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Hiding behind the tombs, among the clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival.
The poets, the rhetoricians, the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues, chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even with their repartee. When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead.
Actæon, as he contemplated the short, correct profile of the handsome youth, and the nervous vivacity of his body, was reminded of the apprentices to the sculptors at Athens, artistic youths who in the broad glare of day, before returning to the studios, scandalized the well-behaved citizens by their frolics in the promenade of the Cerameicus.
Her market now was the Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the Republic. By day the great hetæræ went or sent their slaves to see if their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus.
When the Greek found himself alone, his hunger placated, he felt a certain disgust in thinking of his recent adventure. Actæon the Athenian, he for whom the richest hetæræ of the beautiful city used to dispute in the Cerameicus, protected and adored by a strumpet of the port! To avoid meeting her again he hurriedly left the temple steps, losing himself in the streets by the harbor.
At midnight the passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their capacious tombs.
With these enchantments, accompanied by mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and exciting herbs, which frequently led to death. One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus, which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a white mantle.
He should spend hours, nay, days here, if he would conscientiously explore the stone avenues, worthy to be compared to Stonehenge or Carnac; the amphitheatre, vast as that of Nimes or Orange; the fortifications, with bulwarks, towers, and ramparts; the necropolis, veritable Cerameicus, or Pere-la-Chaise; the citadel, the forum, the suburbs; for the enthusiastic discoverers of Montpellier-le- Vieux, or the Cite du Diable, have made out all these.
This was contrary to the usual custom, according to which the bones of all who fell fighting for their country in each year were deposited in a public sepulchre in the suburb of Athens called the Cerameicus. But it was felt that a distinction ought to be made in the funeral honours paid to the men of Marathon, even as their merit had been distinguished over that of all other Athenians.
She was eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and set the fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old, forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still in the house in the Street of Tripods, and Actæon one of the poor artists who visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in the intimacy of comrades.
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