The Etruscan (26 page)

Although the entire battle lasted only a few minutes, it caused great damage especially to our smaller vessels. We managed to repair the steering oars of the trireme, and the penteconters stuffed their leaks with sheepskins, but it was late that night before we had succeeded in bailing out the sea water which already had spoiled our recently acquired drinking water and provisions.

What was worse, we had not escaped the Etruscan galleys. Although most of them had fled toward shore, two remained nearby and when darkness fell they lit the pitch pots on their after decks as signal fires.

“I can almost hear the excitement in the shore cities as each chief hastens to be the first to reach us,” said Dionysius bitterly. “True, I have not heard that Etruscans skin pirates alive, since they themselves once practiced piracy, but they are a cruel people and fond of earthy pleasures.”

Arsinoe’s cat appeared silently out of the darkness on its nightly round, stopping to rub Dionysius’ leg and then stretched out to scratch its claws on the deck.

Dionysius gasped. “That sacred animal is wiser than we are! As you can see, it has turned its head toward the east and is clawing the deck to conjure up an east wind. Let us all scratch together, whistle like the wind and summon a storm.”

He ordered the men to scratch the deck. A few even tried to perform a Phocaean rain dance, but in vain. Even the slight breeze that we had felt died down and the sea became calm. Finally Dionysius gave up and ordered the vessels to be roped together so that the men could rest and pray, comb their hair and wash and anoint their bodies and be ready to die at dawn.

The Tyrrhenian fires disappeared and in the darkness I exclaimed to Dionysius, “Your luck is still with us. The Etruscans fear the black sea and are returning to shore.”

He stared out over the water and thus lost a precious moment. From the stern we heard a crash and, lighting the torches, saw that all the steering oars had been chopped off by the stealthy Etruscans, who had approached under cover of the dark. In the distance they again set fire to their pitchpots.

A feeling of guilt came over me as I thought of Arsinoe. She would still be in the safety of the temple if I had not abducted her and led her to certain death. I descended to her compartment where she lay, thin and wan, her eyes darker than ever in the flicker of the tallow lamp.

“Arsinoe,” I said, “the Etruscans are upon us. Our steering oars are broken, and when dawn comes the heavy Etruscan galleys will arrive to stave in our sides. Nothing can save us.”

Arsinoe merely sighed and said, “I have been counting the days on my fingers and am amazed. And I have developed a terrifying longing to eat crushed snail shells such as are given to hens.”

I thought her mind was muddled from fear and felt her forehead, but she had no fever. Softly I said, “I did wrong in abducting you from the temple, but all is not yet lost. We can signal the Etruscans and hand you to them before the battle. When you tell them that you are a priestess of Eryx they will not harm you, for the Etruscans are a godfearing people.”

She stared at me in disbelief and began to weep. “I cannot live without you, Turms! Even though I am a little frivolous I love you more than I believed it possible to love any man. Besides, I greatly fear that I am pregnant by you. It must have happened that first time when I forgot my mystic silver ring in the temple.”

“In the name of the goddess,” I cried, “that is impossible!”

“Why should it be,” she retorted, “although it is a disgrace since I am a priestess. But in your arms that time I forgot everything. I had never experienced anything so wonderful as I did that time with you.”

I pressed her close to my breast. “Ah, Arsinoe, I too never experienced anything like that. How happy I am!”

“Happy!” she repeated and wrinkled her nose. “I myself am anything but happy. I feel so wretched that I actually hate you. If you intended to bind yourself to me, Turms, you have succeeded, and see that you answer for your deed.”

Holding her in my arms, so frail and helpless and bitter, I felt a greater tenderness toward her than ever before. Whatever was her guilt with Dorieus and Mikon, it had nothing to do with us and I forgave her. Such was my faith in her.

Then I remembered where we were and what was happening, and knew that only my own strength could save Arsinoe and our unborn child. Despite hunger, exhaustion and lack of sleep I suddenly felt myself freed of earthly clay. My power was kindled within me like a flame in a lamp, and I was no longer mortal. I released Arsinoe, rose and ran to the deck. It was as though I walked on air.

Exultantly, head high and arms upraised, I turned in every direction and shouted, “Come, wind; wake, storm, for I, Turms, call you!”

So loud was my cry over the black sea that Dionysius hurried to me. “Are you calling the wind, Turms? If you are, you might as well ask that it be the east wind. That would best answer our purpose.”

My feet were already moving uncontrollably in the steps of the sacred dance. “Silence, Dionysius, shame not the gods. Let them determine the direction. I merely summon the storm.”

At that moment the sea already sighed, our vessels swayed, the ropes creaked, the air grew damp and a puff of wind blew over us. Dionysius called for the torches to be extinguished. Quickly it was done, but the Etruscans, who were caught unaware, saw the wind whip the flames from their pitchpots onto the deck of the nearer galley. In a few minutes the vessel was ablaze. Over the howl of the wind we heard the mast of the second Etruscan vessel crack in two.

My dance grew wilder, my calls to the wind louder until Dionysius, to silence me, struck me a blow that sent me to the deck. As the storm raged Dionysius himself cut the ropes that tied the vessels together. From one of the penteconters came cries that the sheepskins had loosened and water was rushing in through the holes. In anger and disappointment Dionysius commanded the men to abandon the sinking vessel and clamber onto the trireme, which itself was listing badly. The second penteconter disappeared into the thundering darkness.

Somehow Dionysius righted our vessel, raised the mast and part of the sail, and the trireme began to obey its temporary steering oars.

With the sunrise the sea brightened and the storm calmed to a brisk breeze that bulged the sail. We raced with the giant waves toward the west, the vessel leaping under us like a snorting mount. The men began to laugh and shout and Dionysius gave them all a measure of wine. He sacrificed some to Poseidon also, although many felt that to be unnecessary.

A sail was sighted far ahead. The sharpest-eyed sailor climbed the mast and cried out joyously that it was the striped sail of our lost penteconter. By midday we had reached it and saw that it was not badly damaged.

The east wind continued to blow and on the third day we sighted blue mountains rising like clouds against the sky. During the night the currents carried us with them, and at dawn we sighted the outline of a hump-necked mountain.

Dionysius cried out in surprise, “By all the gods of the sea, I recognize that mountain, so often have I heard it described! How the gods must be laughing, for we are back almost to our starting point. That mountain is on Sicily’s coast, the shore is a part of Eryx and behind the mountain is the town and harbor of Panormos. At last I see that the gods did not intend to lead us to Massilia. I can only regret it though, for they could have piloted us to Massilia with far less trouble. Now Dorieus may assume command, since that seems to be the will of the gods. I will stand down.”

He sent his men to see whether Dorieus was still alive and, if so, to untie him and bring him on deck. But, to tell the truth, Mikon and I had long since cut away his fetters, in such bad condition was he.

At last Dorieus appeared, hair matted by the salt water, face lined and eyes narrowed like a bat blinded by the sudden light. He seemed to have aged ten years during that month of imprisonment. Faintly he called for his sword and shield. I brought him the sword but had to confess that his shield had been tossed into the sea as an offering to the gods. He nodded and said that he well understood how such a noble offering had saved the vessel.

“So thank my shield for your lives, you wretched men of Phocaea,” he said. “I myself would have sacrificed it to the sea goddess Thetis, who is well disposed toward me. I have had strange experiences the while you have thought that I lay in the hold. But I will not speak of -them.”

His eyes were the color of gray salt as he turned to Dionysius and tested the edge of his sword. “I should kill you, Dionysius of Phocaea, but seeing your foolish head finally bowed before me, I forgive you. I will even admit that the oarstroke which I received at Lade still troubles me at times.” He laughed and nudged Dionysius with his elbow. “Yes, oarstroke, not swordstroke. I don’t understand why I should have been ashamed to call it an oarstroke. Only when the goddess Thetis and I met as equals in the depths of the sea did I come to realize that nothing shameful can happen to me, but that everything I experience is godly in its way. For that reason, Dionysius, I thank you for what you did to me.”

Suddenly he straightened himself and shouted, “But enough of foolish prattle! To arms, men! We will go ashore and conquer Panormos as was intended.”

The men ran for their spears, arrows and shields. When we had numbered our ranks we found that, in addition to Arsinoe and the cat, one hundred and fifty of us had survived. Three hundred had sailed from Himera, and the fact that exactly one half remained was considered by the men to be a good omen.

But Dorieus commanded them to be silent about things of which they knew nothing. “Three hundred we were, three hundred we still are, and three hundred we shall always be no matter how many fall. But you will not fall, for from now on you are Dorieus’ three hundred. Let three hundred be our battle cry, and three hundred years from now people will still talk of our exploits.”

“Three hundred, three hundred!” shouted the men and beat their shields with their swords. Light-headed from hunger and thirst, we forgot our past miseries and impatiently ran to and fro on the deck.

The water murmured under our leaking prow and when we had passed the hump-necked mountain, there before us lay the harbor of Panormos with a few galleys and boats, a miserable wall and beyond, a fertile plain with fields and woods. But behind the plain rose the mountains of Eryx, steep and of a wondrous blue.

Surprise is the mother of victory. I doubt whether a single Carthaginian in Panormos could have believed it possible that the battered galley entering the harbor in bright daylight was the pirate ship which had fled Himera a month earlier. Lars Tular’s silver Gorgon head which dangled from our prow misled the patrols into believing us Etruscan, while the peaceful gestures of our men and the meaningless jargon they shouted in greeting contributed to the uncertainty. And so the patrols merely stared at us in wonder without sounding an alarm on their brass drums.

From a large round cargo vessel tied to the shore we heard cries of warning and injunctions not to row so rapidly. And when the men, peacefully dangling their feet over the water, saw our split sides and sagging rails they laughed heartily. Curious townspeople began to gather at the shore.

Even after our ram had crashed into their vessel with such force as to thrust it onto land, snap its mast and send the men toppling backward onto the deck, the sailors thought it all an accident. Their commander ran toward us, shaking his fist, cursing loudly and demanding compensation for the damage wrought by our carelessness.

But the men of Phocaea, led by Dorieus, leaped onto the vessel with their weapons, struck down everyone in their path and raced to shore. Cutting through the throng that hastened toward them, they climbed the hill and pushed through the gate into the city before the guards quite realized what had happened. While the vanguard was overcoming the resistance in the puny city and killing the’ fear-stunned men, Dionysius with his rearguard was seizing the ships on shore merely by lashing out with his rope. Having seen what happened to the first ship, the crews of the remaining cargo vessels did not even attempt to resist but begged on their knees for mercy. Only a few sought escape, but when Dionysius ordered his men to stone them, they halted in their flight and returned.

Dionysius opened the large shed on the shore in which the residents of Panormos housed the slaves used in unloading the ships. Into it he thrust the prisoners he had just seized, while the liberated slaves, among them a number of Greeks, prostrated themselves before us, hailing us as saviors. Dionysius asked them to prepare food, which they did gladly, lighting fires on the shore and slaughtering some of the neighborhood cattle. But before the meat was roasted, most of us satisfied our deepest pangs of hunger with raw flour mixed with oil.

So sudden and successful was the conquest of Panormos that a wave of audacity swept over the men of Phocaea and they recklessly swore to follow Dorieus wherever he led them. Naturally, some of this courage was born of the wine they had stolen from the houses after killing the able-bodied men of the city.

In truth, the entire garrison in the city and harbor consisted of barely fifty armed men, for the people of Panormos, with their long history of peace, did not consider weapons necessary. Since the only men in that seafaring city were artisans and hence not difficult to kill, the ease of Dorieus’ victory was not surprising. The men of Phocaea, however, considered it a miracle that none of them had received even the smallest wound and, heady from the wine, began to consider themselves invulnerable. In the evening, when they again counted their ranks and numbered three hundred—but only because they saw double—they considered that also a miracle.

To the credit of the Phocaean men be it said that, having overcome their own fear, they did not unnecessarily annoy the peaceful residents of the city. True, they went from house to house in search of loot, but they seized nothing by violence, merely pointing to that which they desired. Beholding their sea-lined faces and bloody hands, the trembling occupants willingly relinquished whatever was wanted. If someone demurred, the men laughingly moved on to the next house. That is how pleased they were with their victory, the food and the wine, and the future which Dorieus held out to them as the rulers of Eryx.