CHAPTER XXIX.
AT DELOS.
Cleanor gladly accepted the warm invitation of the young Scipio again tobecome his guest. For the present the Greek's plans were uncertain. Hismost definite idea was to follow Theoxena and her daughter to Italy assoon as possible. It had been arranged that the two women should departon the following day. He would have to look for his own passage to thefavour of the general; all that he could do, therefore, was to holdhimself in readiness to depart as soon as the opportunity should offer.
The day was not to pass, however, without giving quite a new aspect tothe future. The two friends had been exchanging experiences, and werejust thinking of sleep,--when Polybius entered the tent. After greetingCleanor--whom he had not seen since they had parted in Egypt--in thekindest way, not, however, without a smiling rebuke for the trick whichhe had played, he explained his errand.
"I am going," he said, "as soon as is possible to Greece, where thingsare in a critical condition, and I want you to go with me. I come directfrom the general, who has put a ship of war at my service, and who fullyapproves of your accompanying me. I was, he said, to tell you this fromhim. He also gave me another message for you. He wants you to give whathelp you can in the translation of this great book on Agriculture. Therewill be a committee appointed to carry it out, and you are to be on itif it pleases you. But that will wait, anyhow for a few months. Theaffair in Greece will not wait; the sooner we get there the better, ifwe are to do any good."
Nothing could have been more to Cleanor's mind than this proposal, andhe promised to be ready to depart as soon as he was wanted. Accordinglythe very next day, after bidding Theoxena and her daughter anaffectionate farewell in the morning, he himself embarked about sunsetwith Polybius. For some time the voyage was fairly prosperous, if notvery rapid. The wind came mostly from the north, with a touch of east init. The ship had but a poor crew of rowers, and its sailing capacitieswere small. If the wind had more than one point from the east the sailshad to be hauled down and the oars resorted to.
On the tenth day there came a change in the weather. The wind shiftedsuddenly to the south-west. This change was at first hailed with delightby everyone on board; by the rowers, who were rejoiced to be set freefrom their toil, by the passengers, who were beginning to be impatientof their tedious progress. But a wind from the south-west has alwayssomething dangerous about it. At daybreak a steady breeze, it grewbefore night into something like a gale, and it was accompanied byweather so thick that, failing any observation of either sun or stars,the captain lost his reckoning entirely.
After two days of this alarming uncertainty the weather cleared onlyjust in time, as everyone on board saw plainly enough, to save the shipfrom a catastrophe. About three miles to the north the cliffs ofMalia[58] could be seen, crowned by the famous temple of Apollo, whosegilded roof showed itself when it was touched, from time to time, bysome passing gleam of sunshine. On their right the cliffs of Cytherawere visible. This was satisfactory in a way, but the plan of thevoyage, which was to make for the western end of the Corinthian Gulf,had failed. The wind was blowing far too strongly to allow the captainto attempt a north-western course. He had, therefore, no alternative butto let it carry him up the Ægean. What had been lost was the safe andeasy passage up the quiet landlocked waters of the gulf, and with itthe certainty of reaching Corinth at or near the appointed time.
After a few hours the weather again changed for the worse. The cloudscame lower, the wind rose. When night came all that the captain and thecrew knew of their whereabouts was that they were not far from Melos, ofwhich they had just caught a glimpse, in dangerous proximity, on theirlarboard bow. Melos, they knew, was not by any means on their straightcourse to Corinth. They were, indeed, being blown out of this more andmore as time went on. The best they could hope for was that they mightnot be dashed on one of the rugged and inhospitable islands and isletswith which the south-western Ægean was so thickly studded.
All night they scudded before the wind under one small sail, just enoughto give some steering power to the rudder. More than once they heard thecrash of unseen breakers on some unseen shore, and turned their courseaway from the warning sound. With the morning came another welcomechange of weather. The wind dropped almost instantaneously; the skycleared till not a cloud could be seen, and the sea, though the longrollers witnessed to its recent agitation, settled rapidly into calm.
About two miles to the north, yet seen so distinctly through the clearatmosphere of early spring that it seemed almost within a stone's-throw,lay a small island which Cleanor recognized at the first glance. Onlyone place in the world brought together so closely, within so small aspace yet on a scale so magnificent, the two great elements of Greeklife, commerce and religion. On the low-lying land of the west coast wasto be seen the town of Delos, with its thickly-clustered dwellings.Almost, as it seemed, among these rose a forest of masts, for Delos wasa mart of exchange for the trade of the Mediterranean, and the trade ofthe Mediterranean was practically the trade of the civilized world.Close behind the town, in all the splendour of its white Parian marble,rose the famous temple of the tutelary god of the isle, PhoebusApollo, while nestling beside it were the smaller shrines of his twinsister Phoebe or Artemis and of Aphrodite. Behind these again was thehill of Cynthus, its steep declivity clothed with trees, among whichgleamed here and there the white shining walls of buildings both sacredand secular.
"Delos!" cried the captain; "well, it might have been worse, and if wecan only get out of the harbour as easily and quickly as it seems likelywe shall get into it, we shall have nothing to complain of."
"Here," cried Cleanor to Polybius as they stood side by side on thegalley's deck, "here is one of my dreams come to pass! I have alwaysdesired to see Delos, and here it is. Truly, here Greece is still to beseen in all its glory."
Polybius smiled somewhat bitterly. "There is very little of Greece, Ifear, about Delos nowadays."
"But it belongs to Athens surely," broke in the young Greek, "just asit did in the best times of Greece."
"Yes, it belongs to Athens," replied his friend; "if that means thatAthenian coin is circulated there, and the government is carried on inthe name of the Athenian people. But Delos is Roman for all practicalpurposes. As for the Delians themselves, they were all deported twentyyears ago, and this time unfortunately Apollo did not interfere.[59] No,my dear friend, it is only the past of Delos that belongs to Greece, andthat happily no power on earth can take from her. That, thank the gods,we can still enjoy."
Some hours were pleasantly spent by the two friends in examining thesights of the place. Polybius had been there two or three times before;Cleanor, who knew every reference to the sacred island,--from the youngpalm-tree to which Ulysses compared the fair Nausicaa onwards,--wasprepared thoroughly to enjoy the guidance of so intelligent a companion.Later on in the day they strolled through the business town. Evidentlyit was a thriving place. The docks were crowded with ships, the wharvescovered with merchandise of every kind, from the spices of the East tothe ivory brought by African hunters from the great forests of theSouth. But there was little or nothing Greek about it. Two out of threeamong the huge factories which lined the harbour-side belonged to Romantraders. The others belonged to merchants of Tyre, of Antioch, of Joppa,of Alexandria, but it was the exception to find a Greek name among them.Cleanor could not help confessing to himself that another illusion wasgone. The most famous seat of Greek life, whether sacred or secular, hadpassed into the power of the stranger.
The anxiety of the travellers to get to their journey's end wasincreased by all that they heard in the island. It was clear, by allaccounts, that the fate of Corinth was imminent. But, much against theirwills, their stay was prolonged. The ship had received so severe abuffeting during its voyage from Carthage that it could not be said tobe seaworthy. It had to be laid up in dock and repaired. And then, whenit was pronounced ready for sea, the weather made it absolutelyimpossible to start. The captain had been only too prescient when he
doubted whether they should be able to get out of the harbour as easilyas they got in.
There was, indeed, much to be seen in Delos, which was then at theheight of its prosperity, and adorned with the offerings which the pietyof more than five hundred years had heaped upon it. But Polybius and hiscompanion were so impatient to reach their destination that the timeseemed to hang heavily on their hands. Disturbing rumours, too, werecurrent about the policy which Rome was likely to pursue at Corinth.That the city would speedily be captured was considered certain, andthere were ominous conjectures as to its probable fate. One day thefriends had accepted an invitation to dinner from Diagoras, the Atheniangovernor of the island, and Corinth was naturally the principal subjectof conversation. What Diagoras had to say was alarming in the extreme.
"You have come from Carthage," he said. "Well, what you have seen thereyou will see again at Corinth. The capitalists and the commercial partyhave it all their own way at Rome now, and their policy is, of course,monopoly. Every trade rival must be put out of the way. Carthage hasbeen destroyed. That was not, as you know, the doing of the nobles.Scipio and his friends were strongly against it. The capitalists carriedit in the Senate, partly by their own votes, partly by the votes whichthey practically bought. I could tell you the men--and some of theirnames would surprise you--whose votes were purchased, and I could tellyou the price that was paid for them. The same thing has happened overand over again. Listen to this. I must not tell you the name of mycorrespondent, but his authority is beyond all doubt:
"'_The vote has gone as I expected. Corinth is to perish. The division was closer than in the Carthage affair, for the crime--I can call it nothing less--is more scandalous and more unprovoked. Carthage was once formidable, though she has long ceased to be so; Corinth never could have caused a moment's fear to Rome. It is simply the case of a trader burning down a rival's warehouse.'_
"This letter I received last night," the governor continued, "and itappears to have been delayed on the way. The Senate's instructions toMummius--it is he that is in command at Corinth, and a very differentman from your Scipio, I fancy--must have reached him by this time."
"Then we are too late," said Polybius with a groan.
"Yes," replied the governor, "though I do not see what you could havedone even if you had not been delayed. All that will be in your powerwill be to help individuals. I should recommend you, by the way, to goto Athens first, and get a safe-conduct and letters of introduction fromthe Roman agent there. These will make your task easier."
Two or three days after this conversation the travellers were able tomake a start. A gentle breeze from the east carried them out of theharbour, and took them quickly to their journey's end.
FOOTNOTES:
58: Still called by the same name, at the south-east extremity of the Morea.
59: The inhabitants of Delos were sent away from their island by the Roman government in 167 B.C. The Athenians had done exactly the same thing in 422 B.C., but the oracle of Delphi had warned them that they must be brought back, and this was accordingly done some time afterwards.
Lords of the World: A story of the fall of Carthage and Corinth Page 31