Tyrant

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Dionysius held up his hand to stop his brother’s ranting. ‘Desperation can perform miracles. Men who have nothing left to lose can find an unimaginable amount of strength.’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Iolaus. ‘There’s a hidden store of energy inside every human being, a kind of buried treasure that comes to the fore when he is threatened. It is the last resource that nature gives us for our survival.’

  ‘One thing is certain,’ said Philistus. ‘We need those three hundred talents. War expenses have been enormous, we’ve fallen behind in paying the mercenaries and we also have to compensate the families of the Syracusans who have fallen in battle. What’s more, we have to rebuild the fleet and make payment to the contingent sent by the metropolis.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ intervened Iolaus. ‘The longer these people stay here, the greater the chance that the plague will spread to us as well. If we let them go, they’ll spread it back at home. It has happened before. I know how that kind of disease spreads.’

  ‘I’m convinced of it as well,’ approved Philistus. ‘Well then, what shall we do?’

  Leptines was furious. ‘You’re all mad! We finally have the chance to exterminate every last one of them and you want to let them go for three hundred talents?’

  ‘It is a pretty sum,’ admitted Philistus.

  ‘Listen, if it’s about the money, I swear to you that I will find it myself and bring it here to you. I’ll blockade the camp so that not even a fly will be able to get out.’

  ‘I’ve listened to your opinions,’ interrupted Dionysius at that point. ‘Have the ambassador come back in.’

  Aksal brought Himilco’s messenger back into the room. ‘We have meditated on your proposals and I would like to make one myself . . .’ began Dionysius.

  ‘Excuse me, supreme leader,’ interrupted the ambassador politely, ‘but a short while ago as I was waiting outside, without meaning to, I heard one of you, whose voice was quite loud . . .’ Dionysius shot an irritated look at his brother, who was still flushed with anger. ‘I thought I heard, I was saying, that you intend to set up a blockade so that the treasure cannot leave the fortified camp. The fact is, my friends, that the money . . . is not in the camp and, if these negotiations fail, it will be immediately dumped into the sea, at a depth that no one will be able to reach. A true waste, wouldn’t you say? When a reasonable decision could satisfy both you and us.’

  Dionysius sighed.

  ‘Well then, may I know your decision?’

  ‘Tell your lord that I accept. The exchange will take place at sea, halfway between your camp on the Anapus and the southern promontory of Ortygia. As soon as I’ve seen the money, the first ships can set sail. This will all take place at night, with the utmost secrecy.’

  ‘That is agreeable to us,’ confirmed the ambassador. ‘When would you like to proceed with the transaction?’

  ‘There is a new moon tomorrow night,’ replied Dionysius. ‘You’ll bring the money at the beginning of the second guard shift. Three light signals on our side and three on yours.’

  ‘Very well, hegemon. Now, if you will allow me to do so, I shall return to tell my lord of the happy outcome of my mission and reassure him of your good intentions.’

  ‘See?’ said Dionysius to Leptines as soon as the ambassador had left. ‘You think you can screw a Carthaginian? When dealing with money, above all? I’ve made the right decision. And now let us go to bed. A long day awaits us tomorrow, and most likely not an easy one.’

  His guests took their leave, but Dionysius called Leptines back.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I reflected on your proposal. There was some good in what you said.’

  Leptines looked surprised. ‘Don’t mock me.’

  ‘I’m not. Listen well: after the money is delivered, imagine that someone in Ortygia should notice strange goings-on at the mouth of the Great Harbour . . .’

  ‘I can see where you’re going,’ replied Leptines. ‘But that means that you’re precluding any future possibility of an honest agreement between them and us.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be true if, for example, the Corinthians attack. We can’t give orders to the navy of our metropolis. And the Carthaginians know that as well.’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t said anything to me. I don’t like deceit, even if it’s used against my worst enemy. If you need me for anything else, you know where to find me. Rest well, brother.’

  Leptines left.

  The following night, at the hour agreed upon, Dionysius went out on a dinghy and met up with a trireme that was waiting for him at a stadium’s distance from land, on the open sea. Then the warship slowly advanced towards the harbour. Two small reconnaissance units were stationed at both sides in a forward position, at about half a stadium’s distance from the trireme, to guard against surprises or ambushes.

  Everything went as planned. As soon as they had reached the spot agreed upon, the ship was approached by a Carthaginian vessel and, after an exchange of signals, the transfer of the money was begun.

  The ambassador who had conducted the negotiations was on board. ‘Hegemon,’ he said immediately, ‘I would ask to have the count done as soon as possible. Our fleet is already near Plemmyrium, ready to put out to sea.’

  Dionysius nodded and his administrators, ready with their lever scales, swiftly weighed the money and gave the go-ahead. ‘You can tell your lord that he may leave,’ he said to the ambassador, ‘and tell him never to come back. You see, Sicily is like a delicious fruit with a very hard pit inside, which anyone would break their teeth on. Syracuse is the pit. Farewell.’

  The boat sailed off and Dionysius saw it sending off light signals, probably to Plemmyrium where Himilco was waiting with the fleet.

  ‘How will he have managed to deceive the mercenaries?’ asked Iolaus.

  ‘It probably wasn’t difficult. He may have said that he was preparing a night raid. The Carthaginians are the only sailors who navigate well at night, so no one would have been surprised that they were the only ones aboard. Let’s make our return; there will be a lot going on around here in a short time.’

  Iolaus nodded and motioned to the pilot to turn towards Ortygia.

  The treasure was unloaded at the base of the cliffs below the castle, where a secret passage led to the underground chambers of the fortress. Dionysius and Iolaus entered the same way, and went straight to their apartments.

  Some time passed before they heard bugle blasts rending the night. ‘Hegemon! Hegemon! The Carthaginians are escaping! The Corinthians have spotted them and are going out with their ships. What must we do?’

  ‘What do you mean, what must we do?!’ he shouted. ‘Sound the alarm, by Zeus! Call my brother, all the crews to their ships! Move!’

  Great turmoil ensued, but the only ones who managed to get out in time were the Corinthians, who intercepted the tail end of the Carthaginian fleet and sank a dozen ships.

  Himilco got away. When he arrived in his homeland, he publicly confessed his mistakes to the people and the Council, in the Semitic manner, and then he killed himself.

  26

  HIMILCO'S DEATH AND the spread of plague in Africa set off a revolt of the peoples subject to Carthage, the inland Mauritanians and Libyans, and the city had to use all her residual energy to ensure mere survival.

  Dionysius thus found himself with a free hand in Sicily. He occupied the northern coast of the island all the way to Solus, an ancient Carthaginian settlement near Panormus, and consolidated his authority over the Sicels. He realized that in order to achieve an entirely Greek Sicily – at the centre of all the seas and lands -the resources he had at his disposal were not sufficient. He would have to extend his own dominion first and create the great State of Western Greece that he had so long yearned for: a personal domain with Syracuse as its hub, extending all the way to the Scylletian isthmus, the point at which the peninsula opposite Sicily was at its narrowest, between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. This would give him control
of the Straits, the waterway from which the most dangerous threats had often come.

  The main obstacle to be dealt with was Rhegium, so close to Messana that her temples could be seen from Sicily, and her lights at night. The city had always been hostile to him. She was home to Heloris – the adoptive father who had repudiated him and who had been his relentless enemy for years now – as well as all of the exiled Knights. These old aristocrats had raised their children to fiercely hate the tyrant who had stripped Syracuse of her freedom and them of their homeland. They never missed an opportunity to spread the most negative propaganda about Dionysius and the most shameful slander, loaded with disgraceful anecdotes.

  Dionysius paid them no heed whatsoever and continued with his preparations for war, in agreement with the Italian families of Locri who were bound to him by family ties.

  There was one last endeavour to be completed in Sicily before he marched on Rhegium: he must conquer Tauromenium, the formidable ‘Hill of the Bull’ held by the Sicels allied with Carthage. They considered the city a sort of sacrarium of their nation, protected as she was by a practically inaccessible position at the top of a rocky cliff. Tauromenium dominated the coastal road that connected Syracuse to Messana and to the Straits. The dreadful convulsions of Mount Aetna as she erupted could be seen from there, as could the snowy peak of the volcano turning red before dusk on a tranquil winter evening.

  Dionysius attempted a night attack, leading his troops in person in the middle of winter, as a snowstorm raged on the mountain. He and his raiders climbed up the cliff on the side where it was steepest and hence most carelessly guarded.

  The venture came close to success, but once the Sicels realized what was happening, they rushed to the spot en masse and engaged in furious hand-to-hand combat with the assailants, who soon found themselves heavily outnumbered.

  Dionysius, who was fighting at the head of his men, was injured, and only Aksal’s might managed to save him from death. The giant Celt decapitated his adversary with one fell swoop of his axe, threw his head into the midst of the dumbfounded enemies and launched a savage attack against them all alone, roaring like a beast and slaying them in great number. Dionysius was carried off and taken behind the shelter of a wall. Iolaus led the retreat, rallying the men in a compact group.

  Aksal lowered his wounded master with a rope, as other warriors hurried down to retrieve him at the first accessible shelf on the cliff’s side. They managed to save him, but many of their comrades perished in their precipitous descent under the hail of stones and every sort of projectile that the Sicels could hurl at them from up on the walls.

  Carthage had not forgotten the humiliation suffered at Dionysius’s hands, and as soon as her people had recovered from the plague, she recruited Iberian and Balearic mercenaries, Sardinians and Sicans, and managed to crush the resistance of the Libyans in short order, subduing them again in just a few months’ time. Then Admiral Mago was assigned the task of responding to the arrogance of Syracuse.

  The fleet was greatly reduced in number, and equipment was scarce, but Mago succeeded nonetheless in advancing unchallenged all the way to Cephaloedium. From there he headed south towards Agyrium, where a local tyrant, friend to Syracuse, ruled. Dionysius went forth to meet him with the army and drove the Carthaginians back twice in partial victories. But when his general staff and allies demanded that he inflict the final blow, he refused; he felt that their supremacy had already been established, and that risking the forces in a frontal attack was not worth the trouble. He still had his expedition against Rhegium in mind and did not want to lose a sole man in what he considered nothing more than one of the thousands of trivial episodes of conflict with the Carthaginians that would resolve nothing.

  But his generals were indignant over his remissive conduct and could not bear the idea of being considered cowards by the barbarians. As much of the army was made up of citizens of Syracuse, they decided to abandon Dionysius and march home.

  Iolaus followed them in order to maintain control over the situation which could have fallen apart at any time in the absence of a high authority, while Philistus and Leptines remained with Dionysius, who still commanded his personal guard and a contingent of Peloponnesian mercenaries.

  They managed in the end to re-enter Syracuse without problems, although Dionysius was anxiety-ridden at the idea that his city might attempt to overthrow his rule in his absence and that the city’s troops might occupy Ortygia. None of this happened, which was practically a miracle.

  Mago considered himself satisfied with having forced Dionysius to withdraw, and he returned with his army to the confines of the Carthaginian provinces. From there he sent an ambassador to propose a peace treaty.

  If Dionysius agreed to give up Solus and the other centres of the north he had so recently conquered, Mago in exchange would recognize his dominion over the Sicels, including those of Tauromenium. The conditions were advantageous for both and peace was stipulated.

  Commerce flourished once again, traffic and the flow of trade opening up from the Pontus Eusinus to the Adriatic Gulf, from Spain to Africa, from Greece to Gaul, Asia and Egypt. The two harbours of Syracuse teemed with vessels from all over the world, with craftsmen and merchants, labourers and dockers who unloaded timber from Italy, iron from Etruria, copper from Cyprus, papyrus from Egypt, silphium from Cyrene, and loaded up on wheat, olive oil, hand-crafted goods of every sort, horses and weapons for exportation.

  Dionysius’s wounds healed and he couldn’t help but recall Aksal’s strength and bravery. ‘If we had several thousand mercenaries like him,’ he said one day to Philistus, ‘no one would be able to stop us. They would be invincible combatants.’

  ‘Beware,’ replied Philistus, ‘they could easily become a threat. There’s an invasion under way in the north. I’ve learned about it from our Venetic informers, who have just come from Adria with a load of amber. There are many tribes descending from the other side of the Alps, with their families. A true migration of peoples. They’ve engaged the Etruscans in bitter fighting between the Apennines and the Padus, and the natives of these lands have appealed to their brothers who live in their original homeland, between the Arnus and the Tiber, for help.’

  ‘If they’re all like Aksal, the Etruscans have no hope,’ observed Dionysius.

  The pretext for taking action against Rhegium was offered by a border skirmish between Locri and the cities of the Straits, which soon turned into full-blown war. Doris, Dionysius’s Locrian wife, was very worried; many people dear to her still lived in the city.

  ‘Your city has nothing to fear,’ Dionysius reassured her. ‘On the contrary; when this war is over she’ll be all the richer and more important. Those who are my friends can only stand to benefit.’

  ‘Then remember, as soon as you land in my city, to offer sacrifice to our national hero, Ajax Oileus.’

  ‘I will certainly do so, even though I doubt your Ajax will be coming to pull me out of trouble.’

  ‘Don’t say that! Don’t you know that the Locrians always leave a space in the front line so he can take his place in battle?’

  Dionysius smiled, and seemed to be curiously watching his little son who was playing with a wooden horse.

  ‘Really?’ he said distractedly. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Certainly. More than a century and a half ago we fought a dreadful battle against Croton, near the Sagra river. The Crotonian commander noticed that opening in our front lines and saw his chance to break up our formation, but he was cut down by an invisible arm and immediately taken out of action. The wound would not heal, although his doctors did all they could to cure it, cauterizing it again and again; it gave off a terrible stench and caused him piercing pain. The Crotonians consulted the oracle of Delphi, who responded: “The spear of a hero has inflicted the wound, the spear of a hero will heal it.”

  ‘The priests interpreted the prophecy to mean that he should go to the Maeotide swamp at the northern bank of the Pontus Eusinus, where A
chilles’s spear was preserved, on a little island. The Crotonian commander undertook this long journey and, once he reached that sanctuary at the ends of the earth, he laid the hero’s rusted spear against his wound and was healed.’

  ‘That’s a beautiful story,’ said Dionysius. ‘You’ll have to tell it to our son.’

  ‘Will you take me with you?’ pleaded Doris.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Our child is still young, he needs his mother, and war is war. One day, perhaps, when this is all over, when peace and prosperity reign at last, I will take you to Locri. We’ll have a beautiful house built there and we’ll spend time in it every now and then.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ asked the girl. ‘Just you and me, alone?’

  Dionysius darkened. ‘You know you mustn’t speak that way! Aristomache is like a sister to you. You should be asking me to take her along with us.’

  ‘I’ve tried to be her friend. I even shared a bed with both of you, our first night, remember? I would have done so again, but she’s always so jealous, so melancholy . . . even now that she has children of her own. I don’t know how you can stand her . . .’

  ‘That’s enough!’ stormed Dionysius. ‘I know where you’re going with this. You should be content with the way things are. No woman in the world could ask for more!’

  Doris turned to her handmaid. ‘It’s late, put the child to bed. Dear, give your father a kiss.’

  The little boy timidly kissed his father without letting go of the maid’s hand; she took him off to bed.

  ‘Will you sleep with me tonight?’ asked Doris as soon as they had left the room.

  ‘You know that it’s Aristomache’s turn.’

  ‘But Aristomache has her period. I don’t.’