The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

18

IT WAS A YEAR BEFORE DION WAS READY. The talk about Olympia would have died down, but for the rumors that ran underground like the shoots of the aloe, always coming up somewhere new. Greece was scattered with Syracusan exiles; father and son, the tyranny had lasted nearly half a century. These people were being sounded; I can confess, after so long, that I did some of this work myself. Sometimes I carried a letter to someone of importance, sometimes just took the feeling of the exiles in the place. I did not often see Dion; usually Speusippos took my reports. The Academy was in very deep.

Plato I never saw, except by chance as I came and went. He would greet me, but never ask my business. He had told everyone where he stood. Dion had been wronged. He had the right to claim satisfaction; their friends had the right to support him. Plato would neither blame nor praise. Himself, he believed about civil violence what his hard youth had taught. Besides this, he was Dionysios’ guest-friend, with all its religious duties. When people reminded him of the days in outer Ortygia, he would answer that Dionysios had done nothing to him, though he had had power to take his life and had been angry with him; the sanctities of their bond still stood inviolate. He was old; he could not bear arms, even if he had had the right. Therefore (though often urged to it, I believe) he would not make war with his tongue or pen, which he thought a coward’s compromise. If ever the two kinsmen could be reconciled, his duty would be to mediate, being bound to both.

Corinth, the mother-city, had more Syracusan exiles than any other place. It costs a good deal to live there; so it was mostly the exiled aristocrats who had been settling there over the years. With these I did not deal; Dion’s brother Megakles did that, being one of themselves. He was Dion-and-water, you might say: good-looking, dignified, soldierly, fairly tall, but everything scaled down. I doubt if the wrongs of Syracuse had ever irked him much while he suffered none himself; but he was a Sicilian noble, well-bred and brave, and eager for revenge. I minded my own business; but from what I knew of the exiles whose children were growing up Corinthians, I did not think they would be rushing to leave this pleasant city and take arms against the greatest power in Hellas.

Thettalos agreed but was less concerned than I. He came and went, trying his hand at whatever he felt he could grow by; he was now wanted as a second by good leading men, and his range was stretching with each new role. We understood each other. I knew pretty well, by now, what kind of actor I was, and how to use it; he was still learning to know himself (I daresay there was more to know); as this or that choice crossed his path he was restless and moody, all ups and downs. Neither of us could have borne for long to work together; owning this frankly, and taking the weather as it came, we escaped shipwreck and found new shores. He came back from Delos, where he had made a hit, swearing nothing had gone right with him, and demanding to work with me, if only for one production. “You taught me how, Niko; now you remind me to ask why. Perhaps it’s these philosophers you can’t keep away from.”

Just now, as I have explained, one could learn a good deal at the Academy besides philosophy—for instance, that Dion was hiring soldiers. With all his Sicilian losses, he was still richer than I had guessed till now. Most of the exiles had failed him; he did not get firm pledges from more than thirty. The rest had suffered too much before they got away, or feared for their kin in Syracuse, or liked their comforts, or simply did not think the venture had any chance. So the landless, banished Dion hired spearmen like a king. They were taken on in the Peloponnese, marched west, and ferried over to Zakynthos, where they were trained by Megakles. Only he and the captains knew what they were to do. Zakynthos is a quiet island, very rustic; I don’t think there is even a theater. Not much leaked out from there.

Nonetheless, by next year’s sailing weather, something was known in Syracuse. No doubt the exiles had talked. Greece was as full as ever of Dionysios’ agents—which meant Philistos’. The latest fugitives, friends of Herakleides, went straight to him and Dion, and said that the old man now ruled Syracuse in all but name. They added that he could have had that too if he had tried; he had at least the virtue of loyalty. Since Plato left, Dionysios had thrown himself back into dissipation, and was seldom sober enough for any serious business. As the drink gained on him he grew grosser in his pleasures; Philemon, who had lately appeared at the theater there, assured me that the very hetairas, when the Archon asked them to supper, drew for the short straw because no one wanted to go. His son Apollokrates, now a growing youth, despised him openly, preferring the company of the mercenary captains. But young Hipparinos was still to be seen at every party, his uncle’s favorite, very much at home.

Speusippos supported the war without reserve. The little flute-girl, whose sleepy face I remembered, had kept him awake to some purpose. Afterwards he had met some of her friends; and, in the end, people had talked to him who, because he had been received by the Archon, had fought shy of him before. The more he heard, the angrier he grew—but also the more hopeful. Dion’s exile had made him a legend among the people. He would come again, like some ancient hero-king, to lead them all to freedom. If no one would sail with him, let him come alone, and he would have an army from the moment his foot touched land.

Some of the younger men of the Academy were already setting their affairs in order, to be ready for the call. Axiothea confided to me her grief that she could not be one of them. “I must have done wrong,” she said, “in my last life on earth, and this is the punishment I chose when my eyes were opened. So I ought to bear it patiently, and hope for better next time. But oh, it is hard.”

Speusippos himself would not be going. Plato, now trying to make good a lost year of work, could not have spared him; besides, he too had been, even if uneasily, the Archon’s guest; he ranked next to Plato at the Academy, and it would have been almost like Plato going himself. But some of their most distinguished men were putting their books aside and polishing their armor. One of them, Miltas of Thessaly, came from a long line of seers in Apollo’s service; it was he who chose the day when Dion sailed, just after the god’s feast day. Dion arrived at Zakynthos in time to perform a sacrifice of dedication.

He reviewed his troops the day before, and told them what the war was. They were shocked; they were professionals, and knew the defenses of Syracuse. They started to shout; but Dion had not commanded troops all those years for nothing. He got them quiet, told them the prospects of success, with no words wasted, and had them cheering for him at the end.

On Apollo’s day, he arranged a splendid ceremony, every vessel made of gold; then he feasted his men, all eight hundred, at the race track. Such wealth he had left, after hiring, keeping and training them. The display did its work; they were certain he could not spend like this unless he were sure of support in Sicily.

Word of all this came back to Athens, then and later, as the Academy men sent news. To tell it whole, however: on the very night before they sailed, when everyone was happy, singing by moonlight round the fires, the full moon started to wane and to change her color, and presently was in eclipse. The men were appalled. No omen, they said, could be worse for an army; this very same sign had come to the Athenians before Syracuse in the Great War. The whole force had perished off the earth, and even that had been only the beginning of evils.

Here Dion, who could have explained the matter by its rational laws, showed himself a shrewd commander. He called on Miltas to read the signs. That wise man proclaimed that the moon must stand for the brightest and biggest power on earth, as in the heavens; here was the empire of Dionysios being quenched before their eyes to give them heart. No omen could be better.

The men were cheered. One thing Dion and his brother took care to keep from them: Herakleides, who had promised to raise a fleet of ships with men to sail and fight it, had not arrived at Zakynthos.

During the year of preparation, a coolness had begun between him and Dion. As exiles working together they had had to see more of each other than at home. Herakleides had an offhand hail-fellow way, which was part both of himself and of his politics; he made it a touchstone of good will to be met on his own terms. This Dion would not do, at first because it went against his grain, later because he grew to distrust the man. Now Herakleides sent excuses, whether good or not I don’t know—nor, I daresay, did Dion either. At all events, he put his faith in the god, and set sail with what he had.

There were three good-sized freighters in the little fleet, with two war triremes for escort. As well as his men’s own arms, he carried shields and weapons for two thousand men. At the heel of Italy, the fleet of Syracuse, under Philistos, was waiting to cut him off.

He got word of this in time; and now truly he threw all into Apollo’s hand. Instead of hanging back in the hope of Philistos’ going away, he left the coastal route which every sane shipmaster follows and struck out across open sea. I turn queasy even to think of it.

Apollo blessed him. They made Sicily in twelve days with a fair wind all the way. Their landfall was the South Cape, which was a bare thirty miles from Syracuse; this seemed tempting the god a little far. They stood out again; and as if to punish their doubt, ran into a storm which blew them across to Africa, and nearly ran them aground. They labored with oars off a lee shore, were becalmed off Great Syrtis Heads, and said their prayers. A breeze from the forgiving god cradled them back to Sicily; they landed at Minoa, in the Carthaginian province.

The troops of the guard-post all turned out, thinking the war with Syracuse had started up again. For this Dion was prepared. He had warned his men that their lives would depend on their steadiness; they had the advantage of numbers, and must push back these men without bloodshed; then he could treat with the commander. They locked shields, and took the strong point without killing a man. Dion sounded for a parley. Up came the captain, and turned out to be a man he knew. Dion had accepted his surrender in some old campaign and treated him with honor. As soon as he was assured they were not marching against the power of Carthage, he came to terms. Dion gave up the strong point; Synalos quartered his soldiers and gave them stores. Anywhere in Sicily Dion’s word was good. If he threw out Philistos and his master, no Carthaginian would complain; if, as rumor had it, he meant to disarm Ortygia and disperse her mercenaries, they would object still less.

Dion’s men were in camp at Minoa when news came to them of the god’s greatest favor yet, a bounty almost past belief. Not only was Philistos still away watching the door of the empty stable; Dionysios himself had sailed from Syracuse with eighty of the ships that were left, all filled with troops.

Don’t ask me why. Perhaps he thought Dion would put in at Tarentum, and he could kill two birds with one stone; I don’t suppose he had forgiven Archytas for demanding Plato. Or maybe he just wanted to be in at the death. Whichever it was, I am sure he did it on impulse after being left to his own devices. I should think Philistos could have killed him.

Dion’s men were so struck with this run of luck that they declined the rest he offered them to get over the sea trip and begged him to push on while the stars were good. I don’t know what they would have said if they had known the whole story of Apollo’s care for Dion. He had just worked him a miracle.

Dionysios, when he sailed, had left as regent his favorite, Timokrates, the husband of Dion’s wife. This man, at the news of the landing, sent a fast courier to Italy with letters to him and to Philistos. The courier landed at Rhegium, and took the quick inland road towards Kaulonia, where the Archon had his ships. There he met someone he knew who had been at a sacrifice and had brought back a gift of meat. Since the courier could not stay to share it, the friend gave him a cut to eat when he had time. Knowing the business urgent, he pushed on long after dark; when he had to rest, the hills were desolate, with no shelter but a wood beside the road. Too tired to cook, he supped on a crust, and slept with his letter bag by his head. He awoke to find it gone, along with the meat which had been tied to it. His panic search showed him no trace of human thieves, only the marks of wolf pads, and a dragging trail between. All morning he searched the wild country round about, hoping that when the wolf had eaten, it would have dropped the bag; but it must have taken it to its lair for its young to chew on. No one, it seems, had told him what the message said; he was there to do as he was told. He could only confess, with you may suppose what result. So he did just what I would have done in his shoes—ran away up to Italy and changed his name. Long after, he told the story. The wolf, as everyone knows, is a creature of Apollo.

Meantime Dion set out for Syracuse with his eight hundred, leaving his spare arms with Synalos, who agreed to send them on.

They were needed soon. They were hardly across the river Halys into Greek lands when men started coming in: cavalry from Akragas, hoplites from Gela (which old Dionysios had let the Carthaginians sack when it served his turn), more from Kamarina. As soon as they got to the country around Syracuse, the peasants came down from the hills: serfs of the great landowners, the little russet Sikels who were there before the Hellenes; poor Greek smallholders, ruined by the taxes which had bought old Dionysios’ catapults and young Dionysios’ girls. Load after load the spare arms were issued. It was as if a god had come down to lead them.

All who were there are in agreement that Dion never sank, in all this time, below his role. It was as if he had been rehearsing for it all his life. He was now at an age when he might have sat for a sculptor as Zeus rather than as Apollo. In the years at the Academy he had grown his beard; now it had a short soldier’s trim. He was a hard-muscled, noble Zeus, fit to throw thunderbolts, a Zeus for Pheidias; the grizzle in his hair only gave him dignity. He was savior, hero, father; if he kept his distance, it was only fitting.

Timokrates, his dispatches bringing no help, was trying to put Syracuse upon defense with the few men left him, and had to call in reservists to man the walls. These were mostly land-pensioned veterans of the old Archon’s wars, from Leontini. He put these on the city ramparts, keeping his regulars to hold Ortygia. Dion, whose last recruits had come from inside Syracuse itself, heard of these dispositions, and staged a feint advance on Leontini, now stripped of all its men. Young boys came racing up to the Syracusan walls to warn their fathers, who opened the gates and quick-marched for home, not reckoning they owed young Dionysios anything. After dark Dion marched straight on to Syracuse. Daybreak found him at the river Anopos, a mile away.

Before he went on, he sacrificed to Apollo Helios. He now had five thousand men behind him. He looked so godlike to them, bay-crowned, lifting his hands to the sun, that they all broke sprays from the trees and wreathed themselves for victory. Nor was their overconfidence punished; let us call it prophecy.

When the Leontinians deserted, Timokrates sent orders to close all the gates into Ortygia. But before he could get back there himself, the Syracusans were rushing out through the city to welcome Dion. If Timokrates showed himself he would be lynched; and outside was the man to whom he had done that wrong which demands the extremest vengeance everywhere. He grabbed the first horse he could find, wrapped his cloak round his face, and got away. To justify himself, he galloped about describing the vast might of Dion’s forces and making him sound invincible, so that those who from prudence had held back before, now flocked to join Dion. All the veterans of Leontini, finding their homes and women safe, joined to a man.

Syracuse was free. Before Dion had set foot inside, the tyranny was broken. Every man could speak his mind and do as he chose. They chose first of all to hunt down Philistos’ band of informers. All over the streets, these people, and people who looked rather like them or were their kin or whom someone denounced for private vengeance, were chased or run down at home or dragged from the temples they had fled to, and battered to death by the crowd.

Dion marched up to the walls, and they opened the great gates for him. He had put on his parade armor, inlaid with gold. On his right marched his brother, on his left Kallippos the Athenian. Herakleides and his ships had still not arrived.

The chief men of the city came out clothed in white. As they went up the Sacred Way, flowers and wreaths and ribbons showered on them from the house roofs. People set up altars and sacrificed in thanksgiving as Dion passed by. Treading in laurel and myrtle, rose wreaths and blood, he went on to the great sundial of Dionysios which stands opposite Ortygia, and from its dial addressed the citizens. With the favor of the gods, he said, he had brought them liberty. It was theirs, if they would only help him to defend it.

At once they wanted to give him and Megakles the office of military dictator the Archons had held before. He thanked them, would not take advantage of men so unused to freedom, and proposed a council of twenty from the returned exiles and such loyal friends as Kallippos. This being carried with acclaim, he marched on the last strong point that still held out—the great fortress of Euryalos. Its garrison had barred themselves in for safety rather than offense; they surrendered, on condition they either joined Dion or left the city. The garrison of Ortygia could do nothing but watch all this from the gatehouses, and be thankful for the gates. In the captain’s lodging of Euryalos were the great bronze keys of the quarries. Among cheers that must have been audible on the slopes of Etna, Dion turned the locks to free the captives.

Now only Ortygia still held out. That was impregnable; but Dion had a siege wall built on the land side of its neck to seal it fast. He got his new recruits armed and drilled, and set up his command in the Euryalos. Seven days later, Dionysios, who had had the news at last, sailed up with his ships into Ortygia dockyard.

If Herakleides and the promised fleet had come, they might have stopped him. As it was, Dion’s men could do nothing but look on. Dionysios could bring in everything he needed; soon Philistos came too, with a second fleet. Ortygia would be a long business. But meantime, Syracuse was free.

With the forces he had, Dionysios could have landed along the coast and attacked by land; but he stayed in Ortygia, hoping, as it turned out later, to agree with Dion privately, as one gentleman with another. As the Archon saw it, the rabble had just been the engine of Dion’s private war, and need not be considered. Having known Plato, he should have known Dion better than this. He sent back the envoys, saying he would read nothing that could not be laid before the people. Public proposals came, for remission of taxes, talks, and so forth. The Syracusans laughed, and Dion sent word that if Dionysios would abdicate, he would treat with him for his safe-conduct. Short of that, he could save his breath.

After a while, Dionysios offered to consider this, on terms to be agreed, and asked for envoys. Some leading citizens went; the gatehouse guards were seen idling, calling out to the people that they would soon be out of work. At sunset the talks were still going on; the envoys would stay overnight. However, all seemed settled; the troops on the Syracusan siege wall took a lazy watch, as the enemy was doing. Work on the wall, a rough makeshift meant to be reinforced, had stopped. At midnight the five gates of Ortygia opened; the garrison rushed out upon the siege wall and its sleepy men.

The yelling Nubians, their faces daubed like white skulls; the naked, painted, seven-foot Gauls, drunk on raw wine; the steady iron-hard Romans, rushed on citizens unused to fend for themselves, new to arms and half-awake. They broke and fled screaming. That would have been the end but for Dion’s regulars, who did not wait for the trumpet but got to the wall as soon as he. His voice drowned by the din, he just showed himself in the vanguard and led them on. A fine thundering Zeus, with a javelin like a lightning bolt, he rallied the line till his shield was stuck full of broken points and his corselet dented all over. Even when a spear went through his right hand, he got on a horse and rode about to encourage the Syracusans, getting some back to fight. By now he had brought up the men from the Achradina; the enemy was contained in the streets nearest the causeway; under this new onslaught they broke and fled, many being trapped below the wall. On Dion’s side only seventy-five were killed, partly because his regulars fought so well, partly because the Syracusans had not stayed to fight at all. They were very grateful, and voted the troops extra pay of a hundred minas; the men spent part of it on a golden wreath for Dion.

Next day the envoys were sent home. Dionysios, though he broken the truce, had not sunk to killing them; perhaps after all Plato’s visit had not been for nothing.

The next embassy from Ortygia was addressed to Dion in person. He received it publicly and was handed letters from his wife and mother. These he read aloud to the people in a steady voice; they were sad, but innocent of intrigue. At the end, one more letter came out; this he was begged to read in private, since it was from his son. He must have been tempted for many reasons, but he broke the seal. The letter inside was not from Hipparinos at all, but from the Archon. It is in the archives of the Academy; I read it once. People say now it was a clever bit of policy, but to me it reads just like the man—all feeling, petulance, self-pity and unreasonable hopes. It dwelt on Dion’s years of faithful service to both the Archons, reproached him with unjust resentment, swore his kindred, wife and mother should suffer for it if he kept it up, begged him not to throw holy Syracuse to a senseless mob, who would bring her down in chaos and then blame him for it; and, as a flourish at the end, offered to accept him as the Archon, if he would maintain autarchic rule. I daresay Philistos added that.

Dion disdained to write back, and sent a short soldier’s answer. But the letter had not been in vain. The people knew he had had these offers; surely they must tempt him? It was argued in the wineshops; Dion’s men just laughed, or hit out if they were fighting-drunk. By now they loved him like a father.

It was now that at last Herakleides arrived in Syracuse, with twenty triremes and fifteen thousand men.

He had held back a long time. If his heart had been in helping, he would have come, like Dion, with what he had. The triremes alone, without the troop freighters, might have kept Dionysios out of Ortygia. One can hardly doubt he meant to find Dion in trouble, rescue the enterprise and take command. What he wanted after that, whether it was for the people or himself, he is not here to tell us.

In any case, he found Dion an honored victor, adored by his troops and respected by the citizens. Something had to be done, if Herakleides was not to be just the slow-belly who gets there after the feast. He still had much in his favor; his exile spoke for his stand against the tyrant, and he had his cheery, hearty way. No one could miss the contrast. If Dion at fifty had not learned ease with people yet, I suppose he showed a kind of sense in not straining at it, like an actor forcing his limits.

All these parleys with Ortygia having ended nowhere, the land war was getting static; but some of Dionysios’ war triremes decided to join the Syracusans, so that Herakleides now commanded sixty ships. One day he got word that Philistos was sailing up towards the straits. Now was his chance of glory. The fleets engaged; Philistos was hemmed in. When they took his galley, the old man was lying on the poop, with his sword stuck into his belly. Being nearly eighty, he had not had strength enough to do a clean job, and was still alive. Herakleides, who always knew how to please the people, gave him to them to play with.

You may say he knew what he deserved, which was why he had tried to kill himself. He had been the right arm of the tyranny, father and son, since it began. But you could say of him too that he remained faithful to the son, from whom he could have taken everything, though the father had had him exiled on mere suspicion. That he should have put on arms at all at his age, when he could have sailed off with a sack of gold to the in bed at ease, might have earned him some grudging honor. No matter; it was the death of Phyton all over again, though there was no tyrant now to order it, just the free citizens of Syracuse. A siege tower they lacked; in any case, they were too impatient to wait a day. He was stripped naked, and haltered. Because of his wound he could not be made to walk about the streets, but he was dragged along, and every man did what pleased him. At last, when it could be seen he was senseless and would give no more sport, they hacked his head off, and gave his trunk to the boys for what it was worth. They tied it by one leg, lamed in battle fifty years before, and pulled it about till they got tired, when they threw it on a dung-heap. By the time Dion got the news, the man was dead.

I have been told, by Timonides of the Academy, who sailed with him, that Dion shut himself up alone till night. It had always been his faith that honor begets honor. He had sweated and bled to free these people; they had had a share of his soul. Small wonder if while Herakleides went drinking with the captains, everyone’s hero, he did not join the feast. Long ago at Delphi, when they killed Meidias, I had seen he did not understand. He did not know a crowd. He had not learned, even yet, what most men are who have had to eat dirt for two generations. He was not content to pity them, and be angry with those who had debased them; he had wanted to persuade himself that freedom would ennoble them. When they had forsaken him in battle, he had forgiven them; he was a soldier, and did not expect too much from half-trained men. I think it was this killing that first seared his mind. Such people, he began to think, could not know their own good; if left to fend for themselves, they would suffer worse than under the tyranny, and sink even lower: for he believed what Sokrates had taught Plato, and Plato him, that it is better to suffer evil than to do it.

Autumn was closing the open seaways, though ships still crossed the straits to Italy, as they do in good weather all the year. There were no more sea fights; but Herakleides now equaled Dion in public esteem. He was pleasant to everyone, and made no secret of his belief that Syracuse should be governed just like Athens, by popular assembly and the general vote. As long, however, as Dionysios still sat in Ortygia, the need of a commander was clear to everyone. Herakleides was content at present to intrigue for an equal share in the command.

I don’t know what Dionysios did when he learned of Philistos’ death, and knew he now had to conduct the war himself; I suppose he got drunk. What’s certain is that before long he sent to Dion, offering the surrender of Ortygia: the palace, the castle, the ships, his standing army and five months’ full pay for it, in exchange for his own safe-conduct into Italy, and a yearly revenue from his private estates.

Dion must have been tempted by now to make his own terms out of hand. However, he had pledged his honor to lay all tenders before the people, and for him this settled the matter. With one voice the people said no. They had tasted blood with Philistos; how much sweeter would his master’s be! Dionysios must be at his last gasp, to make this offer; they were resolved to have him alive. In vain Dion told them that all they had been fighting for was theirs to take if they chose. They only thought (and said), “There is a man who has not suffered.” Sicily is a land where revenge is prized. Some said he must have had a better offer than before, to let the tyrant off scot-free; but then the man was his kin. None of these rumors was opposed by Herakleides. Perhaps he believed them; it is easy to think the worst of a man one hates. The envoys were sent home empty; the siege went on. Herakleides spent more and more time ashore, busy with his politics. And one misty dawn in early autumn, when the lookouts of the fleet were taking it easy, Dionysios boarded a ship, cast off with a little squadron that carried all his treasures, and sailed away. By the time the news broke, he was in Italy.

When this reached Athens, nothing else was talked of all over the city. The greatest tyranny in Hellas had been broken, and by a man trained in Athens—almost an Athenian, you might say. At the Academy, gray-haired philosophers ran about like schoolboys. Axiothea and her friend both kissed me in the olive grove. They told me what was not yet known in the streets—that Ortygia still held out without its lord, who had left the young Apollokrates in command. This passed even my notion of the man; if his son was like him, the war was as good as won, and we agreed we might as well rejoice now as later. We recalled that not very long ago a shooting star had crossed the heavens, so brilliant that it had been seen from a dozen cities and had turned the night into day.

A number of people gave parties in honor of the event, among them Thettalos and I. Theodoros told us a splendid story. He had lately played in Macedon before the new king, Philip, a man he predicted would be harder to kill than those before. It seemed that when the bright star appeared, this hill-king thought it had been sent in his own honor, because he had won some battle and a chariot race, and then his wife had had a son. He and his whole court had drunk all through the night upon it. Then, only a few weeks later, had come the great news from Syracuse. So having laughed at the barbarian’s pretenses we thought no more of him, and drank to the freedom of all Greeks.