Tyrant

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Philistus followed him, struggling to keep up as he chatted with Leptines along the way. ‘Boubaris . . . what a curious name! Where did he fish that one up?’

  ‘I was the one who thought of it,’ replied Leptines. ‘When we were boys, we had a duck in the farmyard that was so big and heavy they called her Boubaris: heavy-as-an-ox.’

  ‘A duck!’ said Philistus, shaking his head. ‘A duck . . . my word!’

  They entered the courtyard and Philistus was even more bewildered and amazed: three gigantic machines had been assembled in the middle of the yard, each of them surrounded by a dozen busy artillerymen. Some manoeuvred the arm of a winch connected to an enormous bowstring, in order to draw it taut. In response to a curt order, the slider was released and the string loosed a heavy dart of solid iron which struck a ten-inch-thick board with a dull thud, running it through from back to front.

  ‘We’ve called it “ballista”. If it is aimed at an infantry formation, it can cause a massacre. If it hits the side of a ship, even beneath the waterline, it can sink her from a distance of one hundred feet. And take a look at that.’

  He pointed at a machine whose long, flexible wooden arm ended in a spoon which held a weight of perhaps one hundred pounds. A winch system pulled it taut, almost to the breaking point, then loosed it all at once. The weight was hurled at a wall made of large hewn blocks of lava stone and pulverized it. ‘We’ve called this one a “catapult”.’

  ‘You designed these as well?’ asked Philistus in astonishment.

  ‘I did,’ replied Dionysius. ‘I’ve been working day and night, first on the plans, then on scale models built by architects, and finally on these working models that you see here. They function perfectly. We’re building fifty of each. Himilco’s rams will seem like toys compared to these!’

  ‘You’re preparing for war,’ nodded Philistus.

  ‘That’s right. I’ll finally drive the Carthaginians completely out of Sicily. I’ll gather the survivors of Selinus, Acragas, Himera and Gela under my standard, I’ll muster mercenaries from everywhere and I’ll march all the way to Motya and Panormus.’

  ‘All this is incredible,’ murmured Philistus, looking over at the mechanisms drawing back the crossbows with a series of sinister creaks.

  ‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ said Leptines. ‘If you’re not too tired, we can take a walk through the city; you won’t believe your eyes. The walls have been lengthened by seven stadia to include Epipolae, which has always been our Achilles’ heel. What’s more, we’re building a castle at the top, an impregnable fortress called Euryalus. A line of bastions to make the Athenian Long Walls pale! It will be the most impressive fortified complex ever seen.’

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ replied Philistus. ‘I still can’t really imagine what you’ve been up to in this city.’

  ‘Leptines will go with you,’ said Dionysius. ‘I have to remain here for the testing of my machines. I want them perfect when it’s time to line them up at the front.’

  They crossed the Ortygia isthmus and proceeded to Achradina, following the line of walls which seemed to be growing before their eyes. Philistus couldn’t believe what he was seeing. In the two months he’d been gone, the length of the walls had nearly tripled, and the city had become a gigantic building yard. Thousands and thousands of stone-cutters, porters, labourers, masons and master-builders were working simultaneously along the entire line.

  ‘Dionysius has invented a system that works miracles,’ explained Leptines. ‘He divided the entire perimeter into one-hundred-foot sections and has assigned each section to an independent team, led by a building foreman, who is responsible for the execution and the progress of the works. Each team is paid on the basis of the length of the wall section they manage to build, and the faster the wall goes up, the higher the pay. So everyone works to his maximum potential. The slaves have even been promised their freedom, and this has driven them to quite unimaginable feats. They work in shifts, day and night, never stopping, under the supervision of inspectors who are directly accountable to Dionysius, so that their very lives are at stake if he doesn’t find the work satisfactory!’

  They walked for nearly an hour before they reached Epipolae and the Euryalus fortress, surrounded by trenches. From there they could take in the whole city in a single glance: the new districts, the long snaking walls, the two harbours and Ortygia.

  ‘In three months’ time, the entire circle of wall and the fortress will be complete. Syracuse will be impregnable.’

  ‘I believe it,’ replied Philistus. ‘But all this won’t go unobserved. They’ll find out in Carthage and adopt measures to counter ours.’

  ‘That’s not said. The Carthaginian quarter here in Syracuse is completely surrounded by mercenaries. No one can enter or exit without permission. We’ll arrest and imprison them on the slightest suspicion. We’ll use torture, if necessary.’

  ‘The first unhappy effects of the war,’ commented Philistus. ‘Those people have always lived amongst us, trading and carrying on business to our mutual advantage. Now all of a sudden they’ve become our sworn enemies, so dangerous they must be locked up, persecuted . . .’

  ‘Well, they started first, didn’t they?’ objected Leptines.

  ‘No one knows who started first, believe me. This war will become a clash of the two different races, us and them, and it will not abate until one of the two has been completely wiped out.’

  ‘You’re strange,’ observed Leptines. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘Do you need to ask? The fact is that the preparations I’ve seen worry me. Dionysius is tossing enormous resources into the furnace of war; he’s sure of winning, but on the other side of the sea there’s a shrewd and evasive enemy, a great naval power capable of cutting off our supply and trade routes . . .’

  ‘But Dionysius also wants to marry . . . he wants an heir. That means he’s looking towards the future, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Right, the two wives. And who might the chosen one be here in Syracuse?’

  ‘Aristomache,’ replied Leptines, suddenly serious.

  ‘Hipparinus’s daughter? I can’t believe it.’

  ‘He’s always been a member of the Company, one of the most important.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s always been an adversary of Heloris, Dionysius’s adoptive father.’

  ‘Heloris will have to get used to the idea. His daughters are all as ugly as can be. Aristomache is gorgeous. You know, I’ve known her ever since we were children; we used to play in the courtyard together. When I went to ask for her hand for my brother, I couldn’t believe my eyes: she’s become as beautiful as Aphrodites! High, firm breasts, hands that were made to caress a man’s body and . . .’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Philistus cut him off. ‘I don’t even want to think about hearing those words. Let’s say I’ve never heard them. Your brother would slit your throat if he knew.’

  ‘You’re right . . .’ admitted Leptines. ‘He’d probably slit my throat.’

  With the return of spring, the Boubaris majestically went to sea, parting the waters with her rostrum like a plough does the earth and raising two symmetric waves as she passed. Dionysius was impatient to test her out and had had a Carthaginian ship captured on patrol near Selinus towed offshore to be used as a target. On board were Philistus and Leptines, along with his future father-in-law Hipparinus.

  At a gesture from the navarch, the drummer started to pound out the rowing tempo, getting progressively louder and faster. Dismasted, the Boubaris was launched on to the waves with impressive force, helped along by a light, favourable wind.

  At the navarch’s order, the oars were pulled in with absolute synchrony and the pointed rostrum ran through the side of the target with a huge crash and split the Carthaginian vessel in two.

  Dionysius and his friends had a firm grip on the railing, but the moment of impact was incredible. The ropes cut into their clothing and rubbed their skin raw, and Philistus nearly broke his back.


  The two halves sank in a matter of moments. The Boubaris plunged forward and then put about, steered by the stern rudders, as the oars plunged back into the sea.

  A cry of exultation rose from the crew and Dionysius ran to the stern to behold the flotsam from the wreck afloat on the foaming waves. ‘Nike! Nike!’ he shouted. ‘We won! The quinquereme is the most fearsome ship to ride the waves in our day!’

  They all congratulated each other, but Philistus couldn’t help but think that the Carthaginians would certainly not sit there like the target had, waiting for five talents of iron to tear into them, and that things might be very different indeed in battle. But he didn’t want to spoil the mood, and so he too joined in the ovations. The Boubaris, after all, would soon be his means of transport for Locri, where Dionysius’s Italian fiance´e was waiting.

  ‘Why did you call Locri the “city of women”?’ asked Leptines as they were returning. ‘Remember? After you came back from Rhegium.’

  ‘Of course I remember. And if you weren’t so ignorant, I wouldn’t have to explain it to you. We know from ancient accounts that when the Locrians from the metropolis were in battle, the women became so tired of being at home alone that they went to bed with their slaves and had children by them. When their husbands came back from the war, they repudiated their wives, who took to the seas and sailed with their offspring to Italy, where they founded Locri. Women are still considered the heads of their families in Locri, and it is the women who hand down their names and their inheritance. That’s why Locri is the city of women . . .’

  Leptines grinned. ‘If that’s the way the city was founded, I don’t know whether he’s so lucky to be marrying a Locrian, but if he’s happy . . .’

  ‘Right: if he’s happy . . .’ shrugged Philistus.

  The Boubaris entered the dockyard again, and the naval architects who had built her crowded around to inspect the vessel down to the last nail. They had to check that the rostrum hadn’t suffered any cracks, and that the tension cable below deck hadn’t lost any of its tautness. Everything was in perfect order; even the keel, which was almost twenty feet longer than usual, had held up well under impact. The first quinquereme ever built was about to become the queen of battles.

  She set to sea again a few days later to take Philistus to Locri. Dionysius’s betrothed had been chosen by the most influential family of the city, who had offered their noblest and most beautiful daughter: Doris.

  She was not dark at all, as Dionysius had suggested. She was blonde, instead, with blue eyes, hair as fine and shiny as threads of gold. Her high breasts were so firm that the Ionian peplum she wore – as light as air and so soft as to reveal every curve of her body – fell with supreme elegance.

  She knew very well that she would be sharing her husband with another woman, and yet she was very happy to be going to Syracuse; she seemed a little girl eagerly awaiting a party. Philistus imagined that her family must be very rigid and strict indeed if passing from the authority of her father to the authority of her husband was such a relief for her, but then he remembered that it was the women who headed the households in Locri. Perhaps female traditions took no notice of the idea of exclusive possession, typical of men obsessed by the thought of domination. Maybe she was happy because she would have children, or because she would lie with a man who everyone raved about, and was not bothered about anything else. After all, Dionysius’s fame was such that he was certainly worth any other two men.

  Philistus participated in celebrations and ceremonies of all sorts for three days. During the festivities, he delivered the groom’s wedding gift: an ancient golden necklace, set with drops of amber, crafted by a great artist. He then took aboard the girl, her mother, and her vast dowry of coins, garments, furnishings, jewels, pets, fabrics, perfumes, paintings, statues, tableware both new and antique, and the sacred images she would worship in her new home.

  Among all this, Philistus was struck by a little statue of Athena. It was rough and primitive and not lovely in any way, but extremely fascinating; quite strangely, it portrayed the goddess with her eyes closed. ‘What is this?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s a reproduction of the Palladion, the sacred image of Athena that made the city of Troy invincible, stolen away by Odysseus and Diomedes. The night of the fall of the city, our national hero Ajax Oileus raped princess Cassandra at the foot of the Palladion. The goddess closed her eyes so as not to witness the abomination. Since then, in expiation for that rape, our city sends two virgins to Troy from our best families every year, to serve in the Temple of Athena of Ilium.’

  ‘And have you been, my lady?’ asked Philistus.

  ‘No, but I would have liked so much to go! To see the armour of Achilles, his tomb and the tomb of Patroclus . . .’

  ‘You are very well educated.’

  ‘I know, you Dorians think that it’s a scandal to educate women, but here it’s the norm. It is we women who dictate the laws of society, and we have a much fairer and more sensible way of life.’

  ‘And you’re not afraid of ending up in the bed of the most terrible of these Dorians, the one who everyone calls “the Tyrant”?’

  ‘No,’ replied the girl, with a hint of a smile in her blue eyes. ‘On the contrary, I’m curious to see whether he’ll live up to his repute.’

  They spoke at length during the journey, and became friends. Philistus thought it was only fair to warn her about what her life would be like in Syracuse. ‘You know what awaits you,’ he said. ‘Dionysius has had two bedchambers built adjacent to his own bedroom, and he will sleep with both of you in turn. But the three of you will dine together, unless one of you is not well and prefers to remain in her apartments. But I would not recommend feeling ill more than once or twice in an entire year!’

  ‘I understand,’ said Doris as she leaned on the ship’s railing, caressed by the wind of Zephyr until Philistus startled her by saying: ‘Look: Syracuse!’

  Aristomache arrived on a chariot drawn by four white horses, driven by a charioteer wearing a tunic shot through with purple threads. Her hair was raven with violet reflections, and she wore a flame-coloured peplum gathered at the waist with a golden belt.

  Doris arrived from the port on a litter borne by eight slaves, including an Ethiopian who aroused the curiosity of the onlookers. But the crowd’s applause went to the Syracusan, and they hoped deep down that she would be the one to give an heir to Dionysius, who the people had come to accept as a monarch and the founder of a dynasty.

  They simultaneously crossed the thresholds of the eastern and western gates of the Ortygia fortress, following a protocol the master of ceremonies had practised again and again with the aid of actors.

  The date had been selected so that neither of the two girls had her menstrual period on that day.

  The groom was wearing a very simple, floor-length white chiton. His iron bracelet was adorned with a single red stone, said to have been forged with the iron of the dagger that had killed the murderers of his first wife, Arete.

  A long wedding ceremony took place, followed by a lavish banquet laid for ten thousand people, to which both foreigners, including the mercenary officers, and citizens of every rank and social position had been invited. The adoptive father of the groom, old Heloris, was notable for his absence; he had felt so offended by Dionysius’s exclusion of his daughters that he had gone into exile in Rhegium. There he would later put himself at the head of the Syracusan Knights who had fled or survived the distruction of Aetna and were organizing a sort of armed resistance against the tyrant in the city.

  After the official banquet, the two brides were conducted each into her own bedchamber, where they were undressed and had their hair combed by their handmaids. A group of singers struck up first a Syracusan, then immediately after a Locrian, wedding hymn.

  Dionysius entered Doris’s room first. He contemplated her tenderly in the lamplight, for she lay completely nude on top of the covers, displaying her glorious curves to her husband’s gaze. Her mother
had instructed her well, and had taught her how to move her hips to give pleasure to her man and to induce him to spill all his seed into her womb, so that none would remain for the Syracusan bride.

  But Doris added her own lascivious innocence to her mother’s teachings and prolonged their intimacy at great length, gratifying her groom with enticing words, and flattering his vanity in every way.

  When it was the Syracusan’s turn, Dionysius knew he would find her ill-disposed by her long wait and perhaps vexed by the thought that he had no more seed for her. And so he was especially lavish in his attentions and his tenderness, and he satisfied all her senses to the utmost. He kissed her on the lips, then her breasts, her stomach and all over her body until he finally penetrated her, but he did not find the rapture in her body that he had expected. Doris, who was listening in from her own room, was surprised and rather pleased by all that silence. Was Aristomache so timid, as all the Dorian girls were said to be?

  Dionysius promised the Syracusan that the next night he would lie with her first, and he was still holding her in his arms when the door opened gently and Doris appeared with a lantern in hand. She smiled at both and said: ‘Can I stay with you? I’m afraid to sleep alone.’

  Aristomache was about to react, but seeing Dionysius’s amused expression, she held her tongue. Doris slipped into bed and began first to caress Dionysius, awakening the virility exhausted by that long night of love, and then Aristomache as well. The Syracusan stiffened, but did not push her away so as not to irritate her husband, who seemed delighted by the game.

  Doris was the first to become pregnant.

  21

  DIONYSIUS DECIDED TO wait until the crops had been harvested before beginning the war, to avoid defections on the part of the allies due to the demands of their farms. In the meantime, he sent an envoy to Carthage with an ultimatum: the prisoners must be released without ransom, and the city government must recognize the independence of the Greek cities destroyed in the previous wars. Dionysius knew from his informers that the Punic capital had been greatly weakened by the plague, but he underestimated his enemy’s pride.