Tyrant Read Free

the meantime?’
    ‘Alone?’ asked Diocles sarcastically.
    ‘Give me an order,’ said Dionysius, ‘and before dawn I’ll have five hundred men ready in fighting order. And if you give me a couple of ships I’ll be inside the walls of Selinus in two days’ time.’
    The messenger listened anxiously to their debate: every passing moment could be decisive in his city’s being saved or annihilated.
    ‘Five hundred men,’ said Diocles. ‘Now you’ll tell me where you’re going to get five hundred men.’
    ‘The Company,’ replied Dionysius.
    ‘The Company? I’m in charge here, not the Company!’ Diocles shouted.
    ‘Then you get them for me,’ replied Dionysius coldly.
    Heloris broke in again. ‘I don’t think it matters much where he gets them, as long as they can set off as soon as possible. Is there anyone against it?’
    The councillors, who could not wait to crawl back under their covers, unanimously approved the expedition, but without allowing him to take the ships; they would be needed to transport the bulk of the troops later.
    The surgeon arrived at that moment with his instruments in hand.
    ‘Take care of this man,’ said Dionysius, and left without waiting for Diocles’s orders. He soon reached his friend Iolaus at the guardhouse. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said.
    ‘When? Where for?’ asked the youth, alarmed.
    ‘At dawn, for Selinus. We’re the vanguard. The others will arrive with the fleet. I need five hundred men and they must all be members of the Company. Spread the word, immediately. I want them here, fully armed, with enough rations for five days. And an extra horse every three men. Within two hours, at the most.’
    ‘We’ll never pull that off! You know the Company holds you in great esteem, but . . .’
    ‘You tell them that now is the time to prove it. Move.’
    ‘As you wish,’ replied Iolaus. He whistled, and was answered by whinnying and the pounding of hooves. Iolaus jumped on to his horse and sped off into the darkness.

     
    On the fourth day, one of the battering rams managed to open a breach in the walls of Selinus. The Campanian mercenaries hired by the Carthaginians rushed through the gap, driven by the desire to stand out in their commander’s eyes, but above all by their greed, since he had promised them the sack of the city.
    The Selinuntians crowded around the breach to defend it, walling out the attackers with their shields and their chests. They succeeded in driving back their assailants and slew a great number of them; the rest of the barbarian troops made a disorderly retreat, trampling the bodies of their fellow soldiers.
    The next day, Hannibal gave orders to remove the rubble and had protective roofing built so that his men could work to clear a passage. From up high on the assault towers, his archers continued to keep the defenders in their marks, forcing them away from the breach.
    On the sixth day, the passage was clear; the rams further widened the gap, opening the way for the assault infantry of Libyan, Iberian and Campanian mercenaries, who poured into the city, howling fearsome war cries.
    The Selinuntians were expecting them; they had worked all night to erect barricades at the entrances to each of their streets, isolating the districts behind them. From these shelters they counter-attacked ceaselessly, pushing back the enemy and killing off as many as they could. But although their valour was beyond any imagining, their strength was waning with every passing hour. The strain of building the barricades, their lack of sleep and the exertion of endless battle made them a poor match for the fresh hordes of rested enemy troops.
    On the seventh day, the rams opened a second breach at another point of the walls, and the attackers flooded through, raising cries so loud that the city’s defenders felt the blood freeze in their veins. The second wave surged over the barricades like a river in full destroys a fragile bank. The obstacles were overrun and