Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Forty thousand men had left the Athenian camp to begin the retreat. After the battle about seven thousand prisoners remained alive. They suffered a hideous condemnation; let any one who wishes to understand their fortunes go down into the great quarries of Syracuse and see for himself; for, saving that the quarries are larger now than they were then and full of trees and flowers, they are the same in their shape and in their appalling isolation. They are still called the Latomie, the ‘places of stone cutting,’ and the tale of what once happened in them is told still, handed down perhaps without a break, through the changing generations of many races of inhabitants, Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans, Spaniards, and Italians. They are situated on an irregular line which leads eastward from the one nearest to the theatre, across Achradina to the last and most extensive of all, called the Latomia dei Cappuccini, which is very near the sea. In all that region the soil is thin but very rich, and below it the yellowish white stone lies in a solid mass, perhaps hundreds of feet deep. Straight down from the surface the stone has been quarried to depth of •from eighty to a hundred feet, making sheer walls of rock on every side, so that the only means of descent is by wooden ladders, and neither man nor beast can scale the height without help from above.

  Below, it is all an enchanted garden now; two thousand and three hundred years ago it was a bare quarry of white stone, strewed with stone chips and stone dust. By day the sun beat down into it, with the glare of the unpitying sky, and was reflected from its sides, and the rock radiated an intolerable heat; at evening the upper air, suddenly chilled at sunset, rushed down and filled it with an icy dampness. A furnace in summer, bitterly cold in winter, a fever hole in the autumn rains, a hell at all times save in the spring, the Syracusans found it ready to their hand to be a place of torture and death for their beaten enemies. Therefore they let them down into by the cranes that served to lift the stone, being seven thousand men in all; and lest it should be said that they had starved prisoners to death, they sent to them rations, for every man half a pint of water every day, or very little more, and twice as much of raw barley or other grain; and this was only half the measure of food that was given to common slaves in those days, and the slaves had water in abundance.

  Now among the miserable captives there were many who had been wounded in the last fight and had been taken alive, and these suffered less, for they died first, of their injuries and of fever. But the strong and the well lived on in torment, and the bodies of the dead lay in the quarry among the living, and the poison of death made the air horrible to breathe, so that mortal sickness fell upon the strongest, and they died daily, while each dead man became a new source of pestilence. Ten weeks long they died, and yet they were not all dead; and when the sun was declining, and the people of Syracuse went out to taste the sea breeze, many came and stood at the edge of the quarry, on the windward side, lest their nostrils be offended, and looked down at men who were rotting alive, all that remained of the great Athenian army, men who were not men, but half-clad skeletons, scarce moving or breathing between the heaps of shapeless corpses that had been their friends. And the fine ladies of Syracuse held little vials of scent to their noses and leaned upon their slaves’ arms, and looked down curiously; for the Athenians had been handsome men.

  When seventy days had gone by, the Syracusans took out those of the living who were not Athenians, and sold them for slaves, many being not worth a day’s purchase; but they left the Athenians to suffer a little longer, and when at last they brought them up, they heated branding-irons red hot, and branded them all in the forehead with the mark of the Syracusan horse, and sold them as slaves for the public benefit. Yet amid so much shadow of cruelty there is one redeeming light. The Syracusans loved the verses of the tragic poet Euripides above all other poetry, and in the great theatre, carved with its high ranks of seats from the solid rock in the hollow side of the mountain, they had been used to sit enthralled and listen to the ‘Medea’ and the ‘Alcestis’ and the other great plays, through long summer afternoons, when the sun was behind them, and behind the mountains. Among the Athenian captives there were many who could repeat and sing long passages from Euripides’ plays; and these men were favoured far above the others when they were sold as slaves, so that some of them were even freed for the poet’s sake, and long afterwards went back and found him and thanked him, branded though they were, for life and liberty. Nothing we know of to tell, and no story that a man might build up with the material of imagination, could show as this does the difference between that age and ours. There was divinity in the poet then, and his inspiration was from a god, deserving to be worshipped and revered as a heavenly gift; and those who had skill to sing his words, as he would have them sung, were sharers in his genius and blessed with a talent half divine, which others recognized and loved.

  There is a sort of taste in nations which belongs to their young days, when they have not done their best, a living and creative taste that is closely akin to hope and aspiration; and there is another sort that comes with decadence and is satisfied more with the past than with the present or the future, that knows neither the elation of hope nor the satisfaction that lies in creation, but which is easily cast down, sad, self-tormenting, and as often a source of pain as of pleasure. So the degenerate Sybarite writhed upon a ruffled rose leaf and ached at the sight of a man digging hard ground, and the modern exquisite utters poor little cries of distress at the sound of a false note or the glare of a false colour.

  In those days Sicily was in the stronger, brighter, earlier stage of life, and it would have asserted itself in a vast artistic productiveness after the failure of the Athenian invasion, if that event had been followed by a period of peace. The first impulse of the Syracusans and of the other free Greek cities of Sicily was to build temples and to raise up statues to the gods, in gratitude for the greatest victory ever won by Greeks over Greeks; and as peace followed war, and plenty grew up where famine had followed the destruction of crops, the hearts of the people were lightened and the song of rejoicing filled the land. While the law-givers they chose at home were occupied in framing a code that would not disgrace a modern civilization, Sicilian fleets and Sicilian soldiers sailed eastward to the islands and even to the shores of Asia Minor, paying back war with war, allied with the Peloponnesians for the final destruction of Athens, the common enemy, and bringing home shiploads of treasure and booty. Could this condition of things have lasted, there is no telling to what heights the prosperity of Sicily might have risen in a few years. But the old causes were at work to produce new disasters; the Athenians had invaded the island ostensibly to right the wrongs inflicted upon Segesta by Selinus and on Leontini by Syracuse; in the terrific struggle with Syracuse, Selinus had been more than half forgotten, and one year’s crop had not been sown and reaped before those very circumstances renewed themselves which had led to the destruction of a great fleet and of sixty thousand men. The Selinuntians fancied that since Athens had fallen they could harass their enemies at their pleasure, and boldly crossing the border they made havoc of the Segestan country. Now the land subject to Segesta lay in a broad tract between the Phoenician colonies of Panormus and of Lilybaeum, and a free and safe passage across was essential to the commerce of both, the distance by sea being far greater and the voyage not always free from danger. It was therefore to the interest of Carthage that Segesta, which had always been friendly to her, should not be overrun by the Selinuntians who had always been her enemies, and when Segesta appealed to her for help as it had appealed to Athens some six years earlier, a ready assistance was granted on interested grounds. The despatching of a few thousand men to help the oppressed state had the natural result of sending Selinus of Syracuse for assistance in its turn, and Syracuse promised it readily, not dreaming of the magnitude of the undertaking. Carthage, mindful of the ignominious defeat suffered at the hands of the Syracusans in Himera seventy years earlier, and dreading lest, since Athens was fallen, Syracuse should obtain the empire of the Mediterranean
, put forth all her strength and began to raise an enormous army.

  In the spring of the year 409 B.C. sixty Carthaginian men-of‑war convoyed no less than fifteen hundred small vessels from Carthage to Lilybaeum, carrying an army of something like two hundred thousand foot-soldiers and four thousand cavalry, together with an immense supply of war material and siege engines. At the head of this formidable force was the grandson of Hamilcar, who had perished in his own sacrifice at Himera. This was Hannibal, the second of the name who appears in history, and who is said to have sworn a solemn oath to avenge his grandsire. Landing on the headland of Lilybaeum, he at once began to lay waste the country, and moving rapidly forwards, attacked Selinus itself with all the energy which Nicias had lacked. He fell upon the city from the north; six iron-headed battering rams were brought to make a breach in the walls, six lofty towers, which overtopped the fortifications, slung masses of stone into the city, while slingers and archers picked off the defenders one by one. Nevertheless, the people defended themselves courageously, trusting to the speedy arrival of help from Syracuse. The young men fought, the old provided them with fresh weapons and missiles, and the women brought food and drink to the combatants. But Hannibal promised the soldiers the whole plunder of the city, and the siege was prosecuted with surprising energy. The men fought in watches and by turns, marching up to relieve each other with trumpet call and war-cry. Day and night the battering rams, hanging in their frames by iron chains, pounded the walls with the sound of unceasing thunder. A breach was broken, and Hannibal’s Campanian mercenaries charged in; but as their need grew greater the defenders fought more desperately, and the first attack was repulsed with frightful slaughter. Messengers rode for life and death to Akragas and Gela and Syracuse, bearing the news of their city’s supreme need. But it was too late. The battering rams still pounded at the wall, and still the catapults hurled large stones from the towers; the breach was widened and held by the enemy, while still the defenders fought like madmen and looked eastward for help through nine long days. Driven back from the breach at last, as a great cry of woe went up from their women, they defended themselves to the end. They threw up barricades of stones, fighting from street to street; the old men, the wounded, the women and the children, climbed to the roofs and dashed down stones and tiles upon the Carthaginians. But at last it was over and the city was won. Then fire and the sword did the rest, for Hannibal knew his men and kept his word and gave them their hearts’ desire. Slaying every living thing they met, they broke into every house, flung the booty into the streets, and set each dwelling on fire before they left the door. The soldiers paraded the streets, bearing on their spears the heads of the vanquished, and hideous festoons of hands cut off and strung together. Only those women and children were spared who had taken refuge in the temples, not from any reverence for the gods, but in fear lest they should fire the temples in self-defence and destroy the rich treasures preserved there. On that day sixteen thousand lives fell to the Carthaginian swords; less than three thousand persons escaped alive to Akragas, and, weary of slaughter, the victors carried off five thousand prisoners.

  Then at last the first three thousand of the Syracusan troops appeared and sent heralds demanding that Hannibal should at least respect the temples and give up their prisoners for a ransom; but Hannibal answered roughly that since the Selinuntians had not been able to defend their freedom they must learn to be slaves, and so far as the temples were concerned the gods appeared to have abandoned both them and their city. From this destruction Selinus never recovered.

  Hannibal crossed unhindered to Himera next, and proceeded at once to a formal siege, undermining the walls and soon producing a wide breach. A Syracusan fleet of five and thirty sail came in sight, and the hopes of the city rose to enthusiasm; but by treacherous messages Hannibal made the admiral of the fleet believe that he was about to raise the siege because the whole Syracusan army was advancing by land, and that Syracuse being therefore undefended he intended to attack it without delay. The admiral made ready to go to the rescue, and seeing themselves about to be deserted, a great part of the population abandoned the city to the enemy, crowding the ships until there was no more room, and the remainder marching out by land. On the following day the Carthaginians entered Himera; the women and children were carried out to the camp to be sold as slaves in Africa, and on the spot where his grandsire had perished, Hannibal appeased his unquiet spirit by the mutilation and slaughter of three thousand Himeran warriors. Last of all he burned the whole city and razed the ruins to the ground.

  Here in the story appears for the last time Hermocrates, in a short and brilliant campaign that ended in his violent death at the gates of Syracuse. From the beginning of the Athenian invasion his counsels had helped Syracuse, his labours had been unceasing, his submission to the generalship of Gylippus exemplary; he had seemed a man above passion, inspired only by the purest love of country. But his country feared the return of a tyranny like that of Thrasybulus, and accusing him of plotting to get the despotism, Syracuse exiled her best and bravest. In exile he had not turned against the state, as Alcibiades had turned against Athens; he remained faithful and devoted, waiting and longing for an opportunity to return. He saw his chance when the Carthaginians withdrew after the final slaughter at Himera. Provided with large sums of money, he came to Messina, built five warships of his own and raised a thousand men. He collected the fugitives from Himera, sailed round to Selinus, and rapidly fortified the ruins left by the Carthaginians. Without losing time, but gathering an army of six thousand men, he dashed across the island, surprised Motye and Panormus, and laid waste the country. Even then Syracuse would not recall him from banishment. He marched down to Himera and collected from the field of battle the unburied bones of the Syracusans who had perished there, and sent them reverently to Syracuse; but yet his native city would not receive him back. Mad with longing to see his home, and believing that if he appeared in person, the false accusations would be forgotten, he rode with a few followers to the very gate of the city. His friends received him, but could not save his life, for his enemies spread the report that he had returned with an army, and they fell upon him and cruelly slew him on the threshold of his home. But some of his followers saved themselves, and though they were all banished, there was one among them who, being desperately wounded, was given out to be dead, and escaped the ban; he was Dionysius, who was to save Syracuse from the Carthaginians, and was to be her lord and despot before many years should pass.

  For soon the Carthaginians bethought themselves how they should avenge the raid made by Hermocrates upon the Phoenician west, and they fortified beforehand a strong place on the coast, which is now Termini, near Himera, and equipped another great army, under Hannibal the victorious; and they brought over between two and three hundred thousand fighting men, to attack Akragas, rich in cornº and wine and oil, as Girgenti is to‑day. For the Akragantines were a peace-loving people who kept out of war and enriched themselves with agriculture and trade; and their city was beautiful with many temples, and with many monuments, some of which were even erected to the memory of horses that had won some famous race, and the maidens of Akragas sometimes built tombs for their favourite song-birds. There were also marvellous paintings there, and there was vast wealth. Once, before this war, a certain Exainetos of Akragas won the two hundred yard race at Olympia, and when he came home, there went out to welcome him three hundred chariots drawn by as many pairs of milk-white horses. In their gymnasium the people used golden strigils and gold vessels for oil. At the door of the house of Gellias, a rich man of the city, slaves stood in waiting all day long, inviting every passing stranger to enter for rest and entertainment, and once, when five hundred riders came from Gela, Gellias took them all in, and presented each one with new garments, for it was winter. In his cellars, instead of casks and hogsheads, three hundred reservoirs for wine were hewn in the solid rock, and each one held one hundred amphorae, which is equal to •nearly nine hundred gallons. And of
the Akragantines Empedocles said that they built as if they were to live forever, but that they feasted as if they were to die on the morrow; and it is recorded that at a certain marriage eight hundred carriages and innumerable riders brought the bride home at night, while the whole city was illuminated. Moreover, during the war which now began, a decree was issued which forbade a soldier on the watch to be provided with more than two mattresses, two pillows, and a blanket.