"Oh, plague!" cried Bias. "Broke the polluted stress bolt, it did. If that smith has made us flawed bolts, I'll tear him to pieces."
As a result of this mishap, both skeins had to be unwound from the catapult frame and laid out on the armory floor. The frame had to be checked for warping and other damage. Where Bias thought it a little strained, he drove in extra nails.
When a new stress bolt had been laid in the notches of the shackle ring, we restrung the skeins by means of an enormous iron needle, passing it up and down. As each skein was over two hundred cubits long, this was a laborious business. When the skein was all laid, the strongest men in the battery pulled on the loose end with tongs until the strands were equally tensioned, after which the free end was secured to a cleat. Then the throwing arms were inserted, the string was made fast, and the catapult was ready.
By the time we finished, dawn approached. Our officers did not let us go home for fear that, once asleep at home, it would take an army to round us up again. We caught what winks we could on piles of rope and then shambled out into the dawn.
BOOK IV — BIAS
Several days later we were standing to arms on the waterfront while the Assembly met in the old theater. Outside the walls, Demetrios built his camp. The sound of his axes resounded over the city as his men felled trees on the slopes as far as the Vale of Butterflies. The sound spurred our determination, for Rhodes cut its trees with care, so that the supply of timber for ships and export should never fall.
Life had become grim. Nightly the sky glowed red with the flames of burning villages. Demetrios' horse and bands of pirates ranged the isle, slaying, plundering, and enslaving. Of the islanders not caught by Demetrios' ravagers, some fled to the mainland in boats while others drove their stock up into the wildest parts of the interior.
On the day that we repelled Demetrios' fleet from the Great Harbor, thousands of refugees from nearby towns had hastened in through the South Gate. So crowded was the city that the commanders of the recruits now had to drive cattle and sheep off the athletic field before their men could drill upon it.
I gave up my lease on the studio, moved what equipment I could to my parents' house, and spent my off-duty time assisting my father in the foundry. Orders poured in upon him: for helmets, cuirasses, greaves, shield facings, arrowheads, caltrops, and other warlike gear. If my father and I bickered now, it was only over such questions as how to turn out more castings each day. I do not think we had ever before looked upon each other as friends; to me he had always been a hard, pushing, scolding taskmaster, while to him I suppose I was a peculiarly willful, contrary, and disagreeable boy.
On the day of which I write, as there seemed but little likelihood of attack, Bias let us go into town for lunch. We of the Talos crushed into Evios' tavern for something wherewith to wash down our victuals. The crew of Artemis crowded in after us, filling the place. There was much chaff and shouting:
"Look at these tyros who grab the best seats! They couldn't hit Mount Atabyrios at ten paces!"
To which my crew rejoined: "Oh, is that so? They're going to put you duffers in the infantry, lest you shoot backwards and slay our own generals!"
Phaon, the double-pay man in command of Artemis, had attended the Assembly that morning. He was a full citizen, being of pure Hellenic blood and having inherited land around Astyra. Now he appeared, gleaming like a god, to rejoin his crew. In reply to our questions, he said:
"By the Earth, I should never have believed that our garrulous Assembly could so bestir itself!"
"What have they done?" I asked.
Phaon ticked off the new laws on his fingers. "All resident aliens and slaves may join the armed forces, while foreigners who will neither fight nor make arms shall be expelled. This will save provisions and guard us against treachery."
Onas interrupted: "Are you not glad that we talked you into enlisting, Berosos? Else you were one of those cast out."
Phaon continued: "Slaves who prove themselves brave in battle shall be bought from their masters after the war, freed, and offered enrollment as tribesmen.
"Those who fall in battle shall be buried at public expense; their parents and children shall be maintained from the public treasury. Their sons, on reaching manhood, shall be crowned in the theater at the Dionysia and given a full suit of armor, while their daughters shall be given dowries from the treasury."
Berosos said: "Almost a pleasure to be slain in this war they will make it. However, having no children, to live I should prefer."
Phaon went on: "You should have seen how the richer citizens poured out their treasure! Never have I witnessed such enthusiasm. Then we decided to send another embassy to the Demetrios, to beg him to do nothing to the city that he might regret."
Said somebody: "I thought an embassy was sent yesterday."
"So it was, but Demetrios, with a rude gesture, told them he was too busy with his fortifications to talk. All he would agree to was an arrangement for ransoming prisoners on either side."
I said: "We shan't get far with this self-conceited popinjay by talk."
"We realize that," said Phaon. "Therefore, we shall also dispatch envoys to Ptolemaios, Kasandros, and Lysimachos, asking for help. We hope to convince them that it's to their advantage that such a great trading center, halfway between Hellas and the ports of Phoenicia and Egypt, shall remain free and open to all."
Just then another man, in old but serviceable armor, pushed his way into the tavern, squeezed between the tables, and hailed me. Between the dimness and the disguising effect of the helmet I did not recognize him until I got a look at his sweeping red mustache. There could be but one such adornment in Rhodes.
"Kavaros!" I cried. "By Zeus the Savior, what are you doing here in that rig?"
"It is a soldier I am now, sir," he said. "When I heard that the Assembly had voted to enroll all able-bodied slaves, I got in at the head of the line."
"Sit with us, fellow soldier," I said. "What will they put you in, the infantry?"
"That they have, and I am after drilling on the athletic field all morning. Though, to be sure, I do not like your Greek ways of fighting."
"What's wrong with them?"
"Oh, it is this business of standing in line, with your shields in front of you like the tiles on a roof, and everybody stepping forward at the same time and giving a poke with the spear at the same time, as if worked by strings they were. Now, in my country it is different. We strip ourselves naked and rush upon the enemy in one grand charge, shouting and yelling as if to wake a dead corpse. Indeed and a beautiful sight it is, with the long swords waving and the plumes in the helmets nodding! But still, this kind of fighting is better than no fighting at all."
When we got back to the mole, Bias hailed me. "Walk this way," he said.
When we were out of earshot of the catapults, he spoke: "I've been having lunch with the Council, me and the other contractors. Your father was there."
"Yes?" I said.
"As you might expect, they want us to do enough work to keep us busy for years, and have it finished by the day before yesterday." He spat. "Stupid oxen! They think their money will even turn time backwards. If they'd passed out these orders a few months ago, we'd have something accomplished. And we're supposed to do miracles at cost, too."