"Good boy! As your Sophokles says, no word that brings a profit is wrong. Let me compliment you on the splendid showing of your catapult team. With such as you to defend her, the City of Roses needs fear no foreign foe."
"Save you," I said. He went off with a laugh and a wave.
When I got home for dinner, my father said: "Chares, the Genetor will visit us this evening, bringing his wife and daughter, so that you can see the maid."
"But Father! I'm not ready ..."
I argued in vain. My father said: "I want no more trouble, young man! It's enough that you're allowed to meet her. As long as I'm feeding you, I expect this much consideration at least."
I was too low in the mind to persist in the argument. The girl turned out to be small, slight, blue-eyed, and fair-haired; not at all ugly, but making no more impression upon me than as if she had been a sparrow on the roof tiles. She spoke in a timid little squeak:
"It is an honor to meet you, O Chares. I will try to do my wifely duty towards you in all things."
"Of course she will; she is a good girl!" said Genetor. He beckoned his slave. "I brought a jug of real Chian—it cost me a pretty obolos, too—in which we can pledge the union of our families. Let us pray to the Bright One to give these young people a healthy, wholesome life together and send them strong sons."
I drank the precious golden stuff silently, thinking that I now knew how a fly feels in a spider's web while the spider swathes him in gossamer the better to devour him. I thought, if ever I did wed, I should prefer a wife with more sparkle and drive than this poor frightened child. The kind of woman I thought I wanted was said to occur in foreign lands—in Egypt, say, or Persia. While Io no doubt had many of what Hellenes consider wifely virtues, I was sure she would bore me to death in a month.
I continued to drill my catapult crew, though now we met but once a ten-day. We wore light steel caps and leather jacks of uniform pattern, so that we looked a little more like soldiers. There had been but one bad accident, when Eros' loader strayed into the path of one of his own engine's throwing arms and had his shoulder broken. The unfortunate man never did recover the full use of his arm.
After these drills, Onas and Berosos and I would sit in Evios' tavern for an hour over a cup of wine, recounting stories and advising one another about life's problems. Onas had many tales to tell of the wonders and mysteries of his ancient land. While his purpose seemed to be to impress us with the magical might of Egyptian wizardry, the things that fascinated me the most were the architectural and sculptural wonders of the country: the pyramids, the temples, and the colossal statues.
Boedromion came, and with it bands of small boys begging from door to door, singing:
We were into Pyanepsion; the first rain of the season had fallen. I worked on the large model while Makar chiseled away at the pedestal. One day Glôs the engraver came into the studio, puffing from haste and wild with excitement.
"Antigonos has sent a fleet to attack us!" he cried. "Look!"
Out in the blue was a squadron of ships. I peered and said: "That's no invasion fleet. I see but five galleys."
"Then what do you mean to do?"
"We shall see."
The ships rowed slowly past the harbor, the sun sparkling on their deck fighters' armor. They moved on down the coast towards Lindos, then slowly turned about and came back.
A merchantman came into sight around the North Point, sailing before Zephyros. The five galleys closed in upon it. There was no fight, but presently two galleys set out towards Loryma with the merchantman in tow.
"It's a blockade," said Glôs.
Now the old Peripolos put out from the Great Harbor. Although she was plainly coming to parley, the Antigonian ships bore down upon her in such a menacing manner that she hastily backed into the harbor, not daring to turn for fear of exposing her side to their rams.
Trumpets blasted down in the harbor, and the sun winked on moving metal. I said: "Perhaps we had better go down to see if they want us."
At the entrance to the dockyards I found the rest of my catapult squad and some of our officers in a fine state of confusion. First, Bias told us to drag Talos out of the arsenal. When we had done so, the battalion leader bade us take the catapult back into the shed. Then Kallias told us to wait. After we had waited for hours, and the sun was sinking, he appeared again.
"Which catapult of the Eros type has a full crew here?" he said. "Call the roll, Bias."
It turned out that Talos was the only one whose entire squad was present. Even Onas, usually late to everything, was there.
Kallias said:
"The Board of Generals has decided to give battle on the morrow. To face the Myraina, the sevener out there, we must have at least one catapult on our ships. As an experiment we shall mount Talos on the bow of our newest trireme, the Halia. Get that engine down to the quays, quickly."
"What about our dinner?" wailed Berosos.
"Dinner!" shouted Kallias. "The man's city is attacked and he talks of dinner!"
We hauled the Talos to where the Halia lay. Bias was already on the forecastle arguing with the shipwrights. He insisted that the figurehead of Halia riding a dolphin must be sawn down so that the catapult could be centered, while they wanted the catapult mounted off the centerline and the ship left as it was.
"Won't it make your boat tip over sidewise?" said Bias.
The head shipwright laughed. "Listen to the landlubber! Look here, mate, this little dinghy takes a hundred and eighty rowers, besides sailors and marines. Your little spring-trap don't weigh no more than six strong men, so the list will be so small you couldn't even see it. Besides, we'll pile the darts on the other side to balance."
The shipwright won. We worked far into the night, installing clamps and cleats to hold the catapult to the deck. We also built a rack for the darts and low wicker screens around the forecastle, like the spray lattices of an undecked ship, to protect the crew from missiles. At last we hauled the engine up the plank to the deck.
Half the Rhodian navy was in its home port, while the other half patrolled the coasts of the Aegean for pirates.
At Rhodes itself we had six ships that day, four of them standard triremes and two of the new triemiolias. This is a modified trireme, with its oars and rigging specially arranged to facilitate the pursuit of pirates.
Facing us was the Antigonian squadron, with three ships on duty and more at Loryma, awaiting their turn to relieve the blockading squadron.
The Halia's coxswain set the stroke with his call of: "Rhyppapai! Papai! Rhyppapai! Papai!" The flutist took up the beat with his mournful toot as we rowed out of the Great Harbor in single file. As we cleared the moles, the ships began to roll and pitch. The wind tumbled gray-and-white clouds across the sky like masses of windblown weed; the sun blinked on and off. There was confusion among the rowers, with oars clattering and coxswains shouting.
I had a nervous knot in the midriff—less, I think, fear of the coming battle than fear that I should, in my first action, play the coward or the fool before my comrades.