Tyrant

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

‘Have you heard that I’m going to Greece?’

  ‘I know. He deigned to notify me.’

  ‘Don’t talk that way. Dionysius is fond of you and esteems you.’

  Leptines changed the subject. ‘When do you think you’ll be ready?’

  ‘Tomorrow night.’

  ‘Good. We’ll avoid being seen.’

  Philistus managed to escape Carthaginian surveillance as Leptines manoeuvred to create a distraction. He reached Greece safe and sound, stopping first in Sparta and then in Corinth. Sparta gave him a sole officer in the role of military consultant, while Corinth saw fit to send a squadron of thirty ships complete with foot soldiers and crew; they reached Syracuse early that spring.

  Leptines went out to meet them on the open sea in a small boat, and had them enter the harbour one moonless night. Sheltered docks had been prepared – practically invisible from both the sea and the city – to hide the small Corinthian fleet and hopefully allow them to catch the enemy unawares.

  Once anchorage was accomplished, he held the first general staff meeting at his residence in the admiralty. After welcoming the Spartan officer and the Corinthians, he began to lay out his plan: ‘I learned this morning that a convoy of nine Carthaginian triremes is due to arrive tomorrow evening with supplies and money to pay the mercenaries. With your help, I intend to intercept them.’

  Those present stared at each other in alarm and perplexity. Had Leptines thought up this idea himself or was Dionysius’s approval behind it? No one dared to ask.

  The Spartan officer, whose name was Euridemus, replied: ‘It seems like a good idea, but it will take considerable skill to carry it off.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s why I need pilots and crew capable of navigating at night,’ said Leptines.

  ‘All of our pilots can navigate at night,’ replied the Corinthian officers. ‘We were navigating at night when you didn’t even know how to navigate by day.’

  Leptines did not allow the comment to annoy him; the Greeks from the metropolis were always quite arrogant, and it wasn’t worth it to challenge their ideas of superiority. He said only: ‘Very good. That’s what we need. We’ll use twenty ships: ten of ours and ten of yours. I want the men at their oars and the crews at the rigging when the bugle sounds the second guard shift. The task of the mission will be communicated by the commanders once the ships are in the open sea. I will sail at the head. The rest of you will follow the Boubaris.’

  The following day, the squadron left the harbour at midnight with their lights out and slipped silently into the open sea.

  25

  LEPTINES HAD DONE everything in his power to make sure the night assault would be successful. Several boats had been posted at intervals one stadium apart, with navy officers on board disguised as fishermen apparently intent on fishing with lanterns. As soon as the outermost boat spied the looming bulk of the Carthaginian ships, it sent a signal, and the Syracusan fleet fanned out with their bows to the sea and the wind at their sterns. The flagship flashed another light signal and the attack was on.

  The Carthaginians were so sure that the ships were friendly vessels come to escort them into the harbour that when they realized the truth they had no time to react. Two Syracusan ships drew up on either side of each of their triremes and hundreds of attackers flooded on board. Many of the Carthaginian soldiers were still sleeping when they found their enemies’ swords at their throats.

  The combatants who attempted resistance were killed, the others were simply disarmed; the ships were towed into the harbour and the rich bounty was unloaded and put in safe keeping.

  Dionysius, who was waiting on the wharf, went forward to meet his brother and embraced him. ‘Well done, by Zeus! We needed a victory, even a small one: tomorrow you’ll be celebrated as a hero!’

  ‘Small?’ replied Leptines. ‘Just wait and see: we’re not even half finished.’

  What are you saying?’

  Philistus arrived out of breath, still wearing his nightclothes. What’s happening here? You could have told me that—’

  ‘Himilco’s expecting these ships tonight, is he not?’ said Leptines.

  ‘Yes . . .’ agreed Dionysius.

  ‘And he’ll have them.’ He turned to the officers gathered around them. ‘Each of you switch your clothing and your weapons with those of the prisoners, transfer the oarsmen to the Carthaginian ships and be ready to set sail!’

  ‘Brilliant,’ commented Philistus. ‘Absolutely brilliant: a plan worthy of a great strategist.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Dionysius.

  ‘No,’ replied Leptines. ‘It’s still a very risky undertaking. One of us is more than enough; it’s best that you stay here in the city. You have a family, while I have no one. It’s gone well so far, hasn’t it? Let me take care of things this time.’

  Dionysius stared straight into his eyes: ‘I could have killed you at Catane . . .’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And I would have committed a great error. I sometimes ask myself which of us is truly the better man.’

  ‘Me, obviously,’ replied Leptines. ‘Give me the password, you bastard!’

  ‘Sod the world!’ laughed Dionysius.

  ‘Sod the world!’ repeated Leptines, and he jumped on the deck of a Carthaginian ship.

  Philistus was moved by their banter; he realized that Dionysius’s deepest feelings were still alive beneath the crust of power that got harder with each passing day. He continued to hope – or perhaps he was only fooling himself – that the man would finally win over the tyrant.

  The squadron left Laccius and turned to starboard, keeping in the lee of Ortygia as far as possible, until they found themselves directly opposite Plemmyrium, on the side facing the Great Harbour. They veered right again towards Dascon, where the lights of the Carthaginian guardhouse were glittering; they could soon make out the surveillance units.

  The look-out soldiers saluted the standards of Tanit on the ships parading by and they were greeted in response in their own language. A Carthaginian officer had been convinced, by a sword digging into the small of his back, to reassure them with the familiar sound of his voice. The small fleet was free to move now, and Leptines guided it to the end of the roadstead, where fifty or so warships were riding at anchor.

  The attack was as fast as it was violent: immobile as they were, ten vessels were rammed and sunk in the initial strike. The others went up in flames under a shower of incendiary arrows.

  A second wave of fiery arrows came down on the tents and deposits, while shouts exploded from every corner of the camp and prolonged bugle blasts sounded the alarm.

  The confusion was such that Leptines managed to hook up half a dozen enemy ships and tow them out into the bay. At dawn, his squadron entered the Laccius harbour triumphantly, greeted by a cheering multitude.

  Leptines felt reborn in the embrace of the crowd and in that of his brother Dionysius, but then his glance fell on the fortress walls, and he saw a slender female figure on the tower bastions. She seemed to be waving her arm and he knew deep down that it was Aristomache, so small in the distance, so far away and unattainable.

  Emboldened by their success, the Syracusan navy under Leptines’s command launched a series of attacks, sinking a great number of transports and more than a few warships. The Carthaginians were furious over their losses, and decided to drive their adversaries from the Laccius port and destroy their bases through a massive attack.

  This time Dionysius was aboard the Boubaris as well, and in the furious fray that followed the two brothers were seen fighting at each other’s sides with incredible daring, leading the assault troops as they had when they were twenty.

  Supported by catapults drawn up on the two promontories that curled around the entrance to the harbour, the Syracusan fleet were in a favourable position in the restricted area of Laccius, and they inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, forcing them to withdraw in the end. Ten ships were captured and repaired, so that the available f
orce now amounted to more than fifty units, in addition to their own.

  On the ground, the cavalry was no less triumphant, carrying out dozens of raids, attacking the Carthaginian patrols roaming the countryside in search of food and forage, wiping out the military units reconnoitring the territory, and often threatening Himilco’s own outposts on the Anapus plain.

  These constant skirmishes continued throughout the spring, and then came summer, burning hot, sweltering and humid.

  And with the summer, plague broke out in the Carthaginian camp. The dead were thrown into the lagoon with stones tied to their ankles, sowing contagion through the hidden veins of water.

  The brutal heat had dried many wells inside the walls, but the Arethusa spring continued to flow clear and pure. Philistus recalled the words of Iolaus, when he had said that the fount would be the salvation of the city, and he ordered the Syracusans to drink only the water of the sacred spring until the war was over and the rains had returned.

  During those endless days, blinded by a fierce sun, Dionysius often caught himself thinking of the wild girl who lived in the rocky valley at the Anapus springs and the day he had made love to her on the shore. He wondered whether she was still alive and whether she ever thought of him.

  Neither his Italian wife – an artful administrator of her charms, inclined to give only when she could have something in return – nor his Syracusan wife, so melancholy and reticent, had ever given him so much pleasure. Not even the birth of her sons, Hipparinus and Nysaeus, had removed the veil of sadness that always shadowed Aristomache’s face.

  For some time now Dionysius had avoided occasional encounters with women he did not know, for fear of putting his life at risk. He even saw his friends – or those who claimed to be so – infrequently. His solitude increased and all of his thoughts were concentrated on his strategy for war and his political design for the great State of Western Greece, to which he dedicated all his energy. He asked himself how many Syracusans loved him and how many hated him, how many admired him and how many dreaded him.

  All of these thoughts only nursed the suspicions that were growing inside, and with them the fear that someone might attempt to take his life. All his efforts would be thwarted, the enormous toll of human lives would have been for naught. Perhaps he was the only one left to believe in his dream of greatness. The words of Heloris, his adoptive father, sprang to mind: ‘The only way to get a tyrant to abandon his place is to pull him out by the feet.’ The image obsessed him, and yet he could not share his fears with anyone. He could not afford to seem weak and vulnerable, not even with the few real friends he had left: Iolaus, Philistus and his brother Leptines.

  Only Aksal the giant, his inseparable bodyguard, gave him a sense of reassurance, like the armour that covered his chest in battle. Aksal was both powerful and blindly faithful, ready at his beck and call.

  On one occasion, as they were discussing a plan of attack with the officers in the barracks courtyard, Leptines took a spear from one of the Campanian mercenaries; he had wanted to use its tip to sketch the lines of action on to the sand, but Dionysius started. Leptines saw the rage and terror in his brother’s expression for just an instant, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. He handed the spear back to the warrior and walked off in silence.

  Dionysius ran after him and stopped him. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re asking.’

  ‘You don’t understand . . . The men have orders to never let anyone disarm them, and I can’t let . . .’

  ‘Are you still capable of a sincere answer?’ asked Leptines, staring straight into his eyes.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Are you capable of answering me?’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then tell me: did you think I wanted to kill you?’

  Dionysius’s head dropped for several interminable moments, and then he said: ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why: because you’d be capable of it if you were in my place.’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’re wrong. The reason is that perhaps I hate myself more than anyone else can hate me.’

  Silence fell between the two brothers. They looked each other in the eye without being able to say a word.

  ‘What must I do?’ asked Dionysius finally.

  ‘Attack. Lead your men on the front lines. The Syracusans, not the mercenaries. Send the hirelings out on their own. Show that you are one of us, that you’re ready to die for what you believe in.’ He said nothing else, and walked away, down a corridor. Dionysius listened to the sound of his steps fading into the distance.

  They waited to attack until Himilco’s troops seemed on their last legs, and the stench of unburied cadavers became unbearable. Dionysius decided to put the battle plan which had failed him at Gela back into action.

  ‘We will attack with three army corps,’ he announced at the meeting of the high command. ‘I’ll be at the fore of the central unit, which will head directly for the fort at Dascon. Euridemus will lead the second division with the mercenaries, from the west. Leptines, you will lead the assault from the sea, putting ashore the third contingent. The decision of when to deliver the final attack will be made then and there, on the ground, when the three divisions are in position at the fortified camp and our situation is clear. The password will be “Apollo, leader of troops!”’

  The two land divisions set off under cover of darkness, after Leptines had left the port with the fleet. Dionysius proceeded directly to Dascon, taking the fort by surprise. He occupied the position and established his headquarters there. He signalled for Euridemus to send forth his mercenaries just as Leptines was rounding the southern promontory of Ortygia. The Spartan ordered the attack.

  Although their numbers had been decimated by the plague, Himilco’s Iberians and Campanians reacted with great vigour, driving back the mercenaries led by Euridemus and inflicting heavy losses. But in the meantime, Leptines had set ashore his division of assault troops and Dionysius was approaching with the bulk of the force, leaving only a garrison behind to hold the clearing in front of the fort of Dascon.

  The fortifications of Himilco’s entrenched camp appeared too strong for a frontal attack, and Dionysius decided not to risk it. He launched his troops instead against the naval camp. Caught between Leptines’s men and the two ground divisions, the Mauritanians and the Libyans posted in defence of the ships were soon overwhelmed and thoroughly beaten. Many of the lighter Carthaginian ships had been pulled aground, and Dionysius ordered for them to be set on fire, transforming the camp into a huge blaze. A violent land wind pushed the flames out to sea, and a number of the transport ships caught fire as well and were devoured. The crewless triremes anchored three rows out were destroyed in part and towed in part to the Laccius harbour. Less than a third of them managed to escape out to sea, with greatly reduced crews.

  A vast crowd had formed up on the city’s walls, drawn by the spectacle of the raging fire; the people were out of their minds with joy at seeing the enemy fleet destroyed, and they loudly cheered on the soldiers they could see quite plainly in the fields below. Many of them, especially the old men and boys, seeing the huge quantity of Carthaginian vessels drifting in the roadstead, went out with anything that would stay afloat to take possession of them and tow them to port. So many vessels were recovered in this way that there was no room left at all in the shipyards, and the ships had to be anchored at the centre of the gulf or along the northern shore.

  That evening, a victorious Dionysius entered the city at the head of his troops, amidst the frenzied applause of the crowd. He officiated a solemn sacrifice at the Temple of Athena on the acropolis. Both his wives were present, dressed in beautiful gowns, Doris holding little Dionysius by the hand, and Aristomache with Hipparinus and tiny Nysaeus as well.

  The fortified Carthaginian camp was nonetheless still intact, as was Himilco’s army, although
his fleet had been largely lost. Only about sixty battleships and transports had escaped, out of more than five hundred that the great armada had boasted of at the start.

  The destiny of the war had been completely overturned.

  Two days later, a dinghy approached the Ortygia castle from the open sea after dark, and the boatmen called out to the sentries: ‘A message for your commander.’

  Iolaus was immediately notified by his guards and went in person to meet the man on the boat. He took him to Dionysius, who was dining with Leptines and Philistus. The nocturnal messenger was bearing a message from Himilco.

  ‘Speak,’ said Dionysius. ‘This is my brother and I consider the others likewise.’

  The man removed the hood covering his face and proved to be the same ambassador who had come during the last war to negotiate peace.

  ‘Things have changed since we saw you last,’ observed Dionysius in a nonetheless conciliatory tone. ‘What can I do for noble Himilco?’

  ‘My lord has a very reasonable proposal to make you, that I hope you will accept.’

  ‘That depends on how reasonable it is,’ replied Dionysius.

  ‘To begin with, he offers you three hundred talents in silver, eighty per cent in coins and the rest in bars.’

  ‘Promising beginning,’ scoffed Leptines.

  ‘In exchange, noble Himilco requests that you allow him to leave with the Carthaginian troops. Ten thousand men in all.’

  ‘What about the mercenaries? And the natives?’ asked Iolaus.

  ‘We do not have sufficient ships for them. You can do with them as you please. If you accept, the sum will be delivered tomorrow morning at an established spot near Plemmyrium. What do you say?’

  ‘Leave us now,’ replied Dionysius. ‘We must discuss this. You will be notified.’

  Aksal led him out of the room and the four men began to discuss the terms.

  ‘You can’t intend to accept!’ protested Leptines immediately. ‘He must surrender unconditionally. At the very most, you could allow him to slip off on his own and save his own skin. We’ll get the booty anyway when they’ve finished rotting in that hole. After all, they have no way out. We’ll close them off by land with the cavalry and block them at sea with the fleet. We’re stronger than they are now. We even have the quinqueremes.’