Some moments afterwards, Homer and Paulla rounded the turn below us. The publisher was trailing seaweed, but as they approached I noticed a faraway look in his eyes.
“Is this really Tragias?” he asked.
“Yes indeed, sir,” replied the old peasant. “Have you heard of it?”
Homer answered nothing at first. Then, with tears, he began to sing softly:
When the wind is from the empty sea
The pear tree blossoms blow
Across the only land and hills
That I shall ever know.
The peasants gaped at him, thunderstruck, and then roared. Then they threw their arms about him.
“You must be from Tragias,” cried the old man. “But who are you? We don’t know you!”
“You knew me as a boy, Megacles,” Homer answered. “My name was Menedemeroumenos.”
“Menedemeroumenos?” cried the old man. “Little Menedemeroumenos, the son of Dionosoupatros? But you were taken by the pirates!”
“Menedemeroumenos?” I asked, turning to Paulla. “Seriously?”
“Yes, they took me,” said Homer. “But now I’m back. Let us go up to the village.”
The two peasants insisted on carrying Homer on their shoulders the rest of the way, shouting all the while. This was quite difficult and took some time, since the path was so steep. When we got there we found that somehow, as if by magic, the news had spread through the village that a long lost citizen of Tragias had returned. They had already been engaged in a village dance – that was the light we saw at sea – but something new had been hastily organized. When we appeared, the young girls all burst into song and started running in a circle round the village altar, while a second ring of boys danced around them, and the grown men and women clapped time. Everyone was singing.
Homer stood in the glow of the torches, taking it all in. Every moment brought a new look of recognition and he smiled at a face in the crowd. The song ceased with a flourish of uplifted hands, and then, as one, the people surged toward him. We stood aside and watched an old man with a long beard, the Chief Magistrate of Tragias, make his way forward. He embraced Homer and held up his hand for silence.
“Menedemeroumenos, the son of Dionosoupatros, has returned!” the Magistrate now proclaimed.
The crowd roared its approval. Homer whispered something in his ear.
“And he has changed his name to Homer!” the magistrate added.
Another enormous burst of approval from the crowd.
“And he is now a Roman citizen!”
At this the villagers murmured happily. It must have been incredible that a citizen of that small community could be a Roman, a member of that distant, powerful nation they must often have heard of but had certainly never seen. Yet they took it as quite natural.
At this point the throng of villagers parted before another figure. It was an old woman, somewhat stooped, wearing a knitted red shawl across her shoulders. She shuffled forward to where Homer stood and looked at him keenly. Without a word he knelt in front of her and she kissed his forehead.
I pressed forward to meet her. She looked at me kindly.
“Are you – are you Homer’s mother?” I stammered.
She seemed somewhat deaf and did not hear. Homer repeated the question in her ear and she looked at me and smiled again. Homer answered for her.
“Not my mother, sir, I’m afraid. This is my great aunt by marriage. This, dear Great Aunt, is Marcus Oppius, a noble Roman.”
“He seems a bit young!” she said hoarsely.
“But where is your family, Homer?” I asked. “Where are your mother and father?”
“Taken! They were all taken!” croaked the old woman, hearing me this time. “The pirates took them away. Never saw them again, no, except for dear little Menedemeroumenos!”
“It’s Homer now, Great Aunt,” said Homer quickly.
But her response struck a chord in me. I felt the breath of inspiration upon my forehead. On the spur of the moment, I seized a stool and stood tall amid the crowd. Seeing me, they fell silent, unsure of what I intended.
“Citizens of Tragias!” I began, haltingly. It was time to make a speech – a real speech. Nothing could hold me back.
“Citizens of Tragias! I come to you as a companion-in-arms of your long lost Mene… of your long lost Homer! But we did not sail here to the island of Tragias, deservedly famous for its pears, with the purpose of bringing him to you. No, it was only luck, and the will of the gods, that he should be restored to you, and you should be restored to him. How could the gods bear it, that so famous a man and so famous an island should be parted forever? Now that I myself have seen Tragias, I realize that all those noblest qualities I have come to respect and admire in him” – spare me, Jupiter, the dire penalties of perjury – “such as modesty, humility, and self-sacrifice, are all to be found on the isle of Tragias itself!”
Great applause at this: I was clearly speaking the truth.
“There is a time for celebration, my friends. There is a time for tears. There is a time for thanking the everlasting gods. But there is also a time for vengeance!”
I had said the right thing. Vengeance was clearly one of the more popular activities on Tragias. The crowd was firmly of my opinion.
“Only last night,” I continued, “we escaped from our enemies, the Aegean pirates. They boarded us and planned to use our ship against Rome. They held us captive. Even now, one of our comrades lies dying at the pirate oars.”
A sympathetic murmur from the people here, and one of the women put her arm around Paulla. Someone cursed the pirates angrily.
“Even now,” I went on, “the pirate fleet is sailing to Miletus, where they will dare to confront the power of Rome. The pirates wish to continue their pillagings, their depredations. But Rome will not allow it! We will not allow it! How many islands have they not despoiled? The proof of it is here, on Tragias itself. I ask the pirates, why are there empty homes? Where is the lost family of Menedemeroumenos?”
I managed the name. They were cheering every sentence now. I headed for the homestretch.
“Come with us tonight, citizens of Tragias! Join with Rome against the pirates, as you joined with Athens against the Persians, as you joined with Achilles against the Trojans! This very hour, we are sailing to attack the pirates. They have wronged me. They have wronged Tragias. And most of all, they have wronged your Menedemeroumenos!”
The crowd erupted with cheers. Homer was picked up and passed across the sea of arms. But I knew I needed one more line.
“We did not sail to Tragias,” I proclaimed, “but Tragias will sail with us!”
The roar was deafening. Then the crowd scattered, rushing home for their weapons. A dozen village elders ran up to press my hand and kiss me on both cheeks. In no time, the citizens of Tragias returned in mode of war. Spears and swords bristled in every man’s hand. Paulla was at my side, looking rather beautiful, her eyes shining.
I will never forget that march in triumph down the steep path to the bay. Homer was at the front, reveling in the glory of Tragias; the hills echoed with enthusiastic battle cries. As we descended, more villagers sought me out in the line to praise my speech. They also took the opportunity, in low voices, to offer hints of constructive criticism, mainly about my failure to quote Hesiod (which was customary), and on some of the grammatical constructions I had employed, which were not necessarily in the best taste.
The stars were veiled as we set forth, covered by a storm-bank of cloud. The little Hesiod was filled to bursting with armed men, two for each oar and many more on the boarding deck, waiting their turn. Paulla was instructing four of them in the use of the ballista. All through the last hours of the night, across heaving seas, we made up for lost time. No galley in the world could have outpaced us. We were bound for Miletus. Every mind was intent on vengeance. Every heart ached for battle.
The Battle of Miletus
ll night the Hesiod struggled against the stormy se
a. But the gods kept the rain back, even if the booming thunder seemed to come from right overhead. Everyone was soaked with spray. Each tall crest of water was a new challenge to the rowers, as the galley fought its way up the rising slopes and came tearing down again. The west wind blew with frightening power, so that I had to hold on to the poop-deck rail with one hand and call someone to help me with the steering oar.
Having chosen their course of action, the fifty men of Tragias never faltered. The knowledge that our galley was named the Hesiod went a long way in sustaining them. After the first shift of rowers, I was surprised to find the Chief Magistrate joining me on the poop deck. In spite of his age, he had insisted on joining the expedition and on taking the first shift at the oars. His wrinkled eyes were full of fire.
He seemed to regard me as the man in charge. Answering my question, he declared that it was seventeen miles from Tragias to Miletus. He had often made the trip in his youth, trading pears on the mainland, but lately the risk of being taken by pirates had ruined all commerce. Many citizens of Tragias, I learned, had been captured on this stretch of sea, besides those seized from their homes during the pirates’ coastal plunderings.
He was just giving me a description of the harbor when our conversation was interrupted by Homer. The publisher was looking brave, but fairly seasick.
“Sir, if I may make a suggestion…” he began.
“You may indeed,” I answered grandly.
“It is about the Hesiod. The hull, sir, and the sail. I took the liberty, while my fellow citizens were running for their weapons, of bringing two pots of paint from the village. Red and yellow, to be precise.”
“To throw in the faces of the pirates, you mean?”
“Hardly, sir. I was thinking that we should decorate ourselves as a pirate – a pirate ship, that is. You know, sir, gaudy colors and so forth.”
I grasped his idea. Paint would hardly fool the pirates up close, but from a distance we might well be mistaken for a pirate trireme. Perhaps it could buy us time. Most of all, it might sow confusion. The only problem was that the house from which Homer had taken the paint was the Chief Magistrate’s own. I had to assure the old man that Rome would amply compensate him, assuming we survived.
So, amidst the rolling waves, Homer set to work with his pots of paint, assisted by half a dozen men. For the hull we chose a simple pattern of vertical stripes: as Homer remarked, it was both tasteless and fearsome, which was just what we were looking for. On the sail, Homer painted the emblem of Medusa’s Head, with red snakes writhing from the monster’s skull and long yellow fangs. Nothing, he remarked with satisfaction, could be less Roman. In the end there was only a little paint left.
“Don’t waste it on any more stripes,” Paulla advised. “Why don’t we paint red dots on the foreheads of half the crew, yellow dots on the other half? If it comes to close fighting, Marcus, we might need to know who’s on our side.”
She supervised the painting of dots on the men of Tragias, who thought it was great fun and immediately began making up songs about the glory of the red dots and the courage of the yellow. Paulla herself painted me with the last yellow dot.
A dull dawn came at last, three hours out from Tragias. As the light increased, we could see the mainland before us like a band of gray haze. We were right on course. The wind grew less intense.
Paulla joined me at the steering oar. “I’m actually a little nervous about the battle, Marcus,” she confessed. “Not because of Aulus – he can take care of himself, you know – but because of the Captain. What happens if we start sinking pirate ships, and he’s chained to an oar? I don’t want him to drown!”
Of course she was right, and I reassured her that we would not ram the pirates directly. For one thing, fast as we were, I doubted if the Hesiod’s bronze-covered ram would do much damage to a trireme, much less the great Sword of Cilicia.
“In any case,” I added, “I’m hoping there won’t be a battle. If we can warn Pompey in time, he can escape.”
“I hope you’re right, Marcus.”
We were now coming up on Lade Island. This was a long, tall, forested hunk of land just west of Miletus. The ancient city itself was built on a peninsula that jutted far into the Latmian Gulf. A mist lay on the morning waters.
“Can you see anything?” I asked Paulla, who was gazing at the harbor with her keen eyes. She had tied her hair back into a bun; and was shielding her gaze against the rising sun.
“I think there are ships on the far point of the island,” she said. “There’s something moving in the mist.”
“We’ll have to be careful,” I said. “No more sailing into the pirate fleet and knocking on the front door.”
I summoned the Chief Magistrate from his oar.
“Can a ship pass between Lade Island and the peninsula?” I asked him. “I don’t want to be seen as we come round the island.”
The Chief Magistrate frowned at the idea. “That channel’s not very deep,” he declared. “More silt every year, coming down the river. No big ship would try it.”
That decided me. The Hesiod had a very shallow draft, and no one would be expecting a galley to squeeze through. We would attempt it. I steered for the gap between Lade and the mainland.
The channel was a mile long. When we reached the mouth of it, we could suddenly see past the forested slopes of Lade. As Paulla had guessed, there were indeed many galleys beyond, though they were not in the harbor. Some clearly belonged to the pirates: the giant quinquereme that served as the Pirate Admiral’s flagship, for one, with four triremes in line behind it. They were circling from left to right, then reversing direction. Away to the north was a squadron of pirate biremes, performing a similar maneuver.
By the time we were halfway through the channel, we could tell what they were doing. Four Roman triremes were trapped between the pirate fleet and the peninsula of Miletus. Now I saw why both sides’ ships had been difficult to discern. They had taken down their sails and masts. Battle had been joined.
Outnumbered, the Romans had assumed the “wheel” formation, each ship aligned with a central point, prows facing outwards. This prevented the pirates from ramming them amidships, while if the enemy tried to attack head-on, into the teeth of the Roman rams, both ships would be shattered. It was a desperate defensive tactic, but the alternative was swift destruction.
The Pirate Admiral, for his part, was countering this with the “roundabout” tactic, trying to edge his galleys around the rim of the Roman wheel formation and thus force the Romans closer and closer together. When he had succeeded on one end of the “wheel,” he would turn his ships and sail around the other end, forcing it back in turn, all the while using the squadron of biremes to protect his flank. Soon we could hear the whams of the ballista bolts being launched by both sides, as well as the crunches when they struck enemy hulls. The pirates were cheering, trying to goad the Romans galleys out to sea; if they refused, the Pirate Admiral’s encircling tactics would gradually drive our friends against the rocks of the peninsula.
News of the battle spread swiftly down the Hesiod. Our men began to chant an old war song of Tragias, until Paulla told them to be quiet. We hoisted Homer’s sail, with its Medusa’s Head, to show that we were fellow pirates, and Homer coached the rowers in a cheer of “Up with Red Beard! Down with Pompey!” All the while we were tearing up to the battle. The citizens of Miletus were on the shore, watching the struggle in the bay.
Surely everyone could see us now. But perhaps the pirates were preoccupied. Just as we passed through the channel (with a near-miss scrape of our bottom at the far end), two pirate triremes moved in against the wheel formation. One dashed for an unprotected Roman side, all oars churning wildly. But the Roman captain saw it in time and smartly backed off, facing the pirate trireme. I saw that the Roman prow was decorated with red and white checks: it was none other than the Rapacious, the warship that had carried Spurinna to Greece. Suddenly it was the pirates’ turn to avoid being rammed, and with
a fountain of foam, their oars backed water and retreated.
Another Roman ship was not so lucky. The pirate trireme, its rails sparkling with gold paint, seemed willing to ram head-on, and it tore straight toward the smallest of the Roman galleys. Just as we braced ourselves for the crack of impact, however, the pirate swerved aside. Long poles were lifted from its sides and dangled over the Roman galley. Their ends seemed to be smoking.
“Fire pots!” cried Homer in dismay.
So indeed they were. To the ends of the poles, the pirates had fastened clay jugs of flaming pitch. When they let the poles fall, the jugs smashed on the Roman deck, covering it with inextinguishable flame. Thick black smoke rose up. Soon we could see flames leaping high from the inside. The pirates gave a mighty cheer as the Romans leaped overboard from the burning trireme.
“How can we get in?” asked Paulla. “They’re down to three ships now! They need our help!”
“You mean, how can we get in and die with them?” I asked. “Forget it. We have no choice but to attack!”
At my command, Homer and his painting crew took down the sail and began to dismantle the mast. We sped toward the heart of the pirate fleet, which was racing around the Roman flank once again. This time, they were trying to cut off the largest Roman galley, presumably Pompey’s flagship. Taking notice of us at last, however, one pirate trireme detached itself and moved in our direction.
“Get ready with that cheer!” I called.
The pirate trireme cut toward us. It was at least four times our size, with one hundred and fifty oars lifting and pulling in unison. Still, it seemed unsure of who we were and did not accelerate to ramming speed.
The Ancient Ocean Blues Page 12