The Etruscan Read Online Free PDF Page B

around him he said, “This city with its wealth and its impregnable walls has become a trap for me. I am not accustomed to defending walls, for a Spartan’s shield is his only wall. Turms, my friend, let us leave Miletus. This city already smells of death!”
    “Should we forego firm ground and choose a swaying deck for our battleground?” I asked. “After all, you hate the sea and your face pales when the ship rolls.”
    But Dorieus was firm. “It is summer and the sea is calm. Besides, I am heavily armored and can fight on deck where the air is fresh. A vessel moves, walls do not. Let us go to Lade and look around.”
    We let ourselves be rowed to Lade. It was easy, since boats continually plied the waters between the city and the peninsula. Provisions, fruit and wine were regularly brought to the fleet and the sailors in turn ceaselessly visited the golden city.
    At Lade we saw innumerable warships from all the Ionian cities, the largest being those from Miletus. Daily the vessels streamed out through the narrow channel to the open sea where they arranged themselves in formation, oarblades gleaming in the sunlight. Then, increasing their speed until the water foamed, they practiced ramming enemy ships with their huge underwater metallic heads.
    By far the greater number of ships, however, were beached along the shores of the island where their crews had spread out sails to protect themselves from the sun. The entire island echoed with the cries of peddlers, the brawling of wine-drinkers, the arguments of the commanders, and the usual Greek chatter. But many of the men slept through the noise in sheer exhaustion.
    Dorieus talked to several sailors. “Why are you lying here, drinking wine, when the Persians’ fleet is approaching? They are said to have as many as three or four hundred warships.”
    “Let us hope that they have a thousand,” replied the men, “so that this dreary war will soon be over. We are free lonians, skilled on land and even more skilled at sea, where the Persians have never yet
    bested us.”
    But having boasted a while, the men began to complain. “We are worried only about our ambitious and war-mad commanders who compel us to row back and forth in the heat of midday and treat us more like slaves than the Persians would. Our hands are full of blisters and the skin is peeling from our faces.”
    They showed us their hands which were in truth blistered and torn, for these men were city dwellers who had led sheltered lives at their various trades. They felt that it was senseless to row back and forth
    and exhaust the crews.
    “So,” they said, “we have chosen new and wiser commanders. Now we are resting and gathering our strength so that we will be like lions
    when the Persians attack.”
    As the evening grew cool and the calm surface of the sea turned wine-colored, the last five vessels came towards their camp site on the island. They were only penteconters, but their fifty oars rose and fell, rowed and backed water as smoothly and rhythmically as though a single man had been at the sweeps.
    Dorieus looked upon them favorably. “Let us find out from which city these vessels come and who their commander is.”
    When the oars had been pulled in, the rowers jumped into the water to beach the galleys. At the same time some exhausted men were tossed overboard and sufficiently revived in the water so that they could crawl to shore, where they collapsed on the sands. A few would have drowned had not their companions dragged them to safety. The galleys bore no decorations or figures of deities, but they were strong, narrow and seaworthy, and stank of tar and pitch.
    We waited until the campfires had been lighted. When those still on the shore caught the smell of porridge and root vegetables, bread and oil, they dragged themselves towards the pots. Then we joined the men and asked their identity.
    “We are poor and humble men from Phocaea,” they replied, “and our commander is Dionysius, a