‘I am the prophetes of the Lord Apollo at Didyma. My name is Selandros, son of Hermias, of the Euangelidai.’ The annual high priest was from one of the oldest and most prestigious families of Miletus. ‘This is the hydrophor of Artemis, my daughter, Alexandra.’ The virgin priestess was not veiled, but she kept her eyes demurely down. She was beautiful. Well, thought Ballista, the prophetes will fight – his worst fear would be a gang of hairy barbarians taking turns on top of his daughter. Pausanias’s description of the Gauls sacking Delphi came into Ballista’s mind. Worse even than the Persians, they had raped women, girls and boys to death. In one of those very rare flashes of total insight, Ballista knew that Selandros had read the same passage, that it had been in his thoughts also – poor bastard. Ballista felt a sudden quickening, his mind running back to his youth and the girl in the village of the Rugii when he was in his father’s war band, back a couple of years to Roxanne, the Persian king’s concubine at Soli. He savagely suppressed the atavistic urge. Years before, in Arelate, he had known a woman, a Corinthian whore, who had claimed that all men were rapists. He had thought her mad; now he was not so sure. Possibly the Greeks and Romans were not totally wrong endlessly to preach self-control. Ballista knew he had done bad things, had condoned many others, but a man can change. He was not tied to his nature or his fate like a dog to a cart.
‘And this is the hypochrestes, and the paraphylax.’ The former, Selandros’s aide, smiled ingratiatingly. He was nothing but a frightened boy. The latter, the head of the temple guards, was older. He looked at Ballista as if he had been expecting someone else, someone better. Ballista instantly dismissed him as of no account.
‘Unfortunately, the tamias could not come. He has much to do.’ There was no surprise there, thought Ballista. The treasurer, who actually ran Didyma, would have his work cut out preparing the defence, if these were the other men of position at the sanctuary.
‘The Goths will not be long,’ said Ballista. ‘We should go.’
Beyond the gate, there were buildings on both sides of the Sacred Way: minor temples, baths, porticos, shops and houses – all empty. Although only a village under the rule of Miletus, the settlement was of some extent. It stretched off to the right.
After a distance, the road doglegged to the east. The buildings on the right gave way to a grove of bay trees, which curved around the western end of the main temple.
The first sight of the temple of Apollo at Didyma was overwhelming: a towering phalanx of columns, a fitting home for one of the Olympians. Many had held it should have ranked as one of the seven wonders of the world.
The horses were led away, and Selandros conducted Ballista around the temple. Set in a hollow but standing on a high, stepped podium, the building was an enormous rectangle, surrounded by a double line of columns. There was only one entrance, from the east. Selandros explained how, at the first news of the Goths at Ephesus, the tamias had ordered the Sacred Boys – the temple slaves – to build an extra wall to narrow access.
It was a strong site. Just the one way in. There was open ground on all sides. Admittedly, if they got close, attackers would be sheltered by the partially finished roof over the columns, but the walls were at least sixty feet high and far too thick to breach except by prolonged siege works, and men in the eaves could drop tiles and stones, which would turn the space into a killing zone. The Goths might try to burn the defenders out of the temple, but that would probably destroy the plunder they were after, and the great stone building did not look particularly combustible. All in all, Ballista was relieved; it was much as Macarius had described it back in Miletus.
Before going into the temple, Ballista studied the emergency wall. It was made of well-cut blocks of stone, presumably dismantled from some nearby building. The construction looked solid enough. It closed eight gaps between columns at the previously open eastern end of the temple. The one opening still remaining was only three or four long paces wide. At the top of fourteen steep stone steps, it should be possible to hold it with four determined men in close order, maybe with just two in open order, if they had the skills. Ballista posted six of the soldiers there.
The first area inside was a forest of massive, fluted columns. Set in the inside wall was a strange big window or door, its base five or six feet off the ground. Selandros explained that it was from there that the prophetes gave the responses to those who consulted the oracle. ‘Come.’ The priest smiled. ‘We will follow the pilgrim way.’
The temple was laid out like none Ballista had seen before. Selandros led them to a narrow passage against the right-hand wall. It was vaulted, dark and steep. At the far end, they emerged from the gloom into dazzling sunshine. There was a great square, open to the sky.
At the further end was a small temple. Through its open doors could be seen Apollo in bronze, naked, a stag in one hand, a bow in the other. The priestess and the sacred spring whose waters inspired her must be inside as well. The deity and his shelter were dwarfed by the huge walls around them.
Everywhere in the open were other statues: emperors, kings, priests, officials, men of honour. Hanging on the walls were innumerable desiccated wreaths of bay and, arranged below, other offerings: bowls, vases, censers, cups, pots, tripods, wine coolers – all manner of vessels cunningly wrought in precious metals. But what took Ballista aback, almost stultified his senses, were the people: men, women and children – hundreds of them – sitting, standing, a multitude of refugees, all silent and dejected.
Selandros gestured to the square. ‘Usually only the servants of the temple set foot on the holy ground but, with the barbarians coming, the Lord Apollo in his love of mankind said to welcome the suppliants into his adyton. In settled times, those seeking divine guidance stand here and put their questions to the prophetes and he then consults the inspired priestess in the inner temple. Those wanting answers return the way we have come and wait at the front below the window. It is my honour to relay the divine words.’
The priest turned and led them up to the room from which the window opened. All the weapons that could be found had been heaped there. Ballista and the men of war began to sort through them.
‘It should not be like this.’ The voice of the hypochrestes was plaintive. The youthful aide spoke to everyone and no one. ‘It is the fifth year, the year of the great festival. Athletes, musicians, singers, men from across the world – all should be coming to the Didymeia, coming in peace. Why has the god deserted us? Have we not offered enough wine and incense, enough hecatombs of shambly footed cattle? Why, despite our piety, has the god turned against us?’
‘Enough.’ The voice of the prophetes was firm. ‘Apollo has not deserted us. Just as at Troy in the ancient days, the gods are divided. Warlike Ares has brought this plague of Scythians. The Lord Apollo will not submit. He who rejoices in song will not abandon those who pray to him and offer him hymns with pure and open hearts.’
The young aide seemed close to tears. ‘How can that be? Are not Apollo and Ares but parts of the eternal, uncreated, undying Supreme God? Why would the timeless, immovable being…’
‘Enough!’ The prophetes was commanding. ‘Enough of Plato, and the prattling of his foolish followers; this is a time for true religion, antique religion unsullied by speculation. Ares guided the barbarians here; the Lord Apollo will crush them.’
Ballista had taken up a huge old shield. It had been set apart, some cobwebbed dedication from a forgotten time. He hid his smile behind it. The gods aside, multiple or singular, he knew what had brought the Goths here. Obviously, there was the well-founded rumour of wealth. The renegade Chrysogonus would have told them all about that. But there was something else, something much more specific and much sharper. Revenge and honour: the true soul of the north, the blood that bound together that unforgiving land. Ballista had killed Tharuaro to create a bloodfeud with the Tervingi. With the corpse still fresh, where he went the Tervingi would follow, and the Borani with them. Those two groups would be enough to sway the whole hansa of the Goths. He, Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, the man the Romans knew as Ballista, had brought Scythian Ares after him, like a dog tied to a cart. And only Maximus and himself knew it, and only they knew why. If the Goths were at Didyma, they were not at Priene. Ballista’s sons, his wife, old Calgacus – all would be safe.
Ballista noticed the silence. Both the prophetes and his aide were staring at him. He looked back blankly.
‘The shield,’ began the prophetes.
Ballista turned the ungainly thing. Leather and bronze; one of the straps had rotted and come away.
‘You know who carried that shield?’ The priest was strangely hesitant.
‘No.’
‘Euphorbus, the Trojan hero who first wounded Patroclus. In revenge, Menelaus killed him, and dedicated his shield here.’
‘It is very old.’
The prophetes gave him an odd look. ‘Euphorbus was reincarnated as the holy Pythagoras.’
‘Yes.’
