Glory and the Lightning (87 page)

The King Archon looked down at her now in silence, and he thought, This woman is not only beautiful but she is brave and proud, like my rosy Helena whom I shall never forget. For an instant he squeezed his eyes together in pain and sorrow. When he opened them he pretended to be studying a document before him, for he could not continue until a moment or two had passed. Then he looked at Aspasia again and she wondered that his eyelids were moist and tremulous. Pericles saw this also, and his dread lifted without a reason.

“You must answer me truly, Aspasia of Miletus,” said the King Archon, and his voice was not as loud and steady as it had been before. “It has been told me that you are a heretic, a mocker of the gods, that you have denied their existence. I need not bring forth witnesses to this, for I, myself, have heard the accusations many times before. Pause before speaking; collect yourself; compose yourself, for on your word lies your life.”

Again the heavy silence descended on the hall so that it seemed to be empty of tenants, and everyone craned forward, staring at Aspasia. A few bees and wasps had blown through the windows and their buzzing was harsh in the silence, as if they were filled with anger. Pericles drew even closer to Aspasia and under his cloak he grasped his sword convulsively.

But Aspasia did not turn to him. All her regard was only for the King Archon. She felt no enmity in him, no hostile contempt, no menace. He was the judge, and he would judge her in what she said in the next moments. If her heart beat a little faster no one else was aware of it. She lifted her head even higher. Her eyes were without fear or evasion.

“Lord,” she said, “I do not know what you have heard, what calumnies, what falsehoods. You have asked me concerning my heresy. I can only answer that from my earliest youth I have felt the Presence of the Godhead in all things, that my soul has been shaken as a lily in the field at the thought of Him, that I have gazed on all He has created with wonder and awe and delight and reverence, and that, to the measure of my poor power, I have served Him. His Law has been sweeter to my spirit than honey; His graciousness has caused me to weep with joy. I see His shadow on the mountains, His reflection in the water, His heralds in the skies, His majesty in the smallest flower in a crevice. Because He is in everything that lives there is no ugliness except in the perverted eyes of men. The very stones proclaim Him; the stars sing of His might; the rains whisper of His mercy. What is seemingly dead breaks into blossoms at His gaze; the winds shout of Him at midnight. Before Him there is no despair, there is only bliss and hope. I hear His voice, I see His grandeur in the morning, at noon, in the evening. When I am sad He comforts me. When I laugh I hear His laughter also. When I see a lamb leaping in the spring, my heart leaps also, for the lamb in his dance celebrates God and I celebrate with him. The world teems with the effulgence of God, and only men see darkness.

“Lord, if someone with all authority convinced me that there is no God then I should die, for what is life without Him, and pleasure without His grace? There is only death, and in this death I could not live. He is all, and there is none else.”

She paused, then said with simplicity, “If that is heresy, lord, condemn me. God, alone then, shall be my Judge.”

Someone among Pericles’ and Aspasia’s friends raised a cry of exultation in the silence, a cry of reverent praise, and many eyes were suddenly wet. The King Archon’s old face was inscrutable and still. Now his regard on Aspasia was earnest. He said, “I have been told that you have a small temple in your gardens, Aspasia of Miletus, with a bare altar and no statues. To whom has that temple been erected, and why is the altar bare?”

Aspasia smiled like a loving child. “The temple was built to Him, Whom our priests reverence without knowing why they reverence, but their spirits know if their minds do not. The temple was built to One Whom we feel in our hearts, Who has yet no name that we have heard. Yet Greeks erect temples to Him with waiting altars, and inscribe on them: To the Unknown God.’ The altar is bare because we are still waiting for Him, He Who has been promised through the ages to all nations and all men.”

The King Archon bent his head as if meditating, and all waited for his next words. After a long minute or two he raised his head and said to the jury, “This woman is not guilty of heresy. If you believe she is, after hearing her words, speak now or never speak again.”

The silence that followed his speech was even more ponderous and weighty than before. The men of the jury looked at each other furtively, peering over each other’s shoulders. Some nodded; some shook their heads; some were gloomy; some were threatening in their glances, some sullen, some moved, some angry, some resentful, some impatient, some with tears on their cheeks. Pericles watched them closely. He had begun to tremble. The life of Aspasia lay with them for all of the King Archon’s grave remarks.

Now he could not restrain himself. He swung about and faced the jury and his face changed and became passionate, as none had ever seen it before.

“My countrymen!” he cried. “I am Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the great warrior whose name is honored among you! I am your Head of State, because it was the will of our people, despite the efforts of my enemies, and yours. It is not Aspasia of Miletus who stands waiting your judgment. It is I. For, I have been condemned by the vile and the envious and the lusters of power, those who desire to enslave you. Because of the strength of you, my fellow countrymen, they dared not attack me directly, or kill me.

“But they have attacked, killed or exiled those I have loved. They sought to kill my son, Paralus, because he is my son. They slew Helena, the physician. They murdered Pheidias, though he was the glory of Greece. They drove a mighty scientist, a gentle man, Anaxagoras, into flight with their persecutions. My son, Xanthippus, is fighting to save our beloved city, and is prepared to give his life. He is fighting as I fought, and as my fathers fought, not for money, not for elevation, not for power, not for shouts of honor. We fight and we have fought, for the love we hold in our souls for our country. If a man does not love his country then he is not a man. He is not even a traitor, for to be a traitor a man must first have loved, then turned aside. He is a beast who does not know that he is a beast. One trough anywhere is only a trough to him, for his feeding. One master, to him, is no different from another. He asks only to live in his animal living.

“For what does a true man live? He lives for his God, his country, his family, or he does not live at all. He lives for truth, for the liberty which God has bestowed on him on his birth. But our enemies, yours and mine, hate all these blessed things, for so long as you adhere to them they cannot reduce you to slavery, or force you to your knees, or compel you to bow before them as your lords, nor strangle you with chains, nor take from you your holy manhood, nor make you less than the beasts of the field.

“God has put a price on your liberty. The price is your vigilance, your sleepless guard, lest it be taken from you. Prizes will be, and are, offered to you in this, your city, for your obedience, for your subservience, for your acceptance of a life that is really a death. If you accept, for a momentary flattery, for a few drachmas in your hands, for a shameful peace, you will be accursed before God Who detests the coward—the true traitor to his humanity, the man without dignity and pride in his being before the God Who made him. He has committed the absolute treason against all that lives, all that has endurance and magnificence and truth.

“Many of you here know their abominable names, but they are not present! They lie among their sleek women, and dine in luxury and count their money and bejewel themselves and breed fine horses for the Games, and build palaces for their pleasure. They tell you that their hearts bleed for you, that they would have you kings among men, that with their help you will ride in chariots and walk on marble and never know hunger or pain again. They lie! A man is born to labor and to rejoice in his labor, for he who does not serve is condemned to death, not by men, but by God and nature. To serve God and country, in whatever fashion God ordains, is the highest servitude and the highest freedom.

“Men of Athens! Sons of the laws of Solon! We Greeks, for the first time in known history, have brought a dream to mankind, the dream of liberty, of law which all men, rulers and the ruled, must obey, of just rewards for just service, of freedom of speech and freedom to write, of judges and juries, of punishments to fit the crime, of order not imposed but self-imposed, of the power to vote and the power to seek redress under a dispassionate government, even against that very government, of equal taxation instead of the tribute other rulers exact of their helpless people, of the right to protest and dissent, of the right to demand justice if oppressed or reviled or harmed or defamed, and, above all, to be free in your persons, your property, your houses, your opinions.

“Of all these your enemies would deprive you and me. They would silence our voices. They would drive justice from her altars. They would make of our country but a vast prison camp where all would labor and none would be rewarded and none, ever again, be men!”

No one shifted or stirred and now only a few revealed malignant and cunning faces. Before that countenance turned upon them, before that eloquence, the majority were deeply moved.

Then Pericles took the hand of Aspasia and looked at her, and suddenly he was weeping and the tears ran down his face, and never had they seen this before and a great sigh rose from the assemblage.

Pericles drew Aspasia to his side and put his arm about her.

“Behold this woman, whom I love, as you know I love her. She is a symbol to you, in the vicious accusations brought against her, of what awaits us if our enemies prevail. They sought her death, not because she has done any wrong, but because she is innocent and fearless and will not bend before tyranny and lies. But more than that, they would kill her because I love her. They would take from me—as they would take from you—all that we hold dear, out of their hatred for us. They would set the rabble on us, the avaricious rabble who would seize the fruits of our labors, who would stain the glory of our fathers with their envious spittle, the envious rabble which has no honor and no soul and no manhood but only greed and spite and malice and bottomless bellies. They would do this in order to crush you and silence you and overcome you with terror, for a rabble armed is more frightful than an army with banners and bloody spears. They would give the rabble arms for your destruction, to subjugate you.

“It is your choice: to stand on your feet as men, or crouch on your knees as slaves. The dream of Solon can endure, or it can die. It is your choice, for now you appear at the bar of history and God is your Judge.”

The silence remained, even though the white walls seemed still to vibrate with the power of Pericles’ voice. Every man looked at him, and looked at Aspasia at his side, and saw his tears and the resolute set of his mouth and the force of his eyes, which challenged them, not with rage or contempt, but with their mutual brotherhood.

At last the King Archon spoke. “Before this jury of equal men, I exonerate Aspasia of Miletus of all the accusations brought against her. Speak then, if any man wishes to speak.”

But the jury did not speak and the King Archon appeared to examine each face and though a number were still malignant their tongues were silent. The King Archon then said to Aspasia, “Go, then, in peace, absolved of any charges.”

Pericles bowed to the King Archon and Aspasia bent her head. Pericles took Aspasia’s hand and walked through the voiceless assemblage with her and the guards opened the bronze door wide so that the sun burst in and covered the two with light.

PROLOGUE

“The past is only prologue.” SOCRATES

The Great Plague came to Athens and overwhelmed the already demoralized citizens. It struck down in particular the women of child-bearing age and the young, and equally decimated the middle-aged and old. A multitude of voices rose that the gods were avenging the insult to their dignity imposed on them by Pericles and his friends, and “that infamous harlot, Aspasia of Miletus.” Few paid heed to the fact that Pericles’ two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus, died of it, without being fully reconciled to their father, that his friends were well one day and conversing with him, and dead the next.

The clamor against him rose even higher when, from the walls of Athens, the Athenians could see their enemies pillaging their countryside. The best of the navy had been destroyed. It did no good for Pericles to recall to the government that they had permitted Sparta to grow so strong that she had been able to attack, with her allies, and gain tremendous victories. “Did I not warn you that we must increase our armaments?” he demanded of the Assembly. “But you talked of peace’ and a more benevolent attitude towards Sparta, who has always hated us. Can you come to terms with a nation which is determined to destroy you and rule the whole of Greece? We were a prosperous people, we of Athens, and became fat and complacent and scorned those who warned us of the approaching conflict. There is no substitute for the military and the navy in this dangerous world filled with ambitious men. There is no substitute for liberty, which so many of you have ridiculed. Human nature never changes. Therefore, those who desire peace must resolutely prepare for war, horrifying though war is. Only a strong man can resist his enemy. Placating that enemy, assuring him that your intentions are peaceful and that you desire only trade, is a signal to him to attack.

“But when I warned you, endlessly, you shouted to me that I wished to be a king, have absolute power over you, that I was a dictator and a tyrant and a despot. I did not want a strong army and navy, you said, because I feared for Athens. No, you said, I wished to have a powerful military so I could turn it on you!”

“We want peace!” the people cried. “Our sons are dying in the prison camps and the quarries of Syracuse!”

Pericles was himself stricken by the plague, but recovered under the devoted care of Aspasia. But despite his recovery his spirit seemed to have been overcome by somberness and his physical condition never became stalwart again. It was as if something had died in him, as it had died in Athens: the will to resist. Athens’ great navies were almost totally destroyed, her armies put to flight, while the Spartans, a disciplined and gloomy and warlike people, proclaimed that they had driven Athens from the sea and from the land. It was no matter to Sparta that she had, herself, suffered huge losses of men and arms and ships. Only victory had been her dream, and power, whereas Athens had desired only prosperity and trade and commerce. Now Persia, never forgetting her defeat by Athens, allied herself with Sparta. The internal enemies of Pericles suddenly rose triumphantly in Athens and betrayed her, saying that “the experiment in general freedom has failed,” and that it was now time for an oligarchy to seize power. They opened negotiations with Sparta, particularly the rich haters of liberty, Antiphon, Peisander and Phrynichus. That they were defeated later and crushed by Alcibiades and Theramenes, who established the Constitution of Five Thousand, and continued the struggle with Sparta, meant nothing to Pericles then.