The Etruscan (40 page)

A violent glow spread through me, I felt my strength and in looking at Hanna I could no longer understand how I could have been attracted to the dark-skinned girl even for a moment while Arsinoe was in the same world with me. The magic of the goddess seized me and I ran to shake awake the Etruscan and his limping helmsman and drove the head-scratching slaves off the ship.

“Make haste to pray for wind with your men,” I ordered. “I intend to fly your boat to Rome on the wings of a storm faster than you have ever sailed before. Make your sacrifice quickly, for by midday we will raise the sail.”

In a drunken stupor the Etruscan obeyed me. It was good that he did, for otherwise I would have thrown him off his own ship so that I might be alone with Arsinoe. Eagerly we ran into each other’s arms. She had a scorching wind in her body and I had a storm in my blood.

An ecstasy came over me, the holy dance began twitching my limbs and I vied with Arsinoe in calling for the wind. Three times, seven times and twelve times I summoned the south wind, until we stood at the stern, hand in hand, shouting for the wind in a holy frenzy. I don’t know how long it lasted and whence the words spilled into my mouth, but we did not cease until the air had blackened, the wind turned and the clouds, black-haired and with the glint of lightning in their eyes, had begun to roll over the hump-necked mountain of Panormos to the sea. Beyond Panormos the mountain peaks of the land of Eryx darkened and whirlwinds swept up the merchants’ shelters and baskets in the market place, we heard the slam of gates even from the city, and clumps of reeds, torn from the roofs by the wind, began swirling in the air.

Only then we ceased. Our holy frenzy died down and we looked around in amazement. We saw the merchant and his men run toward the ship with fluttering clothes as the Carthaginian soldiers and customs men stood on the shore, staring at our ship with hands over their mouths.

Just as the Etruscan reached the ship a strong eddy flung the stern from the shore into the water. Quickly he shouted to his men to raise the sail and seize the steering oars to keep us with the wind. The Phoenicians on shore flew black strips of cloth as storm warnings and raised a shield to prevent our departure. But the wind snatched the shield from the arms of the man holding it and carried it out to the foaming sea. Swaying and slapping the water under its round prow, the ship sped to the open sea, drawn by its patched sail.

As the waves rumbled against the sides of the ship and the wind whistled in the ropes, Misme began to weep in terror and Hanna crouched among the cargo. But Arsinoe was not afraid now that she had found me. I myself saw how sturdily the ship responded to the waves and noticed that the Etruscan’s helmsman knew his trade. Laughingly I showed him the black stone sea horse in my palm and indicated that he could easily give us more sail.

But despite my ecstasy I bore such a grudge against Xenodotos that I suddenly wished that the southerly gale would blow out to sea and endanger his sleek ship. The wind did in fact blow him off his course, driving him along the Italian coast as far as Poseidonia. Only there was he able to land and he suffered great humiliation because of his Persian trousers. Hence he left his ship there for repairs and traveled by land along the old trade route of Sybaris to Croton and from there to Rhegion where he met Skythes.

But all that I learned only much later. I myself sailed northward in a creaking ship on the wings of a storm, as the omens had ordained. After helping the Etruscan and the helmsman in holding the steering oars, I went to see how Arsinoe felt. As I swayed with the movement of the ship among the cargo, my eye was caught by a smooth pebble which had clung to one of the bundles on shore and had dropped loose only on the ship. Without realizing what I did I stooped to pick it up and remained holding it in my hand. Its gray-and-white color reminded me of a dove. I knew then that it was intended for me, and I put it into my pouch with the other pebbles as well as the golden hand and the stone sea horse.

They were my only possessions as I left Sicily, for Arsinoc’s scheme had benefited her at least to the degree that she had all my money. But it did not trouble me, for I had strong faith in Hecate.

I no longer looked behind at the mountains of Eryx as I sailed from Sicily. I looked only ahead and to the north.

With our hair stiff from the splashing brine, our faces gray from lack of sleep and our hands chafed by the rope, we sighted the shore of Italy. The helmsman immediately recognized the landmarks and declared that we were but a day’s voyage from the mouth of the Roman river. The Etruscan clasped his hands and swore that never before had he experienced so swift a voyage and so even a south wind once we had left behind the first day’s storm.

At the mouth of the Roman river we met ships of all nations, large and small, on their way up or down the majestic river. From afar I saw the dazzling white glimmer of the salt basins which nature had bountifully bestowed upon Rome. The slaves were wading knee deep in the salt as they shoveled it together and carried it away.

Without pausing at the mouth of the river the merchant hired oxen and slaves and had a rope fastened to the upturned prow to tow the ship up the swiftly flowing river. So broad and deep was the water that even large seagoing ships could sail as far as Rome where, at the shore by the cattle market, they met the vessels from the upper reaches of the

river.

Boats on their way downstream passed us continually, and majestic tree trunks, tied into rafts, floated slowly by on their way to the shipyards. The men on the ships called out to us in the language of the sea, but the timber floaters spoke Etruscan while the ships’ towers employed Latin and its numerous dialects. Hearing them, the merchant said derisively that the Roman language was not a real language and that all the words pertaining to cultural matters had been borrowed from the Etruscans and distorted in a barbaric manner.

The drover mercilessly lashed his slaves and goaded the oxen to speed the journey and earn his money the sooner. But I had time to see the willow bushes on the banks, the restless flocks of birds fluttering over our ship and the hawks circling the endless harvested fields and meadows with motionless wings. It seemed to me that the outskirts of Rome were nothing but fields and gardens, and I had difficulty in believing that so prosperous a city found it necessary to ship grain all the way from Sicily to stave off famine.

But the merchant pointed out the ruins of many huts burned by the Romans themselves. In their intramural quarrels the people of Rome did not even spare their own, and in the yearly wars the cultivated areas had suffered as Rome expanded its power. Once the Etruscans had made an immense plain near Rome fruitful with canals and drains. Under the rule of the Etruscan kings the brutal people of Rome had been held within bounds, but when the Romans had expelled their king, agriculture and trade had suffered from the ceaseless warring and no neighboring city felt itself safe from Roman rapaciousncss.

Then I saw the hills of Rome, their villages, the wall, the bridge and a few temples. The bridge which the Etruscans had built to link the innumerable cities that were separated by the river was expertly constructed of wood and was the longest I had ever seen, although an island helped to support it. Indeed, the Romans considered this bridge so important that their high priest had inherited from the Etruscan period the title of “High Bridge Builder.” The crudity of Roman customs is well conveyed by the fact that the maintenance of the bridge had fallen to the high priest, although the Etruscans had intended the tide to mean a builder of bridges between man and the gods. To them the wooden bridge was merely the symbol of the invisible bridge, but the Romans took literally all that the Etruscans taught them.

When the harbor custodians had indicated a place for us on the muddy bank that was supported by piles, the inspectors boarded the ship. Nor did the Etruscan even attempt to offer them gifts or to invite them to join him in a sacrifice. He declared that Roman officials were incorruptible because of the stringency of their laws.

On the edge of the cattle market, beside a pillar, stood an executioner ready to fulfill his duty. His symbol, which the merchant said had been inherited from the Etruscans, was a long axe surrounded by whips. The Romans called these executioners “lictors.” Instead of a king, they elected two officials annually, and each of these praetors was accompanied by twelve lictors. In obvious cases a lictor could halt a criminal on the street, flog him or chop off the thief’s hand with his axe. Because of this, exemplary order prevailed in the harbor and one did not have to fear thieves as in all other harbors.

The Etruscan let the quaestor inspect Arsinoe’s and my goods first^, and they wrote down our names and believed us when we called ourselves Siccanians from Sicily. The merchant forbade us to conceal anything from them, and they carefully counted Arsinoe’s gold coins and weighed our gold objects. We had to pay a high tax for bringing them into the city since only stamped copper was accepted as currency in Rome. When they asked whether Hanna was slave or free, Arsinoe declared quickly that she was a slave and I maintained that she was free. The officials, who understood little Greek, called an interpreter but since Hanna was unable to defend herself, she was declared to be a slave, the quaestors thinking that I had called her free merely to evade payment of the tax on slaves.

Benevolently they let the interpreter explain that if they had entered Hanna on their tablets as a free person, she could have gone where she wished and enjoyed the protection of Roman laws. Thus, by lying to them, I had been on the verge of losing a small fortune. They considered it a fine jest and laughingly pinched Hanna as they tried to guess how much she would bring on the market. But they respected Arsinoe and me because of our gold. The Romans were greedy, dividing their people into various classes according to their possessions, so that the poorest citizens were only rarely permitted to vote on municipal affairs. In military service, however, the wealthy were given the most difficult tasks, while the poor escaped with less and the poorest did not have to serve at all because the Romans considered rabble to be but a burden to the army.

When we left the ship the merchant led us quickly to a new temple of Turnus to sacrifice. Actually the Romans worshiped the god as Mercury, but in the same temple the Greeks of Rome worshiped him as Hermes, so presumably he was the same god.

The temple was full of chattering merchants from various cities, all asking the latest prices on copper, ox hides, wool and timber, for the prices were determined each day anew in the temple of Mercury, rising or dropping in accordance with demand and supply. Only the price of grain had been fixed by the Roman officials, for they had so offended the neighboring peoples and the Etruscans that these sources refused to sell them grain.

When we had sacrificed and left our gifts in the temple, the Etruscan bade us farewell.

He did not accept payment for the voyage although I thought he had brought me to the temple for the purpose of settling the matter before the eyes of the god. On the contrary, he even thrust back the deposit I had made in Panormos.

“I don’t think I would have good luck if I were to accept payment for the voyage. I remember all too well how black magic launched the ship and how the ship grew wings so that my cargo did not get wet in the storm. Just give me, a poor man, your blessing. That will suffice as payment, although I ask you not to remember me otherwise.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and with my left hand covered my eyes to bless him, but why I made that holy gesture I do not know. Immediately the merchant became so alarmed that he forthwith fled to the shore, glancing back at me through his fingers.

In that manner Arsinoe, Hanna, Misme and I were left outside the temple of Mercury with our possessions. And since I did not know the city and its customs or even understand its language I decided to remain there until an omen should indicate our next move.

Arsinoe did not tire of watching the crowds pass, for raany men looked at her and even looked back. She pointed out that all the people wore shoes and only slaves were barefoot, but she considered the women morose and bloated and declared that their clothes were ugly. More than that she had not time to say, for just then we were approached by an old man carrying a crooked staff. His robe was soiled aad stained with food, his eyes were red and his gray beard was dirty.

“Do you wait for something, stranger?” he asked.

I guessed his trade from the staff although his appearance was not such as to arouse confidence. But since he was the first person to speak to me I replied kindly, “I have just arrived in the city and au awaiting a favorable omen.”

He became greatly interested, and the crook began to tremble in his hand as he explained, “I guessed that you were Greek, although more from your wife’s appearance than your own. If you wish, I will study the birds for you, but I could take you to an associate who will sacrifice a sheep for you and read the omens from its liver. That is more expensive, however, than studying birds.”

His knowledge of Greek was weak, and so I suggested, “Let us speak your own language, that I may understand you better.”

He began to speak the language of the city which sounded as harsh and merciless as its residents were said to be. I shook my head. “I understand not a word. Let us speak the old and true language. I have learned it somewhat by associating with an Etruscan.”

In talking with the merchant it had been as though the Etruscan that I had learned from Lars Alsir in Himera had burst forth again after years of dormancy. Or as though I had once known the language and then forgotten it. The words had come to my lips so easily that the merchant had gradually stopped speaking the polyglot language of the sea and begun speaking his own language with me.

The old man waxed even more interested. “You are truly an exceptional Greek if you know the holy language. I myself am an Etruscan and a real augur, not one who merely recites by rote. Don’t despise me even though my weak eyes make it necessary for me to seek a livelihood since people no longer come to me.”