Tyrant

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘Iolaus is a good soldier.’

  ‘Yes, he is. And it seems that Dionysius wants him in charge of our participation in the Olympics next spring.’

  ‘That seems like a good idea.’

  ‘Terrible. Not because of Iolaus. Because of the way our participation is being organized. We’ll make a laughing stock of ourselves. The Olympics are a pan-Hellenic celebration, but they are being held just as the Persians are laying claim to the Greek cities of Asia. And then we step in with our alliance with the barbarians against the Greeks. Does that seem wise to you?’

  Leptines didn’t know what to answer.

  ‘I had a reserved meeting with the leaders of the Company, as I was saying,’ continued Philistus. ‘They are looking for a radical change. They are tired of this situation of perennial uncertainty, of the atmosphere that has taken root in the city. They are fed up with never being allowed an exchange of ideas with the person in command. Anyone who expresses a point of view which is different from his is immediately branded an enemy, a suspect to be followed, watched, even imprisoned. Many of them are much more favourable towards you. What you did at Laos is seen as a sign of the humanity that your brother has lost.’

  Leptines tossed the apple core and turned away. ‘I won’t betray him, if that’s what you’re trying to suggest.’

  Philistus bowed his head. ‘Do you see me as a traitor?’

  ‘You are a politician, a man of letters, a philosopher. It’s in your nature to examine all the options. I’m a soldier: I may not agree, I may be undisciplined, but my loyalty is never in question.’

  ‘But what we’re talking about here is loyalty towards your people. Doesn’t that count for you? Dionysius’s power is justified only if the people will be repaid in the end for their sacrifices, for all the tears and blood they have shed.’

  Leptines didn’t answer.

  Philistus walked towards the door, but before leaving, he turned. ‘There’s a person who wants to see you.’

  ‘It’s not as if I can move from here.’

  ‘She would come to you.’

  ‘When?’ asked Leptines, getting to his feet, visibly agitated.

  ‘Tonight, at the second change of the guard. You can trust the two men I’ll have posted outside. Remember . . . that I still love him as you do. Nothing has changed as far as I am concerned. I would still be ready to give my life for him if I had to. Farewell, my friend. Reflect on what I’ve said.’

  Shuffled steps could be heard outside, low voices, then the sound of the bolt sliding and the door opened.

  A woman appeared, her head and face covered by a veil.

  Leptines took a lantern from the wall and held it close to her face. ‘Aristomache . . .’ he murmured as if he could not believe his eyes. ‘It’s you.’

  The woman removed the veil and revealed her pale skin, huge black eyes, perfect nose.

  ‘Why have you come? It’s too dangerous . . .’

  ‘I can’t think of anything but you, here, alone, closed up like a thief. You who have risked your life so many times, suffered so many wounds, you who have always been at his side . . .’

  ‘He’s my brother and my supreme commander.’

  ‘He is unworthy of you. He has become cruel and insensitive. All he cares about is staying in power.’ Leptines turned towards the wall as if he didn’t want to hear those words. ‘Long ago, you told me you loved me . . .’ whispered Aristomache.

  ‘We were children.’

  ‘I was telling the truth, as you were. I’ve never forgotten, and neither have you.’

  ‘You are my brother’s wife.’

  ‘And so you scorn me?’

  ‘No, you’re wrong. I respect you . . . I worship you as if you were a divinity, as if . . .’

  ‘I’m nothing but a miserable wretch. I accepted an absurd proposal of marriage because my family obligated me; power was the only issue, even then. I have had to share my husband’s bed with another. No free woman, even the most unfortunate, has ever had to submit to such humiliation. Leptines, I’ve always felt your eyes on me. Whenever you were close, but even when you were far away. The eyes of a good man, a courageous man, who would have loved and respected me.’

  ‘It just wasn’t possible, Aristomache. Life has decided otherwise and we must accept this, resign ourselves.’

  ‘But I love you, Leptines! I have always loved you, since the first time I saw you with your tousled hair and skinned knees, punching it out with the boys from Ortygia. You’ve been my hero since then. I dreamt of you for my future, Leptines. I would have wanted a child from you, a boy, who looked like you, who had your light in his eyes . . .’

  ‘Say no more,’ said Leptines. ‘I beg of you. You know it’s not possible.’

  Aristomache fell silent for a few moments as if she didn’t know quite how to continue, or didn’t have the courage to speak.

  ‘What is it?’ prompted Leptines.

  ‘There is a way. I know I seem crazy, but . . . have you talked to Philistus?’

  Leptines considered her with a perplexed expression. ‘He started to say something but I didn’t let him finish. I have the impression that you listened to him all the way through. What is it then?’

  ‘Many people in Syracuse would like to see you take power. And for me, it would be the only hope of . . . can’t you see what I’m trying to say?’

  ‘I understand too well,’ replied Leptines. ‘And I do not approve of anything you are thinking, even though I do love you. Believe me, it would be madness. It would end up a bloodbath, a disaster. I’m not the right person for this sort of thing. I would never join a plot against my brother. Do you know why? Because such a plot always aims at the physical elimination of the enemy. Can you see me murdering my brother?’

  ‘No, that’s not true. You would save his life and turn him into a human being again.’

  ‘You’re wrong. An uprising can easily get out of hand; we’ve seen it happen time and time again. Just the thought of betraying him disgusts me. But there’s one thing you can be sure of: my love, my devotion, my respect. I would give anything to have you, Aristomache, but not that, I can’t do that. Go now . . . go before someone discovers you’re here.’

  He took her arm gently to lead her out, but she turned towards him and threw her arms around him, sobbing.

  At that same moment, they heard the sound of the bolt being pulled and the figure of a man dressed in full armour appeared at the doorway: Dionysius!

  ‘She has done nothing,’ said Leptines immediately. ‘Do not hurt her.’

  Dionysius shot him an enraged look but did not speak a word. The light of the lantern cut his face in two, carving out his features and deepening the creases on his forehead. He gestured to one of the guards, who took Aristomache by the arm and led her away. With another gesture, the door was shut again.

  Leptines stormed the door with his fists, shouting: ‘Stop! Listen! Listen to me, don’t go!’

  There was no answer but the pounding of the hobnailed boots of the mercenaries along the corridor.

  The following day, the two guards that had let Aristomache pass were executed in the barracks courtyard, in the presence of the entire garrison. Leptines was seized and taken to the harbour, where he was put aboard a trireme.

  The commander of the ship was a member of the Company, an officer named Archelaus who Leptines knew well.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Our destination will be communicated by one of my men when we are in the open sea. But I won’t learn his identity until then. I’m sorry, commander.’

  The ship put out to sea, headed east.

  That same day, Philistus received a visit from Dionysius.

  ‘Betrayed by my brother and my best friend, the man to whom I had entrusted my family and given the keys to my fortress.’

  ‘Betrayed by yourself, Dionysius. By your own unbridled ambition, by your recklessness, by your selfishness. How
many people have died for you, seeking to follow you on your mad endeavours? No, I have not betrayed you, and Leptines is only the first of your victims. He loves you and has always been true to you. And as for Aristomache, there is nothing between them but an innocent childhood love. Leptines is an upright man; he has never so much as touched her. And now, who knows where you’ve sent him to. Tell me: one of your henchmen is on that ship, isn’t he? With the order to murder him and throw him into the sea when they are far enough out, so that his body will never drift to shore and be recognized. Isn’t that true?’

  Dionysius did not answer.

  ‘If it is true, you will have committed the most heinous of crimes. Have that ship followed, now, and stop this atrocity, if you’re still in time. As for me, I’m still trying to save you from yourself, from the destructive fury that possesses you like a demon. I could never have hurt you. It’s true Dionysius, I promised to follow you all the way to Hades, but I imagined glorious exploits, not this incessant massacre, this bloody, unending sequence of horrors.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Dionysius. ‘I don’t want to listen to you any more.’

  ‘You will listen to me! Haven’t you wondered why your best friend no longer wants to follow you in your suicidal folly? Have me killed as well, if that’s what you’ve decided. I don’t care. But who will you be able to trust? Iolaus remains, but he’s wavering as well. The core of the problem is that you’ve formed a void around you. You can’t count on anyone any more, there won’t be a single person you can trust.

  ‘This is just what I had wanted to save you from, because I know that solitude is the worst of punishments. I don’t know what destiny you’ve reserved for me, although I will surely soon find out. But our roads separated long ago, Dionysius, since the time I refused to negotiate an alliance with barbarian populations against Greek cities. Now, unhappily, our quarrel has peaked. You have troops, weapons, power . . . I have only words, and not even those any longer, since I have nothing left to say to you. The outcome of such an unequal struggle is no contest, I’m afraid. Let me just ask one thing of you: do not seek out other culprits, because there are none. Punish me. There is no one else to punish.’

  ‘I will,’ replied Dionysius. ‘Farewell.’

  Instead, many Syracusans – including many members of the Company – were hunted down, interrogated, imprisoned. Some, it was said, were put to death in secret. But this time there was no violent response. Apparently no reaction. Some assumed that the Company had become afraid of Dionysius, but those who knew the association well knew that they would not forgo revenge. It was just a matter of time.

  Philistus, on the other hand, realized that he was being followed, but nothing more. Until one evening a messenger from the Ortygia fortress came and told him to pack his things.

  The very next day he was put aboard a merchant ship laden with wine and oil, commanded by the ship’s owner, a wholesale dealer named Sosibus.

  Their voyage lasted nearly a month, and ended in a remote locality at the extreme tip of the Adriatic Gulf, within a vast lagoon, at the city which gave the gulf its name. Adria was a settlement of Venetics to which a Greek colony had been added over the course of the years, and later an Etruscan colony as well. It was a humid, sultry place, surrounded by swamps and infested by mosquitoes even by day. Dionysius had installed a trading colony there, which exchanged agricultural and metallurgic products with amber and war horses.

  Philistus settled in a little house not far from the sea, in the Syracusan quarter. There were no soldiers, but the place was crawling with spies and informers, and he knew that his every move would be kept under strict surveillance.

  At first life was terribly hard for Philistus, because Adria was made up mostly of wood and straw huts and had none of the characteristics that made a Greek city so appealing. There was no theatre, not a single library, there were no schools nor porticoes, no fountains or monuments of any kind. Even the sanctuaries were shabby and barren, looking much like the other huts. The ground was so wet and soft that it could not support the weight of stone buildings.

  The coming of winter made it even worse; a thick fog rose from the surrounding swamps and the lagoon and swallowed up everything. The damp penetrated to the very bone, causing fierce pain in his joints.

  The desolation of the place, the uncertainty of the future and the total lack of any news about Leptines’s fate plunged Philistus into a state of profound consternation. He paced the seashore for long hours, listening to the melancholy cry of the gulls, and he spent sleepless nights racking his brains for a way out of the solitude and misery he found himself in. He sometimes thought of begging for Dionysius’s forgiveness, pleading with him to call him back from this abhorrent place at the ends of the earth, but then he would find the strength to grit his teeth and hold out. He knew that a man of learning must not bend to power, he knew that both independence and dignity could only be found in the strength of his own mind.

  The coldest part of winter slowly passed and with the coming of spring he began to find some pleasant aspects in the land he inhabited. He began to wander inland and found no one hindering him, and he realized that perhaps Dionysius had not locked him in a true prison. He had imposed this bitter exile upon him, but he had left him a certain liberty of movement.

  It was a land very different from Sicily, low and flat, rich with forests and with water. The lagoon was visited by a great number of vessels, coming mainly from the east, but also from the west. He saw the huge river which the inhabitants called Padus; according to the Greeks, it was the mythical Eridanus.

  As time passed, some news began to trickle through; friends from the Company had not forgotten him and sent him word when they could, always by mouth.

  He thus learned that Leptines had not been murdered, but was confined to a little island on the Illyrian coast called Lissos, where Dionysius had established another colony.

  Early the following summer, Sosibus, the merchant who had brought him into exile, returned to Adria, bringing more news. ‘Our participation in the Olympics was a total failure. The Syracusan pavilion was too luxurious, too showy. Gilded stakes, purple curtains, Egyptian linen ropes; the Greek sensibility was greatly offended.’

  Philistus had him sit down, and said: ‘Wasn’t there anyone who could advise him? The metropolitan Greeks are so presumptuous – they think they’re like gods. The Athenians are the worst of all! They think of beauty as the essence of simplicity; has no one read Thucydides, by Zeus? Exaggerations of any sort are seen as manifestations of barbarism.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ continues Sosibus. ‘The literary contest went no better. I believe that Dionysius decided to participate in order to create an image of refinement and sensitivity. One of the very best actors recited his work, but it was met by catcalls and a chorus of laughter, because, they say, of the poor quality of his poems.’

  Philistus couldn’t help but feel gratified at this news. ‘Had I been there,’ he said, ‘that never would have happened. I would have advised him not to participate, or to have the verses written for him by a fine poet. I imagine that he must be surrounded now by sycophants who certainly praised the quality of his poetry, and he obviously fell for it.’

  ‘Something like that,’ admitted his guest.

  ‘What about the sports competitions?’

  Sosibus snorted. ‘A disaster! Our two quadrigas collided during the chariot race, creating a terrible entanglement; two charioteers lost their lives and others were badly maimed. But that’s not all: a great Athenian orator, Lysias, made a public speech inciting the Greeks to overturn the tyrant of Syracuse who had allied with the barbarians to annihilate the Greek cities of Italy and was still besieging Rhegium, openly violating the sacred truce that imposed peace among the Greeks for the entire duration of the games. The pavilion was attacked by the mob who wanted to drive the Syracusans from the Olympic grounds. But now,’ he continued, ‘the worst news of all: Iolaus, who was leading the return expedition, ran into
a storm in the Gulf of Taras and went down with his ship.’

  ‘He’s . . . dead?’ asked Philistus.

  Sosibus nodded. Philistus wept: he had lost the last of his friends. The last of those who had seen the golden years of Dionysius’s ascent to power. They had always remained faithful to him, each one of them, to the very end.

  ‘When are you leaving again?’ Philistus finally asked the merchant.

  ‘In three days’ time, as soon as I’ve finished loading.’

  ‘Could you get a message to Leptines for me? Is he still on Lissos?’

  Sosibus warded off his request. ‘It’s too dangerous. But if I should meet up with someone going that way, I’ll let him know that you’re alive and well. What do you say?’

  Philistus thanked him. ‘I appreciate it greatly. We are good friends and I know he’d be pleased to have news of me.’

  They said their farewells three days later, at the harbour. Sosibus already had one foot on the gangplank when he turned around. ‘I forgot the most interesting bit,’ he said, ‘the Plato story.’

  ‘Plato?’ repeated Philistus, widening his eyes. ‘Are you talking about the great philosopher?’

  ‘Yes, him all right. He was visiting Italy this spring and he made a stop in Sicily and at Syracuse. He received many invitations, as you can imagine, from all the most prestigious circles in the city, and from some members of the Company as well. Well, he set out by saying that our luxury was deplorable: our habit of eating three times a day, of sleeping with our wives every night, of having sumptuous houses. Not happy with that, he started going on about the vices, corruption and depravation of social institutions under tyranny. He said that, if it were impossible to remove this curse, the only alternative was for a philosopher to educate the successor of the tyrant, in order to make a philosopher – and hence a worthy ruler – out of him. Can you believe it? He was offering himself as a tutor for young Dionysius!’

  ‘That took courage,’ commented Philistus.

  ‘Courage! Pure folly, I’d say.’

  ‘But the two of them – Dionysius and Plato, that is – did they ever meet face to face?’