by Mika Waltari
They consulted one another in low tones, then asked, “Have you blood on your hands?”
I said quickly that I had not, and they were obviously relieved. Had I been guilty, they would have had to purify the temple. “Have you sinned against the gods?” they asked then. I deliberated for a moment and replied, “I have not sinned against the Hellenic gods. On the contrary, the sacred virgin, the sister of your deity, watches over me.”
“Who are you then and what do you want?” they demanded querulously. “Why do you come dancing out of the storm and dive into the holiest waters without permission? How dare you disturb the order and customs of the temple?”
Fortunately it was not necessary for me to reply, for at that moment the Pythia entered, supported by her attendants. She was still a young woman, with a bare and direful face, dilated eyes and a swaying walk. She looked at me as though she had known me all her life, a glow suffusing her face as she began to speak.
“At last you have come, expected one! Naked you came on dancing feet, purified by the fountain. Son of the moon, the seashell, the sea horse, I know you. You come from the West.”
It was in my mind to tell her that she erred badly, since I came from the East, as fast as oars and sails could travel. Nevertheless, her words moved me.
“Holy woman, do you really know me?”
She burst into wild laughter and drew still nearer. “Should I not know you! Arise and look into my face.”
Under the compulsion of those eyes I released the sacred stone and stared at the woman. Before my eyes she changed into the rosy-cheeked Dione who had carved her name on an apple before tossing it to me. Then Dione faded and gave way to the black face of the statue of Artemis which had dropped from the sky at Ephesus. Again the face changed to that of a comely woman of whom I had only a dreamlike glimpse before she faded into the mists. Then I was staring into the violent eyes of the Pythia once more.
“I also know you,” I said.
She would have embraced me had not the attendants restrained her. Her left hand reached toward me, touching my chest, and I felt strength flow into me from her hand.
“This youth is mine,” she declared, “consecrated or not. Do not touch him. Whatever he may have done he has done in fulfillment of divine will, not his own. He is guiltless.”
The priests muttered among themselves. “These are not divine words, for she is not seated on the sacred tripod. This is a false ecstasy. Take her away.”
But she was stronger than her attendants and began to rage defiantly. “I see the smoke of fires beyond the sea. This man came with soot on his hands and face and with burns on his loins, but I have purified him. Hence he is pure and free to go and come as he wishes.”
That much she spoke clearly and intelligently. Then she lapsed into a convulsion, foamed at the mouth and fell unconscious into the arms of her attendants, who carried her away.
The priests gathered around me, trembling and alarmed. “We must discuss this among ourselves,” they said. “But fear not. The oracle has freed you, and obviously you are not an ordinary human since she went into a sacred ecstasy at the mere sight of you. However, because she was not seated on the sacred tripod, we cannot record her utterances. But we will bear them in mind.”
They took laurel-wood ashes from the altar, rubbed my hands and feet with them and led me out of the temple. Servants meanwhile had brought my muddy clothes and pack from the edge of the fountain. When the priests fingered the fine wool of my robe they realized that I was not a lowly person. They were even more reassured when I handed them a purse rilled with the lion-headed gold coins of Miletus and some silver stamped with the Ephesian bee. And I gave them also the two sealed wax tablets containing testimony on my behalf which they promised to read and thereafter question me.
So I spent the night in a sparsely furnished room and in the morning the servants came to me and advised me how to fast and purify myself so that my tongue and heart would be pure when I again confronted the priests.
5.
As I ascended to the deserted stadium of Delphi I saw the flash of a javelin, although the shadow of the mountain already lay heavy across the field. Again it flashed, rising into the air like an omen. Then I saw a youth, no older than myself but sturdier, running lightly to retrieve it.
I watched him as I ran around the track. His face was sullen, his body bore an ugly scar, and his muscles were knotty. Yet he exuded such an air of confidence and strength that I thought him to be the handsomest youth I had ever seen.
“Run with me!” I shouted. “I am tired of competing against myself.”
He thrust the javelin into the ground and ran to join me. “Now!” he cried, and we set forth. Being lighter than he, I thought that I would win easily, but he ran effortlessly and it was all I could do to win by a hand.
We were both breathless and panting, although we tried to conceal it. “You run well,” he conceded. “Now let us throw the javelin.”
He had a Spartan javelin, and as I balanced it in my hand I strove not to show that I was unaccustomed to its weight. I gathered momentum and threw the javelin better than I had ever thrown before. It flew even farther than I had hoped, and as I ran to retrieve it and mark the throw I could not restrain a smile. I was still smiling when I extended the javelin to the youth, but he threw it effortlessly many lengths beyond my mark.
“What a throw that was!” I said admiringly. “But you are probably too heavy for the broad jump. Will you try?”
Even in the broad jump I surpassed him by only a hair’s breadth. Silently he held out a discus. Again his toss swooped far beyond my mark like a hawk in flight. This time he smiled and said, “Wrestling will decide it.”
Looking at him, I felt an odd reluctance to wrestle with him, not because I knew that his would be an easy victory, but because I had no desire to let him encircle me with his arms.
“You are better than I,” I conceded. “The victory is yours.”
After that we said nothing, but each pursued his own games in the empty stadium until he was sweating. When I went to the edge of the swollen brook he followed me hesitantly, and when I began washing and scouring myself with sand he did likewise.
“Will you rub my back with sand?” he asked.
I did so and he did the same for me, rubbing so hard that I pulled away and splashed water in his eyes. He smiled but did not stoop to indulge in such childish sport.
I pointed to the scar on his chest. “Are you a soldier?”
“I am a Spartan,” he said proudly.
I looked at him with renewed curiosity, for he was the first Lacedaemonian I had ever seen. He did not seem brutal and unfeeling as Spartans were said to be. I knew that his city had no wall, boasting instead that the Spartan men were the only wall needed. But I also knew that they were not permitted to leave the city except in troops on their way to battle.
He read the question in my eyes and explained, “I also am a prisoner of the oracle. My uncle. King Cleomenes, had bad dreams about me and sent me away. I am a descendant of Herakles.”
It was in my mind to say that, knowing the character of Herakles and his wanderings throughout the world, there were undoubtedly thousands of his descendants in various lands. But I looked at his rippling muscles and stifled the impulse.
Unasked, he began tracing his descent, then said in conclusion, “My father was Dorieus, recognized as the fairest man of his day. He likewise was disliked in his homeland and set out across the sea to win a new homeland for himself in Italy or Sicily. He fell there many years ago.”
Frowning deeply, he suddenly demanded, “Why are you staring at me? Dorieus was my real father and now that I have left Sparta I have the right to use his name if I so choose. My mother used to tell me about him before I was seven and she had to give me up to the state. Because my legal father was unable to produce children, he sent Dorieus in secret to my mother, as in Sparta even husbands may meet their wives only by stealth and in secret. All this is true, and w
ere it not for the fact that my real father was Dorieus, I would not have been banished from Sparta.”
I could have told him that, since the Trojan War, Spartans had had good reason to suspect men and women of excessive beauty. But this was undoubtedly a matter of great sensitivity to him which I understood well because the circumstances of my own birth were even stranger.
We clothed ourselves in silence by the brook. The oval valley of Delphi darkened below us, the mountains gleamed violet. I was purified, I was alive, I was strong. In my heart was a glow of friendship for this stranger who had consented to compete with me without asking who or what I was.
Walking down the mountain path toward the buildings of Delphi, he glanced at me frequently from the corner of his eye and finally said, “I like you, although we Spartans usually shun strangers. But I am alone, and it is difficult to be without a companion when one has always been with other youths. Although I am no longer tied to the customs of my people, they bind me more strongly than fetters. And so I would rather be dead with my name inscribed on a gravestone than here.”
“I also am alone,” I said. “I came to Delphi of my own will either to be purified or to die. Life has no purpose if I am to be but a curse to my city and to all lonia.”
He looked at me skeptically under his damp, curly forelock. “Don’t judge me before hearing,” I pleaded. “The Pythia pronounced me innocent even though she was not chewing on the sacred bay leaf or sitting on the sacred tripod or breathing the noxious vapors from the gorge. The very sight of me sent her into a trance.” Ionic skepticism made me smile and glance around cautiously. “She seemed to be a woman who is rather fond of men. Undoubtedly she is a holy person, but the priests must have great difficulties in interpreting her ravings to their satisfaction.”
Dorieus raised a hand in alarm. “Don’t you believe the oracle?” he demanded. “If you are blaspheming the deity I will have nothing to do with you.”
“Don’t be alarmed,” I reassured him. “Everything has two sides, that which we see and that which we don’t see. I doubt the earthly aspect of the oracle, true, but that does not mean that I do not recognize her and submit to her judgment though it cost me my life. A man must believe in something.”
“I don’t understand you,” he said in amazement.
We went our separate ways that night, but on the next day, or perhaps it was the one following, he came to me and demanded, “Was it you, man of Ephesus, who set fire to the temple of the Lydian earth goddess at Sardis and thus burned the entire city?”
“That is my crime,” I confessed. “I, Turms of Ephesus, alone am guilty of the burning of Sardis.”
To my surprise Dorieus’ eyes began to twinkle and he clapped me on the shoulders with both hands. “How can you consider yourself a criminal, you who are the hero of the Hellenes? Don’t you know that the burning of Sardis has lit the flames of revolt all over lonia from the Hellespont to Cyprus?”
His words filled me with horror. “In that case the men of lonia arc mad! It is true that, with the arrival of the Athenian ships, we ran into Sardis in three days like a flock of sheep after a ram. But we were unable to conquer the city and its fortifications and ran right out again even faster than we had gone in. The Persian auxiliaries slaughtered many of us, and in the darkness and confusion we even killed one another. No,” I said, “our expedition to Sardis was not a heroic one. To make matters worse, we became involved with some women who were holding a midnight festival outside the gates of Ephesus. The Ephesians ran out and killed even more of us. So purposeless was our expedition and so disgraceful our flight.”
Dorieus shook his head. “You do not speak like a true Greek. War is war and whatever occurs must be made to reflect glory to the fatherland and honor to the dead, regardless of how they fell. I don’t understand you.”
“I am not a Hellene,” I told him, “but a foreigner. Many years ago, near Ephesus, I found myself at the foot of an oak which had been split by lightning. When I came to my senses a ram was bucking me and dead sheep lay all around me. A thunderbolt had torn off my clothes and left a black streak on my loins. But Zeus did not succeed in killing me even though he tried.”
6.
Winter was almost upon us when next the four priests summoned me. By that time I was lean from fasting, trim from exercise, and in every way so purified that I shivered. As old men are wont to do, they made me begin at the beginning and tell what I knew about the revolt of the Ionian cities and the murder or exile of the tyrants whom the Persians had installed as rulers.
I related everything that I knew about our shameful attack on the satrap city of Sardis. Then I said, “Artemis of Ephesus is a divine goddess and because she took me under her protection when I arrived in Ephesus I owe her my life. In recent years, however, the black goddess Cybele of Lydia has begun to compete for favor with the Hellenes’ Artemis. The lonians are a frivolous people, always seeking new experiences, and during the rule of the Persians many of them traveled to Sardis to sacrifice to Cybele and participate in her shameful secret rites. When I joined the Athenian expedition I was told, and had full reason to believe, that the uprising and war against the Persians was at the same time the holy virgin’s war against the black goddess. So I felt that I was performing a worthy deed in setting fire to the temple of Cybele. It was not my fault that a strong wind began to blow just then, spreading the flames over the reed-thatched roofs and burning the entire city.”
Once again I related our flight and skirmishes with the Persians. Then, wearying of my narration, I said, “But you have the wax tablets wliich I brought with me. Believe them if you do not believe me.”
“We have opened and read them,” they replied. “We also have determined the facts about the Ionian events and the expedition to Sardis. It is in your favor that you do not glorify them but rather regret your part in them. Although there are fools who laud this expedition as the Hellenes’ most glorious exploit, the burning of a temple-even that of the Asian Cybele, whom we abhor-is a serious matter, for once temples begin to be burned, not even the gods of the Hellenes will be safe.”
At my request they re-read the wax tablets and permitted me also to read them. The first of the two messages began: Artemisia of the Ephesian temple of Artemis greets the holy council of Apollo’s priests at Delphi. As the clother of the virgin goddess, I am most familiar with her manifestation and her rituals and can declare that Turms of Ephesus has gained her full approval. For that reason I confidently entrust him to the protection of our divine brother Apollo. Let the oracle free him since he did no wrong but rather good. It was the goddess herself who guided his hand when he tossed the blazing torch into that accursed temple.
It then described my arrival in Ephesus and my redemption by Hera-kleitos, brother of the sacrificial king, and concluded: Live in health and do justice to the boy. He is a fair youth.
The other wax tablet began as follows: Epenides, authorized by the Council of Elders, respectfully greets the most holy oracle at Delphi and her priests. At the request of our sacrificial king we urge you righteously to condemn the blasphemer, rebel and temple-burner Turms. The burning of Sardis was the greatest calamity that could have befallen lonia.
The message concluded: We live in evil times, therefore let Turms be cast off the cliff lest he bring about still greater harm to our city than he has already. When we have been informed of his death we will be glad to send a silver tripod for the inner shrine.
Having read this malicious message which purported to defend me, I said angrily, “Do they hope to appease the Persians by cowardice? No, they are in the same boat as the other Ionian cities. No matter what my origin, I am now proud that I am not a native Ephesian.”
As soon as the words were out I became confused. The priests noticed it and asked, “What, then, is your origin?”
“Lightning struck me outside Ephesus and more than that I do not know. I was ill for months thereafter.”
Carefully weighing my words, I told the
m how at the age of ten I had been sent from Sybaris in Italy to Miletus for safety. When the inhabitants of Miletus heard how the men of Croton had leveled Sybaris to the ground and diverted a river to flow over the ruins, they grieved so much they clipped their hair short. But as their hair grew again, they forgot the claims of hospitality and beat me. I had been apprenticed first to a baker and then to a shepherd, until the beatings had prompted me to flee. Then, near Ephesus, the lightning had struck me.
The priests of Delphi raised their hands in dismay. “How can we solve this troublesome problem? Turms is not even a Greek name. But he cannot be an orphan, for he would not have been sent from Sybaris to safety. The four hundred families of that city were well aware of what they did. Many barbarians lived there to acquire Greek culture, but if the boy were a barbarian, why was he sent to Miletus instead of to his home?”
My self-esteem prompted me to say, “Look closely at me. Is my face that of a barbarian?”
The four old men with the divine bands of the gods around their heads studied me. “How should we know?” they asked. “Your clothes are Ionian, your education Greek. There are as many faces as there are people. An alien is not recognized by his face but by his clothes, hair, beard and speech.”
As they watched me they began to blink. Then they averted their eyes and glanced uneasily at one another, for a divine fever had permeated me after my fasting and purging, and a divine light glowed in my eyes. At that moment I saw through those four old men. So jaded were they by their knowledge that they no longer had faith in them’ selves. Something in me was more powerful than they. Something in me knew more.
Winter was near and soon the god would depart for the farthest north, for the land of lakes and swans, and Delphi would be left to Dionysus. Storms raged at sea, ships sought harbors, pilgrims no longer came to Delphi. The elders yearned for peace, shunned decisions, and looked forward only to the warmth of the braziers and the smoky drowsiness of winter.
