CHAPTER XLII
THE UNWILLING COLONIST
On the far-away coast of Sicily, the western outpost of the world, lay the little town of Inessa. One day men came from the neighbouring town Catana, attacked Inessa, and razed it to the ground. This was done while Theria was yet spinning at home, before she was immured in the Pythia House. And this one cruel act, performed by men she had never known, in a town whose name she had never heard, was to affect Theria’s life more profoundly than any act of father, mother, or brother.
It was her fate.
A purposeful intent thus seemed to run through circumstance, deflecting it toward a far-off goal.
Most of Inessa’s inhabitants were killed outright, but among those who were cast upon the world was an awkward youth—one Hyllos, son of Inessa’s most prominent citizen—but an ill-born young man who stammered abominably. This Hyllos being come to the shore of Phokis thought it a good opportunity to visit the Delphic Oracle and inquire for the curing of his speech.
But when Hyllos stood before the tripod the priestess answered not at all concerning his speech, but bade him:
“Return to Sicily and rebuild Inessa.”
He was so disappointed that he left the tripod almost before the Pythoness had finished speaking.
But from that hour misfortune followed Hyllos.
At last he became so frightened that he bestirred himself belatedly to obey the Oracle. He secured a ship and a few people willing to go to Sicily, but still he dreaded the colonizing task. And on the very day of Theria’s betrothal Hyllos reappeared in Delphi, praying to be released from Apollo’s command.
On this occasion the Oracle reproved him roundly.
“The ruins of Inessa disturb the peace of the Delphic god. Yes, and yet more misfortune shall overtake thee unless thou rebuild Inessa on a height where trees invite the birds. Of high choice is the one who goeth with thee.”
Hyllos next morning met Nikander in the Precinct and to him poured out his troubles.
“I cannot rebuild Inessa, O priest,” he said. “Only a few poor shepherds are left there. Our Catanian neighbours in their raid upon us killed all our leading citizens. They carried away our wealth and destroyed everything. Inessa is ruined beyond repair. Oh, no doubt the god means to destroy me also, and takes this way of making me worthy of death.”
Nikander quieted the young man as was his wont, then bade him wait in Delphi until the priests should think and advise with each other over the problem.
The young man’s predicament interested Nikander. Like all Delphic priests he loved those far-away colonies of the west: Tarentum, Catana, Syracuse, Croton, Elia—scattered at right intervals along the coast of Greater Greece. They were young in power, wonderful places of sunny beach and wooded hill, while in their backlands were stretches of the richest soil in the world.
Almost all those cities had been either founded by the Oracle of Delphi or greatly helped by it. To some Delphi had given laws, to others had sent great leaders in times of need. In the case of Cyrene in Africa, the Oracle had, in some secret way, selected the site and insisted by repeated commands until the “fortunate city” had been built. Delphi retained no lordship over these colonies—her children. She was satisfied to feed their spirit and to receive in return their worship, their tithes, and free gifts.
Nikander left the young man and at once went into the cella of the Great Temple. Here in the closed back room he brought forth long-treasured maps of the priests, ancient ones of pottery, later ones of sheepskin and papyrus.
He studied them absorbedly. Yes, at the site of the destroyed Inessa was a great stretch of unhabitation on the coast. A city was needed there and the port at the mouth of the river Symæthus was good. How well the god had planned!
Nikander then went to old Akeretos who without delay summoned the Council of the priests.
They met not in the Council House, for the day was warm, but up in the great lesche or colonnade of the Precinct. Greeks never willingly did their thinking away from the open air. Sitting thus on the stone seats, they could look down through the opening of the steep vale to the far-off bit of sapphire loveliness which was the Corinthian Gulf.
Nikander showed them his map.
“Yes,” said Karamanor’s father whose name was Glaucos. “I remember Inessa. Saw it during my travel year. I recall the back country, too. Lovely shaded heights having wide prospect. I could quite see them in memory as I stood there yesterday by the tripod. And even while I was thinking, the Pythia spoke of them, ‘A height where trees invite the birds.’ The oracle was marvellously clear.”
Glaucos looked awestruck, for the god’s message was not always so revealing. The tranced Pythia did not invariably reflect the priestly mind.
“Inessa must be rebuilt,” declared Timon. “Apollo has spoken it, and Apollo is lord of migrations.”
“Yes,” agreed Nikander. “But this poor stammering Hyllos cannot rebuild it. Strange it is that upon such an inefficient person the god should have laid the charge. Within a century past we have not founded so important a city.”
“The god sees that Hyllos cannot do it,” declared a third priest, Melas. “Did you note the oracle yesterday? ‘Of high choice the one who goeth with thee.’ What can that mean but that we are to choose out some real leader, some adequate, big-minded man, to found the city? He must go with Hyllos. Thus shall the oracle be fulfilled.”
“One of high choice refers to Apollo himself,” declared Glaucos. “That was said to encourage Hyllos on the enterprise.”
“That’s the way I understood it,” assented a young priest.
Akeretos brought forth the oracle tablet, and earnestly the priests reread it.
“It means another man to go with Hyllos. Melas is right,” said Nikander. “Why should the priestess refer to Apollo? Of course the god always goes.”
“A leader is of utmost importance,” urged Melas. “The god sees that and gives us the command to find a good one. It’s plain as sunlight.”
“The oracle would be futile otherwise,” put in Timon decisively.
Agreement was soon reached as to the oracle’s meaning and the urgent need of a leader. Then came the all-important choice of a man.
“Shall he be a Delphian?” was the first question.
“Yes, I think so,” said old Akeretos. “Colonies are not often founded these days. It may be years before another goes out. ’Tis a rare chance to strengthen Apollo’s influence in the west.”
“Yes, yes,” chorused the priests. “A Delphian, by all means.”
Nikander’s face suddenly shone. He had wished for many a month to do some service for Karamanor and Agis in return for their honourable treatment of his poor son Lycophron. They were younger sons without means. Here was a chance to make them both rich and prominent.
“I propose Karamanor and Agis, Glaucos’s sons, as leaders of the colony,” said Nikander.
The priests discussed the two young men at length, but in the end rejected both—honest young fellows but not of calibre for this business. Then Dryas was proposed but quickly rejected. Then several other young men of Delphi. It was not easy to find a leader of the peculiar genius needed, fearless yet not quarrelsome, young yet understanding, having the statesman’s uncanny vision to discern the hidden meaning of events and their unlooked-for but inevitable resultants.
During this later discussion Timon had remained quite silent. Evidently he was thinking something through before proposal. Timon’s was the most original mind in the Council, and Nikander awaited his word with pleasure. However, amazement rather than pleasure followed it.
“O priests,” at last said Timon, “has it occurred to you that there have been women who were successful oekists of colonies?”
“Women! what nonsense, Timon. What are you joking about?”
The Council broke into puzzled laughter. For women were a perennial source of satire.
“No, no, I mean it. Did not Dido, the Tyrian, found Carthage and was faithful to the city even unto death?”
“Ay, but Dido was no Greek.”
“No, but Manto was—Manto who founded Clarus. She was a priest’s daughter, a priest of Apollo.”
Suddenly Nikander guessed Timon’s meaning.
It was Theria—none other, whom Timon was about to propose for this high, amazing trust.
But why? How could Timon know that the girl had the needed power—Nikander’s little girl, hidden away in her home, unknown?
For a moment Nikander pictured her thus and trembled to think how his familiar Theria could wield the power of state.
Then with an overwhelming pride he realized that she could! She could do it! What else was the meaning of her trenchant questionings, her revealing suggestions in matters which puzzled himself, her overpowering interest in public affairs in spite of all rebukes, her oracles, by which in the very face of death she had sent courage to the armies?
Yes, yes, Theria could! And the high task would meet and satisfy her mental need.
Ah, but that task would take her away over seas; away, away to the west. Nikander would never see his child again. The very life would be torn out of him to part with her. It was too sudden, too unexpected. He must call aloud to Timon to stop—stop! But no. Did he dare stand in Theria’s way, to deprive her of this gift? Was it not her right, her fate from the gods? Nikander hid his face from the Council. They would never understand this emotion of his—this dependence upon a girl-child.
But what were the priests saying? With quick concern Nikander looked up again.
“It’s not only foolish, Timon; it’s dangerous!” Melas spoke. “Give a woman power like that, she’ll go mad with it.”
Melas was one of those Greeks, a numerous class, who hated women with a curious active hatred which seemed almost bred of fear. They laughed at it all, of course. Why could not babies be found in temples and thus women utterly done away? Wives! what silly, miserable creatures. Hetairai! what undoing of mankind. And behind all the gibing was the curious hating fear. Nikander knew that Melas would not stop short of harming Theria to keep her from being nominated. Keenly Nikander heard the argument.
“I’ve followed you, Timon, in most of your proposals,” said another priest, “but now, by the gods, this is too much! But say, old fellow, you are joking, you know you are.”
“It seems to me you insult all the able young men of Delphi,” said Glaucos.
“What young man have we in Delphi who has seen Apollo face to face?” retorted Timon. “Theria, daughter of Nikander, has been found worthy to behold the god.”
“That’s so, that’s so,” assented some.
“Go fetch her oracle tablets, let’s see what Apollo said to her,” said one.
A messenger was dispatched to the temple.
“And not only has she beheld Apollo,” went on Timon. “But she has spoken for him. Think of those two oracles of hers on the tripod. If it had not been for those oracles, where would Delphi be now? On the Persian side! In disgrace! As it is, men are throwing the earlier oracles of Aristonikè in our face. ‘Persian lovers!’ they call us. ‘Medizers, you Delphians.’ And for my part I have naught to answer but Theria’s oracles. That silences ’em. Salamis and the storm of Artemisium! She foretold them both.”
“Ay, foretold them,” screamed Melas. “But what had she to do with it? It was the god that spoke through her. She was nothing but his mouthpiece.”
“She was more, more I tell you, Melas. She understood those oracles—saw exactly whither they led. She gave them, rejoicing in what they were to accomplish. She——”
“One would think,” interrupted Melas, “from what you say, Timon, that she made them up, and that you knew it!”
“By Zeus, it seemed that way to me. Even at the time I thought so,” said the young priest, his echo.
Ah, they had scented it out! What Nikander had feared—Theria’s strange deception (or was it deception? Nikander himself hardly thought so now). If this question should come up in the Council, what punishment might not fall upon Theria? Who could foresee the end?
Not one trace of this terror, however, showed in Nikander’s face. Your true Greek was on his mettle at such time. He spoke with trumpet anger.
“I will not have my daughter insulted in the Council! If you cannot discuss her honourably, do not discuss her at all. You all know that her oracle trance on the tripod was so real that it nearly killed her. You all know that Apollo spoke afterward to her in the mountain. And you, and you, and you”—turning to the priests—“saw her after her vision. Was ever any vision condition more patent?”
“No, no!” they said. “That vision was true if ever vision was.”
“Then stop this cavilling about my daughter. Either she has the power to conduct the colony or else she has not. That alone is up for your decision.”
Since Salamis, Nikander had been a most powerful figure in the Council, ardently loved, sincerely feared. The lovers spoke first.
“You know your daughter, Nikander. Tell us what you think of her.”
“I think she can do it. Whether I am willing for her to go is another matter. Oh,” Nikander added, “I was as unwilling as you are to acknowledge this power in my daughter. Like you I thought it insulted my sons who should have it in her stead. But hers is the gift of mind. I have been taught that, obstinately fighting. I have been punished until I saw.”
“Punished by herself?” sneered Melas.
“No, by some unrelenting god,” he answered with the love of Theria shining in his eyes.
“Remember,” spoke Timon again. “She has seen Apollo. We want Delphi kept alive in the hearts of her colonists. Could we do better than send one who has beheld the god?”
This argument won.
It was as if Apollo himself were bestowing the leadership upon his ardent young priestess.
Nikander and Timon left the Council together. Each gazed for a moment into the other’s face.
“Well?” said Timon, smiling.
“Well!” said Nikander, still half amazed. “You have let me in for a fine adventure.”
“Aren’t you glad?”
“Yes, I am glad,” responded Nikander, but Timon saw his eyes flush with tears.
“You are very fond of her?”
“Yes, oh, yes. She is closer to me than any other now that I have grown to know her. But,” suddenly lifting his head, “how in Zeus’s name did you guess her, Timon? You never meet her as I do.”
“I did not have to guess. I saw.”
“Saw? What do you mean?”
“Her oracles on the tripod. She did make them, Nikander. I know that. You know it! By Zeus, it was a close shave in the Council.”
The sudden statement was like a thunder-clap. Nikander shook with fear. He seized Timon’s arm.
“You will not accuse her! Timon! She was compelled. She was——”
“No, no. Has not the god himself justified her? Who am I to offer blame? But I saw her do it! And by Zeus, it was the bravest deed, yes, and the most intelligent that I ever saw in my life.”
“Oh,” breathed Nikander.
“At first I could not credit that she was doing it, even though she was pronouncing the oracle as no one had ever pronounced it—driving home its meaning, by Hermes—driving it home! Then I saw the martyr light in her face—the death light, expecting the god’s lightning stroke. Did you note that agonized look just before she fell?
“But she had done the deed. Done the thing that you and I, Nikander, couldn’t bring about with all our toil and effort.”
Nikander was too moved to speak.
“Ever since then,” went on Timon, “the girl’s genius has haunted me. Horrible, you know! Such genius to be wasted even though it be housed in a woman. There!” he ended, laughing. “You have my reasoning.”
Nikander’s gratitude beamed from his face. “The gods bless you,” he said, “for giving the girl her chance.”