He shook his head scornfully. “He is just a mad Greek who is wandering from east to west to familiarize himself with the different countries and peoples. He is buying useless objects, and I think he is interested in Siccanian flint knives and wooden bowls. Sell him whatever trash you wish so long as you pay me my commission. He doesn’t know how to bargain and it’s no sin to deceive him. After all, he is a pampered man who doesn’t know how to dispose of his money.”
The stranger watched us suspiciously and when he caught my eye explained hastily, “I am not a lowborn man. You will benefit more by listening to me than by robbing me.” Tempting me as one would a barbarian, he jingled his money pouch.
I kissed my hand, not from respect toward him but in gratitude to the goddess who as Hecate had not deserted me. But I shook my head and replied, “We Siccanians do not use money.”
He spread his hands. “Then choose what you will from among the merchant’s goods and I will pay him. He understands the value of money.”
“I cannot accept gifts before I know what is going on,” I said gloomily. “I suspect you because of the garments you wear. I have never seen any like them before.”
“I am a servant of the Persian king,” he explained. “That is why I wear these garments which are called trousers. I come from Susa, which is his city, and I sailed from lonia as the companion of Messina’s former tyrant, Skythes. But the people of Messina apparently do not want Skythes, preferring to obey Anaxilaos of Rhegion instead. So I am wandering around Sicily for my own pleasure and to increase my knowledge of the various peoples.”
I said nothing. He looked at me intently, then shook his head and asked mournfully, “Do you understand at all what I am saying?”
“I understand more than you think,” I replied. “After all, Skythes dug the pit for himself by inviting settlers from Samos to found a new colony. But what does the Great King hope to benefit from Skythes?”
He was elated to discover that I knew something of politics. “My name is Xenodotos,” he explained. “I am an Ionian and a pupil of the famous historian Hecataeus, but I became a slave of the King during the war.”
At my look of loathing he hastened to say, “Don’t misunderstand me. I am a slave in name only. If Skythes had regained Messina, I would have become his adviser. Skythes fled to Susa because the King is the friend of all exiles. He is also a friend of knowledge, and his Crotonian physician has awakened his interest in the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. But the King is interested in all other peoples as well, even in those of whom he has not yet heard, and is ready to send gifts to their leaders and to know more of them.”
He looked at me closely, stroked his curly beard and continued, “In enlarging his knowledge of the world’s peoples, the King is enlarging the whole sphere of knowledge and thus serves humanity. Among his treasures is a copy of Hecataeus’ map of the world etched in bronze, but in his thirst for knowledge he wants to know even the shore lines, the course of the rivers, the forests and mountains of the various countries. Nothing is too insignificant for him to learn, since the gods have destined him to be the father of all peoples.”
“He treated the Ionian cities in a paternal manner indeed,” I observed sarcastically. “Especially Miletus, the most gifted of his children.”
Xenodotos demanded suspiciously, “How have you learned to speak Greek, you Siccanian with the painted face? What do you know about lonia?”
I thought it best to boast. “I even know how to read and write and have sailed to many lands. Why and how it happened is no concern of yours, stranger, but I know more than you think.”
He became even more interested. “If that is so, and you really know and understand matters, you surely realize that even a lenient father is compelled to chastise his obstinate children. So much for Miletus. But to his friends the King is a most generous master, wise and just.”
“You are forgetting the envy of the gods, Xenodotos,” I said.
“We are living in new times,” he replied. “Let us leave the tales about the gods to the babblers. The sages of lonia know better. The only god served by the King is fire. Everything has its origin in fire and ultimately returns to it. But of course the King respects the deities of the peoples he rules and sends gifts to their temples.”
“Doesn’t one of the Ionian sages teach that everything consists only of movement and currents and the tremor of fire?” I asked. “Herakleitos of Ephesus, if I remember correctly. Or do you think he borrowed his doctrine from the Persian?”
Xenodotos looked at me with respect and admitted, “You are a learned man. I would gladly have met Herakleitos in Ephesus, but he is said to have become embittered toward the world and to have withdrawn to the mountains to eat herbs. The King had a letter written in which he asked for the details of the doctrine, but Herakleitos rejected the letter. In fact, he stoned the messenger and refused to accept the gifts that had been left for him. The King, however, did not take offensc but said that the older he becomes and the better he learns to know people, the more he himself feels like bleating and eating grass.”
I laughed. “Your story is the best I have yet heard about the Great King. Perhaps I would want to be his friend had I myself not withdrawn to the forest and donned pelts.”
Xenodotos stroked his beard again and intimated, “We understand each other. Conclude your trade with the Etruscan and thereafter I want to enjoy your hospitality, see your home, become acquainted with the Siccanian chiefs, and talk more with you.”
I shook my head. “If you succeed in laying a hand on the sooty stone of a Siccanian’s hearth, you will enjoy his hospitality and that of his tribe to the end of your days. You see, the Siccani will not show themselves to strangers except in battle, and even then their chiefs wear wooden masks and the warriors paint their faces until they are unrecognizable.”
“Are they skilled warriors? What weapons do they use? And how many tribes and families are there?” he asked quickly.
Knowing that the Siccanians were watching me, I kicked at the sacks of salt brought by the Etruscan and pretended to inspect the cloth as I replied, “They are useless on the plains, and the sight of a horse or dog fills them with panic. But in their own forests they are incomparable warriors. They make arrowheads of flint and temper the metal tips of their wooden spears in fire. Iron is their most precious metal and they know how to forge it if they can only obtain it.”
To indicate what I meant, I opened a sack of salt and dug out an Etruscan knife and axe blade. When I held them up the entire forest seemed to stir. Xenodotos looked around in amazement, while the Etruscan boxed the ears of his servants and ordered them to hide their faces in the ground. Thereafter he willingly opened the sacks of salt and produced the iron objects that he had smuggled. We sat on the ground to bargain over them.
Soon Xenodotos grew impatient, jingled his pouch and asked, “How much do they cost? I will buy them and give them to the Siccanians so that we may proceed to our matter.”
His stupidity displeased me. Accepting the pouch I said, “Take a walk along the river and watch the flight of the birds with the merchant. Take the servants with you. When you return at midday you will know more about the Siccani.”
He became angry and called me a thief until the Etruscan seized him by the arm and pulled him away. When they had disappeared from sight the Siccanians appeared from the forest, accompanied by members of other tribes, also with their wares. When they saw the iron objects they flung their burdens to the ground and ran back for more. Those who had accompanied me began to dance the Siccanian sun dance in sheer joy.
By midday more than a hundred men had passed by the campfire to leave their wares, to which they had added game, wild ducks, a deer and fresh fish. But still no one touched the merchant’s goods for fear that the Siccanian wares did not suffice as payment. It was the merchant’s responsibility to separate the amount he deemed sufficient to pay for his goods.
To prove my honesty I also showed my tribal brothers the Persian gold coins in Xenodotos’ pouch, but they were not interested. They stared greedily only at the iron objects. I myself chose a razor shaped like a half moon since I needed one for transforming my appearance. It was of the finest Etruscan iron and effortlessly cut even a heavy beard without wounding the skin.
Upon his return Xenodotos saw the trampled area and the heaps of goods around the campfire. Now he believed me when I said that I could call forth a hundred or even a thousand Siccanians from the forest if need be. I explained that no one knew the total number of Siccanians, not even they themselves, but if it became a question of defending the forest against a conqueror, every tree would change into a Siccanian.
“The Siccani retreat only from the path of cultivated land, villages and cities,” I explained. “They will not
