Troy: A Brand of Fire

Caesura

  There is an island in the Aegean, among the Cyclades, which men call Most Fair.

  Its proper name is Kallistē, named after a daughter of Poseidon who first walked on land there, and it takes the shape of a half moon. The smaller island of Therasia closes most of the open bay to the west. Both islands are steep and rocky, but both also have pockets of the most fertile soil in the world, where the most bone-fisted farmer can throw seeds on the ground and sit back to watch them grow.

  Long ago, even before the time of Perseus, Kallistē and its companion were one island, or so the priests claim. The shining bay between them did not exist. Some people say a great bull was imprisoned beneath it in those days, a child of the sea-nymph herself, deformed into a half-animal form because of some unnamed sin committed by Kallistē in the past. When he raged against his confinement the island shook, and smoke rose from Mount Nievo.

  Others tell a different story. The island was a Titan, they sat, an immortal giant made of stone, who curled himself up to hide from Zeus when Cronus was thrown down and left only his back above the waves. His name was Straeus, a brother of Cronus and more cunning than he, for neither Zeus nor the other gods could find him. Until one day Kallistē set her feet on his back, and so knew him, and Straeus realised his secret was betrayed.

  Whether bull-man or Titan, the stories end the same way. The island exploded in a storm of smashed stone and dust, climbing into the sky like a giant hand. Straeus rising to challenge the sky, and throw down Olympus; or just the debris thrown out as the Minotaur sought to be free. In either case, stones and hot ash fell like rain in Greece, in Anatolia, even as far as Egypt. In Crete, directly south of Kallistē, the sea rose up in a great wave that smashed itself against the coast, shattering palaces and towns. Mallia, Kalami, Pelagia, Mochlos. Harbours and fleets were destroyed, farmland flooded, people washed away without trace.

  The Kingdom of Minos fell, of course. Its stranglehold on shipping was broken, and its wealth was bleeding away long before Theseus arrived to kill the last king. People still speak of it, the common men as well as priests and kings. Whether the cause was a bull-man or a stone god, the tale reminds us that the gods can sometimes change our destinies for their own reasons, and wreak appalling destruction as they do.