Tyrant (27 page)

The registrar gave up in the end and let Dionysius’s sweeping eloquence flow without restraint. His words inflamed the crowd, the scenes he recalled moved them to tears, made them tremble with indignation and shout out their rage, their disappointment, their shock.

When he realized that he had the Assembly just where he wanted them, he concluded his speech, certain that nothing would be denied him.

‘Citizens!’ he roared. ‘The barbarians will uproot our city, glorious victor of Athens, as well. You will see your wives raped, your children enslaved! They will string you up on their swords and torture you to death. I’ve seen them, I’ve fought them, I’ve killed hundreds of them to save our brothers in Selinus, in Himera and in Acragas, but the love or the valour of one man alone cannot suffice to deliver our threatened homeland. You who risk your lives on the line of combat, you who carry a shield and wield a spear, you must elect your generals not on the basis of their wealth and social standing, but on the basis of your own personal esteem! You must condemn these faithless officers who have betrayed you and sold themselves to the enemy, sentence them to perpetual exile, or even to death, if they dare to enter the city again without your permission. And then you must put those you do esteem in their places: those who you have always seen battling with honour and with passion, those who have never tossed aside their shields and taken to their heels. They must be the men who will lead you in battle and guide our allies. Let us put an end once and for all to this shameful sequence of defeats and massacres! How can barbarian mercenaries get the better of disciplined, courageous citizens, if not aided by betrayal? Let me say more: those who govern us are incapable and undeserving of the offices they hold. We must drive them out once and for all and elect men who are worthy of our trust!’

Such a huge clamour arose in the Assembly that even Dionysius and Philistus had difficulty in quelling the uproar. Heloris proposed immediately that the traitorous generals be sentenced by default that very day. When his proposal was approved by an enormous majority, he presented a list of candidates to cover the positions of command in the main battalions of the army. They were mostly unfamiliar names, except for Dionysius, who won nearly unanimous approval.

When he left the Assembly at noon amidst ovations, Dionysius was the most powerful man in Syracuse; his fellow officers were less than his shadow and they owed him everything, including their election.

Three days later, Daphnaeus and his generals received a copy of the proceedings of the session which sentenced them to exile. Dionysius was officially named the supreme commander of the armed forces, and he presented himself to the troops wearing a suit of shining armour decorated in silver and copper, holding his spear in his right hand and a shield with the image of a bloody-fanged gorgon in his left. The shouts and cheers of his warriors rose all the way up to the Temple of Athena on the acropolis, their echo booming against the great doors of bronze.

T
HE EXILED
S
YRACUSAN
generals settled in Henna, awaiting better times. They must certainly have realized what hundreds, or even thousands, of citizens had felt when political defeat drove them from their cities. Daphnaeus was said to be planning his return, but he was found dead in his house at the end of the winter. His death was rumoured to be a summary execution ordered by Dionysius and carried out by some member of the Company.

Dionysius in the meantime was preparing to consolidate his power in the city and to wage the war his way. He wanted no limitations, would accept no conditions.

‘That won’t be easy, in a democracy,’ observed Philistus as they met one day in his study.

‘I want to win, and to win I need full command.’

‘Diocles had full command at Himera, as did Daphnaeus at Acragas, and both lost.’

‘They lost because they were incompetent. If they had been given greater powers, it would have been worse. That won’t happen to me: I know what needs to be done, I swear it. Everything is very clear in my mind. Remember that night in Gela?’

‘That night it was storming

‘After you left, I tried to get some rest. I was dead tired, but I couldn’t fall asleep and so I decided to take a look around. I covered the entire sentry walkway up on the walls, both on the side facing the sea and on the side facing inland. I’ve been back, several times, in secret. Himilco will strike Gela soon, when the weather begins to turn warm, and I’ll be ready. I’ll rip him to pieces.’

‘Careful.’

‘I know what I’m saying. You’ll leave as soon as it’s possible to set out by sea and you’ll go to our allies in Locri, Croton and Rhegium and convince them to send all the troops they have available. Convince them that if they let us fall, it will be their turn next. If necessary, you can make up some false document in Punic detailing a plan of invasion of the Greek colonies in Italy, tell them that we got it from a spy and . . . you know, you’re good at these things. You know what I mean.’

‘I do.’

‘Will you do it?’

Philistus smiled. ‘Have I ever disappointed you?’

‘Good. Now I have to get rid of the other officers, at least the ones who are getting in my way.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Of course I can.’

‘You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘No, no, it’s not what you’re thinking. I just want to discredit them for the time being. We’ll start the rumour that they’re in league with the Carthaginians, that they’re taking money from Himilco.’

‘Don’t count on me. They want nothing to do with him and you know it. What you propose is detestable.’

‘It’s necessary to save the city.’

‘And the security of the city coincides with your rise to power.’

‘With my leadership. I must lead the people into battle, because only I can deliver the city from annihilation, protect her temples from profanation, save her people from slavery.’

Philistus fell silent, not knowing what to say. He was pacing back and forth in his study and he felt Dionysius’s gaze resting heavily upon him.

‘You know,’ he said, stopping right in the centre of the room, ‘you should have been born at the time of Homer. That was your era. You should have been born a king, like Achilles, Diomedes, Agamemnon . . . But those times are over, Dionysius. For ever, and they’ll never come back. We live in big cities where all the social classes want to be represented, and where leaders are elected and dismissed on the basis of their merits and demerits.’

‘On the basis of their scheming!’ exclaimed Dionysius.

‘Scheming? And just what are you doing? Are you any better?’

Dionysius loomed up close in silence, with a look so fierce that Philistus feared he was about to attack him. Instead he lowered his head and his voice: ‘I need your advice, I need your friendship. Don’t leave me alone. I don’t know how to make you think I’m any better. I can only ask if you believe in me or if you don’t, if you’re my friend or if you aren’t. If you’re with me or against me, Philistus.’

‘You have Leptines. He’s your brother.’

‘Leptines is a good lad and he’s faithful to me, but I need your intelligence, your experience and, most of all, your friendship. What’s your answer?’

‘You’re asking me to blindly accept your decisions, and your vision of the world.’

‘That’s what I’m asking. In the name of everything that binds us, of everything we’ve gone through together.’

Philistus sighed. ‘You know I’d do anything for you. But I have certain moral convictions that are difficult to give up. More than difficult . . . painful.’

‘I know. And as strange as it seems, I understand you. In any case, the problem is troublesome but simple: you must simply look inside yourself and see whether the love you have for me is stronger than your principles. That’s all. But I need your answer. Now.’

Philistus fell silent and walked over to the window to watch the seagulls flying amidst the masts and sails of the Great Harbour, over the red roofs of Ortygia and the Temple of Athena. When he turned, his eyes were shiny and he seemed to have lost his usual assurance, his proverbial control over his emotions. ‘I’m with you,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I’m ready to follow you.’

‘All the way to Hades?’

‘All the way to Hades.’

Dionysius embraced him, then looked him straight in the eye. ‘I knew you wouldn’t abandon me.’

‘I was about to do just that.’

‘You’re still in time. No one’s stopping you.’

Philistus said nothing.

Dionysius handed him a little slip of paper with a list of names. ‘These are the officers we need out of our way. The others owe us their election, so they’ll do as I say, at least for a while.’

Philistus nodded and took the sheet as Dionysius turned to go. ‘Wait,’ he said.

Dionysius, already at the threshold, stopped.

‘You weren’t like this. You were never like this; why such ruthlessness now?’

A despairing light flashed in Dionysius’s eyes, so sudden and brief it was nearly imperceptible. ‘You know very well why,’ he said. And left.

Philistus returned with slow steps to watch the seagulls wheeling outside. But only the swallows circling close under the roof saw his tears.

Seven days later, the narrow streets of Ortygia echoed in the deep of night with the pounding footsteps of Dionysius’s mercenaries: six of the ten officers who formed the War Council were arrested as they slept and taken to prison, accused of collusion with the enemy. The remaining four were quick to confirm their complete, unquestioned loyalty to their chief. The imprisoned officers were replaced by friends of Dionysius, including his adoptive father Heloris, his brother Leptines and his friends Biton, Iolaus and Doricus, members of the Company all.

Springtime came late that year and a series of storms made navigation impossible for long months. When Himilco left Acragas, it was nearly summer; he had burned down the temples, profaned the sanctuaries and disfigured the artwork that adorned them. The statues of the gods and heroes, many of which were true masterpieces, were hammered to pieces. The bronze, the silver, the gold and the ivory were plundered and sent to Carthage.

Among them was the famous bronze bull that the tyrant Phalaris was rumoured to have used to torture and kill his political adversaries. The Carthaginians sent it to Tyre, their metropolis, as a token of their homage and respect.

Then the army moved towards Gela overland, as the fleet followed by sea, carrying the disassembled pieces of the war machines.

Gela’s citizens decided at first to evacuate their women and children to Syracuse, but they refused to obey. As the women of Selinus and Himera had before them, they took refuge in the temples and hung on to the altars, vowing not to abandon their city and their homes for any reason. There was no convincing them, but the reoccurrence of the same gestures in the same situations was an ominous reminder of what had already come to pass.

At first Himilco had planned to locate a detachment east of the city on the Gela river, as he had at Acragas, but he then changed his mind and concentrated his forces in a fortified camp west of Gela. He assembled the assault towers and began to batter the walls with the rams.

The walls of Gela were similar to the walls of Selinus, built when machines of that sort were not even imaginable, and they began to crumble and give way at the first blows of the huge, powerful rams. But by night, while the combat-weary warriors slept to recover their strength, the women, old men, slaves and children worked like ants to repair the damage, to close the breaches, to reinforce the weakest stretches. In this way over a month passed without either of the adversaries prevailing.

Vexed by the obstinate resistance of the Geloans, the Carthaginians turned to one of the city’s most sacred symbols: a gigantic statue of Apollo which stood outside the walls, not far from their camp. It was twenty-two feet tall, and had stood there on the beach from time immemorial, marking the spot where the city’s founders had landed. The monument commemorated Apollo, Leader of Men who had guided the voyagers by sea to the foot of the hill where they had established their community.

The Carthaginians used their war machines and the winches from their ships to wrench it from its pedestal and tip it over. They then slid it down tallow-greased wooden ramps, loaded it on to a ship and had it towed all the way to Carthage.

Watching that sacred image being taken from Gela was a terrible blow for all her people, as if the whole history of the city had abruptly been wiped out. But their rage sustained the combatants and imbued them with new energy.

Time passed, and the Geloan generals sent continuous, desperate requests for assistance to Syracuse, where Dionysius had still not resolved all his problems with the Assembly. In a tempestuous meeting, he proposed the recall of the political exiles who had participated in Hermocrates’s attempted coup, arousing indignant protests from many of those present.

‘With what courage can we ask our allies,’ proclaimed Dionysius in an ardent speech, ‘to risk their lives to support us when we are preventing hundreds of Syracusans from fighting for their own city? I’m not here to discuss the gravity of their offences, and you all know that I have never had any sympathy for aristocrats and landowners: I am one of you, one of the people! But one thing is certain: they’ve often been asked by the barbarians to fight in their ranks, lured by promises to restore their lost pride and confiscated property, but they have always refused! Now our city needs all of her sons. Now that we are facing mortal danger, we cannot be divided by internal disputes. I’m asking you now to call them back and allow them to atone for any misdeeds they may have committed.’