Tyrant (4 page)

‘That man was a tyrant,’ objected Arete.

‘That man was a man!’ roared Dionysius. ‘And he did what had to be done.’

He strode off, and Arete watched as he stopped to give orders to his comrades. He mustered the Selinuntian warriors and urged them not to lose heart and to continue their march.

The refugees hadn’t rested for more than an hour when they rose to their feet, collected their things and resumed their procession. Many of them had lost their sandals and they stumbled over the stones on their path, leaving bloody footsteps in their wake. What kept them going? Dionysius knew, and that was why he had convinced them to persevere in their journey: he knew that no one is stronger than a man who no longer has anything to lose.

They went on for hours, stopping only to drink when they found a spring, or to pick some green fruit along the road to calm their hunger pangs. The children no longer even had the strength to cry, but they gave a show of incredible courage; they took example from their parents and companions and trudged along, desperate not to cut a sorry figure.

It wasn’t until evening of the next day that aid arrived: carts drawn by oxen, donkeys and mules, loaded down with abundant provisions. The old and the invalid, the women and the children were helped to climb on to the carts, and the warriors were able to unburden themselves of their shields.

After three more days of journeying, they arrived within sight of Acragas as dusk was descending.

The magnificent city, illuminated by the setting sun, seemed a vision of wonder. Built up high on a hill, circled by a mighty ring of walls ten stadia long, she proudly displayed multicoloured temples, statues and monuments. Acragas’s city sanctuary stood up at the very top of the acropolis, its gilded acroteria shining like gems.

A trumpet blared loud and long through the valley and the gates opened. The refugees filed between the monuments of the necropolis and made their way towards the western gate. They entered the city amidst a stunned, silent throng. The signs of the disaster they had survived were evident: thin and wasted they were, with wounds, bruises and burns covering their bodies, filthy, ripped clothing, bleeding feet, hair clotted with blood and dust. As they proceeded through the most beautiful city that had ever been built in the West, emotion coursed through the surrounding crowd and many of them could not hold back their tears at such a miserable sight. Those unfortunates were the living proof of the vicious cruelty of their enemies.

Aware of the devastating effect that the sight of the refugees had had on the townspeople, the city authorities ordered that they be brought to the market square, near the big artificial pond, so their wounds could be seen to. There they were given food, water and clean clothing; lots were drawn using shards of pottery with numbers scratched on to them so each of the survivors would be assigned a family with which to stay until homes could be found.

Dionysius approached Arete and said: ‘You’ll be safe here. This city is rich and powerful; her walls are the strongest of all Sicily. I have a small house here myself, with an almond grove and a vegetable garden. I would be honoured if you and the boy accepted my hospitality.’

‘Don’t you want to wait until the lots have been drawn?’ asked Arete.

‘I never wait,’ replied Dionysius. ‘Destiny is blind, but I never close my eyes completely, not even when I’m sleeping. Will you accept?’

Arete smiled. ‘Which way is it?’ she asked.

‘This way. Follow me.’ Dionysius set off, leading his horse by its reins. But just then they heard a shout: ‘
Krisse!
’ A woman ran towards them, calling out that name.

The child raised his head, shook free of Arete’s hand and ran towards that voice, shouting ‘Mama!’ They embraced in the middle of the square, under the moved gazes of the onlookers.

‘He’s not the first,’ said Dionysius. ‘Other children have found fathers or mothers who they had imagined dead. Husbands have found their wives, brothers their sisters. Their joy is so great it wipes out the thought of all they have lost.’

‘I’m a little sorry,’ said Arete. ‘I was growing so fond of him. So now you want me in your house alone? I don’t know if I can trust you.’

‘Of course you can trust me,’ replied Dionysius. ‘You’re too skinny for my teeth.’

Arete shot a peeved look at him, but Dionysius’s teasing smile dispelled any feelings of irritation. She’d been charmed, all right, as much by his looks as by his personality: he was taller than average, with dark hair and eyes as black and shiny as the sea at night. His sun-bronzed skin was stretched over the powerful muscles of a fighter, shot through with turgid blue veins on his arms and the backs of his hands.

He had led her fellow townspeople to salvation; he’d been the first to come to their aid and perhaps Selinus would not have fallen had he had his way.

Selinus . . . the name sounded sweet even in the extreme bitterness of her exile, in the loss of everything she had imagined belonged to her and could not be taken away: her home, her family, the childhood games she had so recently set aside, the girlfriends with whom she would go to the temples on the acropolis, bringing gifts to the gods for the prosperity of her city and her people. She remembered the big market square full of people and of goods to sell, the processions, the walks through the fields, the river bank where she’d go with her friends to do the washing and hang the linens in the sun so they’d absorb the scent of the wind, fragrant with poppies and wheat.

‘What could smell sweeter than a field of wheat in flower?’ she mused as they climbed upwards towards the high part of the city.

‘That’s silly,’ replied Dionysius. ‘Wheat doesn’t flower.’

‘Of course it does, when it’s still green, in May. The flowers are really tiny, a milky white colour, inside the head. But their scent is so sweet that it mixes in with the smell of spring itself. You know when people say “it smells like spring” but the roses haven’t bloomed yet, and the violets have withered? That’s what wheat blossoms smell like . . .’

Dionysius looked at her closely, with a touch of tenderness. ‘You know a lot of things, girl . . .’

‘You can call me Arete.’

‘Arete . . . where did you learn them?’

‘Looking around. I’ve never as now understood the value of the treasures that surround us and that we don’t notice. Like the wheat flowers . . . understand?’

‘I think so. Are you tired?’

‘I could lie down on these cobblestones and fall into the deepest sleep.’

‘Better go inside, then. That’s my house down there.’ Dionysius tied his horse to a ring on the wall, opened a wooden gate and entered a little courtyard shaded by an almond tree and a blooming pomegranate. He took a key from under a stone and opened the door. It was very simple and plain inside: a table with a couple of chairs, a bench along one wall, a sink and a clay water jug on the other. At the end of the room, opposite the entrance, was a wooden stair that led to a second floor. She lay down in the only bedroom and he covered her with a light blanket. Arete fell asleep almost instantly and Dionysius stayed to watch her for a little while. A neighing startled him and he went back downstairs to take care of his horse.

A
RETE AWOKE AND
was gripped by panic for a moment, not realizing where she was. The room was sunk in darkness and not a sound came from outside. She got up and went to the window that opened on to an inner garden. She saw the pomegranate and almond with its still tender leaves and remembered. She must have fallen into a deep sleep for many hours; evening was falling. She found a basin filled with water and was relieved to be able to wash and put on a fresh gown. Curious now, she looked around; a stair with a dozen stone steps led up to a landing and she walked up barefooted without making the slightest noise.

When she reached the terrace, she was confronted by a spectacle that left her amazed and moved: all of Acragas stretched out before her, the lamps being lit now in each of the houses. To her right, on high, she could see the Athenaion on the top of the acropolis, a wisp of smoke rising, perhaps from the altar. To her left, scattered over the hill which faced the sea, were the other temples of the gods: one was right on top, another halfway up the slope, a third a little further over at the same distance. They were painted in bright colours, adorned by friezes and sculptures, with beautiful trees and gardens all around. At the bottom of the hill, in the western part of the valley, was a gigantic building still under construction, a temple the likes of which she’d never seen. So tall that it towered over any other structure, the entablature was held up by stone colossi at least twelve feet high and the pediment was animated by huge statuary groups bulging with heroes involved in titanic struggles. She could see the walls surrounding the whole city, with armed sentinels marching back and forth on the battlements and, beyond them, the plain that stretched out to the sea, already the colour of iron. Two more temples arose in the distance towards the west, white with stucco work and glittering with the gilded edging on the pediments and acroteria.

Dionysius was sitting in an armchair, contemplating the sight in the last faint light of sunset. To his right, hanging from one of the arbour posts, was his armour; his shield and spear were leaning against the parapet. He was wearing only a chlamys over his nude body and he must have bathed, for as Arete drew closer, she could smell none of the stink of horse sweat that had made it hard to distinguish him from his steed.

‘The most beautiful city of mortal man . . .’ said Dionysius without turning.

Arete couldn’t understand how he had sensed her presence since she’d come up in absolute silence, but she imagined that the long vigils he’d kept in war must have honed this sense of alertness. ‘It’s enchanting,’ she answered, continuing to let her gaze roam over the stunning countryside.

‘That’s what Pindar said in one of his poems. Do you know his work?’

‘Of course, although he’s not my favourite. I like lyric poetry better.’

‘He composed an ode to celebrate the victory of Theron, the lord of Acragas, in the chariot races of Olympia seventy years ago.’

‘They must have paid him well. He certainly couldn’t say anything bad about the place.’

‘What a foolish thing to say. Money can’t buy inspiration, and the spectacle you see before you has no equal in Sicily, or anywhere else in this world.’

‘Unforgiving, aren’t you?’ observed the girl in a resigned tone. ‘Everyone says stupid things sometimes. And I still have the splendour of my lost home in my heart . . . can’t you understand that? I look at all this, and can’t help but think that the city I loved has become nothing but a heap of ruins.’

‘Not for always,’ replied Dionysius without turning. ‘We’ll go back and build it up again.’

‘We’ll go back? You’re not Selinuntian, you’re Syracusan.’

‘I’m Sicilian. A Sicilian Greek, like you, like all the others. The bastard race of the sons of Greece and the native women. “Half-barbarians”, that’s what they call us in our so-called motherland. But look what we’ve accomplished, we half-barbarians. Look at that temple down there, held up by a host of giants: it’s bigger and grander than the Parthenon. Look at that artificial pond in the middle of the valley that reflects the colours of the sky in the middle of the city. Look at the porticoes, the statues, the monuments. Our athletes have made their challengers from the continent eat dust. The sons of the emigrants have won all the games of Olympia. Do you know the story of Euenetos?’

‘The charioteer, the Olympic champion?’

‘That’s him. When he returned to the city after his victory in the chariot races, the young Acragantines greeted him with a procession of one thousand two hundred chariots. One thousand two hundred, understand? Two thousand four hundred horses. There probably aren’t so many chariots in all of Greece these days! Here they make monuments to horses. They bury them in luxurious sarcophaguses, as if they were heroes. Look, there’s one down there, see, with the Ionic columns?’

‘I think so . . . but there’s so little light now. Tell me about that tall temple down there, the one held up by the giants.’

‘It’s dedicated to Zeus of Olympia and it will be finished next year. That’s a battle of the giants on the pediment. Zeus wins over the giants, and they are condemned to holding up the architrave of his temple in eternity. The scene on the other pediment represents the fall of Troy . . .’

‘Oh, gods, why? Why choose such a theme for the tympanum? It’s a sad story.’

‘I know,’ nodded Dionysius. ‘Perhaps to ward off a similar fate; who knows? Or perhaps the Acragantines have such an intense sense of death . . . because they love life in such an extreme, exaggerated way. See? They are a strange lot: they make monuments as though they were going to live for ever and they live each day as though it were the very last of their existence.’ He hesitated a moment, then added: ‘Those aren’t my words. It was Empedocles, their greatest philosopher, who said that.’

‘They are beautiful and terrible words,’ said Arete. ‘I would like very much to see it when it is finished.’

‘You will, I promise. I’ll come to get you, if need be, wherever you are. When you’ve visited that marvel you’ll forget everything you’ve suffered.’

Arete sought out his eyes in the darkness. ‘Will you come and get me even if I’m so thin?’