Authors: Gene Wolfe
I, too, will call her Hippostizein, for I think that Anysia spoke the truth. But I need her if I am to free the friends who know where my home lies, and thus I must say nothing to her. I did not speak with them today for fear their guards would become suspicious.
Polos came to watch me exercise the horses. As Diokles and I rubbed them down, he asked me to explain
arete.
"I know Ares is the war god here," he said, "like Pleistorus. But this isn't war. How can anybody say that the man who runs fastest shows his
arete?"
"It isn't the man who runs best who runs from the enemy," I told him, "and sometimes you want your men to run. When they do, you'd like to see them escape so they can fight again, on better terms or from a better position."
Diokles spat. "War isn't all blood and death, lad. And it isn't always the biggest army that wins. Pretty often it's the one that drills the best, and keeps its armor clean, and stands up best to long marches on short rations. Old Ares isn't some kind of monster, see? Think of him as a plain man that wants to win the war and get back home to Aphrodite. He's for training, discipline, and fair play with the men. And he whistles when he loses just like he whistles when he wins."
I asked Diokles then whether other events are to be held on the day of the chariot race; he said not. Thus my friends will be left in the market, perhaps, to wait the return of the crowd—at least I must hope so. Wrestling tomorrow, but I must go to Cyparissa to see the ship. I have ordered Aglaus to remind me of it. I should not have mentioned the ship to the dancer, but she cannot have guessed what I plan.
The road to the coast is steep, and narrow in many places. All that is good, but I could wish it not so long. It will be dark, or twilight at least. The ship is unguarded, moored with a single cable. It will be hard to conceal my sword—perhaps it can be tied beneath the chariot. I must try this.
There are marble seats above the wooden ones. I saw them and the watchers there, when I stunned the last man; but when I pointed them out to Io, she could not see them, though a woman there waved to us.
The prize was a beautiful dish full of the finest figs. I gave them to everyone who wanted one and presented the dish to Prince Pausanias, who was very pleased. He put his arm about my shoulders—a signal honor. He won a large sum by betting on me.
The judge has drawn up a deed for me by which I give the children to the poet from Hill. I signed it and left it with him; thus Io at least will return to her city. The all-power fighting is tomorrow.
They say the Amazon will drive the horses of the sun, but it is I who will drive like the sun himself. When I cut the harness, we will have four riders; the rest must fight on foot.
FORTY-THREE
Pindaros of Thebes
MAKES THIS OFFERING TO THE Shining God, his patron, ever the patron of letters, whom he dares call his friend. The pythia has asked him to do this so that it may be known how the god worked his will.
A queen out of the north brought to the god's games his own flashing horses, deep-chested and headed like bulls, with fiery eyes. About the track they thundered, behind them the brightest gift of the merciful Lacedaemonians, lent by Neocles's son, ship-commanding Themistocles. A second turn. Lo, the Dorian chariot holds the pace stride for stride. Crowned still with the sacred boughs of Daphne—fairest daughter of the river—the conquering pankratiast guides it, Latros of Sparta (whom once I conducted as the god directed me) smiling upon the god's virgin handmaid. Five others are crusted with the showering dust. At the sight the cheers of the Hellenes ring loud, like the beating of bright shields.
As a skillful hand strokes the strings, the god's servant, the dark spearman's daughter, restrains her eight-reined team, forewarned of the fast-approaching turn. By a head—a neck—half a length, the mighty four, speechless slaves of Heracles's heir, best in battle, outreach them. So Latros drives. So drove Diomedes, when heroes mourned the son of Menoetius—but drove a straight road.
Before Latros a thousand scatter as quail, war-tried heroes who crushed the barbarian upon the Boeotian Plain, frightened as children, fleeing like the sad Asteria before the earthshaking steed of Poseidon, parting as the wave before the prow of
Argo.
None pursue the flying Latros, for none can.
Now what need of speed or dust? What envious hopes strain after the argent chariot of the gray-eyed Athena? This lordly urn, the gift of the god, her servant receives, presents in his turn to the virgin queen— thus is peace forged between Theseus's foes and Theseus's city. Hippephode receives it glorying, joyful in duty done, speaks by the lamed son of Elis, great in counsel, of the road home. Advised by him and royal in bearing as in deed, she dedicates it, emptied of rich oil, to the Shining God upon his holy mountain—the god's forever.
Scarcely has the daughter of war spoken than the voice of war sounds. Dull is he whose lips malign the line of Heracles, whose strength lingers even in fostered sons. Like his mighty club, speeding Latros has struck the sacred city. In freezing Colchis, Jason sowed the dragon's teeth, brought forth from the furrow hundreds armed and fierce for battle. So was it with him who was once my charge. He from tumbled apples and pomegranates in the marketplace brought forth sharp swords, loud-voiced bows, and quivers rich in arrows. And from the slaves of the Argives, soldiers.
At once the Argives, sworn foes of Lacedaemon, call for the aid of Lacedaemon's manly sons, mighty in brazen battle, against the defilers of the sacred peace. Declaring he has no guilt in the matter and credited because of the gold he lost on the race, the Lacedaemonian prince musters his dreaded guards and marches in tardy pursuit.
No man dare say the immortal gods have had no hand in this. Io, my slave, wise beyond her years and full payment for all the good I sought to do Latros, led me to the limping Hegesistratus, the tongue of the Amazon queen, where he sat grieving his lost wife. "I have failed Cynthia." Thus he groaned in my hearing. "Before you, you see a corpse, foul already with the stench of death. The silver chariot would be over-heavy, and Latros bore the victory always. Nor would the woman who had desired him so long dare to defeat him, now that she had his love. Bribed, I swore to serve the deity of my enemies, but could not serve her well. My end I foresaw in distant Thrace—her slaves shall wrest me from my island home, and five swords send me down to death."
Mantic Tisamenus, Iamus's child, gave me this scroll and the other, this as he said for the wide-shouldered pankratiast. "He implores the mercy of the Shining God, ever generous. In these the ill-starred Latros gives the offended god his life—all that he has had." The queen of the one-breasted daughters of war has urged that these be added to the urn she has given. His priests consent. Tomorrow she will sacrifice before setting out for her own land, well content.
Themistocles of Athens will not be welcomed when he returns to his violet-crowned city, so many of his fellow citizens say, alleging that he has sold himself to Lacedaemon, however hotly he denies it. His cup-fellow Simonides grinds away at the rhyming mill as before.
The Spartan regent is cried up for his sagacity everywhere, and talks of marching against the Sons of Perseus. All know now that the ship Latros took carried his cargo, and it is said that at his command his Lacedaemonians shunned the Phoenician steel, by their well-considered hesitancy obstructing the narrow way so that others could not join the battle. In this way, so runs the tale, the shrewd prince gained ten times over what he lost. But some to whom I spoke in Cyparissa report that as the vessel bore Latros and the slaves away, a slender woman with a bow stood at his side. These do not scruple to name her Artemis, the argent twin; that it was a chariot of silver that triumphed no one can deny. Whether this be truth or empty fable, it is certain that Pausanias the son of Cleombrotus is accounted twice a hero among the stratagem-loving Greeks.
As for this poor servant of the Shining One, the patron of the muses, he and his slave will return to their own seven-gated city—or perhaps journey to far-distant Sicily, rich in flocks, as the grave emissaries of glorious Hieron, splendid in victory, importune. If that be so, he prays the blessing of Ino, white keeper of the chambers of the sea among the daughters of Nereus. Permit us to voyage in safety, O lovely Ino, to that great city, Syracuse, the precinct of Ares.
GLOSSARY
(Soldier of Arete)
See
Soldier of the Mist
for the following terms: Acetes, Aram, Artayctes, Asopus, Basias, Bearland, Budini, Cerdon, Chersonese, Clay, Cowland, Dolphins, Drakaina, Eurotas, Eutaktos, Falcata, Fennel Field, Gaea, Gorgo, Helle's Sea, Hill, Hypereides, Iamus, Ino, Io, Ister, Kalleos, Kichesippos, Kore, Latro, Leonidas, Leotychides, Lyson, Mardonius, Medes, Nysa, Parsa, Pasicrates, Pausanias, Pindaros, Pleistarchos, Pleistoanax, Riverland, Rope, Sestos, Simonides, Susa, Themistocles, Thought, Tis-amenus, Triple Goddess, and Xanthippos.
Achaeans
—An ancient tribe, displaced by the Dorians.
Achilles
—A leader of the Achaeans at the siege of Ilion.
Adeimantus
—A magnate of Tower Hill.
Aegospotami
—A small city on the eastern coast of the Chersonese, near its midpoint.
Aeolians
—A tribe of Hellenes inhabiting the northern coast of Asia Minor.
Agathanhos
—An official of the Pythic Games.
Aglaus
—The poor laborer employed as a guide by Themistocles in Bear-land and later as a servant by the black man and Latro.
Ahura Mazda
—The supreme god of Parsa.
Amazons
—Barbarian priestesses of the War God.
Amyklos
—A centaur famous as a healer.
Anochos
—A citizen of Dolphins employed by Rope to represent its interests there.
Anysia
—An acrobatic dancer in the troupe engaged by Cimon.
Apollonios
—A priest of the oracle at Dolphins.
Apsinthia
—The barbarian kingdom just west of the Chersonese.
Ares
—The god of war.
arete
—The virtues of a soldier, ranging from cleanliness and love of order to courage in the face of death.
Argas
—Prince Pausanias's racehorse.
Artembares
—The young son of the governor of Sestos under the Great King.
Artemisia
—The warrior queen of Halicarnassos.
Asopodorus
—The commander of the cavalry of Hill at the Battle of Clay.
Athena llias
—A goddess who aided the Hellenes during the siege of Ilion.
Badizoe
—An Amazon; her name means "slow march," or "walk" when applied to cavalry.
Bittusilma
—The Babylonian who attaches herself to the black man; her name means "house of perfection."
black man
—Seven Lions, the soldier from Nysa who cared for Latro after the Battle of Clay.
boiled leather
—Cuir-bouilli; leather hardened by immersion in very hot wax.
Byblos
—The sacred city of the Crimson Men, said to be the oldest city in the world; it lies north of Sidon.
Cape Mastursia
—The tip of the Chersonese.
Ceos
—A small island off the southeastern end of the Long Coast.
Cimon
—An aristocratic young politician famous for hospitality; pronounced
Kee-mone. Cleombrotus
—An Agid prince, son of Anaxandridas and brother to Cleomenes and Leonidas.
Cleton
—A merchant from Hundred-Eyed long resident at Cobrys.
Clytias
—The founder of the pro-Laconian branch of the Iamidae.
Cobrys
—A port on the Thracian coast; the capital of Apsinthia.
Crimson Men
—Traders from the eastern shore of the Great Sea, from the color of their robes and the dyed cloth they sell.
Cybele
—A name under which Gaea is worshiped in the east.
Cyklos
—One of the five judges of Rope.
Cynthia
—The Huntress, born in a cave on Mt. Cynthus.
Cyparissa
—A small port at the foot of Mt. Parnassos.
Cyrus
—The first Great King, founder of the Empire.
Damon
—Pericles's tutor, once a famous singer.
Deloptes
—A Thracian nobleman.
Diallos
—A slave of Themistocles's.
Diokles
—The professional employed to train Latro and Pasicrates.
Elata
—A dryad of the Chersonese; her name means "pine."
Elis
—A small city near the western tip of Redface Island.
Europa, the
—The trireme commanded by Hypereides.
Fortuna
—The goddess of chance, now commonly called Lady Luck.
Getae
—Barbarians of the northern forests; the Budini are a tribe belonging to this group.
Hebrus
—A river of Thrace.