The Bronze God of Rhodes

BOOK III — ANTIGONOS

The sacred trireme Peripolos, mended after the action off Rhodes, crept eastward through curtains of rain along the southern coast of Asia Minor. Through the shifting gray sheets could be glimpsed the olive-green rampart of the Lykian hills. Kavaros, with his cloak pulled over his head, leaned on the rail and wept into his red mustache.

"Why weep?" I asked. "Isn't there enough water without your tears?"

"Ara! The sight of all this water is making me think of my lost freedom. If you could see your way to promise me, sir, that after a certain time I will be going home—"

Touched, I was tempted to offer him another chance to earn his freedom. But I hardened my heart. I still had my mission. For great works of art to be created, the artist must be freed from the myriad chores of everyday living, and this can be done only by a slave. Is not immortal art more important, I asked myself, than the mortal happiness of one barbarous foreigner?

"You should see my country," he went on. "The blue-eyed lassies watching the sheep; the white-robed priests in their sacred groves; some of the boys coming back from a bit of a raid, with maybe some heads from the neighboring tribe to hang over the gate ... Ah, indeed and it is a beautiful sight. If I could only see it again before I die—"

"That's as the gods decide," I said.

He chuckled. "Calling on the gods, and you a terrible atheist? Few favors for you would they do, I am thinking."

Like all galleys, we had to stop at every port along the coast to sleep our rowers. We passed Mount Kragos, where Bellerophon slew the Chimaera, and stopped at Patara and Myra and other coastal towns. At Korakesion, perched on a crag as dizzy as that of my native Lindos, begins the land called Rough Kilikia, which has a bad repute for piracy. No indubitable pirates did we see—aside from some stares and muttering at a tavern in Kelenderis—but then, no pirate in his senses would attack a well-armed trireme.

We did see several thirty- and forty-oared rowing craft tied up at seaside villages. They were too small for warships and called for too large a crew for merchantmen. Had we not had a more pressing mission, we might have cruised about, lurking behind promontories in hope of catching one of these dubious craft in a predacious swoop on some fat-bellied trader; for we look upon the suppression of piracy as the special duty, honor, and glory of Rhodes. But, as things were, our captain held straight on.

At Soloi, Rough Kilikia flattens out into the fertile plain of Flat Kilikia. It is said that Soloi was settled by colonists from my own Lindos. However, when I sought to test this legend by speaking with the Solians, no trace of the Lindian dialect did I find. Instead, the Solians spoke the strangest and most corrupt Greek I have ever heard.

We rounded the Gulf of Issos and, at the end of the month of Poseideon, reached the mouth of the Syrian Orontes. This is a shallow stream, navigable only a few furlongs from its mouth. The banks were lined with Antigonos' docks and shipyards, although but few warships were present. The rest had joined Demetrios in Cyprus.

We anchored at the head of navigation and went ashore under the watchful scowls of Antigonos' Macedonian officers. After a delay while President Damoteles made himself known to the Antigonian commander, we bedded down in a tavern in the village and fought the vermin—and without catapults, too—throughout the night.

Next morning the commanding officer appeared with a file of cavalry, a string of mules, and one spirited black stallion that bared its teeth and rolled its eyes as the grooms dragged it forward. The officer said with a grin:

"I suppose the president of a free Hellenic city would like something more dignified than a mule, eh? Here you are, O President."

Damoteles looked at the horse and said: "We Rhodians are famous for our seamanship, for our oratory, and for the high plane of our public life. But no Pindaros will ever write panegyrics in praise of our horsemanship. Take it away and give me a mule, if you please."

The officer turned to me. "How about the sculptor? Here, young fellow, show us backwoodsmen how a horse should be ridden!"

I gave Damoteles a stricken glance, but no help did I get from that quarter. While I had been on a horse perhaps three times in my life, to decline would not inspire respect for us either.

"Well—" I said.

The soldiers jeered.

"All right," I said. "Give me a leg-up."

The next thing I knew, I had been hoisted up to the pad and the reins put into my hand. The grooms released the animal, which at once put down its head and bucked. At the second buck I lost my knee grip and went sprawling into the dirt. My head struck a stone with force enough to make me see the goddess Selene riding the starry night. The soldiers guffawed.

"Would you like to try again?" said the officer.

Kavaros murmured: "I could gentle the beast down for you, master darling, if I could give him a bit of a ride."

The Kelt had often boasted of his skill as a rider, driver, and all-around horseman. Now, I thought, he should be put to the test. I said to the officer:

"May I do as I like with the beast, provided I don't harm him, as long as we're in Syria?"

"Aye, you may."

"Take him, Kavaros," I said.

Kavaros took three steps and vaulted on the horse. The stallion bucked as before, but Kavaros stuck like a burr, yelling hideous Keltic war cries and slapping the beast with the loose end of the reins. After a few bucks the animal gave up and suffered himself to be guided about as tamely as any other horse. Perhaps the Kelt's weight, half again as great as mine, helped to quiet the beast.

Kavaros leaped lightly down and handed the reins to me. "Try him now, sir," he said, clasping his hands for me to mount.

"You!" he barked as the horse began to roll his eyes again. "Mind your manners or it will be the worse for you!"

The horse obeyed. Thereafter I rode the horse but took care to keep close to Kavaros, in case I needed his help again.

"It is all in knowing how to handle the beast," he explained while giving me pointers in riding. "Like the time my great-grandfather Gargantyos and his friend Leonnorios had to handle the dragon."

"What was that?" said I, as he knew I should.

"It was when they were hunting in the foothills of the Rhiphaians to once. Seeing that night was about to overtake them, they camped at the mouth of a cave in the side of a hill, not knowing that a dragon had slept the winter in that cave and was getting ready to wake up.

"So my great-grandfather and his friend built a bit of a fire at the entrance to this cave, and soon the dragon was thawed out and came roaring out to eat them. Well, naturally, my ancestor and Leonnorios were surprised, and they started to run around the hill, and the dragon after them.

But the dragon was so long that when its head was snapping at them from behind, they were treading on the end of its tail in front, because it went nearly the whole way around the hill. So when they had run around the hill fifty times, neither gaining nor losing, my great-grandfather said: 'Leonnorios darling, it is out of breath I soon will be unless we think of some way to whop this gigantical worm. Let you catch the tail of it, which wriggles on ahead of us, and that will stop the monster from chasing us round this hill, the scenery of which becomes less beautiful every time I pass it. I will take care of the head.'

"So Leonnorios caught the tail and braced his feet and pulled. This stopped the dragon. And my great-grandfather caught hold of the nose, holding the muzzle in both hands so it could not open its mouth. And they pulled and pulled until they stretched that dragon out so thin that they cut it up into short lengths to make harp strings. And the harp that was strung with the strings from the dragon had so sweet a tone that no maiden who heard my ancestor sing to the tune of it could resist him, which is how the clan is after having so many strong warriors."

We rode up the north bank of the river, escorted by the file under a double-pay man. For a hundred and sixty furlongs we followed the river. At that point it cuts through a tremendous vale between the Lebanon Mountains to the south and the Taurus to the north. The mountains descend to the river in terraces and tawny cliffs, spotted with groves of oak and sycamore and with plantings of olives, figs, and vines. We turned up a tributary of the Orontes and presently came to Antigonos' new capital.

Had it ever been completed, Antigoneia would have been as large a city as Rhodes. The clink of masons' hammers resounded from the hillsides as an army of workmen swarmed over the great empty space. While most of the vegetation had been removed from this area, no houses had yet been completed, save huts for workers and for a few Phoenicians and Syrians who had moved in to be among the first citizens.

The artisans worked on a theater, a town hall, a splendid temple of Zeus, a stadium, and a palace. Everywhere were blocks of marble on ox-drawn carts and sleds, architects waving scrolls of papyrus and shouting at foremen, and workmen trotting about with baskets of earth and buckets of mortar and plaster.

There were also the tents of an army camp, with soldiers drilling. Among these tents rose one of great magnificence, with a gilded wooden eagle perched atop its central pole. Off to one side there stood an enormous funeral pyre. I asked Damoteles:

"The satrap hasn't just died on us, has he?"

"Hush!" said the President. "No such luck."

Our double-pay man galloped ahead to tell of our coming. As we picked our way through the embryonic city, the man rode back and led us to the half-built palace.

Here we found a group of Antigonian notables, both soldiers and civilians, looking on at the sweating workmen. It was easy to pick out Antigonos son of Philippos, satrap of Syria and Anatolia.

Antigonos was not seven feet tall—I measured him—but he was almost six and a half, and with the towering crest on his helmet of gilded bronze he looked his nickname of "Kyklops." In his younger days Antigonos had been outstanding for physical might even among Alexander's Companions, who included such monsters of brawn as Lysimachos and Seleukos. Now, nearing eighty, he had become paunchy and unwieldy, leaning heavily on a walking stick. A shortcut beard of snowy white covered his heavy jowls. One cold blue eye looked out of a somber face bronzed with sun, wrinkled with age, and seamed with the scars of old battles. A black patch covered the empty socket on the other side.

His voice was like the mutter of distant thunder. "What wants Rhodes of me?" he growled. "You have seen my son."

"Yes, sir," said President Damoteles. "That is what we have come to consult you about."

"Why?"

Damoteles was an experienced politician, not easily put out of countenance, but the glare of that terrible eye made him falter.

"Why? Well, sir—well, we were unable to come to an agreement with the Demetrios—"

"I know that."

"So we thought that could we but confer in person with you, O Antigonos, these misunderstandings—"

"By the gods and spirits!" roared Antigonos. "My son has full power to act in my name. He and I understand each other perfectly. If you wish an agreement with us, seek it with him. I have matters to think of other than the impudence of one little offshore island."

He turned and began to totter off on his shrunken shanks. Damoteles, not moving from where he stood, raised his voice in the manner of a trained orator. He said:

"Then, O Antigonos, are we dismissed? You will not receive the representatives of holy Rhodes?"

Antigonos turned back. He gave us a slight, mocking bow. "I forget. You are a free Hellenic republic and as such entitled to deference, even from me. Naughty old Antigonos forgets his manners." He snorted. "I have just lost my younger son, and his funeral will occupy me for some days. Apply to my ushers in another ten-day, and we shall see whether you mean business or wish merely to break wind by the mouth. Athenaios, see that they are quartered."

The bodyguard to whom Antigonos spoke, a stout, black-browed fellow in a gilded canvas corselet, found us tents. That night we messed in a large tent with a multitude of Antigonos' officers and officials and other envoys from afar. Athenaios, the bodyguard in charge of us, pointed out a group of trousered, bearded men at a neighboring table, with curious caps that came low over their necks and were gathered into bunches in front.

"Behold the fornicating Armenians!" shouted Athenaios, who like many of the Macedonians was noisy from heavy draughts of wine before the meal. He was eating like a Thessalian and drinking like a Byzantine.

"What are they here for?" I asked.

"The old dispute. Their king helped Ariarathes to seize our province of Kappadokia whilst we were busy fighting Seleukos. We demand that the Armenian withdraw support from this usurper, so that we can corner Ariarathes and mete him the same medicine that Eumenes dealt his scoundrelly father, ha!" The Macedonian drew a finger across his throat.

On the other side of me a bearded, middle-aged man in civilian dress spoke up: "The trouble is, you have no Eumenes to perform the task for you."

"Say you so?" barked Athenaios. "If the satrap would give me a good division, I would sweep Kappadokia clear in a month."

"You were not so successful against the Arabs of Nabataea," said the other.

"Harken to him who speaks! How about your great asphalt raid?"

"What is all this?" I asked. "I fear I don't follow."

Said Athenaios: "This so-called scholar"—he jerked a greasy thumb at the graybeard—"is Hieronymos of Kardia. He followed Eumenes until the Antigonos caught them both and put an end to Eumenes. Since, with the death of his fellow Kardian, Hieronymos was out of work, and as the satrap decided he was harmless and perhaps even useful, he joined our merry band.

"Well, later the young Demetrios and I led forays against the Nabataeans, without much success, because of the wild-ness of the land and the numbers and mobility of the barbarians. When we returned, Hieronymos taunted us and boasted how easily he, Hieronymos the Great, would rout these cowardly Arabs. So the Antigonos gave him command of a force to gather asphalt from the Asphalt Lake—or, as some call it, the Dead Sea—a lake of brine set amid dry and dreary hills on the margins of Judaea.

"Hieronymos gathered a fleet of boats and embarked his men, resolute to do their task, ha! But the Arabs who make their living from this asphalt came out in swarms on rafts of reeds. They showered our scholar-hero's force with such a storm of arrows that most of those in the boats were slain. Hieronymos escaped with the remnant, though with his repute as universal genius somewhat tattered. Be that not true, my learned historian?"

"At least," snapped Hieronymos, "I wasn't surprised asleep without proper watches, as you were."

"Why you god-detested temple thief—" cried Athenaios, fumbling ominously at his belt.

"Please, gentlemen!" I said. "You're both bigger than I, and if you fight in here, I shall be crushed between you like an insect. The moral would seem to be that Arabs are bad people to meddle with, ashore or afloat."

At least, I distracted Athenaios' anger for the moment. Shaking his finger under my nose like a schoolmaster, he rasped at me: "It is all a matter of adapting one's force to the task, young fellow. A properly outfitted force of light cavalry, with no foot to slow it down, could easily sweep away those lying, thieving, murdering savages."

An elderly man, who had been eating quietly, spoke up: "If the Arabs are thieves when they defend their asphalt pond, then what are you when you try to take it from them?"

"That is entirely different," said Athenaios, striking the table with his fist. "We serve the divine Alexander's empire; we therefore represent civilization. It is right and natural that we should rule the less cultured peoples, for their own good as well as for ours. If all these Arabs and Armenians and such-like scum would only submit quietly, they would find themselves the gainers in the long run. But then, one cannot expect you artists to understand matters of war and statecraft. You had better stick to your painting."

The Macedonian belched heavily and began exploring his mouth for a piece of roast that was stuck between his teeth.

"No doubt, no doubt," said the elderly one, with a faint smile. He turned to me. "Young man, I am Apelles of Kôs. May I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?"

A little awed—for I had heard much of this painter—I gave my name. He said: "You must be with the Rhodians, then. What is your position in the embassy?"

I told Apelles of the plans for the statue of Antigonos.

"A sculptor?" he said. "Then you must know my old friend Protogenes."

"Certainly, he's president of our Artists' Guild."

"You must remember me to him. I haven't seen him for years, though I was the one who gave him his start. When will you begin the statue of the satrap?"

"I don't know. The Antigonos told us not to trouble him for another ten-day, and nobody else will listen to us. I should like to get started soon. I intend to employ the new methods of my master Lysippos."

Apelles chuckled. "So you studied under Lysippos? Didn't you find him a somewhat thorny character?"

"At times, though I should prefer a difficult teacher of the first rank to an amiable mediocrity. Why, do you know him, too?"

"I used to, years ago, when we were both pursuing the wild young Alexander over hill and dale in Asia Minor and trying to make him hold still long enough to paint and model his portrait. Lysippos used to criticize me for painting Alexander hurling a thunderbolt."

"Why, sir?"

"Thunderbolts, he said, were meet only for gods; I should have depicted the Alexander with a spear, as he had done. This was before Alexander officially became a god, you see. But I did not mind. Lysippos is a great sculptor for all his crabbed ways." Apelles paused and gave me a meaningful look. "Let me have a word with you after dinner."

Athenaios, who had overheard, gave a shout of laughter. "Watch yourself, youngster! You know what these lonians do with pretty boys."

Apelles said: "At my age? You flatter me, Athenaios. And anyway, Koans are of Dorian origin."

After dinner I met Apelles on the parade ground. He spat.

"Macedonians!" he snapped. "I don't see how Hieronymos stands their Triballian swinishness, for he is a man of real intellect.

"However, that's not what I asked you here for. I am just finishing a portrait of the satrap and should like to depart, but merchantmen are few at this time of year. I should also like to see Protogenes again. If you can work things to get me passage back on your sacred ship, I will arrange with the satrap to have him pose for both of us at once."

That suited me. When I broached the matter to Damoteles, he shrugged. "We can always find room for so distinguished a passenger as Apelles, though the gods only know when we shall sail. It might not be for months."

Four days later, after the funeral games for Antigonos' son Philippos (who had died of a sickness), I found myself in an otherwise almost empty tent with Apelles, awaiting our subject. At one side of the tent stood Apelles' easel and, on a table, his other painting gear. At the other side stood a curious object: a length of log, carven in the shape of a horse's back, with four short wooden legs to support it and a saddle pad strapped upon it. Beside it stood a folding camp chair.

While Kavaros set up my equipment, I asked: "May I see the portrait?"

"Surely." Apelles pulled the cover off the painting. It was a breath-taking piece of work, showing Antigonos marching beside his horse, in the attitude of one commanding his troops. The most striking thing about it was that the satrap was shown partly from the side, instead of from the front as in all the other portraits I had ever seen. Apelles explained:

"That's to hide his blind eye. The old fellow is sensitive about it. We argued for days about his pose before we hit upon this one."

Kavaros said: "And how will you be getting a horse in here, sir, for a model of the horse in the picture?"

"That is his charger," said Apelles, pointing to the wooden thing. "My original plan was to paint him mounted, using that wooden horse. But hoisting the old man on and off his oaken steed proved such a difficult business that we gave the idea up."

Kavaros gave an unslavelike roar of laughter. "Master darling, we need some of those for the Rhodian cavalry, I am thinking. Even they could sit on them without falling off on their heads."

"Hush!" said Apelles. "He comes."

The aged giant tottered in on his stick, wearing gilded parade armor and accompanied by two of his bodyguards. He settled with a grunt into the camp chair.

"Never grow old, Apelles," he said. "Would that Demetrios were a decade older, so I could die knowing our realm was in responsible hands. Well, go ahead, go ahead. You, too, young what's-your-name. And think not to get me to change my policies towards Rhodes by erecting statues to me. Antigonos is too old a fox to be caught by such dog-faced flatteries."

Apelles and I got to work. People kept coming in with messages to deliver or papers for the satrap to sign, but between these interruptions he held still long enough for our purposes. After sketching the restless and active Demetrios, this task was not difficult.

Now that I had a closer look at Antigonos, I saw that Apelles had lopped at least twenty years from his age in the portrait. This, however, did not seem a tactful thing to mention in the satrap's presence.

During the next month I came to know Apelles better. He had a quality that struck me because it is so rare. That was the ability to criticize his own work and compare it, in a perfectly detached and cold-blooded way, with that of his rivals, as if he were another man altogether.

"Certainly I am a good painter," he said. "Possibly one of the best. But others surpass me in this or that respect. Melanthios is better than I at grouping, while I have never attained the nicety of measurement of Asklepiodotos. From what I remember of the work of Protogenes, he is as good as or better than I in most respects, but in one virtue I am his master. I know when to stop work on a picture, while he will go on fussing with it long after it's really finished. I am keen to see his work, to determine whether he has overcome this fault."

As I had never known any artist who could take such an objective view of his own achievements, I was vastly impressed. I even sought to imitate Apelles in this regard, though I fear without immediate success; for I have always been something of a passionate, hot-blooded partisan by nature, not at all objective.

The wind and rain abated, the atmosphere warmed, and our lady Persephonê painted the hillsides with the scarlet of anemones, the gold of serpents' milk, the blue of hyacinths, and the purple of rhododendron. My task went slowly, for one thing because Antigonos flatly refused to have a life mask made.

I had much idle time when the satrap was not available for posing. This I spent in playing hockey, in pursuit of intrigues with the camp-following women, and in fending off amorous advances from soldiers. Truth to tell, the real Macedonians bothered me less in this matter than the motley horde of southern Greek mercenaries who had enlisted in the Antigonian forces.

The satrap grunted and snorted at our work and, when in a good mood, cracked jokes of an earthy humor. He was an engaging old tyrant, with a rough natural majesty about him. I began to see why, though his rivals dreaded his craft and ferocity, his subjects liked and admired him.

Apelles was cleaning up his gear after finishing the portrait, and our model had stumped off with his guards. Apelles asked:

"How soon will your embassy have its interview? There's nothing to keep me here now, and I should like to get back to Kôs."

"I don't know. The word is still: no appointments. These Macedonians seem to be waiting for something they won't tell us about."

Said Apelles: "Probably for news of Demetrios' fate on Cyprus. If the boy wonder beats the Ptolemaians, I should expect Antigonos to take a tougher line with Rhodes."

"Why?"

"Because he'll be able to afford to. At the same time, there is something more than that coming up. There's whispering in corners and sly half-finished sentences. My slave tells me they are preparing a festival of some sort."

I still had a little work to do on the clay head I was making of Antigonos, and the satrap had promised to give me one more sitting the next day. We had agreed to cope with the problem of his empty eye socket by letting a lock of his hair fall down over the missing eye, as if it had escaped from under his helmet. I found him sitting in his camp chair.

"I had that polluted wooden horse taken to the cavalry tents," he said, "to teach the recruits how to vault into the saddle. It reminds me of one time when I was campaigning against Ariarathes of Kappadokia—the father of the present Ariarathes—what is it?"

A messenger came in, breathing hard. "My lord!" he cried. "A ship has arrived from Cyprus bearing news."

"What news?" asked the satrap.

"I do not know, my lord. Your son's friend, Aristodemos of Miletos, came ashore alone. He is now on his way up the river to Antigoneia."

"Did anybody question him?"

"Yes, sir, but he refused to give his news to anybody but you."

"Get out, fool!" roared Antigonos, heaving himself out of his chair. "Go back to meet this Aristodemos. Tell him I demand to know at once the fate of my son. Then return to me forthwith."

"Aye, my lord." The messenger scuttled out, and Antigonos started to follow him with his bodyguards.

I said: "But, sir, if you will only stay a little while, I shall have finished—"

"To the crows with you and your clay! I have more important matters."

Off he stumped. Kavaros said: "Ah, well, if himself does not care if the statue looks like him, why should we be fretting over it either?"

As there was nothing more to do until I recaptured my model, we cleaned up and waited. After lunch Antigonos appeared in front of his tent. I hovered nearby, hoping for a chance to speak to the satrap and make another appointment.

Down the tributary almost to its confluence with the Orontes, small in the distance, a man on a mule came in sight. Several others clustered about him. As he drew near, I could see that they were hurling questions at him while he rode in silence.

Reaching the edge of the cleared space, Aristodemos dismounted, handed the reins to one of his questioners, and walked slowly across the area toward the satrap. His face was grave and composed. The questioners fell back.

When he was within a quarter-plethron, Aristodemos halted, raised his hands, and cried: "Rejoice, King Antigonos! We have defeated the Ptolemaios by sea and. have taken Cyprus and sixteen thousand eight hundred prisoners, including a son and a brother of Ptolemaios!"

The old man swayed. There was a scurry among his guards to find a chair for him, but the satrap waved them back.

I started at the word "king," and so, I fancy, did others who were not in on the plot. The Macedonian officers, however, set up a cry of "Hail, King Antigonos! Hail, King Antigonos!" The soldiers took it up, too, until the hillsides rang with roars of "Hail, King Antigonos!"

We non-Macedonians exchanged looks of surprise, alarm, and displeasure. But, like most of the others, I joined in the acclamations.

Two officers stepped up to Antigonos with a slender golden diadem, which they set on his bald head. The satrap made motions to show how much all this astonished him. The noise died down.

Antigonos took off the diadem and held it in his fingers, turning it this way and that. He spoke:

"I thank you, Macedonians. For too long has the empire of the divine Alexander drifted without a proper king at its head. As the house of Philip son of Amyntas has, alas, come to an end, the Macedonian army is the only body in the world that can choose a successor to fill this void. Perhaps I fill it a little too fully"—he grinned and slapped his paunch—"but I swear by Zeus and all the gods and goddesses to do my duty by you and by the empire; I, and my son Demetrios, who by your leave shall be co-ruler with me. For, as any fool can see, I am not so young as once I was, and I need his help. To him I shall send a diadem like this one, as token of his royal rank. Now there shall be feasting and fun for three days, no more drill during that time, and an extra month's pay for everybody. Rejoice, one and all!"

The soldiers cheered again. Aristodemos stepped up with a crafty smile. One could see that he was looking for a handsome tip for having brought the news; his fingers practically twitched. He said:

"I hailed you first, Great King."

"So you did," said Antigonos, grinning. "You are welcome, O Aristodemos. But as you saw fit to torture me with so long a wait for your good news, you may wait a while yourself for the reward of it."

Aristodemos' face fell before they were swallowed up in the cheering crowd. I did no more work on my portrait head that day.

At the feast that night I sat between Apelles and Hieronymos of Kardia. While Apelles was his serene old self, Hieronymos was in a dour and dismal mood, staring listlessly at his food and drinking wine in great gulps, not with Hellenic moderation.

"What ails you, my friend?" I asked him, leaning close to be heard above the uproar of the drunken Macedonians. "This is supposed to be a celebration."

"What have I to celebrate?" snarled the historian.

"The accession of your great king."

"Stupid ox! It is I who was supposed to hail old One-eye as king. But that ready-for-aught Aristodemos got wind of the plan and forestalled me. The king would have rewarded me. Now he must recompense Aristodemos to make the event appear spontaneous."

"Do you mean the whole thing was planned?"

"Are you so simple as to believe otherwise? We rehearsed it carefully. The Antigonos himself selected me as the one to hail him."

Apelles leaned around me and asked: "Why should the satr—the king have chosen one who is not a Macedonian?"

"Because," said Hieronymos, "had he elected one of his Macedonian officers, that would have incited one more murderous feud amongst them. Those not picked would have cherished a grudge against the fortunate man."

Apelles smiled. "Nice people. Aren't you ashamed, as a citizen of a free republican city, to promote one more oriental tyranny?"

"Don't prate to me of freedom!" snapped Hieronymos.

"Kardia has been under Lysimachos' thumb for years, with no more freedom than he allows us. This free-city ideal is but a transitory phase, anyway. Soon they will all be swallowed up in the great kingdoms and empires that are forming."

"Not Rhodes!" I cried, smiting the table.

"Yes, pretty little Rhodes as well. What does this freedom of yours signify, anyway, but the freedom of your ruling class to amass more and more wealth by dealings With Ptolemaios? Naturally they do not wish their produce cart upset. But the remainder of you would be better off under Antigonos. Now, there is a real king for you! If you don't think so, inquire of the countrymen hereabouts how they like his rule."

"Never! We will resist to the last man, as the Tyrians did against Alexander."

"Go ahead and see how much good it does you. When your corpses have been decently interred, the conqueror will bring in people from other regions of his realm to take your places."

Apelies: "O Hieronymos, it is all very well to hail the Antigonos as ruler of Alexander's empire, but there is much of it that he doesn't rule and isn't likely to. What will the other satraps do? I cannot imagine their acquiescing to my lord's claim without a murmur."

Hieronymos shrugged. "I suppose they, too, will assume the title of king and fight it out as they have long been doing. At any rate, there should be ample employment in the foreseeable future for men possessing special skills in war and politics. Among whom I—ahem—dare count myself. The thought quite cheers me up."

The historian attacked his plate with gusto, whilst I sat dourly, saying little and thinking much.

While I put the finishing touches on the clay head of Antigonos, the king gave ear with ill-concealed impatience to a long and high-minded speech from President Damoteles on peace, justice, and international friendship. At last Antigonos struck the ground with his stick.

"Enough!" he growled. "You speak of peace, but the only folk who have ever had peace for the asking are those so strong that none dares molest them. You speak of justice, but there is no justice as between states, nor has there ever been. Justice means laws and courts and punishments, and where are the laws that rule states, the courts that try them, and the punishments inflicted on them? The gods, you may say, but if so they have been remiss. Otherwise, relations among states are governed by nought but force and guile.

Our friendship you may have, but on our terms—namely, that you join us against the satrap of Egypt, who rebels against our lawful authority as ruler of Alexander's empire, duly elected by the one body with the right and power to do so: the Macedonian army."

It occurred to me that Antigonos' talk of the "Macedonian army" was but pretense to give a veneer of legality to his assumption of the kingship. He did not have the whole Macedonian army. He had but a fraction of it, padded out with native levies and Greek mercenaries, as did each of the other Successors. As there was no way of assembling the whole Macedonian army, there was no legal way of choosing a true and lawful successor to the divine Alexander—if the rule of such a conqueror be considered legal in the first place. The king continued:

"Well, gentlemen, there it is. How say you? Yes or no?"

"Great King," began Damoteles, "let me explain our position—"

"To the afterworld with you!" bellowed Antigonos. "You mean 'no,' but you hope by wrapping your refusal in a cocoon of sophistical quibbles to talk me round. Well, it is too hot for such games. 'No' it is, and 'no' it shall be, and you may go home to await the reward of your defiance. You are the authors of an unjust war between us, and so your blood shall be on your own heads. Get out of my sight, all of you!" He turned his terrible eye on me. "Are you done yet, boy? Good! Get along with your countrymen. When I have taken your city, I shall look for the statue. If it turn out well, I shall order that you be spared."

On the voyage home Apelles made me promise, when we got to Rhodes, to take him at once to Protogenes' studio.

Accordingly, when we arrived, I sent Kavaros home with the baggage and walked Apelles out to the suburb, south of the wall. Finding Protogenes' door open and the place deserted, we went in. There was a neat vegetable garden in which Protogenes raised most of his own food, for he was a man of solitary and abstemious habits. We went on into the studio and halted before the great picture of Ialysos.

This painting occupied an entire wall of the room, being about eight by sixteen feet. A common joke in Rhodes was to ask Protogenes what he expected to do with the picture when it was finished, as the frame was too large to go through the door. Protogenes simply said that when he was offered enough for it to be worth while, he would knock down the wall and then brick it up again.

The painting showed the legend of Ialysos, the eldest of the three sons of Kerkaphos and Kyrbe, who was a granddaughter of Helios-Apollon. These three founded the cities of Ialysos, Lindos, and Kameiros, named for their respective founders. In Protogenes' picture Ialysos was trying to defend the people of his city against the plague of huge serpents, which infested the land and slew many, including the three heroes.

Long stood Apelles silently before the painting. At last he roused himself.

"A great labor and a wonderful success," he said. "It is true that some of my own works surpass it in charm, but one cannot have everything on the same panel." He bent forward to look at a detail. "How in Hera's name did Protogenes ever get so lifelike an effect? Look at the foam on that dog's jaws!"

He pointed to Ialysos' faithful hound, which was helping the hero to fight the serpents.

"I know the tale of that," I said. "Protogenes kept trying and trying to get that effect, and wiping the paint off and starting over. At last, in a fit of temper, he hurled his sponge at the painting. It struck right on the mouth of the dog and gave the effect that you see."

"It takes quick wit to seize upon a stroke of luck when it comes," said Apelles. "I only hope he won't give in to his old vice of working and reworking the details. Did you ever hear how I gave him his start?"

"No, sir."

Apelles' eyes saw back over the decades. "It was about twenty years ago, when Protogenes was not much older than you are now. At that time I was already established. He, however, had come hither from Kaunos a few years before and was trying to work up a clientele. To live, he even painted ships in the dockyards as a common laborer.

"While I was visiting here, one of the local magnates said to me: Apelles, have you ever seen the work of our man Protogenes?'

" 'No,' said I. 'Who is he?'

" 'Nobody of importance,' said the moneybag. 'Just a local boy from the mainland who, some think, shows promise. I would not mention him in the same breath as you, of course. Do not disturb yourself on his account.'

"This made me curious, so I sought out Protogenes. I found him living in a shack on barley porridge and beans, with a pile of unsold paintings. As soon as I saw them in a good light, I knew that here was a master. When I praised the paintings, Protogenes looked at me in astonishment.

" 'Why, sir,' he said, 'do you really mean you think them good? You're not jesting at the expense of a poor ship's painter, I hope?'

" 'I'll show you who is jesting,' I said. 'How much for the lot?'

"He began totting up his prices—five drachmai for this, ten for that, and he'd throw in this poor one free, and so forth. When I saw that the total would be absurdly small, I said: 'Here, man, I can't take all day. I will give you fifty pounds for the stack.' Remember, the drachma was worth more in those days.

"His eyes bulged out like those of a lobster, and he sat down on his stool. 'Five—thousand—drachmai!' he whispered. 'Are you feeling all right, sir?'

" 'I have never felt better,' I said, and called for my slave and counted out the money. Then I made arrangements to take away the paintings, leaving Protogenes fanning himself with his hat and mumbling."

I said: "I can understand his astonishment."

"Oh, I wasn't being so rash as this story sounds. For, when I got the paintings to my quarters, I spread a rumor about the town that I had bought them to sell as my own. Of course that started a vogue for Protogenes' pictures, and I was readily able to sell my purchases to the Rhodians at a profit. Thereafter Protogenes had no difficulty—"

There was a shuffling sound; the did woman who kept house for Protogenes stood in the doorway.

"Rejoice, Demo," I said. "Where's the master? Here's a visitor to see him."

"He's in town, sir. I don't know when a will be back. Who shall I say called with you, O Chares?"

I was about to speak when Apelles touched my arm. "Wait," he said.

He went to Protogenes' painting supplies, mixed up a little red paint, pointed a brush, and approached a blank panel that stood on an easel. He stood back for an instant; then, with one firm stroke, painted a red line across the panel, no more than a barleycorn in width and as straight as if he had ruled it with a straightedge.

I had seen him perform such feats before. He had insisted on doing a little painting on the Peripolos every day, rain or shine, to keep his hand in. But I never ceased to wonder that a man who must have been nearly seventy should keep so keen an eye and so steady a hand.

"Tell your master, this one," he said to Demo, indicating the line. "We shall be back after lunch."

I guided Apelles around the town, introducing him proudly to some of my friends. Then I took him home for lunch; a little nervously, for I was snobbish enough to worry lest a rich and famous artist sneer at the establishment of a mere bronze founder. I need not have concerned myself; Apelles fitted in perfectly.

Afterwards we returned to Protogenes' house. Demo cackled:

"The master came in, gentlemen, and looked at the line on the board and said a knew the lion by its claw. That there line, quotha, could only have been painted by Apelles of Kôs. Be you he?"

Apelles smiled and wagged his head affirmatively.

"Well, then," continued Demo, "a took a brush, a did, and —but look at it yourself."

Apelles peered at the stripe on the blank panel. "Herakles!"

Protogenes had mixed some black paint and drawn, on top of the red line, a still finer black line, so that the red could be seen on either side of the black.

Apelles now mixed up some more red paint. He hunted down Protogenes' smallest brush, dipped it, pointed it to the fineness of a needle, and slowly, squinting and pursing his lips, drew another red line atop the black—a line no thicker than a horsehair.

"Phy!" he said. "Now let's see him put another one on top of that!"

For now the original red line had become five adjacent lines: red, black, red, black, and red. By no mortal hand could another line have been added atop of those already there, yet leaving the edges of the previous lines still showing.

"The master begs your pardon,, gentlemen," said Demo, "but a had to go out to deliver a picture. A said a'd be back in an hour."

"Tell him we shall be in Evios' tavern," I said.

Thus it was that an hour later Protogenes found Apelles conversing with Berosos and me in the tavern. The two great painters hailed and embraced each other with an affection heartening to behold. They soon forgot us younger men in their eager talk of things that happened before Theognis was born (as they say), and Berosos and I reluctantly excused ourselves.

Protogenes later presented the panel with the three superimposed lines on it to the city, as a memorial of his extraordinary contest with Apelles. It hangs today in the temple of Apollon on the akropolis, attracting more attention by its narrow lines on a blank surface than any of the other paintings there.

I succeeded in avoiding Kallias until the head of the statue of Demetrios was cast and the finished statue riveted together on the edge of the marketplace, at the beginning of the third year of the 118th Olympiad.

When the last rivet was in place, Kavaros and I climbed down the ladder amid the cheers of the onlookers. I sent Kavaros to Kallias' house with news of the completion of the work. The Kelt came back to say that the official viewing would be the next morning, and would I please be there?

This time there was an official party. Kallias prowled around the statue, peering at it from all angles as if he had not long before made up his mind to accept it. At last, with judicious frowns and nods, he said:

"I find this statue a very creditable work and recommend that the city accept it."

President Damoteles said to the assembled Council: "You have heard our architect, gentlemen. How say you?"

All the Councilors voted "aye." Damoteles spoke in praise of the statue and motioned a slave, who handed him a bag of coins. He presented this to me amid more cheers. Then he invited me to dinner.

I went, so excited that I was sure I could never eat a bite. The meal disillusioned me a little, for the talk among Damoteles and his friends was almost entirely either of finance or of local politics, two subjects that have always bored me to the screaming point. The few younger men talked of sports, which from my point of view was but little improvement. When I could, I hid my work-roughened hands, feeling ashamed of their contrast with those of the other diners, soft and smooth and rosy.

Nonetheless, I was happy; for, I thought, I had at last arrived. I would make these rich and important men respect me at all costs, no matter what trials I had to undergo.

The next day was the one day in ten that the crew of the catapult Talos devoted to drill. Now that all the crews of Bias' battery (save that of unhappy Eros, which continued to fumble) had attained a fair accuracy, Bias was training us to speed our loading.

"If you can shoot twice as fast as the enemy," he said, "it's the same as having twice as many catapults. Now, cockers, put your backs into it this time. We'll start loading when I blow this whistle and see who gets off his dart first."

Talos barely beat Artemis, our rival for first place in the battery, commanded by Phaon of Astyra. When the drill was over and the battery rumbling back through the suburbs, I asked Bias if I might speak to him privately.

"Sure," he said. "What's on your mind, Chares? I'd say you was coming along pretty good, though you've still got a ways to go. When you started with us, I wouldn't have bet on you to last a month."

"It isn't that," I said, "but another thing. Can I trust your confidence?"

"Ever hear of me doing different from what I said?"

In a low voice I told Bias of my relations with Kallias. "It's driving me mad," I said. "He'll be around tomorrow to collect a quarter of my fee for the Demetrios, leaving me with nothing to show for my work. Moreover, he will probably want a similar commission on the next statue, the Antigonos. What can I do? I would not spend my life working solely to enrich Kallias. Have you had trouble of that sort with him?"

Bias tramped a while in silence. Then he spat. "That temple-robbing sodomite! Yes, he tried the same thing on me. First it was just a little gift, which I didn't mind; but he's greedier than a purple shell, and it got to be a big bite out of my gross fees. I finally told him to go jump in the harbor."

"But didn't he—ah—"

"Threaten to bar me from future contracts? Oh, sure. But, you see, I've been doing contract work for the full citizens for thirty years, and they know I don't fool around. So he don't scare me. You, being a beginner, wasn't in such a good position."

We neared the Great Gate. One of the two towers flanking it was half hidden in> scaffolding, the beginnings of the great sluing crane that Kallias proposed to erect.

Bias gestured. "Take that damned thing. I keep building it like he says to, but I know it won't work. This bastard has some real bright ideas, see, but no practical engineering experience. When I heard he was a torsion man, I thought he was going to be pretty good, but it turns out he can't add two and two. So nothing comes out like he expects.

"I try to tell him that, with his design, his crane will lift maybe ten 'or twenty talents; but talking about lifting a belfry or a tortoise, weighing thousands of talents, is drivel. So he looks wise and says: 'I shall consider your point, my good man, and make such modifications in my design as seem indicated.' Next day he says: 'We shall add cross bracing here, and use a rope of heavier gage there, with more men on the crew.' So now he's got a crane that can lift maybe thirty talents. But as for hoisting a belfry, it's like trying to spit on the moon. And every time he changes the design, the part that's already built has got to be taken down."

I said: "It's too bad the city's time and money should be wasted, with war and invasion impending. Would it do any good to complain to the Council?"

"Ah, they're all in it together. What do you suppose this rise in prices is, but some smart scheme to make the stinking-rich richer and us poorer? I might make trouble for Kallias, but it wouldn't do me no good. They'd say I was a subversive element."

"But what shall I do about Kallias?"

"Well, son, in dealing with friends of the rich, it don't pay to hoist the red flag if you don't have to. They stick together, right or wrong. And since you promised Kallias a cut on the Demetrios, you might as well give it to him as make a mortal enemy of him by refusing. But at the same time, like they say, putting up with old wrongs is asking for new ones. If I was you, I'd turn him down on any more commissions. Now the first statue's up, you've got a reputation to trade on, see? If the Antigonos turns out as good as the Demetrios, it wouldn't be easy for Kallias to say to the Council: 'This second statue's a piece of junk; turn it down.' You might even tell him you've compared notes with his other contractors, and if he wants to fight you'll have friends on your side. No names, though."

When he had secured the catapults in the armory, I set out for home with Kavaros. At the marketplace I stopped to admire my Demetrios. There was a waterfront loafer named Aktis, who made a little money by guiding parties of travelers about the city, pointing out the monuments, the quays, and the temples.

Now Aktis was haranguing a dozen about my statue. To hear him talk, one would think that the great Chares had already surpassed the achievements of Pheidias, Bryaxis, and Lysippos put together. While I knew that this was not true (however self-conceited I may have been), it braced my self-confidence to hear it.

And none too soon. When I reached my studio, intending to take advantage of the long summer day, I found the fleshy form of Kallias already there, lolling in my chair and smiling sweetly.

"Rejoice!" he said. "How is the eagle-eyed artilleryman?"

"Well enough, O Kallias. What brings you here?"

"You know, my dear colleague. Dismiss your slave, and we will talk."

When I had sent Kavaros away, Kallias said: "Now, my commission on the Demetrios, please."

I silently counted out the money.

"Many thanks," he said, letting the glittering stream of coins pour into his wallet. "There will, of course, be the same arrangement on the Antigonos."

"No, there won't," I said.

"What? Do not tell me that you would raise my commission!" He smiled, but in the way of a man who tries to make a joke of something that he does not think funny at all.

"No, sir. I mean that the money I've just given you is the last cut out of my fees that you can expect. I'm through."

"You mean you will not build the Antigonos?"

"Not at all. I mean I will keep all the money."

"Do not be absurd. I can cut you off from future contracts like that." He snapped his fingers.

"I'll take the chance. The Demetrios has turned out well; everybody praises it, even you. The Antigonos should be no worse, and if you try to get the Council to reject it, I'll take the whole story to them."

Kallias laughed unpleasantly. "The mouse would beard the lion! Silly boy, know you not that I hold the Council in the hollow of my hand? Guess whom they will believe, if it come to that."

"I have considered that. In fact, I've been around to your other contractors, comparing stories. Know that I shall have friends on my side if it comes to a fight."

Kallias jumped up, face flushed, fists clenched, and murder in his eyes. For an instant I thought he would attack me. As he took a step forward, grasping his heavy walking stick in both hands, I sprang to my workbench and snatched up my mason's mallet.

The sight of the mallet halted him. "Ungrateful young fool!" he spat. "Would you throw away a promising career for simple selfish unwillingness to share your good fortune? Why should I go out of my way to help you for nothing? Your contumacy may inconvenience me, but you cannot possibly improve your own prospects."

"What prospects?" I said. "After I've paid you off, there is nothing left over for me above the cost of materials and labor. I still have to sponge on my parents, and I'm tired of it."

Kallias put on a sympathetic smile, like an actor donning a comic mask. He glided close and patted my arm with a pudgy hand. "Well, if you are that badly pressed, I could adjust my commission."

"No. I'm through with commissions."

"I will ask only one-eighth." His voice changed again, from wheedling to threatening. "But that I must have or you shall do no more work for Rhodes."

"Go ahead and ask. I'll leave Rhodes before I will pay an obolos more. If you don't like the new arrangement, pay me back the money I just gave you."

"Pay you back—why, you insolent—"

"Then leave me alone, please. I have work to do." Kallias struck the earth with his stick. "People who cross me often have occasion to regret it. Forget it not. When you are in a more reasonable mood, I shall be willing to talk of these matters further." Then he was gone.

Although I tried to be even more careful of details, to furnish Kallias with no valid excuse for rejecting the finished statue, the Antigonos went faster than had the Demetrios, because I avoided many of my earlier blunders. As all young men must, I was learning the painful lesson that there is no substitute for experience.

Through the summer, rumors came to Rhodes of King Antigonos' expedition into Egypt. At the time of our embassy to Antigoneia the troops of Ptolemaios, the satrap of Egypt, held Cyprus under the command of Ptolemaios' brother Menelaos. Demetrios Antigonou landed and besieged Menelaos in Salamis. Demetrios also built the monstrous belfry whose design I had heard him discuss. When the tower attacked the city, however, the defenders burnt it.

Then the Ptolemaios himself led a vast fleet, of over three hundred ships, to his brother's relief. Demetrios, however, won an overwhelming victory in a great sea battle off Salamis.

When the Ptolemaios fled back to Egypt, the island surrendered. Demetrios, leaving his own garrisons in Cyprus, rejoined his father at Antigoneia. With a huge force the two self-proclaimed kings moved down the coasts of Syria and Palestine towards Egypt.

For a while Rhodes heard nothing but faint and contradictory rumors: that Antigonos had conquered Egypt and slain the Ptolemaios; that the Ptolemaios had killed both Antigonos and his son; that Antigonos and Ptolemaios had agreed to divide the world between them. The agitation in Rhodes died down. Genetor pressed my father to set a date for my wedding to Io, and my father in turn pressed me.

"To the crows with the lot!" I said. "Tell Genetor I lost my shirt gambling, if you like, and it will take a year to straighten out my finances."

"Now, Chares," said my father, "we all know that's not true. You must be doing better or you wouldn't be able to, help with the household expenses. When Genetor was made a full citizen, I feared he would back out; but no, he assures me his intentions are still firm."

"Well, I won't commit myself to any dates until this statue is done. Kallias has soured on me, and if he persuaded the Council to reject the Antigonos, you can see what a hole that would leave me in."

We got no solid news of the Antigonian invasion of Egypt until the end of Pyanepsion. Then Giskon invited me to another dinner of the Seven Strangers. Knowing that I was too inept to make many friends myself, while neither my father's small circle of cronies nor the Artists' Guild with its narrowly professional interests provided me with the range of human contacts I needed, he had taken pity on me.

Giskon's other guest was a Phoenician, Abibalos of Arados. When the clubmen learnt that Abibalos had just come from Antigoneia, they showered him with questions: Where was Antigonos? Where was Demetrios? What had befallen Egypt?

"As for the kings," said Abibalos, "I saw them a bare ten-day ago, in Antigoneia. Antigonos seemed weary, but his son was as full of health and high spirits as ever."

"What about the invasion?" cried Sarpedon.

"It failed."

"Was there a great battle?" asked Gobryas.

"Not so. The land forces had a difficult march through the wilderness separating Gaza from the mouths of the Nile—"

"That is the land of Sos," said Onas, "or Sinai, as the Judaeans call it. It is the shield of Egypt. For days one sees nought but baking, tumbled rocks to the south, a harborless sea to the north, and between them a strip of treacherous salt marsh and quicksand."

"Antigonos made careful preparations," continued Abibalos, "with great stocks of food and water carried on camels. But they suffered for all of that: Antigonos not least, for he is too old and unwieldly for desert marches. Meanwhile the fleet, under Demetrios, met blustering onshore winds, so that several ships were driven aground and lost.

"The army advanced to within sight of the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile and encamped. At this point I arrived with a cargo of Syrian wheat and wine for the soldiers. I saw the end of the campaign; I, Abibalos of Arados, saw it with my own eyes.

"While Antigonos made ready to force the crossing of the river, Ptolemaios came up with his army and occupied the far side, which he had already fortified. Then he sent men in small boats to row near the eastern shore and call out to Antigonos' men, offering them princely bribes to desert to him.

"As the army's pay was in arrears, many did desert in the manner suggested, until Antigonos drew up a line of trusted guards along the shore and drove off the boats with missiles. He also caught some deserters and had them put to death by horrible tortures. Oi! The screams, the blood, the smell of burning flesh! I still dream of them, though I am no newly hatched chick and know much of man's villainy to man. Antigonos Kyklops is an amusing old scoundrel, but when his blood is up, he becomes a monster of cruelty.

"However, neither threats nor tortures nor promises could halt the wane of the army's spirit. I knew this sooner than did the king; I, Abibalos of Arados, knew it. For when an army begins to crumble, the soldiers begin to plunder and abuse the merchants and sutlers—a thing the officers never allow when all goes well. When my fellow trader, Magon of Berytos, was foully tortured and slain by a file of cavalrymen, and none was punished for the deed, I knew what was toward.

"I would have sailed at once but that onshore winds held me pinned to the Pelusiac mouth. In three days it became plain to Antigonos that he could not cross the river because of high water and the foe's strong position. He could not outflank the Ptolemaios by marching upstream, because the ground is too cut up by lakes and marshes for the movement of so large a force. He could not outflank his opponent by sea because of the shape of the coast and the adverse winds, which continued to wreck his ships. If he stayed where he was, his army would melt away by desertion or would mutiny and slay him, as did the men of the regent Perdikkas.

"So Antigonos ordered retreat. Now he's back home but, as you can imagine, in no very pleasant humor. His men start and go pale when he roars at them."

Shocked by this account, I said: "Did Antigonos himself really order those tortures?"

"Order them? He stood over the executioners, harkening them on and making ingenious suggestions. 'That fellow has a pair of fine blue eyes; just hand them to me,' he'd say."

"I can hardly believe it." I said. "When I met him in Antigoneia, he seemed a man of truly kingly quality."

Nikolaos, the full citizen, said: "If by kingly quality you mean cold-blooded treachery and murder, then Antigonos is your man. Do you know the tale of Kleopatra, the divine Alexander's sister?"

"No, sir. Tell me."

"Thrice a widow, she dwelt in Sardeis, where all the Successors sought her hand as a means to the kingship. Two years ago she decided to cast her lot with the Ptolemaios. But when she tried to leave Sardeis, the governor, acting on Antigonos' orders, imprisoned her and hired certain women to kill her.

"Antigonos, not wishing the odium of the murder, had her buried with royal rites and the women publicly beheaded. I believe he had first had their tongues cut out, so they could not cry out to accuse him at the end. Oh, well, the tale can be matched from the history of any of the other Successors." He turned back to Abibalos. "What of the king's plans?"

"Who knows," said the Phoenician. "Antigonos has always been one for keeping his own counsel and then pouncing like a lion. There are rumors that he will attack this or that Successor—Kasandros, or Lysimachos, or Seleukos, who has lately established his rule over the eastern lands as far as India."

Said Vindex of Rome thoughtfully: "Suppose Antigonos decides to take up his unfinished business with Rhodes?"

"That is what concerns me," said Nikolaos. "Last year, when Antigonos sent those ships to blockade us, everybody was full of patriotic fervor, rushing about and preparing for war. Now this peaceful interval has sapped our spirit. Even my colleagues on the Council insist that all will be well, so let us have business as usual."

"I know," I said. "Last year the Council placed a huge order for bronze shield facings with my father. He laid in a supply of ingot bronze, and then the Council canceled the order, leaving him with enough bronze to take care of his ordinary business for years."

"Tell your father not to sell his stock of bronze," said Nikolaos. "There's a good chance that we shall soon need those shield facings after all. That is, if our politicians can rouse themselves from their game of profits and mutual praises before it be too late."

"This government by elected politicians is simply not practical," said Gobryas the Persian. "I have watched it in action for some time now, and though it be heresy to you, I say you need a king to tell you what to do."

Vindex spoke up: "Do not be hasty to abandon republican government, whatever its shortcomings. We Romans threw out our kings two hundred years ago and have never regretted it. I have read a little history, and for every folly committed by an elective government I can match it with two greater follies done by kings."

"What you mean, my friend," said Nikolaos, "is that most men are fools, and no change in form of government will alter that basic fact."

Later somebody mentioned Kallias of Arados. Abibalos asked: "Is that a man of about my age, rather stout and ruddy, with good Greek and ingratiating manner?"

When told that it was indeed Kallias, who had supplanted the city's municipal architect, the Phoenician burst out laughing but refused to tell why.

"No, gentlemen," he said. "I mind my own business. Who stirs up a hornets' nest can expect to be stung."

But we pressed him. When he had been assured that not even the sun should hear of what he told us, he said:

"The Phoenician name of this Kallias is Iaphê ben-Motgen, and he was all but run out of Arados. He built us a new Town Hall—you know how he can worm his way into any job—incorporating, he assured us, the latest improvements. Alas! the new building fell down during the dedication, killing half our Council.

"When brought to trial, the man averred that an imperceptible earthquake at that moment shook down the structure. Although nobody else had felt the quake, he cast enough doubt on the prosecution's case so that the court let him go with a warning. But as no one would hire him, he set out to make his fortune elsewhere. Although I knew that he had sent for his family to join him, I had not heard whither he went."

"Oh, come," said Nikolaos. "Surely he is not so bad as that. He has given every satisfaction here."

"Why—the—" I began, meaning to burst out with the true tale of Kallias' graft and incompetence. But again my guardian spirit checked me.

No more than a stone that has left the hand can one stop a word that has left the tongue. Nikolaos, I thought, would be a difficult person to turn against Kallias, because he had introduced the man to the Council and so was partly responsible for the city's putting its trust in him.

"Let us hope he continues to give satisfaction," said Abibalos. "I will only say that I should hate to see the defense of my city entrusted to him. Who said: 'The best equipment for life is effrontery'? That, my masters, is the motto of Iaphê ben-Motgen, alias Kallias."

When I got to the studio next morning, I brooded over the clay model for the head of the Antigonos. What I had learnt of the satrap demolished this ideal, also. On an impulse I hurled the model to the floor.

Kavaros ran in at the crash. He cried: "Oh, master darling! What a dreadful thing? Broken in fifty pieces it is, and how will we ever get it back together?"

"We shan't. I must make another. Pick up the pieces. We'll glue them together to give us something to work from."

"How did it ever happen, sir?"

"Sheer stupidity, Kavaros."

Second thoughts had made me regret my outburst. After all, I still had a contract with the city to fulfill, and to default upon it would cost me what small progress I had made towards my goal.

As winter came on, people asked me with increasing frequency how long it would take me to finish the Antigonos. I told them that I had run into unexpected technical difficulties, having to do with the statue's weapons and armor. The Antigonos would not be nude, like the Demetrios, but clad in the panoply of a modern general.

The truth is, however, that I was deliberately dallying. I feared that, once the statue was finished, Kallias would reject it and I should have to force the issue with him. While I have not lacked courage for physical combat, the thought of a prolonged public quarrel with this cunning adventurer, as slippery as a Phaselite, filled me with dread.

Once I passed Kallias in the marketplace. He said nothing but glanced at the half-finished statue of Antigonos and back to me with a sly and sinister smile.

Now my father, my friends, and even some of the city's officials began to pester me to know what was holding up the work. At length I shut myself up in my studio and refused to see anybody, living a life of morose misanthropy like that of Herakleitos the philosopher. I. rejected all invitations until Kavaros said:

"A bad thing it is, master, for a young fellow to shut himself up like a dead corpse, and you so handsome and all."

In a rage I fell upon the Kelt with a lath and beat him until he ran out of the studio. Then, feeling utterly ashamed of myself, I sat for hours looking out over the city, which lay under a gray, wet, windy sky. Feeling pressed from all directions—by Kallias, by Genetor, by the Antigonian threat to my city, and by my own lofty ambitions—I felt that, as the saying goes, it is best not to be born, but if one be born, the next best thing is to die forthwith.

At length my guardian spirit—or was it the Bright One himself?—said to me: Come, boy, the deathless gods love not stupidity. So you are in a predicament? That is nought new. Most mortals are, most of the time. As fast as you get out of one, you will fall into another. What of it? That is the difference between being alive and being dead. Only the dead have bo problems, and the shades have a dull time of it. That time will come upon you soon enough; therefore, gather your forces and return to the fray!

So I went back to work on the statue, determined to finish it and let Kallias do his worst. When I heard a stealthy step, I called:

"Kavaros!"

"Yes, sir."

"There's a Persian custom of giving gifts to a man on his birthday. I don't know when your last one was, but here is a tetradrachmon for it."

Kavaros turned the massive coin over and handed it back, saying: "Thank you, master, but if you do not mind I will not be taking it."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"No, sir. It is a matter of honor."

"Honor? You?"

"I do not know if I can make you understand, sir. I know I am just a slave, and if you beat me I have to bear it, lest something worse happen to me—like being sold to a mining contractor, say. But at home I was a gentleman, and a gentleman would not hire himself out to be beaten for money."

I found this quiet rebuke so crushing that for a long time I stood silent. At last I said:

"Well, slave or gentleman, you've been a good friend to me. I know you want to be free, so you shall be—as soon as my great statue is done."

"Is it this one that you mean?" he said, eagerly indicating the half-finished Antigonos.

"No. I mean my colossus; the one I dream of."

"Oh. Well, sir, I will be looking forward to it someday, anyway. And now do we work some more on the one-eyed fellow?"

We pitched in, and in a few ten-days had the Antigonos all up and in place except for the arms and head. I found the work distasteful, as the subject had become revolting to me; but soonest begun, soonest done.

In Anthesterion, during the heaviest rain of the winter, somebody knocked on the outer door of the studio. Although I pretended not to hear, the knocking kept on until I ordered Kavaros to open the door. As the visitor came in, I burst out:

"By the Dog of Egypt! How can a creative artist work if he is constantly interrupted by this fiendish racket?" Then I saw that it was Onas.

"I have orders from Bias to fetch you," said the Egyptian. "We are wanted at the armory. Demetrios is back at Loryma."

In the armory Bias explained the plans of the Board of Generals. New catapults of all sizes would be ordered. Until they were finished, we must be prepared to rush our battery .either to the moles, to repel attack by sea, or to the South Wall, to repulse assault by land.

As I was leaving the armory, who should come puffing up to me but Kallias, with an umbrella hat on his head.

"Chares!" he said. "Get the rest of that statue up, forthwith!"

"Oh?"

"Do not 'oh' me, young man. I know you can finish it in a few days if you wish. And fear not that I shall reject it. The Assembly is about to vote some fancy honors to the kings, and it would not look well to leave their statues unfinished."

Two days later Kavaros and I drove the last rivet holding the statue's head to its trunk, and the Antigonos was complete. When the municipal treasurer paid me off, he said:

"It is good that you finished that statue, Chares. You took so long that there was a move afoot to cancel your contract. The Council might have done it, too, had it not been for your servant."

"Kavaros? Why, what did he do?"

"He came to us and told us the real reason for the delay: how he had gotten drunk and broken your molds."

I turned away, to hide a tear, resolving that the good Kavaros should be freed as soon as I could afford to buy a replacement for him, colossus or no colossus.

Thereafter I had little time for sculpture. My father got a new contract for shield facings, and I put in long hours in the foundry. When not casting and hammering the thin bronze disks or punching the letter rho (for Rhodes) into them, I was drilling with the crew of the Talos. Day and night the streets of beautiful Rhodes resounded to the tramp of infantry marching to drill and back, or of reservists hastening to a practice muster.

I heard that another embassy had been sent to Loryma; then that it had returned without an agreement. I got the true story of the embassy from Damophilos, who, with some other friends of my father, attended a dinner at our house.

"I sometimes think the royalists are right," Damophilos said. "From the craven conduct of our embassy one would indeed infer that democracy has no future."

"What did they do?" asked my father. "I know they refused the king's demands, which doesn't sound cowardly to me. After all, there are men in Rhodes who remember when Queen Artemisia took the city and stacked the heads of Councilmen in the theater like a pile of catapult balls."

Damophilos blew his nose, for he had caught cold on the rainy voyage. "At first they refused the king's demands. Then, when Demetrios threatened utterly to destroy the city, they hastily agreed—that is, to join him against the Ptolemaios.

"But who is given too much wants yet more. Becoming haughty and insulting, Demetrios asked for a hundred of the noblest citizens as hostages and for the right to bring his fleet into our harbors. All our statues and other honors have not softened these royal robbers in the least.

"Once we let him into the harbors, he could do as he liked—raze the city and slay us all if it suited him. In fact, I suspect him of just such a plan. His soldiers grumble because their pay is in arrears. It would be just like him, having failed to loot Egypt, to promise them the sack of Rhodes to soothe them.

"But what really spilt the perfume into the soup was the demand for noble hostages. These would include all the members of the embassy, who, naturally, were not eager to be carried off as pledges for the good behavior of Rhodes, and have their throats cut if some hothead started a patriotic riot at home. So they finally said 'no.'"

"If we must fight, we must," said my father. "When we grow too soft to defend ourselves, we no longer merit our liberty."

"Euge!" said Damophilos. "Though the sight of Demetrios' vast armament at Loryma might dampen that noble sentiment. But there, I should be harkening you on, not sapping your spirit by ill-timed cynicisms." He turned to me. "By the way, the king asked after you."

"How so?" I asked with a hollow feeling.

" 'Where is that pretty young sculptor, whatever his name was?' he said, adding that he wanted you among the hostages. What about it, Chares?"

None would have blamed me much if I had confessed to being Demetrios' catamite. However, I told the true tale of my escape.

"If he want me now," I said, "it is not to make love to me but to kill me."

Damophilos laughed with the rest, albeit grimly. "Had Chares been less finical, it might have been better for Rhodes. But I like the lad's spirit. If all our flabby, money-grubbing, pleasure-loving citizens show the like, Rhodes may—just may —have a chance."

Early in Elaphebolion, Demetrios sailed from Loryma. I was down on the South Mole, in helmet and leather jack, commanding Talos. What I saw was enough to terrify a demigod.

The entire sea between Rhodes and the mainland seemed filled with purple-hulled ships. In the van came a long rank of Demetrios' great battle transports, sixers and seveners and some of even higher rates. In the center rowed a ship that was larger than any, flying an admiral's purple sails: Demetrios' new elevener. It had a feature unheard of in those days: two full-sized masts, each bearing a sail. On the sterns of hundreds of ships gleamed the golden eagles of the empire, while the same device was painted or embroidered upon their sails.

Behind the battle transports came hundreds of other ships. There were great blocks of fivers and smaller galleys, towing transports for men and horses. Behind these came still other hundreds of vessels: low, lean, thirty- and forty-oared craft with blue-gray hulls—Demetrios' piratical allies. There must have been at least a thousand ships belonging to pirates and slavers. Everybody knew that Rhodes had not been plundered for years, and news of Demetrios' attack had brought out all the pirates of Crete and the Anatolian coasts, like vultures to a dying beef.

News of the gathering of the pirates firmed our spirits as nothing else could have done. We knew that, even if Demetrios was inclined to leniency if the city fell, he could never protect us from his evil allies, who hated Rhodes for her long campaigns against them. The streets would run with blood, heads would be piled in the squares, and those who lived would do so as slaves in Carthage or Italy or other distant lands.

Behind us, on shore, the women wept as in the time of Nannakos, and the old men prayed. The murmur of it came across the water.

Closer and closer crept the great fleet. As the ships of the first rank neared, the following ranks became visible. Never had so vast a fleet, in all of history, been gathered under one man.

Bias, still looking the artisan despite his crested helmet, said: "It looks like he's going to stand straight into the harbor, sails up and all, to see if we'll let him in without a fight. Cock and load your pieces, but don't nobody shoot till I give the word."

On came the swarm, the elevener pulling to the front. Capacious though our two harbors were, they could never have held all the ships arrayed against us. I said:

"Give the range, Berosos."

"Twenty-two plethra," he said.

We waited in taut silence.

"Twenty plethra."

"Eighteen plethra."

"Cockers, cock your piece," I said. "Sixteenth notch. Train to the left. A little more; good. Load your piece."

All up and down the mole, torsion skeins creaked and pawls clicked over their racks.

"Sixteen plethra," said Berosos.

A little white wave curled over the ram of the elevener as it wallowed towards us through the deep blue sea. Gulls circled and mewed. The sun glittered on the helmets of the marines who crowded Demetrios' decks. Sailors scurried to furl the sails of the leading ships. Up in folds went the painted golden eagles.

"Fifteen plethra," said Berosos.

"Shoot at will!" cried Bias, and the cry was taken up by the other battery commanders.

"Shoot!" I said.

Onas struck his knob. With a rattling crash the catapults up and down the mole let fly. The darts arose in long arcs with a simultaneous shriek.

"Pull up your recoiler," I said. "Cock your piece; fourteenth notch. Load your piece. Hurry, curse you! Train to the right; that big fellow. Shoot! Pull up your recoiler—"

An answering chorus of thumps and crashes came from the leading ships, and darts streaked towards us. I soon found the difference between shooting afloat and ashore. While the defenders scored many hits, the tossing of the ships caused nearly all the enemy's missiles to fly wild.

The air was full of missiles, coming and going.. Three-span darts whistled about us like rain. We shot and shot, flinching a little as a dart came close, but always coming back to shoot again. After one bad shot I said:

"Your ranging is off, Berosos. You're giving them too short."

"Not I!" he said. "Our skeins are weakening, instead."

Whichever was true, I began adding a notch or two to the pullback of the recoiler, and soon we were hitting again. Closer came the great ships, with darts sticking from their woodwork like spines from a hedgehog. Although their decks were too high for us to see our hits on Demetrios' men, we knew we had scored heavily.

The scorpion men cocked their weapons, raised them, and set their butt braces against their breasts. Archers nocked their shafts; slingers fitted bullets into their pouches. The yells of the men on the ships and the shore became one long howl, as of a myriad of wolves. Several of our men lay in their blood on the mole, and none could spare the time to help them. Bolts, bullets, and arrows whizzed off to rain upon the ships, where the gilded soldiery now crouched behind their shields. Even the heavy old flexion catapults built by Isidores, moved by tremendous exertions to the moles, discharged their one-talent balls with booming crashes.

Onas muttered: "At least there will be no doubt in the king's mind of his welcome."

The elevener swung off to our right, southward towards Lindos. Like a platoon of phalangites doing a column-left, the vast mass of ships followed, most of them turning while out of range.

"Cease shooting!" commanded Bias.

While our wounded and slain were carried off, the fleet crept south with thousands of oars rising and falling until it had passed the end of the city wall. Here is a kind of third harbor—a natural one, formed by a sandspit, the Southeast Peninsula, that runs out towards the Chatar Rocks. This South Harbor, as it is called, has not been developed, because the other two have sufficed for commerce and naval craft; it was used by fishermen only.

Now, Demetrios could not use the near side of the South Harbor, because it could be reached by our engines. So the fleet entered the harbor on the far side and lined up along the Southeast Peninsula. Other ships, for which room was wanting in South Harbor, passed around the rocks and came to rest on the indented coast beyond.

As the sun went down behind the akropolis, throwing the temple of Helios-Apollon into black relief, the king's ships, with much shouting, splashing, and trumpet braying, found their berths. The smaller ones were drawn up on the strand while the larger rode at anchor.

We stood to our arms until after sunset. When the stars had come out, a shooting star flashed across the sky. Berosos said:

"Right through the Virgin! Blood and doom and disaster dire shall there be—"

"Hold your tongue!" I said. "We have a short way with fortunetellers who predict disaster in wartime."

Bias bustled up. "Chares! Did you have trouble with falling range?"

"Yes, a little."

"Then take your piece back to the shed. We'll adjust the skeins tonight."

Groaning with weariness, we levered Talos up on its rollers and hauled it along the mole. Artemis and the ever-unlucky Eros came with us, for they, too, had had troubles.

In the armory Bias struck the skeins of Talos with a mallet, thrust an awl between them and moved it this way and that, and finally said:

"I don't think we'll unwind and restring her. We'll shim up those shackles by driving wedges under the shackle rings."

After commanding one of the mechanics to deal with this, he passed on to the other engines.

Whereas Eros had the same trouble as Talos, the trigger mechanism of Artemis had been giving difficulty. While Bias-and his mechanics worked on the latter fault, the mechanics set stepladders against Talos and Eros, climbed up, and began adding tension to our skeins by wedging up the shackles. Now and then they paused to hammer the skeins and listen to their tones, to make sure that the tension was equal on both sides. On Talos all went well, but from Eros came a loud crack and a groan of tortured carpentry.

"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.