Tyrant

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Events seemed to prove Daphnaeus right for some time. It was already late in the season, and they were told – although no one would later remember who had said so – that the Carthaginian ships in Panormus had already been docked or pulled aground for maintenance, and that they would not be put back out to sea until the following spring. The Syracusan fleet, on the contrary, was still perfectly efficient and continued to provision the army.

  Whenever Himilco sent out a unit in search of supplies or forage, the Syracusan cavalry would set off in pursuit and promptly wipe the men out. Surrender was expected from one day to the next, especially since bad weather was already setting in.

  Precisely because a worsening of the weather was predicted, Syracuse decided to send a large consignment of grain and other foodstuffs by sea to provision Acragas before conditions made navigation impossible. But when the Syracusan convoy came into view of the city, they were shocked to find the entire Carthaginian fleet of nearly fifty ships in full battle order.

  The fate of the battle was sealed from the start: the heavily laden Syracusan ships were too slow, while the Carthaginian vessels, already dismasted, more numerous and with the wind in their favour, launched the assault with infinitely superior speed and manoeuvring capability.

  The few Syracusan ships capable of counter-attacking were almost immediately disabled and sunk, while the others were driven ashore along the stretch of coast that flanked the Carthaginian camp. Himilco’s mercenaries, who were reduced to serious straits and had been threatening desertion, rushed to plunder the ships and slaughter their crews, carrying all the grain meant for Acragas off to their own camp.

  The events reversed the fate of the war, which had until then seemed decided. The Acragantines, who had never exercised restraint or rationed their provisions, realized all at once that their stores were extremely low.

  The Spartan commander Dexippus, one of the few generals to have escaped death, assembled his officers and held council. ‘How many days can we hold out with what we have?’

  ‘Three or four days at most,’ they answered.

  ‘Then we must evacuate the city. Tomorrow.’

  Utter silence met his words. No one dared reply, but each one of them was searching desperately within himself for a solution.

  ‘We must inform the Council,’ said one of his officers, ‘so they can notify the population.’

  ‘Just one moment,’ intervened one of the commanders who had not spoken until then, a man from Gela called Euritous. ‘Are you saying that we have to empty a city of two hundred thousand people and leave . . . just like that?’ He clapped one hand hard against the other.

  ‘Just like that,’ repeated Dexippus, unperturbed. ‘Do you have any other proposals?’

  ‘Fighting. We could fight them. Open a corridor leading inland and get provisions from the countryside.’

  ‘Combat on the open field alongside the Syracusans,’ shouted another, a young Acragantine battalion commander. ‘We can still beat them!’

  There was no need to advise the Council. Guided by Tellias, the elders were at that moment arriving from the nearby bouleuterion to meet with the military chiefs and review the situation.

  ‘Can I have understood correctly?’ blurted out Tellias immediately. ‘Is there someone here who wants to evacuate the city?’

  ‘You’ve understood full well,’ retorted Dexippus. ‘We have no choice. There’s no way we can resist without food and provisions.’

  ‘You are crazy or a coward or both things together!’ screamed Tellias in his shrill voice. ‘We’ll throw open the gates, we’ll send out our boys armed to the teeth and they’ll break those scabby bastards’ arses! Then we’ll take back our grain and all the rest and make them sorry they ever thought of showing up here!’

  ‘If it were that simple,’ replied Dexippus, ‘I would do the same myself. I’m afraid it’s not. They won’t be lured into a battle on the open field. Why should they? They’ve got everything they need inside their fortified camp. They’ll wait until we’re half starved, then they’ll attack and finish us off. It’s much better to get out now while we’re still in time.’

  Tellias shook his head. ‘This just isn’t possible,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. There must be another way! There must be another solution!’

  He hadn’t finished speaking when a sentry who had been on duty up on the walls arrived. ‘Our Campanian mercenaries are deserting! They’re leaving from the southern gate and are headed towards the Carthaginian camp. When they found out there was nothing more to eat, they abandoned the stretch of walls they were guarding!’

  ‘See?’ said Dexippus. ‘If I had any doubts at all, they’re gone now. More than an entire stadium of the city’s walls are now unguarded. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘But the Syracusans and our Italian allies are still out there, by Heracles!’ broke in Tellias, anguished. ‘We can win even now with their help! Listen to me. We’ll contact Daphnaeus and the allies and decide together what must be done. We can’t rush into this . . . There’s still time . . .’ But his voice was suddenly tired and spent as he spoke these words.

  ‘As you wish,’ said Dexippus. ‘But we must act immediately.’ He called a sentry. ‘Take a horse, go out of the eastern gate and report to Daphnaeus. Tell him we have no food left and that we are planning to evacuate the city unless he has another feasible solution. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded the sentry, and turned to do as he had been told.

  ‘Wait,’ said Tellias. ‘Tell him that we’re ready to meet him now, wherever he wants. And ask for an officer called Dionysius; he’s the field adjutant of the board of generals. Request his presence, if there is to be a meeting.’

  ‘I’ll do so,’ replied the sentry, and left. He was seen shortly thereafter riding at full tilt towards the Syracusan camp.

  A cold, bone-chilling wind rose up, and a fine drizzle began to fall from the grey sky. The assembled men took shelter under the portico and waited at length, in silence, for the messenger to return with the sentence that would decide the fate of Acragas. But in the meantime, news filtered out that the city was to be evacuated and spread like fire from one house to the next, through every quarter. Despair did not spare a single home, not even the luxurious dwellings of the rich. Anguish gripped them all at the thought of leaving the place they were born in, and their anguish was joined by uncertainty and incredulity. Their authorities had not come to this decision after long agonizing, but suddenly, with no forewarning! It was true that the war had been going on for months, but it hadn’t really touched anybody; there had been no victims in the city, no damage to their property.

  Daphnaeus’s answer arrived as evening was falling: he would meet the authorities and the military commanders of Acragas at the eastern necropolis, where it was flanked by the road that went inland towards Kamikos. The sentry mentioned that he found him to be discouraged and in a terrible humour. ‘Don’t expect miracles,’ he said after he’d reported on the outcome of his mission. ‘The morale in the Syracusan camp didn’t seem any better than here in the city.’

  ‘Wait before you say that,’ interrupted Tellias. ‘Let’s wait to hear what Daphnaeus has to propose. Such an extreme decision can only be taken when there’s absolutely no other way out.’

  They set off immediately for the appointed place on horseback, leaving from a postern on the eastern side of the city. Tellias rode a mule, a meek animal who was used to his master’s outbursts of temper.

  Daphnaeus was already there, flanked by two of his most highly ranked officers and by Dionysius. They were armed from head to toe and had been escorted by no less than fifty cavalrymen and about thirty lightly armed skirmishers.

  Tellias noticed that, as far as he could tell from the coats of arms on their shields, they all appeared to be from Syracuse, Gela and Camarina; it seemed strange that only the Sicilian Greeks should have come.

  He spoke up first, made confident by Dionysius’s pre
sence. ‘Some of our military commanders, in particular Dexippus, here on my right, feel that we should evacuate the city tomorrow, because the remaining provisions will last us only a few days—’

  ‘What’s more,’ interrupted Dexippus, ‘our Campanian mercenaries have deserted to the enemy, leaving a segment of nearly one stadium of our walls undefended.’

  ‘Too big,’ thought Dionysius, and he seemed to remember once pronouncing or thinking those same words, in a dream perhaps.

  ‘I saw them go,’ said Daphnaeus.

  ‘It’s true,’ Tellias insisted stubbornly, ‘but we still have thousands of well-armed soldiers inside the city, and you have a powerful army out here. We can fight together and defeat them, can’t we?’

  Daphnaeus did not answer at once, and those long moments of silence weighed like a stone in the heart of each man present. Dionysius gazed into his friend’s eyes with an expression of intense discouragement. Daphnaeus finally spoke: ‘Not any more, I’m afraid. The Greeks of Italy are leaving us. Tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Tellias. ‘You can’t be serious!’

  ‘I am, unfortunately. They’re leaving, I tell you.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘That was the agreement: they would stay on until the winter solstice. They have to prepare their fields for sowing, and they don’t want to risk letting the bad weather get between them and their homes. In truth, the solstice is seven days off, but I don’t think that changes matters much.’

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Tellias, shaking his head in consternation. ‘I can’t believe it . . .’

  ‘As you see,’ stepped in Dexippus, who seemed to have been just waiting for the chance, ‘I was right. It’s best that we evacuate the city. We’ll use our troops to escort the refugees.’

  ‘You can take them to Leontini,’ suggested Daphnaeus. ‘The city is still under construction. We’ll have them add new—’

  ‘This can’t be true . . . this can’t be happening. There must be another way,’ protested Tellias. ‘You’re a warrior, for the sake of Heracles! You must tell me why you don’t want to fight: why are you carrying those arms? What’s that sword of yours good for?’ His distress was growing, and his shrill voice sounded like the shriek of a wounded bird.

  ‘You have to resign yourself to the facts,’ replied Daphnaeus. ‘We can’t risk it. If I gamble everything I have in a pitched battle – where we will be greatly outnumbered – and I lose, that will leave Syracuse undefended. And if Syracuse falls, that’s the end. I just can’t risk it; you must understand.’

  ‘That’s the true reason then: you’re afraid of losing! But don’t you understand that by defending Acragas you’re defending Syracuse? Can’t you understand that? You’re committing the same error that Diocles made at Himera. Terrible . . . terrible and stupid.’

  Daphnaeus lowered his head without saying a word, as the rain began to fall more heavily, wetting their helmets, their breastplates and their shields, making them gleam in the flashes of distant lightning.

  Tellias, his face dripping with rain and with tears, drew himself up with great dignity and said to Dionysius: ‘Do you think he’s right? Tell me, are you with him?’

  Dionysius shook his head in silence, then raised his eyes and looked straight at Daphnaeus and then at Dexippus with an expression of burning disdain.

  ‘They worked all this out between them, didn’t they,’ continued Tellias relentlessly. ‘It was all decided. Maybe they even let themselves be bribed. Yes, that’s certainly it. Otherwise why would they have told us that the Carthaginian fleet had been laid up, just as they were getting ready, in actuality, to assault the ships of Syracuse. Why else?’

  ‘You’re mad,’ said Daphnaeus. ‘You have no idea what you’re saying. I won’t kill you because you’re an old man and you’re raving mad. But I won’t listen to you for another moment.’ He turned to the Acragantine councillors, who were dumbstruck and appalled. ‘Follow Dexippus,’ he said to them. ‘Do what he says and at least you’ll save your lives. Farewell.’

  He mounted his horse and vanished into the dark, his escort trailing off after him.

  Tellias fell to his knees sobbing, indifferent to the falling rain.

  Dionysius helped him up and clasped him to his chest. ‘Go back to the city,’ he said, trying to console him, ‘go home and take care of your wife. Get ready to leave. I’ll welcome you to my own house, I’ll love you as if you were my parents. Please, take heart, Tellias, do it for me . . .’

  A flash of lightning lit up the desolate landscape of the necropolis, followed by a roll of thunder. Tellias wiped his face. ‘I’ll never leave my city, boy,’ he said. ‘Can you understand that? Never!’ And he rode off on his mule.

  The next day, the authorities gave the order to evacuate and the entire city was filled with weeping and despair. The Council house was surrounded by an enraged crowd, but there was no one there to listen to them, nor to take any measures other than those which had already been announced. Panic spread like wildfire. The population started pouring out through the eastern gate as if the enemy were already inside the walls, and it took all the determination the soldiers could muster to restrain them and direct them as best they could along the road for Gela.

  In the chaos of wails and screams, in the vortex of terror that swept through the city, the weak, the elderly and the sick were left behind; they would never have survived the hardships of a march hundreds of stadia long. Some took their own lives, others awaited their destiny, feeling that death was preferable to the loss of their homeland, of the places dearest to them, of the most beautiful city in the world.

  Tellias and his wife, who refused to leave him on his own, were among them. In vain Dionysius scanned the lines of refugees anxiously; unanswered he shouted out their names, riding back and forth, up and down that straggling column, asking all those he met if anyone had seen them. He could not know that at that very instant, they were up at the highest point of the city, on the glorious Athenaean rock, tearlessly watching the long dark serpent as it wound through the plains: the hosts of refugees abandoning Acragas like a stream of blood flowing copiously from a body wounded to death.

  Then the streets exploded with the howls of the rampant barbarians who sacked, destroyed, butchered everything in their way. They set fire to the grandiose Temple of Zeus down in the valley, still surrounded by wooden scaffolding, and the marvellous sculptures of the fall of Troy carved into the stone of the pediment came to life with tragic realism in the glow of the flames.

  Tellias then took his wife by the hand and together they walked towards the temple of the city’s protector, whose divine mass dominated the acropolis. They strolled tranquilly, as though they wanted to enjoy a last walk along the city’s most sacred road. They stopped under the colonnade, and turned around to see the screaming horde flooding towards the ramp that led to the landing and the podium. Then they entered the temple and closed the door behind them. Tellias held his lifelong companion in a last embrace. They silently exchanged knowing glances, then Tellias took a torch and set the sanctuary aflame.

  He burned with his bride, with his gods and with his memories.

  13

  ALL OF THE roads and paths that led to Gela were fraught with an enormous throng of desperate and terrified refugees. They were women, children, the elderly. All of the able-bodied men were armed and escorting the column. The old and the infirm had been abandoned because they would never have been able to withstand the long and difficult exodus. Many of the young women, even those from the richest and most noble families, journeyed on foot, carrying their younger brothers and sisters in their arms, showing great strength of character and courage as their delicate feet, used to wearing elegant sandals, became covered with blisters and wounds. They bit their lower lips like warriors in battle and swallowed their tears so as not to foster the fears of the little ones while their parents stumbled on, oppressed by the infinite grief of forsaking their homeland, the houses they
had always lived in and the tombs of their ancestors. The refugees were like trees uprooted by the winds of a storm and dragged towards an unknown and inhospitable destination. Their pain was compounded by bewilderment, because many of them did not understand the reason for such a sudden and frightening calamity. The fragments of information that reached them as they trudged along were often absurd and conflicting.

  They had no shelter from the harsh winter weather, nor against the hardships of such an arduous trek; few had taken food with them, and even fewer had water. They pushed on down the muddy road, but every now and then they would turn around as if insistent voices were calling them back – the regrets and the memories of the lives that they were leaving behind them.

  Among the many torments that afflicted them, besides hunger and fatigue, were the cold wind, the drizzling rain, the leaden, hostile sky.

  Their only consolation was the presence of their loved ones; although the men had formed ranks, they tried to march as close as they could to their families so the sight of them would give them the strength to continue.

  Dionysius had ridden down the length of the long column time and time again searching for Tellias and his wife, and had asked anyone he knew or thought he recognized about them, with no success until a man finally gave him the news that he was afraid of hearing: ‘Tellias stayed behind. I saw him together with his wife. As all of us were fleeing towards the eastern gate, he was walking up towards the acropolis, holding her hand. Headstrong old man! He always had to do things his way.’

  Upon hearing these words, Dionysius spurred on his horse, caught up with Daphnaeus at the head of the column, and asked for leave to turn back.