The Tyrant E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Aeolian islands, in the Tyrrenhian Sea, have seen many invaders and many cultures, but the Greek period is seen as of one of halcyon days when the arts, community life and trade prospered. Yet those times were not without problems.

This story takes place on one of those islands, the volcanic island of Stromboli. Sometime between 450 BC to 290 BC, that is in the middle of its Greek historical and cultural phase, a tyrant reached out to make the island his own. But the islanders had not only themselves to protect them.

Leseprobe

Alastair Macleod

The Tyrant

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Dedicated to the resilient inhabitants of the Aeolian Islands, where Odysseus sheltered with Aeolus and obtained fair winds. And to Stromboli, that wondrous firework of the Tyrrenhian Sea. Living with it is a dance round another sort of tyrannyBookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

The Tyrant

This story takes place in the Tyrrhenian Sea on the volcanic island of Stromboli; sometime between 450 BC to 290 BC; that is, in the middle of its Greek historical and cultural phase.

Here on the safe green slopes of Stromboli, Aegidios the young goat herd, piping away amongst the rosemary, the black bees and his herd, looks up and  sees the dark sails of a fleet.

They could be traders but Aegidios is charged with reporting all shipping to the queen.

Swiftly as he can he runs down the steep rocky goat path.

He arrives at Queen Hypatia’s palace gates panting and sweating - the guards let him through. He is known to them.

Rushing in he shouts,

“A fleet. A fleet of dark sails from the south, from Messina.”

Queen Hypatia is both beautiful and intelligent. Her complexion is dark, setting off her pearly white teeth, and bright black eyes. She was said to be even more beautiful than Helen of Troy. Yet unlike Helen, Hypatia is known for her chastity. She rules alone.

On the terrace under an awning Hypatia stands up from her table and turns to her senior commander.

“Mobilise the army, and send a vessel to Lipari to alert our fleet.”

Ships could not safely lie at Stromboli there being no safe harbour;

“And send the women and children to the high slopes and the caves.”

She turns to the boy,

“Aegidios you have done well. Give him two runners. Take them back with you now and watch this fleet. It may pass by or, if it lands, we need to know where.”

Aegidios is handed grapes and cheese from the table to sustain him on the hill.

As he leaves the white palace with his escort he meets his mother and alerts her.

“Do not delay this may be Krotos, the tyrant of Syracuse.”

“If it is so,” says his mother, “he will enslave us all for he is wicked.”

Krotos one of several tyrants of Syracuse had attacked the Aeolian Islands before and he had stripped the nearby island of Alcudi of most of her population. Only a few were ransomed.

She runs off to gather her other children.

Seen from the blue sea the island is almost a perfect cone, green with a burnt top and dark scars running down its sides. This is Stromboli, a small but active volcano which is always rumbling, puffing out steam and smoke.

Then at regular intervals of three months or so it will throw a fit and erupt, hurling gobs and sprays of lava high into the air; and on one side of the cone, on the Sciarra Del Fuoco, lava will flow down a wide path to the ocean. 

Yet elsewhere, on its skirts, people live and farm the fertile soil and fish the abundant sea.

Not only did slaves attract the tyrant but the Aeolian Islands, all eight of them, straddled the lucrative trade routes of the Tyrrhenian Sea between Sicily and Italy and the Aeolians had minerals such as sulphur, obsidian, pumice and gold.

But most of all the tyrant resented anyone who was independent of his power, and the Aeolian fleet had worsted his father.