The Romans had two specially strengthened legions- ten thousand men- plus the army of their allies the Mamertini, which alone nearly equaled the number of the Syracusan army. Outnumbered and facing enemies famed for their ferocity and discipline, the Syracusans had no intention of venturing into the field. Refugees from the outlying farms and villages came flooding into the city, laden with as many of their possessions as they could carry and lamenting the harvest they had been forced to abandon. As Hieron had said, the hope of Syracuse lay in her walls- and her catapults.
The captain of the Hexapylon was delighted to see Archimedes. "That's the two-talenter?" he asked, as soon as the wagon had rolled to a halt. "Good, good! See if you can get it up in time to wish the Romans good health when they arrive, hah!" And he gestured for his men to help move the catapult to its selected platform.
Between the throng of eager helpers and Kallippos' hoists, the bits of the catapult were soon in place, and Archimedes afterward realized with astonishment that he had not once had to pull on a rope himself. He was assembling the pieces when Hieron arrived with a troop of guardsmen. He came up to the catapult platform and watched silently while Archimedes threaded the pulleys. Archimedes concentrated furiously to avoid those bright interested eyes.
"Will it work as well as the others?" the king asked when the stock had been fixed upon its stand.
"Unnh?" said Archimedes, fiddling with the screw elevator. "Oh. Yes. Probably won't have the range of the Welcomer, though." He walked back along the stock to the trigger and sighted along the slide- then stood upright with a jerk. There was a vast shadow on the road northa shadow that glittered as the bright noon sun caught upon the points of the thousands of spears. He looked at the king in shock.
Hieron met his eyes and nodded. "I imagine they'll want to set up camp before they test our teeth," he said. "You don't need to rush the tuning."
In fact, the Romans were impatient. The main body of the army halted in the fields to the north of the Epipolae plateau and began entrenching, but a smaller group could be seen assembling on the road. It was easy to make out two masses of men falling into square formations, with an irregular line of other men before them.
Hieron, who was watching out the artillery port, gave a snort of dismay. "Two battalions?" he asked no one in particular. "Two- what do they call them? — maniples? Only about four hundred men. What do they think they're doing?"
As if in answer, the two squares began to march toward Syracuse, one to the left and one to the right of the road. "Anyone with better eyes than me see a herald, or any tokens of a truce?" asked the king, raising his voice.
Nobody saw any evidence that the Romans were coming to talk.
Hieron sighed and stared at the two maniples a moment longer with a look of loathing. Then he said, "Very well," and snapped his fingers. "Get the men drawn up," he ordered his staff. "There are a few things I want to tell them."
The Syracusan soldiers assembled in neat ranks in the fort yard, facing the open-backed catapult platform where the king stood. The Hexapylon had a regular garrison of a single infantry file- thirty-six men- plus servants and errand boys and hangers-on, and the king had brought four more files with him. But the crowd that assembled now numbered well over three hundred, and Archimedes realized that men from other units along the wall must have been arriving while he was busy with the catapult. Hieron had concentrated some strength here, where the first attack was expected- but not too much. All up and down the fifteen-mile circuit of the walls, Syracusans must be standing to the alert, checking the tension on their catapults and arranging supplies of ammunition. Who knew which way the Romans would turn?
Hieron strode to the edge of the platform and looked out at the rows of helmets before him, all with their cheek flaps turned up so that they could listen. Archimedes glanced over the ranks, then, feeling out of place, went back to Good Health and resumed work on the strings. Despite the king's advice, he had been rushing to get the catapult ready to fire, and now it only needed tuning. He climbed up onto the stock with the winding gear.
"Men," shouted the king, in a strong clear voice, "the Romans have decided to send some fellows up to see whether or not we have teeth. We're going to let them come as close they want to, and then we're going to bite so hard that their friends watching will shit for fear."
The soldiers gave a roar of understanding and struck the butts of their spears against the ground. Archimedes waited for the noise to die down, then struck the second set of catapult strings.
"Good!" said Hieron, drowning the note. "So don't do anything to scare them off early! No shouting, and absolutely no shooting, until I give the order. When they're nice and close, we're going to give them a warm greeting. You probably know we have a couple of new catapults here especially designed for greeting Romans. One says 'Welcome!' and the other says 'Good health!' When a two-talenter wishes you health, you'll never be ill again!"
Another roar, of laughter this time. Archimedes glanced around irritably, then tried striking the strings again.
"I want them smashed!" shouted the king, punching the air. "When the catapults have done that, the lads that came up here with me can go pick up the pieces, and carry the bits back. I want prisoners, if we can take them. But the main job today is to let the enemy know what he can expect if he attacks Syracuse. Understood?"
In answer, the men bellowed the war cry, the fierce ululation howled out just before the clash of arms: alala! Hieron lifted his arms above his head, his purple cloak flapping, and shouted, "Victory to Syracuse!" Archimedes set the winding gear down in exasperation. Hieron left the troop cheering and turned around to look at Archimedes. "I hope it is ready to fire?" he asked, in a normal tone of voice.
"It would be," said Archimedes disgustedly, "if you would just keep quiet!"
Hieron grinned and gave an apologetic go-ahead wave of the hand. One of the men who was to operate the catapult struck the fixed strings, and Archimedes hit his own strings. Too low.
He tightened them a turn and a half, struck them again, and nodded to the catapultist. The man rapped out a sharp hollow note while the first sound still reverberated, and the two notes blended low and deadly on the still air.
"It's ready!" Archimedes said breathlessly. The king smiled tightly, gave a nod, and departed to watch from the gate.
Archimedes patted Good Health nervously, then went to the open artillery port to watch. He was vaguely aware of the catapult shifting beside him as its new team of operators tried the wind-lasses and elevator to train it on the enemy's advance. In the fields beyond, the Romans were continuing their slow march up the hill toward the walls of Syracuse.
At the limit of catapult range the Romans were faced with a deep ditch and a bank; they hesitated a moment, then raised their shields above their heads and began tramping down the ditch and up the other side. The shields were painted red, and as the men descended into the ditch they looked like a swarm of brightly colored beetles.
Archimedes heard someone come up behind him, and he glanced around and recognized Straton. "Oh," he said vaguely, and looked back at the advancing Romans.
"I was sorry I missed your demonstration," said the guardsman, as casually as though they were meeting in the marketplace. "The fact is, the captain had me cleaning the latrines that day."
Archimedes glanced back at him, surprised, and Straton grinned. "I'd made some bets with the other fellows in my unit that you'd do it, and there was a bit of argument about it. The captain doesn't like arguments. But you earned me a month's pay when you moved that ship. I've come to say thanks."
Archimedes gave an embarrassed shrug. "I don't know why people thought it was so impossible. Pulleys have been around for centuries." His eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the Romans. They were well within catapult range now, and were looking more like men and less like insects. "How close does King Hieron mean to let them come?" he asked.
"You heard him!" said Straton, surprised. "As close as they're willing
to come! See, they've been sent up here to have a look at us, to find out what kind of defenses we've got. They've probably got orders to fall back as soon as we start shooting. The idiots have come too close for safety already- and in loose formation, too."
Archimedes chewed his thumbnail. There was a limit to how far a catapult could be depressed: if the Romans got too close, they'd be inside the arc of fire. "What if they run for the walls?" he asked.
"Shouldn't think they will," said Straton. "If those fellows knew anything about catapults, they wouldn't have come as close as they have- and it takes a lot of experience to convince your feet that you'll be safer running toward your enemy than away from him. But if they're stupid enough to try it, we've got enough men here to wipe them out."
They both stood for another endless minute gazing down at the advancing ranks of shields: two squares in an open formation, twelve men deep, with a double line before them. It was now possible to see that the men in front were light-armed skirmishers, equipped only with a few javelins, a helmet, and a shield; the men in the rank had breastplates and heavier spears. At the front of each square gleamed the standards- gilded eagles, set upon tall poles, trailing crimson banners which juddered as the standard-bearers made their way cautiously over the uneven ground. "Idiots!" whispered Straton. "Don't they realize?"
The Romans might be idiots, but the silence of the walls was clearly making them nervous: they marched more and more slowly, and at last stopped altogether.
At his shoulder Archimedes felt the air stir as Good Health's nose dipped. He retreated from the artillery port and went back along the catapult stock to where the new team of operators stood. There were three of them: one to load, one to fire, and one to assist. All three grinned- and then the captain of the team, a tough-looking man twenty years senior to Archimedes, stood aside from the trigger. "You want to test your new catapult, Archimechanic?" he asked.
Archimedes blinked at the nickname, but nodded, then moved to the foot of the catapult to sight along the stock; the machine was already aimed and loaded, and he found himself staring through the aperture at the air above one of the Roman standard-bearers. The man was only a couple of hundred feet away. Archimedes could make out the sandy color of his beard under the wolfskin he had tied over his helmet. The standard-bearer had lowered his shield while he talked to a man in a red-crested helmet. As Archimedes watched, the light-armed troops began to move back past the two into the gaps left in the formation of the heavy infantry: clearly, the Romans had decided that they'd come far enough and should retreat. It seemed to be what Hieron was waiting for: from overhead and along the city wall came a barking order, and then the sudden crack of catapult arm against heel plate; the air darkened with bolts. The standard-bearer at once lifted his shield above his head again. From the floor directly above came the deep bay of the Welcomer- and then there were screams.
"Now, sir!" said the catapult captain impatiently. "Now!"
Archimedes fumbled at the trigger.
Good Health's voice was deeper than the Welcomer's, a fearsome bellow ending in a smash of iron. The stone was gone too fast to follow- and then the standard-bearer was down, and the missile was tearing through the Roman line behind him like a harpoon through water. Screams- they were close enough that he could hear the screams clearly, even over the whoops of glee that rose from the catapult team as they saw their target go down. Archimedes stumbled back, still staring along the stock through catapult aperture and artillery port. The standard-bearer's body sprawled backward on the ground, red-topped, helmetless- no, headless! The two-talent stone had knocked his head clean off his body and gone on to kill or maim everyone behind him in the line of fire.
"Quick!" yelled the catapultist, already winching back the string. "Reload!"
His two assistants already had the hoist ready; another stone was dropped into place. On the floor above them, the Welcomer cried out again, and Archimedes glanced along the line and found another trail of bodies traced through the Roman maniple, but not quite so far; the one-talent stone seemed to fail after claiming its four or fifth victim. As he lifted his eyes, he saw that the rear ranks were falling, too. From the parapet of the city wall the small, long-ranged arrow-shooting scorpions struck methodically at the rear of the Roman force. The Romans were still trying to protect themselves with their shields, but catapult bolts went through shields, piercing wood and leather and bronze as easily as flesh and bone. From the upper towers of the fort, the lighter stone-hurlers volleyed steadily, sending weights of ten or fifteen or thirty pounds flying with hideous force into the middle of the rank. Battered by forty catapults at once, the Romans fell like grass to a scythe.
His survey had taken only seconds; beside him, Good Health now bellowed again. Another bloody furrow tore through the Roman force from front to back; a new set of screams rose audibly above a steady background of howls and the endless percussion of arms on heel plates. "Reload!" screamed the catapult captain; and the string groaned as it was winched back again.
In the field beyond, the Romans were throwing away their shields and running away as fast as they could, but even as they fled, the storm of death followed and cut them down.
"Oh, gods!" whispered Archimedes. He had never in his life before seen anyone killed.
Straton too was staring out the artillery port, his face contorted in a grin that was more than half snarl, his fist rising and falling in sympathy with the baying of the big catapults. "Welcome to Syracuse, you bugger-arsed barbarians," he muttered. "Good health!" He straightened abruptly and flipped down the cheek-pieces of his helmet. "Almost time to pick up what's left," he said, and ran lightly down the steps to join his unit. As he went, Good Health's bellow arose again.
Archimedes retreated from the catapult platform and sat down on the steps. He thought he was going to be sick. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the standard-bearer's body lying there headless. What had happened to that sandy beard? It must be smeared all over the stone- oh, Apollo! — with the man's brains and blood… his catapult!
There was a blast of trumpets, and then the high sweet sound of a soprano aulos, piping the men out into battle. The stone-hurling catapults stopped baying, though the percussion of the arrow-firers continued, picking off the Romans as they fled. No war cry followed from the Syracusans, however. As Hieron had promised, the Romans had already been smashed: all the Syracusans needed to do was pick up the pieces. And at last even the stuttering of the scorpions ceased.
Of the four hundred-odd Romans who had advanced on the city, perhaps twenty-five men made it back to their camp. Another thirty or so who had dropped to the ground to avoid being shot surrendered to the Syracusans, and fifty-four other prisoners were carried into the city, too badly injured to walk. All the rest were dead.
Hieron went through the Hexapylon, congratulating his men. When he reached Good Health's platform, he found the new catapult's team busily loosening the strings. The machine could not be kept at full tension without strain, and it was clear that the Romans would not try another assault on the fort that day. Of the king's new engineer there was no trace.
"Where's Archimedes?" asked Hieron, glancing about with a frown.
"Gone home, lord," said the catapult captain, climbing down from the stock. "He was looking a bit green. I don't think he's seen one of these in action before- and he'd finished here, anyway."
"Ah," said the king. His frown deepened.
"He can't have been upset by that!" protested the assistant in surprise. "He built the machine- he must have known what it would do."
"There's knowing and knowing," observed Hieron quietly. "Everyone who rides, for example, knows that it's dangerous to gallop downhill. But there are plenty of cavalrymen who do it all the time, because it looks bold and dashing. Once a fellow I knew killed a horse and broke his arm in three places doing it, and after that he understood that it was dangerous."
"And never did it again?" asked the catapult assistant expectantly.
/> The king gave him a sharp look. "He could never again bring himself to gallop at all. He had to resign from the cavalry. There's knowing and knowing." His frown lifted as he looked at Good Health. "I noticed that this machine worked every bit as well as its brother."
The catapult captain gave a contented sigh and patted the new machine. "Lord," he said, "it's the best I've ever handled. I don't know what you're paying the fellow for it, but you should double it. We fired five times before they were out of range, and it was as easy as killing blackbirds with a sling. Three direct hits, one partial, one miss. The range is about four hundred feet. I reckon this darling must have given permanent good health to thirty or forty of the enemy. Lord, a machine like this-"
"I know," said Hieron. "Well done! We've shown the enemy a thing or two about Syracuse, eh?"
When he had finished speaking to his men and given orders for the watch on the Romans and the treatment of the prisoners, Hieron went back to the gate tower from which he had observed the assault and climbed up it to the highest floor. A single scorpion crouched there alone, its operator already gone and the tension on its strings relaxed for the evening. The king glanced out the artillery port at the Romans- now firmly entrenched for the night- then turned to stare in the opposite direction, out at the city of Syracuse.
From this angle most of the city was hidden, masked by the plateau of Epipolae. But the Ortygia thrust out into a brilliantly blue sea, and to the south he could make out the sea gates and the naval docks. The temple of Athena shone red and white, and the mansions of Ortygia made a patch of green, with the fountain of Arethusa a deeper, more vivid green by the harborside. The air shimmered with the afternoon heat, making the city look as insubstantial, and as beautiful, as a dream city in a sunset cloud.
Hieron gave a long sigh, feeling a hot sick tension ebb away. He sat down in the doorway, resting his chin on his crossed hands. His lovely city, Syracuse. Safe- for the time being.
The Sand-Reckoner Page 21