'That sobered up our Hero and, seeing how generously his host had treated him, he felt he ought to do something about it. So, instead of going to bed, he made enquiries about which way Death had gone, and hurried off after him. In the morning he came back with a young woman smothered from head to foot in veils and said to Admetus: "Look, old chap. I was terribly sorry to hear that you'd lost your wife; so I've been out and got you a girl to cheer you up. And, believe me, she's a stunner," or words to that effect.
'But Admetus put up a good show then. He replied: "That's awfully decent of you, but no can do. I shall never love anyone but Alcestis, and I've made up my mind never to have a woman in my house again."
'Hercules did his utmost to persuade him to change his mind, but he wouldn't budge. You can guess the rest. The Hero unveiled the lady and, of course, she was Alcestis, whom he had torn from the very arms of Death.'
'Did they live happily ever after?' Stephanie enquired.
'As far as I know.'
'What a pleasant change. So many of your characters seem to come to a sticky end.'
'Or worse,' Robbie commented with a rueful smile. 'Some were condemned to eternal torment. Even the sufferings of the damned in Dante's Hell can have been no worse than some of the punishments the gods thought up for people they sent to Tartarus.
'There was Tantalus, who had been King of Phrygia. Why, I haven't an idea, but the Immortals did him the extraordinary honour of inviting him to dine on Olympus, and he stole some of their nectar and ambrosia. Not content with that, he asked them back, and just to see if they were clever enough to know what they were eating, he killed his own son, Pelops, cut him up, cooked the bits and served them to his guests for dinner. Of course they'rumbled him, and before he knew what had hit him he was down in Tartarus. They put him waist deep in the middle of a lake that had trees all round it bearing the must luscious fruit, but every time he tried to drink the water evaporated, and every time he stretched out a hand to grab a fruit a gust of wind bobbed it out of his reach. There they left him to suffer the torments of hunger and thirst for ever.
'Another bad egg who got it in the neck was the tyrant Ardiaeus. He killed lots of people just for the fun of it, among them his father and his brother; so the gods decreed that he should spend the rest of Time being dragged backwards and forwards through a hedge of enormous thorns. Then there were the Danaides, about as nasty a bunch of girls to go to bed with as any you could imagine.'
'Why, Robbie? Don't spare my blushes. Tell all.'
'Oh, it wasn't anything of that kind. They were the daughters of a chap named Danaus. There were fifty of them, and-'
'Fifty! My hat! He must have kept their mother busy.'
'It's hardly likely that they were all by one wife. Anyhow, he had a brother named Aegyptus, who had fifty sons. The whole family lived in Egypt, but the brothers quarrelled, so Danaus took his girls off to Greece, where he did in the King of Argos and seized his throne. After a while, Aegyptus's boys began to miss their pretty cousins, so they crossed the Med. to Argos and suggested putting an end to the family quarrel by marrying them. Danaus agreed, but he was still mad with Aegyptus; so he gave each of his girls a dagger, and told her to stick it good and hard into her husband on their wedding night. All except one of these sweetie-pies did as they were told, and turned their bridal couches into a blood bath.'
'How absolutely barbarous!'
'That's what the big boys on Olympus thought. Aphrodite and most of the other big girls were of that opinion, too. They all agreed that, if that sort of thing were allowed to go on, it would discourage chaps from getting into bed with girls, and lead to a lot of young people becoming psychopathic cases through frustration; so an example must be mada The forty-nine Danaides were packed off to Tartarus and condemned to try to catch water in sieves for ever and ever, amen.'
'What punishment did the father receive?'
'I'm sorry to say I don't know. He certainly deserved anything he got. So did a chap called Ixion, who murdered his father-in-law by throwing him into a burning ditch. The ancients were frightfully hot on paying proper respects to one's in-law's; so he would have been for the high jump if Zeus had not granted him sanctuary on Olympus. But while up there, he was ass enough to make a pass at Hera; or rather, at a piece of cloud that Zeus, having tumbled to the way Ixion's mind was working, had made to look like Hera. He let Ixion have his fun with the cloud, too; but afterwards he told him that, for his cheek, he should learn how his father-in-law felt while burning in the ditch. Then he had Ixion tied to a wheel that never stops turning in Tartarus while he roasts over a slow fire.'
Across the water to their left, they could now see a headland that protruded from the Isthmus of Corinth, almost enclosing the waters on the south side of the gulf in the great bay that forms a fine, natural harbour for the city. To their right, vineyard-covered slopes rose gradually to steeper heights crowned by a flattened dome many acres in extent and several hundred feet above sea level. Near its crest and straggling down its sides, several sections of great ruined walls could be seen. Pointing at them, Robbie said:
'Those walls are about all that remains of the original Corinth. Owing to its position up there, overlooking the Isthmus and both gulfs, it was known in very ancient days as "The Watch Tower". Later it rivalled Athens in its splendour, and many of the most flourishing Greek colonies in Sicily and Southern Italy were founded by its merchant princes. I expect you've heard that silly saying: "All good Americans go to Paris when they die". That's how the ancients all over the Eastern Mediterranean felt about Corinth. The temple of Aphrodite up there was served by a thousand glamour-pusses—black, white and brown—brought from all over the known world, and it was their job to see to it that business executives on holiday had proper relaxation.'
Stephanie raised her eyebrows: 'Really, you men! It seems that, apart from making money, few of you ever think of anything else.'
'Oh, I wouldn't say that. Of course, a good supply of willing popsies has always been a major tourist attraction. When Paris began to get a bit strait-laced, Vienna and Budapest took its place, and coming right up-to-date, there is Las Vegas. But lots of the ancient Greeks came here for quite a different reason. It was one of the four places at which the great athletic contests were held. Those at Olympia were the most important, but every Hellenic State sent its champions to take part in the Isthmian Games, as those held here, in honour of Poseidon, were called. Tomorrow morning, we might go and have a look at the Stadium, then walk up to the site of the old city and picnic there.'
'What! Climb that mountain?' Stephanie's mouth took a firm line. 'No thank you, Robbie. I don't mind taking on the extra-secretarial duty of helping you to outwit your oil rivals, but I draw the line at trudging for miles up a slope of one in three.'
'I'm sorry,' he said, with swift contrition. 'I should have realized that it would be too tiring for you. Anyhow, there can't be much to see up there, except the magnificent view. We'll picnic in the new city instead.'
'But . . .' she shot him a puzzled glance, 'surely you can't mean that we should eat our lunch in the streets?'
Robbie roared with laughter. 'No; no. Of course not. There are three Corinths. You are thinking of the modern town where we are going to stay. The one up on the hill is called Acrocorinth. It was sacked and destroyed by the Romans somewhere about one hundred and fifty b.c. Then Julius Caesar came along about a hundred years later and built what is called the new city. You can't see it from here, because its ruins are hidden by villas and vineyards, but it's on the lower slopes and only about ten minutes' drive from the town.'