Raphael was curiously different from his father, and yet even less in sympathy with Aquila. The old man had a genuine interest in the glories, and, [122] one might even say, the mission of his nation. All this was to Raphael mere sentiment. A certain pride of race he had; it pleased him to think that his ancestors were princes when Rome was nothing more than the refuge of hill-side robbers. And this feeling kept alive in him a certain loyalty to the national law. At the same time he was wholly worldly. Practically he prized his nationality, not because of any divine promises or privileges which were attached to it, but because it gave him a vantage ground for aggrandisement. He was excellent company; shrewd, well informed, with a superficial liberality and width of view.
The voyage from Brundisium to the entrance of the Corinthian Gulf was as prosperous and easy as could be desired. Scarcely a breath ruffled the surface of the sea, and the sick man benefited greatly by the quiet. When the ship had passed into the Gulf itself, sea troubles and dangers might be considered at an end. The little wind that there was blew from the south; it was just enough to fill out the sails and help the rowers along without raising a sea.
It was a gay scene that met the travellers’ eyes. Visitors were flocking to Corinth for the celebration of the Isthmian games, and there were many who preferred the route by sea. Those who came, [123] for instance, from the western Isles, from Corcyrawhich had long since made up its old quarrel (Footnote: This quarrel may be described as the immediate cause of the Peloponnesian War.) with its mother-cityfrom Ithaca, from Cephallonia, especially affected this mode of travel. The galleys and merchant vessels were all in holiday trim, newly painted for the occasion, their signs freshly gilded or silvered, and the masts gay with bunting. The fuglemen, who gave the time to the rowers, played lively tunes, and the high spirits of the crews prompted them to frequent races. For many of the travellers the voyage could not but be a melancholy business. They had been driven from their homes, and the future was more or less dark and doubtful. But even they found it difficult to resist the infectious gaiety of the scene.
CORINTH
[124] IT was nearly sunset on the fourth day after leaving Brundisium when the travellers reached Lechaeum, the western port of Corinth. It was a busy scene that met their eyes. The harbour was crowded with shipping to its utmost capacity. The food supply of the city, with its population of at least a hundred thousand, (Footnote: Forty thousand of these were free, 60,000 slaves. One account gives the number of the latter at 460,000, but this is a manifest error. We cannot correct it exactly, but the conjecture given is sufficiently probable.) as very little wheat was grown in its own territories, was in itself an important business. The towns and villages that bordered the Gulf kept up a constant traffic in provisions of all kinds. Cattle and sheep were brought in the larger coasting vessels; corn, poultry, market produce, and winethe native growths were proverbially badin the smaller. The land-locked waters of the Gulf, which only grew rough when the wind blew strongly from the east or the west, afforded a safe and easy transit to even small boats. The city was famous for [125] some fine kinds of tapestry, and for the celebrated bronze to which it had given its name, an alloy of copper with varying proportions of gold and silver, and it had the greatest share of the carrying trade between Europe and Asia.
The Jewish community was large and wealthy, as it was certain to be in any place where commerce was in the ascendant. Manasseh had, of course, his correspondents, who had been warned of his coming, Raphael having taken the precaution of sending a message by the shorter overland route. A litter was in attendance, and a physician, whose services however were scarcely needed, the quiet voyage over the placid waters of the Gulf having been of the greatest service to the invalid. Archias also had been apprised in the same way of the intended arrival of Aquila. Etiquette did not permit so distinguished a person as the chief magistrate of the city to meet a stranger in person, but he had sent a warm invitation to Aquila and his wife to consider his house as their home as long as they might remain in Corinth. Of this, however, they did not avail themselves. They were not willing to give offence to the Jewish community, as they certainly would have done by taking up their residence in what may be called the Corinthian Mansion House. They were aware, also, that many of those who would be [126] going to and fro in such a place would not be as desirable acquaintance as was Archias. And above all they wished to be independent and to lead their own lives. Aquila abhorred above all things a life without regular employment, and proposed to himself to carry on, in however small a way, the business which he had been obliged to intermit at Rome, and Priscilla was intent on finding a scope for her own favourite activities. They had, accordingly, bespoken accommodation in one of the Jewish hostelries, intending to look about at their leisure for a more permanent home. To an agent of this establishment, who happened to be on the ship, they committed their belongings while they themselves made the journey on foot, finding this a welcome change from the long confinement in the close quarters of the ship.
THE FOUNTAIN OF PEIRENE, CORINTH.
The distance between the harbour and the city was a little less than a mile and a half. The road was level and kept in excellent repair, with a wall strengthened by towers and redoubts on either side (Footnote: These walls closely resembled the Long Walls by which Athens was connected with the harbour of Pir?us.) Some of the objects which would have attracted the notice of the ordinary visitor were passed unheeded or indeed with intentional neglect by the travellers. The harbour itself was dominated by a stately temple of the sea-god, Poseidon; a [127] little further along the road to the city there was a shrine of the Olympian Zeus, and still nearer to the city, on either side of the road, were gorgeously gilded chariots, one of the Sun, the other of the luckless Phaethon. One object, however, Aquila and his wife were able to inspect with a good conscience, and this was the famous fountain of Peirene. It lay a little away from the road. The enclosure may have measured some twenty feet each way. All round it ran continuous seats of white marble. In the centre was the spring, a basin also of white marble, in which the water bubbled up continuously from some source deep in the earth beneath. The whole was shaded by plane-trees and limes. It was evidently a favourite resort; all the seats in the marble enclosure were occupied, while an unbroken line of women, young and old, were carrying away full pitchers from the spring. The water had a reputation, not only for purity and vivacity, but for its health-giving qualities. Inhabitants even of distant quarters of the city made a point of being supplied with it. It was even sent considerable distances. It had also the reputation of being specially useful in some manufactures. No Corinthian bronze was held to have been rightly made, if it had not been tempered in the waters of Peirene. Aquila was specially interested in [128] seeing that some of the old habitues of the place were passing the time with a game of draughts. The sight brought back to him one of the recollections of early days when he had studied the literature of Greece. “See,” he said to Priscilla, “how curiously it happens that some of the trifles in human life seem to survive, when the graver things pass away. There is scarcely a thing in Corinth now that is as much as a hundred and twenty years old. But the old men are playing draughts just as they did in Medea’s time twelve hundred years ago.” As he spoke two thirsty lads, fresh from their game in the playing-field hard by, came to procure a drink at the spring. “Why!” he cried, “there is another survival ! Those two boys might be Medea’s children, and that old man there their tutor. It is Euripides to the very life!” (Footnote: In the opening scene of Euripides’ drama of Medea, the nurse communicates to the tutor of the two children (the tutor being not the teacher but the slave who looked after them as they went to school and came back) her fears about their future. She points to them as they are resting from their play, happily unconscious of the troubles that are near. He in his turn relates what he has heard. He had been at the “Draughts,” where the old men of Corinth were wont to sit near the “Holy Spring” of Peirene, and had heard, while not seeming to listen, how the King of Corinth intended to banish Medea and her children from the city. The passage is obscure, but it is usually translated in this way, the spot indicated being called after the game which was commonly played there.)