The Siege of Syracuse

by Dan Armstrong

  The play’s chorus, which represented the clouds, was singing its opening lines—“Ascend we, Clouds eternal, display we our dewy nature”—when two horns sounded at the main entrance to the theater. A herald stepped forward and announced the arrival of King Hiero. The chorus abruptly stopped. Everyone turned to watch Hiero enter the theater in a gilded sedan chair carried by four slaves. He was followed by Adranodorus, Damarata, Damarata’s sister Heraclia and her husband Zoippos, their two daughters, and the king’s granddaughter Harmonia with her husband Themistos. The young prince Hieronymus, the king’s grandson and heir, was not part of the retinue.

  The royal family minus the future king filed down the central aisle to the base of the orchestra. A host of personal attendants followed behind, carrying pillows, fans, and provisions. The men went to the center section. The king’s chair was placed in front of the first row—the very best seat in the house. Adranodorus, Zoippos, and Themistos sat directly behind him.

  Aristo, the most respected actor in Syracuse, was playing the part of Socrates in the play. He came forward wearing his mask, which was designed to amplify his voice. He knelt on one knee before the king, and declaimed from the play, loud enough for everyone to hear. He stood and, removing his mask, bowed to Hiero, then greeted Adranodorus and Zoippos as old friends.

  Damarata and the other women from the royal family sat in the first row of the women’s section with their four attendants. Damarata wore a gold diadem and more make-up and jewelry than any other ten women present. Her hair—if it was hers—was no longer canary yellow but a frightening nasturtium orange, arranged in a mass of ringlets and coiled braids. Her face was painted white and her lips an incendiary red. The queen’s sister, Heraclia, wore a plain white chiton with a matching scarf over her hair and a single strand of pearls around her neck. Only the slightest touch of paint adorned her face. The queen’s niece, Harmonia, a natural redhead, wore her hair loose, hanging halfway down her back. She was also dressed simply in a pleated, saffron chiton with two gold bracelets and no makeup at all. She was young and radiant, really quite beautiful, and truly looked like a princess.

  It took considerable time for the royal procession to be seated and settled, but the crowd didn’t get restless. All were captivated by the appearance of the king, who they loved to see, but whose ill-health limited his time in public. Although a beautiful summer day, Hiero was wrapped in a woolen chlaina and hunched into his gilded chair like someone huddled before a hearth in winter.

  Then, just as suddenly as things had stopped, the chorus of clouds began singing and the play resumed.

  Although the play was written two hundred years before I was born, the humor of Aristophanes had aged well. I didn’t catch everything, and much of it was quite crude, but I was laughing as hard as anyone. At one point, Aristo, as Socrates, stood in a basket and was lifted by a crane above the orchestra, so he could look down upon his students in the School for very Hard Thinkers. They were bent over with their noses to the ground. Strepsiades, the protagonist, stepped onto the stage:

  Strepsiades: What are those people doing, stooping so oddly?

  Student: They are probing the secrets that lie deep as Tartarus.

  Strepsiades: But why—excuse me, but—their hindquarters—why are they stuck up so strangely in the air?

  Student: Their other ends are studying astronomy.

  (The audience exploded with laughter.)

  Strepsiades: I’d like to learn how to do this.

  Socrates: By what gods do you swear? For the gods are not a current coin with us. (He pointed to the chorus, the clouds.) These are the real gods.

  (The laughter turned to hooting and catcalls.)

  Strepsiades: But come, is there no Zeus?

  Socrates: There is no Zeus.

  (The catcalls increased. A tomato flew past Aristo in his basket above the orchestra.)

  Strepsiades: But who makes the rain, then?

  Socrates: These clouds. For have you ever seen rain without clouds? But if it were Zeus he ought to make it rain in fine weather as well as when clouds appear.

  Strepsiades: But tell me, who is it that thunders? This makes me tremble.

  Socrates: These clouds, as they roll, thunder.

  Strepsiades: How?

  Socrates: I will teach you from your own case. Were you ever, after being stuffed with broth at a festival, later disturbed in your stomach, and did a tumult suddenly rumble through you?

  The allusion to passing gas sent the audience into hysterics, and again someone threw a tomato at Aristo. This one was better aimed, but the actor snatched it from the air before it hit him. He bowed deeply into the increasing laughter, lifted his mask, took a bite from the tomato, and tossed it back into the crowd. It was all great fun.

  Though captivated by the play, I remained curious about the royal family. I had a clear view of the three royal wives, sitting with their attendants and the two children. They were across the theater, but I could tell that Harmonia and Damarata were the talkers. They leaned over Heraclia from either side, full of gossip.

  For all their differences, the three women looked quite a bit alike—but in increasing sizes. Harmonia was a beautiful young woman with a full figure and glorious natural red hair. Heraclia was fifteen years older with a fuller version of the same figure. She was attractive, but the increased weight detracted from her beauty. Damarata was much the same, only another ten years older, with ten years more girth. The wigs and make-up only made the extra weight look worse.

  I was closer to the three royal in-laws. I looked down on their backs from four rows behind. I couldn’t hear them, but there wasn’t a more suspicious trio in the theater. They paid no heed to the entertainment. Instead they talked with hooded eyes, leaning in close to each other, exchanging secret words. Despite Aristophanes’ genius, there was no laughter from this group at all.

  But it was the king who drew my closest attention. He was wrapped in wool while the rest of us baked in the sun. He cut a sad figure in his gilded chair, with the crown he wore so infrequently tipped sideways on his head. I wondered how the comedy might play for him with death staring him in the face and his sons-in-law whispering dark politics behind him. Maybe he understood that this would be the last play he would ever see. I couldn’t see his face from where I sat, but I hoped Aristophanes’ play could elicit a laugh or two from the sad old man.

  Not halfway through the play, Hiero began to cough uncontrollably. The king’s sudden fit silenced the actors and the audience alike. The royal family jumped to their feet and called the slaves to help. They quickly carried the king out the way he came in. The family hurried behind. As suddenly as they had arrived, they were gone.

  Laius turned to Archimedes. “Oh my, it seems this appearance in public has been too much for our king.”

  Archimedes replied with the stoicism of the philosophers Aristophanes ridiculed. “I should think death would be a welcome relief to my cousin.”

  The actors and the audience did not recover from the king’s departure as quickly as they had his arrival. The chorus struggled to find the lilt in their voices. The dancers lost the spring in their step. What laughter the audience managed was hollow. Even the most professional actor, Aristo, fumbled the timing of his satiric lines.

  I still found some pleasure in the play, but I couldn’t help worrying about Hiero’s health. Laius was also clearly distracted, and Archimedes had drifted off to draw figures in his head.

  Only once after the king’s departure did Archimedes perk up to listen to the actors:

  Strepsiades: Have you ever seen a beautiful, transparent stone at the druggists’, with which you may kindle fire?

  Socrates: You mean a crystal lens.

  Strepsiades: That’s right. Well, now if I placed myself with this stone in the sun and a long way off from the clerk, while he was writing out the conviction, I could make all the wax, upon which the words were written, melt.

  I had heard of a burning glass, but not a
crystal lens. Its mention clearly caught Archimedes’ attention. I wished I knew the man better. I would have asked him what his insight was.

  When the play was over, the audience filed somberly from the amphitheater. Hushed and whispering, they trailed out into the city, concerned for their ailing king.

  Laius said nothing during the walk to his home. Archimedes and I stayed for the evening meal, but even then Laius could not get the incident or its ramifications out of his head. Once he’d gotten a cup of wine down, he opened up with his fears. He spoke of the youth Hieronymus, next in line to be king, and of Damarata and Adranodorus and their support for Carthage. He said that he would leave Syracuse if things got out of hand. He spoke about Rome’s war with Hannibal and the prospect of the war coming to Sicily. He was generally an optimistic person, but he gave in to his fears that evening, predicting a scenario that chilled us all.

  As we were leaving, I dared to ask the question I’d been pondering all day. “Laius, do you recall when I asked you about the purchase of a slave? And a man with a red mark on his cheek? Have you seen him?”

  Laius gave me a sad look, suggesting this was something I should forget about. “I’m sorry, Timon. I haven’t.”

  I barely had time to hang my head when Alexa spoke out. “I’ve seen such a man, Timon. A tall, thin man with a port-wine birthmark on his cheek.”

  “That’s him! Do you know where he lives?”

  Laius started to interrupt, but Alexa answered anyway. “No, but I’ve seen him walking in the street several times. I only remember him because the mark was so distinctive.”

  “What part of town?’

  “More than one place, but two or three times in the Tyche market.”

  I had more questions, but Laius cut me off. “It’s getting late, Timon. You must get Archimedes back to Ortygia.”

  All the way back to the tower, Archimedes’ hand on my shoulder, I thought about Adeon. If Alexa had seen her master more than a few times, it was likely that he lived in the city. There was still a chance I could actually find him.

  I was excited by Alexa’s information, but like everyone else I worried about the king’s health. The next morning, while we sat in the pantry sipping our cups of kykeon, no one said a word. I was scheming to find Adeon, but the others seemed to be bracing themselves for bad news from the palace.

  Eurydice was the first slave from the palace to come through the tunnel that morning. Her appearance invariably brought a smile to every face, but the staff sat still and silent, expecting the worst.

  Always quiet Eurydice spoke out excitedly right away. “The king is much better this morning. He slept all afternoon and into the night. He woke up very early, an hour ago, asking for something to eat.” I’d never heard her put three sentences together before.

  “He doesn’t usually eat in the morning,” said Lavinia.

  “But an appetite is a good sign,” said Hektor.

  Agathe almost smiled. “It’s everything with an old man like him.”

  The mood of the morning changed just like that. Suddenly the crew was out in the kitchen, tending the fires and jabbering away as they always did. But the king had given everyone a good scare. The topic of his health would keep the entire city on edge for weeks to come.

  CHAPTER 10

  Gradually I adapted to my new life. I spent almost all of my time in the company of Archimedes, outside in the kitchen, or alone in my small bedroom. Especially when I was alone, I mourned the loss of my parents. The activities of the day might distract me for a while, but when the day slowed down, I grieved.

  Life with Archimedes was otherwise good. He was kind, if aloof. He never overworked me. And I was learning. After our discussion of the planets, he’d seen that I had an inquisitive mind, and he found more ways to involve me in his work, starting with copying the letters that he wrote. But what I enjoyed most in those early months was running errands in the city, which became more frequent as Archimedes got accustomed to having me around.

  Once or twice a week I left the island to acquire this or retrieve that. I began using these opportunities to explore the city and look for Adeon. In the streets, I could push aside my melancholy by actively seeking this one last connection to my parents.

  On the days I left Achradina, I would invariably try to spend some time at the huge outdoor market in Tyche where Alexa had seen Adeon’s master. Though I would always associate that market with the slave auction, it became my favorite place to idly stroll and watch faces in the crowd. The market was exciting in other ways, too. You could buy anything, sell anything, and hear the latest news. With Hiero’s fading health and the prospect of a youth on the throne, gossip focused on the royal family.

  The agora in Achradina contained a market also, but the Tyche market was more to my taste. The patrons were not as wealthy and the items for sale not so expensive. Besides, who needed Achradina’s forum and its politics? All they talked about was the war in Italy. I knew too much about that already. Twelve weeks earlier I had been free, living happily with my mother and father. Now I was a slave with no control over my life at all. I blamed it on Hannibal then, and the war in general now. But I had been fortunate. My position with Archimedes was becoming more like an apprenticeship than an enslavement.

  Archimedes often gave me a copper coin or two when he sent me off on an errand. It wasn’t much, but this gave me a second reason to go to the market—to seek out the sweetest dried figs I could find.

  I particularly remember one day when I had been sent off the island to deliver a letter. I ran as fast as I could to the royal courier, so I could have some time at the market to find a fig that compared to what I’d known in Croton. It had rained quite heavily that morning, and though the streets were dotted with wide pools of brown water, the sun was out and it was a beautiful summer day with huge white clouds drifting in from the south.

  With a copper coin gripped in my left hand, I approached the first fruit vendor’s stand I saw. An old man sat out front with a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled down low on his forehead as if he might be napping. Behind him were stacks of wooden crates containing fresh fruit—melons, apples, strawberries, and pears. In front stood several tall, wide-mouthed ceramic jars. One held olives, another dates, while a third was filled with dried figs. The way the figs glistened in the late morning sun I was sure they were sweet, but I wanted to sample one before I gave up my copper coin. Not wanting to awaken the old man and then have to explain if the fig didn’t measure up, I edged up to the jar and took a fig. Before I could get my hand to my mouth, a hand shot out from behind the crates and grabbed me by the wrist.

  “Grandfather, wake up!” shouted the girl who had grabbed me. “A thief!”

  The old man leapt to his feet. “What? What?” he called out, more asleep than awake. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve caught a thief!” exclaimed the girl, gripping my arm and trying to pry my hand open.

  “Please stop,” I cried out. “I’m not a thief. I just wanted to sample your figs!”

  The girl was all set to bite my hand when the old man stepped in. “Moira! Let go of him.”

  But she didn’t, and when I felt her teeth touch my skin, I yanked my arm away with so much force we both tumbled to the ground—her on top of me—into a puddle the size of a small pond. The commotion had already attracted a crowd. Bystanders stood all around, hooting and laughing as we wrestled in the mud. Finally a man took hold of me and the grandfather took hold of his granddaughter, and we were pulled apart. For an instant, the girl and I faced each other, both wet and covered with mud. She glared at me through the muddy ribbons of hair hanging in her face and spat out, “He’s a thief!”

  “Now, now, Moira,” said the grandfather. “What is it he’s taken?”

  I held out my hand to show him. “I took a fig, sir. I hoped to buy a copper’s worth, but I wanted to taste one first.”

  “Likely story,” shouted someone in the crowd.

  “Cut off his hand,”
called out another bystander.

  “At least a finger,” said someone else.

  The old man seemed to ponder these possibilities. He glanced at his granddaughter, then turned to me—very frightened and not knowing what to expect. “Well, young man, go ahead and taste the fig. The way it’s been squished in your hand there’s certainly no hope of selling it to anyone else.”

  I gave a quick look around at the sneering crowd and popped the mutilated, mud covered fig into my mouth. I could hardly taste anything but dirt. “One of the best I’ve ever had,” I said through the grit in my teeth. “How many for a copper?” I held out my coin.

  The girl pulled away from her grandfather and snatched the coin from my hand. “I think you’ve gotten all you deserve.”

  The onlookers loved this, reacting with another chorus of laughter and more calls for my hand or a finger or who knows what else. But the kindly grandfather just sighed. “Moira, please. I don’t believe this boy is really a criminal.” He looked at me. “You may have twenty figs for your coin.”

  The girl pushed the wet strands of hair out of her face and moaned, “But Grandfather, that’s less than we usually charge. You’re rewarding this scoundrel for stealing.”

  “He’s just given his honest opinion of our figs to this gathering.” The old man motioned with an open hand to the circle of onlookers. “I expect a rush of sales to come on the heels of his praise.”

  The girl, who was about my age, crossed her arms and pouted. “He should get no more than fifteen.” Then she peeked over at me with an impish grin that struck me harder than our fall to the ground.

  At that point, several people actually did come forward to buy the figs. I didn’t know if it was because of the opinion I’d offered or if it was the old man’s use of the situation—or even if the girl had deliberately created the scene to stimulate sales. I didn’t care and I wasn’t going to stay around to find out. The grandfather counted twenty figs into my cupped hands. I put one in my mouth and dropped the rest into the pocket of my muddy tunic, then hurried away before the wild girl could attack again.