Glory and the Lightning (80 page)

“Which I will rectify.”

Pheidias looked up and smiled. “Of that I have no doubt. But I am wounded in my heart that anyone should suspect me of evil.”

Pericles touched him on the shoulder. “To ease that wound I have brought you two bottles of my very best wine and some of my more distinguished cheeses and a cold but delectable roasted fowl. I will order that you be tried tomorrow, at the very latest—when I will defend you—so that you may return to your work on the acropolis, to the applause of all of Athens.”

The face of Pheidias became radiant. “Ah, yes. We must order the marble for the pediments. I was engaged in consultations for their exact dimensions when I was arrested.”

The prison guards looked inquisitively through the bars of the cell while Pericles laid the excellent provisions on Pheidias’ bare table. He had also brought fine cutlery and linen from his own house. Pheidias looked with that candid childlikeness of his at the array. “It comes to me,” he said in surprise, “that I have not eaten this day, and now my appetite is aroused.”

Pericles, pressed by other business, left him to enjoy the meal, after embracing him.

Pericles was less cheerful than he had shown Pheidias, not that he truly feared for the life or safety of his friend but because of his wrath against those who had accused the sculptor. But I will know their names tomorrow, he told himself, and I will confront them, those “honorable” men! They will learn, to their sorrow, what justice really is!

He returned at twilight, full of care and weariness, to his house, empty now of the beauteous presence of Aspasia and his gay young son, and Paralus, who was now espoused to the daughter of a very notable house. He had become a young and acknowledged philosopher himself, under the tutelage of Socrates. He was writing a thesis on his studies, which even his skeptical father had acknowledged as original and full of clarity. The young man’s presence was so charming that few noticed the shrunken lids over his blind eye, and Pericles loved him dearly and was proud of him.

Xanthippus was now a captain in the army, and was endlessly engaged in the skirmishes in Attica against the Spartans. He wrote to his father that though the Spartans were ridiculous they were also valorous.

Pericles dreaded the return to his house and its loneliness. He hoped that at least there would be a letter from Xanthippus. But in the atrium he was greeted by the joyous shouts of young Pericles, and the smiles and embraces of the luminous Aspasia, still lovely though there were strands of gray in her wonderful hair, and the faintest of wrinkles about her topaz eyes. Paralus was also there, smiling widely; he came to embrace his father when Pericles could disentangle himself from the vehement arms of his youngest son.

“Did you think we would not be here with you, beloved?” asked Aspasia. She studied Pericles’ face with some anxiety. “We were almost on your heels, after the slaves had informed us that you had returned to Athens.”

“But you are tired,” said Pericles, kissing her warmly, as was his custom on entering or leaving his house, much to the disapproval of the Athenians who had heard of this.

“No. We had a pleasant journey.”

“But, it is very hot and fetid in the city now.”

“What is that to us, when we cannot endure being separated from you?”

Later Pericles told her of Pheidias. Like himself, she was incredulous and the brilliant color left her cheeks and lips. Paralus said, “It is unbelievable! Pheidias, and peculation and blasphemy!”

“I did not believe it, myself, at first, Paralus. But these are incredible days. We call ourselves a free democracy, but long ago I discovered that there is no freedom in a democracy, for all it is called the rule of a state by free men, with their own elected officials. Subornation and treachery are the marks of democracies; their suicide is inevitable.”

That night he spent a long hour in his library, thinking, and preparing his case to defend Pheidias. At intervals he rose and paced the floor, shaking his head. Now he was truly afraid, not for Pheidias, but for his city, for if such things could happen to a man like the sculptor then no man was safe, and there was no real justice, but only chaotic emotions and falsehoods, and the worst of venalities.

CHAPTER 14

Pericles arrived at his offices very early the next morning, so early that the first rays of the still invisible sun were just striking the vast golden face of Athene Parthenos on her pediment. Her calm and noble eyes stared to the east, her helmet illuminated, her hand grasping her spear. Its tip appeared ignited with flame. But her gilded and ivory body was still only shadowy. The stupendousness of the work of Pheidias never failed to amaze and awe Pericles. It was immortal. Even if the goddess disintegrated with time, which was inevitable, future ages would remember that she had existed, and had been brought into existence by an unassuming man. Who, then, was the god, Pheidias or Athene?

Athens lay below that majesty, still dark and amorphous in the arms of her hills, and the great golden face so far above her, fired by the first fierce rays of the sun, challenged the very sun, itself.

The Agora, never empty at any time, had only a few men hurrying along the street, carrying lanterns which they had not as yet extinguished. The clatter of the hoofs of Pericles’ horse and the horses of his soldiers on stone startled them. A few raised a shout of acclamation. He saluted them absently. He entered his offices and began at once to search his dossiers. But the King Archon had intimated that Pheidias would be tried only before him and the jury, so grave were his alleged crimes. For, if proved guilty, he would be sentenced to death, and not to mere exile.

If only I knew the names of his accusers, thought Pericles. He fumed, sitting at his table. But he would soon know. He studied many of the dossiers, slowly drinking wine and eating brined olives and cheese. He had slept little; his mind had been in a turmoil whipped to the utmost intensity by his anger. He had informed Aspasia the night before that he would bring Pheidias to his house for dinner, and that she should send slaves to invite others of their friends also, to rejoice with Pheidias and to laugh with him over his trial and his exoneration.

The scribes and bureaucrats were beginning to arrive. Pericles could hear their sleepy voices and their footsteps. The darkness was already gray and diffused. The sun would soon climb the top of the eastern hills. The slight fresh coolness of the night was fast disappearing and pulses of heat came through the windows and the city was throbbing again. Now a ray of sunlight flashed into the offices, like an arrow of light.

The case of Pheidias, because it was so important, would be brought before the King Archon and the jury just before noon, when it would be the hottest. Minor cases would be heard first. In the meantime there were many scrolls and papers on Pericles’ table, tedious but necessary, written meticulously by bureaucrats, and Pericles must attend to them. He was already sweating. He took off his helmet and laid it near his hand, for rarely was he seen without it outside his house, and after all these years he was still sensitive about the towering height of his brow and skull. His thick tawny hair was gray at the temples and there was a furrow of gray rising above his forehead, sharp and defined, so that he appeared more leonine than in his youth and young manhood, and more formidable. This was accented by his face, which had become haggard and lined in recent years and grimmer, and had lost all its smoothness.

Less than two hours before noon one of the bureaucrats came in to announce that the King Archon was without and prayed an immediate audience with Pericles. Ah, he thought in exultation, he has come to tell me that Pheidias will not be tried at all, that all charges against him had been withdrawn, and that he was free! Smiling, he rose to greet Polybius, who was ceremoniously ushered in, and took a step towards him. Then he saw the older man’s face, and stopped short and a great plunging ran through his heart.

For the face of the King Archon was grayer than ever, and he seemed much agitated, and his lips moved soundlessly. For one of the few times in his life Pericles began to tremble. He seized the Archon by the arm and forced him into a chair, and exclaimed, “What is it? Why have you come?”

Polybius sagged in the chair. He put his hands over his face and rubbed all his features, while Pericles loomed over him, crying, “Tell me! You must tell me!”

Polybius panted. He rubbed his eyes with the ends of his fingers. Then he dropped his hands and Pericles saw that his eyelids were scarlet and dry, as if burned. He had suddenly become very old, and weak.

“Wine, in the name of the gods,” he croaked. With hands that shook violently Pericles poured him wine and held it to his lips, racked with a terrible impatience and foreboding. The King Archon drank, coughed, almost strangled, then let the still half-filled goblet drop nervelessly to the table, where it rolled and poured out its contents in an acrid stream. It then fell to the floor with a crash. The wine filled the office with a pungent odor.

“Speak,” commanded Pericles. His dread had become unbearable.

“Pheidias,” said Polybius in so faint a voice that Pericles could hardly hear him and had to bend forward. “He is dead.”

“Dead,” repeated Pericles, and the word had no meaning for him, for he was stricken with an icy coldness in all that heat, and his chilled sweat rolled down his face and body and legs and arms.

“Poisoned,” said Polybius.

Now Pericles could not stand any longer. He fell into his chair and stared numbly at his kinsman. “Poisoned,” he repeated. “When? By whom?”

He was taken by a total incredulity. It was not possible. He was uttering mad words, words given to him by an elderly madman. Pheidias, the glory of Athens, could not be dead. He could not have been—murdered. No, it was not possible. It was all insanity.

Pericles, losing all his control, reached across the table and seized the brittle wrist of Polybius and shook the wrist and the hand so ferociously that Polybius’ entire arm was flailed like the arm of a puppet. The ferocity even caused his body to move limply, so that he slid on the seat of his chair. Only Pericles’ iron grasp kept him from falling to the floor. Polybius saw Pericles’ face as in a nightmare, and he shrank from its aspect.

Polybius’ voice, as frail as the crackling of a fallen leaf underfoot, issued from his lips. “He was found dead just after dawn, by the special guards. There was some wine before him, and remnants of food.” Polybius paused and regarded Pericles with appalled eyes. “The guards said that you, Pericles, had given them to him. The food was set before—a dog—and he died of it. It contained hemlock.”

The room darkened and swayed about Pericles. Whirling within it he said over and over to himself, No, I am dreaming, or dying. As from an enormous distance he heard Polybius say, “I was brought the news but an hour ago, and when I could order myself I came to you.”

Murdered, thought Pericles. There was a frightful ache between his temples, rushing over his forehead in intolerable waves of anguish. He did not know that he had closed his eyes and was shuddering.

“I am a just man,” Polybius said. “I know that you did not do this thing, for did you not love Pheidias and had you not come to his rescue? You are incapable of such an act. You are also—my kinsman. But who placed the poison in that unfortunate man’s food? I have questioned the guards.”

Pericles opened eyes so weighted that he could scarce lift his eyelids. His face was the face of a man near death. His throat was so arid that he had to swallow over and over to moisten it with viscid spittle. He said, “I ate of that food, myself, in my own house, and my old cook filled a basket with it. It was not poisoned, either the wine or the cheese or the fowl.” The anguish in his head was in his throat now and stabbing down into his heart. The face of Polybius advanced and retreated before him in a mist.

He felt rather than saw Polybius start. “Wine? Cheese? Fowl? But what of the broiled fish and pastries you also sent him just before dawn, today, for his breakfast?” The older man’s voice was bewildered yet stronger.

“I sent nothing,” Pericles whispered. “I did not send those. I brought him, yesterday, but wine and cheese and fowl, for his supper. With my own hands, I brought them.”

Polybius stared. He thought Pericles had become calmer. “But one of your slaves brought the fish and pastries, saying to the guards that you had commanded that he do so! That you wished the illustrious Pheidias to be refreshed and strong for his ordeal!”

Pericles began to shake his head, helplessly, and could not stop. “I sent no one. My slaves have been in my house for many years, and I trust them all. None would have reason to murder Pheidias.”

Then he struck the table with a loud crack of his palm upon it, and when a scribe rushed in Pericles commanded that his soldiers be brought into the office. The scribe bowed, after first gazing at Pericles with astonishment. Then he ran off. The two men sat in silence, and Pericles’ great shuddering did not cease.

The soldiers entered in haste, and Pericles said to them, “Did anyone leave my house at any time in the night or the morning?”

Iphis said to him, “No, lord, none left the house. I myself, patrolled long before dawn, and my men reported that no one had even approached your house, and none had departed. Not even a mouse could have come or gone without our knowledge.”

The other soldiers nodded emphatically, and saluted. Iphis looked at Pericles and was alarmed at his color and expression. “You must believe me, lord. Has there been some calamity?”

Polybius spoke, for Pericles seemed beyond speaking now. “Do you trust the slaves in the house of Pericles, Captain?”

“Yes, of a certainty. I know them all; I have known them many years. There is no newcomer among them, male or female.”

“There is no young man of a pleasing aspect, and of a good height with an engaging voice and an agreeable manner, as if he had had considerable education?”

“No, lord. The youngest man is over thirty years of age, and he is partly crippled. The master wished to set him free, with a lifelong stipend, but the slave pleaded not to be sent from the house and refused his freedom.”