The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

  Dion’s men were in camp at Minoa when news came to them of the god’s greatest favor yet, a bounty almost past belief. Not only was Philistos still away watching the door of the empty stable; Dionysios himself had sailed from Syracuse with eighty of the ships that were left, all filled with troops.

  Don’t ask me why. Perhaps he thought Dion would put in at Tarentum, and he could kill two birds with one stone; I don’t suppose he had forgiven Archytas for demanding Plato. Or maybe he just wanted to be in at the death. Whichever it was, I am sure he did it on impulse after being left to his own devices. I should think Philistos could have killed him.

  Dion’s men were so struck with this run of luck that they declined the rest he offered them to get over the sea trip and begged him to push on while the stars were good. I don’t know what they would have said if they had known the whole story of Apollo’s care for Dion. He had just worked him a miracle.

  Dionysios, when he sailed, had left as regent his favorite, Timokrates, the husband of Dion’s wife. This man, at the news of the landing, sent a fast courier to Italy with letters to him and to Philistos. The courier landed at Rhegium, and took the quick inland road towards Kaulonia, where the Archon had his ships. There he met someone he knew who had been at a sacrifice and had brought back a gift of meat. Since the courier could not stay to share it, the friend gave him a cut to eat when he had time. Knowing the business urgent, he pushed on long after dark; when he had to rest, the hills were desolate, with no shelter but a wood beside the road. Too tired to cook, he supped on a crust, and slept with his letter bag by his head. He awoke to find it gone, along with the meat which had been tied to it. His panic search showed him no trace of human thieves, only the marks of wolf pads, and a dragging trail between. All morning he searched the wild country round about, hoping that when the wolf had eaten, it would have dropped the bag; but it must have taken it to its lair for its young to chew on. No one, it seems, had told him what the message said; he was there to do as he was told. He could only confess, with you may suppose what result. So he did just what I would have done in his shoes—ran away up to Italy and changed his name. Long after, he told the story. The wolf, as everyone knows, is a creature of Apollo.

  Meantime Dion set out for Syracuse with his eight hundred, leaving his spare arms with Synalos, who agreed to send them on.

  They were needed soon. They were hardly across the river Halys into Greek lands when men started coming in: cavalry from Akragas, hoplites from Gela (which old Dionysios had let the Carthaginians sack when it served his turn), more from Kamarina. As soon as they got to the country around Syracuse, the peasants came down from the hills: serfs of the great landowners, the little russet Sikels who were there before the Hellenes; poor Greek smallholders, ruined by the taxes which had bought old Dionysios’ catapults and young Dionysios’ girls. Load after load the spare arms were issued. It was as if a god had come down to lead them.

  All who were there are in agreement that Dion never sank, in all this time, below his role. It was as if he had been rehearsing for it all his life. He was now at an age when he might have sat for a sculptor as Zeus rather than as Apollo. In the years at the Academy he had grown his beard; now it had a short soldier’s trim. He was a hard-muscled, noble Zeus, fit to throw thunderbolts, a Zeus for Pheidias; the grizzle in his hair only gave him dignity. He was savior, hero, father; if he kept his distance, it was only fitting.

  Timokrates, his dispatches bringing no help, was trying to put Syracuse upon defense with the few men left him, and had to call in reservists to man the walls. These were mostly land-pensioned veterans of the old Archon’s wars, from Leontini. He put these on the city ramparts, keeping his regulars to hold Ortygia. Dion, whose last recruits had come from inside Syracuse itself, heard of these dispositions, and staged a feint advance on Leontini, now stripped of all its men. Young boys came racing up to the Syracusan walls to warn their fathers, who opened the gates and quick-marched for home, not reckoning they owed young Dionysios anything. After dark Dion marched straight on to Syracuse. Daybreak found him at the river Anopos, a mile away.

  Before he went on, he sacrificed to Apollo Helios. He now had five thousand men behind him. He looked so godlike to them, bay-crowned, lifting his hands to the sun, that they all broke sprays from the trees and wreathed themselves for victory. Nor was their overconfidence punished; let us call it prophecy.

  When the Leontinians deserted, Timokrates sent orders to close all the gates into Ortygia. But before he could get back there himself, the Syracusans were rushing out through the city to welcome Dion. If Timokrates showed himself he would be lynched; and outside was the man to whom he had done that wrong which demands the extremest vengeance everywhere. He grabbed the first horse he could find, wrapped his cloak round his face, and got away. To justify himself, he galloped about describing the vast might of Dion’s forces and making him sound invincible, so that those who from prudence had held back before, now flocked to join Dion. All the veterans of Leontini, finding their homes and women safe, joined to a man.

  Syracuse was free. Before Dion had set foot inside, the tyranny was broken. Every man could speak his mind and do as he chose. They chose first of all to hunt down Philistos’ band of informers. All over the streets, these people, and people who looked rather like them or were their kin or whom someone denounced for private vengeance, were chased or run down at home or dragged from the temples they had fled to, and battered to death by the crowd.

  Dion marched up to the walls, and they opened the great gates for him. He had put on his parade armor, inlaid with gold. On his right marched his brother, on his left Kallippos the Athenian. Herakleides and his ships had still not arrived.

  The chief men of the city came out clothed in white. As they went up the Sacred Way, flowers and wreaths and ribbons showered on them from the house roofs. People set up altars and sacrificed in thanksgiving as Dion passed by. Treading in laurel and myrtle, rose wreaths and blood, he went on to the great sundial of Dionysios which stands opposite Ortygia, and from its dial addressed the citizens. With the favor of the gods, he said, he had brought them liberty. It was theirs, if they would only help him to defend it.

  At once they wanted to give him and Megakles the office of military dictator the Archons had held before. He thanked them, would not take advantage of men so unused to freedom, and proposed a council of twenty from the returned exiles and such loyal friends as Kallippos. This being carried with acclaim, he marched on the last strong point that still held out—the great fortress of Euryalos. Its garrison had barred themselves in for safety rather than offense; they surrendered, on condition they either joined Dion or left the city. The garrison of Ortygia could do nothing but watch all this from the gatehouses, and be thankful for the gates. In the captain’s lodging of Euryalos were the great bronze keys of the quarries. Among cheers that must have been audible on the slopes of Etna, Dion turned the locks to free the captives.

  Now only Ortygia still held out. That was impregnable; but Dion had a siege wall built on the land side of its neck to seal it fast. He got his new recruits armed and drilled, and set up his command in the Euryalos. Seven days later, Dionysios, who had had the news at last, sailed up with his ships into Ortygia dockyard.

  If Herakleides and the promised fleet had come, they might have stopped him. As it was, Dion’s men could do nothing but look on. Dionysios could bring in everything he needed; soon Philistos came too, with a second fleet. Ortygia would be a long business. But meantime, Syracuse was free.

  With the forces he had, Dionysios could have landed along the coast and attacked by land; but he stayed in Ortygia, hoping, as it turned out later, to agree with Dion privately, as one gentleman with another. As the Archon saw it, the rabble had just been the engine of Dion’s private war, and need not be considered. Having known Plato, he should have known Dion better than this. He sent back the envoys, saying he would read nothing that could not be laid before the people. Public proposals came, for r
emission of taxes, talks, and so forth. The Syracusans laughed, and Dion sent word that if Dionysios would abdicate, he would treat with him for his safe-conduct. Short of that, he could save his breath.

  After a while, Dionysios offered to consider this, on terms to be agreed, and asked for envoys. Some leading citizens went; the gatehouse guards were seen idling, calling out to the people that they would soon be out of work. At sunset the talks were still going on; the envoys would stay overnight. However, all seemed settled; the troops on the Syracusan siege wall took a lazy watch, as the enemy was doing. Work on the wall, a rough makeshift meant to be reinforced, had stopped. At midnight the five gates of Ortygia opened; the garrison rushed out upon the siege wall and its sleepy men.

  The yelling Nubians, their faces daubed like white skulls; the naked, painted, seven-foot Gauls, drunk on raw wine; the steady iron-hard Romans, rushed on citizens unused to fend for themselves, new to arms and half-awake. They broke and fled screaming. That would have been the end but for Dion’s regulars, who did not wait for the trumpet but got to the wall as soon as he. His voice drowned by the din, he just showed himself in the vanguard and led them on. A fine thundering Zeus, with a javelin like a lightning bolt, he rallied the line till his shield was stuck full of broken points and his corselet dented all over. Even when a spear went through his right hand, he got on a horse and rode about to encourage the Syracusans, getting some back to fight. By now he had brought up the men from the Achradina; the enemy was contained in the streets nearest the causeway; under this new onslaught they broke and fled, many being trapped below the wall. On Dion’s side only seventy-five were killed, partly because his regulars fought so well, partly because the Syracusans had not stayed to fight at all. They were very grateful, and voted the troops extra pay of a hundred minas; the men spent part of it on a golden wreath for Dion.

  Next day the envoys were sent home. Dionysios, though he broken the truce, had not sunk to killing them; perhaps after all Plato’s visit had not been for nothing.

  The next embassy from Ortygia was addressed to Dion in person. He received it publicly and was handed letters from his wife and mother. These he read aloud to the people in a steady voice; they were sad, but innocent of intrigue. At the end, one more letter came out; this he was begged to read in private, since it was from his son. He must have been tempted for many reasons, but he broke the seal. The letter inside was not from Hipparinos at all, but from the Archon. It is in the archives of the Academy; I read it once. People say now it was a clever bit of policy, but to me it reads just like the man—all feeling, petulance, self-pity and unreasonable hopes. It dwelt on Dion’s years of faithful service to both the Archons, reproached him with unjust resentment, swore his kindred, wife and mother should suffer for it if he kept it up, begged him not to throw holy Syracuse to a senseless mob, who would bring her down in chaos and then blame him for it; and, as a flourish at the end, offered to accept him as the Archon, if he would maintain autarchic rule. I daresay Philistos added that.

  Dion disdained to write back, and sent a short soldier’s answer. But the letter had not been in vain. The people knew he had had these offers; surely they must tempt him? It was argued in the wineshops; Dion’s men just laughed, or hit out if they were fighting-drunk. By now they loved him like a father.

  It was now that at last Herakleides arrived in Syracuse, with twenty triremes and fifteen thousand men.

  He had held back a long time. If his heart had been in helping, he would have come, like Dion, with what he had. The triremes alone, without the troop freighters, might have kept Dionysios out of Ortygia. One can hardly doubt he meant to find Dion in trouble, rescue the enterprise and take command. What he wanted after that, whether it was for the people or himself, he is not here to tell us.

  In any case, he found Dion an honored victor, adored by his troops and respected by the citizens. Something had to be done, if Herakleides was not to be just the slow-belly who gets there after the feast. He still had much in his favor; his exile spoke for his stand against the tyrant, and he had his cheery, hearty way. No one could miss the contrast. If Dion at fifty had not learned ease with people yet, I suppose he showed a kind of sense in not straining at it, like an actor forcing his limits.

  All these parleys with Ortygia having ended nowhere, the land war was getting static; but some of Dionysios’ war triremes decided to join the Syracusans, so that Herakleides now commanded sixty ships. One day he got word that Philistos was sailing up towards the straits. Now was his chance of glory. The fleets engaged; Philistos was hemmed in. When they took his galley, the old man was lying on the poop, with his sword stuck into his belly. Being nearly eighty, he had not had strength enough to do a clean job, and was still alive. Herakleides, who always knew how to please the people, gave him to them to play with.

  You may say he knew what he deserved, which was why he had tried to kill himself. He had been the right arm of the tyranny, father and son, since it began. But you could say of him too that he remained faithful to the son, from whom he could have taken everything, though the father had had him exiled on mere suspicion. That he should have put on arms at all at his age, when he could have sailed off with a sack of gold to the in bed at ease, might have earned him some grudging honor. No matter; it was the death of Phyton all over again, though there was no tyrant now to order it, just the free citizens of Syracuse. A siege tower they lacked; in any case, they were too impatient to wait a day. He was stripped naked, and haltered. Because of his wound he could not be made to walk about the streets, but he was dragged along, and every man did what pleased him. At last, when it could be seen he was senseless and would give no more sport, they hacked his head off, and gave his trunk to the boys for what it was worth. They tied it by one leg, lamed in battle fifty years before, and pulled it about till they got tired, when they threw it on a dung-heap. By the time Dion got the news, the man was dead.

  I have been told, by Timonides of the Academy, who sailed with him, that Dion shut himself up alone till night. It had always been his faith that honor begets honor. He had sweated and bled to free these people; they had had a share of his soul. Small wonder if while Herakleides went drinking with the captains, everyone’s hero, he did not join the feast. Long ago at Delphi, when they killed Meidias, I had seen he did not understand. He did not know a crowd. He had not learned, even yet, what most men are who have had to eat dirt for two generations. He was not content to pity them, and be angry with those who had debased them; he had wanted to persuade himself that freedom would ennoble them. When they had forsaken him in battle, he had forgiven them; he was a soldier, and did not expect too much from half-trained men. I think it was this killing that first seared his mind. Such people, he began to think, could not know their own good; if left to fend for themselves, they would suffer worse than under the tyranny, and sink even lower: for he believed what Sokrates had taught Plato, and Plato him, that it is better to suffer evil than to do it.

  Autumn was closing the open seaways, though ships still crossed the straits to Italy, as they do in good weather all the year. There were no more sea fights; but Herakleides now equaled Dion in public esteem. He was pleasant to everyone, and made no secret of his belief that Syracuse should be governed just like Athens, by popular assembly and the general vote. As long, however, as Dionysios still sat in Ortygia, the need of a commander was clear to everyone. Herakleides was content at present to intrigue for an equal share in the command.

  I don’t know what Dionysios did when he learned of Philistos’ death, and knew he now had to conduct the war himself; I suppose he got drunk. What’s certain is that before long he sent to Dion, offering the surrender of Ortygia: the palace, the castle, the ships, his standing army and five months’ full pay for it, in exchange for his own safe-conduct into Italy, and a yearly revenue from his private estates.

  Dion must have been tempted by now to make his own terms out of hand. However, he had pledged his honor to lay all tenders before the people,
and for him this settled the matter. With one voice the people said no. They had tasted blood with Philistos; how much sweeter would his master’s be! Dionysios must be at his last gasp, to make this offer; they were resolved to have him alive. In vain Dion told them that all they had been fighting for was theirs to take if they chose. They only thought (and said), “There is a man who has not suffered.” Sicily is a land where revenge is prized. Some said he must have had a better offer than before, to let the tyrant off scot-free; but then the man was his kin. None of these rumors was opposed by Herakleides. Perhaps he believed them; it is easy to think the worst of a man one hates. The envoys were sent home empty; the siege went on. Herakleides spent more and more time ashore, busy with his politics. And one misty dawn in early autumn, when the lookouts of the fleet were taking it easy, Dionysios boarded a ship, cast off with a little squadron that carried all his treasures, and sailed away. By the time the news broke, he was in Italy.

  When this reached Athens, nothing else was talked of all over the city. The greatest tyranny in Hellas had been broken, and by a man trained in Athens—almost an Athenian, you might say. At the Academy, gray-haired philosophers ran about like schoolboys. Axiothea and her friend both kissed me in the olive grove. They told me what was not yet known in the streets—that Ortygia still held out without its lord, who had left the young Apollokrates in command. This passed even my notion of the man; if his son was like him, the war was as good as won, and we agreed we might as well rejoice now as later. We recalled that not very long ago a shooting star had crossed the heavens, so brilliant that it had been seen from a dozen cities and had turned the night into day.