The Caspian Gates

XII



Ballista sat in the shade at the top of the high steps and looked down on the walled square of the temple of Apollo at Didyma. He moved the pebble in his mouth from one cheek to the other. The pall of dust made it hard to see across the adyton. The bright sunshine turned the fug a dirty yellow, rendered it opaque. The little inner sanctum at the far end was almost totally obscured. There was no wind. Trapped, great waves of dust slowly coiled back from the high outer walls of the sanctuary. Ballista knew the men with picks and shovels down on the ground would be finding it hard to breathe. It could not be helped; they were only slaves.

It was hot. Everyone was tortured with thirst. Despite careful rationing, the few barrels of water had run out two days after the Gothic attack. That had been the day before. They were still encircled by the Goths. No one could go outside. No one had drunk anything for more than twenty-four hours.

Ballista had been wrong in his assumption that the waters rose in the inner sanctum. The sacred spring had been just outside its doors. As soon as he had been given the news about its failure, he had got the temple slaves to work digging down to clear the channels, discover where the water had gone. So far, the Sacred Boys had found nothing.

Ballista shifted the pebble with his tongue. He was unsure if it did any good, but he could not tell how thirsty he would have felt without it. The tip had come from Mamurra, years earlier. Mamurra had been an old hand on the eastern frontier. Every time he came into Ballista’s mind, there was the guilt. Mamurra, the good friend he had left to die, entombed alive in Arete.

Just as certainly as Mamurra had been trapped in the siege tunnel, so now they were all trapped in this temple. Ballista wondered if the messenger he had sent from Priene had got through and, if so, had Maximillianus, the governor, acted on it. If not, they were all doomed. The Goths need only wait for thirst to drive them out – and they would have to wait no time at all. For distraction, Ballista asked Hippothous about the sparrows of Didyma.

In a husky voice, Hippothous told the story. The Lydian rebel Pactyes had fled to the Greek polis of Cyme. The Persian king demanded he be surrendered. The Cymeans had asked the oracle here at Didyma what to do. Apollo had said to hand him over. Giving up a suppliant had seemed wrong to the men of Cyme. They had sent a second embassy to Didyma. It received the same answer. Now, on the embassy was a man of wisdom; Aristodicus was his name. He took a long stick and with it he went around the sanctuary knocking down all the sparrows’ nests he could reach.

Ballista looked up at the towering walls. It must have been a very long stick.

As Aristodicus was about this, Apollo himself spoke in the adyton. How dare this man drive these suppliants from the temple? Aristodicus was not stuck for a reply. How could Apollo defend his suppliants but order the Cymeans to give up theirs? The god replied it was to hasten the impiety of Cyme and bring on its destruction; to teach them never to ask such a question again.

Sat overlooking the adyton, dependent on the god’s house for his safety, Ballista thought it was not the place to voice his doubts over either the piety or the logic of Apollo’s words. ‘What did the Cymeans do?’

Hippothous smiled. ‘They sent Pactyes to Mytilene. When they heard the men there were going to give him up, they shipped him to Chios. The Persians bribed the Chians with the territory of Atarneus on the mainland. The Chians hauled Pactyes out of their sanctuary of Athena and gave him to the Persians.’

‘What happened to Pactyes?’

Hippothous paused, thinking. ‘I am not sure if Herodotus recorded that. But nothing good.’

‘And what happened to the Chians?’

The Greek frowned. ‘For quite a long time, they would not use barley from Atarneus in offerings to the gods, or sacrificial cakes.’

Not the most taxing way of easing one’s guilt, thought Ballista. It was just time for him to go down to the entrance and relieve Maximus when something happened down on the floor of the adyton. There was hoarse shouting in the murk. The mass of refugees huddled on the lower steps parted and the dust-caked figures of the prophetes and his aide stumbled upwards. They were both grinning.

Politely getting to his feet, Ballista spat the pebble into his left hand.

‘They have struck water,’ Selandros said. ‘We are saved.’

With a restrained formality, Ballista and the prophetes shook hands. The Stygian gloom below was transformed by shouts of good omen, husky cheering. They were all indeed saved – at least for the moment.

‘I am Apollo’s water, to the inhabitants a gift

Given freely by the player of the golden lyre, in the Scythian war.’


The youthful aide beamed as he extemporized the poem. His role in the oracle was suddenly clear to Ballista. The priestess from the inner temple muttered the words of Apollo, this young hypochrestes transformed them into verse, and Selandros, the dignified prophetes, spoke them through the high window to the pious waiting below.

‘When around the temple dashed Ares

Leto’s son himself saved his suppliants.’


Selandros applauded the efforts of his aide.

‘This has happened before.’ The youth, buoyed up with relief, rattled on. ‘The sacred spring ran dry, Alexander the Great came, Apollo opened a vein and the golden waters flowed.’ He was looking at Ballista in a strange way. So was the prophetes. Even Hippothous had an odd look in his eye.

‘No,’ said Ballista. ‘Euphorbus, Pythagoras, Alexander – I have been none of them.’

The prophetes shook his head. ‘Unless you were a seer, you would not know.’

Once everyone had drunk their fill, the barrels were refilled; a spring that had failed twice could do so a third time. Ballista had the men at the entrance and up on the walls be particularly profligate with water; drinking copiously, splashing it over each other in the heat. Likewise, although the dwindling food stocks were strictly doled out, the men on view were often eating. It was important that the Goths thought the defenders were well refreshed, their morale high.

It was late afternoon. As the sun had moved down, somehow the heat seemed to have intensified. In the relative cool of the forest of columns at the front of the temple, Ballista hunkered down with his back to the hastily erected wall. Close to exhaustion, he looked at the sparrows chattering in and out of their nests, and his thoughts went along similarly random-seeming trajectories. Euphorbus, Pythagoras, Alexander. If you believed in the transmigration of the soul, as the prophetes and his aide obviously did, any of the swooping birds might once have been a philosopher or a hero. Such a conviction must paralyse action. You could never tell who or what you were killing. What sort of a man would you be if you could not kill? It was better not to enjoy it too much, but circumstances sometimes demanded it be done. Belief in transmigrated souls seemed a road that must inexorably lead to pacifism, vegetarianism, and other insanities embraced by Christians and other obscure sects of Jews. Not that they held to that sort of reincarnation.

Maximus broke into Ballista’s fatigue-muddled thoughts. ‘What?’

‘Come and watch the Goths leave.’ Maximus extended a hand, and helped Ballista to his feet.

It was true. From up on the roof terrace, they saw the last of the northern raiders passing out of the gate, streaming away to the north-east towards Panormos. The Goths appeared to have little booty, were driving but a few captives before them. Something was impelling the warriors to hurry.

Wary of a trick, Ballista sent Hippothous down to the entrance to ensure that the soldiers there did not relax their vigilance. Ballista systematically scanned the rooftops and groves of Didyma but could see no evidence of lurking Gothic warriors.

Ballista gazed hard into the distance to the north and north-east. He began to smile. Out towards Miletus, some six or seven miles away, was a tall pillar of dust. Dense, isolated; he knew what it meant. A large body of mounted men was crossing the scrubby hills. They were coming south, following the Sacred Way that would bring them to Panormos. Ballista’s smile broadened slowly. His message had got through. The governor had done the right thing. Maximillianus had diverted the unit of auxiliary cavalry from Ephesus and sent them south. One thousand cavalry, riding to Panormos, where the Gothic ships were moored. Threaten their longboats, and the Goths would leave.

Allfather, Deep Hood, Death-blinder; they were saved.