to make the High Steward give his daughter to a stranger. Well, I have
seen it--it is now in Italy--, so I can tell you. A fair chamber, with
the bridal bed in it; Roxana seated--and a great beauty she is--with
downcast eyes, troubled by the presence of Alexander, who is standing.
Several smiling Loves; one stands behind Roxana, pulling away the veil on
her head to show her to Alexander; another obsequiously draws off her
sandal, suggesting bed-time; a third has hold of Alexander's mantle, and
is dragging him with all his might towards Roxana. The King is offering
her a garland, and by him as supporter and groom's-man is Hephaestion,
holding a lighted torch and leaning on a very lovely boy; this is
Hymenaeus, I conjecture, for there are no letters to show. On the other
side of the picture, more Loves playing among Alexander's armour; two are
carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the
handles of the shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it,
playing king, I suppose; and then another has got into the breast-plate,
which lies hollow part upwards; he is in ambush, and will give the royal
equipage a good fright when it comes within reach.
All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing
needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in
War; though he loves Roxana, he does not forget his armour. And, by the
way, there was some extra nuptial virtue in the picture itself, outside
the realm of fancy; for it did Aetion's wooing for him. He departed with
a wedding of his own as a sort of pendant to that of Alexander;
_his_ groom's-man was the King; and the price of his marriage-piece
was a marriage.
Herodotus, then (to return to him), thought that the Olympic festival
would serve a second purpose very well--that of revealing to the Greeks a
wonderful historian who had related their victories as he had done. As
for me--and in Heaven's name do not suppose me so beside myself as to
intend any comparison between my works and his; I desire his favour too
much for that--but one experience I have in common with him. On my first
visit to Macedonia, _my_ thoughts too were busy with my best policy.
My darling wish was to be known to you all, and to exhibit my writings to
as many Macedonians as might be; I decided that it would be too great an
undertaking at such a time of year to go round in person visiting city by
city; but if I seized the occasion of this your meeting, appeared before
you all, and delivered my discourse, my aspirations, I thought, might be
realized that way.
And now here are you met together, the _elite_ of every city, the
true soul of Macedonia; the town which lodges you is the chief of all,
little enough resembling Pisa, with its crowding, its tents and hovels
and stifling heat; there is as great a difference between this audience
and that promiscuous crowd, mainly intent upon mere athletics, and
thinking of Herodotus only as a stop-gap; here we have orators,
historians, professors, the first in each kind--that is much in itself;
my arena, it seems, need not suffer from comparison with Olympia. And
though, if you insist on matching me with the Polydamases, Glaucuses, and
Milos of literature, you must think me a very presumptuous person, it is
open to you on the other hand to put them out of your thoughts
altogether; and if you strip and examine me independently, you may decide
that at least I need not be whipped. [Footnote: Cf. _Remarks addressed
to an Illiterate Book-fancier_, 9.] Considering the nature of the
contest, I may well be satisfied with that measure of success.
ZEUXIS AND ANTIOCHUS
I was lately walking home after lecturing, when a number of my audience
(you are now my friends, gentlemen, and there can be no objection to my
telling you this)--these persons, then, came to me and introduced
themselves, with the air of admiring hearers. They accompanied me a
considerable way, with such laudatory exclamations that I was reduced to
blushing at the discrepancy between praise and thing praised. Their chief
point, which they were absolutely unanimous in emphasizing, was that the
substance of my work was so fresh, so crammed with novelty. I had better
give you their actual phrases: 'How new! What paradoxes, to be sure! What
invention the man has! His ideas are quite unequalled for originality.'
They said a great deal of this sort about my fascinating lecture, as they
called it; they could have had no motive for pretending, or addressing
such flatteries to a stranger who had no independent claims on their
attention.
These commendations, to be quite frank, were very far from gratifying to
me; when at length they left me to myself, my reflections took this
course:--_So the only attraction in my work is that it is unusual, and
does not follow the beaten track; good vocabulary, orthodox composition,
insight, subtlety, Attic grace, general constructive skill--these may for
aught I know be completely wanting; else indeed they would hardly have
left them unnoticed, and approved my method only as new and startling.
Fool that I was, I did indeed guess, when they jumped up to applaud, that
novelty was part of the attraction; I knew that Homer spoke truly when he
said there is favour for the new song; but I did not see that novelty was
to have so vast a share--the whole, indeed--of the credit; I thought it
gave a sort of adventitious charm, and contributed, its part to the
success, but that the real object of commendation--what extracted the
cheers--was those other qualities. Why, I have been absurdly self-
satisfied, and come very near believing them when they called me the one
and only real Greek, and such nonsense. But behold, my gold is turned to
ashes; my fame, after all, is little different from that enjoyed by a
conjuror._
Now I should like to give you an illustration from painting. The great
Zeuxis, after he had established his artistic supremacy, seldom or never
painted such common popular subjects as Heroes, Gods, and battle-pieces;
he was always intent on novelty; he would hit upon some extravagant and
strange design, and then use it to show his mastery of the art. One of
these daring pieces of his represented a female Centaur, nursing a pair
of infant Centaur twins. There is a copy of the picture now at Athens,
taken exactly from the original. The latter is said to have been put on
ship--board for Italy with the rest of Sulla's art treasures, and to have
been lost with them by the sinking of the ship, off Malea, I think it
was. The picture of the picture I have seen, and the best word-picture I
can manage of that I am now to give you; I am no connoisseur, you must
understand, but I have a vivid recollection of it as I saw it in an
Athenian studio not long ago; and my warm admiration of it as a work of
art may perhaps inspire me with a clear description.
On fresh green-sward appears the mother Centaur, the whole equine part of
her stretched on the ground, her hoofs extended backwards; the human part
is slightly raised on the elbows; the fore feet are not extended like the
others, for she is only partially on her side; one of them is bent as in
the act of kneeling, with the hoof tucked in, while the other is
beginning to straighten and take a hold on the ground--the action of a
horse rising. Of the cubs she is holding one in her arms suckling it in
the human fashion, while the other is drawing at the mare's dug like a
foal. In the upper part of the picture, as on higher ground, is a Centaur
who is clearly the husband of the nursing mother; he leans over laughing,
visible only down to the middle of his horse body; he holds a lion whelp
aloft in his right hand, terrifying the youngsters with it in sport.
There are no doubt qualities in the painting which evade analysis by a
mere amateur, and yet involve supreme craftsmanship--such things as
precision of line, perfect mastery of the palette, clever brush-work,
management of shadow, perspective, proportion, and relation of the parts
to the whole; but I leave all that to the professionals whose business it
is to appreciate it; what strikes _me_ especially about Zeuxis is
the manifold scope which he has found for his extraordinary skill, in a
single subject. You have in the husband a truly terrible savage creature;
his locks toss about, he is almost covered with hair, human part as well
as equine; the shoulders high to monstrosity; the look, even in his merry
mood, brutal, uncivilized, wild.
In contrast with him, the animal half of the female is lovely; a
Thessalian filly, yet unbroken and unbacked, might come nearest; and the
human upper half is also most beautiful, with the one exception of the
ears, which are pointed as in a satyr. At the point of junction which
blends the two natures, there is no sharp line of division, but the most
gradual of transitions; a touch here, a trait there, and you are
surprised to find the change complete. It was perfectly wonderful, again,
to see the combination of wildness and infancy, of terrible and tender,
in the young ones, looking up in baby curiosity at the lion-cub, while
they held on to breast and dug, and cuddled close to their dam.
Zeuxis imagined that when the picture was shown the technique of it would
take visitors by storm. Well, they did acclaim him; they could hardly
help that, with such a masterpiece before them; but their commendations
were all in the style of those given to me the other night; it was the
strangeness of the idea, the fresh unhackneyed sentiment of the picture,
and so on. Zeuxis saw that they were preoccupied with the novelty of his
subject, art was at a discount, and truth of rendering quite a minor
matter. 'Oh, pack it up, Miccio,' he said to his pupil, 'and you and the
others take it home; these people are delighted with the earthy part of
the work; the questions of its aim, its beauty, its artistic merit, are
of no importance whatever; novelty of subject goes for much more than
truth of rendering.'
So said Zeuxis, not in the best of tempers. Antiochus Soter had a
somewhat similar experience about his battle with the Galatians. If you
will allow me, I propose to give you an account of that event also. These
people were good fighters, and on this occasion in great force; they were
drawn up in a serried phalanx, the first rank, which consisted of steel-
clad warriors, being supported by men of the ordinary heavy-armed type to
the depth of four-and-twenty; twenty thousand cavalry held the flanks;
and there were eighty scythed, and twice that number of ordinary war
chariots ready to burst forth from the centre. These dispositions filled
Antiochus with apprehension, and he thought the task was too hard for
him. His own preparations had been hurried, on no great scale, and
inadequate to the occasion; he had brought quite a small force, mostly of
skirmishers and light-armed troops; more than half his men were without
defensive armour. He was disposed to negotiate and find some honourable
composition.
Theodotas of Rhodes, however, a brave and skilful officer, put him in
heart again. Antiochus had sixteen elephants; Theodotas advised him to
conceal these as well as he could for the present, not letting their
superior height betray them; when the signal for battle was given, the
shock just at hand, the enemy's cavalry charging, and their phalanx
opening to give free passage to the chariots, then would be the time for
the elephants. A section of four was to meet the cavalry on each flank,
and the remaining eight to engage the chariot squadron. 'By this means,'
he concluded, 'the horses will be frightened, and there will be a
stampede into the Galatian infantry.' His anticipations were realized,
thus:
Neither the Galatians nor their horses had ever seen an elephant, and
they were so taken aback by the strange sight that, long before the
beasts came to close quarters, the mere sound of their trumpeting, the
sight of their gleaming tusks relieved against dark bodies, and minatory
waving trunks, was enough; before they were within bow-shot, the enemy
broke and ran in utter disorder; the infantry were spitted on each
other's spears, and trampled by the cavalry who came scurrying on to
them. The chariots, turning in like manner upon their own friends,
whirled about among them by no means harmlessly; it was a Homeric scene
of 'rumbling tumbling cars'; when once the horses shied at those
formidable elephants, off went the drivers, and 'the lordless chariots
rattled on,' their scythes maiming and carving any of their late masters
whom they came within reach of; and, in that chaos, many were the
victims. Next came the elephants, trampling, tossing, tearing, goring;
and a very complete victory they had made of it for Antiochus.
The carnage was great, and all the Galatians were either killed or
captured, with the exception of a quite small band which got off to the
mountains; Antiochus's Macedonians sang the Paean, gathered round,
and garlanded him with acclamations on the glorious victory. But the
King--so the story goes--was in tears; 'My men,' he said, 'we have more
reason for shame; saved by those sixteen brutes! if their strangeness
had not produced the panic, where should we have been?' And on the
trophy he would have nothing carved except just an elephant.
Gentlemen, _de me fabula_; are my resources like those of Antiochus--
quite unfit for battle on the whole, but including some elephants, some
queer impositions, some jugglery, in fact? That is what all the praise I
hear points at. The things I really relied upon seem to be of little
account; the mere fact that my picture is of a female Centaur exercises
fascination; it passes for a novelty and a marvel, as indeed it is. The
rest of Zeuxis's pains is thrown away, I suppose. But ah, no, not thrown
away--; _you_ are connoisseurs, and judge by the rules of art. I
only hope the show may be worthy of the spectators.
HARMONIDES
'Tell me, Timotheus,' said Harmonides the flute-player one day to his
teacher, 'tell me how I may win distinction in my art. What can I do to
make myself known all over Greece? Everything but this you have taught
me. I have a correct ear, thanks to you, and a smooth, even delivery, and
have acquired the light touch so essential to the rendering of rapid
measures; rhythmical effect, the adaptation of music to dance, the true
character of the different moods--exalted Phrygian, joyous Lydian,
majestic Dorian, voluptuous Ionic--all these I have mastered with your
assistance. But the prime object of my musical aspirations seems out of
my reach: I mean popular esteem, distinction, and notoriety; I would have
all eyes turn in my direction, all tongues repeat my name: "There goes
Harmonides, the great flute-player." Now when _you_ first came from
your home in Boeotia, and performed in the _Procne_, and won the
prize for your rendering of the _Ajax Furens_, composed by your
namesake, there was not a man who did not know the name of Timotheus of
Thebes; and in these days you have only to show yourself, and people
flock together as birds do at the sight of an owl in daylight. It is for
this that I sought to become a flute-player; this was to be the reward of
all my toil. The skill without the glory I would not take at a gift, not
though I should prove to be a Marsyas or an Olympus in disguise. What is
the use of a light that is to be hidden under a bushel? Show me then,
Timotheus, how I may avail myself of my powers and of my art. I shall be
doubly your debtor: not for my skill alone, but for the glory that skill
confers.'
'Why, really,' says Timotheus, 'it is no such easy matter, Harmonides, to
become a public character, or to gain the prestige and distinction to
which you aspire; and if you propose to set about it by performing in
public, you will find it a long business, and at the best will never
achieve a universal reputation. Where will you find a theatre or circus
large enough to admit the whole nation as your audience? But if you would
attain your object and become known, take this hint. By all means perform
occasionally in the theatres, but do not concern yourself with the
public. Here is the royal road to fame: get together a small and select
audience of connoisseurs, real experts, whose praise, whose blame are
equally to be relied upon; display your skill to these; and if you can
win _their_ approval, you may rest content that in a single hour you
have gained a national reputation. I argue thus. If you are known to be
an admirable performer by persons who are themselves universally known
and admired, what have you to do with public opinion? Public opinion must
inevitably follow the opinion of the best judges. The public after all is
mainly composed of untutored minds, that know not good from bad
themselves; but when they hear a man praised by the great authorities,
they take it for granted that he is not undeserving of praise, and praise
him accordingly. It is the same at the games: most of the spectators know
enough to clap or hiss, but the judging is done by some five or six
persons.'
Harmonides had no time to put this policy into practice. The story goes
that in his first public competition he worked so energetically at his
flute, that he breathed his last into it, and expired then and there,
before he could be crowned. His first Dionysiac performance was also his
last.
But Timotheus's remarks need not be confined to Harmonides, nor to his
profession: they seem applicable to all whose ambition prompts them to
exhibit their talents and to aim at the approbation of the public.
Accordingly, when I, like Harmonides, was debating within myself the
speediest means of becoming known, I took Timotheus's advice: 'Who,' I
asked myself, 'is the foremost man in all this city? Whose credit is
highest with his neighbours? Who shall be my _multum in parvo_?'
Only one name could reasonably suggest itself--your own; which stands for
the perfection of every excellence, the glass of culture and the mould of
wit. To submit my works to you, to win _your_ approbation--if such a
thing might be!--were to reach the goal of my desire; for your suffrage
carries the rest with it. Whom, indeed, could I substitute in your place,
and hope to preserve a reputation for sanity? In a sense, no doubt, I
shall be hazarding all on one cast of the die: yet with more truth I
might be said to have summoned the whole population into one audience-
chamber; for your single judgement must assuredly outweigh the rest,
taken individually or collectively. The Spartan kings had two votes each
to the ordinary man's one: but you are a whole Privy Council and Senate
in yourself. Your influence is unequalled in the Court of Literature,
and, above all, yours is the casting-vote of acquittal; an encouraging
thought for me, who might well be uneasy otherwise at the extent of my
hardihood. Moreover, I am not wholly without a claim on your interest, as
belonging to that city which has so often enjoyed peculiar benefits at
your hand, in addition to those which it has shared with the nation at
large; and this encourages me to hope that in the present instance, if
judgement is going against me, and the votes of acquittal are in a
minority, you will use your prerogative, and make all right with that
casting-vote of yours. I may have had successes, I may have made a name,
my lectures may have been well received:--all this amounts to nothing; it
is visionary; it is a mere bubble. The truth must come to light now; I am
put to a final test; there will be no room for doubt or hesitation after
this. It rests with you, whether my literary rank shall be assured, or my
pretensions--but no! with such a contest before me, I will abstain from
words of evil omen.
Ye Gods, give me approval _here_, and set the seal upon my
reputation! I may then face the world with a light heart: he who has
carried the prize at Olympia need fear no other course.
THE SCYTHIAN
Anacharsis was not the first Scythian who was induced by the love of
Greek culture to leave his native country and visit Athens: he had been
preceded by Toxaris, a man of high ability and noble sentiments, and an
eager student of manners and customs; but of low origin, not like
Anacharsis a member of the royal family or of the aristocracy of his
country, but what they call _'an eight-hoof man,'_ a term which
implies the possession of a waggon and two oxen. Toxaris never returned
to Scythia, but died at Athens, where he presently came to be ranked
among the Heroes; and sacrifice is still paid to 'the Foreign Physician,'
as he was styled after his deification. Some account of the significance
of this name, the origin of his worship, and his connexion with the sons
of Asclepius, will not, I think, be out of place: for it will be seen
from this that the Scythians, in conferring immortality on mortals, and
sending them to keep company with Zamolxis, do not stand alone; since the
Athenians permit themselves to make Gods of Scythians upon Greek soil.
At the time of the great plague, the wife of Architeles the Areopagite
had a vision: the Scythian Toxaris stood over her and commanded her to
tell the Athenians that the plague would cease if they would sprinkle
their back-streets with wine. The Athenians attended to his instructions,
and after several sprinklings had been performed, the plague troubled
them no more; whether it was that the perfume of the wine neutralized
certain noxious vapours, or that the hero, being a medical hero, had some
other motive for his advice. However that may be, he continues to this
day to draw a fee for his professional services, in the shape of a white
horse, which is sacrificed on his tomb. This tomb was pointed out by
Dimaenete as the place from which he issued with his instructions about
the wine; and beneath it Toxaris was found buried, his identity being
established not merely by the inscription, of which only a part remained
legible, but also by the figure engraved on the monument, which was that
of a Scythian, with a bow, ready strung, in his left hand, and in the
right what appeared to be a book. You may still make out more than half
the figure, with the bow and book complete: but the upper portion of the
stone, including the face, has suffered from the ravages of time. It is
situated not far from the Dipylus, on your left as you leave the Dipylus
for the Academy. The mound is of no great size, and the pillar lies
prostrate: yet it never lacks a garland, and there are statements to the
effect that fever-patients have been known to be cured by the hero; which
indeed is not surprising, considering that he once healed an entire city.
However, my reason for mentioning Toxaris was this. He was still alive,
when Anacharsis landed at Piraeus and made his way up to Athens, in no
small perturbation of spirit; a foreigner and a barbarian, everything was
strange to him, and many things caused him uneasiness; he knew not what
to do with himself; he saw that every one was laughing at his attire; he
could find no one to speak his native tongue;--in short he was heartily
sick of his travels, and made up his mind that he would just see Athens,
and then retreat to his ship without loss of time, get on board, and so
back to the Bosphorus; once there he had no great journey to perform
before he would be home again. In this frame of mind he had already
reached the Ceramicus, when his good genius appeared to him in the guise
of Toxaris. The attention of the latter was immediately arrested by the
dress of his native country, nor was it likely that he would have any
difficulty in recognizing Anacharsis, who was of noble birth and of the
highest rank in Scythia. Anacharsis, on the other hand, could not be
expected to see a compatriot in Toxaris, who was dressed in the Greek
fashion, without sword or belt, wore no beard, and from his fluent speech
might have been an Athenian born; so completely had time transformed him.
'You are surely Anacharsis, the son of Daucetas?' he said, addressing him
in the Scythian language. Anacharsis wept tears of joy; he not only heard
his mother-tongue, but heard it from one who had known him in Scythia.
'How comes it, sir, that you know me?' he asked.
'I too am of that country; my name is Toxaris; but it is probably not
known to you, for I am a man of no family.'
'Are you that Toxaris,' exclaimed the other, 'of whom I heard that for
love of Greece he had left wife and children in Scythia, and gone to
Athens, and was there dwelling in high honour?'
'What, is my name still remembered among you?--Yes, I am Toxaris.'