not pleased? Was he angered that she had been careless during one heated night?

Then he turned to her, his face lighted, and he took her in his arms. “I am thinking of your danger, my sweetest. After all, you are in your thirties now. Have you consulted Helena?”

“Yes.” Aspasia was moved. She had misjudged him, as the sexes always misjudged each other. Had Pandora released this confusion as well as other confusions and distractions? “Despite my age, she has said I am in the most supreme health. She will tend me, herself. She has had many instructions from the young Hippocrates, who has visited her school and her infirmia.”

“I must see this Hippocrates,” said Pericles, but he was frowning again, alarmed for Aspasia.

“Do not disturb yourself, lord. It will be well. But, tell me. Are you pleased that I am to bear your son?”

“It may be a daughter,” and Pericles laughed. “If she resembles her mother I will adore her.”

“And—if it is a son?”

“I will discipline him. He will be a worthy son of Athens.”

What did a man mean when he said “worthy”? Worth, too, was subjective.

“A woman in her thirties, old enough to be a grandmother, should not have young children. Do not sigh, my Pericles. Our son will be like a god.”

They held each other, breast against breast. But, we are not truly one, thought Aspasia. A woman’s thoughts are far from the thoughts of men. Who had ordained this in mischief, or perhaps with wisdom?

They looked at the top of the acropolis. The great Doric pillars of the Parthenon were flushed with the rose of the dying sun. They stood like pylons, unroofed as yet, against the scarlet sky. On the lower reaches of the acropolis were smaller groups of columns. Walls were rising like ramparts. White wide steps led nowhere but upwards, awaiting a completed building. The sides of the acropolis were heavily buttressed and terraced, and cypresses were already planted and earth placed for gardens and fountains. Long thin pipes of lead, for water, writhed over bare spots on the hill like tormented serpents, still uncovered. On the other hills olive trees were bright with silver in the clear and translucent light. The theatre below was filled with purple shadows, the circling seats empty, the stage—once an altar—soundless and untenanted. Nightingales began to sing, and a flock of gulls, from the sea, caught the last radiance in gold on their wings. The myrtles and sycamores and cypresses of Aspasia’s gardens had become dark and were starting to whisper in a new breeze. The temple to the Unknown God shimmered dimly in its shadows. A curved crescent of the new moon was like a fingernail of pearl glimmering slowly up the sky in the east.