August Strindberg - Historical Miniatures

“Now I understand that you are not the man I took you for, and I will give you the command of the army. Shall we now march against Athens?”

“I am ready!”

“Have you no scruple in marching against your own city?”

“I am a Hellene, not an Athenian, Sparta is the chief city of Hellas.”

“Alcibiades is great! Now I go to the general, and this evening we march.”

“Go, King! Alcibiades follows.”

The King went, but Alcibiades did not follow, for behind the curtains of the women’s apartment stood the Queen, and waited. When the King had gone, she rushed in.

“Hail! Alcibiades, my king!”

“Queen, why do you call your servant ‘king’?”

“Because Sparta has done homage to you, because I love you, and because you are a descendant of heroes.”

“King Aegis the Second lives.”

“Not too long! Win your first battle, and Aegis is dead.”

“Now life begins to smile on the hardly-tried exile. If you knew my childhood with its sorrows, my youth with its privations! The vine had not grown for me, woman had not been made for me; Bacchus knew me not; Aphrodite was not my goddess. The chaste Artemis and the wise Pallas guided me past the devious ways of youth to the goal of knowledge, wisdom, and glory. But when I first saw you, Timia, my queen....”

“Hush!”

“Then I thought that beauty was more than wisdom.”

“Hush! some one is listening.”

“Who?”

“I, Lysander, the General,” answered a sharp voice, and the speaker stood in the middle of the room.

“Now I know you, Alcibiades, and I have your head under my arm, but I have the honour of Sparta under the other. Fly before I strangle you!”

“Your ears have deceived you, Lysander!”

“Fly! do us the kindness to fly! Fifty hoplites stand without, waiting for your head.”

“How many do you say? Fifty? Then I will fly, for I cannot overcome more than thirty. My queen! farewell! I have thought better of Sparta. This would never have happened in Athens. Now I go to the Persian King; there they understand better what is fitting, and there I shall not be obliged to eat black broth!”

Alcibiades sat with the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, and Alcibiades the eloquent spoke. “Yes, my teacher Protagoras taught me once, that everything is born from its opposite; therefore you see my heart can embrace all opposites. Sparta and Athens are both dear to me; that is to say, both hateful—the state—gods of the one, and the virtues of the other.”

“You have a great heart, stranger! Is there room in it for Persia?”

“For the whole world.”

“What do you think of our chief city?”

“I love all large cities!”

“But at the present moment, you ought to love ours the most.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You must also love our allies.”

“Pardon me, who is your present ally?”

“At present, it is Sparta.”

“Very well, then, I love Sparta.”

“And suppose it is Athens to-morrow?”

“Then I will love Athens to-morrow.”

“Thank you. Now I understand that it is all over with Hellas. Old Greece is so corrupt, that it is hardly worth conquering.”

“Protagoras taught that man is the measure of all things; therefore I measure the value of all things by myself; what has value for me, that I prize.”

“Is that the teaching of your prophets? Then we have better ones; do you know Zarathrustra?”

“If it would do you a pleasure, I wish I had known him from childhood.”

“Then you might have been able to distinguish good and evil, light and darkness, Ormuzd and Ahriman. And you would have lived in the hope that light will eventually conquer; and that all discordances will be reconciled through suffering.”

“I can at any rate try. Is it a large book?”

“What are the names of your sacred books?”

“Sacred! What is that?”

“From whence do you get your religion, the knowledge of your gods?”

“From Homer, I believe.”

“You do not believe that Zeus is the supreme ruler of the world?”

“Yes, I do certainly.”

“But he was a false swearer and a lecher.”

“Yes! But how can that be helped?”

Tissaphernes rose. “Listen, my guest; we cannot share any common undertaking, for we do not serve the same gods. You call us barbarians. I, on my part, know no term of reproach strong enough for people who honour such gods. But the Athenians are as rotten as you, for they have pardoned you. Outside there stands an envoy from Athens come to beg you to return. Go to Athens; that is your place.”

“To Athens? Never! I do not trust them.”

“Nor they, you! That is appropriate. Go to Athens, and tell your countrymen—the Persian does not want them. The vine tendrils seek the sound elm, but turn away from the rotten cabbage-top.”

Alcibiades had begun to walk up and down the room. That meant that he was irresolute.

“Is the Athenian really outside?” he asked.

“He kneels outside in order to beg the traitor Alcibiades to be their lord. But listen, you are a democrat, are you not?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you must change your point of view, for now an oligarchy governs Athens.”

“Yes, ah! yes, yes—but I am an aristocrat, the most aristocratic in the State.”

“Spinning-top! Seek for a whip!”

Alcibiades stood still. “I think, I must speak with the Athenian after all.”

“Do that! Speak the Athenian language to him! He does not understand Persian.”

Alcibiades returned to Athens; the death-sentence against him was annulled; and as a commander who had won a battle, he was able to have a triumphal procession from Piraeus to the city. But popular favour was fickle, and, becoming suspected of aspiring to be king, he fled again, this time to the Persian satrap Pharnabazes. Since he could not live without intrigues, he was soon entangled in one, unmasked, and condemned, without his knowing it, to death.

One day he was sitting with his paramour, and chatting quietly at his ease: “You think, then, Timandra, that Cyrus marches against his brother Artaxerxes, in order to seize the throne of Persia.”

“I am sure of it, and equally sure that he has ten thousand Athenians under Xenophon with him.”

“Do you know whether Artaxerxes has been warned?”

“Yes, I know it.”

“Who could have warned him?”

“You did.”

“Does Cyrus know that?”

“Yes, he does.”

“Who has betrayed me?”

“I did.”

“Then I am lost.”

“Yes, you are.”

“To think that I must fall through a woman!”

“Did you expect anything else, Alcibiades?”

“No, not really! Can I not fly?”

“You cannot, but I can.”

“I see smoke! Is the house on fire?”

“Yes, it is. And there are archers posted outside!”

“The comedy is over! We return to tragedy....”

“And the satyr-play begins.”

“My feet are hot; generally cold is a precursor of death.”

“Everything is born from its opposite, Alcibiades.”

“Give me a kiss.”

She kissed him, the handsomest man of Athens.

“Thank you!”

“Go to the window; there you will see!”

Alcibiades stepped to the window. “Now I see.”

At that moment he was struck by an arrow. “But now I see nothing! It grows dark, and I thought it would grow light.”

Timandra fled, as the corpse began to burn.

Sparta had conquered Athens, and Athens lay in ruins. The government by the people was over, and the rule of the Thirty Tyrants had succeeded it. Socrates and Euripides walked with sad faces among the ruins on the Agora.

Socrates spoke: “We are on the ruins of Athens’ walls! We have become Spartans. We would have no tyrants, and now thirty rule over us.”