'I do not know, Kyrios.'
'Demetrius, the last time I checked, you were my slave, my property. Did not one of your beloved ancient writers describe a slave as 'a tool with a voice'? Tell me what the captain and you were talking about.'
'He was going to tell you the myth of the island of Diomedes. I wanted to stop him. So I interrupted him and told the story of the island of satyrs. It is in The Description of Greece by Pausanias. I meant to show that, seductive as they are – even men as educated as the writer Pausanias have fallen for them – all such stories are unlikely to be true.' The boy stopped, embarrassed.
'So what is the myth of the islands of Diomedes?'
The boy's cheeks flushed. 'It is just a silly story.'
'Tell me,' commanded Ballista.
'Some say that after the Trojan War the Greek hero Diomedes did not go home but settled on two remote islands in the Adriatic. There is a sanctuary there dedicated to him. All round it sit large birds with big, sharp beaks. The legend has it that, when a Greek lands, the birds remain calm. But if a barbarian should try to land, they fly out and dive through the air trying to kill him. It is said they are the companions of Diomedes, who were transformed into birds.'
'And you wanted to spare my feelings?' Ballista threw his head back and laughed. 'Obviously, no one has told you. In my barbarian tribe, we do not really go in for feelings – or only when very drunk.'
II
The gods had been kind since Cassiope. The unexpected fury of Notus, the south wind, had given way to Boreas, the north wind, in gentle, kindly mood. With the tumbling mountains of Epirus, Acarnania and the Pelopponese off to the left, the Concordia had proceeded mainly under sail down the western flank of Greece. The trireme had rounded Cape Tainaron, made the passage between Malea and Cythera and then, under oars, headed north-east into the Aegean, pointing her wicked ram at the Cyclades: Melos, Seriphos, Syros. Now, after seven days and with only the island of Rheneia to round, they would reach Delos in a couple of hours.
A tiny, almost barren rock at the centre of the circle of the Cyclades, Delos had always been different. At first it had wandered on the face of the waters. When Leto, seduced by Zeus, the king of the gods, and hounded by his wife, Hera, had been rejected by every other place on earth, Delos took her in, and there she gave birth to the god Apollo and his sister Artemis. As a reward Delos was fixed in place for ever. The sick and women near to childbirth were ferried across to Rheneia; no one should be born or die on Delos. For long ages the island and its shrines had flourished, unwalled, held in the hands of the gods. In the golden age of Greece, Delos had been chosen as the headquarters of the league created by the Athenians to take the fight for freedom to the Persians.
The coming of Rome, the cloud in the west, had changed everything. The Romans had declared Delos a free port; not out of piety but from sordid commerce. Their wealth and greed had turned the island into the largest slave market in the world. It was said that, at its height, more than ten thousand wretched men, women and children were sold each day on Delos. Yet the Romans had failed to protect Delos. Twice in twenty years the sacred island had been sacked. With a bitter irony, those who had made their living from slavery had been carried off by pirates into slavery. Now, its sanctuaries and its favourable position as a stopping place between Europe and Asia Minor continued to pull some sailors, merchants and pilgrims, but the island was a shadow of its former self.
Demetrius continued to gaze at Delos. Away to his right was the grey, humped outline of Mount Cynthus. On its summit was the sanctuary of Zeus and Athena. Below clustered other sanctuaries to other gods, Egyptian and Syrian, as well as Greek. Below them, tumbling down to the sea, was the old town, a jumble of whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs shimmering in the sunshine. The colossal statue of Apollo caught Demetrius's eye. Its head with its long braided hair, sculpted countless generations ago, was turned away. It smiled its fixed smile away to the left, towards the sacred lake. And there, next to the sacred lake, was the sight Demetrius had dreaded ever since he had heard where the Concordia was bound.
He had seen it only once, and that had been five years ago, but he would never forget the Agora of the Italians. He had been stripped and bathed – the goods had to look their best – then led to the block. There he had been the model of a docile slave, the threat of a beating or worse in his ears. He could smell crowded humanity under a pitiless Mediterranean sun. The auctioneer had done his spiel – 'well educated… would make a good secretary or accountant'. Fragments of the coarse comments of rough men floated up – 'Educated arsehole, I would say'… 'Well used if Turpilius has owned him.' A brisk bidding, and the deal was done. Remembering, Demetrius felt his face burn and his eyes prickle with unshed tears of rage.
Demetrius tried never to think of the Agora of the Italians. For him, it was a low point in three years of darkness after the soft spring light of the previous time. He did not talk about either; he let it be understood that he had been born into slavery.
The theatre quarter of the old town of Delos was a jumble of narrow winding lanes overhung by the leaning walls of shabby houses. Sunlight had difficulty getting in here at the best of times. Now, with the sun setting over the island of Rheneia, it was nearly pitch dark. The frumentarii had not thought to bring a torch or hire a torch- bearer.
'Shit,' said the Spaniard.
'What is it?'
'Shit. I have just stepped in a great pile of shit.' Now that he mentioned it, the other two noticed how the alley stank.
'There. A sign to guide the shailor to port,' said the North African. Sculpted at eye level was a large phallus. Its bell-end sported a smiling face. The spies set off in the direction it indicated, the Spaniard stopping now and then to scrape his sandal.
After a short walk in the gathering darkness they came to a door flanked by two carved phalluses. A large brute of a doorman admitted them, then they were led to a bench at a table by an unimaginably hideous crone. She asked for money upfront before she brought them their drink: two parts of wine to five water. The only other customers were two elderly locals deep in conversation.
'Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect,' said the spy from the Subura. If anything, the smell was worse in here than outside. Stale wine fumes and ancient sweat joined the prevailing odour of damp and decay, piss and shit. 'How come you two get to be well-paid, well-respected scribes on the Dux's staff while a native-born Roman, one of Romulus's own, like me, has to play the role of a mere messenger?'
'Is it our fault you write so badly?' said the Spaniard.
'Bollocks to you, Sertorius.' The nickname came from a famous Roman rebel who had been based in Spain. 'Rome is nothing more than a stepmother to you and Hannibal here.'
'Yesh, it must be wonderful to be born in Romulus' cesspit,' said the North African.
They stopped bickering as they were served by an elderly prostitute wearing a great deal of make-up, a very short tunic and a bracelet with a range of amulets: a phallus, the club of Heracles, an axe, a hammer and an image of three-faced Hecate.
'If she needs that lot to deflect envy, imagine what the others look like.'
They all drank. 'There is another imperial trireme in the harbour,' said the Spaniard. 'It is carrying an imperial procurator from the province of Lycia to Rome. Maybe the Dux has arranged to meet him here?'
'Except he has not gone to meet him yet,' replied the one so proud of his birth in the city of Rome.
'That might be all the more suspicious.'
'Bollocks. Our barbarian Dux came here because he heard there was a consignment of Persian slaves for sale and he wanted to buy a new piece of arse; a Persian with a bottom like a peach to replace that worn-out Greek boy.'
'I was talking to Demetrius, the accenshush. He thinks that it is all some type of political statement. Apparently, a very long time ago, the Greeks used this wretched little island as the headquarters for a religious war against the Persians. Where are we going, if not to defend civilization from a new lot of Persians? It seems our barbarian Dux wants to see himself as a standard-bearer for civilization.'
