The Etruscan (3 page)

We clothed ourselves in silence by the brook. The oval valley of Delphi darkened below us, the mountains gleamed violet. I was purified, I was alive, I was strong. In my heart was a glow of friendship for this stranger who had consented to compete with me without asking who or what I was.

Walking down the mountain path toward the buildings of Delphi, he glanced at me frequently from the corner of his eye and finally said, “I like you, although we Spartans usually shun strangers. But I am alone, and it is difficult to be without a companion when one has always been with other youths. Although I am no longer tied to the customs of my people, they bind me more strongly than fetters. And so I would rather be dead with my name inscribed on a gravestone than here.”

“I also am alone,” I said. “I came to Delphi of my own will either to be purified or to die. Life has no purpose if I am to be but a curse to my city and to all lonia.”

He looked at me skeptically under his damp, curly forelock. “Don’t judge me before hearing,” I pleaded. “The Pythia pronounced me innocent even though she was not chewing on the sacred bay leaf or sitting on the sacred tripod or breathing the noxious vapors from the gorge. The very sight of me sent her into a trance.” Ionic skepticism made me smile and glance around cautiously. “She seemed to be a woman who is rather fond of men. Undoubtedly she is a holy person, but the priests must have great difficulties in interpreting her ravings to their satisfaction.”

Dorieus raised a hand in alarm. “Don’t you believe the oracle?” he demanded. “If you are blaspheming the deity I will have nothing to do with you.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” I reassured him. “Everything has two sides, that which we see and that which we don’t see. I doubt the earthly aspect of the oracle, true, but that does not mean that I do not recognize her and submit to her judgment though it cost me my life. A man must believe in something.”

“I don’t understand you,” he said in amazement.

We went our separate ways that night, but on the next day, or perhaps it was the one following, he came to me and demanded, “Was it you, man of Ephesus, who set fire to the temple of the Lydian earth goddess at Sardis and thus burned the entire city?”

“That is my crime,” I confessed. “I, Turms of Ephesus, alone am guilty of the burning of Sardis.”

To my surprise Dorieus’ eyes began to twinkle and he clapped me on the shoulders with both hands. “How can you consider yourself a criminal, you who are the hero of the Hellenes? Don’t you know that the burning of Sardis has lit the flames of revolt all over lonia from the Hellespont to Cyprus?”

His words filled me with horror. “In that case the men of lonia arc mad! It is true that, with the arrival of the Athenian ships, we ran into Sardis in three days like a flock of sheep after a ram. But we were unable to conquer the city and its fortifications and ran right out again even faster than we had gone in. The Persian auxiliaries slaughtered many of us, and in the darkness and confusion we even killed one another. No,” I said, “our expedition to Sardis was not a heroic one. To make matters worse, we became involved with some women who were holding a midnight festival outside the gates of Ephesus. The Ephesians ran out and killed even more of us. So purposeless was our expedition and so disgraceful our flight.”

Dorieus shook his head. “You do not speak like a true Greek. War is war and whatever occurs must be made to reflect glory to the fatherland and honor to the dead, regardless of how they fell. I don’t understand you.”

“I am not a Hellene,” I told him, “but a foreigner. Many years ago, near Ephesus, I found myself at the foot of an oak which had been split by lightning. When I came to my senses a ram was bucking me and dead sheep lay all around me. A thunderbolt had torn off my clothes and left a black streak on my loins. But Zeus did not succeed in killing me even though he tried.”

Winter was almost upon us when next the four priests summoned me. By that time I was lean from fasting, trim from exercise, and in every way so purified that I shivered. As old men are wont to do, they made me begin at the beginning and tell what I knew about the revolt of the Ionian cities and the murder or exile of the tyrants whom the Persians had installed as rulers.

I related everything that I knew about our shameful attack on the satrap city of Sardis. Then I said, “Artemis of Ephesus is a divine goddess and because she took me under her protection when I arrived in Ephesus I owe her my life. In recent years, however, the black goddess Cybele of Lydia has begun to compete for favor with the Hellenes’ Artemis. The lonians are a frivolous people, always seeking new experiences, and during the rule of the Persians many of them traveled to Sardis to sacrifice to Cybele and participate in her shameful secret rites. When I joined the Athenian expedition I was told, and had full reason to believe, that the uprising and war against the Persians was at the same time the holy virgin’s war against the black goddess. So I felt that I was performing a worthy deed in setting fire to the temple of Cybele. It was not my fault that a strong wind began to blow just then, spreading the flames over the reed-thatched roofs and burning the entire city.”

Once again I related our flight and skirmishes with the Persians. Then, wearying of my narration, I said, “But you have the wax tablets wliich I brought with me. Believe them if you do not believe me.”

“We have opened and read them,” they replied. “We also have determined the facts about the Ionian events and the expedition to Sardis. It is in your favor that you do not glorify them but rather regret your part in them. Although there are fools who laud this expedition as the Hellenes’ most glorious exploit, the burning of a temple—even that of the Asian Cybele, whom we abhor—is a serious matter, for once temples begin to be burned, not even the gods of the Hellenes will be safe.”

At my request they re-read the wax tablets and permitted me also to read them. The first of the two messages began: Artemisia of the Ephesian temple of Artemis greets the holy council of Apollo’s priests at Delphi. As the clother of the virgin goddess, I am most familiar with her manifestation and her rituals and can declare that Turms of Ephesus has gained her full approval. For that reason I confidently entrust him to the protection of our divine brother Apollo. Let the oracle free him since he did no wrong but rather good. It was the goddess herself who guided his hand when he tossed the blazing torch into that accursed temple.

It then described my arrival in Ephesus and my redemption by Hera-kleitos, brother of the sacrificial king, and concluded: Live in health and do justice to the boy. He is a fair youth.

The other wax tablet began as follows: Epenides, authorized by the Council of Elders, respectfully greets the most holy oracle at Delphi and her priests. At the request of our sacrificial king we urge you righteously to condemn the blasphemer, rebel and temple-burner Turms. The burning of Sardis was the greatest calamity that could have befallen lonia.

The message concluded: We live in evil times, therefore let Turms be cast off the cliff lest he bring about still greater harm to our city than he has already. When we have been informed of his death we will be glad to send a silver tripod for the inner shrine.

Having read this malicious message which purported to defend me, I said angrily, “Do they hope to appease the Persians by cowardice? No, they are in the same boat as the other Ionian cities. No matter what my origin, I am now proud that I am not a native Ephesian.”

As soon as the words were out I became confused. The priests noticed it and asked, “What, then, is your origin?”

“Lightning struck me outside Ephesus and more than that I do not know. I was ill for months thereafter.”

Carefully weighing my words, I told them how at the age of ten I had been sent from Sybaris in Italy to Miletus for safety. When the inhabitants of Miletus heard how the men of Croton had leveled Sybaris to the ground and diverted a river to flow over the ruins, they grieved so much they clipped their hair short. But as their hair grew again, they forgot the claims of hospitality and beat me. I had been apprenticed first to a baker and then to a shepherd, until the beatings had prompted me to flee. Then, near Ephesus, the lightning had struck me.

The priests of Delphi raised their hands in dismay. “How can we solve this troublesome problem? Turms is not even a Greek name. But he cannot be an orphan, for he would not have been sent from Sybaris to safety. The four hundred families of that city were well aware of what they did. Many barbarians lived there to acquire Greek culture, but if the boy were a barbarian, why was he sent to Miletus instead of to his home?”

My self-esteem prompted me to say, “Look closely at me. Is my face that of a barbarian?”

The four old men with the divine bands of the gods around their heads studied me. “How should we know?” they asked. “Your clothes are Ionian, your education Greek. There are as many faces as there are people. An alien is not recognized by his face but by his clothes, hair, beard and speech.”

As they watched me they began to blink. Then they averted their eyes and glanced uneasily at one another, for a divine fever had permeated me after my fasting and purging, and a divine light glowed in my eyes. At that moment I saw through those four old men. So jaded were they by their knowledge that they no longer had faith in them’ selves. Something in me was more powerful than they. Something in me knew more.

Winter was near and soon the god would depart for the farthest north, for the land of lakes and swans, and Delphi would be left to Dionysus. Storms raged at sea, ships sought harbors, pilgrims no longer came to Delphi. The elders yearned for peace, shunned decisions, and looked forward only to the warmth of the braziers and the smoky drowsiness of winter.

“Old men,” I said, “give me peace and yourselves peace as well. Let us step under the open sky and wait for an omen.”

We went outside, the elders clutching their robes to them as they watched the somber sky. Suddenly the bluish feather of a dove fluttered down and I caught it in my hand.

“This is the omen!” I cried exultantly. Only later did I realize that a flock of doves had swirled to flight somewhere high above us. Still I considered the feather a sign.

The priests gathered around me. “The feather of a dove!” they marveled. “The dove is the Cythereans’ bird. Behold, Aphrodite has thrown her golden veil over him. His face is radiant!”

A sudden gust of wind caught our robes and a distant flicker of lightning touched a mountain peak to the west. The rumble of thunder echoed in the valley of Delphi.

We waited for yet another moment but when nothing more happened the priests went into the temple and left me in the anteroom. I read the maxims of the seven wise men on the wall, looked at the silver vessels of Croesus and the figure of Homer. The smell of the holy bay wood burning in the eternal fire of the altar reached my nostrils.

At last the priests returned and pronounced judgment: “You are free to go where you will, Turms of Ephesus. The gods have given their signs, the Pythia has spoken. Not your will but that of the gods is fulfilled in you. Continue to worship Artemis as you have in the past and make offerings to Aphrodite who saved your life. But the god of Delphi neither condemns you nor assumes your guilt, for that is the responsibility of Artemis, who has revolted against the Asian goddess.”

“Where am I to go?” I asked.

“Go to the West whence you once came. So says the Pythia and so say we.”

Disappointed, I asked, “Is that the god’s command?”

“Certainly not!” they cried. “Didn’t you hear that the Delphic god will have nothing to do with you? It is merely good advice.”

“I am not consecrated to Artemis,” I said, “but at the time of the full moon she has appeared to me in dreams accompanied by a black dog. In her underworld guise of Hecate she has appeared whenever I have slept in the temple on the night of the full moon at the request of the priestess. Thus I know that I shall yet be wealthy. When that happens I shall send a votive offering to this temple.”

But they rejected it, saying, “Send no offering to the Delphic god, for we will not accept it.”

They even asked the keeper of the treasury to return my money, withholding only the cost of my maintenance and purifications while a prisoner of the temple. So suspicious were they of me and of everything which at that time came from the East.

I was free to leave, but Dorieus had not yet received his answer from the Delphic priests. Defiantly we left the temple grounds and spent our time by the wall, carving our names into the soft stone. There on the ground, bare, lay the natural rocks which had been worshiped as the sacred rocks of the underworld deities a thousand years before the coming of Apollo to Delphi.

Dorieus lashed at the rocks impatiently with a willow switch. “I have been trained for war and for life with my own kind. Solitude and idleness merely breed foolish thoughts. I begin to doubt the oracle and her withered priests. After all, my problem is political, not divine, and as such can be better solved with the sword than by chewing on bay leaves.”

“Let me be your oracle,” I suggested. “We are living in a period of upheaval. Go east with me, across the sea to lonia, where they have danced the dance of freedom. Persian reprisals threaten the insurgent cities. A trained soldier would be welcome there and might win much booty and even rise to be commander.”

He said reluctantly, “We men of Sparta do not love the sea, nor do we interfere in matters beyond the sea.”

“You are a free man,” I insisted, “and no longer bound by the prejudices of your people. The sea is glorious even when it surges with foam, and the cities of lonia are beautiful, neither too cold in the winter nor too hot in the summer. Be my companion and go east with me.”

At that he suggested, “Let us each toss a sheep’s bones to indicate the direction that we must follow.”

By the rocks of the underground gods we tossed the sheep’s bones three times each before we believed them. Each time they clearly pointed westward, away from lonia.