The Arrows of Hercules

Nine – MOTYA

All through the winter and spring, Zopyros made catapults. The tempo of the Arsenal speeded up. The manufacture of arms grew to such vast dimensions that smithies and woodworking shops were set up in the market place of Syracuse. They were set up even in the temenoi of temples and in the mansions of the rich. Men tramped through the streets of the Achradina bearing bundles of arrows, javelins, and spears, and bags of sling bullets. The tyrannos was ever on the prowl, inspecting, checking, and exhorting, praising here and blaming there. Normal business in Syracuse slowed to a crawl as more and more of its people were sucked into this gigantic military effort. One goldsmith was kept busy making the medals, wreaths, and crowns for Dionysios to bestow upon his champion weaponmakers.

Zopyros had settled down with his wife and stepson in a small rented house in Syracuse. Archytas, at the tyrannos' insistence, moved to the island of Ortygia. Zopyros was spared this move because the apartment house that Dionysios had ordered for his married engineers was not yet completed. Dionysios, likewise, had settled down with his two new wives, who shared the women's quarters in Dionysios' austere palace.

"He seems to manage his women as efficiently as he does everything else," said Archytas over a cup of wine after a dinner at Zopyros' house. "They say he treats them well, and they're both devoted to him, in spite of their—ah—unusual status."

"How does he do it?" asked Zopyros. "Do they sleep three in a bed, or does he take turns?"

Archytas laughed, bouncing little Hieron on his knee. "The boss hasn't told me, and of course I almost never see the girls. What I tell you is mere backstairs gossip, with which Ortygia buzzes like a beehive. The latest is that there will be a general assembly of the Syracusans a few days hence."

"What for?"

"I don't know. I suppose the Dionysios will harangue them on their duty to pay taxes cheerfully and to gird their loins against an attack by the accursed Phoenicians."

"Or he'll announce some move of his own against them. Several times lately he has sent word to ask how my catapults were coming. I think he's growing impatient."

"That fits in with some things I've heard," said Archytas. "A lot of Syracusans—and not just members of the old oligarchy, either—long for the return of self-government. They're not taken in by Dionysios' talk of 'directed democracy.' Quite a few have been slipping away to Phoenician territory, in western Sicily. It's the one place where they needn't fear murder or kidnapping by his agents. It infuriates the big one to hear of their forming a party-in-exile with impunity. But how are your catapults coming?"

"Not so well as I should like. I used to think research was frustrating; well, production is worse! When you get some timber and bronze to work with, you find that your men have taken sick, or have been moved to another project, or have disappeared. Then when you get the men lined up and ready to work, you find that your materials have been stolen by some other engineer, or won't do the job. When at last you get both men and materials ready, it's a holy day and no work may be done."

"That's life, my boy. How many catapults are completed?"

"We tested Number Eighteen today. That's not counting the defectives that were broken up for salvage. But catapults aren't my main worry right now."

"What is?"

"The missiles, of all the silly things! You'd think if the Arsenal can turn out a complex engine like a catapult, we could make a simple thing like a catapult dart. But we've got a labor dispute."

"Oimoi!"

"You see, a dart isn't exactly an arrow, nor yet is it a javelin. It's a weapon with some of the characteristics of both. So the fletcher's claim they should make the darts, and the spear makers that they should, and each gang threatens to stop all work unless its men get the job. I don't think they'd actually strike, being too much in fear of Dionysios, but they slow things up. I'd been hoping to get to work on the design for an improved catapult; but all my time has been taken up with this polluted management—threatening and wheedling and bullying and soothing a lot of overgrown children, plague take them!"

"So now you know what a boss does with his time," said Archytas.

"Speaking of Phoenicians," said Zopyros, "guess whom I saw today!"

"Whom?"

"Captain Asto, my old friend from the Muttumalein. He's in town on the first voyage of the new season."

"I should like to meet him. He sounds like a good man."

"I wanted to invite him here tonight." Zopyros glanced towards the kitchen, where Korinna was washing dishes, and lowered his voice. "But you know Korinna's feelings towards Phoenicians. In fact, this brought about the first real dispute of our married life. I argued. I showed her how illogical it was to condemn the poor man, after he'd been so nice to us on the Muttumalein. But it did no good. If I were a proper Hellenic husband, I should have said: 'Woman, serve my friend, and no nonsense!' But somehow it didn't work out that way."

"My dear fellow, you ought to know better than to argue with an emotion! Trying to change somebody's feelings by logic is like trying to kill a lion with a fly whisk. I don't say it couldn't be done, but I shouldn't recommend the method."

"Well, Master Know-all, how would you change somebody's opinion?"

"First, make the person like you. Then, because he thinks you're a good fellow, he infers that your ideas must be right. It's crazy logic, but that's how the minds of mortals work."

"That's all very well for you, who drip charm as a wrestler drips oil. But Korinna won't come around to my way of thinking, just because she's my beloved wife. She has a mind of her own. It might be different if we had a bigger house, with separate women's quarters and servants to do the dirty work. Then she wouldn't even see my guests."

"You could afford a bigger place," said Archytas, glancing around. "Not that this isn't very nice, you understand. Didn't your father settle some money on you?"

"I've only received the first installment, and I don't want to throw my little capital to the winds."

"Well, you always were a man to squeeze every drachma until the owl hooted for mercy."

"Yes, I have all the unattractive virtues: thrift, accuracy, sobriety, industry ... I suppose people are born with either charm or character, but rarely both. I fear the gods gave me character only."

Archytas grinned. "Meaning I'm a dissolute charmer?"

"No; you're one of the rare exceptions, blessed by the gods with both."

"That's good of you, old boy! Good enough for us to pour another drink. To the gods, by whose grace we were born free, not slave; men, not women; Hellenes, not barbarians!"

The market place was packed with Syracusans. As the sun rose out of the Ionian Sea, its vermilion beams crossed the Little Harbor and pierced the city, shining into narrow streets and over red-tiled roofs, painting the white walls orange. Dionysios, wearing his iron corselet over his tunic, mounted the dais in the market place. The rising sun flashed a brilliant red-gold on his armor. It glanced from the helms and cuirasses of his guards, as they stood in double rank around the dais; it glowed on the statues of polished bronze and painted marble on plinths around the market place.

"O Syracusans!" Dionysios began. "Long have I warned you of the threat from the west. I have told you of the vile moneygrubbers, sitting at their counting tables with twitching fingers and greedy eyes, who plot to destroy our precious Hellenic civilization ..."

"Here we go again," muttered Zopyros to Archytas.

After his usual rant against the Phoenicians, Dionysios spoke of the iniquity of allowing these human vermin to rule over several Greek cities in western Sicily: "... the very gods must be grieved and ashamed to see these baby-burning barbarians insolently lording it over Hellenes—Hellenes! The only truly civilized people on earth; the gods' chosen race; the enlighteners of the world! This abomination, this monstrous perversion must not be! It shall not be!"

Dionysios paused to allow his claque to work up a cheer. He continued: "I, Dionysios, have therefore sent a just and moderate demand to the so-called Senate of Carthage, that they free these cities at once. My demand, although couched in courteous terms, was rejected with scorn and insult. What policy remains us?"

The claque set up a rhythmic cry of "POLemos! POLemos! POLemos!" Soon thousands were chanting "War! War! War!" until the noise became deafening.

At last Dionysios raised his arms for silence. As the noise died away, Zopyros muttered in Archytas' ear: "So now we know!"

"My people!" cried Dionysios. "You have spoken! I, your leader, can but obey!

"The struggle may be hard. The foe, if timorous, is crafty and treacherous. If the cowardly Carthaginians have no stomach for cold steel themselves, they have money—vast piles of it—wherewith to hire hardy mercenaries: Numidians, Ligurians, Iberians, and other barbarians.

"But, whatever the danger, whatever the sacrifice, we shall vanquish! Carthage has been weakened by a plague. They will not be able to defend their Sicilian satellites. The glory will be great, and the booty even greater! 16 Hellenes! 16 Syrakosioi!"

As the crowd broke up and streamed away, Zopyros and Archytas headed for Ortygia and the Arsenal. An hour later, Zopyros was directing the work on his catapults when Archytas came to him and said in a low voice:

"I hear that mobs have formed to attack and plunder the Phoenician metics. You'd better get home to protect your family."

"Could you come with me?"

"Of course. Wait till I get my sword."

The streets of Syracuse near the bridge to Ortygia were strangely deserted. Doors were closed, windows shuttered. From a distance came a subdued roar, which rose and fell. The two men walked swiftly, speaking in low voices and looking apprehensively at the blank walls on either side of them.

As they turned a corner, the roaring suddenly swelled. Around another corner, a Phoenician in loose robe and slippers came flying, panting and pumping his arms. After him pelted a yelling horde of Syracusans, brandishing knives and clubs and screaming threats. Archytas and Zopyros flattened themselves against the wall. The mob rushed past them unheeding. They eyes of the pursuers glared; foam spattered their beards. Then they were gone.

Zopyros and Archytas looked at one another. Zopyros said: "Let's hurry. The way these people are worked up, the gods know what they'll do."

They hastened on, until at one corner a smell of smoke and a crackle of flame drew their attention. Zopyros exclaimed:

"Zeus on Olympos, those fools will burn down the city!"

A mob of a hundred-odd men had gathered in front of a small house in the middle of the block, closed and shuttered like the rest. Some were kindling torches and throwing them to the roof of the house, already blazing briskly. Smoke curled up from the closed shutters.

The door flew open, and a young man rushed out. Zopyros caught only a glimpse of the man before the mob, with a roar, closed in on him. Knives flashed in the sunlight; clubs rose and fell. The mob fell back in a semicircle from the remains on the street. Presently the door opened again.This time a woman ran out. The mob closed in again, stabbing and flailing. Then came a small boy, who was likewise done to death. At last an old woman hobbled out, but a step from the door she, too, went down.

Members of the mob, screaming and foaming, rushed about waving severed arms and legs and spattering blood in all directions.

One of them kicked a head along the street like a ball. Others dashed into the smoking entrance to try to grab house furnishings before the blazing roof fell in.

A squad of Dionysios' mercenaries appeared. They marched up to the burning house and thrust the mob back with spear shafts. Ignoring the dismembered corpses, they organized a line to bring buckets of water from the nearest fountain to quench the blaze.

Archytas and Zopyros worked free of the crowd and resumed their march towards the latter's home. Now and then they passed a mangled body lying in a pool of blood. When Archytas had trouble keeping up with Zopyros' long strides, he panted:

"Slow down, old boy, slow down! I dare not run, lest some mob of citizens think me a fugitive."

They found Zopyros' door closed on an empty street. Zopyros knocked and called until Korinna opened. They slipped inside. The closing of the door plunged the interior into gloom. Korinna embraced her husband, trembling. Hieron clung to his mother, asking endless questions, until Archytas took him aside and began to tell him a story. Zopyros got his sword out of his chest.

There came a sharp knocking. "Who is it?" said Zopyros.

"It is I, Asto! Let me in, in the name of your gods!"

Zopyros knew a moment of hideous indecision. Ordinarily he would have admitted the Phoenician without question, since he counted the man as a friend. But now he feared to endanger his family. He looking despairingly at Korinna, saying:

"It's Captain Asto. If I keep him out, he'll be killed; if I let him in, they may come for us—"

"Let him in; let him in! Quickly!"

Zopyros opened the door. Asto, sweating and panting, ducked inside. Before Zopyros could close the door, the roar of a mob rose. The horde streamed around the nearest corner. Zopyros quickly slammed the door and shot the bolt. To Asto he snapped:

"Go to the back room. Under the bed, quickly!"

There came a thunderous hammering on the door, and yells: "Open up!"

"We know he's in there!"

"Open, or we'll burn you down!"

Archytas, pale, thumbed the edge of his sword. "We shall have to open the door, or they'll fry us. Perhaps we can talk our way out of this."

With racing heart, Zopyros whipped his cloak around his left arm for a shield, threw open the door, and blocked it, sword in hand. Archytas, likewise armed, crowded up beside him.

"What do you want?" said Zopyros in a voice that he made especially deep and harsh.

The nearest members of the mob gave back at the sight of the swords. Somebody shouted: "There's a polluted Phoenician in there! We saw him go in! We want him!"

"Phoenician? Nonsense! There's no such person here."

Archytas added: "We opened the door to look out when we heard the noise. You only saw us close the door. Your Phoenician ran that way." He pointed.

"Then, by Herakles, let us in to see for ourselves!"

Archytas said: "Are you mad? Don't you know who we are? We're the President's chief engineers, and this house is full of his secret devices."

An argument broke out among the crowd. Some said yes, these men were really governmental officials. Others said no, they were lying, and in any case a search should be made.

Zopyros glanced up and clown the street. If only Segovax were to appear at the head of a squad of soldiers! But there was no sign of help. Segovax would be out on the archery range, drilling his catapult teams.

A lean, shabby youth with eyes like a dead fish circulated among the rear ranks, shouting: "Go on! What are you afraid of? We know the moneygrubber is in there. Even if he isn't, these men may be Carthaginian spies. Anyway, they'll have some loot worth taking. Go on! Go on!"

Every time the youth got several men organized to push forward, they drove those in the front rank closer to the door. When Zopyros and Archytas flourished their swords in the loot-hungry faces of the foremost, they pushed back, so that there was a continual stir in the mob. All the while Archytas kept up a running fire of argument, firm but not ill tempered.

Zopyros had an inspiration. Still facing the mob, he called: "Korinna! You know my burning glass? Get it for me."

Presently he felt the lens thrust into his left hand. He held it up in front of his left eye and called to the youthful agitator in the rear: "Ed, fish-face! You in the blue shirt!"

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you! You don't believe we have secret devices here, eh? Well, here's one. It's a device for casting the evil eye. Shall I show you how it works?"

He stared through the glass at the blurred image of the youth, who gave back with a cry: "Don't you dare point that thing at me! By Zeus, I'll kill you if you do! Put it away! Turn it away from me!"

As the young man spoke, he seized another of the crowd and hid behind his body. The second man struggled and whirled the youth in front of him in turn. The youth freed himself, dodged about among the crowd, and ran down the street, shouting threats and obscenities. Several others ran witlessly after him. Another man led a group off in the opposite direction, crying:

"Follow me! I'll show you some real Punics with lots of loot!"

The rest of the crowd hastened off, singly and in groups, glancing back apprehensively at Zopyros and his glass. Soon they were all gone.

Safely back in the house, Zopyros and Archytas sat down weakly, the latter mopping his forehead. Zopyros said: "I don't usually drink in the morning, but ... Ah, thank you, darling. One for Archytas, too. Hieron, fetch Daddy that lamp."

Zopyros touched a pine splinter to the hearth embers, blew until the splinter caught fire, and used the flaming splinter to light the lamp.

"That was a cursed near thing," muttered Archytas. "By the Silver Egg, I haven't been so frightened since old man Pelias caught us stealing his plums and set that great savage dog on us!"

Zopyros patted Korinna, saying: "You were brave to let Asto in, considering how you feel about his people."

"Asto? I wasn't thinking of him!"

"You weren't?"

"No, I was thinking of his family in Motya. I know what it's like to be a lone widow with a child to bring up."

A plaintive voice came from the bedroom: "Please, my lords and lady, is it safe to come out now?"

"No; stay where you are," said Zopyros. "We'll call you when things quiet down. Son! Carry this cup of wine in to Asto; he doubtless needs it."

The day wore on in anxious waiting. Now and then one or the other would crack open a shutter for a quick look outside. Sometimes all seemed quiet. Then again they might hear a mob roar, sometimes near and sometimes far, or the crackle of a burning house. Smoke drifted overhead in thin clouds and streamers.

Late in the afternoon, a commotion reverberated in the street outside. Mingled with the usual crowd noises was the clatter of soldiers' gear. Zopyros peered out the crack between the shutters and saw a squad of mercenaries driving a mob before them. When one of the tardiest mobsters turned with a snarl on the soldier nearest him, the soldier thrust at him, jerked the spear out of his body, and strode on over the corpse.

A big, bronze-colored mustache caught Zopyros' eye. "Segovax!" he shouted, flinging wide the shutters.

"Eh there, Zopyros my lad!" said Segovax, striding across the street to the open window. "In a little while the city will be as safe as a nursery. Himself has given orders to put down the shindy, if we have to kill a few spalpeens to teach them their civic duties."

"Too bad you weren't here this morning, when they nearly mobbed my house!"

"Why would they be doing that, and you as Greek as olive oil?"

"An old friend of ours lies hidden here." Zopyros added in a loud whisper: "Asto of Motya!"

Segovax grinned. "Not a word of what you're saying have I heard. And now I must be off after my men. Good luck to all!"

After Segovax had clattered off, Zopyros called: "Come out, Asto!"

A disheveled Asto appeared with lint in his beard. He threw himself to his knees, touched the floor with his forehead, and kissed Zopyros' hand, swearing eternal gratitude. When he turned towards Archytas, the latter said:

"Oh, get up, man! Don't make so much of simple thanks. We'd better start thinking how to get you home safely."

"The first thing is to make a Hellene of him," said Zopyros. "Off with the Punic cap, Asto. I'll lend you a chiton. My shirts are too long for you, but who cares? Your hair must be cut. And we must get rid of those earrings. Must we file them off?"

"No. You pry the points apart."

'Where's your ship?" asked Archytas.

Asto spread his hands. "I do not know, noble sirs. It was in the Little Harbor. But the company's orders are, in case of civic disturbance, to put to sea at once with such of the crew as can reach the ship in time."

"We'll look in the harbor to make sure. If the ship is gone, you have another long muleback ride ahead of you."

The next morning a Hellenized Asto set out on muleback for the Phoenician-ruled western tip of Sicily. Zopyros, having seen him safely out of Syracuse, arrived at the Arsenal during the lunch hour. A messenger boy told him to report without delay to Dionysios in the palace.

He found the tyrannos in his courtyard, sitting at a long table with his secretary and Philistos, examining rolls of papyrus and piles of waxed tablets. Dionysios said: "Sit down, O Zopyros. How are the catapults coming?"

"We are putting the finishing touches on Number Twenty, sir."

"That's a long way from the fifty you promised to have ready for me by now."

"We've been turning them out as fast as circumstances allowed, sir. In the past month we have completed—let me think—six."

"How many can you make in the next three months?"

"At the present rate, eighteen. As the men become more skillful, we might even turn out twenty."

"If I gave you more workmen, could you make thirty in that time?"

"Possibly. But I don't think additional workmen alone would do it."

"Why not?"

"I should need more space in the Arsenal for the men to work in, and of course more materials. Moreover, there will be some delay in breaking in new workmen. Few have ever worked on anything so complicated; it's hard to make them realize that every part must exactly fit every other."

Dionysios looked at Philistos, who said: "I don't think Dinon's project—that big shield on wheels—will amount to anything. We might as well close it out and give Zopyros the space Dinon's team now occupies."

"So be it," said Dionysios, nodding to his secretary. To Zopyros he said: "I'm also giving you Abdashtarth of Tunis as an assistant. And speaking of Phoenicians, I hear you had a little trouble yesterday."

"Nothing serious, sir," said Zopyros, impressed by the tyrannos' minute knowledge of his subjects' affairs. "There was a lot of damage in the city, though."

"No more than one would expect. The same thing is happening in the other Siceliot cities. It's a long-overdue purge."

Zopyros said: "May I ask a question about your policies, sir?"

"You may ask. I may not choose to answer."

"Why, then, did you wait until late afternoon to order the soldiers to put down the mobs? Many innocent people were killed; and besides, when the Syracusans set fire to all those Phoenician houses, it's just the gods' own luck that the air was calm. On a windy day the whole city would have burned."

Dionysios combed his beard with his fingers. "Let me tell you something about your fellow man, Zopyros. I am informed that some philosophers believe man to be descended from the lower animals. I think they are right, because of the qualities I see in the people around me. Your average man is full of impulses to do good, to be brave, to sacrifice himself for others, and so on; but he is also full of depraved and selfish urges to seek the pleasure of the moment, to abuse the weak, to steal and torture and kill. Sometimes one set of impulses rules; sometimes the other. Why does a company that has fought long and bravely, in the next battle, turn tail and run like rabbits? Because the men have drained dry their supply of bravery. So they follow their animal instinct, to save themselves at all costs.

"Now, as you know, I keep a firm hold upon the Syracusans. I expect much from them: civic virtue and orderly conduct in peace, courage and endurance and discipline in war. But all the time I know that their impulses in the opposite direction are building up, like the pressure of air in a bellows when you stop up its nozzle. These urges must have an outlet—or they will make an outlet for themselves, sooner or later, willy-nilly. I deem it better to unstopper the bellows by letting them slaughter a few worthless Punics than to have my bellows burst. People need a disturbance like this from time to time, to stir them up and let them satisfy their animal lusts, as the marobia stirs up the mud and seaweed along the Sicilian coasts."

Zopyros said: "And the fact that a lot of unoffending people were torn to pieces doesn't matter to you?"

"Not really. A great ruler cannot afford to be squeamish about the fate of individuals; and I, Dionysios, am a great ruler. Would you deny that?"

"No, sir!" said Zopyros emphatically, thinking the while: Dear Herakles, what does the fellow expect me to say when I'm in his power? Dionysios continued:

"So, you see, if a ruler took no action lest it cause harm or death, he would never accomplish anything. He would gain no glory. Furthermore, his very inertia would tempt others to impose upon him. In the end he would have to fight anyway, and just as many men would die. Besides, most of those slain yesterday were foreigners. It's not as if there had been a massacre of Hellenes.

"The trouble with you technicians is that you travel too much and study too much. Travel and study weaken a man's natural loyalty to his city and his race."

"If my natural loyalty, as you call it, were as strong as all that, I should have remained in my native city. So would your other engineers; and thus, sir, there would be none here to serve you."

"True. But here we are; and you and I must make the best of it.

And now I have other business, Zopyros. You know my wishes in the matter of the catapults; do your best to meet them. Rejoice!"

One holy day, Zopyros crossed the bridge to Ortygia and approached the Arsenal, which was deserted save for a single sentry outside. He meant to examine his catapults and to think up ways to speed the work. At one end of the building, under the gallery, piles of ship's stores had been cleared out to make room for his completed catapults. Zopyros strolled down the rank of deadly war engines, twanging a bowstring here and working a lever there. He felt the sort of pride in these contrivances that he supposed a poet felt when he saw his completed epic reduced to papyrus and ink.

As he neared the end of the row, he noticed something odd about one of the catapults. There were several thin yellow streaks on its timbers, at right angles to their long axes, as if freshly painted with a fine brush. When he looked more closely, his heart almost stopped beating. The lines were the kerfs of saw cuts; the yellow color, that of freshly exposed wood. A small pile of fine sawdust, lying on the floor under each of the cuts, confirmed his suspicions.

The damaged catapult stood third from the end. Zopyros hastily moved to the last two. They had also been sawn; in fact, these cuts were more numerous and ran deeper into the wood than the first cuts he had observed. It was as if the saboteur had tired or been frightened away before he finished his work.

Wild with fury and excitement, Zopyros ran all the way to the Ortygian house that Archytas shared with several other single engineers and foremen. In response to Zopyros' knocks and shouts, his friend appeared, draped in a blanket, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"By the Dog of Egypt!" he said. "Can't a man sleep late even on a holy day?"

"Come quick! Some abandoned sodomite has been at my catapults! Three have been ruined!"

"Zeus almightly! One moment till I dress."

Half an hour later, Zopyros and Archytas returned to the Arsenal, accompanied by Pyres, Lithodomos, Philistos, Dionysios, and the tyrannos' bodyguards. They examined the damaged catapults.

"Zeus blast the dung-eating rascal!" growled Dionysios. "Has anybody searched the Arsenal yet, to make sure he is not hiding behind a coil of rope?" When the others said they had not, Dionysios turned to his bodyguards. "Search every digit of this building, you two! Telesinus, take the ground floor; Vertico, do the balconies!"

"But, sir—" began one guard.

"Never mind my safety!" snapped Dionysios. "Hop to it!" He turned to Philistos. "Carthaginian spies, don't you think?"

"Could be," said Philistos.

"I know who done it!" said Lithodomos. "It's those fornicating Punic engineers you hired, boss. Why don't you drown 'em all?"

Dionysios said: "I will, if they deserve it. What is your evidence, Lithodomos?"

"Everybody knows what treacherous bastards these men are, and naturally they'd sympathize with Carthage. They've got motive and opportunity. What more do you want?"

"I should want a lot more before I condemned them; good engineers are too precious to execute on mere suspicion. Did you see one of them sawing away?"

"No, but I know they done it. It stands to reason—"

"Did you even see one leaving the Arsenal with a saw in his hand? No? And suppose one of them is guilty; how about the others? There are ten of them. If all ten had been working at the job, they would have done much more damage than this." Dionysios stood silent for a moment, then resumed: "Let us speak of things we know about at first hand; amid too much wrangling, truth is often lost. Zopyros, how has your assistant conducted himself?"

"Abdashtarth? He couldn't be better. He doesn't like Carthage any better than you do, because the Carthaginians squeeze tribute out of his native city."

"What would you say of the others, Pyres?"

Pyres shrugged. "They're like all engineers. Some are better than others, but they all turn in a good day's work. I have no grounds for suspecting any one of them."

"Bugger that stuff!" cried Lithodomos. "You're a bunch of babies! You know cursed well they're only waiting a chance to burn down the Arsenal, or the shipyards, or the whole city. If they haven't been caught at treason yet, it's because they're too clever. By holding off, they hope to make us overconfident and careless. This is just a taste of what they'll do if we let them run around loose. Drown the whoresons, I—"

"You'll drown my assistant over my dead body!" cried Zopyros.

"Sure! You stand up for him, because you're not a real Hellene yourself. You're part Persian, so you take the barbarians'—"

"O President!" said Zopyros. "If you really want to win your war, get rid of the man who's done more to hinder the work of this Arsenal—the man who has cost us more production—than all the spies and saboteurs put together!"

"Who is that?"

"Lithodomos!" Zopyros pointed. "He's been driving all of us crazy ever since you appointed him Arsenal master. You know he got that Babylonian stargazer in here and fouled up the work for a ten-day. He tried to force me to choose one catapult for production when I knew another model was better. Everything one can do wrong, he does wrong, and spends his spare time sneering at us engineers because we're not stupid illiterates like—"

"Why, you dog-faced, temple-robbing—" yelled Lithodomos, and launched a long swing with his right fist. In an instant they were slugging toe to toe, cursing and panting. Zopyros had the advantage of reach and age; but the burly Lithodomos gave as good as he got.

"Separate them!" said Dionysios to his guards, who had just returned from their fruitless search of the Arsenal. Dropping their spears, each guard seized one of the fighters from behind, pinioned his arms, and pulled him away from his opponent.

"That'll cost each of you two clays' pay," said Philistos.

As Zopyros and Lithodomos, panting, continued to mutter insults, Archytas said: "O President, may I speak?"

"Go ahead, Archytas," said Dionysios. "You seem to have a cooler head than many."

"I just wanted to say that this talk about who's the saboteur is idle chatter, because it could have been one of many people. True, it might be a Carthaginian spy, or a Phoenician engineer. But it might also have been a Greek engineer jealous of Zopyros' success. It might be a workman, trying to assure himself more employment.

It might be some citizen of Syracuse who doesn't want to fight the Phoenicians or who doesn't like your rule, sir. We may never learn the truth, unless you believe in oracles."

Dionysios smiled. "I find it politically expedient to let each man think I believe in him and all to think I believe in the gods. Now, have our bold Hector and fleet Achilles cooled down enough to be turned loose?"

The soldiers released Zopyros and Lithodomos, who stood silently, rubbing their bruises.

"Since you two are so eager to fight," continued Dionysios, "you shall have your chance. I appoint both of you to my staff for the coming campaign against Motya. Lithodomos, you shall be quartermaster, responsible for seeing that the men are fed. Zopyros, you shall be my adviser on engineering questions, especially those having to do with catapults. Each shall have the rank of captain. You will draw uniforms from the armorer. Part of your pay will be withheld to pay for the armor. Now, Zopyros, how does the damage to these catapults affect your production schedule?"

"I can patch up the third one, sir. The others will have to be scrapped for salvage. Luckily the saboteur didn't damage the cross-heads, which are the hardest parts to make."

"Can you have your fifty completed by the end of Mounychion*(*Approximately April)?"

"I'm sure I can reach forty, sir. I'm not certain about the rest. But, at the present rate of production, the number of catapults won't be the limiting factor."

"What do you mean?"

"We shall be short of wagons to haul them in. At the rate the wain-wright is going, I doubt you'll have twenty-five of those special wagons by the end of Mounychion."

Dionysios fingered his beard. "Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"Sir, I didn't know you wanted to haul the whole lot of catapults to the other end of Sicily, and so soon! Besides, the wainwright is not under my orders."

Dionysios sighed. "Even I cannot think of everything. Well, keep up production. Any surplus catapults can be mounted defensively on the walls of Syracuse. I shall order double guards around this building. Pyres, you are now master of the Arsenal. I'm putting the wainwright under your orders; try to speed him up. Lithodomos will start at once on his new duty, gathering food stores for the campaign. Philistos, round up all the soldiers who have stood sentry go here since yesterday. They probably know nothing, or we should have had word; but I mean to question them anyway. Rejoice, all! Stay, Zopyros; I have more to say to you."

The group broke up. Dionysios, followed by Zopyros and the bodyguards, went out of the Arsenal. Dionysios questioned the sentry, but the man had seen nothing. The tyrannos turned away and strolled along the edge of the Spring of Arethousa. To Zopyros he said musingly:

"A ruler cannot afford to take so casual a view of treason as our friend Archytas seems to. Perhaps he is right in thinking we shall never find the culprit, but I mean to try." Dionysios struck his open hand with his fist. "But now? The villain was not so obliging as to drop his wallet at the site of the crime. What I need, even more than new engines of war, is an infallible method of uncovering spies and conspirators. While I have little faith in the supernatural, I would not overlook any means ..." He turned to stare at Zopyros through narrowed eyelids. "I understand you had some experience with a witch in Africa?"

"Yes, sir; I spent a day and a night in her lair."

"Did she give you any reason to think that such a person could help us?"

"No, sir, she did not; although she mightily impressed the other Phoenicians who came to her sitting."

"How did she do that?"

Zopyros told about Saphanbaal's little tricks—the alum in the fire and the fish scales on the roof of the cave. "... and when they asked her questions, she gave the same sort of artful, ambiguous answers that our oracles give. You know, when the Pythia of Delphoi told King Croesus:

she carefully neglected to state which kingdom would fall. But such was the sitters' faith that half the time they almost answered the questions themselves. When Saphanbaal hesitated, they prompted her. They didn't try to expose her chicaneries; they wanted to believe."

"Hm," said Dionysios, tugging at his beard. "So the effectiveness of your witch lies, not in the power she actually possesses, but in that which her followers impute to her, eh?"

"That's it exactly, sir."

"One might say the same of rulers like me—albeit not in public, of course."

"You mean," said Zopyros, "you may never find an infallible means of detecting conspiracies; but, if everybody in Syracuse believed you to have such a method—"

Dionysios snapped his fingers. "You've thrown three sixes!" He spoke to his bodyguards: "Lag behind us ten paces, boys. I would speak in confidence to this man." He turned back to Zopyros. "If my people thought I had such power, the guilty might cither give themselves away by their actions or, at least, refrain from further treasonable acts. Is that what you mean?"

"I don't doubt it, O President. The Phoenicians have a saying: 'The guilty flee where no man pursueth.' "

Dionysios chuckled. With a cynical smile on his handsome features, he said: "Zopyros, my boy, how would you like a pound of silver for doing absolutely nothing?"

"Wiry—ah—sir, money is always useful ..."

"Especially to a thrifty fellow like you. By doing nothing, I mean simply keeping your mouth shut. To most of our fellow Hellenes, that were a harder task than walking on red-hot sword blades; but you do not seem to be a typical Hellene. Can you do it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good! Hold yourself in readiness at the next engineers' banquet, which is—let me think—six nights hence."

Zopyros and Archytas sat on the edge of the Spring of Arethousa. Archytas said: "I say, are you really going to join his army?"

"I think so. It's a chance to get a wider variety of engineering experience."

"Take care that, in grasping at the shadow, you lose not the substance."

"Don't you approve?"

"Approve? I think you're crazy!

Why risk your gore for a city other than your own, and moreover one ruled by a tyrannos instead of by its citizens?"

"It doesn't sound very risky, being on the boss's staff. The catapults should be out of bowshot."

"Yes, until Dionysios tells you: 'Captain So-and-so has just been killed; Captain Zopyros, take his place and lead his company up the scaling ladders!' And whoever told you Dionysios stays back out of the fighting? Mere in Syracuse he's cautious to timidity, wearing that iron vest, accompanied everywhere by guards, and having all visitors searched. But in the field, they say, he's quite the dashing hero."

"One's fate is in the hands of the gods."

"Moreover, the divine Pythagoras would never approve. What have you got against those poor devils in Motya?"

"Nothing, but I don't think my presence will add much to their danger. What else could I do, Archytas? The Dionysios is not a man to take no for an answer."

"You could gather up your family, slip quietly out of town, and go back home to T'aras. Kteson is in disgrace, so there shouldn't be any trouble from that source."

"That's craven advice! Is this what you plan to do?"

"I can't," said Archytas.

"Why not?"

"Because I haven't yet persuaded Klea's father to give her to me in marriage."

"Ah, love!"

"Look who's talking! But seriously, aren't you letting your head be turned by the pretty officer's uniform?"

"Oh, I admit I shall look rather well in a crested helm. But the real reason I'm joining is the chance to get ahead in my profession. Any city would hire a man who had been engineering officer on the staff of the great Dionysios in one of his campaigns."

"Well, it's your fate. I still think you'll be sorry. You haven't considered the most ominous possibility of all."

"That I shall be killed? One must take some chances—"

"No. I mean that, if you survive, you may become one of the big boss's cronies."

"What's so bad about that?"

Archytas smiled. "Then you will have to listen to Dionysios' endless recitals of his mediocre poetry, and you'll have to act enthusiastic about it!"

Korinna was much perturbed by the news of Zopyros' new post. She clung to him, crying that he would be killed. When Zopyros reassured her, she said:

"But Hieron and I shall be here all alone! You can't go off, leaving us in a strange city, with hardly any acquaintances, and no man to watch out for us in time of trouble!"

"I can move you to Ortygia. Some quarters in the fortress will be vacated when the officers set out on the expedition. I'm sure I can make arrangements with the President."

"You don't understand, Zopyros dear. Ortygia may be safe against outside attack, but it's full of those ruffianly foreign soldiers. Who's to protect me against them?"

"Most of the mercenaries will be away on the campaign, darling, and you can always call upon Archytas."

"Oh, I know he's your friend; but he's too fat and sleepy to be of much use in a brawl."

"You'd be surprised, if you ever saw him in a brawl."

"Well then, why don't you take us home to Messana until the war is over? At least I should be among my own people."

Zopyros frowned in thought. "I know you'd be happy there. But— have you ever taken a good look at the city wall of Messana?"

"I've often walked along it. Why?"

"Haven't you noticed how ruinous it is?"

"I did once sprain an ankle on it."

"And it's of obsolete brick, not up-to-date stone. Even if it were of stone, it's too low and too narrow for an effective defense. Under modern conditions of war, you might as well camp in the open fields as to count upon the wall of Messana to protect you. You would flee the ashes to fall into the coals."

"But Messana isn't at war with anybody ..."

They argued far into the night. Zopyros flatly refused to send Korinna and the child to Messana, and she likewise refused to promise not to go thither if her father sent for her. Thus, for several days, a certain acerbity entered their relationship, since, despite their ardent love, each was a person of strong will and opinions.

At the next engineers' banquet, when the time came for awards, Dionysios' voice boomed across the hall: "You all know Zopyros the Tarentine, the brightest star in our crown of inventive genius. I had thought that the invention of the catapult were triumph enough for one lifetime. But no, he has now surpassed himself. His latest godlike inspiration is an infallible method whereby a ruler can detect all spies, saboteurs, and conspiracies against the government." Smiling, Dionysios let his gaze rove slowly over the audience. "Naturally, I cannot reveal the precise method. Suffice it to say that the device is so simple that any of you would kick yourselves for not having thought of it. O Zopyros, stand forth and receive from me, Dionysios, one pound of silver—one hundred freshly minted drachmai!"

As Zopyros, his face carefully composed, made his way forward, Dionysios loosed the cord at the mouth of a bag he held. Dipping one hand into the bag, he brought out a handful of silver coins and allowed them to trickle back, jingling, into the bag. They glittered in the lamplight like a metallic waterfall.

Although the applause was adequate, Zopyros sensed a slight constraint about it. In fact, more than one engineer turned his head this way and that, staring with manifest unease at his neighbors.

The following day, an officer of the mercenaries, followed by four soldiers, came through the Arsenal. The officer stopped to question every engineer and foreman in turn. When he came to the catapult section, he asked Zopyros:

"Have you seen Alexis the Velian today?"

"No."

"Did you see him after he left the engineers' banquet last night?"

"No."

"Has he said anything to you lately, indicating that he might be leaving?"

"I haven't spoken to the man. What's this all about?"

"I can't tell you that," said the officer, moving on to the next section.

Later, Zopyros sought out Archytas, who as usual was a mine of the latest gossip. Archytas said: "Absolutely, old boy; he's gone. He must have scooped up his money and his most precious possessions as soon as he got home last night and bolted, letting himself down from the city wall by a rope. I guess that settles the question of who sawed up your catapults."

"So he kept his grudge after all, despite his pleasant words?"

"Evidently. As I reconstruct the events, they went like this: Dionysios, I hear, refused to authorize any more superwarships, because the two that Alexis built did not show enough advantage over the standard trireme to justify their extra cost. Much disappointed, Alexis brooded over the unfairness of your success. One night, getting a little drunk, he determined to do something about it. It was no trick to slip into the Arsenal, with only a single sentry to dodge ..."

"Many good-bys to him! I wonder where he's gone?"

Archytas shrugged. "He'll probably turn up in Carthage, or Athens, or the gods know where, full of bright ideas and prepared to give a good kick in tire balls to anyone who stands in the way of his rise. He's shrewd enough to avoid the places where Dionysios could lay hands upon him. Why, are you nursing a grudge, too?"

"Not I! I was furious at first, of course. But he did me no real harm, and I can't be bothered with such people. I care much more about carrying out my projects and saving up my pay. I have no time for enemies."

"What, no implacable hatreds or lifelong feuds? What kind of Hellene do you call yourself? If all Hellenes felt as you do, we should rule the world!"

Flowers still bloomed along the roads that wound among the fields and groves of western Sicily, when Captain Zopyros cantered up to the Bay of Motya. He approached the bay by the road from Akragas and Selinous. He had ridden along the southern coast, where huge limestone crags, eroded into fantastic shapes, stood up from the plain like the half-buried skulls of long-dead monsters.

Since much of Zopyros' work was done on horseback, he wore a horseman's high leather boots. His cuirass, worn over a padded tunic, was made up of several layers of linen canvas, molded on a form and glued together. If less effective in stopping spears and arrows, such a defense was much lighter than a foot soldier's bronzen corselet. His sword was longer than a foot soldier's, too. Behind him cantered two mules, one of them bearing a hired servant and the other his shield and baggage.

On Zopyros' left, the bay's calm waters opened out; beyond the bay, the dunes and scrub of the Aigithallos Peninsula lined the horizon. Along the mainland, where Zopyros rode, hundreds of tents were ranked. They stood in clumps, with gaps between the groups where Dionysios had drawn off most of his forces to ravage the Phoenician lands of western Sicily. The bay swarmed with hundreds of tubby merchant ships, some moored, others moving slowly under sail and oar as they brought in supplies to Dionysios' army or departed to fetch other loads. Drawn up on the beach were rows of triremes, each one chocked and braced lest it tip or slide.

The island of Motya rose on the left, in the midst of the bay. Nothing was visible at this distance but its frowning walls and the tops of its towering apartment houses. Northward, where a narrow spur of land reached out towards the island, Zopyros saw the coming and going of antlike specks. As he rode on, the specks grew into men bearing burdens to and fro. The Motyans had torn up most of the causeway linking them to the shore. Now, a detachment of Dionysios' troops patiently carried baskets of stone and dirt out to the broken end of the causeway, dumped them, and went back for more.

At last Zopyros reached the big headquarters tent at the northern end of the bay. Back from the shore, a horde of carpenters, with a great din of hammers and saws, were assembling ram tortoises and belfries—movable siege towers. Engineering troops dug trenches in their search for the leaden pipe that carried fresh water under the bay to the island of Motya. Zopyros found Leptines on the shore, watching the rebuilding of the causeway. He delivered the tyrannos' orders:

"... he wants the triremes launched as soon as possible, sir, to meet Himilko's fleet. He also plans to put every man available to work on the causeway, to make it several times as wide as it now is, so that he can move his siege engines upon it. He wishes you to supply each man with a basket or other container for carrying earth."

Leptines, who looked much like his brother Dionysios, smiled. Zopyros had always found him kindly and good-natured, without Dionysios' drive and cold passion for power and authority.

"Well done, Zopyros," said Leptines. "It's too late to start launching the ships tonight. We'll get at it in the morning. As for baskets, I don't know where I could get so many on short notice."

Zopyros said: "If I may suggest it, sir, a man can pile quite a load of stones or sand on a shield, and two men can carry it."

"Excellent! My brother made no mistake when he gave you the job of proposing ways and means. Good night."

Zopyros learnt that he was to share a tent near the headquarters tent with several other staff officers. He left his servant stowing his gear, turned his horse over to a groom, and set out on foot for the artillery park. Thirty-three catapults had started from Syracuse on their special wagons. Three had failed to make the journey. Two wagons had broken down; a third catapult had been damaged when its wagon upset. They were supposed to follow shortly, but Zopyros guessed that tire drivers would find excuses for delaying their arrival until after the battle.

"Where's Colonel Segovax?" he asked a soldier.

"That big tent, sir," said the soldier, pointing.

Zopyros found Segovax sitting on his bunk with a goblet of wine in his hands. The Celt looked up blearily.

"By the horns of Cernunnos, 'tis my old friend Zopyros! How's the brave Tarentine lad, and him so handsome and all in his new soldier suit?"

"I'm worn down to a stump," said Zopyros. "Could you—"

"Of course, of course, have yourself a drink! Here, let me pour. In the tent we don't observe the niceties of rank with our old friends."

Segovax hiccuped. "Here ye are. My lad, you are beholding the soldier's ruination, the which is sitting on his arse and doing nothing, day after day. No wonder we take to the drink."

"Here's to ruination!"

"Here's to indeed. But—I thought you were with his honor, ravaging the territories of the accursed Phoenicians. What brings you back to us?"

"I'm carrying messages to Leptines. The Dionysios arrives tomorrow."

"Did he take all them cities he was talking about?"

"No; he's raised the siege of Entella and is marching this way. He learnt that the suphete Himilko is bringing a fleet from Carthage to relieve Motya."

"Is that the fellow who attacked Syracuse? We've had all sorts of rumors, like he's captured the city and killed everybody in it."

"No; Himilko only raided the harbor of Syracuse. He sank many merchantmen but never even tried to land. He sailed back to Carthage to refit, and now he's headed here. How are the catapults?"

"The catapults are fine, but the men are not. It's the idleness. I'd like to give them a bit of target practice, but we can't shoot out into the bay for fear of using up our darts, and we can't shoot along the shore for fear of hitting our men. Did you bring any orders, like?"

"They were for Leptines, but I don't mind passing on the one that concerns you. The big boss wants the catapults set up along the shore, between the beached triremes, at the narrow entrance to the bay. He wants half of them on this side and half on the Aigithallos."

"Hm." Segovax stroked his mustache. "Did you by any chance bring me a written order?"

"No. It's all in my head."

"You mean to say I'm after spending hours and hours, when I could have been wooing fair lassies and drinking good wine, learning to make them little marks that look like fishhooks and pitchforks and bedbugs, so I could read an order—and now you're just saying it out of the mouth of you?"

"Don't give up, old boy; you'll find use for your reading and writing yet. I suggest you alert your men, but for Hera's sake don't move any catapults until you get the command from Leptines. Dionysios is fussy about who gives orders to whom. Working through official channels, he calls it."

The next morning, a southerly duster blew up, coating men and materials with African desert dust, cutting vision to less than a bowshot, and kicking up a powerful surf at the entrance to the bay. As a result, only a few triremes had been launched by late afternoon, when Dionysios' army marched up the coastal road to take its place in the vast encampment.

First came mounted scouts, lightly armed and unarmored, galloping hither and yon, yelling and making their horses curvet and caracole. Then came a thousand regular cavalry. At their head rode Dionysios astride a huge black steed, looking like a god in his polished iron armor and flowing crimson cloak. Since no ordinary horse could have borne all that weight, it was said that this stallion had been smuggled out of the Persian Empire, where such horses were bred for the mighty cavalry of the Immortals.

Following the horse came the foot. Here marched, to the tune of flutes, citizens of Syracuse and allies from many Siceliot cities. Here, too, came thousands of barbarian mercenaries: Sikelians, Lucanians, Campanians, and Samnites. There was even a battalion of trousered Celts from the valley of the Padus, in the extreme north of Italy, with sweeping mustaches, huge elliptical shields on their arms, bundles of javelins over their shoulders, and long swords at their sides.

Dionysios tried as far as possible to equip each troop of mercenaries with its national arms. He believed that the men would fight better with familiar weapons than with strange, if superior, Greek equipment. Behind the long lines of swinging kilts and gleaming crested helms of the foot, another thousand horsemen brought up the rear.

Waiting in the anteroom of the headquarters tent, Zopyros overheard Dionysios angrily demanding of his brother why more of the ships had not yet been launched. He heard Leptines' soothing replies. He ate with the other staff officers and turned in early. Although still bone-tired from the campaign, he could not sleep for a long time. Swirling round and round in his mind were ideas for improved catapults, homesickness for his family, and worry as to whether he was right in soldiering for Dionysios.

It seemed to Zopyros that he had hardly fallen asleep when the trumpets sounded the alarm. When he emerged from his tent, men were looking and pointing towards Mount Eryx, where glowed a red spark against the lightening sky. Dionysios—Zopyros remembered with the little knot in his stomach that always preceded a battle—had commanded a watch fire laid on the mountain to signal the appearance of Himilko's fleet.

During the next few hours, the staff officers rushed about in Dionysios' wake like hounds after a stag. Along with the others who attended the tyrannos, Zopyros ran errands and relayed orders down the chain of command. He gave advice about catapults when asked for it.

The catapults had been set up between the triremes along the beach. Later, at Dionysios' command, hundreds of Cretan archers and Balearic slingers climbed up to the decks of these ships and readied their missiles.

Men began pointing and shouting: "Here they come! See the polluted Punics!" The masts of Himilko's fleet formed a picket fence along the horizon—a fence whose palings bobbed and swayed with the motion of the ships' hulls. Soon the hulls themselves rose over the curve of the sea.

The oncoming ships drew slowly nearer. To the watchers on the shore, it looked as if each ship, seen bow on, had only three oars on each side, rising and falling in perfect rhythm. By counting the masts, Zopyros estimated that Himilko had about a hundred galleys—half the number that Dionysios commanded. Although Dionysios' soldiers and sailors, pulling on ropes to rhythmic chants, were launching galleys as fast as they could, most of the Greek ships still lay helpless on shore.

Closer and closer came the Carthaginians. Dionysios, with his staff trailing behind him, galloped around the northern end of the bay and out on the Aigithallos. The tyrannos cursed as the Carthaginian galleys broke formation to dash after a number of Greek merchant ships in the open sea. Some were under sail; others were anchored in the shallows. Running or standing, the enemy caught them all. Some were rammed and sunk; others were boarded and towed away, while Punic marines tossed overboard the bodies of the slaughtered crews. Hundreds of naked Greek sailors, who had dived from the doomed ships and swum for shore, staggered out of the surf along the peninsula.

The sun rose higher. The Carthaginian ships, like an army of intelligent centipedes, crept back together. Signal flags fluttered; trumpets called across the water. The ships formed a huge rectangle, ten by ten, and crawled into the entrance to the bay.

"Zeus blast them!" snarled Dionysios, sitting on his huge horse. "If we had half our ships in the water, we could surround the head of their column and crush it, as the Hellenes crushed the Persian fleet at Salamis."

Since the bay curved sharply to the north, behind the sheltering peninsula of the Aigithallos, the Carthaginian fleet made a slow column-left as it entered the narrows. Inside the bay, Dionysios' remaining merchant ships struggled slowly northward under sail and oar, towards the far end of the bay behind Motya. In the meantime, the few Syracusan triremes afloat formed a line across the bay to protect the merchantmen from the oncoming enemy.

Dionysios, peering beneath his palm at the Punic fleet, said to his staff: "They think, if they stay in the midst of the channel, we cannot reach them with missiles from shore. Soon they shall learn differently. Go, Zopyros, and give the command to shoot when you think it best."

Zopyros galloped down the peninsula to the narrows at the entrance to the bay, where half the catapults were posted. Cantering down the line of ships and war engines, he raised his arm and shouted:

"Quiet, everybody! Get ready to shoot! Stop talking, all of you! Prepare to shoot!"

On came the Carthaginians. Zopyros could hear the flutes of the coxswains sounding slow time, to keep the ships in formation and ready for surprises.

"Shoot!" he yelled, bringing his arm down smartly.

Trumpets sounded. There was a vast snapping of bowstrings, hissing of arrows, and whir of slings. The air was filled with missiles. Some fell short; some reached the nearer ships.

Then the catapults began to discharge: crash, crash, crash. Their darts arcked high into the air and shrieked down upon the Punic fleet. Some fell among the ships in the middle of the channel. Like an echo, the sound of missile fire came from across the bay, as the troops on the mainland discharged their projectiles. The crews of the catapults strained at their windlasses to get off a second volley, and a third.

Trumpets sang across the waves. The Carthaginian galleys stopped rowing and sat in the waters of the bay with lifted oars. Commands were shouted from ship to ship; flags fluttered. The rain of Greek missiles continued as the galleys pushed forward with their oars on one side and pulled back on the other. With much roiling of the water, the ships slowly turned about, each in its own length.

Still bows twanged and catapults crashed. The Punic ships filed out of the bay, some of their oars trailing limply where the rowers had been struck at their benches. Zopyros raised his arm. The catapult men and the archers and slingers stopped shooting. Thousands of soldiers, drawn up in formation during the battle of missiles, burst into cheers.

All along the shores of the bay, gangs of men, who had been sweating to get triremes into the water, renewed their efforts. Outside the mouth of the harbor, the Carthaginian fleet formed a half circle, facing the channel into the bay. Dionysios growled:

"They hope we shall come rushing out into their jaws. We outnumber them two to one, but we cannot bring our numbers to bear. Herakles! How can we get two hundred ships into the outer sea without their being crushed one by one as they emerge?" His cold gray eyes searched each of his staff officers in turn.

Zopyros said: "You could haul the ships overland across that low neck of land at the base of this peninsula, sir—"

"And what would keep the foe from destroying them one by one as they were launched on the seaward side?"

"You could set up the catapults along the beach. The Carthaginians fear catapults out of proportion to their real danger, because they've never faced these weapons before."

"Good!" Dionysios showed his teeth in a tight-lipped smile. "Young man! Take an order to Leptines and remain with him to help with the work ..."

All the rest of that day and through the night, the Siceliot army hauled ships across the isthmus at the base of the Aigithallos. Thousands of men dragged each ship by scores of ropes. Although the ships slid easily across the muddy, marshy ground, the soldiers sank to their knees in the muck. Not a few were killed when they slipped and fell on the churned-up ground and the ships were hauled over their prostrate bodies.

By the following dawn, more than a hundred Greek triremes rode the waves of tire outer sea; but the Carthaginian fleet had vanished.

Thus, as the fiery heat of the Sicilian summer beat down upon besieged and besieger alike, began the fourth year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, when Soundiades was Archon of Athens. The siege of Motya dragged on. The gap in the causeway was filled at last and the causeway itself enlarged.

The last stages of rebuilding the causeway were the most costly, for the Greeks had to carry the widened structure up to the very walls of Motya. Here a natural ledge extended out into the bay, west of the main gate of the city. This ledge provided Dionysios with a platform on which to mount his siege engines.

All day and all night, men trotted across the causeway with stones and sand to enlarge the ledge. In the daytime they went in pairs, one carrying his basket of stones while the other held a shield over the heads of both to ward off missiles from the walls. The corpses of Dionysios' soldiers littered the Motyan end of the causeway. Every night there was a mass cremation on the mainland, sending a smell of burnt meat through the besiegers' camp.

If Himilko's failure to relieve Motya discouraged its citizens, they did not show it. Day and night they showered missiles upon the Greeks working under the walls, while under bombardment themselves from Greek archers and from catapults on the causeway. From time to time, smoke rose above the temple of Baal Hammon as the first-born of the leading Punic families were passed through the fire. Every time he saw this smoke, Zopyros was glad that he had rescued one child, at least, from this cruel fate. At these times, especially, he worried about Iris family, hoping that they had had the sense to stay in Syracuse.

At last Dionysios' large siege engines—the belfries and rams— rolled out upon the causeway. It took several days, under the ceaseless downpour of missiles, to bring them one by one to the walls of Motya, to lever them around to the right, to roll them out on the ledge, and finally to turn them to the left again to face the beleaguered city.

With a flourish of trumpets, the next phase of the attack began. The two ram tortoises moved up to the wall. The rams inside these engines, swung by chains from the roofs of the wheeled sheds, began pounding the masonry. Day and night they pounded—boom—boom —as if two demented gods were beating a pair of cosmic drums, a little out of time. As the crew of each ram tired, another crew relieved it.

The Motyans dropped fire, stones, and heavy beams down upon the tortoises. Now and then one was damaged or caught fire. Dionysios' men would draw it back, put out the fire, and repair the damage. Then they pushed it forward to the attack again.

At last, the wall in front of one ram crumbled and collapsed with a frightful roar and a vast cloud of dust, burying the front end of the tortoise. Trumpets sang; infantry, brave in bronze cuirasses, greaves, and crested helms, climbed into the breach. Missiles rained upon the soldiers. Many fell, writhing in pain or limp in death. Others pressed on. The Motyans and their Greek mercenaries met them shield to shield, jabbing with spears, swinging swords and axes, and grappling body to body. Time and again the besieged thrust back the attackers.

Meanwhile Dionysios' men, with shovels and even with bare hands, hauled away the debris that had fallen from the wall. Then the wall in front of the other ram collapsed in its turn, and another bloody struggle took place in the breach.

Little by little the Siceliots gained the upper hand. They enlarged the breaches with pick and shovel and crowbar. They leveled the broken wall down to the ground, pulled back the tortoises, and pushed forward the two belfries. These were wheeled wooden towers sixty feet high—to overtop the tall houses of Motya—and very narrow to go through the winding streets of the city. They swayed alarmingly as they rolled slowly forward, pushed by hundreds of sweating soldiers. Coatings of green hides, nailed to their outsides, protected them against the torches and firepots the Motyans threw at them.

The belfries did not get far into the city, because the Motyans had thrown up barricades across the streets in front of them. From the stalled belfries, some Greeks attacked these barriers with picks and shovels. Others invaded the houses on either side, battering down the planks that had been nailed across the doors and windows. Planks were thrust out from the tops of the belfries to the roofs and upper windows of the houses. Syracusan soldiers charged clattering across these planks. Motyans rushed from their hiding places and out upon the planks from the other ends. The foes met in the middle, grappled on the narrow ways, and crashed to the streets far below. Other men fought across the housetops, through rooms and hallways of the buildings, up and down the stairs.

Little by little the invaders enlarged their hold upon the city, but at a fearful cost. The dead ran into thousands.

Dionysios made a practice, each day at sundown, of breaking off the battle. Then, when he had accustomed the Motyans to this routine, a sudden night attack through the captured apartment houses carried the defenses, and the attackers poured into the city through a dozen gaps.

Some defenders, losing hope at last, fled to the temples or tried to hide in their homes. Others, guessing the fate in store for them, cut the throats of their wives and children and rushed snarling upon the invaders, to die in a last wild fury of hacking and stabbing. Up and down the streets the slaughter raged.

Dionysios, entering with his staff on foot through one of the breaches, saw his soldiers running about and striking down old men, women, and children in a frenzy of blood lust. He roared:

"What do the abandoned fools think they are doing? How shall I ever pay for this war, if I have no prisoners to sell? Stop them at once!" He addressed his staff. "Go through the streets, crying: 'Cease all killing, by order of Dionysios!' "

Zopyros and the others scattered to try to stop the slaughter. But, although they bawled themselves hoarse shouting, "Cease all killing!" their efforts proved useless. The soldiers paid no attention but continued unchecked their raping, torturing, and slaying.

Zopyros walked the section of the city assigned to him, shouting his message. As he walked, he kept looking for Abarish, the steward of Elazar who had been so in love with Greek philosophy and who—if he still lived—must have revised his ideas on the subject. Failing either to check the slaughter or to find Abarish among the living or the dead, Zopyros reported back to Dionysios. So did the other staff officers. The tyrannos commanded:

"Go out again, men; but this time cry to all Phoenicians to take refuge in the Hellenic temples! Pass the word: all Punics to the Hellenic temples!" He spoke to the captain of his bodyguard. "Agathias! Split up your men and post a guard at each Hellenic temple. They shall protect the Punics who take refuge there. Order your men to cry the message loudly as they pass through the city. All Punics to the Greek temples!"

"But how about you, sir?" said Agathias.

"I can take care of myself. Get along with you!"

Dawn saw a few thousand surviving Motyans huddled on the grounds of the Greek temples. At each temple, a squad of Dionysios' bodyguards blocked the gate in the wall of the temenos with leveled spears while, outside, thousands of soldiers milled about, gripping armfuls of loot and growling threats. Their eyes gleamed with eagerness to resume the slaughter.

Dionysios, red-eyed from lack of sleep but still a dominant figure in his iron breastplate and scarlet cloak—the latter now stained with blood and smoke—strode through the corpse-littered streets. His staff, reeling with fatigue, staggered in his wake. Several houses were burning. A few officers tried, with little success, to organize bucket brigades of soldiers.

Most of the soldiers had completely thrown off discipline. They rushed about after loot, hurling household furnishings they did not want from the windows of the tall houses, to the peril of those in the streets below. Others swarmed about the entrances to the temenoi of the Greek temples, not yet quite mutinous enough to rush the squads of guards who protected the Motyans within.

Seeing the blood lust on the faces of the soldiers and knowing that the lives of the surviving Motyans hung by a thread, Dionysios muttered to his staff: "If I don't do something to appease the dogs, they'll butcher the prisoners in spite of me. I have it!" He raised his voice. "All Hellenic mercenaries who fought for the Motyans are to be separated from the rest of the prisoners, bound, and marched to the mainland!"

By noon the captive Greeks—bloodstained, hollow-eyed, and stripped to their shirts—stood bound in long lines on the shore of the mainland near the end of the causeway. Thousands of Dionysios' soldiers—dirty, wild-eyed men of various arms and nations all mingled together—moved restlessly around them. From his great black horse the tyrannos harangued them:

"... the Motyans, scoundrels though they be, at least fought for their own. But these slimy traitors, these renegades from Hellenism, these unnatural men, these parricides—no easy fate shall be theirs! We must set an example for all time, to any Hellene who would offer his sword to the implacable foes of Hellas. And so I say—crucify them!"

The soldiers cheered frantically and beat their weapons against their shields. They jeered the prisoners and gleefully taunted them with their coming agonies. All afternoon, cross after cross arose in an endless line along the beach, each with its burden. By sunset every one of the Greek prisoners hung, dying slowly and painfully, upon his cross.

As for Dionysios' soldiers, by nightfall their avidity for blood, pain, and death had been sated. They quietly rejoined their units, scrubbed the blood and dirt from their bodies in the waters of the bay, and cleaned and put away their weapons. Some got roaring drunk; some gambled away their loot; some rolled up in their cloaks and slept like exhausted animals. Some gathered around campfires to tell stories and sing, for all the world like kindly, good-natured men who had never butchered a prisoner in their lives.

Meanwhile, far into the night, in battered Motya, captive after captive was hustled to the slave block for the swarming slave dealers to bid on.

As the sentries called the end of the first watch, Zopyros stared at the line of crosses, black against the starlit sky, and once more wondered if he had clone the right thing. Although no more squeamish about death than most men of his brutal age, he knew that such massacres as he had witnessed were contrary to everything Pythagoras had taught. Yet what could he have done, either to stop the carnage or to avoid becoming involved in it? If he had followed Archytas' advice and refused the commission that Dionysios had pressed upon him, even more Phoenicians would have been killed; for he alone, of the members of Dionysios' staff, was able to call out the message to flee to the Greek temples in the Punic tongue.

For that matter, what could Dionysios have done, once he had committed himself to the siege? Deprived of the pleasure of this mass crucifixion, the soldiers might have wrought an even greater slaughter among the defeated. To be sure, the victims expiring on the long row of crosses were mercenaries, and such an end was a normal hazard of the soldiering trade. Wiry, thought Zopyros, he, now a mercenary, might someday face such a fate himself! With a shudder he drew his cloak about him and turned back towards his tent.