Glory and the Lightning (77 page)

This was inevitably repeated to the Spartans, and their oligarchy was enraged. The older Spartans were still gloating in memory of the defeat of Athens by Sparta and her allies, at Tanagra, when Pericles was still a young man. The oligarchy, that oppressive body of men which ruled Sparta, began to address their people in inflammatory language, and even the very young men who had not been born at the time of Tanagra or had been little children began to burn with fury against Athens, though she was also a member of the Peloponnesian Confederacy. The oligarchy had accused the younger Pericles of lusting for empire over all of the members of the Confederacy, and had declared that he was a bloody tyrant and vainly ambitious. Not only did the average Spartan believe this without doubts, but the other city-states believed it also, because of their envy. “If,” said the Spartans to their allies, “we defeated Athens before, we can do it again and once and for all quell her bold aspirations.”

So began the miserable sequence of erratic if desperate wars against Athens by members of the Confederacy, and which had plagued Pericles over many years. Sparta had confined herself to sporadic raids into Attica almost annually, while inciting her allies against Athens. Corinth and Megara were firmly and relentlessly crushed. Eventually Athens retired from the Confederacy. In the meantime Sparta, who had suffered little during those long years, dreamed of driving Athens from the sea which was her domain, not by war but by seizing Athens’ ascendancy in commerce and trade.

To this end she fused all the energies of her men, demanding endless sacrifices of them and endless labor, stringent physical training and self-denial. Several generations ago she had been acknowledged the leader of Hellas because of her military superiority over her sister-states, and the magnificent valor of her fighting men. The Spartan people had never known freedom in the sense that Solon had intended for Athens. At one time the oligarchy had forbidden Spartans the possession of gold and silver and substituted iron for barter. Inevitably, wealth reached a few cunning hands, and the intended equalization of property was a failure. The oligarchies had been defeated by human nature, and for this they had become the laughter of Athens. Zeno of Elea, when instructing the young Pericles, had brought this emphatically to his pupil’s attention. “This should be a lesson for governments, but governments never learn anything and remember nothing. You cannot equalize men unless you chop off the higher heads and stretch, on a rack, those of lower mental stature. Both efforts are fatal.”

But still the later oligarchies thought longingly of the old days when there was a prohibition against the bequeathing or the gifting of land, and when lowly helots worked the land for a few selected and powerful Spartans. Still they lamented the fact that many citizens now owned precious metals. As the members of the oligarchy were only human also, they had no objection to acquiring fortunes for themselves though desiring that only they should possess them. “Are we a nation who loves banks, like the Athenians, and vast accumulations of wealth like them also—and the Persians, not to mention the Egyptians who coat their dead with gold? We are a stern and upright people. We believe in the equality of men, provided they are sound of body and mind. Why should any man aspire to rise above his fellows and gain greater rewards? It is a wicked injustice.”

When hearing of this the older Pericles remembered what Zeno had taught him—that men are born unequal by nature, though they should be equal before the government, so that no man is penalized for being poor and no man, however rich, can escape the punishment of law. Opportunity should not be forbidden the superior in soul and character, nor false opportunity given to the inferior who would prefer to be without the responsibility of it.

Now the Spartans were directing all their determination against the older Pericles, who had far more power than when he had first come to the attention of Sparta, and had made Athens the supreme maritime queen of the seas. They jeered at his desire to make Athens also the empire of the mind through the help of his artists, his sculptors, his architects, his philosophers. “Has it not been said,” they asked, “that he whom the gods would destroy they first make mad? Pericles is a madman, an overweening dictator and tyrant.” So now they were fixed with the resolution of stubborn and narrow men that they must seize the maritime power of Athens. Labor, once held the province only of helots, became the duty of all men—except, of course, the oligarchy and the few aristocrats.

This, then, was the present anxiety of Pericles, who was weary of the constant small but costly and enervating wars and distractions. He knew that among his own Athenians there were rich and potent men who were sending emissaries or spies to Sparta, out of hatred for him. He knew that they were also secretly inciting the rabble against him, so that through his destruction they could assume authority. The word “impeachment” was constantly on their lips in private. Only the accursed middle class of shopkeepers and little merchants and industrious men stood in their way, and these loved Pericles. Pericles called his foes traitors, openly, and they laughed at him.

Aspasia said to him in concern, “Is there no way to reach an accord with Sparta and assure her that there is enough trade and commerce in the world for all cities?”

“No. Sparta has never relinquished her ambition and purpose to be all-powerful in Hellas, as once she was through military might. Dreams take various shapes and war is but one of them. It is now trade—the rule of the world through commerce. It is the same goal: conquest.”

On a few occasions he sent his own trusted emissaries to Sparta, to conciliate her and to assure her that Athens had no imperial designs upon her, and that surely reasonable men could reach an amicable understanding in the name of peace. Sparta received those emissaries with what they could only report as brutal courtesy and a lightly controlled rudeness. Her demands for an agreement were absurd, and so Pericles was forced to refuse. “These foolish little wars will continue,” he said, with mingled wrath and despair. “Sparta is determined to subjugate Athens as she has subjugated her allies. Our treasury is ominously depleted and we may soon have to debase our currency. The debasement of currency invariably means the decline of a nation, and so Sparta is compelling us to do that.”

Aspasia said, “A final confrontation with Sparta, then, is inevitable?”

“I fear so,” he replied. “In the meantime we will try to avoid that confrontation as long as possible. I only pray that it will not come in my lifetime.” But he suspected that it would and often he would pace his chamber at night futilely searching for a way either to conciliate the irreconcilable or to threaten Sparta in one open and exasperated challenge.

His enemies were now accusing him of “goading” Sparta to attack, or of inciting her through unjust suspicions of her motives, motives which Sparta candidly and consistently proclaimed. “He is, first of all, a soldier,” his enemies told the rabble, “and soldiers are not famous for hating war; they love war even for its own sake. His imperial ambitions grow hourly and Sparta knows that and fears us. If we war strongly against her she will retaliate as strongly and peace in our world will be a lost vision.” They appealed to the pusillanimity of the market rabble, its fearful self-love. The rabble scribbled lies and threats and libels on the walls of Athens. When they saw Pericles in the Agora they either were sullenly silent or shouted at him before fleeing.

Pericles’ enemies struck at him again and again through Aspasia. They said that she was the real power behind Pericles, that she was insisting that Sparta be attacked or made subservient, that her school was only a disguise for the procurement of free women for unspeakable purposes, that she induced young girls to engage in perversions with the ageing Pericles, and that, worst of all, she was impious. The comic poet, Hermippus, publicly accused her of these things. “If I were a tyrant, as my enemies and Sparta say I am,” Pericles told Aspasia, “I would have him quietly murdered or thrown into prison.”

“I do not fear lies,” Aspasia answered him.

He raised his eyebrows humorously at her. “Then, my sweet, you are still an innocent, and I am amazed. Lies are far more potent than the truth, and far more dangerous. They have caused the death of more good men than any deadly truth has done. For human nature is inherently evil and it prefers lies, and delights in the suffering of the just which it has inflicted.”

“Then,” said Aspasia, “we must remain serene and indifferent to evil, as Anaxagoras does, in spite of the pain imposed on him by the mobs.” She added, disturbed by Pericles’ suddenly darkened face, “Future ages will give him honor, as they will give you honor, beloved.”

“Unfortunately,” said Pericles, “neither Anaxagoras nor I will be aware of that.”

Anaxagoras was growing old and tired. The repeated stoning of his little house and the disruptions of his academe and in the colonnades by the rabble were finally exhausting him. His voice no longer had the power to rise above derisive shouts and taunts, and the serenity and indifference which his friends so admired in him were giving place to deep inner sadness and a desire for even a precarious peace of mind and spirit.

One day he went to see Pericles in the latter’s offices. The natural high dignity which had always distinguished him had not disappeared, nor his calm glance and composure. But his hair and his beard were white and his wonderful blue eyes had faded, and his fine hands were tremulous. Pericles had not seen him for three weeks, and Anaxagoras’ aspect today alarmed him, for it seemed to him that the philosopher-scientist had aged greatly even in that short time. But Anaxagoras smiled at him with his usual sweetness and embraced him. Yet Pericles, to his dread, saw that there were tears in his friend’s eyes.

He poured wine for Anaxagoras, who gently refused other refreshments. He was long in speaking; he swirled the wine about in his goblet and absently studied it. Pericles was more alarmed.

“Do you bring me bad news, my friend?”

Anaxagoras hesitated, and seeing this Pericles said, “Do not refrain from telling me. There is not a morning that comes to me with hope, but only with aversion, these days. I must armor myself afresh each day by deliberate will.”

“But you are much younger than I, Pericles.”

“You must remember I am a politician.” Pericles tried to laugh. “Well, you must tell me. I assure you that my enemies have not as yet castrated me, try though they do.”

Anaxagoras still hesitated. Then he sighed. “I must leave Athens.”

Pericles looked at him with astonishment. “You would flee from your own enemies?”

Again Anaxagoras sighed. “There comes a time in a man’s life when he is weary of fighting, of struggle—when, in truth, he finds it too hard to endure and becomes tired of living. That time has come to me.”

“You are tired of living?”

Anaxagoras raised his eyes and looked at Pericles fully. “Yes. If I am not to come to the desperate conclusion that no life is worth living then I must leave Athens, however dearly I love her.” Seeing Pericles’ misery he added, “It is my age, dear friend. I would have a little peace in my last years.”

“You were never a coward,” said Pericles, hoping to perturb that calmness and restore spirit to Anaxagoras. But Anaxagoras merely smiled.

“Is a longing for tranquility in an old man cowardice? Even an old soldier eventually retires from the battlefield and the sound of drums does not quicken his blood.”

When Pericles did not speak, Anaxagoras reached out and placed his hand on the back of the other’s hand. “Do not sorrow for me,” he said. “The gods have not endowed us with perpetual youth, and the high heart of young men must become subdued in late years. Would you have me a cynic, and speak with acid in my mouth? Would that not be worse than—flight? When I am no longer in Athens I may start to believe, again, that I am with God and that His peace is with me, and that in time men will become truly human.”

“I cannot endure that I will never see you again,” said Pericles. “Now will all your friends be devastated.”

“You must explain to them,” said Anaxagoras. “I have my limits of endurance, too. I have spoken of this only to you, for if I see the others and listen to their pleas I may weaken in my resolve and remain. At the end that would be a little death for me. It would be the end of all my hope.”

“Where will you go?” asked Pericles, and now he was most anxious.

Anaxagoras shook his head slightly. “That I will not tell you for you may seek me out, and seeing you will cause me suffering and a longing to return.”

Pericles rubbed his suddenly tired eyes and his mouth and chin. “You have little money, that I know. Will you at least permit me to give you a purse of talents as a gift? I should like to have that small pleasure.”

“I need very little,” said Anaxagoras, looking at him with compassion. “But, yes, if it will truly please you.”

Pericles went to an iron locked chest in his cabinet and took out a heavy purse. He laid it before his friend. They both stared at it. A deep silence fell between them. It had been many years, too long to count, since Pericles had felt a desire to weep, but he felt it now, and with that impulse his growing bitterness was increased and his growing despair. He was always striving against hatred in himself even for his enemies. Now it was rising beyond his control.

Anaxagoras was pushing himself heavily to his feet and Pericles stood up also. Anaxagoras put his hands on Pericles’ shoulders. “Give me peace,” he pleaded. “For I say to you, may the peace of God be with you, dear friend.”

“Go in peace, then,” said Pericles, but his expression was harsh.

“Do not grieve for me, Pericles. My hour for silence has arrived, as it will, unfortunately, arrive for you. We cannot escape our mortality.”

When Anaxagoras had departed Pericles felt a great wound in his soul, a tremendous emptiness and loss. His reason told him that the loss of beloved friends, and the emptiness which follows, cannot be avoided, but his heart rebelled. Why could not Anaxagoras have lived out his few remaining years in tranquility among his pupils and those who loved him? He had been driven away by evil, for all his explanation that he was only weary and old.