The Siege of Syracuse

by Dan Armstrong

  “Now, now, Timon, you don’t know anything for sure.”

  “Hektor, I saw it from the tower. The Tyche district is now a Roman camp. How could she have escaped?”

  “You never know,” he said, more drunk than hopeful. “Take another drink of wine. That’ll help.”

  I wiped my eyes and took another sip. We sat there sipping wine in the dim yellow light of the pantry for a long time. Hektor filled my cup twice before he got back to what interested him most. He looked at me really hard. “How many times did you do it?”

  “Once,” I admitted.

  Hektor nodded with interest. “Was she a virgin?”

  This question dropped me straight into another pit. “I don’t know.”

  “You would know, Timon. Even you. She would have bled.”

  “I didn’t see any blood.”

  Hektor shook his head. He took a sip of wine, then narrowed his eyes at me once more. “Did she suck it?”

  He had me. The wine was doing its work. I nodded.

  “Did you have to ask her?”

  “What?” I asked, puzzled. “What does that mean?”

  This got him laughing. He could barely get the words out. “Did you have to ask her to suck it?”

  I couldn’t believe it. What was he suggesting? I shook my head, no.

  “Did you have to pay her?”

  “No! She’s my friend.”

  “Quite a friend,” said Hecktor, laughing again.

  I almost joined in. Then I realized Hektor was the perfect one to ask. “She had experience, Hektor. She told me she was taken as a child. Men taught her to do things. Is that so bad, Hektor? Is it?”

  He wasn’t expecting this. His grin washed away and his face grew serious. “No,” he said. He tossed down a last swallow of wine and stood up. “Finish that up. I’ve got to go.”

  I drank what little wine remained in my cup. He gruffly took my cup and stalked out of the room. Suddenly alone, I trudged up the stairs to my bedroom. As I lay down to go to sleep, I realized why Hektor had given me such an abrupt answer. Moira’s experiences in her childhood were not all that different than Eurydice’s experience with Hieronymus—and that memory still pained him.

  CHAPTER 89

  Two days after the surrender of Euryalus, Epicydes came to the tower. Archimedes stood before the east window dictating a letter to me. Between phrases, I heard the soldiers on the stairs. Plato leapt from his spot on the windowsill and ran out of the room. He must have slipped down the stairs as the six men reached the landing.

  Epicydes strode in alone, wearing a black leather cuirass and kilt. He looked both emotionally worn and agitated. “Archimedes,” he called out so loudly that even my master couldn’t pretend not to hear him.

  Archimedes turned from the window and faced the Carthaginian.

  “We’re expecting a major offensive here in the next week. I want you to inspect the catapults and ballistae.”

  “I’m done with the work of war,” replied the disillusioned old man with a grim detachment even Epicydes couldn’t miss.

  Epicydes came up close to him. “The Carthaginian fleet is on its way. We need to insure their safe entry to the harbor. Your weapons can do that.”

  “You don’t need me for such things anymore, Epicydes. Your men know the weapons now as well as I do.”

  “Should this effort fail, you, as well as the rest of us, will be at the mercy of the Roman general Marcellus. He will likely kill us all. As I said, your assistance is requested. Please, reconsider.” The words belied the force behind them.

  Archimedes shook his head. “Regardless of the outcome of your offensive, it will not favor those of us who have lived here all our lives. Roman soldiers or Carthaginian soldiers, I see them as equal evils. I want no part of your war.”

  The two men stood three feet apart. I thought Epicydes might strike Archimedes, but Epicydes clearly had orders from his brother to treat Archimedes with utmost care. The huge Carthaginian abruptly turned away from the scientist. He paced back and forth across the room, evidently considering his alternatives. He suddenly stopped and glared at Archimedes. “Don’t press your luck, old man! You need me as much as I need you.” He turned away and strode from the room.

  CHAPTER 90

  The city was quiet during the week after Philodemus surrendered Euryalus. Marcellus installed a garrison in the fort and deployed his troops for the defense of the city and the containment of Achradina. I watched much of it from the tower, and not without some apprehension. I still hated Hannibal and the Carthaginians, but I believed what Epicydes had said to Archimedes. A Roman success was clearly at odds with my life.

  No mail came in or out of the eastern portion of the city. Archimedes continued with his proofs, but stopped writing letters. Instead of copying text, I worked for Hektor in the kitchen or idled at the windows of the tower, wondering about Moira’s fate, and thinking about the possibility that my mother was in Rome.

  At times I used the crystal lens and the clear bead to gaze into the city. This was always with a bit of hesitation. It seemed like every time I looked out into the invisible distance I saw something I wished I hadn’t. But the application of the lenses was something that still held Archimedes’ interest. With his weak eyes, however, he couldn’t bring a distant object into focus. Sometimes in frustration, he would give the lenses to me to execute specific experimental tasks. He’d ask me to scan the horizon and to describe the most distant things I could see. On clear days, he’d have me look at the peak of Mount Etna. At night we’d look into the sky. He asked me questions about the surface of the moon or the color of Jupiter. There were also times I directed the lenses to the plateau, looking for Moira. The height of the plateau limited what I could see, and yet, on some days, if the light were perfect, I could make out individuals. The lenses gave me the capacity to spot Moira, but I never did.

  One afternoon, when the light was just right, Archimedes asked me to try a few experiments with the lenses so he could calibrate their strength.

  We went to the window in the landing. He asked me to focus on a point of land on the coast, far to the southwest. He said he knew the distance to within a foot. I took the crystal lens in my right hand and held the bead with the wooden tweezers in my left. I got down on one knee, rested my right hand on the window sill, and peered into the crystal through the bead. Finding the sweet spot in the crystal lens was always a challenge. When I finally steadied an image, I wasn’t certain what I was seeing. After a moment, I realized I was watching some faint disturbance on the horizon. A cloud of dust perhaps. Squinting into the clear bead, I trained the lenses on the cloud of dust as long as I possibly could.

  It was difficult to decipher upside down, but after a while I realized that I was watching the van of an approaching army. I couldn’t be certain that it was Himilco, and yet who else would be coming from the south? I immediately told Archimedes. He wasn’t surprised. He said that was part of the reason he had me looking in that direction. As before, when I had spotted Marcellus’ fleet coming in from the east, he had no intention of reporting this to Epicydes or anyone else. But he did allow me to continue watching, and before nightfall, I was able to recognize individual soldiers and horses. A huge army was headed to Syracuse.

  Himilco, Hippocrates, and some twenty-five thousand foot soldiers arrived that night. They camped on the south side of the Great Harbor.

  By sunrise everyone in the city knew they were there. From the tower, I watched Roman soldiers deploy along the battlements. At the same time, the Carthaginian army assembled in battle formation before their camp. It was no more than posturing. Nothing happened that first day.

  Because of Epicydes’ comments earlier, Archimedes anticipated the arrival of a Carthaginian fleet as well. All through this first day and the morning of the second, he had me focus the lenses on the eastern horizon. Sure enough, from masthead to bow, one hundred Carthaginian warships appeared on the horizon the second day. The wind was just right; too
strong for the Roman ships to lie at sea, but perfect for the Carthaginian fleet to slip into the Great Harbor with only minor interference from the Roman warships. Once the Carthaginian ships were inside the harbor, the ballistae and catapults on Ortygia prevented the Romans from pursuing them.

  Midmorning the following day, I heard the trumpets call the island garrison to arms. From the north window, I watched the soldiers assemble and march over the drawbridge to join a larger force in Achradina. Using the lenses, I could see Epicydes on a spirited chestnut charger, sword upheld, riding back and forth before the amassed soldiers, shouting out instructions.

  I went to the window on the landing. The Carthaginian troops on the south side of the harbor had assembled in front of their camp. The warships that had spent the night in the harbor were moving in close to shore and, one by one, anchoring. With the aide of the lenses, I could see the decks filling with archers and Balearic slingers. Sometimes using the lenses, sometimes not, I went from window to window, watching the drama unfold from the safety of the top floor of the tower.

  The battle began in the south. The last of the ships had set anchor at the edge of the harbor. Archers and slingers stood on the decks ready to stop Marcellus’ troops from leaving through the south gate. Himilco gave his men the signal to advance on Crispinus’ position in the hills. I ran to the north window. Epicydes opened the gates to Achradina and stormed out with his troops onto Via Intermuralis. The Carthaginians were mounting a three-pronged attack designed to prevent Marcellus from coming to the aid of Crispinus.

  From my perspective in the tower, it looked like the strategy might succeed. But the fleet never came into play. Crispinus’ men repelled the Carthaginian attack, then charged from their camp, chasing Himilco’s army back across the battlefield.

  Meanwhile Marcellus never tried to leave the city. He focused on staunching the attack coming from Achradina. Epicydes’ effort to create a distraction was short-lived. He was lucky to get back within Achradina with as many men as he did.

  By late afternoon the battle was over. Although the outcome favored the Romans, both sides took serious losses. The armies settled back into their camps, and the Carthaginian warships moved back out into the center of the harbor.

  CHAPTER 91

  For the next two weeks, there was little combat action. I saw several confrontations between foraging parties in the open farmland between the Carthaginian camp and Crispinus’ camp, but they never amounted to anything more than minor skirmishes.

  Bomilcar’s fleet had little to no effect on the failed Carthaginian offensive, but it was salvation to the besieged. Several of the ships carried grain and dried meat. Those supplies were offloaded to Ortygia and distributed to all the military kitchens. Epicydes paid for the delivery with gold from Hiero’s treasure.

  For the past two months, we’d had little more than barley gruel and fish caught off the shore of the island. The arrival of fresh supplies provided a temporary lift to the beleaguered kitchen staff, but the general mood was the lowest it had ever been.

  Hektor was doing more of the kitchen work than he liked, and the wine stores were running thinner and thinner with water. Without drink, Hektor complained louder and more often. Agathe hardly ever talked, except in outbursts. The fate of her new friend Lavinia weighed heavily on her, making her anger deeper and more volatile. Married life didn’t seem to agree with Eurydice. She’d lost the last of her glow. Her once placid silence had become a sullen withdrawal. Gelo was with her throughout the work day. He was wild and fun, but a handful. I dreaded each kitchen shift and thought constantly of that last night with Moira, not knowing if I would ever see her again. Even if she were alive, I might never make it off the island anyway. More and more, the sanctuary of Ortygia seemed like a prison.

  At a time when each new day seemed darker than the previous and the atmosphere in the kitchen was oppressive, two-year-old Gelo was a ray of light. He had tremendous personality for such a young child, and we affectionately referred to him as the little king. He laughed and pranced all day it seemed, entertaining himself and the kitchen staff with his antics. He was clearly a smart and talented boy.

  Gelo—unfortunately if you asked Hektor—had Hieronymus’ red hair, which had grown long and curly. He also had his father’s green eyes, but not the narrow face. Instead he was blessed with Eurydice’s round features and large eyes. Robust and active, he was everyone’s favorite—except Hektor’s. I believe Hektor’s inability to embrace this wonderful boy was the source of Eurydice’s deepest sorrow.

  Three weeks after the failed Carthaginian offensive, with all the troops still in place, Gelo took ill. He had been irritable and listless all morning. When we were assembling supplies for the evening meal, he complained about his stomach, then just lay on the ground and fell asleep. He was out of the way so we went about our business and completed the meal.

  Before we took the food to the mess hall, Eurydice roused Gelo. When she helped him stand up, he abruptly vomited.

  Agathe loved Gelo as much as anyone. She came to Eurydice’s side and put the back of her hand to his cheek. “Oh my,” she exclaimed, “this boy’s on fire.”

  Gelo roused somewhat with the attention, but his eyes drooped and his expression was as serious as an old man’s. Agathe asked him to stick out his tongue. This would normally inspire some kind of funny face out of Gelo, but today his tongue emerged slowly, coated and thick.

  Agathe’s expression soured. Hektor and I came in close around Eurydice and the little king. “I’ve lived here all my life,” said Agathe. “Every few years the fever comes with the thick tongue and the vomiting. We need to cool him down right away.”

  Since her successful delivery of Gelo, Agathe had become our authority on health issues. Hektor and I quickly cleaned our biggest pot and filled it with cold water. Eurydice stripped the boy of his clammy clothes and placed him in the pot, while Agathe headed off to the garden for some special herbs.

  Gelo’s fever didn’t let up. For five days, Agathe and Eurydice tended to him with baths and herbal compacts and teas. Agathe said the fever always came at the end of the summer, when the lowland swamps dried into puddles and the tiny little flying insects, the konopus, were everywhere at night.

  Although no one said it, I believe we all feared that the boy would die. Gradually, however, the fever did subside. But it was a long time before the little king was prancing and laughing like we were used to. Agathe insisted that all that saved him were the herbs and the fact that both of his parents were native to the region. Native blood, she claimed, gave him the strength to survive an illness that would surely kill outsiders.

  As Agathe predicted, Gelo was not the only one to get the fever. Within a week of Gelo’s illness, the fever spread to the Carthaginian camp south of the Great Harbor. Soon the Roman troops were suffering too. Crispinus abandoned his camp and moved his army into the city. Bomilcar took advantage of a favorable wind and set sail for Carthage with his entire fleet to get away from the konopus.

  Agathe prepared an oily salve that she cooked for two days. She told us to smear it on our bodies during the day and with extra care at night to keep the insects away. I shared the salve with Archimedes. He was well aware of what it was and had me close the window shutters at night to keep the pests out.

  We were spared from the fever, perhaps by Agathe’s salve, but more than half the garrison came down with the illness. Most of them were locals, and though they got very sick, only a few of them died. The soldiers from other regions fared much worse. The Carthaginians and the foreign mercenaries camped in the lowlands outside the city were hit the hardest.

  In a period of three weeks the entire Carthaginian camp was wiped out—including Himilco and, yes, Hippocrates. Ironically, the most formidable of men, the subtle Hippocrates, who had fought in perhaps a hundred battles in hand-to-hand combat, was taken down by an insect no larger than a mustard seed. No soothsayer, no reader of omens, could have predicted so unlikely a turn of fate.<
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  It was a time I’d rather forget. From the tower windows I could see the smoldering fires of burning corpses in the south. The air smelled of putrefying flesh and bitter smoke for weeks on end. Within the city there were fewer konopus and better ways to avoid them. Still, I saw cart after cart of the dead wheeled across the plateau and out the Hexapylon to be burned or buried.

  All military operations ceased for two months. Nature had entered the fray and put a stop to the madness of men.

  CHAPTER 92

  As the summer turned to fall, the plague lifted. Syracuse seemed a city of the dead coming to life. With the Carthaginian fleet gone and their army decimated, it seemed only a matter of time before Epicydes would have to surrender, but he still had a huge quantity of gold in the treasury. He felt that the Roman army had been gravely weakened by the plague and had not been rebuilt. Another Carthaginian offensive might break the siege. For a second time, he used Hiero’s treasure to lure Bomilcar back from Carthage.

  A week later, Bomilcar left Carthage with one hundred and thirty-five warships. An additional seven hundred transports brought mercenary soldiers and supplies for the besieged. This time, however, his luck with the winds faltered. He quickly crossed to Sicily, but strong easterly winds forced him to take shelter on the south side of Cape Pachynum.

  The east winds continued for an entire week. Epicydes, fearing that Bomilcar would return to Carthage, slipped out of Syracuse on a small ship. He followed the coast south to Pachynum to convince Bomilcar that he must act now or not at all.

  Marcellus was fully aware of the Carthaginian fleet in Pachynum. Rather than let them wait out the weather and then land troops and supplies in Syracuse, he sent one hundred ships from his blockade south to Pachynum to confront Bomilcar. They anchored on the north side of the cape. For two days the rival fleets waited each other out. On the morning of the third day, the east winds finally subsided. Bomilcar made the initial move, sailing east as though preparing to round the cape. Instead—some say for lack of courage, others say because the wind favored the fleet to the north—Bomilcar continued east, away from a confrontation. He eventually turned south and returned to Carthage. After nearly two years, the siege was finally coming to an end.