Imaginary LIves Read Free Page A

surrounded by a crowd of miserable folk. Women mingled in the following and kissed the hem of his precious mantle. One of those women was called Panthea, daughter of a noble of Agrigentum. She was to have been consecrated to Artemis, but she fled the cold statue of the goddess, vowing her virginity to Empedocles. No one ever witnessed their affection, for Empedocles preserved a divine detachment, speaking always in epic meter with the dialect of Jonia, while the people of Agrigentum knew only the Dorian. All his gestures were sacred; when he met with men it was to bless or cure them. Usually he remained silent. None who followed him ever saw him sleep; they knew him only as a majestic being.
    Panthea dressed in fine wool and gold, her hair arranged after the rich mode of Agrigentum, where life ran smooth. A red strophe supported her breasts and her sandals were perfumed. As for the rest of her, she was tall and fine and her colour was desirable. It is impossible to be sure that Empedocles loved her, but he pitied her. Soon a breath of Asia brought the plague to those Sicilian fields. Many were touched by the black fingers of the pest, and fallen beasts strewed the edge of the prairie where they could be seen beside the carcasses of sheep, dead with their mouths gaping toward the heavens and their ribs sticking out white and dry through their sides. Stricken by this malady, Panthea fell at Empedocles’ feet and breathed no more. Those who were near raised her stiffening limbs to bathe them with spirits and aromatics. They loosed the red strophe from her young breasts, winding a funereal band in its place.
    Her mouth, lips slightly parted, was sealed by a tight bandage. Her deep eyes no longer mirrored the light.
    Empedocles gazed down at her where she lay.
    He took the golden circlet from his forehead and he touched her with it. He placed the garland of prophetic laurel on her breast, chanting unknown verses of the soul’s migration. And three times he commanded her to rise and to walk; then the people were filled with terror. At his third command Panthea left the kingdom of shadows, life came into her body and she rose to her feet, all swathed as she was in the cloths of the tomb. And the people saw that Empedocles had power to recall the dead.
    Pysianactes, father of Panthea, now adored the new god. Long tables were spread under the trees of his estate, where a feast of wines and viands was offered. By the side of Empedocles slaves held up great torches, while heralds proclaimed him as did the solemn mystery of his own deep silence.
    Suddenly, at the third watch of the night, the torches sputtered out and darkness enveloped the worshippers. Then a strong voice called, “Empedocles!” When the lights burned once more Empedocles was gone. Men never saw him again.
    A frightened slave told how he had watched a red flare cut the night near Etna’s summit. At the first dull gleam of dawn the worshippers climbed the sterile slopes of the mountain. Jets of fire were still darting like tongues from the volcano’s crater.
    In the porous lava on the brink of the burning abyss, they found a brazen sandal writhen by the flames.
     

EROSTRAT
    Incendiary
     
    With her two river harbours the city of Ephesus, birthplace of Herostratos, stretched across the mouth of the Cayster as far as Panorama Quay.
    From there the shores of Samos could be seen in a misty line along the dark sea horizon. Wealthy in gold, in stuffs and in roses, Ephesus prospered now, since the Magnesians with their dogs of war and their javelineers had been vanquished on the banks of the Meander, and Miletus the Magnificent destroyed by the Persians.
    Relaxed during these days of peace, Ephesus feted courtesans in the temple of Aphrodite Hetaira.
    Citizens arrayed themselves in tunics of amorgine, in transparent garments of spun linen tinted violet, purple and crocodile green. They wore sarapides the colour of yellow apples or white or rose, and Egyptian fabrics in