Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664180414

Table of Contents

       A YOUNG MACEDONIAN

       CHAPTER I A WRONG

       CHAPTER II A REVENGE

       CHAPTER III PREPARATION

       CHAPTER IV AT TROY

       CHAPTER V AT THE GRANĪCUS

       CHAPTER VI HALICARNASSUS

       CHAPTER VII MEMNON

       CHAPTER VIII AT SEA

       CHAPTER IX IN GREECE AGAIN

       CHAPTER X AT ATHENS

       CHAPTER XI A PERILOUS VOYAGE

       CHAPTER XII ON THE WRONG SIDE

       CHAPTER XIII DAMASCUS

       CHAPTER XIV MANASSEH THE JEW

       CHAPTER XV ANDROMACHÉ

       CHAPTER XVI TO JERUSALEM

       CHAPTER XVII TYRE

       CHAPTER XVIII THE ESCAPE

       CHAPTER XIX THE HIGH PRIEST

       CHAPTER XX FROM TYRE TO THE TIGRIS

       CHAPTER XXI ARBELA

       CHAPTER XXII AT BABYLON

       CHAPTER XXIII A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE

       CHAPTER XXIV VENGEANCE

       CHAPTER XXV DARIUS

       CHAPTER XXVI INVALIDED

       CHAPTER XXVII NEWS FROM THE EAST

       CHAPTER XXVIII THE END

A YOUNG MACEDONIAN

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

       A WRONG

       Table of Contents

      The “Boys’ Foot-race” at the great games of Olympia, celebrated now for the one hundred and eleventh time since the epoch of Corœbus, has just been run, and the victor is about to receive his crown of wild olive. The herald proclaims with a loud voice, “Charidemus, son of Callicles of Argos, come forward, and receive your prize!” A lad, who might have been thought to number seventeen or eighteen summers, so tall and well grown was he, but who had really only just completed his fifteenth year, stepped forward. His face was less regularly handsome than those of the very finest Greek type, for the nose was more arched, the chin more strongly marked, and the forehead more square, than a sculptor would have made them in moulding a boy Apollo; still the young Charidemus had a singularly winning appearance, especially now that a smile shone out of his frank blue eyes and parted lips, lips that were neither so full as to be sensual, nor so thin as to be cruel. The dark chestnut curls fell clustering about his neck, for the Greek boy was not cropped in the terrier fashion of his English successor, and the ruddy brown of his clear complexion showed a health nurtured by clean living and exercise. A hum of applause greeted the young athlete, for he had many friends among the young and old of Argos, and he was remarkable for the worth that—

      “appears with brighter shine

      When lodged within a worthy shrine”[1]

      —a charm which commends itself greatly to the multitude. As Charidemus approached the judges a lad stepped forward from the throng that surrounded the tribunal, and exclaimed, “I object.”

      All eyes were turned upon the speaker. He was immediately recognized as the competitor who had won the second place, a good runner, who might have hoped for victory in ordinary years, but who had had no chance against the extraordinary fleetness of the young Argive. He was of a well-set, sturdy figure; his face, without being at all handsome, was sufficiently pleasing, though just at the moment it had a look which might have meant either sullenness or shame.

      “Who is it that speaks?” said the presiding judge.

      “Charondas, son of Megasthenes, of Thebes,” was the answer.

      “And what is your objection?” asked the judge.

      “I object to Charidemus, alleged to be of Argos, because he is a barbarian.”

      The sensation produced by these words was great, even startling. There could scarcely be a greater insult than to say to any one who claimed to be a Greek that he was a barbarian. Greeks, according to a creed that no one thought of questioning, were the born rulers and masters of the world, for whom everything had been made, and to whom everything belonged; barbarians were inferior creatures, without human rights, who might be permitted to exist if they were content to minister to the well-being of their masters, but otherwise were to be dealt with as