Tyrant (14 page)

In just a couple of months’ time, six thousand warriors had assembled and were ready for anything; they were perfectly trained and blindly faithful to their commander. Dionysius had become the second-in-command and was in charge of leading raids into enemy territory to seize food and forage. But the little army’s activity soon became much more massive and aggressive. Hermocrates led a couple of actual expeditions over the summer, attacking Lilybaeum and Panormus by surprise and inflicting severe losses on the garrisons of mercenaries in the service of the Carthaginians. They even made an assault on the island of Motya at night, setting fire to a couple of dry-docked warships. The detachment of Carthaginian soldiers patrolling the territory was intercepted and wiped out. Although both Hermocrates and Dionysius attempted to curb the violent instincts of their troops, they could not prevent the men from committing every sort of atrocity, thus rekindling the hatred and rancour of the enemy.

Philistus constantly sent news from Syracuse through friends in the Company, like Biton, Doricus and Iolaus, who had been Dionysius’s childhood friends. They thus learned just how worried Diocles had become about these military sorties, which he feared would provoke a huge Carthaginian reaction, but even more so about the enormous popularity that Hermocrates and Dionysius himself were gaining at home as news of their exploits spread, especially among the young. The same messengers brought Dionysius ardent letters of love from Arete, unfailingly ending with pleas to join him as soon as possible.

He managed to see her in secret several times during the following winter, taking advantage of any pause in military operations, but it was never possible for them to enjoy more than a couple of days together for fear of being found out. He was forced to spend his time inside the house, to the great delight of Arete, who wanted him all for herself.

At the beginning of the following spring, Hermocrates made a decision destined to cause a great stir. He crossed western Sicily at the head of his army and marched all the way to Himera. He wanted the meaning of his gesture to be quite clear: the Greeks of Sicily must unite in a single powerful alliance, muster an army of unprecedented size and banish the enemy from the entire island. It was at Himera that the war against the Carthaginians had been fought and won seventy years before under the leadership of Syracuse, and it was from Himera that the counter-attack would begin.

It was because of that very defeat, however, that the enemies’ revenge had been so fierce: the vision of what remained of Himera was even more devastating for the survivors than the ruins of Selinus had been. Here the fury of the barbarians had gone totally unchecked: they had demolished the city house by house, torn down the walls, set fire to the temples, toppled and disfigured the statues and tortured to death anyone they found with a weapon in hand. Their dismembered corpses were still scattered among the ruins and at the site of the final massacre; on the great stone that had been their sacrificial altar, the sight was so horrendous that one of the younger warriors fainted outright. The bodies were piled up in the thousands and the ground beneath them was still black with their blood.

Hermocrates himself was completely overwhelmed. Pale with rage and indignation, he circled around that heap of horrors growling words from clenched teeth that no one could understand.

He ordered that funeral rites be celebrated, with immediate burial for those miserable remains. He sent other men out into the fields, where the last bloody battle had taken place, with instructions to gather the bones of the Syracusan soldiers fallen during the unfortunate attempt to succour Himera, the bones of the men that Diocles had abandoned on the battlefield. Stripped of their weapons and anything else of value, they were still recognizable by the bracelets – made of a willow branch split in two lengthwise and carved inside with the warrior’s name – which they wore braided on their wrists like the soldiers of Sparta.

He had a pinewood coffin made for each one of the fallen warriors with his name branded upon it, and sent them back to their homeland for proper burial. It was a momentous gesture, and not only from an ethical point of view. Hermocrates was certainly aware of its political impact on the people of Syracuse, from whom he still expected an official decree recalling him to his city. This act made the differences in moral stature between him and his adversary Diocles, their democratic leader, appear clamorous. On one hand, the exiled leader – never defeated, and stripped of command exclusively for political reasons – had vindicated the honour of Syracuse and of all the Sicilian Greeks by bringing their sons fallen in battle back to the city which had humiliated and disclaimed him. On the other hand his rival Diocles was disgraced by his failure to stop the barbarians from annihilating two of the most illustrious cities of Sicily. What’s more, Diocles had ignominiously fled the battlefield, abandoning the allies to the most ferocious retaliation. And he had left the bodies of his soldiers unburied, allowing their desecration, condemning their troubled souls to wander perpetually at the threshold of Hades.

The news that Hermocrates was bringing home the remains of their sons who had fallen in combat aroused intense emotion in the people of Syracuse, who gathered in Assembly to decree a solemn public funeral. The proposal was advanced that Hermocra-tes’s civic rights be immediately restored.

Diocles, who had kept at a distance until then, aware of what a wretched situation he found himself in, stepped forward as the matter was being discussed and asked for the floor.

A hush greeted his unexpected appearance: a tomblike silence fell over the Assembly.

‘S
YRACUSANS
!'
BEGAN
D
IOCLES
. ‘I know what you are feeling. I too had friends who fell at Himera and yet I did not stop to collect their bodies . . .’

‘Because you’re a coward!’ exclaimed one of the men present.

‘Silence!’ commanded the president of the Assembly. ‘Allow him to speak.’

‘I did not stop,’ continued Diocles, ‘because it would have meant risking the lives of other comrades who were still alive. I wanted to bring them back to you safe and sound. And in doing so I saved the lives of many refugees who would have otherwise been slaughtered

‘But how many others did you abandon to their destiny?’ shouted another. ‘People who believed in us, who trusted us. You dishonoured us all!’ He pointed his finger at him as he pronounced those words, and Diocles saw that the bracelet on his wrist bore the symbol of the dolphin, worn by those of the Company which Dionysius belonged to.

The president of the Assembly called those present to order, and Diocles continued his speech. ‘I had no choice, believe me! The city was lost: no one and nothing could have saved her from the assault of sixty thousand men. That bloodthirsty barbarian would not have raised the siege until every last Himeran was exterminated. At least I saved their women and children, and many men as well. But I have not come here to defend myself from your accusations. I acted in good faith and I fought courageously. My comrades can testify to this. I am here instead to exhort you not to allow Hermocrates to enter the city . . .’

A murmur of disapproval ran through the Assembly. Some cursed, others called out insults.

‘I know that at this moment he seems like a hero to you. A valiant man who has challenged the barbarians, who has camped among the ruins of Selinus, who has brought back the bones of your sons. And perhaps he is a hero. But he is also an adventurer, a man whose only aim is to take power. Syracuse is a democracy, and democracies have no need of great public figures, of heroes. Democracies need ordinary people, they need citizens who do their duty every day and who serve their homeland. If Hermoc-rates’s exile is revoked, will our free institutions survive? He is followed by Himerans and Selinuntians, along with a group of Asiatic mercenaries he pays with Persian gold; these men are loyal to him, not to a city or an institution, and they’re prepared to do anything for him. If his only purpose was to restore our dead to us, why has he brought along thousands of warriors?’

‘Because he’s assembling an army to drive the Carthaginians out of all Sicily,’ echoed another voice, Philistus himself this time.

‘I know whose side you’re on!’ thundered Diocles. ‘And we know well that your friend Dionysius has married Hermocrates’s daughter.’

‘I am Dionysius’s friend and I’m proud of it!’ exclaimed Philistus. ‘He is a courageous man who has always fought without regard for his own life, exposing himself to danger and to death on the front lines. Can anyone be called to blame for remaining faithful to his friends?’

Diocles did not answer, and resumed his speech to the Assembly. ‘Have you perhaps forgotten the arrogance of the aristocrats? If you allow Hermocrates to enter the gates of this city, you may be sure that he will bring your old masters back to power; those who had you whipped if you did not work their fields like beasts from dawn to dusk, those who didn’t even deign to look you in the face if they met you on the street, those who only married into each other’s families as if they belonged to a different breed of men!’

Philistus reacted. ‘Do not heed his words, citizens! They are only meant to distract your attention from his ineptitude, from the dishonour he has cast upon us by leaving our allies at the mercy of the enemy, fleeing by night like a thief, abandoning the bodies of your sons unburied, prey to dogs and vultures. I am asking you instead to welcome Hermocrates between the walls of this city. He was unjustly dismissed from his charge while he was fighting far from home at the head of our fleet; he was denied return to his city although he had committed no crime. Hermocrates is the only hope for this land, the only leader capable of expelling the Carthaginians from the island, the only man who can avenge your sons!’

His words stirred the crowd. Many of them rose to their feet shouting at Diocles: ‘Get out of here! We want our dead! You’re only envious of a better man!’

Many of the others remained in silence, however. Diocles’s speech had had a certain effect on them.

In the end, the magistrates decided to put the order of the day to a vote. Two points were to be decided: the celebration of a public funeral at State expense to honour the dead brought back to their homeland, and granting Hermocrates permission to return to the city.

The first motion was approved, the second rejected, once again by a small margin of votes.

A group of citizens proposed a third motion that sentenced Diocles to exile for his incompetence in leading the army and his pusillanimity in facing the enemy. The proposal was approved by a wide margin, as if the citizens felt guilty about denying the most valorous of the sons of Syracuse the right to return and sought to somehow compensate by banishing his main adversary.

Hermocrates had been rejected by his city once again, in such a short span of time; the fact that Diocles had been condemned to exile gave him no joy. He was brought the news by a delegation from the Assembly, and the man who spoke in the name of his fellow citizens did so reluctantly, with profound discomfort, and he felt even worse when Hermocrates did not answer, but simply nodded his head in silent scorn.

It was Dionysius who spoke. ‘You can take the coffins with the remains of your fellow citizens and give them the funeral honours they deserve. The sooner you go the better.’

The convoy departed then and there and reached the city in less than an hour. The coffins were lined up in the agora so that each family could identify their kin. When the man’s willow bracelet had been found, the name of the fallen warrior had been branded on to the wooden coffin. When it had not been possible to give a name to the body, the word
‘unknown’ was written instead. When a single coffin collected the limbs of several persons, the word
‘many’ had been marked on the wood.