and dole out the flax to the slaves, and not spin herself. Oh! how happy she must be!" Why, my little Eudocia," said Anaxandridas, "you would be a strange Dorian mother if you were idle and did not spin." "I know not," replied Eudocia, "but it seems to me your sister must be very happy, and I would give all the golden vessels in the temple of Argive Juno, were they mine, to be like Eustathia."

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What," said Anaxandridas, "and do you wish to leave Pheidippus ?" "No," replied she, "but then he might come and sit with me in my portico, and" "Lead a life worthy of a Spartan, I suppose you would say," replied Anaxandridas. "Sparta has need of rough citizens just now, Eudocia." "What mean you by that?" asked Pheidippus. "I mean," said Anaxandridas, "that there must soon be a deadly struggle between the ephors and the kings." "Yes," replied Pheidippus, "I heard my father say the same thing soon after the ephors had returned from dreaming in the temple of Pasiphäe: he said that they had had more dreams than were made public. The ephors grow haughty." "I trust, Pheidippus," replied Anaxandridas, "that they may soon stand higher, and so be haughtier." "What," answered Pheidippus, "wouldst thou side with the ephors?" "Of a truth I would," rejoined Anaxandridas. "Hear me, Pheidippus; when I was a child, and my nurse took me down to the bubbling Tiasa at the Tithenidian feast, and sacrificed on my

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behalf a sucking-pig to Artemis Limnatis, there were strange omens of my greatness revealed to her. Now a king I cannot be, an ephor I can. Understandest thou?" "Oh, Anaxandridas," said Pheidippus, "and has not every nurse ten thousand omens of greatness for every nursling? Who magnifies more than a nurse?" "Banter me not on this point, Pheidippus," replied Anaxandridas, "for much as I love thee, I cannot bear it. The course of events is like a difficult hyporchema at a Spartan feast; it tells its tale to some, it is but a beating of the feet to others. The course of events has interpreted to me some of my old nurse's omens." "But," said Pheidippus, "do you look for the contest soon?" "Mark me,” replied Anaxandridas, "thou knowest that every ninth year, on some night without a cloud, and when the moon doth not lead the choir of the stars, the ephors watch till daybreak, and never speak a word. If one star shoots in the sky, then do we know that it is a divine intimation that the kings have offended the gods, and we must send to Delphi for the oracle to dictate some lustration. Perchance this next time a star may shoot, perchance an oracle may come from Delphi which shall concern the Ephors." "Anaxandridas, what is the meaning of all this?" asked Pheidippus. "How didst thou a boy learn these things?" "I overheard them," replied Anaxandridas. "Thou art a foolish youth and not Spartan-like to mention them,” said Pheidippus. Nay, Pheidippus," replied the other,

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"have we ever had any secrets? is fit we should have them now.

Ask Eudocia if it Shall we not stand

Well, my be

side by side in the battle-ranks ?” loved Anaxandridas," rejoined Pheidippus, "it were at least better thou shouldst slouch thy felt hat over thy brow, and pass in all Sparta for a sloven, than that men should suspect thou hast such deep thoughts as these already." "See, see," said Eudocia, laughing violently. "Who is that strange man coming this way. By the Dioscuri, I never saw such a creature before." As she spoke, a man drew near dressed in a white linen garment, folded with great scrupulosity; the sleeves covered even his finger-ends, and his hair was elaborately curled, and a huge golden grasshopper was fastened in it. When he was passed, Anaxandridas said. "It is Eucleides, the old Athenian; he is a man of many words, and would fain be an orator at Athens. But his speech is slow and pompous, and the people will not hear him, but take off his style and mimic his voice and gesture; and some late mortification has depressed him, and therefore has he come to Iero. He goes to the back of yon grove daily in order to declaim on the finances of Athens, for his talk ever is of the wicked extravagance of the people; and he is now meditating an attempt to take away the theatre money of those idle Athenians, yet he is in difficulty how it shall be moved in the ecclesia." Hearing this I followed the old Athenian.

When we had come near to the olive-grove I heard

behind me the noise of a chariot running very swiftly on a hard road. I turned round, but there was nothing to be seen. Still the noise continued, coming nearer and nearer, till it seemed almost at my heels. I turned round again in great alarm: but there was nothing. Over the city, however, was a cloud of white dust, though I could not see whence it had come. Suddenly the noise of the chariot ceased, and there was a most affecting stillness. Yet the cloud of dust grew thicker and thicker over the city. And now there was a loud hissing, as of a thousand serpents, and although there was no wind, the tops of the olive-trees were vehemently shaken, so that they cast their fruit, and numbers of green lizards ran hastily down the grooves of the columns in the temple hard by. Then the noise of the chariot began once more, and then ceased again. Once more the loud hissing came, and the olive-trees were shaken more vehemently than ever, and there was a noise such as I had only heard once before, when I was wrecked, and the ship struck with a long awful grating sound upon the rock. Then there came a distant, very distant muttering of thunder, though the sky was bare and blue, and now ten or twenty small reports, like the clink of heavy quoits, came from the ravines of the hills. All at once there rose a heartrending wail from the city, and a cry, "The wells have sunk into the ground. Fly to the mountains. It is the earthquake. Woe! woe! woe! It is the

earthquake." But before the people could fly, the earth hissed and trembled: for one moment it stood still with a dreadful hush; then came four claps of the most terrific thunder, and the earth split in several places, and the columns of the temples fell prostrate, and the mountains bowed towards the city; and in the city were the crash of buildings, the screams of people, the rattling of the earth like hail-stones on a leaden roof, a low moaning wind, the gurgling noise of the wells bursting up in a tumultuous flood breaking away the marble pavement, and the piteous lowing of the oxen, a commingling of all hideous sounds. Then came a most appalling thunder clap; I turned to fly; the earth reeled again, burst open in the heart of the city, rolled over, as it seemed, and leaned as if it was going to be overturned towards the west. Once more the hissing came, and the sound as of clinking quoits: then a noise like a roaring watery surge in the ocean, when it strikes a cliff in a spring tide, and the earth heaved mightily over towards the east, quivered, and settled down in its place without a shock or a sound, but a dark cloud of dust rose up, filling the eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils. I hastened away as fast as I could. There was a dead silence all around. I came back to the little Doric temple, now ruined. Anaxandridas lay dead: a fragment of a broken plinth had struck him on the head: and when the ephors watch on the moonless night, Anaxandridas will not