Tyrant (60 page)

‘True. It was all part of the staging. They set fire to some old laid up wrecks while the fleet was anchored at a number of secret landings along the northern coast.’

‘Stop dragging this out and come to the point. What has happened?’

‘The new Carthaginian admiral invaded the port of Drepanum at first light with two hundred battle ships. Our fleet was greatly outnumbered, and had the worst of it.’

Philistus dismissed the messenger and lingered for a while all alone to meditate on what had to be done. In the end he decided not to tell Dionysius anything for the time being, so as not to spoil the festivities. He stretched out at his place, ate and drank, apparently enjoying himself.

That same night, after the guests had gone, towards the third guard shift, Dionysius fell ill. Aksal rushed to awaken Philistus. ‘Boss not well.’

‘What are you saying, Aksal?’

‘He very sick, you come now.’

Philistus hurried to his room, where he found Dionysius in a terrible state: shaken by convulsions and retching, soaked in sweat but cold as ice, ashen-faced and dark-nailed.

‘Go call his doctor, Aksal, run! Three blocks from here, towards the agora. Run, by all the gods! Run!’

As Aksal rushed down to the street, Philistus tried to lift Dionysius to a sitting position and help him breathe. He dried his forehead and dampened his parched lips. The bed stank of sweat and urine.

Dionysius seemed to rally for a moment, to regain his strength. ‘It’s finished,’ he whispered. ‘It’s all over, my friend.’

Philistus was moved by that word that he hadn’t heard for so many years, and he clasped his hand tightly. ‘What are you saying,
hegemon
? Your doctor is coming. You’ll get better. You drank a little too much, that’s all. Take heart, you’ll see that . . .’

Dionysius cut him off by wearily raising his hand in his habitual imperious gesture. ‘No, I’m not wrong. Death is cold . . . feel it? Fate mocks me! I’ve always fought on the front lines, I’ve been wounded five times, and here I am dying in bed, pissing myself . . . like a man worth nothing. I’ll never see the dawn of the new era I’ve dreamed of all my life . . . Sicily . . . at the centre of the world . . .’

‘You will see it! We’ll go back home and finish up this war, once and for all. You will win, Dionysius. You will win, because you are the greatest.’

‘No . . . no. I sent all the friends I had to their deaths: Doricus, Biton, Iolaus, my own Leptines. I’ve spilled so much blood, for nothing.’

The steps of a lone passer-by could be heard from outside. Dionysius lit up. ‘Arete!’ he said, straining to hear. ‘Arete . . . is that you?’

Philistus lowered his tear-filled eyes. ‘Arete’s here,’ he answered. ‘She’s come – she’s here for you.’

Dionysius collapsed with a long gasp. He whispered again: ‘Remember what you promised. Farewell,
chaire
. . .’ and then nothing.

The doctor burst into the room all at once, short of breath and accompanied by Aksal, but it was too late. All he could do was verify his death.

Aksal stiffened at the sight. His face hardened into a stone mask. He struck up a mournful dirge, the harrowing lament that his people sang to accompany the last journey of great warriors. Then he closed himself off in an impenetrable silence. He mounted armed guard over Dionysius’s body, day and night, neither eating nor drinking. He never abandoned him, not even when the coffin was placed on the ship that would carry him back to his homeland.

In Syracuse, Philistus personally saw to the funeral rites. He had a gigantic pyre built in the courtyard of fort Euryalus at the top of Epipolae so that the whole city could see his soul rising in the vortex of fire and sparks that would push him towards the sky. Dionysius’s body, dressed in his most splendid armour, was set on the pyre in front of the drawn-up army. Twenty thousand warriors from every nation shouted out his name ten times, as the flames rose roaring towards the winter sky.

Late that night, Philistus and Aksal went to gather his ashes. Together they went to Arete’s tomb and joined his ashes with hers in the urn.

When they had finished this simple rite, Philistus dried his eyes and turned towards the Celtic warrior, frightening in the gaunt severity of his fasting, grief hollowing his face and blackening his eyes. ‘Go back to your quarters now, Aksal,’ he said, ‘and break off your fasting. Your master doesn’t need you any more . . . We do.’

They left, and the tomb remained dark and silent.

But when the sound of their steps had died away completely, a solitary song rose from the darkness, the heart-rending melody that accompanied the first night of love for Arete and Dionysius.

And the last.

C
ORINTH, 342 BC

‘No one was ever able to explain the cause of his death. They said that Philistus had seen the sign of the dolphin carved into the bottom of the cup that his lord and master had drunk from the night of the celebrations. He remembered how Dionysius had ordered the deaths of many members of the Company during the last great purge, and how he had unceremoniously taxed Company members in other cities to finance the coming war, heedless of any warnings.

‘Some attributed his death simply to the revelry that followed his victory in the Lenaean tragedy contest. Others saw the long arm of Carthage in his decease; how else could they have hoped to destroy such an obstinate enemy?

‘I signed the peace treaty, as soon as I had the power to do so, and I tried to uphold it. But I struck fear into no one’s heart, and even the philosophers were lining up to teach me how to govern ...

‘In ten years’ time, all that my father had managed to build up was in ruins and would never be revived. An ageing general sent by the metropolis, Timoleon, defeated the Carthaginians and deprived me of my powers. I was exiled here to Corinth . . . the place from which our founding fathers set off so long ago . . .’

‘Maestro! What are you doing? Talking to yourself ?’

The schoolmaster rubbed his eyes and looked around. The asses and their minder had disappeared; lounging against the wall on the other side of the road was one of the three brutes who had rescued him the night before, one of the inseparable bodyguards that the city had charged with his safety.

Standing in front of him was the tavern keeper, a cup of steaming milk in hand. ‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘It will put you back on your feet.’

The maestro took a look at him, and then at the sun that was emerging at the horizon, setting off a thousand golden reflections on the street still shining with the night’s rain. He stuck a hand in his satchel and felt for the scrolls. They were still there; he breathed a sigh of relief.

He got up with some difficulty, stretched his aching limbs and rubbed his eyes again, as if he could not quite awaken from a dream. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘Another time.’

He walked off unsteadily, and the tavern keeper stood for a while watching him bemused, until his figure dissolved in the glare of the dawning sun.

The story of Dionysius I of Syracuse is so complex that I’ve chosen at times to simplify some of the historical figures, as well as the events themselves.

I’ve purposely left out the tyrant’s numerous offspring, except for the first two, Dionysius II and Hipparinus, and little Arete. The figure of Dionysius’s young brother-in-law Dion, so noteworthy in the ancient sources that Plutarch dedicates one of his biographies to him, has been completely removed. To introduce and develop such a character more than halfway through the novel would have created narrative problems. The figure of Iolaus also embodies Dionysius’s younger brother Thearides, who thus does not appear in our story.

Apart from these considerations, the story of Dionysius I substantially reflects the accounts given in the ancient sources, especially Diodorus Siculus, who draws from both Timaeus of Tauromenium and Philistus himself, who readers will be familiar with as one of the protagonists of this novel.

The theme of the Company, which rather explicitly echoes the modern Sicilian Mafia, is not fabricated; the
hetairiai
were somewhat secret associations of citizens – attested to in historical sources – who often used intimidation or even physical elimination of their adversaries to attain their means. Such associations also existed in Greece, but it seemed to me that the extent of this phenomenon in Sicily, in such ancient times, was particularly significant.

As far as the names are concerned, I’ve used the Latin spelling where a consolidated use of such names exists; I’ve used the Greek (or Carthaginian) spelling only for rarer and less well-known names.

Some readers may be surprised that I’ve used ‘Italians’ and

‘Sicilians’ instead of ‘Italiots’ or ‘Siceliots’, but I’ve preferred to eliminate terminology which is too specialistic or academic in favour of more suggestive terms, bearing in mind that the terms I’ve chosen are the literal translation of the original words. Obviously, the words ‘Italy’ and ‘Italians’ always refer here to the southern tip of the peninsula, the area we call Calabria today.

The use of language in slang expressions, in cursing and dialogues, has been derived from theatrical comedies, which have conserved such colourful everyday expressions.

The political perspective mirrors the point of view of the story’s protagonists, and could not be otherwise, although in various cases and situations, secondary characters express values which differ from those of Greek civilization, especially regarding the politics of the Greeks of Sicily.

Dionysius emerges as the great protagonist that I believe he was. His substantial failure appears to be a consequence of the basic error he made in running the State: absolutism.

TYRANT

V
ALERIO
M
ASSIMO
M
ANFREDI
is professor of classical archaeology at the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. He has carried out a number of expeditions to and excavations in many sites throughout the Mediterranean, and has taught in Italian and international universities. He has published numerous articles and academic books, mainly on military and trade routes and exploraton in the ancient world.

He has published ten works of fiction, including the Alexander trilogy, which has been translated into twenty-four languages in thirty-eight countries, and
The Last Legion.
now a major motion picture.

He has written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world, which have been transmitted by the main television networks, and has written fiction for cinema and television as well.

He lives with his family in the countryside near Bologna.

Also by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

A
LEXANDER:
C
HILD OF A
D
REAM

A
LEXANDER:
T
HE ENDS OF THE
E
ARTH

T
HE
L
AST
L
EGION

(
Formerly
The Talisman of Troy)

E
MPIRE OF
D
RAGONS