The Etruscan

by Mika Waltari

Primarily I was troubled by a gnawing restlessness and the omens which I was as yet unable to interpret. I knew that I had to depart soon but had no idea in which direction to go. I didn’t even have the means with which to return to civilization where one could purchase hospitality if one had no friends. My only friend was Lars Alsir, if he still lived in Himera. But a return to Himera would have meant certain death since both Arsinoe and I were known there. Besides, I was already indebted to Lars Alsir and the thought of the debt troubled me.

  I realized that I was just as poor as when Tanakil had banished us from Segesta, for like the Siccani I possessed only the clothes I wore and my weapons.

  In my anxiety I reproached the succoring goddess, saying “Holy virgin, the Amazons hung their breasts on your garments as offerings. You have succored me and my family so that we have not wanted for food or clothing. But you yourself appeared to me in Ephesus as Hecate and promised that I would never lack earthly riches whenever I needed them. Remember your promise, for now I need gold and silver.”

  A few days later, near the full of the moon, Artemis appeared to me in a dream as Hecate. I saw her three terrifying faces, she was waving a trident and a black dog was barking furiously at her feet. My whole body was enveloped in cold sweat when I awakened, for even in a kindly mood Hecate is an awesome sight. But the trident confirmed my belief that I must sail across the sea.

  I was filled with such elation that I could no longer sleep but went out into the forest. By the sacrificial rock I met several Siccanians who were looking and listening in every direction. They claimed that strangers were approaching.

  “Let us go toward them so that we will surely meet,” I suggested. “Perhaps they are bringing salt and cloth.”

  On a bank of the river we found an Etruscan merchant who had brought salt in a small sailboat to Panormos, where he paid his taxes, and from there transported the salt by donkey to the forests of the Siccani. He was accompanied by three slaves and servants. They had built a fire for the night to protect themselves from the wild beasts and to indicate their peaceful intentions. They had likewise ornamented the donkeys and sacks of salt with fir branches and themselves slept with a fir branch clutched tightly in one hand. The Siccanian forest had a frightening reputation although the Siccani had not within the memory of man killed any merchant who ventured into their territory under the protection of a fir branch.

  When dawn broke I could hardly contain my impatience, for beside the Tyrrhenian merchant I saw a strange man sleeping under a beautifully loomed woolen mantle. His beard was curly and the fragrance of fine oils carried to my nostrils. I could not understand what such a man could be doing in the Siccanian forest with a lowly merchant.

  I watched him while the day grew lighter and the fish began to leap in the calm waters of the river. Finally the stranger turned in his sleep, awakened, and sat upright with a cry of terror. Seeing the Siccanians with their striped faces sitting silently by the fire he screamed again and reached for die weapon beside him.

  The merchant awakened instantly and reassured the man, while the Siccanians rose and disappeared silently into the forest as though the earth had swallowed them, leaving me to bargain with the merchant as was their custom. Nevertheless, I knew that they saw and heard all I did even though we could not see them. Their habit of painting stripes on their faces enabled them to remain invisible, for at first sight one would believe an immobile Siccanian to be but the shadows of reeds or bushes.

  When the stranger arose, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, I noticed that he was wearing loose trousers. I knew then that he had come far and that he served the Persian king. He was still young, his skin was white, and he soon donned a broad-brimmed straw hat to shield his face from the heat of the sun.

  He asked in amazement, “Was I dreaming, or did I really see trees walking away from the campfire? At least I saw a strange god in my dream and was so alarmed that I awakened to my own cry.”

  In his bewilderment he spoke Greek, which the Etruscan did not understand. Not wishing to reveal that I was not a Siccanian, I replied to him in Greek mixed with Elymian and Siccanian words.

  “How far have you come, stranger?” I asked. “Your clothes are odd. What are you doing in our forest? You are certainly not a merchant. Are you a priest or a seer, or are you fulfilling a vow?”

  “I am fulfilling a vow,” he replied quickly, happy that I spoke comprehensible Greek. The Etruscan understood little of what the man said, although he had permitted the other to accompany him for payment, as I learned. I pretended to lose interest in the stranger and began to talk to the merchant, tasting his salt and looking at his cloth. With a wink he indicated that he had concealed iron objects in the sacks of salt. He had presumably bribed the customs man of Panormos, for the Carthaginian tax collectors were not much concerned with the Elymian ban against selling iron to the Siccani.

  With the Tyrrhenian I spoke the jargon of the sea, which contained Greek, Phoenician and Etruscan words. Because of this he believed me to be a Siccanian who as a boy had been caught and sold as a galley slave and who had returned to the forest at the first opportunity. Finally I asked him about the stranger.

  He shook his head scornfully. “He is just a mad Greek who is wandering from east to west to familiarize himself with the different countries and peoples. He is buying useless objects, and I think he is interested in Siccanian flint knives and wooden bowls. Sell him whatever trash you wish so long as you pay me my commission. He doesn’t know how to bargain and it’s no sin to deceive him. After all, he is a pampered man who doesn’t know how to dispose of his money.”

  The stranger watched us suspiciously and when he caught my eye explained hastily, “I am not a lowborn man. You will benefit more by listening to me than by robbing me.” Tempting me as one would a barbarian, he jingled his money pouch.

  I kissed my hand, not from respect toward him but in gratitude to the goddess who as Hecate had not deserted me. But I shook my head and replied, “We Siccanians do not use money.”

  He spread his hands. “Then choose what you will from among the merchant’s goods and I will pay him. He understands the value of money.”

  “I cannot accept gifts before I know what is going on,” I said gloomily. “I suspect you because of the garments you wear. I have never seen any like them before.”

  “I am a servant of the Persian king,” he explained. “That is why I wear these garments which are called trousers. I come from Susa, which is his city, and I sailed from lonia as the companion of Messina’s former tyrant, Skythes. But the people of Messina apparently do not want Skythes, preferring to obey Anaxilaos of Rhegion instead. So I am wandering around Sicily for my own pleasure and to increase my knowledge of the various peoples.”

  I said nothing. He looked at me intently, then shook his head and asked mournfully, “Do you understand at all what I am saying?”

  “I understand more than you think,” I replied. “After all, Skythes dug the pit for himself by inviting settlers from Samos to found a new colony. But what does the Great King hope to benefit from Skythes?”

  He was elated to discover that I knew something of politics. “My name is Xenodotos,” he explained. “I am an Ionian and a pupil of the famous historian Hecataeus, but I became a slave of the King during the war.”

  At my look of loathing he hastened to say, “Don’t misunderstand me. I am a slave in name only. If Skythes had regained Messina, I would have become his adviser. Skythes fled to Susa because the King is the friend of all exiles. He is also a friend of knowledge, and his Crotonian physician has awakened his interest in the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. But the King is interested in all other peoples as well, even in those of whom he has not yet heard, and is ready to send gifts to their leaders and to know more of them.”

  He looked at me closely, stroked his curly beard and continued, “In enlarging his knowledge of the world’s peoples, the King is enlarging the whole sphere of knowledge and thus serves humanity. Among his tre
asures is a copy of Hecataeus’ map of the world etched in bronze, but in his thirst for knowledge he wants to know even the shore lines, the course of the rivers, the forests and mountains of the various countries. Nothing is too insignificant for him to learn, since the gods have destined him to be the father of all peoples.”

  “He treated the Ionian cities in a paternal manner indeed,” I observed sarcastically. “Especially Miletus, the most gifted of his children.”

  Xenodotos demanded suspiciously, “How have you learned to speak Greek, you Siccanian with the painted face? What do you know about lonia?”

  I thought it best to boast. “I even know how to read and write and have sailed to many lands. Why and how it happened is no concern of yours, stranger, but I know more than you think.”

  He became even more interested. “If that is so, and you really know and understand matters, you surely realize that even a lenient father is compelled to chastise his obstinate children. So much for Miletus. But to his friends the King is a most generous master, wise and just.”

  “You are forgetting the envy of the gods, Xenodotos,” I said.

  “We are living in new times,” he replied. “Let us leave the tales about the gods to the babblers. The sages of lonia know better. The only god served by the King is fire. Everything has its origin in fire and ultimately returns to it. But of course the King respects the deities of the peoples he rules and sends gifts to their temples.”

  “Doesn’t one of the Ionian sages teach that everything consists only of movement and currents and the tremor of fire?” I asked. “Herakleitos of Ephesus, if I remember correctly. Or do you think he borrowed his doctrine from the Persian?”

  Xenodotos looked at me with respect and admitted, “You are a learned man. I would gladly have met Herakleitos in Ephesus, but he is said to have become embittered toward the world and to have withdrawn to the mountains to eat herbs. The King had a letter written in which he asked for the details of the doctrine, but Herakleitos rejected the letter. In fact, he stoned the messenger and refused to accept the gifts that had been left for him. The King, however, did not take offensc but said that the older he becomes and the better he learns to know people, the more he himself feels like bleating and eating grass.”

  I laughed. “Your story is the best I have yet heard about the Great King. Perhaps I would want to be his friend had I myself not withdrawn to the forest and donned pelts.”

  Xenodotos stroked his beard again and intimated, “We understand each other. Conclude your trade with the Etruscan and thereafter I want to enjoy your hospitality, see your home, become acquainted with the Siccanian chiefs, and talk more with you.”

  I shook my head. “If you succeed in laying a hand on the sooty stone of a Siccanian’s hearth, you will enjoy his hospitality and that of his tribe to the end of your days. You see, the Siccani will not show themselves to strangers except in battle, and even then their chiefs wear wooden masks and the warriors paint their faces until they are unrecognizable.”

  “Are they skilled warriors? What weapons do they use? And how many tribes and families are there?” he asked quickly.

  Knowing that the Siccanians were watching me, I kicked at the sacks of salt brought by the Etruscan and pretended to inspect the cloth as I replied, “They are useless on the plains, and the sight of a horse or dog fills them with panic. But in their own forests they are incomparable warriors. They make arrowheads of flint and temper the metal tips of their wooden spears in fire. Iron is their most precious metal and they know how to forge it if they can only obtain it.”

  To indicate what I meant, I opened a sack of salt and dug out an Etruscan knife and axe blade. When I held them up the entire forest seemed to stir. Xenodotos looked around in amazement, while the Etruscan boxed the ears of his servants and ordered them to hide their faces in the ground. Thereafter he willingly opened the sacks of salt and produced the iron objects that he had smuggled. We sat on the ground to bargain over them.

  Soon Xenodotos grew impatient, jingled his pouch and asked, “How much do they cost? I will buy them and give them to the Siccanians so that we may proceed to our matter.”

  His stupidity displeased me. Accepting the pouch I said, “Take a walk along the river and watch the flight of the birds with the merchant. Take the servants with you. When you return at midday you will know more about the Siccani.”

  He became angry and called me a thief until the Etruscan seized him by the arm and pulled him away. When they had disappeared from sight the Siccanians appeared from the forest, accompanied by members of other tribes, also with their wares. When they saw the iron objects they flung their burdens to the ground and ran back for more. Those who had accompanied me began to dance the Siccanian sun dance in sheer joy.

  By midday more than a hundred men had passed by the campfire to leave their wares, to which they had added game, wild ducks, a deer and fresh fish. But still no one touched the merchant’s goods for fear that the Siccanian wares did not suffice as payment. It was the merchant’s responsibility to separate the amount he deemed sufficient to pay for his goods.

  To prove my honesty I also showed my tribal brothers the Persian gold coins in Xenodotos’ pouch, but they were not interested. They stared greedily only at the iron objects. I myself chose a razor shaped like a half moon since I needed one for transforming my appearance. It was of the finest Etruscan iron and effortlessly cut even a heavy beard without wounding the skin.

  Upon his return Xenodotos saw the trampled area and the heaps of goods around the campfire. Now he believed me when I said that I could call forth a hundred or even a thousand Siccanians from the forest if need be. I explained that no one knew the total number of Siccanians, not even they themselves, but if it became a question of defending the forest against a conqueror, every tree would change into a Siccanian.

  “The Siccani retreat only from the path of cultivated land, villages and cities,” I explained. “They will not begin a war of their own volition even against the Elymi. If they raid the Siculian and Elymian settlements in small groups, they are content to steal only a few goats and do not willingly kill anyone. But if the Segestan soldiers push their way into the forest with their dogs, the Siccani kill everyone they meet and in the most brutal manner.”

  When he had had time to ponder on my words I returned his pouch and said, “I have counted your money and you have eighty-three gold coins of Darius as well as silver coins of various Greek cities. Apparently you don’t care to carry copper, so that even as a slave you are a noble. But keep your money. You cannot buy me for such a small sum. You may have my knowledge as a gift since it will probably rebound to the advantage of the Siccani. They would only make jewelry of the coins for their women and would value them no more than a shining feather or a colored stone.”

  Innate Ionian greed struggled for a moment with the generosity that he had learned at the court of the Persian king. Then he overcame himself, extended the pouch once more to me and said, “Keep the money as a memento of me and a gift from the Great King.”

  I told him that I accepted the money only in accordance with civilized custom, to spare him a refusal. However, I asked him to hold the pouch for me temporarily so that it would not be necessary for me to share its contents with the members of my tribe. Then I accepted some of the iron objects and a quantity of salt and colored cloth for the tribe but permitted the merchant to retain some of his supplies for the other tribes. My own tribe would have been suspicious had I received a better price than usual for their goods.

  The Etruscan stored the wares that he had received under bark, and marked the place clearly, knowing that no Siccanian would touch it. Then he had his servants cook the game that the Siccanians had brought in an iron pot, salted it heavily, sacrificed some to his god Turnus, and spread the remainder on sprigs of fir. By then it was evening and he again took Xenodotos and the servants on a walk along the river. This time, however, they went armed, for at dusk the peaceful animals of the forest came
to the river to drink and wild beasts lay in ambush. Like any civilized person Xenodotos greatly feared the darkening forest and jumped at every noise, but the merchant promised to shield him from the evil spirits of the Siccani. As evidence he showed the amulets that he wore around his neck and on his wrists, the most important of which was a bronze sea horse, green with mildew.

  The sight of it made me tremble, but when the men had departed I signaled the Siccanians. They appeared silently, gulped down the salty food and peacefully shared the goods according to the needs of each. The priest of the tribe had come to view the strangers from curiosity but chose nothing for himself, since he knew that he could always obtain whatever he needed and did not wish to burden himself unnecessarily.

  I said to him, “The stranger accompanying the merchant comes from the east beyond the sea and has good intentions toward the Siccani. He is my friend and inviolable. Protect him on his journey through the forests. He is a clever man among his own kind but in the forest a snake may bite his buttock if he steps from the path to take care of his needs.”

  “Your blood is our blood,” conceded the priest, and I knew that unseen eyes would watch over Xenodotos and that the youths of the tribe-would protect him from all danger as he accompanied the merchant on his round.

  The Siccanians picked up their goods and disappeared as silently as they had come while I remained by the glowing embers of the fire. The forest darkened, the night cooled and the fish made glimmering circles in the river. I heard the cooing of wood doves ceaselessly until finally a whole flock fluttered into flight just above me so that I felt the breath of air from their wings.

  That was the final sign. Sated and content, I knew that all was well. Artemis as Hecate had fulfilled her promise and Aphrodite jealously wished to indicate that she had not abandoned me either.

  I remembered my guardian spirit’s winged body of fire, and at that moment it seemed as though she were within arm’s reach. My heart glowed and I extended my arms to embrace her. Then, on the border between slumber and wakefulness, I felt the touch of slender fingertips on my bare shoulder and knew that she also had given me her sign although she could not appear because I was unprepared. Never have I experienced anything more glorious than the touch of my guardian Spirit’s fingertips on my shoulder. It was like the flick of a flame.