Tyrant (37 page)

‘Not at all.’

‘Well then?’

‘There’s only one thing that interests him: undermining Corinth. She’s too powerful and unruly an ally. Corinth has taken a beating in this Sicilian venture and that is very convenient for them. That’s all. And if we help him get rid of a bunch of stragglers by enrolling them in our army, that’s even better. All things considered, the Spartans are folks that don’t like the unexpected. They don’t seek out adventure and above all, as true soldiers, they do not love war. Lysander came here to make sure that everything is under control and that I don’t have any funny ideas in my head. He’ll be leaving soon, you’ll see.’

He left three days later and never again set foot in Sicily.

Dionysius dedicated himself to the preparation of his true plan: to annihilate the Carthaginians in Sicily and to avenge the massacres of Selinus, Himera, Acragas and Gela. Before setting off on a similar endeavour, there was much to be done. For three consecutive years he conducted a series of campaigns employing both the city militia and the mercenaries, in appropriate proportions.

He took Aetna, stronghold of the Knights, his staunchest opponents, and razed it to the ground. From there he advanced inland to subjugate the Sicels. He occupied Herbita, then continued up to Henna, high on the mountains and surrounded by woods, at the very centre of the island.

There stood the most venerated sanctuary of all Sicily: the Temple of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the maiden who was forced to wed Hades. The virgin had been carried off as she picked flowers with her friends on those meadows, and dragged down into the dark reign of shadows, into the desolate abode of the dead.

There was a spot that everyone avoided, even the shepherds, a cave that led to the underworld. It was the grotto where Hades’ chariot – drawn by black, flame-breathing stallions – had plunged into the ground with Persephone aboard and was swallowed up into the abyss. It was there that Orpheus had descended to seek Eurydice, his beloved bride. His song had so charmed the lady of the realm of shadows, the beautiful but sterile Persephone, that she had made a pact with him: Eurydice could follow Orpheus out to the kingdom of the living as long as she remained one step behind him and as long as he, the sublime poet, never turned around until they had reached the surface of the earth and seen the light of day. If he turned, she would vanish, for ever.

Orpheus thus began his climb up the dark passage, trying to imagine the light step of his beloved behind him, trying to feel her cold breath at his back, thinking of when the sun would warm her, dreaming of when her bloodless lips would take on the moist hue of a pomegranate and open like a flower for his kisses. But belief failed him and the suspicion that he was being deceived grew until, as soon as he could see a hint of sunlight, he turned around.

He saw her, heartbreakingly lovely and sorrowful, for just an instant, and then all he could hear was the sound of her screams as she was sucked back down into Erebus.

Dionysius was determined to go there, although everyone tried to dissuade him. He wanted to be initiated into the mysteries, to drink the red liquid whose origins were known only to the temple priests. Leptines accompanied him, as Teseus had accompanied Pirithous, but at just a few steps from the cave, he – who feared nothing in this world, who had recklessly faced danger and death – grew pale and broke into an icy sweat. ‘Stop,’ was all Leptines could say. ‘Don’t go. There’s nothing down there, nothing to see.’

But Dionysius did not heed him and advanced alone up to the mouth of the cave. It was dusk, and the shadows were lengthening on the high plain. Slender tongues of fog crept out of the forests like tapering fingers to obscure the green light of the meadows.

He began to descend all alone towards the point at which it was said that once a year, on the night of the spring equinox, the ashen face of Persephone appeared as she rose to visit her mother.

Dionysius, who believed in nothing, believed that Arete could see him from the sad place she was in. He thought that she could hear him as he called out her name with cries so loud, so desperate that the entire grotto boomed with them.

He finally collapsed, exhausted, drained of strength. But then he began to feel a subtle yearning, a diffused chill creeping through his body, starting from his limbs. Was this Arete’s kiss? Was this her way of being close to him, of letting him sense her? He did not have Orpheus’s gift and he would never be able to move Persephone and black-veiled Hades to pity, but a song came to mind, the melodious air of that old serenade, the hymn of the singer of Acragas that she had loved so much and which had filled their hearts with joy on the night of their wedding. Oh, why hadn’t he thought of it? Why hadn’t he brought a soft-voiced singer, skilled at playing the lyre, so that song could reach her through that narrow chasm?

Cold sleep seized him; he forgot his breathing as though it were no longer important, and his mind was lost in a dream: Arete took on the semblance of the wild girl who had loved him in the spring of the Anapus. She had her eyes and her skin, the taste of her lips was the same . . .

He felt his heart pounding, and he saw her!

The wild girl was in front of him, draped in a gorgeous dress, a wonderfully light and transparent peplum like those that the maidens of Ortygia offer to the goddess each year at her temple on the acropolis. Her hair was gathered at the nape of her neck with a blood-red ribbon. Her lips were moist and red, her eyes as deep as night. What marvellous transformation was this? How possible unless she was a creature from another world? He felt lost in her arms, cold as he had never been yet burning with fire at the same time. He heard her speak, for the first time in so long, she spoke with her voice and finally called him by name.

‘Take me with you, if you cannot come back,’ he told her, and he heard those words echoing inside of him as though he had thought them and not said them aloud, as if they had been said by the man he wanted to be and was no longer. Then her face and her body vanished into the shadows. Her peplum fluttered like fog in the evening air.

He awoke in the dead of night in a quiet place near a crackling fire. He opened his eyes and saw Leptines’s face.

‘I saw her. I’m certain it was her. I’ve always known it was her. But this time I’m sure.’

Leptines did not answer. He helped his brother into a sitting position and rubbed his shoulders, his neck and his arms at length until he’d regained his colour and warmth. Then he said: ‘Let’s go now. The stars that have protected you are about to set.’

Having succeeded in subjugating the Sicels, as Gelon, victor over the Carthaginians at Himera, had done so many years before, Dionysius turned to the Chalcidic colonies of Naxos, Catane and Leontini. He was firmly convinced that the Sicilian Greeks must form a single coalition against their natural enemy, setting aside internal strife. Given that that was impossible to achieve peaceably, he had decided to accomplish his objective through force, as he had already done in his own city. He summoned Philistus and told him: ‘I don’t want a massacre while we are laying the grounds for a great pan-Hellenic undertaking. These cities must fall by treason.’

Philistus, who thought he had heard everything, was amazed. ‘What are you saying?’

‘You don’t agree?’

‘Treason is hateful for both the betrayer and the solicitor.’

‘You never cease to surprise me, my friend. You continue to cultivate ethical concepts in your soul; you’re obviously still under the influence of that old big-nosed, buggy-eyed sophist who puts strange ideas into the heads of the young Athenians.’

‘Socrates is not a sophist.’

‘I say he is. Isn’t he the one who said: “The true wise man is he who knows he knows nothing”? And is that not the most deceitful and at the same time the most clever of sophisms? That old son of a bitch is not only convinced that he’s a wise man, but also that he knows more than anyone else around—’

‘Tell me what you want,’ Philistus cut him short.

‘Every man has his price. Find out who the most approachable characters are in Catane and Naxos, pay them whatever they ask, and let them turn over the cities to you. Later they’ll thank us. There’s no need to tell you that in order to comply with our request, they’ll need some justification to make them feel less despicable than what they are. Find something. The pan-Hellenic cause, for example – now there’s a fine justification. As far as the money goes, try to pass it off as an indemnity, an offer to propitiate the gods, a legacy deriving from an old hospitable pact, whatever comes to mind . . . Let me know, at the end, how much it’s cost you. No blood, Philistus, if possible.’

In one month’s time, Arcesilaus handed over Catane and Procles betrayed Naxos, the oldest Greek colony in Sicily, so old that the statue of the founder at the port was so corroded by wind and salt that it was unrecognizable.

Leontini remained alone, and surrendered without putting up any resistance. Dionysius decided to transfer all of the city’s inhabitants to Syracuse.

The year after that, Rhegium and Messana, which were also Chalcidic colonies, imagining that it would be their turn next, fitted out a fleet and an army which marched south to engage battle with Dionysius’s forces. Leptines proposed facing off on an open field and exterminating them to take care of the problem at its root, but Dionysius stopped him just in time and instead summoned Philistus once again.

‘Do you think it will work with an army?’

Philistus shrugged.

‘Don’t make a fuss here. Will it work or won’t it?’

‘I think it will.’

‘Then proceed. Those warriors may be marching at our sides next year against the Carthaginian provinces. I don’t want them to die, and I don’t want ours to die either. And tell me something:

if it does work, which action is more ethical – mine, based on perfidy, or the one your philosopher suggests, based on moral rigour?’

‘You can’t reason that way,’ objected Philistus. ‘The question is simply posed in incorrect terms. If you start from mistaken assumptions, there’s no doubt that—’

Dionysius shook his head. ‘Ah, philosophers! I avoid them like dog shit on the street.’

Philistus sighed. ‘Is there someone in particular you have in mind, or must I find him?’

Dionysius passed him a sheet with a couple of names scribbled in charcoal. When Philistus had read it, he rubbed his thumb over it to blacken the sheet and make it illegible. Then, as his counsellor was leaving, Dionysius added: ‘It’s sowing time. That should make it easy for you.’

Philistus reached his quarters and summoned the men he had working for him. Before three days had passed, just a few hours apart, two high officers in the Rhegine and Messanian armies, both members of the general staff, asked that an Assembly be called and spoke with such vehemence in favour of ceasing hostilities, condemning the irresponsible behaviour of their respective commanders-in-chief, that when it came time to vote, the motion which proposed immediate withdrawal of the army obtained an overwhelming majority.

Dionysius was exultant. Not only was he the indisputable leader of his city, he would soon be the leader of his nation as well. He re-entered Syracuse between two cheering wings of the crowd, and shortly thereafter convoked Leptines, Philistus and a couple of friends from the Company. Old Heloris was ailing and no longer took part in the councils held in the Ortygia fortress.

‘The time has come for me to marry!’ he began.