The messenger from Philippus appeared in the afternoon. It was the young
hipparch who had studied in Athens and accompanied the commandant of
Pelusium to Tennis the year before. He came charged with the commission
to convey the artist, in the carriage of the gray-haired comrade of
Alexander, to the neighbouring city of Pithom, where Philippus, by the
King’s command, was now residing.
On the way the hipparch told the sculptor that the Lady Thyone had
recently done things unprecedented for a woman of her age.
She had been present at the founding of the city of Arsinoe, as well
as at the laying of the corner stone of the temple which was to be
consecrated to the new god Serapis in the neighbourhood. The day before
she had welcomed her returning son before the entry of the fleet into
the canal, and to-day had remained from the beginning to the end of his
reception by the King, without being unduly wearied.
Her first thought, after the close of the ceremony, had concerned
her convalescing young friend. New entertainments, in which the Queen
commanded her to participate, awaited her in Pithom, but pleasure at the
return of her famous son appeared to double her power of endurance.
Pithom was the sacred name of the temple precincts of the desert city of
Thekut--[The biblical Suchot]--near Heroopolis, where the citizens lived
and pursued their business.
The travellers reached the place very speedily. Garlands of flowers and
hangings adorned the houses. The sacred precinct Pithom, above which
towered the magnificently restored temple of the god Turn, was also
still adorned with many superb ones, as well as lofty masts, banners,
and triumphal arches.
Before they reached it the equipage passed the sumptuous tents which had
been erected for the royal pair and their attendants. If Hermon had
not known how long the monarch intended to remain here, their size and
number would have surprised him.
A regular messenger and carrier-dove service had been established
between Alexandria and Pithom for the period of Ptolemy’s relaxation;
and the sovereign was accompanied not only by several of the chief
councillors and secretaries, but artists and some of the Museum
scientists with whom he was on specially intimate terms, who were to
adorn the festival on the frontier with their presence, and cheer the
invalid King, who needed entertainment. Singers and actors also belonged
to the train.
As they passed the encampment of the troops who accompanied the
sovereign, the hipparch could show Hermon a magnificent military
spectacle.
Heroopolis was fortified, and belonged to the military colonies which
Alexander the Great had established throughout all Egypt in order to win
it over more quickly to Grecian customs. A Hellenic phalanx and Libyan
mercenaries formed the garrison there, but at Pithom the King had
gathered the flower of his troops around him, and this circumstance
showed how little serious consideration the cautious ruler, who usually
carefully regarded every detail, gave to the war with Cyrene, in which
he took no personal part. The four thousand Gauls whom he had sent
across the frontier as auxiliary troops promised to become perilous to
the foe, who was also threatened in the rear by one of the most powerful
Libyan tribes.
Therefore, the artist was assured by his military companion,
Philadelphus could let the campaign take its course, and permit himself
the brief period of rest in this strangely chosen place, which the
leeches had advised.
The house where the aged couple lived with their son, Admiral Eumedes,
was on the edge of the precincts of the temple. It belonged to the
most distinguished merchant in the place, and consisted of a large open
courtyard in the form of a square, surrounded by the building and its
communicating wings.
When the hipparch led Hermon into this place a number of people had
already assembled there. Soldiers and sailors stood in groups in the
centre, awaiting the orders of the old general and his subordinate
officers. Messengers and slaves, coming and going on various errands,
were crossing it, and on the shady side benches and chairs stood under
a light awning. Most of these were occupied by visitors who came to
congratulate the mother of the fame-crowned admiral.
Thyone was reclining on a divan in their midst, submitting with a sigh
to the social duties which her high position imposed upon her.
Her face was turned toward the large doorway of the main entrance, while
she sometimes greeted newly introduced guests, sometimes bade farewell
to departing ones, and meanwhile answered and asked questions.
She had been more wearied by the exertions of the last few days than her
animated manner revealed. Yet as soon as Hermon, leaning on the young
hipparch’s arm, approached her, she rose and cordially extended both
hands to him. True, the recovering man was still unable to see her
features distinctly, but he felt the maternal kindness with which she
received him, and what his eyes could not distinguish his ears taught
him in her warm greetings. His heart dilated and, after he had kissed
her dear old hand more than once with affectionate devotion, she led
him among her guests and presented him to them as the son of her dearest
friend.
A strange stir ran through the assembled group, nearly all whose members
belonged to the King’s train, and the low whispers and murmurs around
him revealed to Hermon that the false wreaths he wore had by no means
been forgotten in this circle.
A painful feeling of discomfort overwhelmed the man accustomed to the
silence of the desert, and a voice within cried with earnest insistence,
“Away from here!”
But he had no time to obey it; an unusually tall, broad-shouldered man,
with a thick gray beard and grave, well-formed features, in whom he
thought he recognised the great physician Erasistratus, approached
Thyone, and asked, “The recluse from the desert with restored sight?”
“The same,” replied the matron, and whispered to the other, who was
really the famous scientist and leech whom Hermon had desired to seek
in Alexandria. “Exhaustion will soon overcome me, and how many important
matters I had to discuss with you and the poor fellow yonder!”
The physician laid his hand on the matron’s temples, and, raising his
voice, said in a tone of grave anxiety: “Exhaustion! It would be better
for you, honoured lady, to keep your bed.”
“Surely and certainly!” the wife of the chief huntsman instantly
assented. “We have already taxed your strength far too long, my noble
friend.”
This welcome confession produced a wonderful effect upon the other
visitors, and very soon the last one had vanished from the space under
the awning and the courtyard. Not a single person had vouchsafed Hermon
a greeting; for the artist, divested of the highest esteem, had
been involved in the ugly suspicion of having driven his uncle from
Alexandria, and the monarch was said to have spoken unfavourably of him.
When the last one had left the courtyard, the leech exchanged a quick
glance of understanding, which also included Hermon, with Thyone,
and the majordomo received orders to admit no more visitors, while
Erasistratus exclaimed gaily, “It is one of the physician’s principal
duties to keep all harmful things--including living ones--from his
patient.”
Then he turned to Hermon and had already begun to question him about
his health, when the majordomo announced another visitor. “A very
distinguished gentleman, apparently,” he said hastily; “Herophilus of
Chalcedon, who would not be denied admittance.”
Again the eyes of Erasistratus and the matron met, and the former
hastened toward his professional colleague.
The two physicians stopped in the middle of the courtyard and talked
eagerly together, while Thyone, with cordial interest, asked Hermon to
tell her what she had already partially learned through the freedman
Bias.
Finally Erasistratus persuaded the matron, who seemed to have
forgotten her previous exhaustion, to share the consultation, but the
convalescent’s heart throbbed faster as he watched the famous leeches.
If these two men took charge of his case, the most ardent desire of his
soul might be fulfilled, and Thyone was certainly trying to induce them
to undertake his treatment; what else would have drawn her away from him
before she had said even one word about Daphne?
The sculptor saw, as if through a cloud of dust, the three consulting
together in the centre of the courtyard, away from the soldiers and
messengers.
Hermon had only seen Erasistratus indistinctly, but before his eyes were
blinded he had met him beside the sick-bed of Myrtilus, and no one who
had once beheld it could forget the manly bearded face, with the grave,
thoughtful eyes, whose gaze deliberately sought their goal.
The other also belonged to the great men in the realm of intellect.
Hermon knew him well, for he had listened eagerly in the Museum to the
lectures of the famous Herophilus, and his image also had stamped itself
upon his soul.
Even at that time the long, smooth hair of the famous investigator had
turned gray. From the oval of his closely shaven, well-formed face, with
the long, thin, slightly hooked nose, a pair of sparkling eyes had
gazed with penetrating keenness at the listeners. Hermon had imagined
Aristotle like him, while the bust of Pythagoras, with which he was
familiar, resembled Erasistratus.
The convalescent could scarcely expect anything more than beneficial
advice from Herophilus; for this tireless investigator rarely rendered
assistance to the sick in the city, because the lion’s share of his time
and strength were devoted to difficult researches. The King favoured
these by placing at his disposal the criminals sentenced to death. In
his work of dissection he had found that the human brain was the seat of
the soul, and the nerves originated in it.
Erasistratus, on the contrary, devoted himself to a large medical
practice, though science owed him no less important discoveries.
The circle of artists had heard what he taught concerning the blood
in the veins and the air bubbles in the arteries, how he explained the
process of breathing, and what he had found in the investigation of the
beating of the heart.
But he performed his most wonderful work with the knife in his hand as a
surgeon. He had opened the body of one of Archias’s slaves, who had been
nursed by Daphne, and cured him after all other physicians had given him
up.
When this man’s voice reached Hermon, he repeated to himself the words
of refusal with which the great physician had formerly declined to
devote his time and skill to him. Perhaps he was right then--and how
differently he treated him to-day!
Thyone had informed the famous scientist of everything which she knew
from Hermon, and had learned of the last period of his life through
Bias.
She now listened with eager interest, sometimes completing Hermon’s
acknowledgments by an explanatory or propitiating word, as the leeches
subjected him to a rigid examination, but the latter felt that his
statements were not to serve curiosity, but an honest desire to aid him.
So he spoke to them with absolute frankness.
When the examination was over, Erasistratus exclaimed to his
professional colleague: “This old woman! Precisely as I would have
prescribed. She ordered the strictest diet with the treatment. She
rejected every strong internal remedy, and forbade him wine, much meat,
and all kinds of seasoning. Our patient was directed to live on milk and
the same simple gifts of Nature which I would have ordered for him. The
herb juice in the clever sorceress’s salve proved the best remedy. The
incantations could do no harm. On the contrary, they often produce a
wonderful effect on the mind, and from it proceed further.”
Here Erasistratus asked to have a description of the troubles which
still affected Hermon’s vision, and the passionate eagerness with which
the leeches gazed into his eyes strengthened the artist’s budding hope.
Never had he wished more ardently that Daphne was back at his side.
He also listened with keen attention when the scientists finally
discussed in low tones what they had perceived, and caught the words,
“White scar on the cornea,” “leucoma,” and “operation.” He also heard
Herophilus declare that an injury of the cornea by the flame of the
torch was the cause of the blindness. In the work which led him to the
discovery of the retina in the eye he had devoted himself sedulously to
the organs of sight. This case seemed as if it had been created for his
friend’s keen knife.
What expectations this assurance aroused in the half-cured man, who felt
as if the goal was already gained, when, shortly after, Erasistratus,
the greatest physician of his time, offered to make the attempt in
Alexandria to remove, by a few little incisions, what still dimmed his
impaired vision!
Hermon, deeply agitated, thanked the leech, and when Thyone perceived
what was passing in his mind she ventured to ask the question whether
it would not be feasible to perform the beneficent work here, and, if
possible, the next day, and the surgeon was ready to fulfil the wish
of the matron and the sufferer speedily. He would bring the necessary
instruments with him. It only depended upon whether a suitable room
could be found in the crowded city, and Thyone believed that such a one
could not be lacking in the great building at her disposal.
A short conversation with the steward confirmed this opinion.
Then Erasistratus appointed the next morning for the operation. During
the ceremony of consecrating the temple it would be quiet in the house
and its vicinity. The preliminary fasting which he imposed upon his
patients Hermon had already undergone.
“The pure desert air here,” he added, “will be of the utmost assistance
in recovery. The operation is slight, and free from danger. A few days
will determine its success. I shall remain here with their Majesties,
only”--and here he hesitated doubtfully--“where shall I find a competent
assistant?”
Herophilus looked his colleague in the face with a sly smile, saying,
“If you credit the old man of Chalcedon with the needful skill, he is at
your disposal.”
“Herophilus!” cried Thyone, and tears of emotion wet her aged eyes,
which easily overflowed; but when Hermon tried to give expression to his
fervent gratitude in words, Erasistratus interrupted him, exclaiming,
as he grasped his comrade’s hand, “It honours the general in his purple
robe, when he uses the spade in the work of intrenchment.”
Many other matters were discussed before the professional friends
withdrew, promising to go to work early the next morning.
They kept their word, and while the temple of the god Turn resounded
with music and the chanting of hymns by the priests, whose dying notes
entered the windows of the sick-room, while Queen Arsinoe-Philadelphus
led the procession, and the King, who was prevented by the gout from
entering and passing around the sanctuary at her side, ordered a
monument to be erected in commemoration of this festival, the famous
leeches toiled busily.
When the music and the acclamations of the crowd died away, their
task was accomplished. The great Herophilus had rendered his equally
distinguished colleague the aid of an apprentice. When Hermon’s lips
again tried to pour forth his gratitude, Herophilus interrupted him
with the exclamation: “Use the sight you have regained, young master, in
creating superb works of art, and I shall be in your debt, since, with
little trouble, I was permitted to render a service to the whole Grecian
world.”
Hermon spent seven long days and nights full of anxious expectation in
a darkened room. Bias and a careful old female slave of the Lady Thyone
watched him faithfully. Philippus, his wife, and his famous son Eumedes
were allowed to pay him only brief visits; but Erasistratus watched the
success of the operation every morning. True, it had been by no means
dangerous, and certainly would not have required his frequent visits,
but it pleased the investigator, reared in the school of Stoics, to
watch how this warm-blooded young artist voluntarily submitted to
live in accord with reason and Nature--the guiding stars of his own
existence.
But Hermon opened his soul to his learned friend, and what Erasistratus
thus learned strengthened the conviction of this great alleviator
of physical pain that suffering and knowledge of self were the best
physicians for the human soul. The scientist, who saw in the arts
the noblest ornament of mortal life, anticipated with eager interest
Hermon’s future creative work.
On the seventh day the leech removed the bandage from his patient’s
eyes, and the cry of rapture with which Hermon clasped him in his arms
richly rewarded him for his trouble and solicitude.
The restored man beheld in sharp, clear, undimmed outlines everything at
which the physician desired him to look.
Now Erasistratus could write to his friend Herophilus in Alexandria that
the operation was successful.
The sculptor was ordered to avoid the dazzling sunlight a fortnight
longer, then he might once more use his eyes without restriction, and
appeal to the Muse to help in creating works of art.
Thyone was present at this explanation. After she had conquered the
great emotion which for a time sealed her lips, her first question,
after the physician’s departure, was: “And Nemesis? She too, I think,
has fled before the new light?”
Hermon pressed her hand still more warmly, exclaiming with joyous
confidence: “No, Thyone! True, I now have little reason to fear the
avenging goddess who pursues the criminal, but all the more the other
Nemesis, who limits the excess of happiness. Will she not turn her swift
wheel, when I again, with clear eyes, see Daphne, and am permitted to
work in my studio once more with keen eyes and steady hand?”
Now the barriers which had hitherto restricted Hermon’s social
intercourse also fell. Eumedes, the commander of the fleet, often
visited him, and while exchanging tales of their experiences they became
friends.
When Hermon was alone with Thyone and her gray-haired husband, the
conversation frequently turned upon Daphne and her father.
Then the recovered artist learned to whom Archias owed his escape from
being sentenced to death and having his property confiscated. Papers,
undeniably genuine, had proved what large sums had been advanced by the
merchant during the period of the first Queen Arsinoe’s conspiracy,
and envious foes had done their best to prejudice the King and his
sister-wife against Archias. Then the gray-haired hero fearlessly
interceded for his friend, and the monarch did not remain deaf to his
representations. King Ptolemy was writing the history of the conqueror
of the world, and needed the aged comrade of Alexander, the sole
survivor who had held a prominent position in the great Macedonian’s
campaigns. It might be detrimental to his work, on which he set great
value, if he angered the old warrior, who was a living source of
history. Yet the King was still ill-disposed to the merchant, for while
he destroyed Archias’s death sentence which had been laid before him for
his signature, he said to Philippus: “The money-bag whose life I give
you was the friend of my foe. Let him beware that my arm does not yet
reach him from afar!”
Nay, his resentment went so far that he refused to receive Hermon, when
Eumedes begged permission to present the artist whose sight had been so
wonderfully restored.
“To me he is still the unjustly crowned conspirator,” Philadelphus
replied. “Let him create the remarkable work which I formerly expected
from him, and perhaps I shall have a somewhat better opinion of him,
deem him more worthy of our favour.”
Under these circumstances it was advisable for Archias and Daphne to
remain absent from Alexandria, and the experienced couple could only
approve Hermon’s decision to go to Pergamus as soon as Erasistratus
dismissed him. A letter from Daphne, which reached Thyone’s hands at
this time, increased the convalescent’s already ardent yearning to
the highest pitch. The girl entreated her maternal friend to tell her
frankly the condition of her lover’s health. If he had recovered, he
would know how to find her speedily; if the blindness was incurable,
she would come herself to help him bear the burden of his darkened
existence. Chrysilla would accompany her, but she could leave her father
alone in Pergamus a few months without anxiety, for he had a second
son there in his nephew Myrtilus, and had found a kind friend in
Philetaerus, the ruler of the country.
From this time Hermon daily urged Erasistratus to grant him entire
liberty, but the leech steadfastly refused, though he knew whither his
young friend longed to go.
Not until the beginning of the fourth week after the operation did
he himself lead Hermon into the full sunlight, and when the recovered
artist came out of the house he raised his hands in mute prayer, gushing
from the inmost depths of his heart.
The King was to return to Alexandria in a few days, and at the same
time Philippus and Thyone were going back to Pelusium. Hermon wished to
accompany them there and sail thence on a ship bound for Pergamus.
With Eumedes he visited the unfamiliar scenes around him, and his newly
restored gift of sight presented to him here many things that formerly
he would scarcely have noticed, but which now filled him with grateful
joy. Gratitude, intense gratitude, had taken possession of his whole
being. This feeling mastered him completely and seemed to be fostered
and strengthened by every breath, every heart throb, every glance into
his own soul and the future.
Besides, many beauties, nay, even many marvels, presented themselves to
his restored eyes. The whole wealth of the magic of beauty, intellect,
and pleasure in life, characteristic of the Greek nature, appeared
to have followed King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe-Philadelphus hither.
Gardens had been created on the arid, sandy soil, whose gray and yellow
surface extended in every direction, the water on the shore of the canal
which united Pithom with the Nile not sufficing to render it possible
to make even a narrow strip of arable land. Fresh water flowed from
beautiful fountains adorned with rich carvings, and the pure fluid
filled large porphyry and marble basins. Statues, single and in groups,
stood forth in harmonious arrangement against green masses of leafage,
and Grecian temples, halls, and even a theatre, rapidly constructed in
the noblest forms from light material, invited the people to devotion,
to the enjoyment of the most exquisite music, and to witness the perfect
performance of many a tragedy and comedy.
Statues surrounded the hurriedly erected palaestra where the Ephebi
every morning practised their nude, anointed bodies in racing,
wrestling, and throwing the discus. What a delight it was to Hermon to
feast his eyes upon these spectacles! What a stimulus to the artist, so
long absorbed in his own thoughts, who had so recently returned from
the wilderness to the world of active life, when he was permitted, in
Erasistratus’s tent, to listen to the great scholars who had accompanied
the King to the desert! Only the regret that Daphne was not present to
share his pleasure clouded Hermon’s enjoyment, when Eumedes related
to his parents, himself, and a few chosen friends the adventures
encountered, and the experiences gathered in distant Ethiopia, on land
and water, in battle and the chase, as investigator and commander.
The utmost degree of variety had entered into the simplicity of the
monotonous desert, the most refined abundance for the intellect and the
need of beauty appeared amid its barrenness.
The poet Callimachus had just arrived with a new chorus of singers,
tablets by Antiphilus and Nicias had come to beautify the last days of
the residence in the desert--when doves, the birds of Aphrodite, flew
with the speed of lightning into Pithom, but instead of bringing a new
message of love and announcing the approach of fresh pleasure, they bore
terrible tidings which put joy to flight and stifled mirthfulness.
The unbridled greed of rude barbarians had chosen Alexandria for its
goal, and startled the royal pair and their chosen companions from the
sea of pleasure where they would probably have remained for weeks.
The four thousand Gauls who had been obtained to fight against Cyrene
were in the act of rushing rapaciously upon the richest city in the
world. The most terrible danger hung like a black cloud over the capital
founded by Alexander, whose growth had been so rapid. True, General
Satvrus asserted that he was strong enough, with the troops at his
disposal, to defeat the formidable hordes; but a second dove, sent
by the epitropus who had remained in Alexandria, alluded to serious
disaster which it would scarcely be possible to avert.
The doves now flew swiftly to and fro; but before the third arrived,
Eumedes, the commander of the fleet just from Ethiopia, was already on
the way to Alexandria with all the troops assembled on the frontier.
The King and Queen, with the corps of pages and the corps of youths,
entered the boats waiting for them to return, drawn by teams of four
swift horses, to Memphis, to await within the impregnable fortress of
the White Castle the restoration of security in the capital.
The Greeks prized the most valiant fearlessness so highly that no shadow
could be suffered to rest upon the King’s, and therefore the monarch’s
hurried departure was made in a way which permitted no thought of
flight, and merely resembled impatient yearning for new festivals and
the earnest desire to fulfil grave duties in another portion of the
kingdom.
Many of the companions of the royal pair, among them Erasistratus,
accompanied them. Hermon bade him farewell with a troubled heart, and
the leech, too, parted with regret from the artist to whom, a year
before, he had refused his aid.