United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Capua was a famed emporium for perfumes and like wares. "I fear," said Pratinas, doing as bidden, and testing the essence with evident satisfaction, "that I have interrupted your philosophical studies." And he glanced at Pisander, who was sitting lonesome and offended in his corner. "Oh! not in the least," ran on Valeria; "but though I know you are Epicurean, surely you enjoy Plato?"
"Pisander," said Valeria, sharply, noting Pratinas's disquietude, "go out of the room. I don't need you at present." Pisander, unlike many contemporaries, was affected by a sensitive conscience. But if there was one man whom he despised to the bottom of his soul, it was Pratinas.
At least I have roughly chiselled out the matter, as a sculptor would say, and can now wait a bit before finishing. Ah! what elegant study is this which is engrossing your ladyship this morning?" "Pisander is reading from the works of Gorgias of Leontini," said Valeria, languidly.
Upon this revolution taking place, the party of Pisander and Alexicles and the chiefs of the oligarchs immediately withdrew to Decelea, with the single exception of Aristarchus, one of the generals, who hastily took some of the most barbarian of the archers and marched to Oenoe.
Butchers were slaughtering kine; drovers were driving oxen off of barges that had come down the Tiber; sheep and goats were bleating everywhere around the stalls, booths, shops, and pens was the bustle of an enormous traffic. Pisander picked his way through the crowd, searching for the butcher to whom he had been especially sent.
The people were at first highly irritated at the mention of an oligarchy, but upon understanding clearly from Pisander that this was the only resource left, they took counsel of their fears, and promised themselves some day to change the government again, and gave way.
"Oh! the shame to call himself a philosopher," groaned the neglected Pisander to himself. "If I believed in the old gods, I would invoke the Furies upon him." But Valeria was now in the best of spirits. "By the two Goddesses," she swore, "what charming sentiments you Greeks can express. Now I think I look presentable, and can go around and see Papiria, and learn about that dreadful Silanus affair.
You are a man! You are free! Do something! Say something!" "But what can I do?" groaned Pisander, bursting into tears, and wishing for the instant Epicureans, Stoics, Eclectics, Peripatetics, and every other school of learning in the nethermost Hades. "Phui! Fudge!" cried Arsinoë. "What is life made for then, if a man who has spent all his days studying it is as good as helpless! Look at me!
"What a stroke of fortune!" raved the philosopher. "How we will be revenged on that rascal, Pratinas! O Destiny, thy decrees are just!" Again Agias expostulated, and at last brought out of Pisander a tolerably coherent account of the conversation which he had heard between Valeria and Pratinas. Then, indeed, the merry slave-boy was troubled.
The democracy of Athens was now subverted. Instead of the Senate of Five Hundred and the assembled people, an oligarchy of Four Hundred sat in the Senate house, and all except five thousand were disfranchised—and these were not convened. The oligarchy was in full power when Pisander returned to Athens. All democratic magistrates had been removed, and no civil functionaries were paid.
Word Of The Day