The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

19

“OH, NIKERATOS!” SAID AXIOTHEA, who was the first I told. “Are you really going to Sicily? Dear friend that you are, I could almost hate you. Where will you be playing? Not, surely, in Syracuse, with the siege still on?”

“Nowhere, that I know. For once I’m traveling for pleasure. Why not, while I’ve got my strength?”

“Strength? After that lionlike Diomedes? I am ashamed of you. Is Thettalos going too?”

“No, he’s in Ionia. He’s a partner now, and won’t be free for some weeks. This I am doing just for myself. I saw this enterprise begin; I’d like to be there when it is crowned.”

These words, once spoken, displeased me. When a tragic actor talks of crowns—especially when he has just won one—he talks of tragedy. I had only just dodged the bad-luck word; I am careful of such things, and it was unlike me.

I asked her what fresh news there was. Timonides still wrote to Speusippos; but he, between his research, his Academy business, and keeping up the archives of the campaign, was too busy now to get about much, and I seldom met him. She answered that he had had a letter last week and there seemed no great change. Then she added, “But we don’t see all the dispatches now. They used to be read aloud. Of course, there must be less to tell. It seems the man Herakleides—you know, he was never one of ours—is still giving trouble. Did you ever meet him?”

“For a moment, once. I thought him a good simple soldier, which he is not. He should have been an actor. But I wouldn’t want him in my company. He’d hide your mask and do a brilliant impromptu while you looked for it.”

“Did you hear what he did to get back in the citizens’ favor, after he let Dionysios get away? He proposed at the Assembly that all Syracusan land should be divided equally.”

“What, now?” I said. “With the war still on? I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true. I saw that part of the letter.”

“In Sicily! No one would give up a yard of onion patch without a fight. There would have been a riot, then a sortie from Ortygia, and Dionysios back at home.”

“Herakleides must have known that, I suppose, as well as Dion. But it was Dion who had to say no.”

We were sitting on a marble seat, by the statue of the hero Akademos. His shadow fell far beyond us in the evening sunlight, a long thin helmet crest, a spear stretching ten cubits over the grass.

After a while she said, “We always heard all the letters … They say Dion has changed.”

“I doubt it. Stopped trying to change, more likely.”

“Plato has changed,” she said.

“Yes; there I can believe you.”

“When he was young, you know, he traveled, like Solon and Herodotos. He studied in Egypt. He doesn’t see barbarism everywhere outside Hellas, as most men do. Not even always in Macedon. But he’s always taught that one must legislate for any polis according to how many of its men can think. Once he believed there would be a good many, if they could be chosen out freely from rich and poor alike, and trained together. He still prefers merit to birth; but now he thinks such men are fewer, not enough to bring it about, or keep it working. That is all.”

“All? It seems a good deal to me.”

She sighed. “He has been there, I’ve not. Well, you are going, Nikeratos. How I envy you.”

I had arranged to sail in about half a month. Speusippos gave me a pile of letters for Dion. He said that Herakleides and Theodotes (that very kinsman who had entreated Plato to beard Dionysios for him) were writing to all kinds of leading people in Greece, making mischief about Dion, and he must be warned.

Plato wrote too. Long after, when it was in the archives, I learned what a troubled letter I had carried. It started with good wishes and good hopes; reminded Dion that the eyes of the world were on Syracuse, on him, and through him on the Academy; warned him that rumor was running everywhere about strife between him and Herakleides, which was endangering the cause; and added that hearsay was all he knew, it was so long since Dion had written to him. The end, as near as I remember, went like this: “Take care; it is going about that you are not as gracious as you might be. Don’t forget that to achieve anything you must conciliate people. Intolerance keeps a lonely house.”

I had the roughest sea crossing to Tarentum since the one when I was wrecked there. With a first-rate pilot and good crew, we just weathered it. I was deathly frightened; but there were people on board who knew who I was. If I had ever doubted how much vanity there is in most men’s courage, I knew it then.

I crossed the straits at Rhegium and went on by road, not wanting to run through the war fleets off Ortygia. Most of the city’s traffic was going the same way. I hired a good riding mule, for the look of it, since I was known thereabouts; it was a long ride, and I was tired by the time I got to Leontini. The city seemed empty of its men, who I was told had all gone to fight for Dion. When I asked the boys about my old host, the Roman captain Aulus Rupilius, they said he was here, burying his father. I called to pay my respects and make an offering. They pressed me to stay the night, and although I would not intrude on a house of mourning, a friend put me up instead; Rupilius saying he would be glad of my company next day when he rode back to Syracuse.

We set out early together. He was in no deep distress (the old man had long been failing and witless) and seemed fretting to get on, concerned more for the future than the past. When I asked what the matter was, he would only say he had heard everything was not what it ought to be in Syracuse. I noticed he was in armor and wore his sword. He jogged along, a broad gray-bearded man with a boxer’s nose, red-faced and sweating as the sun warmed up his corselet, brooding, with half an ear for what I said.

I wondered if he had been turned against Dion by Herakleides’ faction. It was lucky I kept this to myself. As soon as Dion’s name came up, he shamed me with an encomium that took us over several stades of road. Ah, there was a man with the ancient virtues! Nothing for himself, everything for the common weal. Courage and strategy in war; the endurance of a man twenty years younger; a general who never slept softer or drier than his men, nor ate while they were hungry; a man with gravitas (a Roman word, which I think means dignity of soul); incorruptible in office, flawless in personal honor. He might lack the arts by which base men flatter foolish ones; but he was never at a loss for the right order in a tight place, or a cheerful word to the men. In a word (it slipped out in spite of him, civil man as he was), Dion was wasted on Greeks. He should have been a Roman.

Plainly, this was the praise of indignation. But I could not learn the cause, so resolved was the man that only good should be spread through him.

Wherever there was a sea view it showed us warships. I asked how the siege went, and found him hopeful. Apollokrates, a lad of about sixteen, could hardly be more than a token leader, a hostage to the garrison for their flitted lord. The blockade was tight and they must be pinched for most things. “Everything,” he said, “favors the Syracusans, except themselves. They remind me of the people in that play you did here, resolved to drive out the gods.”

“You are making me anxious. How long before we reach the city?”

“It depends on whether we can get remounts. Nowadays one can’t be sure. If not, we shall hardly do it by nightfall.”

“Never mind,” I answered. “It’s a pleasant ride up here. A pretty road. This next rise should show us the sea.”

“Be quiet,” he said.

Romans, like Spartans, don’t see the need for wasting words. He held up his hand, and reined in. I heard, as he had done, the battle noises from on ahead.

“What can it be?” I asked. “That’s nearer than Syracuse.”

“It’s at the river crossing down there. Dionysios may have landed troops. Keep in cover, till we see.”

We rode up the nearest hill, tied up our mounts below the skyline, and finished on foot. All the while the sound got nearer: two fighting forces, one lot quite out of hand, yelling catcalls and abuse (the sound told that, even from here), the other strangely silent, except sometimes for the sharp sound of an order.

We were just below the crest; Rupilius, panting and grunting in his armor, had paused to breathe. Suddenly he grabbed my arm so that I nearly cried out. Then I too knew the commander’s voice.

Clambering so fast we grazed ourselves, we made the summit. Then we forgot to take cover, just stood backed to a rock, and stared.

Below was the river, widening in the flat land between hills and sea. A regiment had started to ford it, in good order, going north towards Leontini: a file of men plodding through the rocks and thigh-high water, keeping their equipment dry, while the main body covered their rear. The other army, if one could use the word for what looked more like a mob, was trying to harry them. Some of these were armed like soldiers, some with whatever people snatch up in a brawl; others were hurling stones. There were also a few light horse skirmishing about and waving spears, as if getting ready to attack the column, if they could make up their minds to it. No one seemed to be leading them, unless it was from behind. The other leader, however, was clear in sight, encouraging the rear guard. I could hear the crack of a stone against his shield. It was Dion.

Rupilius clutched my arm, hitting the bruise he had made before. “Ours!” he said. “I must go. I must go down.”

“Wait,” I begged, “till you tell me what is happening.” I could not think why trained soldiers should fall back before such a force, Dion above all.

Rupilius craned forward. Dion had now formed up his men, of whom only a few were yet in the river, in six-rank line of battle. The enemy, at once less eager, milled awhile; however, someone yelled out a paean, and they made a ragged charge. Dion’s men stood firm. At first they just shouted and clashed their arms. This daunted some of the attackers, but most came on. The foremost of these Dion’s troops struck down with blows of their shields or spear butts; when they fell stunned, the rest backed into a huddle. There was no pursuit; the line just waited on the defense, while Dion signaled for the crossing of the river to continue.

About another fifty had forded it, when the stunned men started to stir and help each other up. At this the others took heart again, and shouted war cries. Somewhere I even heard an order.

Dion halted the crossing, and again dressed his line. But this time (I could tell from his loud shout), he gave the word to charge.

His men ran forward, keeping a steady, solid shield line. They hit the others like a wave that breaks hard and heavy in one piece. Now men were really falling, most of them the enemy’s. It was soon over; they ran like rabbits; those who were caught could be seen making the ritual gestures of surrender, kneeling before the soldiers to touch their beards or knees. Some of Dion’s men, whose blood was up, started off in pursuit, but he called them off and they came back like good hunting dogs, lugging a few more captives with them.

All this while, Rupilius had been rooted where he stood, knowing he could not be in time to join the action. Now he started scrambling about again and saying he must go. “Get your horse, then,” I said, “which you will surely need, and I’ll come with you.”

He just stopped himself from telling me I would only be in the way. As we climbed down to our mounts I could hear him, when he thought I was out of earshot, calling down curses upon treacherous, envious, cowardly, thankless Greeks.

When we reached the ford, Dion’s men had finished crossing; they were looking after each other’s wounds, and pushing the prisoners into the center. Dion had ridden up to these, and was sitting his horse in silence, looking down at them.

I said to Rupilius, “By the dog! Those look like Syracusans.”

Rupilius just leaned over and spat in the dust; then he kicked his horse’s flank. I followed him.

As he came near, his mates in the column started calling. I could make nothing of it but abuse of the Syracusans, as if this would speak for itself; and that they were marching to Leontini. At this Rupilius, without waiting for more, dashed over to Dion, threw himself from his horse before him, and, looking like a dog that has swum from Piraeus to Salamis and found its master, said, “Sir, Aulus Rupilius, back for duty.”

“You are welcome, Rupilius,” Dion answered. “Though it seems neither of us has any more duties here.”

Before I could hear more, I was surrounded by soldiers asking me if I were Syracusan, as they might have asked some snake if it was the poisonous kind. I told them who I was; soldiers are friendly to actors, unless there is some good reason not to be, and when they knew I was not even a Sicilian, they all started to talk at once. Piecing it out as best I could, I gathered that Herakleides (whose name no one uttered without a curse) had again brought up at Assembly the share-out of the land. Dion had again opposed it as inopportune; the people, worked up beforehand, had then voted him out of his office as commander in chief. This angered his troops, who cheered for him and booed the new generals chosen instead. At this, Herakleides had moved that the men were a private army kept at the city’s expense to further Dion’s aims and set him up as a tyrant; he proposed that their pay (which was five months overdue) should not be met from the treasury. This was carried by acclamation.

“And so,” said someone, “we told them what they and their Archon were welcome to do with each other, and took the general away out of the muck. And lucky to get him.”

Others broke in, saying Herakleides’ faction had offered to make them citizens—what a gift!—and even pay them, if they would leave Dion’s service. Those rats could keep their filthy silver. They themselves would go anywhere—Egypt, Persia, Gaul or Babylon—to fight under Dion. They would go to North Africa and found a colony. And so on. They were half out of their minds with anger.

“But,” I said, “you had left; so why this battle?”

Curses followed, of which it was hard to make sense. “The general took it too cool, they must have thought he was soft.” “The demagogues meant to get him.” “… snapping at our heels like pi-dogs after a beggar.” “… before we were out of the city. We just turned and rattled our spears against our shields, and they all fell down and wet themselves.” “Dion wouldn’t let us lay a hand on them.” “… driving him like a scapegoat into the hills, the sons of whores.” “I suppose their mothers laughed at them, so they came out to try again.” “Stay and watch what we do to those we’ve got.” They jerked thumbs at the captives, who were wailing and stretching out their hands. The soldiers shouted at them, promising them horrors.

Dion was still there, looking down at them, a tall man on a tall horse. He looked no older than when I’d seen him in Athens—younger, I think—tanned, lean and active, with the quickness of a man long at war. Bronze man, bronze horse, like a victory statue. Like a statue, too, he was there to be looked at if one wished, not to reply. His face told me he had ceased to put himself out for anyone; no sense in it, nothing gained; he would tell his thoughts when and where he chose, if he chose at all. He saw me, and moved his head in greeting, without asking why I was there. He had business of his own to mind.

Rupilius was still up by his bridle, fidgeting for another word with him. “Sir, as long as you’re in Leontini, my house is yours. My guestroom is nice and cool, Nikeratos here will tell you …”

Another officer said, “You’re late in the day, Aulus. Do you suppose no one’s thought yet of bidding the general to his hearth? He’s promised me that honor.”

The Greeks, who made up the greater part of the army, grunted their approval. They could not compete, being from the mainland: Argives chiefly, the stocky men who win the wrestling at so many games, with a sprinkling of Corinthians, and tough Arcadian mountaineers.

“Thank you, Rupilius,” said Dion. “Silence in the ranks. I will see those envoys.”

Two men were coming from the distant rout of Syracusans, waving green branches. Dion sent no one to conduct them, just sat his horse and let them come up. The soldiers leaned on their spears, silent as ordered, like dogs called back from a cat chase. You could almost see them twitch.

The envoys sidled up, while the troops did all they could, by scowling and slyly fingering their swords, to keep them scared. With glum servility, they asked leave to remove their dead, thus conceding, by the law of arms, the mastery of the field.

“Take them,” said Dion.

They waited; but that was all. Dion’s horse shifted impatiently; its rider ceased to attend. They coughed, and asked if he would graciously declare the captives’ ransom.

There was another pause, while the soldiers growled in undertones, and Dion looked the envoys over, as he had done the prisoners. Presently he pointed to a pile of shields which his men had collected from those dropped in flight. “I have heard,” he said, “that not long before Dionysios was expelled from the outer city, he stripped the citizens of their arms, for fear of their rising against him. But you came armed, I see. Who armed you?”

They shuffled with their feet. I looked at the shields. They were Corinth work; one knows it anywhere. The soldiers gave a roar of anger. Then I understood him.

“Silence,” he said again; then, “Go, and take those men with you.” He pointed to the prisoners, who had been craning in anguish to hear the outcome. “I am a Syracusan. I do not hold fellow countrymen to ransom. And I have no other use for them. Take them away.”

It was not till envoys and freed men were wading back through the river, and I saw him at leisure, that I ventured up with my bag of letters. He thanked me, courteously but shortly, and gave it to one of his officers to look after. I said, “Here is one more, sir, which I thought you would want by itself.” And I gave him Plato’s.

He took it, thanking me. As I saw, he was on the point of putting it with the others; then he noticed me looking, and perhaps it brought things back. At all events, he opened it and read it. It was short, as I had known from its thickness. There was no change in his face.

“Thank you, Nikeratos,” he said. “I am obliged to you. There is no answer.”