The high plateau of Ophel swells out from the southern wall of the Temple, and looks down upon the vales of Hinnom and Kedron, which come together at its base, five hundred feet below. From this promontory one can see for miles through the deep valley, which is lined near the city with rock-hewn tombs, and in the distance with whitish-gray cliffs, as if the Kedron had become a leper outcast from the company of the beautiful hills and vales which elsewhere surround Jerusalem. Down, down the valley it goes until lost to sight amid the mountains of stone and sand that make the wilderness of Judea. There the leper dies and is buried in the Dead Sea. Whichever way lies the wind, except from the north, it sweeps this promontory of Ophel with refreshing coolness. Here in the olden time the sages and saints of Israel had been accustomed to walk, their meditations on the judgments of God perhaps more sombre because of the gloomy grandeur of the scene; and here the multitudes had thronged, with hearts gladdened by the contrast of joy of their city with the distant desolation.
But now, by the orders of Apollonius, the Governor under Antiochus, the top of Ophel had been levelled for the stately building of the gymnasium.
To one looking up from the valley of the Kedron, the graceful Greek porticos must have showed against the old gray walls of the Temple like vines on the scarp of a mountain boulder. In front of the structure lay the athletic field, dotted with many colored pennants which denoted the places reserved for the various games. At one end of the field was the stadium, the running track, some six hundred feet in length. Adjoining this was an open court in which were practised wrestling, throwing the discus, swinging the great hanging stone, hurling the javelin, archery, sword play, boxing, and the like. By the side of this court were baths, and near them great caldrons supplying the luxury of heated water.
In shaded porches were raised platforms upon which at stated hours rhetoricians who plumed themselves upon their eloquence discoursed of philosophy and poetry and love. Here, too, professors of the calisthenic art exhibited in their own persons and those of their pupils the graces of the human form.
Captain Dion emerged from the Street of the Cheesemakers upon the athletic field. He saluted the banner of Apollonius, which flaunted from its tall staff, then cast a spray of ivy at the foot of the statue of Hermes, the god of the race. He was at once hailed by a group of young men with whom he was evidently a favorite.
Among these was Glaucon. A broad-brimmed hat topped his head. Artificially curled black locks stuccoed his brow. A white chlamys, or outer robe, of linen broadly bordered with purple was draped from his shoulder in the latest style of the capital.
"Ah, Glaucon, well met! How has it fared with you since we parted at Joppa?" was Dion's greeting. "Has the sea jog gotten out of your legs yet? If the mountains of Carmel and Cassius on the coast had been turned to water the waves could not have tossed us more than when we came from Antioch."
"Jerusalem is a poor exchange for Antioch," replied Glaucon. "One day at Daphne for a lifetime here, but for a few good fellows like you, Captain."
"Did you succeed in getting the order for confiscation reversed?" asked the Greek.
"Oh, yes, I shall hold the property; that is, if I can keep the old man, my father, within doors, so that he doesn't bring a mob about our ears as he did yesterday. Apollonius—Pluto take him!—mulcted me heavily of shekels last night as a guarantee that the old bigot would keep the peace. I wish that you would give the Governor a fair word for me, Dion. You see, I have not come into the estate yet, and haven't many gold feathers to drop. Apollonius seems to think that I am moulting all my ancestral wealth."
"I think I can get the Governor to at least pare your nails without cutting the quick hereafter," replied his friend.
"My thanks. I shall need your help, Captain, in all ways, for though I have donned the King's livery, you Greeks look on me as a Jew. I am like to fall between the upper and nether millstones. My people have cast me off, and, by Hercules! yours do not take to me as they should."
"Never fear, Glaucon," replied Dion. "A man who can swear 'By Hercules!' instead of 'As the Lord liveth!' will soon have the favor of our gods."
"And goddesses, too, I hope," laughed Glaucon. "But I have not thanked you, Dion, for saving my father from his crazy venture on the streets yesterday. The shade of Anchises bless you for that!"
"Well up in the poets, too, I see," said the Captain, slapping his comrade on the back. "Your brain is Greek if your blood be Hebrew. But let us hear what this blabber is saying."
The men stood a moment listening to an orator who, with well-oiled locks and classically arranged toga, was addressing a small group within a portico. He was just saying: "Hear then the words of the divine Plato, 'When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful body, and the two are cast into the same mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him that has an eye to contemplate the vision.' Truly the soul is made fair by the fairness of the body. Thought glows when the eye sparkles. Heroism is bred of conscious strength of muscle. Love burns within the arms of beauty, and with the kisses scented with the sweet breath of health. Think you that the gods would dwell within the statues if the sculptors did not shape the marble and ivory to exquisite proportions?
"Behold, then, the stupidity of these Jews whose foul nests we are destroying. They read their Rolls, but they gain no wisdom. They pray, yet remain impious. It is because they know not the first of maxims, namely, that the body is the matrix of the mind."
"The fool!" was Dion's comment. "There are better declaimers in any Greek village. And"—more to himself than to his comrade, as a band of Jews, among them even some renegade priests, stripped naked, ran by them on their way to the racing stadium—"yet see, there are bigger fools!"
When the two men passed into the gymnasium proper, the crowd on the benches raised the cry of "Dion! Dion!" until the crossbeam shook down its dust of applause.
The Captain gracefully acknowledged the compliment by taking from his brow the chaplet, now well withered, and flinging it from him into the crowd with the exclamation: "I will win it again before I wear it."
The magnanimous challenge brought the champion another ovation.
The chief gymnasiarch approached, and read from his tablets the names of the day's victors in the various contests that had already taken place. He bade Dion select an antagonist from the list.
"I will throw the discus," said the Captain.
"Then your competitor will be Yusef, the Lebanon giant," read the gymnasiarch. He shouted:
"Hear ye! Yusef of Damascus is challenged by Dion of Philippi."
Divesting himself of his garment the Greek now stood naked among his compeers.
"Adonis has descended," shouted one, in a tone that might have been taken for either admiration or contempt.
An alipta came and rubbed Dion's arms and back with oil mingled with dust.
"Better rub him against the Jew. He'll get both grease and dirt at a touch," sneered some one.
Dion turned, and, fronting the group whence the insult came, scanned the faces one by one; but there was no response to his mute challenge.
As he moved away one ventured to say, loud enough to be heard by a few about him:
"The Jewish renegade is protected by special order of the King, or, by the club of Herakles! I would grind his face with my fists."
"The Captain seems to be the pimp's special body-guard just now," was a reply; after which the knot of men talked in low tones among themselves, casting furtive glances in the direction of Dion.
"Yusef stands on his record of this morning," shouted the gymnasiarch. "He need not throw again unless Dion shall pass him."
The Greek balanced in his hand two circular pieces of bronze, in order to select one of them. The crowd densely lined the way the missile was to fly. There was eager rivalry for places at the goal end, where the friends of the contestants craned their necks to see the exact spot the discus would strike, ready to applaud or dispute it. In this group Glaucon had secured a foremost stand,