The Arrows of Hercules

Author's Note

The main event of this story—the organization of the world's first military ordnance department by Dionysios the Great in 399 B.C.—is based upon the account in Diodorus of Sicily, Book XIV, sections 41-42. This reads in part:

... Dionysios ... gathered skilled workmen, commandeering them from the cities under his control and attracting them by high wages from Italy and Greece as well as Carthaginian territory. For his purpose was to make weapons in great numbers and every kind of missile, and also quadriremes and quinquiremes, no ship of the latter size having yet been built at that time. After collecting many skilled workmen, he divided them into groups in accordance with their skills, and appointed over them the most conspicuous citizens, offering great bounties to any who created a supply of arms. As for the armor, he distributed among them models of each kind, because he had gathered his mercenaries from many nations; for he was eager to have every one of his soldiers armed with the weapons of his people, conceiving that by such weapons his army would, for this very reason, cause great consternation, and that in battle all . of his soldiers would fight to best effect in armor to which they were accustomed. And since the Syracusans enthusiastically supported the policy of Dionysios, it came to pass that rivalry rose high in manufacture of arms. For not only was every space, such as the porticoes and back rooms of the temples as well as the gymnasia and colonnades of the market place, crowded with workers, but the making of great quantities of arms went on, apart from such public places, in the most distinguished homes.

In fact the catapult was invented at this time in Syracuse, since the ablest workmen had been gathered from everywhere into one place. The high wages as well as the numerous prizes offered the workmen who were fudged to be the best stimulated their zeal. And over and above these factors, Dionysios circulated daily among the workers, conversed with them in kindly fashion, and rewarded the most zealous with gifts and invited them to his table. Consequently the workmen brought unsurpassable devotion to the devising of many missiles and engines of war that were strange and capable of rendering great service. He also began the construction of quadriremes and quinquiremes, being the first to think of the construction of such ships ...

The subsequent story of Dionysios' Carthaginian war, including the siege of Motya, occurs further along in the same book. Diodoros is the main source for the life of Dionysios, although additional facts can be gathered from Plutarch (Dion) and Justinus. Many anecdotes were told of Dionysios by later writers like Cicero, Polyainos, and Athenaios of Naukratis, although the truth of these is open to question. These anecdotes include the story of the sword of Damokles and the story of "Damon and Pythias" (correctly, Damon and Phintias). True or false, I have used several of them in this novel.

Zopyros of Taras was a real man, although almost nothing is known about him. Iamblichos (Life of Pythagoras) lists him along with Archytas as a Tarentine Pythagorean. Biton, the author of a treatise on siege engines in the third or second century B.C., attributes a couple of rather primitive-looking catapult designs to Zopyros the Tarentine, who was more likely than not the same man. From several considerations, Zopyros' period was probably about that of the story; but nothing more is known. (This has advantages for the novelist.) It is a mere surmise that this Zopyros was related to the famous Daduchid family of Persia. This clan had several members named Zopyros, one of whom fled to Athens as told in the story.

Only a little more is known about Zopyros' contemporary Archytas, although Archytas, friend of Plato and seven times President of Taras, was one of the leading statesmen and scientists of his time. There is no positive reason to think that Archytas and Zopyros ever worked as engineers for Dionysios and invented the catapult; but nothing is known to make it impossible, either. It could have happened, which is the most that one should ask of a costume romance.

For the technical details of the early evolution of the catapult, see my book The Ancient Engineers, pp. 104-8, and my article "Master Gunner Apollonios," in Technology and Culture, II, 3 (Summer, 1961), pp. 240-44.

Besides Archytas, Damokles, Dionysios, Plato, and Zopyros, the only historical characters appearing on stage in this story are Leptines and Philistos, although many others are alluded to.

A "penny" is a hêmitetartêmorion (literally, a "half-farthing piece") or one eighth of an obolos, which was one sixth of a drachma, which was one hundredth of a pound (mna) of silver, which was one sixtieth of a talent.

Opinions differ as to whether oreichalkos ("mountain copper"), as the term was used at the time of the story, was real brass—an alloy of copper and zinc—or was instead some other yellow alloy, such as a mixture of copper and arsenic. Later, in Roman imperial times, the word meant "brass" in the modern sense.

Since the less familiar Greek names in the story have no established Anglicized pronunciations, you may say them as you please. Personally I prefer to call Dionysios die-a-NISS-ee-uss, Archytas ar-KITE-uss, Zopyros zo-PIE-russ, and Motya mo-TIE-a.

Most of the tricks employed by the witch Saphanbaal to awe her clients are described by Bishop Hippolytus in his Refutation of All Heresies. In the early third century, the bishop constituted himself a one-man Society for Psychical Research. He exposed the deceptions of magicians, such as putting lumps of alum in the fire and gluing ..fish scales to the ceiling. Of course, this was six hundred years after the time of my story. But, since some of the methods Hippolytus describes have been used by mediums right down to modern times, we may assume for the purposes of fiction that these sleights were already old when he revealed them. As for the burning glass, Aristophanes alluded to it twenty-odd years before the time of the story.