I will need ships to protect the interests of Eryx at sea.”
Dorieus entrusted the welfare of Panormos to its former council, promising to return as king of Segesta to punish or reward as he saw fit.
2.
The following day Dorieus organized the men of Phocaea for a refreshing march, as he put it, to help them recover from the trials of the sea. The men had spread his fame throughout the city and when he made his offering before their departure, the market place grew still and the people of Panormos stared at him in awe. He was a head taller than humans, they said to one another, invulnerable and godlike.
“Let us be on our way,” he said, and without a backward glance headed out of the city dressed in full armor despite the heat. We three hundred, as he called us, followed him, Dionysius at the rear with a length of rope in his hand. We had unloaded the treasure from the trireme and piled it on the backs of the animals without much difficulty since a goodly part of it had gone down with our penteconters.
Having reached the plain we looked behind and to our amazement saw that many of the men of Panormos were following us. By the time we had begun ascending the slope of the mountain at dusk our rearguard had been joined by hundreds of shepherds and plowmen, each armed to the best of his ability. When we made camp for the night the entire mountain slope was dotted with small fires. It seemed as though all of the backwoods people were eager to rise in revolt against Segesta.
On the third day of our exhausting march the men of Phocaea, unaccustomed to land travel, began to grumble and show their blisters. Then Dorieus spoke to them. “I myself march ahead of you and enjoy marching despite my full armor. As you can see, I am not even sweating. And you have only your weapons to carry.”
“It is easy for you to talk,” they retorted, “for you are not like us.” At the first spring they threw themselves on the ground, doused their heads in the water and wept in misery. Dorieus’ words did not help the situation, but they had to believe Dionysius’ rope and continue the journey.
Dorieus then spoke to Dionysius. “You are not stupid,” he admitted, “and apparently are beginning to understand a commander’s responsibilities on land. We are approaching Segesta and before a battle a responsible commander must march his men to such exhaustion that they no longer have the strength to flee. The distance from Panormos to Segesta is precisely right, as though measured by the gods for our purpose. We will go directly to Segesta and spread ourselves in battle formation before it.”
Dionysius replied somberly, “You know best what you are saying, but we are sailors and not soldiers. For that reason we will most certainly not spread out in a battle line but will remain supporting one another in a body, side to side and back to back. But if you go ahead, we will follow.”
But Dorieus bristled in anger and said that he would wage the battle in accordance with the rules of war so that future generations might learn from it. In the midst of the argument a group of Siccanians crept from the woods with their slings, bows and spears. They wore animal skins and had stained their faces and bodies red, black and yellow. Their chief, who had a fearsome wooden mask over his head, danced before Dorieus, after which the Siccanians placed at Dorieus’ feet the decayed and foul-smelling heads of several Segestan nobles.
They explained that seers had sought them out in the forests and mountains, had given them salt and presaged the coming of a new king. Encouraged by the predictions, they had begun to raid Segestan fields, and when the nobles had pursued them with horses and dogs they had led them into an ambush and killed them.
Now, however, they were afraid of revenge and so placed themselves under Dorieus’ protection. For as long as they could remember, they said, a tale had passed from father to son of a powerful stranger who had once come to their land, vanquished the king in a duel and given the land to the natives, promising some day to claim his inheritance. They called Dorieus “Erkle” and expressed the wish that he would banish the Elymi and restore the land to the Siccani.
Dorieus accepted their homage as his due. He attempted to teach them to say “Herakles” but when their mouths could not shape it he shook his head. Little joy would he have of such barbarians.
Barbarians they were, indeed. The only metallic weapons they had were a few spears, knives and the chief’s sword, for the Segestans stringently forbade itinerant merchants to sell them weapons. Instead, they had other skills. Never did they fell a tree wherein dwelled a nymph, or drink from the spring of a malevolent deity. Their priest, they explained, had swallowed a divining potion the previous night and had seen the coming of Dorieus while in a trance.
When Dorieus asked them to join in open battle against the Segestans they refused. They were too afraid of the horses and angry dogs to venture beyond the woods, but they would be happy to encourage Dorieus by beating on drums made of hollow logs.
As we continued the march, more and more Siccanians appeared to stare at us and to shout, “Erkle! Erkle!” The peasants of Panormos were amazed at the sight of these usually shy natives who did not reveal themselves even when trading, but placed their goods on display in certain locations and accepted whatever was left in return.
Now the fertile fields of Segesta with their altars and monuments lay before us. But we saw no people, for they had all withdrawn into the city. At the memorial to the spurious Philip of Croton, Dorieus halted and said, “Here we will fight, so that my father’s spirit may be appeased for the humiliation it suffered.”
We could see people moving restlessly on the city wall, and Dorieus ordered the men of Phocaea to beat their shields as proof that he had no intention of taking the city by surprise. Then he sent a herald to proclaim to the Segestans his hereditary right to the throne and to challenge the king to a duel. Thereafter we made camp around the memorial and ate, drank and rested. Despite Dorieus’ warning not to trample the grain we could not avoid doing so, for there must have been several thousand of us if one includes the Siccanians at our rear.
I believe the trampling of the grain annoyed the Segestans even more than Dorieus’ demands. Having noticed that the grain would in any case be ruined and that a battle was inescapable, their ruler assembled his athletes and noble youths and hitched his horses to the war chariots which for decades had been used only in races. Although the king had no more power than the sacrificial king in Ionian cities, the dog crown imposed certain obligations. Afterward we heard that he was not especially anxious to retain it and while harnessing the horses had taken the crown from his head and offered it to those around him. But at that moment no one else was anxious to wear the crown either.
They summoned up one another’s courage by retelling tales of the battles that their forefathers had waged against invaders and recalling the bones which fertilized their fields. Meanwhile the king’s heralds went from door to door to summon able-bodied men to arms, but the citizens said openly that a political controversy over the dog crown was no concern of theirs. And so the nobles and landowners drank wine and made their offering to the gods of the underworld to gain courage to die honorably if that was ordained. They also spent much time in oiling and combing their hair.
Having fetched the holy dog and led it to its place among the pack, the Segestans, finally ready for battle, flung open the gates and sent the chariots thundering toward us. The chariots were an imposing sight, the like of which had hardly been seen in battle for a generation. We counted twenty-eight spread out in a phalanx to protect the gates. The horses were magnificent with their plumed heads and their harnesses gilded with silver.
Behind the chariots were spread the armored warriors, the nobles, the mercenaries and the athletes. Dorieus forbade us to count the shields lest we grow alarmed. The warriors were followed by the dogs and their trainers and they in turn by the stone-throwers and the archers.
We could hear the charioteers urge on the horses. Seeing the flaring nostrils and the flashing hoofs approach, the men of Phocaea began to tremble so that their shields rattled against one another. Calmly Dorieus stood before them and urged them to aim their spears manfully at the horses’ bellies. But as the chariots rumbled toward them, flattening the grain field, the men of Phocaea withdrew behind the memorial and the altars and declared that, for their part, Dorieus could handle the problem of the chariots alone since they were unaccustomed to such matters. Whereupon the remaining forces likewise withdrew beyond the wide irrigation ditch.
Dorieus threw two spears, wounding one of a quadriga’s four horses and killing the charioteer whose body was dragged along the ground. I wasted one of my spears but, as a horse before me reared, I hurled a second with all my might at his belly. Whatever happened I was determined not to leave Dorieus’ side but to prove myself at
