The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children

by Connell, Brendan

  XXIX.

  The Lacedaemonians, led by Ariston, arrived before Samos—with their fire-bearing priest who carried the lamp lighted at the shrine of wolfish Zeus;—with seventy-eight warships, each full of men in sparkling helmets and cuirasses, wielding immense spears and many armed with bows. They pulled their ships sternward up on the beach below the Poseidium and, after sacrificing the customary she-goat, proceeded to lay siege to the city. Under the direction of a certain Membliaros, ladders were built; and while Polycrates was behind the walls saying words befitting the occasion to his own people, the Spartans, one to the next, spoke their minds:

  “We have a reputation of winning battles . . .”

  “. . . not losing them.”

  “It would be absurd to fail in this land attack . . .”

  “ . . . against a people who are only expert in sea warfare and banqueting.”

  The soldiers banged their spears against their shields; the flutists struck up a tune of war and the men sang in deep bass voices that marching song of Tyrtaios that begins with the lines:

  With a wound in his chest where the spear he was facing pierced

  that massive guard of his shield, and went through his breastplate as well . . .

  A crack corps of brave individuals, pioneers, now rushed upon the walls, carrying the ladders amongst them. They scrambled over the dangerous palisades; some were shot with arrows and killed; others bravely bridged the moat, only to find that, when the ladders they had hauled forward at such great risk were leaned against that tall and vertical solid structure of stone, each and every one of them was too short; and so the men retreated, cheeks hot with shame, darts flying at their heels. This threw the main body of soldiers into confusion and they broke rank. Polycrates, seeing this, sent out a band of his Thracian peltasts to harass them, and a number of the enemy were slain.

  The next day Ariston had Membliaros executed and, under his own supervision, had battering rams and fresh ladders built.

  Then, the following day, at dawn, Ariston spoke to his men. “The Samians,” he said, “spend not only their nights but even their days relaxing on cushions of down, while if we rest at all, it is on shields and breastplates. They dine on turtles fattened on millet seed and suffocated in sauce, drink unmixed wine from gold and silver cups, their foreheads wreathed in mint, while we eat daggers and drink dripping torches, our brows crowned with catapults. Can we Spartans not overcome such men, can we return home in utter disgrace?”

  The flutists struck up, and the soldiers marched forward without gap in their line of battle, the men singing in deep bass voices that song of Tyrtaios that begins with the lines:

  An old warrior whose head is white

  and beard grey, exhaling his vigorous soul

  into the dust, clutching his bloody genitals

  in his hands . . .

  . . . . . . The Samians poured down upon the assailants burning pitch mixed with resin and sulphur, difficult to extinguish naphtha, as well as great stones, many weighing as much as three-hundred pounds, and these would sweep the Spartans off their ladders, and when well-aimed knock the heads off of the battering-rams, and then sometimes they were able to break them off with the aid of nooses, or deaden their blows with baskets of wool suspended by ropes. They extinguished the Spartans’ fire-bearing missiles with water and vinegar, and deleted the force of others by means of sheets of linen held loosely above the ramparts. And all these tricks were thought up by Artemon, who had his servants carry him about in a hammock, close to the ground in case he should fall out, and with a shield over him as protection from any descending object.

  Yet still many flaming arrows found their mark, and several buildings caught fire, some roofs caved in, and some inhabitants were crushed under blazing beams. Fathers covered their faces with their hands, so as not to see the charred and mangled corpses of their sons. Some men wept silently in corners while others screamed in rage. The archers were put upon the walls and let their arrows fly. Amotion, a huge and great Lacedaemonian warrior, had an arrow enter his mouth, piercing his pharynx and descending straight back to his spine, and he drank his last draft, swallowed his own blood as his soul said farewell to his body. Another Spartan, Oiolycos by name, felt an arrow enter just below his left hip, and shrugged his shoulders only to find a second fly through his wrist, a third clang menacingly against his helmet, a half dozen more hurry by, whistling oblivion. Some men dragged their wounded comrades from the field, others went gladly forward, as if to meet their lovers, with gore-flecked thighs, stepping through that field enveloped in the dark cloud of death. A group of Sarapammon’s rebels advanced upon the wall under the cover of blindages. One for a moment lifted his head above the guard, and fell a cadaver.

  Silhouettes of men, singularly and in groups, cries of rage and terror, the shrill sound of arrows, fumes, stench of burning flesh. . . . Each day the dead grew more numerous, particularly among the Spartans, the lives of many lovely youths lost in the uneven blur of war. Two of the city gates were beaten in. But the breaches that were made during the hours from sunrise to sunset were repaired during the hours from sunset to sunrise. The walls of Samos seemed impenetrable; their ditches like gaping mouths with an insatiable thirst for blood. . . . The attackers became actually desperate for victory. . . . In one of the assaults upon the walls, by sheer will and suffering heavy losses, they forced their way to the top of the tower which stood by the sea on the side of the city where the arsenal was. Polycrates saw the peril, and with a band of light infantry went to the place and proceeded to beat back the assailants. Meanwhile, at the upper tower, which stood on the ridge of the hill, the besieged, both mercenaries and Samians, opened the gates and made a counter attack; but after they had killed a number of the enemy and captured seventeen of their shields, they turned back. The Lacedaemonians, pushing after them with their long spears, slew numbers; and two Spartans, Archias and Lycopes, actually managed to enter the walls, but their retreat was cut off from behind, and so they died, and later, their bravery being much admired by the Samians, they were buried at public expense, with great honour.

  XXX.

  “We will never take the city by storm.”

  “So we will defer our ambitions.”

  “But will we gratify them?”

  “Yes. We will starve the Samians out.”

  Polycrates sent off Polydor, who left the city through the tunnel of Eupalinus, hiked over the hills and swam from Samos to Ephesus, where a number of Samian crafts were kept. These, under his command, set off and patrolled the waters, interceding and harassing any supply ship sent to the Spartans. The Spartans sent out their foraging parties of Helots to gather food, but these were continually pursued by small groups of Polycrates’ javelin-bearing Naxians and so were in no way able to take in enough supplies to satisfy the hunger of the substantial number of men encamped on the island. Democedes, that most brilliant of pharmacists, made pellets of tithymal and bean meal and these were clandestinely scattered in the water all around the island, and they thus killed all the fish in the surrounding ocean, making it barren of meat, and those fish that floated to the surface of the water or washed ashore were foul and poisoned.

  Echoiax, in the open air of public spaces, roasted lambs, calves and kids on spits, dressed the meat with rich gravy and served it up with sweet bread while the holy singers of Hera joined their voices together and let them melodiously drift on the wind, together with the perfume of succulent flesh, toward the enemy camps. The Spartans listened with their noses more than their ears; some Samian renegades wept to hear the songs they well knew while excluded from all native celebration.

  “Surrender,” Ariston shouted from below the walls.

  “Spartan, you came here and compelled us to take up arms. Now we don’t want to lay them down.”

  “We will starve you out!”

  “Starve us out!” laughed Polycrates. “Why look here man . . .” And so saying he had two citizens hurl a well-fatted pig over the ram
parts. A duo of hungry renegades ran forward and secured the broken, squealing creature while those behind the walls looked on with broad grins and laughter. Samian warriors held loaves of bread in their hands and stuffed their mouths full; a group of Illyrian mercenaries merrily shared out some cheesecakes, while a Sythic bowman, wearing a peaked felt cap of almost absurd length, waved a great joint of meat as if it were a flag.

  Ariston’s chin sunk to his breast. Truly it was a shame, the besiegers starving and not the besieged!

  And so, after forty days the Spartans retreated, took their ships and left; at home ridiculed by the women who would have rather seen none come back alive at all, who would have rather paraded weeping through the streets while banging on brass pots, than see such numbers return in disgrace.

  . . . And Sarapammon and his rebels went off, caused trouble in other parts of Greece.

  XXXI.

  Said Pythagoras:

  The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

  Graffito, in Eupalinus’s tunnel:

  By the Delphian god! Right here Crimon had fun with Pharnabazus, slave of eximious Hipponicus.

  Graffito, reckoning on the wall of an inn:

  1st bread 8, wine 2, dates 1

  2nd bread 8, wine 2, fish 2

  3rd lentils 2, wine 2, cheese 2

  4th cheese 1, bread 8, oil 3, wine 3

  5th bread 8, oil 5, bowl 1, bread for the slave 2, wine 2

  6th wine for the winner 1, bread 8, wine 2, gosling 5

  7th bread 2, for women 8, wheat 1, cucumber 1, incense 1, cheese 2, sausage 1, oil 7

  Said Pythagoras:

  Aphrodite as an evening star is the same as Aphrodite as a morning star.

  Graffito, in the barracks of the peltasts:

  Brimias the Thracian makes the girls sing.

  Said Ibycus:16

  The gods give much prosperity to those whom they wish to have it, but for the others they destroy it by the plans of the Moirae.

  Graffito, on a boulder near the Proastion:

  Barbax here danced cordax with Crimon; and melted.

  XXXII.

  Democedes: I saw Bathyllus in the Laura with Anacreon. And Anacreon was feeding him oysters.

 

  Polycrates, sick with jealousy, had the hair of Bathyllus shorn from his head. . . . . . . Then he set fire to the gymnasium.

  XXXIII.

  There is something especially horrible about the unnatural decay of a handsome man. Polycrates had for years now over-indulged himself, with wine, often unmixed, rich foods, and numerous illicit relations with various specimens of the two sexes. No longer did he subject himself to the rigorous physical drills of his youth. As far as literature went, he turned from all serious study and began to peruse only the works of the lighter poets, those whose works dealt primarily with love and drink. He now had a decidedly gone-to-seed appearance, made all the more tragic by the fact that he tried to cover his flaws of feature with makeup and disguise. Numerous fine wrinkles surrounded his eyes, which themselves had taken on a glazed look, like those of a not particularly fresh fish. Every morning he applied a paste of Solomon’s seal to his skin in order to keep these wrinkles at bay; this having failed, he applied to Democedes, who gave him an unguent of gum of frankincense, fresh moringa oil and cyperus grass. The hair of his head and beard, though still luxuriant, had turned grey and he dyed it with a decoction made from the rinds of the roots of the halm tree and the boiled blood of a black ox. His belly had grown large with fat and around his house and gardens he wore a long loose gown, violet-coloured and embroidered with figures of peacocks. When he went out he secured his belly and buttocks in a tight girdle and dressed in a turban of gold brocade and the soft purple robe of a king. He often found himself weak in the sports of Aphrodite and so had recourse to wine spiced with clary, to membrane of bitch, or cocks’ stones fried with garlic.

  XXXIV.

  “I had a dream last night,” Eriphyle said to her father one morning while they were breakfasting on poppy seed cakes and daffodil flowers steeped in honey of Hymettus. “I saw you raised up on some prominent place. . . . You were being laved and anointed by the hands of Zeus and the Sun.”

  Polycrates smiled. “Well,” he said, “such a dream can only mean good things; surely it is the foretelling of a rich and happy future.”

  “Surely it is.”

  And they ate; and they licked the honey from their fingertips.

  And during that time, other things occurred. A meteor darted from south to east. Lightning came from the clear sky, some citizens were struck, killed by bolts, as was a horse; one bolt struck the statue of Apollo that was placed near the theatre, and then again other statues, those of Demeter and Poseidon on horseback, began to sweat. There was an earthquake; subterranean groans were heard; bees swarmed about the temple of Dionysus and a profusion of owls were seen about the temple of Hermes; dogs prowled and whined through the city streets; a farmer dug up a jar of human flesh; blood flowed from beneath a bakeshop toward the Heraion and clods of earth mixed with bile were seen flying through the air.

  XXXV.

  “. . . The herald is in the anti-chamber, waiting.”

  “What were the lines again?” said Polycrates to Anacreon, meek old lover of shorn Bathyllus. “What lust has now enslaved your mind . . .”

  “What lust has now enslaved your mind,” said Anacreon, “to wish to dance to amorous half-bored flutes.”

  “The herald is in the anti-chamber,” repeated Maeandrius. “From Oroetes, Satrap of Sardis.”

  “Oroetes . . .” murmured Polycrates from his nest of purple cushions.

  “I will send him in,” said Maeandrius, and turned and walked briskly away.

  A few moments later the herald was shown in. . . . He spoke, in low and respectful tones . . . of his master, Oroetes, Satrap of Phrygia, Satrap of Sardis . . . of a certain quarrel that had developed between his master and Mitrobates, Satrap of Dascyleium . . . of certain fears his master had concerning Cambyses. . . .

  But Polycrates seemed not to listen. He did not even bother to look at the man, but instead lay half inert, facing the wall and tracing with his big toe the patterns on one of his cushions. In the middle of the messenger’s speech, Polycrates cut him off by addressing a question to Anacreon17. So he left, not only having failed to elicit a reply to the questions Oroetes had given him to deliver, but having failed even to have his presence acknowledged by the Samian tyrant.

  When the herald returned to Oroetes and informed him of his treatment at the court of Polycrates, the satrap was very angry. He felt sickened by the fact that the neighbouring tyrant held him in such low regard and determined to revenge the insult to his vanity. He sent a Lydian named Myrtus, the son of Gyges, and one of the most elegant men of the time, with another message to Polycrates stating that, due to certain unfortunate misunderstandings, he now had reason to fear for his life at the hands of Cambyses, King of Persia. Therefore, Oroetes said, he would like to defect to Samos with all his treasure, which consisted of eight chests full of gold, of which he would give Polycrates half, if only the Samian king would come to Sardis in person to, “fetch me and give me protection”.

  At that time, Polycrates was in need of money. To keep a navy and large body of mercenaries, to keep so many artists and poets about his court, was no small expense—not to mention his own personal needs; and he was still ambitious for conquests.

  “I would take him up on his offer, if I knew it was genuine, if I knew he had the gold.”

  “Let me then go to Oroetes,” said Maeandrius, “and inspect the situation.”

  So the secretary went to Sardis and when he returned informed Polycrates that the satrap had shown him six chests full of bright lion-headed staters and two full of ingots of pale gold. “Oroetes is sincere in his offer,” he said.

  “And I am sincere in my desire to relieve him of his trea
sure,” Polycrates said.

  Tellias the Elean soothsayer sacrificed victims, but the livers of each were covered with hair. When he tried his hand at ovomancy, the egg white was in the shape of a hammer. He undertook divination by figs, by driftwood and by the coagulation of cheese, but each time with equally unpromising results. Yet, for all this, Polycrates in no way changed his plans and had his red-cheeked pentecoster readied for the voyage.

  The day of his departure was absolutely cloudless; and the sea was so calm that it seemed almost asleep. Eriphyle ran to the harbour in distress.

  “Oroetes is a liar,” she said to her father.

  “And Maeandrius, son of Maeandrius?”

  “A fool.”

  “And me?”

  “My father.”

  “Go home, or I will have you married to dwarf Heracles!”

  “At least he will not go bald as many other men do,” Eriphyle jested and then smiled sadly.

  Polycrates kissed her on the forehead and boarded the ship. His party consisted of a bodyguard of fifty picked men, Democedes the physician and Tellias the soothsayer who, as the boat glided over the sea, claimed that he saw in the formations of certain schools of fish inauspicious signs—but Polycrates, distracted by thoughts of fresh treasure, impelled by the will of the gods, still did not regard his words. The ship docked in Phocaea, and the party then made its way overland toward Sardis. On the way, however, they were ambushed by Oroetes and that man’s one-thousand Persian bodyguards. Polycrates was bound, spit upon and taken to Colophon where he was tied to the tail-end of a cart and whipped all the way to Priene. Then he was dragged up to the summit of Mt. Mycale, to an open and conspicuous spot; raised up on a cross of pine, crucified with his front facing Samos, which he could actually see. Though exhausted and suffering great pain, he conducted himself with fortitude, even when the stakes were driven through his hands and feet, and joked in a feeble voice that he thought it a shame that he would now no longer be able to play the magdis to his Lacedaemonian hound; with rain he was washed by Zeus and, when the dew of agony came upon his skin, anointed by the fingers of the sun.