And the charioteer of Aeneas also spoke to his lord as he handed him the sharpened axe: ‘His energies are waning. He’s desperate. You have a son, a people with women and children. Strike him down, son of Anchises. You will be the one to see the dawn tomorrow.’
And the battle resumed with the axes: long, exhausting, cruel. Their shields were shattered, mangled by their blows, the straps holding their helmets and breastplates were ripped to shreds. At the end, the heroes faced each other, offering their undefended bodies to the axes. Skin and bone against bronze.
But a god, perhaps, took pity on them. As they attacked each other for the final time, even the handles of the axes split, and the two warriors remained on their feet, gasping, soaked in bloody sweat.
Diomedes spoke first: ‘Son of Anchises, the gods have granted victory to neither one of us. See? Our weapons are broken and useless; we have nothing but our teeth with which to wound each other. It would not be worthy of us to attack each other like dogs. I. . I believe that the gods have sent us a sign; is it not a miracle that we are both still alive? Look, the sun is already descending towards the sea. We have fought this entire day. Perhaps this is what the gods want: that there be peace between us.’ Aeneas regarded him in silence. Only the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest accompanied his panting breath.
Diomedes spoke again: ‘Listen. Achilles is dead. Hector is dead. You and I are the strongest warriors in the world. But neither of us is stronger than the other. Let us forget our ancient animosity. Let us unite our peoples in this land and form a new, invincible nation. Listen, son of Anchises. I am willing to share with you the greatest of my treasures, the most precious talisman of your lost homeland.’ Aeneas listened with a look of deep apprehension. ‘On the night in which we conquered the city, I managed to slip into the sanctuary and abduct the Palladium, the sacred image of Athena which had made Ilium the greatest and most prosperous city in the world. I knew where it was kept; Ulysses and I had stolen into the citadel some time earlier and we were the only ones to know where it was. I’ve been carrying it with me all these years. I was waiting for the day in which I would found a new city. I would have placed it in a beautiful temple and there I would have built a new kingdom. And now I offer it to you, so we can build this kingdom and this nation together. Enough blood and enough tears. Enough.’ He bowed his head and awaited Aeneas’s response in silence.
The Dardan hero stared at him without saying a word. There was no longer hate in his eyes, but rather melancholy and pity. He said: ‘Son of Tydeus, I fought for years to defend my homeland and I fought you now in the hopes of destroying the last shadows of my past before beginning a new life here, in the land of Hesperia. The gods wanted our last encounter to end this way, and now let us separate, so that each of us may take his own road. Too much hate and too much blood have divided us. Our wounds are still bleeding.
‘What you believe to be the talisman of the Trojans is nothing. It is nothing but a false image, one of the seven replicas that King Laomedon had made to mask the true idol. All of you searched for it that night, blinded by the dream of endless power: you, Ajax Oileus, Agamemnon. Ulysses himself. Cassandra fooled you all. She alone knew which one was the true idol, and that night she revealed the secret to me. I returned unseen amid the flames which were still devouring the city and recovered it, and I took it with me, to Mount Ida. It was the smallest and poorest image of them all; just two cubits tall, I could easily carry it in my arms.
‘Only Ulysses realized the trick. He had always suspected something. That night at Tenedos, while you were all sleeping, overwhelmed by weariness, he searched your ship and Ajax’s ship and found the false images. That is why he turned back; he wanted to warn Agamemnon, but when he landed on that deserted beach, the Atreid king had already departed.
‘I saw Ulysses rummaging through the ruins of the citadel that night as I slipped away. I spoke to him; I appeared to him as a ghost amid the pillars of Priam’s palace, reduced to ash. I did not kill him; I knew that the worst torture for him would be having been deceived. This is why he still wanders the seas without purpose and without hope.
‘The sacred image now protects my camp and for this reason I know that this small refuge will become a city and that this city will generate one hundred cities, all beautiful and prosperous, and will unite all the peoples of Hesperia, from the Mountains of Ice to the Mountains of Fire, along the crests of the Blue Mountains, for ever. Farewell, son of Tydeus. May the gods have mercy on you.’
17
Diomedes felt like dying. He fell on to his knees and wept, as Aeneas mounted his chariot and disappeared over the plains of the Lat.
Myrsilus brought him back to the camp by force and there he lay for three days and three nights, devoured by fever, touching neither food nor drink. Myrsilus had all his weapons taken away, for he feared the king would take his own life.
On the fourth day he spoke to him: ‘Oh king, I and my companions know the truth now and yet, although we are sick at heart, we have not given ourselves up to despair. All these years we have followed you and we have fought with you so that your dream and ours might become reality. The gods have willed differently, and we mortals can do nothing against Fate. But we love you, and we want to live with you or to die with you.
‘I saw you fight with spear, sword and axe against the son of Anchises, and I heard your words. There is no man on the face of the earth who can match you. We have come to a decision, and we want you to know this: if you live, we will live; if you die, we will die.’ He stretched out his arm: ‘This is the sword I have borne with honour. Take it. If you use it against yourself, I will take my life with the same blade, and our comrades will do the same and we will sleep here together, under this sky, lulled by the voice of this great river. If you eat and drink with us, we will be happy and we will follow you until we find a place to live in peace in this land and together we will await the end that the gods have reserved for us.’
Upon hearing those words, the king wearily got up from his pallet and showed his pale face, his blood-matted hair, his unkempt beard, his eyes red behind dark rings, and he burst into bitter tears. His back was shaken by sobs and big drops coursed down his hollow cheeks. Myrsilus stood before him unmoving until he saw him begin to calm, to wipe his eyes with the edge of his tunic. He nodded then to the bride, to long-haired Ros, who crouched in silence in a dark corner of the tent, and she took a jug of spring water and gave it to him so he could drink. She touched his face, then got up and had some water heated. When it was ready, she removed his clothes and bathed him, she poured scented oil over his head and then she lay down beside him, under a warm sheep’s fleece. She embraced him, caressing his tortured body with light fingers, passing on the warmth of her body until sleep descended on his eyes.
They departed at the beginning of spring and headed eastward until the Blue Mountains stood between them and the people of Aeneas, and after wandering at length they found the sea that they had long ago crossed in search of the mouth of the Eridanus.
A people called the Messapians lived on that land, ruled over by a king called Daunus. The Chnan negotiated a treaty with him, and obtained a small territory on the shores of a lake to found a small city. They called it Helpie, which in the Achaean language means ‘hope’.