The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great

Ptolemy learned that Alexander had gone to the Cadmea and thither he led Clearchus and Leonidas after he had dismissed his men, eager to take their share in the pillage. They found the young king in a large, bare room in the lower part of the citadel. He had not yet laid aside his armor, which was dented and scratched by use.

When they entered, he was giving orders to his captains, who stood grouped about him. Clearchus looked at him with eager interest. He saw a well-proportioned, athletic figure, no taller than his own. The handsome beardless face glowed with the warm blood of youth and a smile parted the full red lips. There was no trace of fatigue in the young king's attitude, despite the labors of the day, and his movements were alert and decisive. He looked even more youthful than his twenty-one years as he stood among his leaders, some of whom were veterans of Philip's campaigns, grizzled with service. But in spite of his youth, there was a confidence in his bearing that left no doubt of who was master.

Clearchus felt himself strangely drawn to the young man whom all Hellas, with the exception of Sparta, acknowledged as its champion, and who was about to assail that great power beyond the Hellespont, whose limits were unknown and before whom Greece had stood in dread since the days of Great Cyrus. The Athenian found the "boy king" very different from the arrogant, mean-spirited upstart that the orators of his city had painted him.

"Stop the plundering," Alexander said to his captains. "Even the Bœotians must be satisfied by this time. Let the men go back to the camp, and see that order is maintained. The Ætolians and the Elæans are on the march and reënforcements are coming from Athens. There may be more work to do to-morrow."

As the officers left him to execute his commands, Alexander turned to Ptolemy with hands outstretched.

"I am glad to see you safe!" he said. "You charged bravely before the gate, and I feared that something might have happened that would deprive me of your aid when we march into Persia."

Ptolemy's bronzed face reddened with pleasure as he heard the praise of the young king.

"I went in pursuit of the enemy's cavalry," he said.

"Is it likely that any of those who escaped will be able to rally?" Alexander asked.

"They are scattered in every direction and think only of flight," Ptolemy replied.

"That is well," Alexander said. "We shall be the better able to deal with the others when they come. Who are these that you have brought to me?"

He turned toward the two young men, who had been standing at a little distance, and looked them frankly in the eyes.

"This is Clearchus, an Athenian, and this, Leonidas of Sparta," Ptolemy replied, presenting them in turn.

Alexander's face clouded at the names of the two most powerful of the states that opposed him in Greece, and Ptolemy hastened to add: "They saved my life when my horse stumbled in the pursuit, and they have a request to make of you."

"You have done me a great service," Alexander said kindly. "What is it that you desire?"

"We ask clemency for the family of Jason, on behalf of Chares, his son, whom we left behind in Athens," Clearchus replied.

"And why is he not in Thebes?" Alexander asked quickly.

"Because he did not know that you were coming," Clearchus said. "Had he been aware of the danger, he would not have been absent. We heard of your arrival while we were in Delphi, and we made all haste to remind you that Jason was a guest-friend of your father, Philip."

"Orders have been given that the guest-friends of Macedon shall be spared, both in their lives and their property," Alexander replied. "What did you in Delphi?"

Clearchus told him briefly how Artemisia had been stolen and of the response of the oracle.

"Love must be a strong passion," the young king said thoughtfully.

"I would give all that I possess to recover Artemisia," Clearchus replied. "Nor would I be willing to exchange my hope of finding her for the wisdom of Aristotle or even for the hopes of Alexander."

"So you know Aristotle," Alexander said. "He is a wonderful man. Were I not Alexander, I would envy him." He looked curiously at Clearchus as he spoke, as though he were considering something that he did not understand. "So that is what they call love," he continued, "and I and my army are the Whirlwind of which the God spoke." He beckoned to an attendant. "Call Aristander!" he said.

He made Clearchus repeat his story to the famous soothsayer. Aristander listened attentively, stroking his chin with the tips of his fingers as his custom was.

"What do you think of it?" Alexander asked, when Clearchus had finished. Everybody knew the confidence that he placed in the words of the prophet and that he never took an important step against his advice.

"Full credit must be given to the oracle," Aristander said, turning his blue eyes upon the young king, "and I think that the priests of the temple were right in their interpretation, since the message brought and the title given could have had no other meaning. As the maid was carried away by sea, she was probably taken to some island or to one of the cities on the coast of Asia. The Whirlwind's track must needs lead thither, and since the maid is to be set free, it is clear that the Whirlwind shall prevail."

"Then the oracle is propitious!" Alexander exclaimed. "What is your plan?" he added to Clearchus.

"I shall obey the oracle and follow in thy track," the Athenian replied. "If thou wilt permit me, I myself will become a part of the Whirlwind."

Alexander looked at him with the unquenchable fire of enthusiasm in his eyes.

"Thou art welcome!" he said. "And you, my friend of stubborn Sparta?" he continued to Leonidas.

"I go with Clearchus," the Spartan responded briefly.

"You shall be of my Companions," Alexander cried, placing his hand upon a shoulder of each. "The world grows old and we have been wasting our strength in foolish quarrels with each other while the tiger has been lying there across the water, waiting to devour us. We shall show him that the spirit of Hellas still lives, although Troy has fallen, and we will do deeds that shall be sung by some new Homer as worthy too of a place beside those of Achilles and Ajax and Agamemnon. Yes, and we will bring back a fleece more precious than that which the Argonauts sought. I promise you that the Whirlwind's track shall be long enough and broad enough to lead you to your heart's desire, whatever it may be. Ptolemy, I count these men among my friends and I give them into your charge."

Clearchus and Leonidas felt their hearts swell at the young king's words and his lofty generosity, but before they could thank him, they were interrupted by a commotion at the door.

"Out of the way! I will see him! I care not how late it is," an angry voice exclaimed.

"It is Chares, son of Jason," Clearchus said. "How comes he here?"

Alexander quietly signed to the guard, and the Theban strode into the room, clad in armor that clashed noisily as he walked. He looked neither to the right nor left, but went straight to Alexander.

"I am come to remind the King of Macedon of the ties of hospitality," he said boldly, in a voice more fitted to a demand than a petition.

Alexander measured his great stature with admiration in his glance, noting that the armor, gold-inlaid, was crusted with mud and grime like his own.

"Thy name might be Hector," he said.

The Theban, ignorant of the young king's train of thought and of what had gone before, imagined that he saw mockery in this remark. His face flushed darkly.

"My name is Chares!" he said haughtily. "Jason, my father, was the friend of Epaminondas, who furnished thy father with the weapons that thou hast used against us this day. I come not to thee on my own behalf, but on that of my mother and sisters, who were shut in here when the attack came."

"You are too late!" the young king said composedly.

Chares staggered and his face blanched. "Too late!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Does Alexander, then, make war upon women?"

"I say you came too late," Alexander replied, "and doubly so; for your friends, here, were more prompt than you, and yet even they were tardy."

"My friends!" Chares cried in bewilderment, seeing Leonidas and Clearchus for the first time.

"Alexander speaks the truth," Clearchus said quickly. "We are all too late, because he had already given orders for the safety of your family."

"I ask your forgiveness; I spoke without understanding," Chares said, turning to the king.

"Thou hast courage," Alexander said with a smile, "but I would not choose thee as my envoy on a delicate mission. Thou wert not here to defend thy home?"

"Because I knew not that there was need," Chares admitted. "I am sorry."

"And I am glad," the young king rejoined, "for hadst thou been inside the walls, I fear I might have lost men whom I cannot spare. Didst thou come from Athens?"

"I left Athens with the army," Chares answered, "but it halted on the frontier when news arrived that Thebes had fallen."

"Then there will be no more fighting!" Alexander exclaimed, turning to Ptolemy. "I am glad of it. Greet thy mother for me, Chares, and tell her to fear nothing. Ptolemy will conduct you."

Escorted by the Macedonian captain, the three friends descended from the citadel. Order had been restored in the city as though by magic. Only the military patrols and the bodies of the dead remained in the streets. The living had been driven into their houses, taking the wounded with them. The plunderers had retired to the camp outside the walls.

Chares strode eagerly in advance, asking many questions regarding the experiences of his friends in Delphi. The house of Jason, a mansion built near the northern end of the city, had been saved by its location from the desperate fighting that had taken place about the southern gate and in the market-place. They found a guard stationed at the door.

"You see that the king is as good as his word," Ptolemy said. "You will find nothing disturbed here."

"How could he have remembered his friends in the heat of the attack?" Chares asked.

"He forgets nothing," the captain replied, "neither friend nor enemy."

Chares urged the Macedonian to enter, but Ptolemy declined on the ground of fatigue and left them. The slave at the gate went wild with joy when he caught sight of his young master. He had been waiting in momentary expectation of being summoned forth to the death that he was convinced awaited everybody in the city.

Chares hastened to the women's court, where he found his mother and sisters robed in white and surrounded by their maids, who were trying to spin, although their fingers trembled so that they could hardly hold the distaff. The widow of Jason, a woman with silvery hair and a face that was still beautiful, sat calmly in the midst of the group, awaiting with quiet courage what might befall. She rose with composure to greet her son and his companions.

"You are safe, mother!" Chares exclaimed, clasping her in his arms. "Alexander has given his word that you shall be unharmed!"

"You have seen him?" she returned. "That is well. You may go to your rest. Nothing shall harm you," she added, dismissing her maidens.

CHAPTER X

CHARES BARTERS HIS SWORD

What was to be the fate of Thebes? The minds of the wretched inhabitants of the city were diverted from their sorrows as they asked each other this question on the morning after the battle. The dead had been removed from the streets. The wounded had been cared for. The enemy had withdrawn outside the walls, after posting guards in sufficient numbers to suppress any rising that the Thebans might be desperate enough to attempt.

All eyes were directed toward the Cadmea, within whose gray walls the punishment that was to be visited upon the city was being discussed. One citizen suggested that a heavy fine would be exacted. Another declared he had heard that the Thebans would be forbidden to bear arms. A dozen similar conjectures were made and canvassed before news came from the Cadmea that Alexander had left the Phocians, the Platæans, and the Bœotians, his allies, to impose the sentence. This announcement was received in gloomy silence; for more than one Theban recalled how his city in her day of pride had blotted out Orchomenus and Platæa and sold their people into bondage.

The anxious watchers in the streets at last saw a stir in the crowd that waited outside the gates of the citadel. The portals opened, and the victorious generals, surrounded by waving standards, came out and began to descend from the rock. The spectators below saw the Thebans scatter before them, tossing their arms above their heads and rending their garments. A hush full of dread fell upon the city.

"Thebes must perish! Her walls must go down!" cried one from above with a despairing gesture.

"We are to be sold for slaves!" shouted another, halting upon a parapet and making a trumpet of his hands.

The tidings were received with incredulity, followed by stupefaction. The blow had fallen, and it was worse than even the least sanguine prophet had predicted. The generals, as they rode toward the gates of the city, were followed by men who fell on their knees and begged for quarter. No heed was paid to their prayers, and the escort of soldiers thrust them back with jeers.

Alexander remained in the Cadmea, where Chares and a handful of the most prominent Thebans, who had been able to establish guest-friendship with the royal house of Macedon, sought him to intercede for the city. They found him alone, sitting with his chin in his hand. They recalled to him the glorious deeds of Thebes, dwelt upon the misery that the sentence would inflict upon the innocent, and warned him that all Hellas would reproach him if he permitted it to be carried into effect. They admitted the fault of the city and asked forgiveness.

The young king heard them through without stirring.

"All that you have said to me," he replied when they had finished, "I have already said to myself. Thebes has been false to her oath. I pardoned her as did Philip, my father. The sentence is not mine, but that of my allies, and what cause they have, you know. Can I ask them to forget?"

Terror ran with the news through all Greece. The Athenians, the Ætolians, and the Elæans, who had encouraged the rebellion with money and promises of further aid, hastily recalled their troops and sent ambassadors to sue for mercy. Demosthenes was chosen to plead for Athens, but when he had advanced on his journey as far as Mount Cithæron, his courage failed him and he turned back. The young king sent a messenger to Athens calling upon the Athenians to deliver eight of their orators who had been foremost in stirring up the people against Macedon, and the name of Demosthenes stood at the head of the list.

In the Assembly that was called to consider this demand Demosthenes won the day by repeating the fable of how once the wolves asked the sheep to deliver to them their watch-dogs and how, when the demand had been granted, they fell upon the defenceless flock. But so great was the fear of Alexander among the people that they might, after all, have sent the orators to Thebes had not the men who were threatened hired Demades with a fee of five talents to offer himself as an intermediary. The offer was accepted and Alexander yielded.

The escape of Demosthenes through the intercession of his inveterate enemy and the mysterious disappearance of Thais were the talk of the city when Chares arrived with his two friends, bringing his family with him. Clearchus received them into his house, where they were to remain during his absence from Athens in search of Artemisia, following the directions of the oracle. Ariston was much disappointed when his nephew refused to exact any rental from his friend. He had taken charge of Clearchus' fortune again, and it grieved him that any possible source of income should be neglected. But Clearchus knew that Chares had need of all his resources; for his mother had drawn up a list of the friends of the family who had been forced to remain in Thebes, telling him that he must purchase them and thus save them from slavery, even if it should take all they possessed in the world. As the list was long, Clearchus deemed it wise not only to place his house at the disposal of Jason's widow, but to make provision for its maintenance out of his own income while he should be away.

He paid no attention to the grumbling of his uncle, who affected to look upon this generosity as little short of madness. He said so much to dissuade the young man from his plan, that Clearchus at last was forced to remonstrate with him.

"One would think that you were on the brink of ruin," he said, "instead of being one of the richest men in Athens, if reports that I have begun to hear lately are true."

"Who says that?" Ariston demanded sharply. "He lies, whoever repeats such things. Whenever you hear it, if you love me, say that it is not true. If such stories should get to be believed, that accursed Demosthenes will be forcing me to fit out a trireme for some of his wild schemes. The times are so troubled that what little I have been able to save by my frugality for the support of my age I am likely to lose."

He was not unwilling to have his nephew believe that he was at least moderately rich, for had Clearchus known the straits his uncle was in, his suspicions might have been aroused. With his mind full of the loss of Artemisia, there was small chance that he would discover anything.

Like vultures upon a deserted field of battle the slave-dealers gathered at the great market of flesh and blood at Thebes. The sale of the population of the city had been delayed so as to insure a good attendance; for Alexander had need of the money that it was expected to yield with which to defray the cost of his expedition against the Great King. Speculators, traffickers by wholesale, and agents from every considerable mart in the world, to say nothing of amateurs, flocked to the city. It was not so much the fact that thirty thousand men and women were to be offered and the consequent probability of low prices that drew them as the quality of the victims. It was easy enough to purchase slaves in almost any number, but there was a vast difference between ignorant barbarians, captured in distant raids, and the population of one of the oldest and most cultured of the Grecian cities. And no comparison was to be made between girls who had been destined to slavery from their cradles and the Theban maidens reared in the shelter of luxury and ease.

It had been expected that it would take several days to dispose of the prisoners, but so numerous were the buyers that the Macedonians decided to attempt it in one day. For greater convenience, the captives were separated into companies of about five hundred and brought out upon the plain before the city, where most of the dealers had pitched their tents. Each division was guarded by a squad of soldiers commanded by an officer, whose duty it was to conduct the auction of the group under his care.

No outcry was permitted among the hapless population. Mothers clasped their children in their arms, weeping softly over them. Some awaited their fate with sullen resignation. Others looked for a prodigy to restore them to freedom and their city. A report had gone abroad that Dionysus would appear in person and forbid the sale. On all sides rose the murmur of his name in tones of entreaty or reproach. With anxious eyes, the believers scanned the sky and the barren hillsides for some sign, they knew not what. None was vouchsafed. Their God had deserted them.

In order that the friends whom he was to ransom might not be lost in the confusion, Chares had obtained consent that they be assembled in one group. They came last out of the city, clad in garments of mourning and moving in heavy-footed procession. Lest he should raise false hopes, Chares had made a secret of his plans. The prisoners fully expected to pass into the possession of strangers. Old men of grave face and dignified bearing, who had spent their lives in the service of the city and whose names were known throughout Greece, led the way. Behind them walked their women, proud of bearing and accustomed to the privileges of rank and wealth. Some of the matrons led daughters who looked with terror upon the strange scenes that met their eyes. Orphaned children clung to each other in fear, while here and there new-made widows, whose husbands had been slain when the strength and vigor of the city were cut off in a day, walked sadly and alone.

When all had been herded within the ring formed by the guard, the Macedonian captain who was to conduct the sale of the group that contained Chares' friends mounted briskly upon a block of stone and announced the terms prescribed for buyers. Payment was to be made in all cases in cash, and the purchaser was to have immediate possession. Chares took a position facing the auctioneer in a knot of dealers who were searching for some fortunate speculation. These men looked upon the unhappy Thebans with professional keenness, exchanging comments among themselves.

"That's a fine old fellow with the white beard," said one. "He looks as though he might have money out at interest somewhere."

"Probably he's only a philosopher," another said scornfully. "For my part, I shall buy that thin one. He has been living on bread and water all his life and he must have a snug sum buried. Trust me to make him dig it up!"

"There seem to be some marketable girls here," observed a third. "I find the Medes will pay a better price for them if they have a pedigree as well as good looks."

Mena, the Egyptian, prying about through the crowd, examined the captives with speculative eyes. Suddenly he caught sight of a figure that caused him to stop and stare. It was that of a young woman, veiled, who seemed to be seeking to conceal herself behind the other prisoners.

"Who is she?" he asked of one of the guard when he had recovered from his astonishment.

"She is down on our list as Maia, daughter of Thales," the man replied.

Mena seemed puzzled. "I must find out more about this," he said to himself, taking his stand at a point of vantage. "Besides, there may be a chance here to turn a profitable investment."

The chatter ceased as the captain opened a roll of papyrus containing the names of the prisoners and announced that the sale was about to begin. The old man with the white beard was the first to be brought forward. He proved to have been one of the Bœotarchs.

"How much am I offered for him?" the captain cried. "He is old, but his wisdom is all the greater for that."

"Five drachmæ!" shouted a countryman in a patched and faded cloak. "He gave a decision against me once in a lawsuit."

Everybody laughed at this reason for making a bid, but the farmer seemed in deadly earnest.

"Five minæ!" Chares said quietly. There was no other bid and the sale was made.

Then came a slender girl with yellow hair and blue eyes that were swollen with weeping. Her chiton of fine linen clung in graceful folds to her slim figure, and she trembled so violently that she could scarcely stand.

"She ought to fill out well if she lives," said one of the merchants, stroking his beard, while he examined her carefully. "But it's always a risk to buy them so young."

"She might be trained to dance," said Mena, who had elbowed his way into the crowd. "It's worth trying if she goes cheap. Fifty drachmæ!"

"Five minæ!" Chares said again.

"That's ten times what she is worth!" Mena exclaimed, turning angrily upon the Theban. "Are you trying to prevent honest men from making a living?"

"Let honest men speak for themselves," Chares retorted.

The laugh that followed filled the Egyptian with rage. He was cunning enough to wait until Chares had made several more purchases, and at prices far above the market value of the captives. Mena guessed that the Theban intended to outbid all who opposed him. He resolved to be revenged by making him pay dearly for his purchases. It happened that the next offering was a man whose name was not on Chares' list. Out of mere good nature he bid two hundred and fifty drachmæ for him.

"Five minæ!" the Egyptian shouted, doubling the bid with the intention of forcing Chares to go higher.

But Chares was silent, and no other bidder appeared. Mena, who did not have the money that he had offered, shifted uneasily, looking at Chares.