On this, they faced him with it, threatening to march their men back and accuse him if he would not sail home. This he was forced to do, just at the time when Dionysios sent a mercenary army, Spartan-officered, across to Sicily. They met no trouble from Herakleides’ ships, and got ashore near Akragas.
Rupilius was hobbling about by now, but could not have marched across his garden. I thought he would kill himself when this news came in, trying to drill himself into fighting shape. I felt a fool running about after him, trying to make him rest, while he held himself back from asking what I knew about such things. The wound started to look angry, the doctor angrier still. He had put himself back instead of forward, and would have wept, I think, if Romans ever did.
Leontini is the sort of small town in which an Athenian feels mewed up; I soon found business to take me into Syracuse. The city looked dreadful, full of rat-ridden rubble with people squatting under wattles, hurdles or hides. The theater tavern, in order to keep open, was selling raw wine to anyone who came by; there was not an actor to be seen. Still, it was where Dion was and things were happening. He was never seen, he just sent out orders; but the factions from Messene had come back here to breed. Street fights were three a day. There were always soldiers marching about to clear the streets; often the sailors met them, stoning them or trying to hold them up.
I met in the street Timonides of the Academy, that same man who wrote the history later, and who was now keeping Plato posted with the news. Though I hardly knew him, our being Athenians, here, made us greet like friends. He was a small wiry man, with a high bald head now covered by a helmet. He told me the force of Dionysios was digging in, and Herakleides kept urging that the army should march to meet it, though a child could see it would be madness as things were. As with the land division, it was left to Dion to say no. Herakleides then accused him of dragging out the war, to prolong his time in power.
“But,” I said, edging him out from under a stoa with three broken columns, which looked about to fall down, “why isn’t this man brought to trial? Not only has he broken solemn pledges made in public; he is now a traitor to the city three times over.”
“Not unless the citizens say so. If not, who can try him?”
Timonides was yellow from a recent fever, as thin as a wasp, and as tetchy. “I have told Dion,” he burst out. “All of us have told him, he put himself in this dilemma when he pardoned the man at first. Moral logic, statesmanship, the common sense of a country housewife—show me even one of them in it, I said to him, even one. But no, he freezes and taps the table. He is Dion and won’t be less; and there’s an end … Law, the assent of the citizens, justice—after the sack, when the man was tried, he had them all behind him. And now what’s left for him? Only to say like old Dionysios, ‘To the quarries, because I so command.’ Can you see it? He’d as soon tumble a whore in public. He’s tied hand and foot. We all know it. He knows it. Even more to the purpose, Herakleides knows it. What can we do? Just pray the fellow gets killed in battle. My dear Nikeratos, I pray it daily, to every god I think will listen.”
“What battle? Since you can’t set out because of this?”
“Oh, we shall set out. Dion won’t endure the imputations of cowardice and of tyranny.”
“Cowardice?” I said.
“Oh, yes, yes. People forget. Don’t you find in your calling that the crowd forgets?”
“It’s a cold world you show me, Timonides,” I said.
“Well, that’s nothing new. We must all do the thing we can … ‘Know yourself.’ ‘Nothing too much.’ There’s truth in these old saws.” He had taken leave of me when he turned back to say, “He’s a good man. One of the best of our time. If he could only question it, like Sokrates, then he would be great.”
Sure enough the expedition set out against Dionysios’ troops, the fleet coastwise, the troops inland. They were gone some weeks, with nothing settled either way. Rupilius began walking again, telling everyone, though it was now clear he would be lame for life, that he would soon be in the field. Then came word that Dion, with all the cavalry, had come galloping back to the city on almost foundered horses. He shut the gates and manned the walls; the man who brought us the news had been kept inside till morning. Word had come to Dion just in time that Herakleides was sailing back with the fleet to seize Syracuse. Finding himself forestalled, he made a peaceful entry, pretending he had heard Dionysios’ fleet was sighted. Every one knew the truth, but no one could prove it.
The trouble was now bruited all over Greece. The Spartans in fact, with their ancient insolence, just as if they were still the masters of Hellas, sent over a general to take charge of Syracuse because its leaders could not agree. Herakleides got to him first with a pack of lies, but though a Spartan he had sense enough to look about for himself. Having done so, he declared for Dion. Herakleides had made so sure of the man, he had publicly welcomed his arbitration. So at the Spartan’s instance, he now had to go into a temple and vow to mend his ways. This contented the Spartan, who went home. They are a simple, pious folk.
Soon after this I heard from Thettalos, asking if I had gone mad to linger on in a cauldron of trouble like Sicily, by myself and without work. Had I found a new lover, as he was starting to suppose? His letter was full of theater news, neatly planned to make my feet itch for home. What indeed was I doing here, putting on plays at local festivals (I had just done Niobe at Katana) and watching great hopes withering? I wrote back that I was sailing as soon as I could, with unchanged heart. This was true; there had been a curly-haired, Roman-Greek lad for a while in Leontini, but nothing serious.
I had now been so long from Athens, I knew I must take care to come back on a good ship, looking like someone. So I let go the first I might have caught, because it carried hides. Some god must have guided me. It was wrecked off Lokri, with half its people drowned. And, just after I would have gone, Ortygia surrendered.
Since Herakleides had been brought to heel, the blockade had been kept tight. The gatehouse guards had stopped singing. A deserter who had swum across by night revealed that they had eaten the elephant, though it was at least forty years old. Even then no one dared voice his hopes till the envoy came from Apollokrates. He agreed to give up Ortygia, with its standing army, navy, war engines and all, in exchange for a safe-conduct covering five triremes, to take away his mother and sisters with their things. It seems Dionysios had left these ladies behind when he ran away. To do him justice, he may have feared being attacked at sea.
Anyone in Syracuse who had friends within reach of the city sent them word to be there on the great day. Rupilius and I got early news, and went in overnight to be sure of good places near the sea. All at once the half-ruined city seemed to burst out with life. Porches hanging askew and propped with logs were now adorned with garlands; skinny children stuck flowers in their hair and danced in lines down the streets. All the hetairas put on their thinnest silk dresses, like nakedness but prettier, and drove shoreward in painted carriages, singing to the lyre. Boys hung on the palm trees as thick as date clusters. At every altar the priests were offering libations and wreathing the statues of the gods.
It was a bright day with fair wind; light gleamed on the unfurling sails and flashed from the dripping oar blades. Dion boarded the escort ship which saw off the last of the tyrants’ line. The trumpets sounded from the walls, and the cheers rolled like surf along the shore. Old men stood weeping; young men danced, and threw each other in the air. The gates of Ortygia stood wide and unguarded, after fifty years.