Tyrant (39 page)

‘The first unhappy effects of the war,’ commented Philistus. ‘Those people have always lived amongst us, trading and carrying on business to our mutual advantage. Now all of a sudden they’ve become our sworn enemies, so dangerous they must be locked up, persecuted . . .’

‘Well, they started first, didn’t they?’ objected Leptines.

‘No one knows who started first, believe me. This war will become a clash of the two different races, us and them, and it will not abate until one of the two has been completely wiped out.’

‘You’re strange,’ observed Leptines. ‘Whose side are you on?’

‘Do you need to ask? The fact is that the preparations I’ve seen worry me. Dionysius is tossing enormous resources into the furnace of war; he’s sure of winning, but on the other side of the sea there’s a shrewd and evasive enemy, a great naval power capable of cutting off our supply and trade routes . . .’

‘But Dionysius also wants to marry . . . he wants an heir. That means he’s looking towards the future, doesn’t it?’

‘Right, the two wives. And who might the chosen one be here in Syracuse?’

‘Aristomache,’ replied Leptines, suddenly serious.

‘Hipparinus’s daughter? I can’t believe it.’

‘He’s always been a member of the Company, one of the most important.’

‘Yes, but he’s always been an adversary of Heloris, Dionysius’s adoptive father.’

‘Heloris will have to get used to the idea. His daughters are all as ugly as can be. Aristomache is gorgeous. You know, I’ve known her ever since we were children; we used to play in the courtyard together. When I went to ask for her hand for my brother, I couldn’t believe my eyes: she’s become as beautiful as Aphrodites! High, firm breasts, hands that were made to caress a man’s body and . . .’

‘That’s enough,’ Philistus cut him off. ‘I don’t even want to think about hearing those words. Let’s say I’ve never heard them. Your brother would slit your throat if he knew.’

‘You’re right . . .’ admitted Leptines. ‘He’d probably slit my throat.’

With the return of spring, the
Boubaris
majestically went to sea, parting the waters with her rostrum like a plough does the earth and raising two symmetric waves as she passed. Dionysius was impatient to test her out and had had a Carthaginian ship captured on patrol near Selinus towed offshore to be used as a target. On board were Philistus and Leptines, along with his future father-in-law Hipparinus.

At a gesture from the navarch, the drummer started to pound out the rowing tempo, getting progressively louder and faster. Dismasted, the
Boubaris
was launched on to the waves with impressive force, helped along by a light, favourable wind.

At the navarch’s order, the oars were pulled in with absolute synchrony and the pointed rostrum ran through the side of the target with a huge crash and split the Carthaginian vessel in two.

Dionysius and his friends had a firm grip on the railing, but the moment of impact was incredible. The ropes cut into their clothing and rubbed their skin raw, and Philistus nearly broke his back.

The two halves sank in a matter of moments. The
Boubaris
plunged forward and then put about, steered by the stern rudders, as the oars plunged back into the sea.

A cry of exultation rose from the crew and Dionysius ran to the stern to behold the flotsam from the wreck afloat on the foaming waves. ‘
Nike! Nike!
’ he shouted. ‘We won! The quinquereme is the most fearsome ship to ride the waves in our day!’

They all congratulated each other, but Philistus couldn’t help but think that the Carthaginians would certainly not sit there like the target had, waiting for five talents of iron to tear into them, and that things might be very different indeed in battle. But he didn’t want to spoil the mood, and so he too joined in the ovations. The
Boubaris
, after all, would soon be his means of transport for Locri, where Dionysius’s Italian fiance´e was waiting.

‘Why did you call Locri the “city of women”?’ asked Leptines as they were returning. ‘Remember? After you came back from Rhegium.’

‘Of course I remember. And if you weren’t so ignorant, I wouldn’t have to explain it to you. We know from ancient accounts that when the Locrians from the metropolis were in battle, the women became so tired of being at home alone that they went to bed with their slaves and had children by them. When their husbands came back from the war, they repudiated their wives, who took to the seas and sailed with their offspring to Italy, where they founded Locri. Women are still considered the heads of their families in Locri, and it is the women who hand down their names and their inheritance. That’s why Locri is the city of women . . .’

Leptines grinned. ‘If that’s the way the city was founded, I don’t know whether he’s so lucky to be marrying a Locrian, but if he’s happy . . .’

‘Right: if he’s happy . . .’ shrugged Philistus.

The
Boubaris
entered the dockyard again, and the naval architects who had built her crowded around to inspect the vessel down to the last nail. They had to check that the rostrum hadn’t suffered any cracks, and that the tension cable below deck hadn’t lost any of its tautness. Everything was in perfect order; even the keel, which was almost twenty feet longer than usual, had held up well under impact. The first quinquereme ever built was about to become the queen of battles.

She set to sea again a few days later to take Philistus to Locri. Dionysius’s betrothed had been chosen by the most influential family of the city, who had offered their noblest and most beautiful daughter: Doris.

She was not dark at all, as Dionysius had suggested. She was blonde, instead, with blue eyes, hair as fine and shiny as threads of gold. Her high breasts were so firm that the Ionian peplum she wore – as light as air and so soft as to reveal every curve of her body – fell with supreme elegance.

She knew very well that she would be sharing her husband with another woman, and yet she was very happy to be going to Syracuse; she seemed a little girl eagerly awaiting a party. Philistus imagined that her family must be very rigid and strict indeed if passing from the authority of her father to the authority of her husband was such a relief for her, but then he remembered that it was the women who headed the households in Locri. Perhaps female traditions took no notice of the idea of exclusive possession, typical of men obsessed by the thought of domination. Maybe she was happy because she would have children, or because she would lie with a man who everyone raved about, and was not bothered about anything else. After all, Dionysius’s fame was such that he was certainly worth any other two men.

Philistus participated in celebrations and ceremonies of all sorts for three days. During the festivities, he delivered the groom’s wedding gift: an ancient golden necklace, set with drops of amber, crafted by a great artist. He then took aboard the girl, her mother, and her vast dowry of coins, garments, furnishings, jewels, pets, fabrics, perfumes, paintings, statues, tableware both new and antique, and the sacred images she would worship in her new home.

Among all this, Philistus was struck by a little statue of Athena. It was rough and primitive and not lovely in any way, but extremely fascinating; quite strangely, it portrayed the goddess with her eyes closed. ‘What is this?’ he asked her.

‘It’s a reproduction of the Palladion, the sacred image of Athena that made the city of Troy invincible, stolen away by Odysseus and Diomedes. The night of the fall of the city, our national hero Ajax Oileus raped princess Cassandra at the foot of the Palladion. The goddess closed her eyes so as not to witness the abomination. Since then, in expiation for that rape, our city sends two virgins to Troy from our best families every year, to serve in the Temple of Athena of Ilium.’

‘And have you been, my lady?’ asked Philistus.

‘No, but I would have liked so much to go! To see the armour of Achilles, his tomb and the tomb of Patroclus . . .’

‘You are very well educated.’

‘I know, you Dorians think that it’s a scandal to educate women, but here it’s the norm. It is we women who dictate the laws of society, and we have a much fairer and more sensible way of life.’

‘And you’re not afraid of ending up in the bed of the most terrible of these Dorians, the one who everyone calls “the Tyrant”?’

‘No,’ replied the girl, with a hint of a smile in her blue eyes. ‘On the contrary, I’m curious to see whether he’ll live up to his repute.’

They spoke at length during the journey, and became friends. Philistus thought it was only fair to warn her about what her life would be like in Syracuse. ‘You know what awaits you,’ he said. ‘Dionysius has had two bedchambers built adjacent to his own bedroom, and he will sleep with both of you in turn. But the three of you will dine together, unless one of you is not well and prefers to remain in her apartments. But I would not recommend feeling ill more than once or twice in an entire year!’

‘I understand,’ said Doris as she leaned on the ship’s railing, caressed by the wind of Zephyr until Philistus startled her by saying: ‘Look: Syracuse!’

Aristomache arrived on a chariot drawn by four white horses, driven by a charioteer wearing a tunic shot through with purple threads. Her hair was raven with violet reflections, and she wore a flame-coloured peplum gathered at the waist with a golden belt.

Doris arrived from the port on a litter borne by eight slaves, including an Ethiopian who aroused the curiosity of the onlookers. But the crowd’s applause went to the Syracusan, and they hoped deep down that she would be the one to give an heir to Dionysius, who the people had come to accept as a monarch and the founder of a dynasty.

They simultaneously crossed the thresholds of the eastern and western gates of the Ortygia fortress, following a protocol the master of ceremonies had practised again and again with the aid of actors.

The date had been selected so that neither of the two girls had her menstrual period on that day.

The groom was wearing a very simple, floor-length white chiton. His iron bracelet was adorned with a single red stone, said to have been forged with the iron of the dagger that had killed the murderers of his first wife, Arete.

A long wedding ceremony took place, followed by a lavish banquet laid for ten thousand people, to which both foreigners, including the mercenary officers, and citizens of every rank and social position had been invited. The adoptive father of the groom, old Heloris, was notable for his absence; he had felt so offended by Dionysius’s exclusion of his daughters that he had gone into exile in Rhegium. There he would later put himself at the head of the Syracusan Knights who had fled or survived the distruction of Aetna and were organizing a sort of armed resistance against the tyrant in the city.

After the official banquet, the two brides were conducted each into her own bedchamber, where they were undressed and had their hair combed by their handmaids. A group of singers struck up first a Syracusan, then immediately after a Locrian, wedding hymn.

Dionysius entered Doris’s room first. He contemplated her tenderly in the lamplight, for she lay completely nude on top of the covers, displaying her glorious curves to her husband’s gaze. Her mother had instructed her well, and had taught her how to move her hips to give pleasure to her man and to induce him to spill all his seed into her womb, so that none would remain for the Syracusan bride.

But Doris added her own lascivious innocence to her mother’s teachings and prolonged their intimacy at great length, gratifying her groom with enticing words, and flattering his vanity in every way.