CHAPTER VII
THE RESPONSE OF THE ORACLE
Clearchus and Leonidas rode out of Attica across the olive-bearingplains, and up the rugged spurs and ridges which flank the mountain ofCithaeron, upon whose rocky slopes Antiope wailed as an infant, and therash Pentheus was torn to pieces by women to the end that the power ofDionysius might be established. They halted for a brief space at thefortress of Phyle, the key that had opened to Thrasybulus his nativeland and enabled him to give it freedom. Leonidas admired the greatwalls built of square blocks of stone laid one upon another withoutmortar and fitted so exactly that the joints would scarcely be seen.
Teleon, captain of the guard which was stationed at this gateway, was afriend of Clearchus. He gave them bread and wine, while the youngAthenian told him of his misfortune. After expressing his sympathy,Teleon inquired eagerly for the news of Athens.
"Will the Assembly send troops to the aid of Ph[oe]nix and Prothytes,who have raised the revolt in Thebes?" he asked. "You know they nowhold the city, and my spies tell me that they are preparing for anyattack that may be made upon them."
Clearchus gave him an account of the indecisive meeting of the Assemblyon the preceding day.
"All Athens believes the boy king is dead," he said, referring toAlexander. "What is your opinion, Teleon?"
"That, too, is the belief in Thebes," the captain replied. "I knownot; but if it proves to be so, Thebes is free."
"And if not?" Clearchus asked.
"If not, there will be fighting," Teleon predicted, "and may Zeusinspire the Macedonian to attack us here!"
From the slope beyond Phyle the young man saw the B[oe]otian plainspread out before them, and beyond, in the purple distance, the rockyramparts of Phocis. There, glowing rose-colored in the evening light,shone the snow-clad crest of Parnassus. Clearchus' heart swelled as helooked upon the goal in which his hope was centred.
"We must be there to-morrow," he said eagerly.
"The God will not run away!" Leonidas replied.
They plunged down the mountain slope into the shadows, which deepenedunder the plane trees as they advanced, until the winding track wasalmost hidden before them. The moon rose as they emerged upon theplain that had so often drunk the life-blood of Hellas. At Thespiaetheir horses could go no further, and they halted for the night.
Although the road from Thebes was better, they had purposely avoidedthe city, fearing that the disturbances there might delay them. Theyfound Thespiae full of rumors of the Theban uprising. Some said thatthe Macedonians in the Cadmea had been put to the sword; others thatthe peace party had gained the upper hand and was awaiting the arrivalof Alexander. Leonidas, who listened eagerly to all that was said, wassurprised to find that the report of the young king's death wasdiscredited in the town. There were even men who insisted that he wason his way through Thessaly at the head of his army, ready to strike.
The Spartan sighed and looked wistfully over his shoulder in thedirection of Thebes as they took horse at sunrise. At evening,begrimed with dust, they toiled up the last ascent that led to Delphi,the terraced city among the sacred cliffs--the Navel of the World.
As Clearchus gazed upward at the twin columns of the Phaedriades risingside by side a thousand feet above the temple in the cool graytwilight, the fever of anxiety in his blood left him and his pulsesbeat more slowly. The strong masonry of the outer wall, which enclosedand seemed to hold from slipping down the mountain side the buildingsclustered about the lofty terrace, on which the temple stood closeunder the towering cliffs, shut in the shrine that for centuries allHellas had looked upon as hallowed. Awe came upon him in the presenceof the great Mystery. There were scoffers in Athens who laughed at allreligion. There were philosophers in the world who taught that theexistence of the Gods was a foolish dream. Why had Ph[oe]bus permittedthe Phocians to seize his treasure and to profane his altar, theyasked, if he really existed?
Clearchus put the same question to himself as he looked down upon theCirrhaean fields that had been consecrated to the God and condemned tolie waste forever in his honor. The Phocians had desecrated them bycultivation. When condemned by the Amphictyons at the instance oftheir enemies, the Thebans, they had seized the shrine and thetreasure-houses. Though they had prospered for a time, in the endPhilomelus and Onomarchus had been slain and the Phocians broken andscattered. The sacrilege had been punished, but Philip had beenbrought into Hellas as the champion of the God and the chief instrumentof his wrath. Thebes had been placed beneath his feet.
What was to be the end? Was the fate of the city that had driven thePhocians to their crime to be worse than that of their victims?Clearchus, as he thought of these things, was chilled with anindefinable dread of the Invisible Presence whose home was among thesilent and Titanic crags that made the utmost triumphs of human art andskill laid at their feet seem as transitory as the work of childrenfashioned in sand. He felt that here the mighty purpose of the Unseenwas being worked out, deliberate and irresistible, before which theraces of men were as nothing.
They did not enter the city that night, but turned aside to the houseof Eresthenes, who had been a guest-friend of Clearchus' father. Theold man was overjoyed to see them. After the evening meal he soughtthe priests of the temple and brought back word that the oracle mightbe consulted next day if the sacrifice proved propitious.
Clearchus slept soundly. In the morning he purified himself, accordingto the rule, in the clear, cold waters of the Castalian Font hung aboutwith votive offerings in marble and bronze placed there by gratefulpilgrims to the shrine. Eresthenes gave him fresh garments, with thegarland of olive and the fillet of wool which suppliants were requiredto put on.
Guided by the old man, the two friends ascended the wide marblestaircase that led to the great stone platform at the southeast cornerof the lower terrace, where ceremonial processions were accustomed toform before entering the sacred enclosure. Passing through the gate,they advanced between treasure-houses upon which the most famoussculptors of the world had lavished their skill. Among these and thedwellings of the priests and the chief men of the place were set scoresof columns and statues, the offerings of centuries from kings andprinces. Across the lower terrace the way led them to the next higher,with a sharp turn to the right at the great stone sphinx which guardedthe passage through the second wall. They continued up the slope tothe final platform, on which the temple stood resplendent with color.
Entering between the great columns, Eresthenes and Leonidas leftClearchus to the care of the priests--grave men of advanced age whowere under the direction of Agias. They led the Athenian to theapartment of the chief priest, a venerable minister whose age hadpassed one hundred years. He sat in his marble arm-chair, propped bycushions. His white beard flowed over his breast, and his thin handslay crossed in his lap. He raised his dim eyes and fixed them upon theface of his visitor.
"What wilt thou, Thrasybulus, who comest back to me from beyond thetomb?" he asked in a quavering voice.
The attendant priests glanced at each other in surprise, but none ofthem dared to reply.
"Speak, Thrasybulus; I am an old man," the chief priest said.
"Thrasybulus has been dead these fifty years, Father," Agias said."This is Clearchus, an Athenian, who comes as a suppliant to theoracle."
"He is like Thrasybulus!" the old man muttered, bowing his head. "Itseems but yesterday that he stood before me." He paused for a momentand then continued with an effort: "Art thou pure of heart? Art thoufree from the sins of the flesh?"
"I am," Clearchus replied firmly.
"Then pass into the presence of the God who knoweth all and who dothnot forget!" said the patriarch, closing his eyes wearily.
Clearchus bowed and was about to turn away, when the old man rousedhimself once more.
"Come hither, boy, and let me look at thee!" he said. "My sight isgrowing dim."
Clearchus knelt at his feet, and the aged priest placed his hand on hishead, stroking hi
s hair and peering into his face.
"So like Thrasybulus! It was only yesterday!" he said to himself."The storm comes and the world is changing. Thou shalt see thronesmade empty and nations perish; but the God will remain until a greatercometh. Clearchus art thou called? It may be so; but to me thou artThrasybulus. Go thy ways. The God will be kind to thee."
Although the other priests were evidently struck by this unusual scene,they made no comment, but led Clearchus into the dim interior of thetemple. On every hand, between the columns and against the walls,gleamed statues and vessels of precious metals, exquisite in design andworkmanship, that the Phocians had not dared to remove from the houseitself of the God. Before them stood a group of young women in snowyrobes with fillets in their hair. They were chanting a hymn of slowand solemn measure.
They ceased their chant as the priests entered with Clearchus, and twoof them advanced, leading between them one of the three priestesses ofthe temple. The Pythia was a woman of middle age, slender of figure,with large gray eyes that seemed to look at Clearchus without seeinghim. Her thin cheeks still retained the fresh color of youth, and herlips, of a deep red, moved gently as though she were whispering toherself.
Looking about him with eyes grown accustomed to the semidarkness,Clearchus saw a slightly raised platform of white marble toward therear of the temple. Three shallow steps led to a broad slab, in themiddle of which was a cleft. Through this orifice curled a pale,fleeting vapor, which rose like transparent smoke for the height of aman above the platform before it vanished. It came from the stone inpuffs and spirals which swayed, now this way, now that, with apeculiarly irregular and capricious impulse like the balancing of acoiled serpent.
Over the cleft was set a low tripod, the legs of which were formed ofintertwined snakes wrought in gold so cunningly that every scale seemedreproduced in the bright metal. The jewelled eyes of the reptilestwinkled through the vapor which alternately hid and revealed them.
Slowly and solemnly the priestesses led the Pythia to the foot of theplatform, where they gave her hands to two of the most venerable of thepriests, whose office it was to conduct her to the tripod. Her lipsformed themselves into a smile as she mounted the steps and the womenresumed their chanting.
As she took her place upon the tripod and the priests descended,leaving her alone, a sudden thunderstorm burst above the towering cragswhich overhung the shrine. The wind roared down between the Phaedriadeswith mighty strength, and a crash of thunder, leaping and reverberatingfrom rock to cliff, shook the temple to its foundations.
"Zeus is speaking to the son of Latona!" murmured Agias, and all bowedtheir heads in reverence.
Filled as he was with awe, Clearchus felt reassured by the calmdemeanor of the priests. He fixed his eyes on the Pythia, who remainedseated on the tripod with her hands loosely folded in her lap,oblivious alike to the storm and to her surroundings. The chill vaporseemed to grow more dense. At times it hid her entirely, wrapping herin its cold embrace. The color deepened in her cheeks and the smileleft her parted lips. With dilated pupils she gazed over the heads ofthe little group before her. Gradually her face assumed a troubledexpression and her tongue began to frame broken words and fragmentarysentences the purport of which Clearchus could not understand.Suddenly she half raised her hands as though she would cover her eyesand her face contracted as with a spasm of pain.
"Evohe! Ph[oe]bus!" she cried in a wailing voice.
"Ask thy question--the God is here!" Agias whispered, pushing Clearchustoward the platform.
The young man found himself standing alone in the dread Presence,gazing upon the Pythia, who was no longer a woman, but an instrument inthe hands of the God. The vapor curled about her and encircled her inswiftly changing, fantastic forms. Her gray eyes looked out into his,fixed and steadfast, and the tension of the influence which possessedher convulsed her features. Dead silence reigned throughout the vastand shadowy interior of the temple.
Clearchus tried to frame the question that he had prepared but thewords refused to come. The awe of his surroundings paralyzed hisspeech.
Suddenly the dear, wistful face of his love seemed to appear to himamid the folds of the rolling mist, filled with sorrow and yearning.His fear left him. All else, even life itself, was as nothing beforethe fierce desire of his heart.
"Where shall I find Artemisia?" he cried, stretching out his armsbefore the whirling cloud which hid the priestess in its embrace.
There was a moment of suspense, in which he could hear the dull rushingof the torrent that filled the sluices, overflowing with the rain, oneither side of the temple. The priests leaned forward attentively tocatch the reply, each holding a tablet of wax and a stylus with whichto record any words that the Pythia might utter. Clearchus stoodmotionless, his arms still outstretched, gazing with straining eyesupon the lips of the priestess. She writhed upon the tripod as thoughin agony. Her eyes were set and glassy and a slight foam showed itselfupon her mouth. Then came her voice, strained and strange, through theeddies of the vapor:--
"Seek in the track of the Whirlwind--there shalt thou find thy Beloved!"
Her eyes closed, and a shuddering sigh issued from her bosom. The twopriests who had placed her upon the tripod hastened forward and boreher from the platform. She had lost consciousness completely. Herhead drooped upon her shoulder and her face was as pale as death. Theold men gave her in charge of the women, who ran forward to receive herand quickly carried her into their own apartments.
A great joy filled Clearchus. "She is safe! She is safe! And I shallfind her!" he said to himself, following the silent priests out of thetemple. As they passed out into the portico he looked back over hisshoulder at the platform where the God had manifested himself. Theswift storm had swept over and the sun was shining again. A gleam ofhis light fell upon the curling mist and Clearchus saw it tinged withthe prismatic colors of the rainbow.