The Bronze God of Rhodes

BOOK IX — DIOGNETOS

Before the dawn of a blustery day in Elaphebolion, when Kaikias blew boisterously, the Halia swept into the Great Harbor of Rhodes under sail and oar, the spray curling from her ram. We cheered and waved from her deck as our beautiful city opened out before us, for the dawning light soon showed that King Demetrios had not had his will of the City of Roses. The solar-disk standards still rose from the fortifications around the Great Harbor, while the king's ships still lay, by scores and hundreds, in South Harbor and in the coves along the coast. A fiver had put out to intercept us, but our speed and the direction of the wind had rendered her effort futile.

Trumpets blew as soon as we were within recognition distance, and continued to blow as we pulled up to the quay. Soldiers trotted through the harbor gate and lined up on the waterfront. A group of plumed officers walked out in front of them; among these I recognized President Damoteles, Admiral Damophilos, General Ananias, and my old commander, Bias the carpenter. A straggle of civilians also issued from the gate, forming a crowd behind the line of soldiers. There were many women in the crowd; I was astonished to see that most of them had their hair cut short, like a man's.

Python climbed down the ladder. He brought his heels together, saluted with his sword, and cried:

"Sirs, I have returned from Egypt to report success in my mission. The Ptolemaios has promised us three hundred thousand medimnoi of wheat and other provisions, and perhaps some more soldiers to follow later."

The soldiers waved their spears; the crowd cheered, albeit the cheers had a thin sound. The President said:

"That is good news, Captain. How soon will these supplies arrive?"

"When the seas are calm enough to sail from Alexandria, perhaps within the month."

The officers looked at one another. Damophilos said: "We shall be dead of starvation by then. We've hanged six men in the last ten-day for stealing from the public stores of food."

Python said: "We brought what little grain we could carry in the ship."

Bias grunted. "I've been starving on a roll of lentil bread a day so long I'm used to it. I guess I can hold out a while longer."

Our executive officer motioned us to start leaving the ship. We climbed down the ladder and mustered. Python made a speech, ending:

"You have all done well by your city, which is the greatest single virtue a man can have. A cheer, now: lai for beautiful Rhodes! ... You have one day at liberty; then report to your regular officers for assignment. Dismissed!"

Everybody started to mill about and greet his friends and dear ones; the uxorious Onas set off for his home at a run. Chares!" said a soldier in the line.

"Glôs!" I cried. "I didn't know you!"

"I hardly know myself," he said, looking down at his shrunken form. "I almost fit my armor now. We must get together, and you shall tell me all about the beautiful food you had in Egypt. That's all we think about here."

"What in Hera's name have the women done to their hair? Is this some new Scythian fad?"

"No, they've given their hair to the city for catapult skeins."

My father pushed through the crowd. We fell into each other's arms. He looked wan and drawn, like all the others, but still his competent, self-reliant old self.

"You've had one of your wishes granted, son," he said.

"How so?"

"Your mother's flower garden is no more. Every space like that in the city is given over to the growing of food. We are hoping for a crop of peas and beans, if neither birds nor burglars get them first. You didn't bring a sack of grain from Egypt, did you?"

"Alas, Father, I'm a selfish, thoughtless, worthless son! It never occurred to me. But Python brought a little to add to the city's store."

"Chares!" called Bias. "You'll have to give him up for a piece, Nikon. You know how it is. The more important they get to be, the less you see of them."

"When he makes general, I shan't see him at all, then," said my father. "Come home when you can, Chares. We can't give you much of a homecoming feast, but we can at least feast our eyes upon you."

"What's important about me?" I asked Bias.

"Oh, don't you know? But of course you wouldn't. You're a battery commander now. Come with me and I'll show you your command."

"By the! That's something. Then what are you?"

"General of artillery. Phaon is your battalion commander."

"Zeus, what a lot of promotion in three months! Have all the other officers been killed?"

Said Bias: "No. Matter of fact, there's been only a few deaths in action since you left, though we've all gone hungry. But we have a.lot of new pieces, and a couple of our older officers dropped out from natural causes."

"If you're general of artillery, what has become of Kallias?"

Bias chuckled. "That's quite a story. Wait till we get to the South Wall. I'll show you."

As we crossed the marketplace, I saw that my statues of Antigonos and Demetrios still stood. "How is it that they haven't been melted down for arrowheads?" I asked.

"There was a motion before the Assembly to do just that. That fellow Lykon, your rival in the statue business, was all for scrapping them. But I stopped him."

"You?"

"Sure. I'm a full citizen now. When the rich bastards got wise to Kallias, they figured they needed a general of artillery who knew a skein shackle from a horse's arse. So they came to me. Not without citizenship, I said. I'm no mercenary soldier of fortune, I said. I'm a Rhodian, and I'm fed up with carrying out policies I don't have no hand in deciding. They had to bend the property qualification a little to squeeze me through, but they did it."

"But I thought you were for scrapping the statues! When we talked about it—"

"Sure, but I guess you kind of convinced me. Anyway, I know Lykon has a grudge against you, and I didn't like to see him put one over on you when you wasn't here. So I got up and told 'em what you had said to me: If we win, the statues will do credit to our generous spirit, while if we lose, the fact that they're still there might make the kings go easier on us."

As we neared the South Wall, I could see many changes. The animals that had pastured on the athletic field were gone; eaten, no doubt. Before the siege, a number of squatters' huts had cluttered the plaza between the wall and the city's houses. This space, thirty paces wide, was supposed to be clear of buildings, but our easygoing government had failed to keep it so. Now, however, the huts had vanished.

Behind the old wall Makar and his masons worked on a new wall, a lune parallel to the original one. They used material of all sorts: bricks, timbers, roofing tiles, broken catapult balls, and stones from the old theater and the temples. Some of these things were set in mortar, while others were only roughly fitted and piled up.

The original wall stood, but it was crazed with cracks. A line of sail-like squares of canvas had been erected on frames along the top of the wall to stop high-flying missiles from falling into the city.

Between the old wall and the new, east of the South Gate, rose two new structures: a pair of thick, squat, round towers, lower than the original wall but connected with it by a flight of steps. On each of these towers stood an enormous catapult. I recognized the three-talent stone throwers that Demetrios had erected on the South Mole, and which we had captured. One seemed complete, while men struggled to assemble the other under the direction of Polemon, the captured Athenian engineer.

"Come on up," said Bias. He led me up a stair to the top of one of the towers.

"All right," he said, "here's your command: this pair."

He indicated the two stone throwers. I gasped. These were probably the world's most advanced catapults—Apollo-nios' masterpieces. The dearest wish of any engineer would be to command one, let alone two.

"By the gods and goddesses!" I exclaimed. "Bias, what have I done to deserve this? I know that many people don't like me, yet you've put me in a most responsible position. Do you think I can measure up?"

Bias: "Well, I had to push to get you the commission. Like you say, some don't take to you. But this isn't a contest in popularity. I wouldn't lay any bets on you to win the title of the best-loved man in Rhodes; on the other hand, you've got your good points, too. You're smart, you learn fast, and you've got plenty of energy and initiative. And you've got courage. A fighter has to have courage like a boat has to float. Nothing else is any good without it."

I became absorbed in the technical details of the installation. The only major shortcoming of these colossal engines was that they were too heavy to train by ordinary means. But Bias had partly overcome even this difficulty. He had affixed posts to the corners of their frames, so spaced that men with long levers, applying them to these posts and to the crenelations of the round towers, could slowly rotate the catapults as if they were mounted on pivots.

"Don't you want a look at what the other team is up to?" said Bias.

We crossed over to the old wall. I looked across the leveled fields, where once had stood the suburbs of Rhodes. Now Protogenes' studio was almost the only structure still standing, in a cleared area four furlongs wide, measured parallel to the walls.

If I had gasped at the sight of the two supercatapults that comprised my battery, I almost stopped breathing altogether at the sight of Demetrios' engines lined up across the clearing, out of catapult range.

The sight that first caught my eye was the immense new belfry that Epimachos the Athenian had built for King Demetrios. This was the largest siege engine that the hand of mortal man had ever constructed. It was larger than the belfry that Epimachos had built for the attack on Cyprian Salamis, and larger even than the ill-fated sea tower, erected on six ships fastened together.

This belfry stood on a square base about forty cubits on a side and rose to a height of at least seventy cubits. From each corner of the base rose an immense squared timber, slanting inward towards the center, to the top of the belfry. Within the frame thus defined rose the tower. The belfry had nine stories, each smaller than that below it, so that the effect was a little like that of King Sosorthos' stepped pyramid at Memphis.

The front and sides of the tower were built of heavy timbers bolted together by broad iron plates, so that the engine appeared to be mailed in iron. On each story, in front, were ports for catapults. Before each port hung an enormous cushion of stuffed hide, with cords by which those inside the machine could raise the cushion to shoot the catapult and then lower the cushion again.

"Now you see why Kallias don't have his job no more," said Bias. "Remember that great sluing crane that was going to pick up siege engines? Well, he got a crane of sorts built over the gate tower. Then the Demetrios put up that thing yonder. I figured it must weigh something like five or six thousand talents. When the Council asked Kallias how he expected to lift thousands of talents with a crane that could lift thirty or forty talents at the outside, he admitted he was licked. So they dismissed the temple thief."

"Who is municipal architect now? You?"

"No, son, I'm no architect, just a carpenter. The Council tried to get Diognetos to take his old job back, but he's still sore."

"Enough of the oak! What good would that hidebound old reactionary do?"

"Use your wits. We all know Diognetos' faults, but the point is, he can think. For all his dislike of anything new, he's still smarter than any three other architects you could name. He could think our way out of this mess if any man could."

I looked across at the engines. On either side of the belfry stood five tortoises: long sheds on wheels. The two largest of these, flanking the belfry, carried enormous rams, over a hundred cubits long. On either side of these stood four smaller tortoises for the shelter of sappers, who would fill the ditch outside our wall and undermine the wall itself, shielded from Rhodian missiles.

Men, small in the distance, moved about the belfry and tortoises. To our ears came the sound of hammer and saw and the bark of commands. I asked:

"How did our wall get into such shape? I see no signs of heavy assault."

"Mining. Demetrios ran galleries under our walls."

"How has it taken him so long to get ready?"

"Those contraptions take much longer to build than you'd think. And the wind and rain have slowed him up."

"Good for Helios-Apollon! I knew—"

A hand smote me on the back with such force that it nearly felled me. "Chares!" said a lusty voice.

"Phaon!" I embraced my new battery commander.

"Have you seen your new battery?" he asked.

"Yes. Aren't they beauties? I don't yet understand why I got them."

"Well, confidentially, old boy, all the rest of us in the artillery are afraid of those monsters. Moreover, it seemed only right to give the biggest catapults to the smallest officer in the corps: to balance things out, you know."

"How about ammunition?" I asked.

"That is what I wanted to speak to you about ..."

Bias left us, and I spent the rest of the day organizing my crews and arranging for the manufacture and supply of balls. I had eighty-odd stone balls from the previous fighting, but these would not last a day once the battle was joined again.

For more ammunition I had to settle for balls of brick with cores of stone, as Makar could not spare his masons long enough to chip down balls of solid stone. Besides, he needed all the large stones he could get for his walls. It did not much matter; brick is about as effective as stone except against stone walls. Brick also has the advantage that the ball usually breaks on impact and hence cannot be picked up and shot back.

I named my catapults Skylla and Charybdis, after the Poet's mythical monsters. They were commanded, respectively, by Onas and by Mys.

Towards sunset the pangs of hunger reminded me that I had forgotten to eat my lunch. I went home and was made much of by my mother.

"I'm only sorry we cannot give you a decent meal, dearest Chares," she said. "I'll warrant you haven't eaten properly during all your journey. You were always the worst eater of any child I ever heard of."

"Don't worry, Mother," I said. "So long as I keep my health and strength, my diet must be adequate. The people to worry about are those like Glôs and Genetor, who lug all that extra weight around. Why, Father, what's this?"

My father came in, carrying a cuirass, a helmet, and a pair of light greaves. "A little surprise for you," he said. "I made them with my own hands. We cannot have a battery commander running around in the cap and jack of a private soldier."

"Splendid!" I cried, wriggling into the armor. It fitted perfectly, even though made in my absence. The helmet was one of those with a plume holder that rises straight up for nearly a cubit before curling over forward at the top.

"I thought it would make you look a little taller," said my father proudly. "You will also notice that the cuirass is not all tricked up with reliefs of Herakles rescuing his wife from the centaur and similar subjects. This is a fighting corselet, and such irregularities merely afford places for the foe's point to catch and lodge ... Why, Chares, what are you crying for? Don't you like the suit?"

"It's that you are t-too good to me," I said. "In spite of my being headstrong and selfish and cross-grained—"

"You're coming along," he said. "When do we eat, Elissa?"

My hunger was partly appeased by a miserable meal of barley porridge, with a few greens and one small fish as a treat. I told of my adventures in Egypt—or as much of them as I thought my parents should know—and asked for news.

"The big event," said my father, "was Demetrios' attempt to invade the city through tunnels. He began these tunnels inside his stockade, so that we could not see their entrances. It meant much delving, but he has plenty of. men. He ran several tunnels across the cleared space, dipping deeply to pass under the ditch.

"Hermes only knows what would have befallen us had not a deserter warned the Council. Our people found the tunnels by setting bronzen bowls along the base of the wall— bowls made in my foundry; I'm proud to say—and watching the water in them ripple from the vibration of the sappers' picks. Then they dug a trench inside our wall, so deep that when the first tunnel emerged from under the wall, the sappers broke out into the trench. Our men jumped down and pushed into the tunnel, and a stubborn fight raged back and forth in these burrows. Your cousin Herodes was killed in this brawl.

"In the end the Antigonians were unable to force their way into the city, but neither could we force them very far back into the tunnels, because they had cross drifts by which they could feed men from one tunnel into another and cut us off. So each side piled a barrier of stones, we at the entrance of the tunnels into the trench and they farther back, and kept a sharp watch on the ends of the tunnels.

"Now, the commanding officer of the mercenaries sent by the Ptolemaios is Athenagoras of Miletos. One night, when Athenagoras had the guard, the Antigonians, by hissing and whispering, persuaded him to come into one of the tunnels for a parley. An officer was there with an offer of a magnificent bribe if Athenagoras would betray the city.

"It transpired that there was one tunnel the Rhodians did not yet know of, because its crew of sappers was slow and had not yet come near the "trench at the time of the breakthrough. The Antigonians wanted Athenagoras to shoo his men away from that tunnel on the appointed night, so that the sappers could break through and pour soldiers into the city.

"The Athenagoras pretended to fall in with this scheme. But, he warned them, the Antigonians must scout the city first. Otherwise they would mill around in the dark, get lost in the strange streets, and be destroyed piecemeal. The Antigonian officer, a Macedonian named Alexandros, agreed to come up on a certain night and be shown over the ground.

"Then honest Athenagoras went to the Council with the story. Alexandros was captured as he came up out of the tunnel, and the Council voted Athenagoras a bonus of five talents of silver.

"Knowing that they had been foxed, the Antigonians tried to enlarge their tunnels, setting props in them, so that they could burn the props and cause the wall to fall with the collapse of the tunnels. Our men drove them out with smoke and red-hot clay and hornets' nests, though not before they had done our wall some damage. That's why Makar has been working so frantically to build a secondary wall, because we don't trust the present wall to stand for long against Demetrios' engines."

I got my battery organized none too soon. Less than a ten-day after the Halia's return, Demetrios' trumpets sounded the advance.

With a tremendous groaning and creaking, as of ten thousand oxcarts with ungreased axles, nine of the eleven great engines lurched into motion; the ram tortoises stood still for the time being. A quarter of Demetrios' entire army was engaged in pushing these machines, within and at the sides and rear. Thirty-four hundred of his strongest soldiers pushed the great belfry alone.

"Herakles!" said Phaon, beside me on the wall. "Isn't that a sight?"

"It's like a whole army in armored war machines," I said.

Trumpets from the harbor told us that Demetrios was also attacking from the sea. Now thousands of soldiers marched across the plain, filing between the slow-moving engines. First came men carrying wicker mantlets, two men to each mantlet. Next came archers and slingers and scorpion men in small straggling groups.

Then came men bearing ladders over twenty cubits long. After them the infantry, brave in polished cuirasses, marched in time to the flutes, with golden eagle standards bobbing in front of each company. The sight of this vast mass of men and machines brought my heart to my throat. Nothing, it seemed, could withstand such an overwhelming assault.

A little group of mounted men cantered out between the engines: several officers, a trumpeter, a standard-bearer, and couriers. As they came nearer, one forged to the front: a big man with a purple cloak floating behind him. Although I could not make out his features at the distance, somebody cried:

"The Demetrios!"

At once men up and down the wall began to shout: "Temple robber! Dung eater! Filthy sodomite!" A catapult discharged with a crash; then another. A few archers loosed shafts at an angle halfway to the vertical, in hopes of bringing down the king by a lucky long-range shot.

Most of these missiles fell short, and the archers' officers shouted to hold their shooting. One of Bias' long-range dart throwers, however, sent a dart close over Demetrios' head, so that the king flinched at the screech. He did not check his course but spurred toward the walls, passing between his archers and guiding his horse to right and left in a zigzag to throw off his enemies' aim.

Now I could make out the too-handsome features under the gleaming steel helmet. His cuirass, too, was of steel, polished until it shone like silver. Ignoring the missiles that whizzed about him, he drew rein well within catapult range and waved at us—rudely, with his palm turned towards us. The rising sun flashed on the splendid teeth which he bared in an insolent grin. Then he touched spur and headed back out of range at a leisurely canter, weaving among his advancing companies. His soldiers cheered as he passed.

Now the men who carried the mantlets came within missile range. As arrows and bullets began to fall among them, they broke into a rim, carrying their defenses up to within a hundred paces of the wall before setting them down and running back. Other men set more mantlets in slanting lines extending back to the limits of missile range, to provide covered ways by which the archers could reach their shelters.

The archers rushed forward, jostling and shouting, to pick the best-placed mantlets for themselves, like a disorderly crowd scrambling for seats in a theater. Soon there was not an archer to be seen, save where a steel cap and a pair of eyes appeared in the arrow slit of a mantlet as the archer drew bow. Arrows whistled past us and skipped from the masonry; one stuck quivering in the timbers of Skylla.

"When shoot we, O Chares?" queried Onas.

"Not until the big engines are in range. We won't waste three-talent balls on single foes."

A trumpet blew; commands resounded. A company of foot charged clattering across the plain, shouting: "Eleleu! Eleleleu!"

Catapults on the wall were trained with rope and crowbar to bear upon this company. The catapults crashed and their darts streaked.

Our own trumpets blared: Rhodian footmen hurried past along the wall; I glimpsed Kavaros. An officer shouted:

"Do not let them frighten you! Remember, a man on top of a wall is worth ten at the bottom!"

"Cock your piece," I told Onas. "Make the men who aren't cocking keep down." Then I went over to Charybdis and repeated my commands to Mys.

Other Antigonian companies advanced. Soon the dreaded cry rang up and down the wall: "Ladders! Ladders!"

Wherever a ladder appeared, Rhodians rushed up with forked poles to push it over, while missile troops showered those below with arrows, bolts, javelins, and basketfuls of stone. The Cretan archers were especially active, screeching in their unintelligible Greek and racing back and forth like boys in a hockey game. Such was the din that I had to put my mouth to a man's ear and shout to make myself heard.

The groaning, creaking mobile engines now passed through the lines of mantlets. I could see the bottoms of the huge iron-tired wheels, with rims two cubits wide, on which the belfry advanced. Seeing that Charybdis bore upon it, I passed the word to Mys to shoot.

Charybdis discharged with a thunderous crash. The three-talent ball struck the belfry with a thump that shook the whole structure and caused dust to fly from its joints. But the thick leather cushions, with which the front of the belfry was hung, absorbed the blow. Other catapults hurled smaller stones against it until the sound of their impact was like the roll of a gigantic drum, irregularly beaten by ,a mad Titan.

The tortoises moved up to the edge of the ditch. Men set up mantlets from the rear of these tortoises in rows to provide covered ways. Then, despite the hail of missiles around the open front ends of the tortoises, men began popping out to cast bundles of faggots and brushwood into the ditch before ducking back out of sight.

The belfry groaned to a stop. The cushions hanging down in front all swung up as those inside reeled in the cords. It was as if Argos son of Agenor opened all his hundred eyes at once.

The vast frame quivered as the twenty-odd catapults within discharged at once, with a mighty roll of crashes; the recoil made the belfry roll back a few digits. I risked having my head taken off to watch the flying missiles.

Each story had three or four ports. On the lowest story Epimachos had placed two three-talent stone throwers, like those we had captured. Between them, in the center, was a single smaller stone thrower, casting one-talent balls. The second story bore three one-talent stone throwers. The middle stories carried smaller stone throwers, while dart throwers shot through the ports of the upper stories.

Our wall quivered under the impact of this mass of missiles. Clouds of dust arose and chips of stone flew. Down went the cushions in front of the ports. Soon the small ports of the dart throwers opened again, but it took much longer to recock and reload the heavy machines.

Onas bellowed at his crew, which was levering Skylla around to bear upon the belfry. This, however, was a dis-hearteningly slow process, and the Egyptian cursed the day he let himself be placed in command of so immobile an engine.

The battle raged on. Little by little, Demetrios' companies of foot gave up their attacks on the wall. Their officers knew that such assaults are fruitless unless the defenders be cowed by lack of spirited leadership or laid low by plague or starvation. Short of food though we were, nonetheless the soldiers had first call on our dwindling stores and so had energy yet.to spare. The Antigonian infantry fell back, leaving scores of soldiers writhing or lying still, with blood running out from under their armor.

I looked at the sun and thought: Herakles! Since when has the sun risen in the west? Then it struck me that the sun was not rising but setting. The entire day had slipped away in missile fighting. Of the sails mounted atop the wall to check missiles, some had been overthrown, while others were tattered rags. But no Antigonians had pierced our defenses, from the land or from the sea.

During the night, despite harassing archery, Demetrios' men filled up the ditch in two places. The next day, as the missile fight resumed, the ram tortoises moved up to the wall at these points. By noon they were in position. A thousand men heaved on each ram inside its shed. The great iron head drew back ...

Boom! The wall shook like a man with the ague.

Boom! went the other ram.

My memory of that day is confused. I dashed about, slipping in pools of blood. I inspected my two stone throwers, helped to carry a wounded artilleryman to safety, and harassed the manager of the brick kiln to get my catapult balls baked sooner. I also did what I could to help in the defense against the rams.

Against these engines we first lowered straw-stuffed mattresses by ropes to cushion their blows; Demetrios' engineers burnt the mattresses. Then we lowered an iron hook on the end of a chain, to try to catch the beam of the ram and haul it up; the Antigonians fended the chain aside with a pole. We tried the same trick with a length of ship's cable, lowered by two men at once to catch the head of the ram in the bight; the Antigonians cut the cable.

We dropped heavy stones on the ram tortoises: the stones bounced off their strong sloping roofs. We dropped incendiary jars and javelins on them; the green hides with which they were covered shed the fire like water, though a horrid stench arose. When we did get a small fire started, the Antigonian engineers, despite the loss of several men, put it out by slapping it with a rolled-up hide.

The wall shook and wavered until we feared even to stand upon it. Then, when overthrow seemed inevitable, two muscular stevedores from the waterfront appeared with a heavy beam on their shoulders. Another pair followed them. Each pair placed his beam atop the battlements over one of the rams.

Timing their actions to the swing of the ram, one pair pushed their beam off the wall so that it fell straight down. This first beam missed the head of the ram, which drew back just before it struck.

The second pair narrowly watched the swing of the ram. One gave a short, deep shout. Over went the beam.

This time the beam struck the ram's head squarely. There was a crash and a jangle of snapped chains inside the tortoise. The ram ceased moving, with its head lying on the ground. We danced and cheered on the wall. The Antigonians pulled the damaged ram back for repairs.

The other ram continued to pound as the sun went down. As dark came on, a long chain of our men came up to the wall, each carrying a bundle of faggots or brush. These bundles they dropped over the wall above the remaining ram. As the brush piled up, it got between the head of the ram and the wall, cushioning its blows. The Antigonians stopped pounding the wall to pull the brush aside, whereupon we dropped more upon them before they could resume. When they brought out links to see by, the Cretan archers feathered them with shafts and drove them back to cover. Lastly we fired the mass, so that, to save their ram, the Antigonians had to pull back the tortoise.

The next morning, as a gusty rain slanted over the battlefield, an Antigonian trumpeter blew "parley."

Our general of infantry, Ananias, put his head over the wall and bawled: "What do you want?"

A herald called back: "The Great King, Demetrios Antigonou, at the behest of the envoys from Knidos, requests a conference."

General Ananias sent a messenger to fetch President Damoteles. When things had been explained, the President called:

"We will come by sea into the South Harbor. Expect us within the hour."

The President went away, and I saw no more of high politics that day. The President collected some Councilmen, and a fisherman rowed them around the end of the South Mole into Demetrios' territory.

The long closure of Rhodes's port had begun to hurt the other maritime Greek cities, whose favorite transshipment port it was. Moreover, they were not insensible of the benefits of our long campaigns against the pirates. Therefore the city of Knidos, nearby on the Karian coast, had sent a delegation to Demetrois, asking him to moderate his terms and promising to try to persuade the Rhodians to accept them.

So, for a ten-day, fighting was suspended. Antigonian soldiers strolled by within easy bowshot. They caroused and gambled and shouted taunts up to us, but Ananias sternly forbade us to reply.

Meanwhile Makar's masons worked furiously to raise the-secondary wall. Our sentries patrolled with two spears apiece, to give the foe an impression of greater numbers than we truly had.

On the fifty day of the truce a squadron of ships loomed up. The Antigonians went out with a couple of battleships to intercept them, but to no avail. Surely the god who had wind duty that day fought for us. In came the ships, the red lion blazing on their sails. This Was the shipment of three hundred thousand medimnoi that the Ptolemaios had promised us. Next day we ate heartily.

Drooping spirits revived; shrunken bellies filled out. The following night a ship arrived from Kasandros with ten thousand medimnoi of barley; two nights later in came a squadron from Lysimachos with forty thousand medimnoi each of wheat and barley. I never realized how good a loaf of wheaten bread can be until I had spent half a month on barley porridge.

Then the word was passed: The king has called off the conferences; prepare for another attack. From friends with political connections I learnt that Demetrios had refused to yield a digit from the terms he had originally demanded, nearly three years before.

Skylla and Charybdis now had an ample supply of brick balls. On the other hand, Demetrios' engineers had also repaired their engines.

On the morning when the trumpets blew the assault, the ram tortoises rumbled back up to the wall. One moved up a little east of its former position, so that it attacked a big square tower.

Boom! Boom!

All morning the pounding went on, despite our counter-measures, from the rams and from the heavy stone throwers in the belfry. Early in the afternoon Ananias and Makar appeared on the wall in heavy, frowning conference. The general said quietly:

"Get off this section, boys. It's going any minute."

Boom! went a ram. There was a deep rumble.

With a frightful roar the wall gave way, carrying several men shrieking to their deaths. When I could see through the cloud of dust, it transpired that the curtain wall had fallen in front of Charybdis, down to a height of a mere ten or twelve feet.

Trumpets blew; the Antigonian infantry rushed into the breach. Spears, gilded standards, and long ladders bobbed amidst the flood. The foe swarmed over the pile of debris and down the other side—to be stopped by Makar's lune. Fighting swirled around the bases of the towers on which my stone throwers stood.

These continued to bombard the battered belfry. Several of its catapults were out of action; half its shutters hung awry with the woolen stuffing dribbling out of them.

The other ram and the stone throwers continued their attack on the wall. One more boom, another roar, and the square tower crumbled. One side fell away, leaving half the tower's interior, with stairs and storerooms, exposed to view.

More trumpets, trampings, clangor of arms, and screams of rage, fear, and death. Again I prayed to the Bright One.

I know not how we did it, but the setting sun saw every Antigonian slain or driven from his lodgment in our works. Some of our men collapsed, lying listlessly with sobbing breath. Many bled or limped; the slain were carried off. Blood was everywhere; red and slippery, or brown and dry, on shoe and kilt and skin.

Bias appeared, followed by a baker with a sackful of loaves, which he passed out. The carpenter said:

"Looks like so much of the hides and ironwork of the belfry are knocked loose that we can try a fire attack. Beginning at the second watch, on signal, all stone throwers are to throw incendiaries while dart throwers are to maintain a barrage around the belfry to keep their fire fighters away. Catch some early sleep if you can."

Despite our exhaustion, sleep was hard to come by, because during the evening Bias moved several smaller catapults to the sections of the wall near the belfry. There was a continual chatter of commands, grunting of men, creaking of ropes, and rumbling of rollers.

The second watch was nearly over when the preparations were complete. Then Bias cried: "Shoot!"

Crash! Off went Skylla and Charybdis, hurling jars of the largest size; off went all the other catapults on the South Wall. The jugs struck home with crashing, splashing sounds.

Then incendiary darts and arrows cut fiery arcs towards the dim black shape that towered into the stars. Flames sprang up its sides.

The Antigonian camp sprang to life, with torches and trumpet calls. Men poured across the field towards the burning belfry. Our dart throwers laid down a bombardment; men screamed and fell in the flickering light.

"Shoot faster!" cried Bias.

We cranked and shot until our cockers were ready to drop. But it was like trying to beat down a swarm of flies with a cudgel. The Antigonians swarmed into the engine. Hundreds began pushing, while others climbed around the narrow balconies with water buckets. With a mighty groan, the engine lurched into motion away from the wall.

"Bear a hand with those ropes!" called Demetrios' powerful voice. "You men, take hold and pull! More men on the buckets!"

Away went the belfry, shuddering, rocking, and creaking. It left a hundred little spots of Are flickering on the ground behind it, where burning incendiary mixture had dripped. The tower itself burnt for half an hour, before the fire fighters doused the last coal.

Meanwhile a party of men sallied forth and laid fire to the tortoises. The Antigonians came back, and there was confused fighting in the dark. One smaller tortoise went up in a blaze, but the Antigonians drove our men back inside the wall, pulled the other engines back, and put out the fires.

Dawn showed scores of bodies and hundreds of missiles littering the field, and all Demetrios' siege engines back out of range.

Another ten-day passed; Persephone's flowers bloomed once more on the flanks of the akropolis. Bias, some other officers, and I stood on the newly finished lune, watching our artillerymen dig deep ditches on either side of the mound of debris where the main wall had fallen. Behind us, Makar's men, with volunteers from all corps and classes, worked on a second lune, longer than the first and reinforcing all parts of the main wall weakened by Demetrios' attacks.

Across the field the sound of tools came to us as Demetrios' workmen repaired his fire-damaged engines.

"He's a hard man to discourage," said Bias. "He'll be back again tomorrow, with more power than ever."

I said: "You once told me that old Diognetos could think our way out of this. Has anybody worked on him lately?"

"I guess not. We've had our hands full here." The carpenter wrinkled up his face. "You know, you may have said something. I'm going to speak to the President. See you later."

Two hours later Bias was back. "Phaon," he said, "you and Chares come with me. I hope you're not too proud to kneel" in front of the old bastard when your city's safety demands it."

We followed the carpenter down from the wall and into the city. In the Town Hall, we found President Damoteles, the Council, and a couple of the generals; Nereus, the high priest of Helios-Apollon, and his subordinate priests; and a group of young people of both sexes. These last had apparently been picked for birth and good looks. I exchanged shy smiles with my affianced bride Io. She looked much prettier than I remembered her, even with her hair cut short. Damoteles said:

"We are going to the house of Diognetos to make a last plea to him to save us. Nereus shall make the actual appeal while the rest of us kneel humbly before him. If anybody mislike this plan, let him withdraw now."

Nobody did, and the procession wound up the hillside to the house of Diognetos. The porter fled into the house at the sight of us, and presently the old man appeared.

"By Earth and the gods!" he exclaimed. "Have you come to murder me, or what?"

Nereus, who was almost as old as Diognetos, stepped forward. "O Diognetos," he began, "we have come to you, not as murderers, but as humble petitioners ..."

I do not remember Nereus' speech well enough to write it down. Nevertheless it was a cursed fine sermon, full of the loftiest Rhodian eloquence. Before he finished, the priest had everyone weeping. Everyone, that is, save old Diognetos, who stood leaning on his stick with his mouth shut in a hard line. When Nereus had finished, Diognetos looked out over our bowed heads.

"Fie!" he said. "A fine performance: free Hellenes, even your President, kneeling and sniffling! Get up, all of you. Although you do not deserve it, I will do what I can for you, on one condition."

"What is that, sir?" said President Damoteles, rising.

"Just this: that, if I capture Demetrios' oversized belfry, I shall have it as my share of the booty. Agreed?"

"Certainly, it is agreed," said the President.

"Very well, then, lead me to the scene."

When he had walked the walls, Diognetos turned to the knot of notables that trailed him. "The solution is obvious," he said. "You could have saved yourselves much trouble and many lives, had you kept faith with me in the first place, instead of spurning me for that Phoenician cutpurse."

"We have long since regretted that rash act," said Damoteles. "But what, sir, shall we do now?"

"Do you see that ditch down there, along the outer side of the pile of tailings?"

"Yes. We have dug it in the past few days, to hinder the Antigonians from climbing through the breach."

"Well, I want every vessel in Rhodes to be mobilized; every jar, jug, bucket, chamber pot, or what have you. And tonight I want everybody who can walk to carry anything wet he can find up to the breach and down to that ditch. And I want that liquid dumped into that ditch. Anything you have: water, mud, sewage, or anything at all. Be sure also to collect the jars that the dyers set out at street corners for urinals. Then we shall see what we shall see."

At dawn the trumpets blared. Once again Demetrios' engines, fully repaired, rumbled across the field. This time, I thought, we were in for it. Our defenses were steadily weakening, while Demetrios, like Antaios in his wrestle with Herakles, seemed to derive additional strength from each fall. Again I prayed.

As the engines approached to within range, our catapults were cocked and loaded. Onas said: "I fear your Diognetos, too, is but a mountebank. See, they come on as ever. What you need is a good wizard—"

"Speed up your cockers," I gritted. "There's more magic in a well-aimed three-talent ball than in all the wizards of Egypt."

On came the armored engines. Then somebody cried: "What ails the belfry?"

Little by little the great tower slowed. The shouts of the officers, urging their thirty-four hundred men to greater efforts, rang across the field. Slower and slower went the tower.

Hundreds of infantrymen added their strength. When there was no more room around the base of the tower itself, the Antigonians belayed ropes to the engine and put more men on these.

In spite of all their efforts, the tower stopped dead.

While other Rhodians were still crying: "Why is this? A miracle!" I saw what had happened. The liquids which, at Diognetos' behest, we had spent the long night pouring into the trench, had spread out into the field, converting it into a bog. Under the weight of thousands of talents, the eight wheels of the belfry had sunk deeper and deeper into the ground, until the engine stuck fast.

Moreover, as the front wheels had reached the soft ground first, the front end of the machine sank more deeply than the rear, so that the tower was tilted forward, thus reducing the range of its catapults and rendering them useless.

On the walls we danced and yelled and embraced one another. But Demetrios was not yet finished. When his tortoises, also, began to sink into the wet earth, he had them pulled back, jacked around, and sent forward against a more easterly section of the wall. His mechanics began removing the smaller catapults from the belfry. This, however, was a very slow process, as the engines had to be taken apart and reassembled outside.

I spent the day levering my two heavy stone throwers around to bear upon the new scene of action. We sweated and strained while the roar and dust of battle rose and fell. All afternoon and into the night the rams boomed. Towards morning, despite all our countermeasures, two more sections of wall collapsed.

With the coming of light I kicked my crews awake and drove them to their stone throwers. With a few ranging shots we got the range of the ram tortoises and stove them in. By now, however, Demetrios' armored foot was already swarming into the breaches.

The fight raged for hours. Our General Ananias fell fighting like a common soldier, while the Antigonians, fighting without artillery support, suffered even more severely than we.

Then something raised our spirits wonderfully. A squadron of Egyptian ships arrived, bearing not only another shipment of food but also fifteen hundred more soldiers from the Ptolemaios. The soldiers were no sooner off the ships than they were marched across the city to the battle.

The sight of all these fresh men, in spotless armor trimmed with gold, pouring in upon them, cast down the spirits of the Antigonians. They gave ground, then suddenly ran. Many threw away shields and spears. Jeering and cheering, we chased them away from the wall and drew long breaths of exhaustion and relief.

Next morning another truce was called. More than fifty envoys had arrived from Athens and other Greek cities to urge peace upon the contestants. A day's argument in Demetrios' camp, however, showed that the king had not receded from his former demands: to go to war with the Ptolemaios, to give hostages, and to let his forces into the city. And why should we, who had defied him in our darkest hour, yield to him now that we were stronger?

I bathed and slept at home that night. I dreamt I was standing on the wall when it was overthrown by Demetrios' rams. I tried to escape by running along it, but each section toppled under my feet, so that I was tossed about like a leaf in a gale ...

It was my father, in cuirass and helmet, shaking me. "Chares!" he said. "Wake up! They blow the alarum!"

I gathered my weary wits and heard, afar off, the thin sound of trumpets and, fainter yet, the cries of men. Dogs barked furiously all over the city. My mother came in.

"They say the Macedonians are in the city!" she said.

"How can that be?" I mumbled, still more asleep than awake. "We chased them—no, that was two nights ago. What—"

My father brought in my armor. "Get into this, son."

I dressed, armed myself, and went out with my father. The sounds of conflict were louder now. They seemed to come from all directions, from near and far. People flitted about in the dark like ghosts.

At a street corner we found a bearded officer answering questions and directing people. "If you have a place on the walls, go to it," he said. "If you belong to the inactive reserve, muster under your precinct captain in the marketplace. Avoid the theater; that is where the enemy is gathered. The password is 'Helios the Savior.' "

I parted from my father and headed south, giving a wide berth to the area of the theater. On the round towers I found about half my crews. The sounds of battle came more loudly.

I waited, toying with the wild idea of trying to turn Skylla and Charybdis completely around so as to bombard the theater area. But I gave it up as impractical. It would take the rest of the night to move my monsters into position, and then I should only squash a few good Rhodians by wild shots.

The cry of "Ladders!" rang out, close at hand. I led my men in a dash to the first lune. I helped to push over a ladder, while Onas (who had just arrived) split the helmet and skull of an Antigonian who popped up in front of us.

The sounds of battle came, now near, now far. We waited for at least an hour before Bias appeared.

"Chares!" he said. "You're battalion commander now. Appoint somebody to command your battery."

"Why? What's become of Phaon?"

"Dead. He got caught without a shield in the fighting around the theater."

"What shall—" I began, but Bias was gone, leaving me in command of all the catapults on the South Wall.

I strode up and down the wall, asking how many of the engines had full crews and checking supplies of ammunition. As nobody could see to shoot, I told my men to stand by and help the other soldiers beat off attempts to scale the wall.

Several such attempts were made but were not pressed home. I think Demetrios launched them in the hope that all the defenders had left the walls and rushed down into the city to deal with the group in the theater, as indeed a less seasoned and well-organized army of defenders might have done.

Towards morning I made up scratch crews for two unmanned dart throwers, with Onas in command of the pair. We lowered the engines down a stair, found rollers for them, and towed them off towards the theater.

As we neared the theater, we came upon knots of spearmen waiting for daylight to close in upon the enemy. I had to shoo them aside to let my catapults pass. Somebody said:

"Who is this? Chares?"

I recognized the voice of President Damoteles, in armor and leading the reservists. "Yes, sir," I said.

"A good idea, bringing these engines. Between the reservists, and the Ptolemaians, and the Cretans on the roofs, and now this, we ought to smash them."

"How did they get in, sir?"

"Some sentries at the westernmost break in the wall decided that the war was over and they might as well take things easy. The Antigonians cut their throats as they slept, climbed the stairs of the ruined tower, gained the top of the first lune, and thence marched down the stair and into the city. They had reached the theater when the alarum was sounded."

"How many are there?"

"We do not know, but it seems like a couple of thousand. Place your catapults where the Street of Dyers opens on the Square of the Theater."

"Good luck, son!" came my father's voice out of the darkness.

A little farther on we reached the designated spot and set up our dart throwers. When I saw that the general aim was right, the supply of missiles adequate, and a squad of spearmen at hand to protect the pieces, I bid Onas good luck and returned to the South Wall.

As dawn lit the oriental sky, attacks on the walls came with increasing frequency and vigor, while from within the city arose a vast uproar as the Rhodians attacked the Antigonian force in the theater. I could see nothing of this fight except for some of the Cretan archers moving about the roofs of the houses on the near side of the Square of the Theater.

The din kept up for hours. Again and again the Antigonians surged up into the gaps in the outer wall, and again and again the artillery poured balls and darts into their crowding masses while the infantry drove them back with arrow and javelin and thrusting spear. Demetrios had set up two more catapults from the belfry, which sent darts whizzing at us in high arcs, but we had the advantage of being mounted thirty feet higher than they. Our long-range dart throwers drove the unprotected Antigonian crews from their engines. Demetrios' great belfry, which might well have tipped the scale in his favor, stood silent and abandoned.

When the sun stood at the top of its fiery arc, the fighting slackened off. The Antigonians straggled back behind their mantlets or out of range. We wolfed our lunches, expecting them to renew the attack.

The attack did not come. Instead, the uproar from inside the city increased. Wondering if the Antigonians had broken in at some other point, I sent a messenger down towards the theater to find out. When he did not return after half an hour, I appointed a deputy battalion leader and went to see for myself.

The streets were so crowded that it was all I could do to worm my way through. As I got closer to the theater, pools of blood became common. Wounded were helped away; corpses were borne off. The most astonishing sight that met my eyes was six disarmed Antigonians, roped together with their hands tied behind them, being prodded on their way by a spear in the hand of Genetor, my prospective father-in-law.

"Did you capture them all yourself, sir?" I asked.

"Not exactly, Chares, not exactly. To tell the truth, I think Damoteles deems me more useful at this task than at fighting in the front rank."

"Are they broken yet?"

"By no means. Some have given up and many have been slain, but hundreds are still massed in the square, defying us to do our worst. The captain who leads them, an Epeirot named Alkimos, is a very fiend."

I kept on pushing until I came to the square. Here I could see nothing but the backs of our foot, pressing in upon the Antigonians with a deafening din. I worked around until I came to one of the dart throwers. Onas helped me to climb up on the structure, so that I could see over the forest of plumed helmets.

"This is the fourth attack," shouted Onas. "The foot goes in and works on them for a while; then they are withdrawn while we and the Cretans ply them with missiles. There goes the recall now!"

Trumpets blasted, and the Rhodians drew back, breaking up into their separate platoons. Their officers herded them this way and that to get them out of the way of the missile troops.

"Cock your pieces!" said Onas.

The square was littered with bodies and weapons. On the far side, where the old theater had stood before it was demolished to reinforce our walls, stood the mass of Antigonians, clustered close, with their shields in line. Even at this distance I could see that their armor was battered and bloody.

"A most obdurate foe," said Onas. "Shoot at will!"

The dart throwers discharged; their darts whistled on flat courses across the square, to plunge into the packed ranks. There was a movement among the Antigonians as those on the outside knelt and those inside raised their shields to form a tortoise. At the same time came a bark of commands from the roofs around us; hundreds of Cretan arrows streaked towards the invaders. The arrows skipped from shield and helm; here and there one found an opening, and a man fell clanging. Off went the dart throwers again.

"Faster on the cocking!" said Onas. "Had we a hundred of these, Chares, we should have cleaned out the miscreants long since ... Ech! Guard yourself; here they come!"

Suddenly the mass of Antigonians moved, shaking out into a regular formation as it advanced, with spears in the front rank. Our trumpets blasted madly; a platoon of Rhodians ran clattering to take the enemy in flank. In front of the Antigonians trotted an enormous man, six feet tall and built like a Scythian bear, wearing an iron cuirass like that of the king. Over the rising din I heard Onas' shout:

"Chares! Take a shield!"

I darted forward to pick up one of the discarded shields that Uttered the pave. Two Rhodian spearmen rushed against the giant leading the Antigonians. With two swipes of his huge sword he smote them both to earth, and an arm flew off one of them. On came the Antigonians, shouting:

"The Empire! King Antigonos! Eleleleu!"

I ran back to the catapults, just ahead of the Antigonians, who were trying to break out through the Street of the Dyers. The catapult crews clustered around their pieces, lightly armed and not looking too resolute, but held to their posts by Onas' powers of command. Arrows rained upon the Antigonians, and Rhodian footmen hurled themselves upon their flanks with spear and sword; but those in front pressed on, mowing down all who strove to stop them.

I do not know quite how it happened, but I found myself engaged with the giant Antigonian captain all by myself. I had no time to think on the ridiculous spectacle that this fight must present when the giant's sword, striking my shield, hurled me headlong to the ground by sheer impact.

Then the bronze-clad legs of the Antigonians were all around me, as in that fight on the mole. I rolled over and got my shield over me.

Two cubits away Onas and the steel-clad captain traded Homeric blows. Onas, though not so big as his foe, was still one of our largest and strongest soldiers. For three heartbeats they faced each other, their swords clanging like blacksmiths' hammers. Then an Antigonian spear took Onas in the ribs from one side, and down he went.

Blind with rage, I rolled to hands and knees and sent a backhand cut at the Antigonian's ankle. The blade bit into the hamstring. Like a felled oak, the giant tottered, swayed, and toppled. A rush of Rhodians swarmed over him, jabbing and hacking. A body fell across me, and another.

By the time I crawled out from under, the last armed Antigonians had pushed out of the square; the only living foes left were the wounded and the prisoners. The sounds of fighting receded down the Street of the Dyers.

Onas was dead. Blinking back tears for a brave and true comrade, I rounded up the catapult crews and started them hauling the engines back towards the wall. It took an hour because of the press in the streets and the Utter of bodies and weapons.

By the time we reached the wall, the Antigonians who had broken out had long since limped and staggered across the field to their camp. Perhaps two hundred had escaped, compared to three hundred captured and nearly a thousand dead. Of those who got out, nearly every man bled.

On the wall I found Bias with blood on his armor. "General!" I said. "Fie upon you, you've been fighting! Is that any way for a general to act? This isn't the Trojan War, you know."

"Look who's talking!"

"Why, what's wrong with me?"

"Your face!"

I put my hand up and found that my face was covered with blood from a cut that had laid open one cheek. Now I understood why I had found it hard to talk clearly, though I had no remembrance of the blow itself. I was also soaked with the blood of those who had fallen on top of me at the Square of the Theater.

"President Damoteles is dead," said Bias. "Your catapults helped a lot. I don't think the boy wonder will try any more attacks today. His men balked this afternoon, and the sight of those troops that broke out finished off their warlike spirit."

"Have you any news of my father?"

"I wouldn't know about him. Get along home and have that wound sewn up. We can't have the handsomest man in Rhodes going around with his face laid open."

At home I found my father, with a leg wound that lamed him for the rest of his days. My mother and Io were nursing him. The women gave a little shriek at the sight of me.

"It's only a scratch," I said, "but I shall appreciate it if you ladies will wash it off and sew it up." I spoke thickly out of one side of my mouth.

When I had looked into my father's wound, I asked him how the battle had gone with him.

"We broke them!" he said. "It was hard work for us old fellows who hadn't wielded a spear for years, but we did it. A lot of reservists fell besides Damoteles; Giskon's friend Nikolaos, for instance.

"The Antigonians had a captain, Alkimos, six feet tall and wearing one of those iron cuirasses you tell me about. He led his men again and again, roaring and smiting like a lion. But somebody—some little fellow—got him in the leg and brought him down, and then we all surged over him. I wish I could have gotten my hands on that steel corselet, but somebody else made off—why, what's funny?"

As Io was cleansing my face, I could only laugh out the side of my mouth and point to myself.

"Oh," said my father. "So it was you? I wasn't close enough to see. Son, if I've castigated you in the past, forget it. You're the bravest hero we have."

It did not seem politic to argue that I had gotten into handplay with Alkimos because I had been too stupid to get out of his way. I said:

"If those steel corselets become common, it won't be good for the bronze-founding business."

"My thought exactly. I remember when the steel helmet first began to come in, when I was apprenticing to my father in Lindos. He was sure that steel would never prove practical for armor. A steel helmet would be too brittle, or would rust away unless cleaned every day, and so forth. Well, the steel helmet is now common, but we nearly went bankrupt before the old man would admit it was here to stay."

I said: "Oh, well, I suppose we can always sell lamps and trays."

My mother said: "Chares, if you'll stop talking, I will sew up your wound. Hold still; this will hurt ..."

The wound left a conspicuous scar on my cheek; but, to tell the truth, I have been proud rather than regretful of that scar.

Io bathed me and scrubbed the dried blood off me. Later, when the women had left us alone for a moment, my father said: "What are you going to do, son, when peace finally comes?"

I spoke in a muffled voice through my bandages: "I'm going back to my studio. But I'll still help out with the foundry; don't worry about my abandoning the business. Where's Io?"

"She'll soon be back. What's the hurry?"

"I like to see her around. I never knew she was so good at nursing."

After my father and I had been put to bed for the night, I said: "Father! If peace come, I should be glad to wed Io as soon as it can be arranged."

"Oh? Why the change?"

"Put it this way. I once had a friend who did not wish to wed any Greek girl. They were, he thought, too tame and subdued, and would bore him. His mind was full of romantic notions of mating with some foreign wench of more wit and spirit, who would make life interesting.

"Well, he had a chance to know such a woman—quite well—and learnt that a very little of a vigorous, domineering dame goes a long way. In the end he was glad to settle down with a sweet, docile Greek girl of good family, earn a decent living, and rear a family."

"Oh," said my father. "Your friend learnt wisdom at last. Well, I shall see Genetor one of these days and take the matter up with him."

As it fell out, Genetor came to see us, wig awry and wringing his hands in piteous fashion.

"Oimoi!" he moaned. "Woe and destruction! Have you heard the conditions of peace that those god-detested politicians of ours have agreed to?"

"Surely not to let Demetrios' forces into the city!" I exclaimed.

"No, no, nothing like that. They have agreed, however, that we shall be allies of Kings Antigonos and Demetrios against all foes except the Ptolemaios."

"Why," said I, "those are just about the terms we offered him before the siege!"

"But that is not all. They have also agreed to give him a hundred hostages—the hundred richest citizens of the city. And naturally that includes me!"

"You poor fellow!" said my father. "That's the price of wealth."

"But still that is not all. Do you know what stipulation those intriguers and windbags have made? That no officeholders shall be included among the hostages! Oh, the perfidy of it! The rest of us must waste our lives in durance vile while these polluted rascals strut and swill, free men, in our beautiful city! They have taken care of themselves, all right!"

"Perhaps you ought to have run for office," murmured my father. The dexterity with which Genetor, when he had been made a full citizen, had nevertheless avoided all public offices and liturgies because of the financial burdens that these entail in maintaining ships, staging drams, and feeding the poor was a common joke in Rhodes.

"However," continued my father, "before you sail off with Demetrios, we ought to consider our children's wedding. This betrothal has run on more than long enough."

Genetor: "True, true. It were better to push it through now, before I am carried off into shameful captivity. In Ephesos, where I am not known, how could I make a decent match for my little girl?"

The beginning of the first year of the 119th Olympiad, when Pherekles was archon at Athens, saw the wedding of Chares of Lindos to Io daughter of Genetor. The marriage turned out exceedingly well, considering that the groom was not the easiest man in the world to live with.

A few months later I was sitting in my father's house, watching Io go about her wifely duties, wearing a blue-gray veil made from the remanent of Demetrios' original robe—nay more, actually going out of her way to try to please me, despite my shortcomings—I thought, what a fool you have been, Chares! This is the true love, built up piece by piece by time and mutual effort. That other thing, that emotional storm that seizes one on first sight and all but tears one to bits, is all very exciting, but it cannot compare with this for solid comfort. Treat the little creature well and she will repay you at a higher rate of interest than Elavos the Syrian ever charged.

The same season also saw Genetor and his wife, with the other hostages, departing on an Antigonian battleship amid many tears and lamentations. It saw King Demetrios sail away towards Hellas in his great two-masted elevener, followed by his whole vast fleet, still gorgeous with purple and gold. This mighty force, despite the skill of its sailors, the number and hardihood of its soldiers, and the demoniac ingenuity and determination of its dashing sea king, had been fought to a standstill by the people of one small, free, republican city.

We learnt that Demetrios might not even then have raised the siege but that his father had written urging him to make peace. King Antigonos had gotten wind of another alliance among Ptolemaios, Seleukos, Kasandros, and Lysimachos. These satraps, all of whom now called themselves kings, were determined to quash, once and for all, the boundless claims and pretensions of the Antigonids.

The pirates had already scattered, fearing the vengeance of Rhodes. Of those whom they had enslaved, few ever came home again. The war left many gaps in the ranks of my foes, my friends, and my kinsmen.

An embassy arrived from Rome, now a rising power, to congratulate Rhodes on her victory. In gratitude for Ptolemaios' help, the Assembly conferred upon the king of Egypt a series of honors almost as extravagant as those bestowed by the Athenians on Demetrios. The Rhodians addressed the Ptolemaios as "Savior," which title seems to have taken his fancy, for he adopted it officially.