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!"