Barbarians they were, indeed. The only metallic weapons they had were a few spears, knives and the chief’s sword, for the Segestans stringently forbade itinerant merchants to sell them weapons. Instead, they had other skills. Never did they fell a tree wherein dwelled a nymph, or drink from the spring of a malevolent deity. Their priest, they explained, had swallowed a divining potion the previous night and had seen the coming of Dorieus while in a trance.
When Dorieus asked them to join in open battle against the Segestans they refused. They were too afraid of the horses and angry dogs to venture beyond the woods, but they would be happy to encourage Dorieus by beating on drums made of hollow logs.
As we continued the march, more and more Siccanians appeared to stare at us and to shout, “Erkle! Erkle!” The peasants of Panormos were amazed at the sight of these usually shy natives who did not reveal themselves even when trading, but placed their goods on display in certain locations and accepted whatever was left in return.
Now the fertile fields of Segesta with their altars and monuments lay before us. But we saw no people, for they had all withdrawn into the city. At the memorial to the spurious Philip of Croton, Dorieus halted and said, “Here we will fight, so that my father’s spirit may be appeased for the humiliation it suffered.”
We could see people moving restlessly on the city wall, and Dorieus ordered the men of Phocaea to beat their shields as proof that he had no intention of taking the city by surprise. Then he sent a herald to proclaim to the Segestans his hereditary right to the throne and to challenge the king to a duel. Thereafter we made camp around the memorial and ate, drank and rested. Despite Dorieus’ warning not to trample the grain we could not avoid doing so, for there must have been several thousand of us if one includes the Siccanians at our rear.
I believe the trampling of the grain annoyed the Segestans even more than Dorieus’ demands. Having noticed that the grain would in any case be ruined and that a battle was inescapable, their ruler assembled his athletes and noble youths and hitched his horses to the war chariots which for decades had been used only in races. Although the king had no more power than the sacrificial king in Ionian cities, the dog crown imposed certain obligations. Afterward we heard that he was not especially anxious to retain it and while harnessing the horses had taken the crown from his head and offered it to those around him. But at that moment no one else was anxious to wear the crown either.
They summoned up one another’s courage by retelling tales of the battles that their forefathers had waged against invaders and recalling the bones which fertilized their fields. Meanwhile the king’s heralds went from door to door to summon able-bodied men to arms, but the citizens said openly that a political controversy over the dog crown was no concern of theirs. And so the nobles and landowners drank wine and made their offering to the gods of the underworld to gain courage to die honorably if that was ordained. They also spent much time in oiling and combing their hair.
Having fetched the holy dog and led it to its place among the pack, the Segestans, finally ready for battle, flung open the gates and sent the chariots thundering toward us. The chariots were an imposing sight, the like of which had hardly been seen in battle for a generation. We counted twenty-eight spread out in a phalanx to protect the gates. The horses were magnificent with their plumed heads and their harnesses gilded with silver.
Behind the chariots were spread the armored warriors, the nobles, the mercenaries and the athletes. Dorieus forbade us to count the shields lest we grow alarmed. The warriors were followed by the dogs and their trainers and they in turn by the stone-throwers and the archers.
We could hear the charioteers urge on the horses. Seeing the flaring nostrils and the flashing hoofs approach, the men of Phocaea began to tremble so that their shields rattled against one another. Calmly Dorieus stood before them and urged them to aim their spears manfully at the horses’ bellies. But as the chariots rumbled toward them, flattening the grain field, the men of Phocaea withdrew behind the memorial and the altars and declared that, for their part, Dorieus could handle the problem of the chariots alone since they were unaccustomed to such matters. Whereupon the remaining forces likewise withdrew beyond the wide irrigation ditch.
Dorieus threw two spears, wounding one of a quadriga’s four horses and killing the charioteer whose body was dragged along the ground. I wasted one of my spears but, as a horse before me reared, I hurled a second with all my might at his belly. Whatever happened I was determined not to leave Dorieus’ side but to prove myself at least as brave as he, even though I was not his equal in strength or use of weapons.
Seeing me advance those few steps toward the horses, Dorieus became infuriated and flung himself, sword in hand, at the nearest team, bringing it sprawling to the ground. An archer’s arrow struck the eye of another horse. The wounded animal reared and fell backward, overturning the chariot and disrupting the entire front.
When the king of Segesta saw that a number of his peerless horses were wounded or killed, he lost his courage and shouted for the chariots to return. The unharmed chariots circled back and the charioteer who had been overturned forgot the battle. Clasping the dying animals to him, he kissed their muzzles and eyes and tried to call them back to life with endearing words.
The charioteers who had circled back, right and left, jumped to the ground and began calming their trembling and sweating horses while spitting curses and shaking their fists at us. The men of Phocaea ventured out from behind the memorial and the altars and gathered around Dorieus, shield touching shield, the rear forces physically supporting those in front. The mud-stained rebels of Eryx likewise recrossed the irrigation ditch, bravely brandishing their clubs and axes, and emitting fierce battle cries.
Now the heavily armed warriors of Segesta made way for the dogs and their trainers who set the animals on us. Hugging the ground, they sped toward us with bared fangs. I wore my cuirass and leg guards as did Dorieus, and the men of Phocaea succeeded in warding off the dogs with their shields. Indeed Dorieus did not even trouble to kill the animals but as they leaped for his throat struck their muzzles a blow that dropped them whining to the ground. Over the growls and the din we heard the Siccanians’ squeals of terror as they fled into the safety of the woods. The Siccanians’ flight so amused Dorieus that he burst into laughter and that heartened the men of Phocaea perhaps more than anything else.
The bloodthirsty pack now were by us, and made for the rebels of Eryx. They tore open unprotected throats, mutilated thighs and crushed bare arms between their jaws. But the peasants staunchly withstood the attacks of the hated dogs and shouted in triumph upon discovering that they could club them to death. The killing of pedigreed dogs was a serious offense in the land of Eryx and the peasants and their wives had many times helplessly felt their fangs and seen them mangle sheep and frighten children.
I doubt whether the releasing of the Segestans’ holy dog Krimisos was deliberate. Probably it had broken its leash, or the trainer had accidentally loosened his hold on it. At any rate, that gray-muzzled, gentle animal which had lived peacefully in its pen for years trotted stiffly behind the other dogs. Fat and gigantic in size, it looked around in bewilderment, not realizing what was happening. The barking and growling of its own kind annoyed it, and its sensitive muzzle was offended by the stench of blood rising from the ground.
Dorieus called the dog to him and it came, sniffed amiably at his knees and raised its head to look at Dorieus’ face while he patted its head and spoke to it softly, promising it an even fairer maiden as its wife each year once he wore the dog crown. Slowly the holy dog, panting from its short trot, stretched itself out at his feet. From there it glowered at the shining front of heavy-armored warriors, wrinkled its muzzle and bared its yellow fangs in a growl.