“Did you hear what he did to get back in the citizens’ favor, after he let Dionysios get away? He proposed at the Assembly that all Syracusan land should be divided equally.”
“What, now?” I said. “With the war still on? I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. I saw that part of the letter.”
“In Sicily! No one would give up a yard of onion patch without a fight. There would have been a riot, then a sortie from Ortygia, and Dionysios back at home.”
“Herakleides must have known that, I suppose, as well as Dion. But it was Dion who had to say no.”
We were sitting on a marble seat, by the statue of the hero Akademos. His shadow fell far beyond us in the evening sunlight, a long thin helmet crest, a spear stretching ten cubits over the grass.
After a while she said, “We always heard all the letters … They say Dion has changed.”
“I doubt it. Stopped trying to change, more likely.”
“Plato has changed,” she said.
“Yes; there I can believe you.”
“When he was young, you know, he traveled, like Solon and Herodotos. He studied in Egypt. He doesn’t see barbarism everywhere outside Hellas, as most men do. Not even always in Macedon. But he’s always taught that one must legislate for any polis according to how many of its men can think. Once he believed there would be a good many, if they could be chosen out freely from rich and poor alike, and trained together. He still prefers merit to birth; but now he thinks such men are fewer, not enough to bring it about, or keep it working. That is all.”
“All? It seems a good deal to me.”
She sighed. “He has been there, I’ve not. Well, you are going, Nikeratos. How I envy you.”
I had arranged to sail in about half a month. Speusippos gave me a pile of letters for Dion. He said that Herakleides and Theodotes (that very kinsman who had entreated Plato to beard Dionysios for him) were writing to all kinds of leading people in Greece, making mischief about Dion, and he must be warned.
Plato wrote too. Long after, when it was in the archives, I learned what a troubled letter I had carried. It started with good wishes and good hopes; reminded Dion that the eyes of the world were on Syracuse, on him, and through him on the Academy; warned him that rumor was running everywhere about strife between him and Herakleides, which was endangering the cause; and added that hearsay was all he knew, it was so long since Dion had written to him. The end, as near as I remember, went like this: “Take care; it is going about that you are not as gracious as you might be. Don’t forget that to achieve anything you must conciliate people. Intolerance keeps a lonely house.”
I had the roughest sea crossing to Tarentum since the one when I was wrecked there. With a first-rate pilot and good crew, we just weathered it. I was deathly frightened; but there were people on board who knew who I was. If I had ever doubted how much vanity there is in most men’s courage, I knew it then.
I crossed the straits at Rhegium and went on by road, not wanting to run through the war fleets off Ortygia. Most of the city’s traffic was going the same way. I hired a good riding mule, for the look of it, since I was known thereabouts; it was a long ride, and I was tired by the time I got to Leontini. The city seemed empty of its men, who I was told had all gone to fight for Dion. When I asked the boys about my old host, the Roman captain Aulus Rupilius, they said he was here, burying his father. I called to pay my respects and make an offering. They pressed me to stay the night, and although I would not intrude on a house of mourning, a friend put me up instead; Rupilius saying he would be glad of my company next day when he rode back to Syracuse.
We set out early together. He was in no deep distress (the old man had long been failing and witless) and seemed fretting to get on, concerned more for the future than the past. When I asked what the matter was, he would only say he had heard everything was not what it ought to be in Syracuse. I noticed he was in armor and wore his sword. He jogged along, a broad gray-bearded man with a boxer’s nose, red-faced and sweating as the sun warmed up his corselet, brooding, with half an ear for what I said.
I wondered if he had been turned against Dion by Herakleides’ faction. It was lucky I kept this to myself. As soon as Dion’s name came up, he shamed me with an encomium that took us over several stades of road. Ah, there was a man with the ancient virtues! Nothing for himself, everything for the common weal. Courage and strategy in war; the endurance of a man twenty years younger; a general who never slept softer or drier than his men, nor ate while they were hungry; a man with gravitas (a Roman word, which I think means dignity of soul); incorruptible in office, flawless in personal honor. He might lack the arts by which base men flatter foolish ones; but he was never at a loss for the right order in a tight place, or a cheerful word to the men. In a word (it slipped out in spite of him, civil man as he was), Dion was wasted on Greeks. He should have been a Roman.
Plainly, this was the praise of indignation. But I could not learn the cause, so resolved was the man that only good should be spread through him.
Wherever there was a sea view it showed us warships. I asked how the siege went, and found him hopeful. Apollokrates, a lad of about sixteen, could hardly be more than a token leader, a hostage to the garrison for their flitted lord. The blockade was tight and they must be pinched for most things. “Everything,” he said, “favors the Syracusans, except themselves. They remind me of the people in that play you did here, resolved to drive out the gods.”
“You are making me anxious. How long before we reach the city?”
“It depends on whether we can get remounts. Nowadays one can’t be sure. If not, we shall hardly do it by nightfall.”
“Never mind,” I answered. “It’s a pleasant ride up here. A pretty road. This next rise should show us the sea.”
“Be quiet,” he said.
Romans, like Spartans, don’t see the need for wasting words. He held up his hand, and reined in. I heard, as he had done, the battle noises from on ahead.
“What can it be?” I asked. “That’s nearer than Syracuse.”
“It’s at the river crossing down there. Dionysios may have landed troops. Keep in cover, till we see.”
We rode up the nearest hill, tied up our mounts below the skyline, and finished on foot. All the while the sound got nearer: two fighting forces, one lot quite out of hand, yelling catcalls and abuse (the sound told that, even from here), the other strangely silent, except sometimes for the sharp sound of an order.
We were just below the crest; Rupilius, panting and grunting in his armor, had paused to breathe. Suddenly he grabbed my arm so that I nearly cried out. Then I too knew the commander’s voice.
Clambering so fast we grazed ourselves, we made the summit. Then we forgot to take cover, just stood backed to a rock, and stared.
Below was the river, widening in the flat land between hills and sea. A regiment had started to ford it, in good order, going north towards Leontini: a file of men plodding through the rocks and thigh-high water, keeping their equipment dry, while the main body covered their rear. The other army, if one could use the word for what looked more like a mob, was trying to harry them. Some of these were armed like soldiers, some with whatever people snatch up in a brawl; others were hurling stones. There were also a few light horse skirmishing about and waving spears, as if getting ready to attack the column, if they could make up their minds to it. No one seemed to be leading them, unless it was from behind. The other leader, however, was clear in sight, encouraging the rear guard. I could hear the crack of a stone against his shield. It was Dion.
Rupilius clutched my arm, hitting the bruise he had made before. “Ours!” he said. “I must go. I must go down.”