On quitting the Hall of the Ephors, Lysander found himself at once on
the Spartan Agora, wherein that Hall was placed. This was situated on
the highest of the five hills, over which the unwalled city spread its
scattered population, and was popularly called the Tower. Before the
eyes of the young Spartan rose the statues, rude and antique, of
Latona, the Pythian Apollo, and his sister Artemis;--venerable images
to Lysander's early associations. The place which they consecrated was
called Chorus; for there, in honour of Apollo, and in the most pompous
of all the Spartan festivals, the young men were accustomed to lead
the sacred dance. The Temple of Apollo himself stood a little in the
background, and near to it that of Hera But more vast than any image
of a god was a colossal statue which represented the Spartan people;
while on a still loftier pinnacle of the hill than that table-land
which enclosed the Agora--dominating, as it were, the whole
city--soared into the bright blue sky the sacred Chalcioecus, or
Temple of the Brazen Pallas, darkening with its shadow another fane
towards the left dedicated to the Lacedaemonian Muses, and receiving a
gleam on the right from the brazen statue of Zeus, which was said by
tradition to have been made by a disciple of Daedalus himself.
But short time had Lysander to note undisturbed the old familiar
scenes. A crowd of his early friends had already collected round the
doors of the Archeion, and rushed forward to greet and welcome him.
The Spartan coldness and austerity of social intercourse vanished
always before the enthusiasm created by the return to his native city
of a man renowned for valour; and Lysander's fame had come back to
Sparta before himself. Joyously, and in triumph, the young men bore
away their comrade. As they passed through the centre of the Agora,
where assembled the various merchants and farmers, who, under the name
of Perioeci, carried on the main business of the Laconian mart, and
were often much wealthier than the Spartan citizens, trade ceased its
hubbub; all drew near to gaze on the young warrior; and now, as they
turned from the Agora, a group of eager women met them on the road,
and shrill voices exclaimed: "Go, Lysander, thou hast fought well--go
and choose for thyself the maiden that seems to thee the fairest. Go,
marry and get sons for Sparta."
Lysander's step seemed to tread on air, and tears of rapture stood in
his downcast eyes. But suddenly all the voices hushed; the crowds
drew back; his friends halted. Close by the great Temple of Fear, and
coming from some place within its sanctuary, there approached towards
the Spartan and his comrades a majestic woman--a woman of so grand a
step and port, that, though her veil as yet hid her face, her form
alone sufficed to inspire awe. All knew her by her gait; all made way
for Alithea, the widow of a king, the mother of Pausanias the Regent.
Lysander, lifting his eyes from the ground, impressed by the hush
around him, recognised the form as it advanced slowly towards him,
and, leaving his comrades behind, stepped forward to salute the mother
of his chief. She, thus seeing him, turned slightly aside, and paused
by a rude building of immemorial antiquity which stood near the
temple. That building was the tomb of the mythical Orestes, whose
bones were said to have been interred there by the command of the
Delphian Oracle. On a stone at the foot of the tomb sate calmly down
the veiled woman, and waited the approach of Lysander. When he came
near, and alone--all the rest remaining aloof and silent--Alithea
removed her veil, and a countenance grand and terrible as that of a
Fate lifted its rigid looks to the young Spartan's eyes. Despite
her age--for she had passed into middle life before she had borne
Pausanias--Alithea retained all the traces of a marvellous and almost
preterhuman beauty. But it was not the beauty of woman. No softness
sate on those lips: no love beamed from those eyes. Stern,
inexorable--not a fault in her grand proportions--the stoutest heart
might have felt a throb of terror as the eye rested upon that pitiless
and imposing front. And the deep voice of the Spartan warrior had a
slight tremor in its tone as it uttered its respectful salutation.
"Draw near, Lysander. What sayest thou of my son?"
"I left him well, and--"
"Does a Spartan mother first ask of the bodily health of an absent
man-child? By the tomb of Orestes and near the Temple of Fear, a
king's widow asks a Spartan soldier what he says of a Spartan chief."
"All Hellas," replied Lysander, recovering his spirit, "might answer
thee best, Alithea. For all Hellas proclaimed that the bravest man at
Plataea was thy son, my chief."
"And where did my son, thy chief, learn to boast of bravery? They tell
me he inscribed the offerings to the gods with his name as the victor
of Plataea--the battle won not by one man but assembled Greece. The
inscription that dishonours him by its vainglory will be erased. To be
brave is nought. Barbarians may be brave. But to dedicate bravery to
his native land becomes a Spartan. He who is everything against a foe
should count himself as nothing in the service of his country."
Lysander remained silent under the gaze of those fixed and imperious
eyes.
"Youth," said Alithea, after a short pause, "if thou returnest to
Byzantium, say this from Alithea to thy chief:--'From thy childhood,
Pausanias, has thy mother feared for thee; and at the Temple of Fear
did she sacrifice when she heard that thou wert victorious at Plataea;
for in thy heart are the seeds of arrogance and pride; and victory to
thine arms may end in ruin to thy name. And ever since that day does
Alithea haunt the precincts of that temple. Come back and be Spartan,
as thine ancestors were before thee, and Alithea will rejoice and
think the Gods have heard her. But if thou seest within thyself one
cause why thy mother should sacrifice to Fear, lest her son should
break the laws of Sparta, or sully his Spartan name, humble thyself,
and mourn that thou didst not perish at Plataea. By a temple and from
a tomb I send thee warning.' Say this. I have done; join thy friends."
Again the veil fell over the face, and the figure of the woman
remained seated at the tomb long after the procession had passed on,
and the mirth of young voices was again released.