The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children (25 page)

BOOK: The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children

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4) Pison followed Syloson to foreign parts, to live amongst the luxurious Sybarites, and then later they were welcomed at the Persian court.

5) . . . who in turn gave Polycrates a daughter, Eriphyle. . . . Xenocleia, who on the same day in this world saw her daughter for the first and last time, then passed into Hades.

6) Polydor had the physique of a demi-god. In his boyhood he had trained under Tisander, ate nothing but feta straight from the basket and cutlets of raw veal, while never once venturing near woman or love-sick male. He boxed with trees and wrestled with bulls. He took the wreath of wild olive at the 63rd Olympics, won twice at the Pythian games and once at the Isthmus, where, to astound the people, he tied one end of a rope of white flax around the prow of a ship, a fully manned pentecoster, and, with the other end secured between his teeth, pulled the vessel along the entire length of the harbour.

7) Artemon was a short and podgy individual, who kept the black curls of his hair trimmed and well-oiled. He was very luxurious in his life, slept on cushions stuffed with rabbit fur and lunched every day on snails and deboned pigeons. When he was younger he had served as a mercenary under the Persians and had witnessed first hand their tactics in siegefare, their battering rams, mantlets, mobile towers and great ladders on wheels. He had been caught stealing a piece of goose flesh from the general’s tent and was punished, scourged and put to the rack until permanently lamed in one leg. Then, after having had every hair plucked from his head and chin, he was run out of camp, chased away with stones, abuses and cruel laughter. He lingered in Magnesia, lived off old vegetables and petty connivings in Sardis, and then, with great difficulty, made his way back to his native Ephesus wearing a hempen turban on his head, wooden dice for earrings, and a worn out old ox-hide wrapped around his ribs, looking strangely exotic, pathetically wretched. And he was in truth somewhat out of his mind, for he would cringe if anyone made a sudden gesture, when he drank anything it would always be in sips of seven and crossing over a threshold he made certain to put his right leg first. In Ephesus he kept company with bread women and common whores, beggars, false prophets and swindlers. Sometimes he acted as a procurer of custom for those women of relaxed virtue, at others the tout for moneylenders, or as a go-between in the love affairs of married women. . . . Then one day the city, wanting to re-build its walls, held a contest for the best design, offering a prize of three talents of silver for the winner. Architects and city planners came from Halicarnassus, Rhodes, Attica and Thrace. Chersiphron, who had built the temple of Artemis, and his son Metagenes, who had joined with his father in authoring a famous treatise on architectural engineering, sealed themselves in their shop and laboured in secret. Calliphon, the Samian painter, who had recently moved to Ephesus to work on a piece for the aforementioned temple, was now said to be drawing up a magnificent plan of fortification on the wall of his own studio, while Zarex, a carpenter, built a great model in pine before the public’s eye and let it be known that any man who stole his ideas he would personally sacrifice to Dionysus. But, in truth, every man in Ephesus, no matter how slow-witted, regarded himself as eligible for the prize. One could see fish mongers in the market drawing their designs on bits of slate and hear vendors of cheesecake discourse on ashlar masonry and axonometric projections as if they were accomplished draughtsmen. Artemon, in debt for a thousand small sums and as desperate as anyone, recalled his days under the Persians and all he had seen and heard regarding tactics. Having in fact an absurdly excellent memory he found his mind flooded with all sorts of details. He traded his turban and sandals for a scroll of cheap emporetic papyrus and set to work . . . . . . and when he was presented with the prize . . . . . . brilliant . . . . . . now wealthy, the fear of going hungry withdrawn. But this seemed to only augment his other fears, before which he was oftentimes almost panic-stricken . . . afraid of wasps, and the colour red . . . . . .

8) Democedes was born in Croton. His father was a physician, a despotic man who daily treated his son to both verbal and physical abuse. Democedes at last found himself unable to tolerate the quotidian curses and heavy slaps that fell to him and so, in the dead of night, left the house and walked to the city of Aegina. Even though he was without implements or any stock of medicine, he was determined to make a living. He therefore stood in the market and offered cures, telling the people that they need not pay him before, but only after his advice had been given and only if they found it effective. By simply applying pressure with his hands he was often able to remove people’s pains and his counsel always produced positive results. He cured a man of the colic by telling him to let a live duck dance on his belly, and cured a woman of inflammation of the eyes by having her tie the eye of a myrus-fish to her forehead. . . . So he made a reputation for himself.

9) Archermus and his own father Michiades carved a Nike for Delos, and in so doing were the first artists to give wings to that goddess.

10) Ibycus, the great poet and inventor of the victory ode, escaped from the Greek city of Rhegium, in southern Italy, where he had been offered dictatorship, but renounced such responsibility in favour of pursuing verse. Hearing that the arts were flourishing in Samos, he travelled there and, upon obtaining audience with Polycrates, recited that poem which begins with the lines:

In the spring alone do the pomegranates and quinces grow,

in the sacred Virgins’ Grove, furnished with water by brooks;

and swelling grapes prosper beneath the cool shade of vine-shoots;

but for me no season exists when love reclines in silence.

11) For Croesus, that absurdly wealthy king and client (adorned with olivine, sparkling diamonds, dewy-golden heliodor, dyed raiment—everything extravagant, considered attractive—his person presenting a fantastically imposing, seriously stunning vision—him who first, with refining furnace and hearth, turned alluvial gold into its component parts of silver and gold, him the first to strike coins of solid silver and gold, to surpass simple electrum, to initiate the bimetallic system of coinage) who wanted something magnificent to give to the Delphians, Theodorus made two bowls, one of silver and one of gold, each able to hold five-thousand and one-hundred gallons of liquid, which were to be used as mixing-bowls at the feast of the Divine Appearance. They were marvellously chased, their surfaces embossed with numerous picturesque sequences . . .

12) <<
Ezra 4:5-24, 5:5-7, 6:1-15; Neh. 12:22; Dan. 5:31, 6:1-28, 9:1, 11:1; Hag. 1:1-15, 2:10; Zech. 1:1-7, 7:1; 1 Esdr. 2:30, 3:1-8, 4:47, 5:2-6, 5:73, 6:1-34, 7:1-5; 1 Mac. 1:1, 12:7
>>

13) “Look at the foolish smiles on their faces,” said Theodorus; “the smiles of idiots or boys made stupid by love. . . . Truly, even Polymedes of Argos deserves more praise than Geneleos.”

14) <<2 Chr. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-8, 3:7, 4:3-5, 5:13-17, 6:3-14; Isa. 44:28, 45:1; Dan. 1:21, 6:28, 10:1; 1 Esdr. 2:1-11, 4:44-57, 5:55-73, 6:17-25, 7:4; Bel. 1>>

15) The same man who married the most unattractive virgin in Laconia, but Helen made her the most beautiful. At the gate of Ariston’s house was the tomb of the great hero Astrabacos, who had been driven mad by Artemis. The dead man slept with Ariston’s wife, two months before the latter actually married her, and impregnated the lady with Demaratos.

16) . . . the Isthmian games, in Corinth, with chariot races and competitions in poetry and music; and so Ibycus set out from Samos by ship, debarked at Megara, and from there made his way on foot, as far as the sacred grove of Poseidon, reciting,

Myrtle-berries with violets mixed,

And helichryse and apple blossoms,

And roses, and the tender daphne.

He looked toward the west, toward the Acrocorinthos rising in isolated grandeur above the nearer and lesser heights of the countryside; toward the east, toward the amazingly blue waters of the Saronic Gulf; a flock of cranes flew overhead. “All hail you friendly squadron,” Ibycus shouted, “companions from across the sea,—we both come from far in search of kindly reception!” In juxtaposition to his words, two robbers, hairy-armed Brotachus and cruel Timotheus, at that moment revealed themselves. Brotachus struck down Ibycus with a crude club; as he fell, the latter’s eyes flashed toward the sky; he called out, “Revenge me!” Timotheus, with a sharp blade, slit the poet’s throat, submerged him in purple death. . . . Later the body was found and recognised by a Corinthian who knew him. And the people, hearing of this crime, went to the tribunal and asked that the criminals be caught—but there was no evidence; the magistrates could do nothing. . . . That night a black bull, with gilded horns and hooves and garlands around his neck, was brought to the Palaimonion and sacrificed, burned whole. The next day came the competition for which Ibycus had travelled. And the amphitheatre was full. The choristers sang; the poets, Hipponax, Xenophanes and demonstrative Thespis, to mention a few, came and recited verses—each one dedicating their words to fallen Ibycus, and each trying to outdo the next in pathetic lamentation. Then Simonides, with sorrowful countenance, walked forward and in elegiac metre denounced the criminals and described the miseries they would suffer, if not in this life, then in the next; and his final words were a plea for whoever knew of the crime to denounce the murderers. And all were terrified to hear of the poetic fate of the cold-blooded killers, not least the killers themselves who sat a mere ten rows back, clutching the hems of their robes, where the gold staters they had robbed were wrapped. And then, over the amphitheatre flew ever so slowly that flock of cranes, and every head turned upward; and the birds cried out. One of the murderers shot up from his seat, “Don’t listen to them,” he screamed. “They blame Timotheus and I for the murder, but they lie!” And so the murderer brought attention to himself and his companion. Their persons and homes were searched and property of Ibycus discovered. When carbon was ignited on the head of a long-eared ass and the criminals names recited, a crackling sound was heard, and so the two were put to death.

17) Engraved on Anacreon’s tomb:

You stranger, who now stands before the tomb of Anacreon,

spill libation over me before departing; for I am a drinker of wine.

Publishing History

Versions of the following stories in this volume were originally published in other places:

‘
Collapsing Claude’ was originally published in
Flesh and Blood

‘
The Dancing Billionaire’ was originally published in
Harpur Palat
e

‘
Brother of the Holy Ghost’ was originally published in
The Journal of Experimental Fiction

‘
Maledict Michela’ was originally published in
Nemonymous

‘
The Life of Captain Gareth Caernarvon’ was originally published in
McSweeney’s

‘
The Chymical Wedding of Des Esseintes’ was originally published in
Cinnabar’s Gnosis

‘
The Search for Savino’ was originally published in
Neotrope

‘
Peter Payne’ was originally published in
RE:AL
,
The Journal of Liberal Arts

About the Author

Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. He has had fiction published in numerous places, including
McSweeney’s
,
Adbusters
,
Fast Ships, Black Sails
(Nightshade Books, 2008), and the World Fantasy Award winning anthologies
Leviathan 3
(The Ministry of Whimsy, 2002), and
Strange Tales
(Tartarus Press, 2003). His other published books are:
The Translation of Father Torturo
(Prime Books, 2005
), Dr. Black and the Guerrillia
(Grafitisk Press, 2005),
Metrophilias
(Better Non Sequitur, 2010), and
Unpleasant Tales
(Eibonvale Press, 2010).