Heroes

16

Anchialus wasn’t brought into the presence of King Menelaus until two days after the great battle of Mycenae. That same night, the king had sent word that Anchialus should remain his guest in the tent he had had prepared for him until he was summoned. And then the king had gone in the dead of night to the palace of Mycenae: Orestes had not returned.

There was no trace of the prince in the palace; when Menelaus entered all he found was Clytemnestra’s body. She was wearing the gown of the ancient queens that bared her breasts: a deep wound lay between them. Her blood had flowed so copiously that it stained the steps before the throne. It was said that the queen had dressed in that way to welcome her son, certain that he would not dare to sink his blade into the breasts that had nursed him as a baby.

Menelaus’s men toiled until late that night to put out the fire that the Epirotes had set in the quarter of Mycenae that rose outside the walls. Everything had been destroyed, and the houses had been reduced to ashes by the flames.

The king waited at length for Orestes, in vain. He finally asked Prince Pylades to send his Phocians to search for him. They looked high and low, guided by the light of the fire that had devastated the undefended quarter of the city. They carried torches into the corridors and underground rooms of the palace, searched the city’s houses one by one and inspected the valley of the tombs as well.

That was where they found Electra, sitting in silence on the stone that covered the grave of her father. They brought her to Menelaus, who held her long in his arms as she cried all her tears. When she finally found the strength to speak, she told him that her brother had left; she said that the execution of their mother had ravaged his mind and his heart. Pursued by her restless shade, he had gone to a distant sanctuary to seek purification for the blood he had shed. Only when he was healed would he return.

Prince Pylades slept in the palace, on the floor outside of Electra’s room on a bearskin, to assist her if she needed help that dreadful night. Menelaus departed immediately, for that city called up only bitter memories for him. He ordered that the body of his brother Agamemnon be exhumed and buried in the grandiose tomb excavated in the valley, after dressing his body in his armour and his golden mask, as befitted a great king. He ordered that a tomb be reserved for queen Clytemnestra as well. He knew that no matter how evil men seem to be, they are still subject to the inescapable will of Fate, and he knew that death unites all men, and makes them all the same. Thus he also ordered that the body of Pyrrhus be bathed and embalmed and transported by ship to Phthia and the land of the Myrmidons, so he could receive funeral rites from Peleus.

The next day Menelaus marched towards Argos, where he arranged for the city to be blockaded on the west and the north, while Pisistratus set sail with his fleet; that evening, he landed his warriors at the bay of Temenium, closing the city off to the south. It was there that Anchialus was summoned to the king’s presence.

As soon as he saw Menelaus, he threw himself at his feet and kissed his hand: ‘Do you recognize me, wanax?’

‘I do,’ said the king, considering the pale bristly-bearded man before him. ‘You are the man who threw the sword to Prince Orestes that saved his life. I am in your debt. Ask and I shall give you everything I can.’

‘No, wanax, before then, in the fields of Ilium, don’t you remember? In Diomedes’s tent. I am Anchialus, son of Iasus. It was there that we met.’

The king stood and held out his hand, helping Anchialus to his feet. He felt like weeping, and his voice trembled. ‘That cursed war,’ he said. ‘What grief! And yet now that I see you I am cheered to recall those times, the comfort and warmth of friendship. Tell me, of what was that awesome sword crafted? How did you get it?’

‘Oh wanax, this is the reason I’ve come here. When King Diomedes realized that the queen had taken power in the city and was plotting to kill him, he decided to take to the seas and seek a new kingdom for himself, instead of unleashing a new war. Many of us followed him and we sailed the western sea at the height of winter towards the Land of Evening. But one day, as we were attacking a village to carry off food and women, we saw an immense horde descending from the mountains. There were thousands and thousands of them, and they brought their women and children and their old people with them. An entire people, in migration. We barely managed to survive their attack, and many of our comrades were lost. King Diomedes confronted their chieftain in single combat and risked his life; the man was armed with a sword similar to the one I gave Prince Orestes, and like him all the other warriors of his race. Their weapons are made of a formidable metal, as tough as bronze but as hard as stone; nothing can withstand it.

‘The king managed to win the duel by hurling his spear from a distance, but he realized that no army could resist these invaders drawn up on an open field. They have thousands of horses, as well, but they are not harnessed to chariots, like ours are. Those men ride their animals bare-backed, forming a single creature with the power of a horse and the craft and cunning of a man. Like centaurs they fly over fields and mountains, swift as the wind. They can run in circles and jump over obstacles. This I know, because they later took me prisoner, and I spent nearly three years with them.

‘We managed to escape with great difficulty, fleeing away over the sea, but Diomedes summoned me and ordered me to turn back, although I was loath to do so. He said: “You must return, you must warn Nestor and Agamemnon, and Menelaus, if he has returned, and Sthenelus at Argos, if he has survived. Tell them what you have seen, tell them to prepare their defences, to raise a wall on the Isthmus, to launch the black ships. .” ’

Menelaus was dumbfounded by Anchialus’s words. He could still hear the voice of the Old Man of the Sea sounding within him; he could see the great cavern and the visions of his comrades: Ulysses prisoner on an enchanted island, Diomedes, in the swamps of a remote land.

‘I obeyed with a heavy heart,’ continued Anchialus, ‘and I turned my prow south, but no more than several days had passed when I fell prey to Shekelesh pirates. We fought with all our might, but we were completely overwhelmed. I was the only one of us to survive, but I still have in my ears the screams of pain of my comrades as they were tortured to death. I swam ashore and began to march to the land of the Achaeans, although I had no idea of how far it was. I was twice made prisoner, and I ended up once again in the hands of those invaders, who kept me as a slave until I managed to escape again. After long wanderings and much suffering, I reached Buthrotum and the house of Pyrrhus. The son of Achilles had already departed for the war, but I met Andromache who told me how I could reach him. I crossed the mountains with his army and have at long last arrived here.’

The king fell still in meditation, then asked: ‘How far are they?’

‘It is difficult to say, wanax. They don’t seem to have a destination in mind. They sometimes stop in a single place for years, but they do not know how to build cities and so they must keep moving in search of new pastures for their herds. When they do move, they head south and so, sooner or later, they will reach this land. I could not say when, maybe in a year’s time, or two, or ten, but you can be certain that they will arrive. Oh wanax, heed the words of King Diomedes, who is bound to you through deep friendship. Build a wall on the Isthmus, ready the defences, launch the black ships to sea! This is what I had to tell you; now my mission is finished. If you are still willing to offer me a reward. .’

‘Anything I can,’ said the king. ‘Ask me for anything.’

‘Give me a ship, so I can return to my king. I don’t desire anything else.’

‘You will have it tomorrow if you want. But I would ask you to wait until Argos has fallen! Wait to take to the sea, so that when you see your lord, King Diomedes, you can tell him that Argos is his. That he must return. We will make a pact of eternal friendship and alliance that no one will be able to sunder, and we will grow old together watching our children’s children grow. If he will not return, tell him that he shall remain forever in my heart, like all the friends and comrades who suffered with me in the bloody fields of Asia.’

‘I will do as you advise,’ said Anchialus. ‘If you like, I will fight alongside your warriors, as I once did.’

‘That will not be necessary,’ said Menelaus. ‘Argos will fall without a fight. The army that was sent out with Aegisthus’s forces has been destroyed. The survivors have come over to our side. The city cannot resist.’

‘Aigialeia. . what will become of her?’

‘The war council will decide. But the queen of Argos is a proud woman. Perhaps she will take things into her own hands. But go now and take your rest. We all need to rest.’ The king took his leave, kissing Anchialus on both cheeks.

Anchialus started to leave, but before crossing the threshold he turned back: ‘There’s something I have not told you.’

‘What is it?’

‘That people. . speaks a language like our own. Different. And yet very similar. I have always wondered why.’

He went out into the night and the king remained alone in his tent with those words. ‘A language similar to ours,’ he kept repeating to himself. He lifted his hands to his face and closed his eyes. ‘Oh gods,’ he said, ‘gods of the heavens. Destiny is fulfilled. The sons of Hercules are about to return. If you are just, allow me, please, to live until the moment in which I will know if the war in Asia was fought for the salvation of our people or if so much blood and so many tears were shed for nothing.’

A month later, Argos surrendered. Menelaus and Pisistratus entered the city, welcomed by the rejoicing inhabitants. Queen Aigialeia killed herself.

Anchialus was given his ship and he left one day at the end of winter, sailing north towards the mouth of the Eridanus. He remembered Diomedes’s promise: when they had come to a suitable place, he would found a city on the coast and would place a signal on the beach so that Anchialus could find them. The king never broke his word.

Meanwhile, in the land of Hesperia, Diomedes had crossed the snow-covered Blue Mountains and had descended a great river until he reached the confines of a plain which extended all the way to the western sea. It was inhabited by the Lat who had settled there not long ago, having crossed the Mountains of Ice, some said, or perhaps the eastern sea. Eurimachus the Trojan told them the Teresh lived north of that land, and that Aeneas had occupied a territory on the coast that he had won from the Lat in battle.

If nothing had changed during his absence, the Dardan prince could be found at no more than two days’ journey along the shores of the great river. Diomedes decided to set up camp there. The climate was mild and the pastures were lush. One night he summoned Eurimachus and said: ‘Tomorrow you will leave.’ Then he called Lamus, son of Onchestus, and ordered him to accompany the Trojan as his herald. ‘When you see Aeneas, you shall say: “Diomedes, son of Tydeus, who has already defeated you on the fields of Ilium, is here. He thinks that there is not room for both of you in this land, and that the quarrel that set our peoples one against the other for long years must be settled once and for all. Why else would the gods have made us wander at length over land and sea only to find each other here in this far land? He awaits you in a valley along the great river, and he challenges you to this duel. He who wins will certainly have the favour of the gods and the dominion over this land.” ’

‘I will do so,’ said Lamus.

They left the next day, and the Chnan departed with them. And thus the wait began. Myrsilus raided a village in the mountains and carried off some fine horses. He assembled the king’s war chariot, greased the hubs and fixed the shaft on to the wagon. He shined every decoration until they gleamed like they once had. He chose the two proudest stallions and had them run every day from dawn to dusk along the shores of the river. He accustomed them to the harness and reins and trained them well in every manoeuvre. They were very different from Asian horses, and from Argive horses as well. They were tall and slender, not as fast, perhaps, but more powerful, with a fiery temper. Diomedes spent most of his time alone and took little interest in the training; the great effort that Myrsilus was making to provide him with a chariot worthy of a king, worthy of a hero, a chariot that would raise his fame to the skies, seemed not to matter at all to the king.

This was not true; Diomedes kept to himself in order to gather his strength and concentrate all the power of his spirit. He was preparing for the encounter by distilling every last drop of his life energy. Myrsilus feared that the king would take his own life if Aeneas were not to accept his challenge.

One evening towards dusk, Myrsilus saw Lamus and the Chnan riding towards camp on an ass. He raced to meet them.

‘Did you see him? Has he accepted?’

The Chnan halted the ass and slipped to the ground. Lamus said: ‘Yes, I saw him. He accepts. Take me to the king.’

Diomedes received him in his tent. He was pale, but his eyes shone with a feverish light. He did not move. He asked nothing. He waited for Lamus to speak.

‘Aeneas accepts the challenge. He will come on the first day of the new moon. Alone, except for his charioteer. You too must use your chariot alone. You will fight as you did in Ilium. Three javelins from the chariot and then, if you survive, on the ground with a spear, a sword and an axe. No respite. A duel to the death. These are the conditions I accepted in your name.’

Diomedes’s face lit up as though life once again flowed through his veins. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘I thank you. If I win, if I finally found my city. .’

The Chnan interrupted. ‘That’s not all. The Lat fear him. At least a part of them, while others would be willing to accept him. When they learned of this challenge, they gave me a message for you. They ask you to join forces with all your warriors, to drive the Trojans into the sea. The Teresh are divided as well. Some of them are on the Trojans’ side and are ready to form an alliance in the name of their common Asian origin, but others want Aeneas, and all his people, dead.’

The king looked at him in surprise: ‘How did you discover all of these things?’

‘I can understand the Teresh well enough, and they understand the Lat. That’s all. What is your decision?’

‘No,’ said the king. ‘I will not drag my men into a war against the Trojans. They have already fought against them once, and it was a cursed war. It brought nothing but grief and endless pain.’

The Chnan shook his head: ‘I’ve yet to hear of a war that wasn’t cursed, that did not bring grief and endless pain.’

‘This is the war they have experienced; they have seen that the victors have suffered as much as, if not more than, the vanquished. With what spirit could they face another war against the same people? No. Tell the Lat that I will not make war at their side. Tell them, if you want, that we have already fought a long war that brought us every kind of misfortune. I will combat Aeneas alone. If I win, you will return to them and negotiate new conditions. From a stronger position. Perhaps this beautiful plain will soon be ours. Perhaps the day in which I will build my city is nearing.’

The Chnan smiled: ‘This land has much changed you, since I have known you. It is harsh and primitive and forgives nothing. It has made you lose your world, a little at a time. You’ve lost pieces on the road, in the swamps, on the mountains, in the valleys and the forests, as your comrades fell, when your immortal horses were devoured by the wolves. Perhaps it would have soon stripped you of everything. No longer a king, or a hero. Only a man. Like me.’

‘And that is a good thing?’

‘I don’t know. But it would certainly be the truth. Your truth. When someone has the truth in front of him, he knows what to do. If he likes it, he continues on his road. If he doesn’t, he kills himself. But now this Aeneas has ruined everything. He has pushed you back, revived the old ghosts. Now you have fooled yourself into thinking that nothing has changed. You prepare for a duel as if you were under the walls of Ilium. Even if you win, nothing will change. This land is made of hundreds of peoples, speaking many different languages, coming from no one knows where. .’

Diomedes fell silent, thinking of the Chnan’s words. They seemed right. They seemed true even though they were so terribly simple. But was it all really so simple? So simple to live, or to die?

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘And yet a particular vital force burns in some of them more than in others, and the others are slowly attracted to them like lamplight attracts moths. Like a small seed becomes a great tree, perhaps one day a new nation will grow here.’

He rose to his feet and went to the entrance of the tent, contemplating the green expanse at his feet which extended like a precious carpet under the golden light of the setting sun. ‘Look,’ he said then, ‘another day has passed in the land of Hesperia, but it has not passed in vain. Many seeds have fallen here, carried by the wind of fate. Some will grow roots, others will dry up and die. And tomorrow this land will be different than it is today. Something is born, something dies, but each thing must be true to itself. An oak seed cannot generate a rush, nor can an eagle give birth to a crow. I am Diomedes, son of Tydeus, destroyer of cities. Even if I were stripped of everything, I would still carry my world inside of me, whether right or wrong. I will combat so that my world may live. If I die, it will mean that my death was meant to happen. This is what the Land of Evening has taught me.’ The Chnan lowered his head and did not speak.

The next day, Diomedes summoned Myrsilus and said: ‘There are only four days to the new moon. Where are my arms?’

‘But wanax,’ said Myrsilus, astonished, ‘I have been doing nothing but taming your horses and preparing your chariot and you have never said a word to me. Your weapons will be ready very soon, if this is what you want.’

The king lay his hands on Myrsilus’s shoulders: ‘This is what I want. They must sparkle on the day of the duel like the day they were crafted.’

‘They will gleam, wanax. They will be ablaze like the noonday sun. You will look awesome and invincible, like that day a goddess took the reins of your chariot against the god of war before the Scaean Gates.’

Myrsilus took the king’s armour from his tent, the embossed greaves and breastplate, the shield and the helmet, adorned by a horsehair crest. He ordered a slave to shine them, to remove the patina that darkened them. He himself took a long ashwood stick from the forest; he removed the branches and the bark, polished it with a pumice stone, and shod it with the heavy, solid bronze head. He weighed it in his hand until it was perfect, and then fitted on the bronze socket at exactly the right point. He then took the baldric which was remarkably crafted in gold, enamel and silver and he cleaned it with his own hands, making it gleam. It had once belonged to Tydeus, when he fought under the walls of Thebes. Last of all, he took the great sword of solid bronze; he sharpened it with a whetstone, tested the long edge and the sharp tip and greased it with pork fat melted over the fire, until he saw it shine. The king had used it only once, when he had fought Nemro; never since had he found a worthy adversary.

When his work was finished, Myrsilus put the arms back into the king’s tent so he would see them and his courage would grow within his soul. His bride saw them as well, and her eyes filled with tears.

When the day of the new moon arrived, the king asked Myrsilus to be his charioteer. He awoke him when it was still dark and spoke to him: ‘If I should die, bring my body back to my bride so she can bathe it and prepare it for the funeral rites. You yourself will dress my body with this armour and bury it in front of the Achaeans. Raise a cairn and set a stele that I will be remembered by. Shout out my name ten times and then entrust it to the wind. And then depart; you will lead the comrades. No curse weighs upon you. Perhaps the gods will forget and you will succeed in beginning a new life in this land. Otherwise, if they so wish, take them back to Argos. The Chnan will know how to find you ships.’

‘None of this will ever happen,’ said Myrsilus. ‘It is as you say: the gods want this duel to be fought to its end, and then we will be able to live a new life and build our city. You will fight and you will win. As you always have.’

He shook the reins and urged on the horses, who took off at a gallop. Myrsilus drove the team up on to a small ridge of land near the great river, a softly sloping hill from which the valley and plain of the Lat could be seen.

The rising sun had just begun to lighten the horizon behind the mountains, but the plain was still in shadow. A slight mist covered it, like a light veil. Birds chirped their welcome to the morning. A large heron passed through the sky in slow, solemn flight. The king watched him at length as he vanished in the distance over the sea. He said: ‘Sometimes I dream that I am a bird, a great bird with white wings. I dream that I am flying over the foamy swells of the sea, my heart free of worry, of pain, of fear. It is a beautiful dream. When I awaken my heart is light.’

But Myrsilus’s eyes were fixed on the plain. ‘Wanax!’ he said, and the king turned that way as well. A chariot advanced through the mist, appearing and disappearing with the rippling of the ground. Then the light of the sun struck it in full and the point of a spear sparkled with dazzling fire, a white crest swayed in the morning breeze. Diomedes’s hand tightened on the shaft of his spear. At that moment, the chariot stopped and the blast of a horn sounded over the vast plain, struck the peaks of the mountains and echoed over the snow-covered summits. The son of Anchises was launching his challenge.

‘He has seen us,’ said the king. ‘Let us go.’ And Myrsilus drove on the horses.

They were face to face, after so many years, dressed in resplendent bronze, as they had been then. Diomedes shouted: ‘It’s you or me, son of Anchises! Only one of us will see the dawn tomorrow!’

Aeneas answered him: ‘It’s you or me, son of Tydeus!’

Myrsilus sent the team galloping over the plain. Aeneas’s charioteer shouted out and set the war-car racing off against his adversary of old. Diomedes took a javelin from the quiver; he weighed it in his hand and when Aeneas’s chariot was within range he hurled it with all his strength, aiming low, at the belt. The tip hit the parapet and shattered it into pieces. Aeneas flung his javelin as well; it struck the edge of the shield and rebounded to the right. For an instant, as the chariots flew past each other the hubs of the wheels were so close they nearly touched, the two warriors glared at each other and the ancient fury was rekindled. Aeneas saw in those eyes the sinister reflection of the flames that had burned his homeland, Diomedes saw the arrogant challenge of Hector and Deiphobus, the fire that had burned the rampart and the ships.

They reached the confines of the field and the charioteers took the reins and assumed their positions again. The warriors took a second javelin from their quivers.

‘There’s a strong cross wind, wanax, adjust your aim to the left.’

Diomedes nodded. ‘Go,’ he said.

Myrsilus whipped his stallions’ backs with the reins. The steeds raised a long whinny into the air, distantly echoed by Aeneas’s horses, then broke into a gallop. ‘I’ll take you right into him; you’ll have him directly in front of you, but just for an instant,’ shouted Myrsilus. ‘Careful! Weigh it both left and right before you throw!’ When he was at the calculated distance, he swerved violently with his right horse, widening and then narrowing on the left at the last moment while Diomedes crouched low, holding on to the rear handles and leaning in to the other side, to keep the wheels gripping the ground.

Aeneas’s charioteer was disoriented by the move and Diomedes re-emerged from behind the parapet with his javelin tight in his fist. He found Aeneas right in front of him then, for just an instant, and he hurled the weapon at his neck, at the collar bone. The javelin missed its target by a hairbreadth because Aeneas’s chariot gave a jolt, but the bronze still cut into his skin above the shoulder. And while his adversary rode off, Diomedes turned and shouted: ‘First blood, son of Anchises!’

But Aeneas’s charioteer took him by surprise: he did not halt the horses, but widened their path in a full curve without diminishing their speed. When Myrsilus had started his team running again after having stopped at the end of the field, they were already upon him, racing at full tilt. Just an instant before he let his javelin fly, Diomedes realized that Aeneas was aiming to strike his charioteer. He raised his shield to protect Myrsilus, but this threw him off balance and he missed his throw.

‘Thank you, wanax,’ said Myrsilus. ‘But you’ve lost your third javelin. Now you must do battle on the ground with your spear and sword.’

‘It would have been worse to lose my charioteer and end up in the dust,’ said Diomedes with a smile. ‘You were magnificent. Sthenelus could not have done any better.’

Myrsilus set the horses off at a trot and turned back, then stopped at a short distance from their adversary. Diomedes and Aeneas descended from the war-cars, and the charioteers handed them their spears. The sun was already high over the mountains and was turning south, sparkling on the waters of the great river.

The two heroes faced each other warily, protected by their shields, spears in hand. The speed of the horses could no longer be added to the force of their arms. Now ability counted as much as strength. Diomedes chose not to throw his spear from a distance, but engaged Aeneas in hand-to-hand combat, crossing his ashen shaft with his enemy’s. Wood and bronze crackled in the close assault, bronze points seeking out a gap in the other’s defences, a space between the joints of the breastplate, a brief opening between the edge of the shield and the visor of the helmet. The whole valley resounded at length with the din of the battle.

Myrsilus stood pale on the chariot while the horses tranquilly browsed on the grass. He abruptly started: with a sudden surge of energy, Aeneas had leapt backwards to dodge a blow, crouched down and hurled his spear from the ground, shearing off one of the shoulder plates on Diomedes’s armour. Blood reddened the chest of the son of Tydeus, who managed still to cast his own spear. The point of bronze struck the side of Aeneas’s helmet with such force that the Dardan hero wavered and nearly fell. Diomedes raised his sword to finish him off but Aeneas reacted, lifting his shield against the furious raining of blows. He moved backwards and, one step after another, he regained his composure, stood tall again and drew his own sword.

They stopped for an instant, panting heavily, then attacked each other with renewed violence.

Myrsilus was astonished: he could not understand what mysterious energy upheld Aeneas’s arm against Diomedes’s fury. He watched the sun as it continued to rise in the sky. Perhaps Aeneas was truly born of a goddess, as he had heard, and he prayed to Athena to hastily infuse new vigour in the arm of Diomedes.

The ferocious battle went on. It went on and on, until their swords were blunted and deformed by the blows. They were useless now. The charioteers approached them and offered the double-edged axes. The two combatants were disfigured by the tremendous struggle. Blood dripped from innumerable wounds; sweat blinded them and they burned with thirst and fever. As he handed him the axe, Myrsilus looked the king full in the face: ‘There’s still enough fire in your eyes to burn a city. Strike him down, wanax, no one can stand up to you. You’ve already beaten him once, and forced him to flee.’

And the charioteer of Aeneas also spoke to his lord as he handed him the sharpened axe: ‘His energies are waning. He’s desperate. You have a son, a people with women and children. Strike him down, son of Anchises. You will be the one to see the dawn tomorrow.’

And the battle resumed with the axes: long, exhausting, cruel. Their shields were shattered, mangled by their blows, the straps holding their helmets and breastplates were ripped to shreds. At the end, the heroes faced each other, offering their undefended bodies to the axes. Skin and bone against bronze.

But a god, perhaps, took pity on them. As they attacked each other for the final time, even the handles of the axes split, and the two warriors remained on their feet, gasping, soaked in bloody sweat.

Diomedes spoke first: ‘Son of Anchises, the gods have granted victory to neither one of us. See? Our weapons are broken and useless; we have nothing but our teeth with which to wound each other. It would not be worthy of us to attack each other like dogs. I. . I believe that the gods have sent us a sign; is it not a miracle that we are both still alive? Look, the sun is already descending towards the sea. We have fought this entire day. Perhaps this is what the gods want: that there be peace between us.’ Aeneas regarded him in silence. Only the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest accompanied his panting breath.

Diomedes spoke again: ‘Listen. Achilles is dead. Hector is dead. You and I are the strongest warriors in the world. But neither of us is stronger than the other. Let us forget our ancient animosity. Let us unite our peoples in this land and form a new, invincible nation. Listen, son of Anchises. I am willing to share with you the greatest of my treasures, the most precious talisman of your lost homeland.’ Aeneas listened with a look of deep apprehension. ‘On the night in which we conquered the city, I managed to slip into the sanctuary and abduct the Palladium, the sacred image of Athena which had made Ilium the greatest and most prosperous city in the world. I knew where it was kept; Ulysses and I had stolen into the citadel some time earlier and we were the only ones to know where it was. I’ve been carrying it with me all these years. I was waiting for the day in which I would found a new city. I would have placed it in a beautiful temple and there I would have built a new kingdom. And now I offer it to you, so we can build this kingdom and this nation together. Enough blood and enough tears. Enough.’ He bowed his head and awaited Aeneas’s response in silence.

The Dardan hero stared at him without saying a word. There was no longer hate in his eyes, but rather melancholy and pity. He said: ‘Son of Tydeus, I fought for years to defend my homeland and I fought you now in the hopes of destroying the last shadows of my past before beginning a new life here, in the land of Hesperia. The gods wanted our last encounter to end this way, and now let us separate, so that each of us may take his own road. Too much hate and too much blood have divided us. Our wounds are still bleeding.

‘What you believe to be the talisman of the Trojans is nothing. It is nothing but a false image, one of the seven replicas that King Laomedon had made to mask the true idol. All of you searched for it that night, blinded by the dream of endless power: you, Ajax Oileus, Agamemnon. Ulysses himself. Cassandra fooled you all. She alone knew which one was the true idol, and that night she revealed the secret to me. I returned unseen amid the flames which were still devouring the city and recovered it, and I took it with me, to Mount Ida. It was the smallest and poorest image of them all; just two cubits tall, I could easily carry it in my arms.

‘Only Ulysses realized the trick. He had always suspected something. That night at Tenedos, while you were all sleeping, overwhelmed by weariness, he searched your ship and Ajax’s ship and found the false images. That is why he turned back; he wanted to warn Agamemnon, but when he landed on that deserted beach, the Atreid king had already departed.

‘I saw Ulysses rummaging through the ruins of the citadel that night as I slipped away. I spoke to him; I appeared to him as a ghost amid the pillars of Priam’s palace, reduced to ash. I did not kill him; I knew that the worst torture for him would be having been deceived. This is why he still wanders the seas without purpose and without hope.

‘The sacred image now protects my camp and for this reason I know that this small refuge will become a city and that this city will generate one hundred cities, all beautiful and prosperous, and will unite all the peoples of Hesperia, from the Mountains of Ice to the Mountains of Fire, along the crests of the Blue Mountains, for ever. Farewell, son of Tydeus. May the gods have mercy on you.’