Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

XIV

To have understood Alexander, you need to have hunted with him. This stemmed directly from his father’s enthusiasm for killing all kinds of wild beasts. In Philip’s time the report of a bear in the vicinity could shut the capital down for days; the mere rumor of a lion anywhere in Macedon was worth keeping peace treaties unsigned and eminent ambassadors waiting. Prince Alexander inherited his taste for the sport, and it came to dominate his thoughts in a way not even his father shared. His curiosity went to such extremes he once had six stags captured, tagged, and released. The tags ordered whomever found a dead animal to report the time and location of its discovery to the palace. In this way the Prince was in a position to turn the tables on Aristotle, lecturing his tutor on the range and longevity of the Macedonian red deer.

With all of Asia at his feet, the scope of Alexander’s hunting was unprecedented. Indeed, the entire expedition might be understood as a very long, very expensive hunting trip. Alexander, it should be said, thought little of the practices of the Persian nobility, who would either use the bow on animals trapped in walled game parks, or employ armies of beaters to surround great swaths of territory. Darius was said to have ‘hunted’ in this way, encouched in his golden pavilion while animals of all description were driven toward him. The Great King would then, at his leisure, take as much game as he had arrows to shoot. For his part, Alexander made for open country in the time-honored Macedonian fashion-riding bareback, naked except for a sunhat, armed with a single thrusting spear.

His first challenge was the wild asses of the high plateau of Cappadocia. These were blazingly fast animals, easily able to outrun any horse, with the teasing habit of stopping every few miles to allow hunters to get close before racing out of sight again. After hobbling a number of good mounts chasing them, Alexander noticed that the asses tended to run in great, sweeping circles. This suggested the trick of sending out his men one at a time, with each hunter keeping his quarry on the run until he was replaced by a fresh rider. After just a few stages of these relays the animals collapsed from exhaustion.

On the plains of Arabia were vast numbers of wild ostrich. These were not as fast as the asses, yet far more difficult to catch. They ran in straight lines, holding their wings out as they ran, their feet sending up a blinding trail of dust behind them. Some writers, such as Xenophon, have suggested that they use their wings like ships under sail, but Alexander thought this idea must be wrong, since the birds used their wings irrespective of the strength of the wind. In any case, only a lucky bowshot ever brought one down, and on these rare occasions the meat was red and very tasty, much like the better parts of a beef cow. Some of the men also collected the eggs, using the contents for nourishment and the shells as canteens.

The King found more sport on the riverbanks of Assyria. Though that ancient land was full of people and farms, the population of lions in the southern part of the kingdom had lately been on the rise. The cats achieved this by a degree of organized hunting that defied the natives’ attempts to control them. As the new Lord of Asia, Alexander took it as his personal business to defend his kingdom from all invaders, two-legged or four.

The lions were tracked to their lair in an abandoned estate beside the Tigris. Leading a party of thirty cavalry, Alexander planned his attack as he would against any other hostile tribe. The female cats, who were defending several litters of cubs, made a desperate stand. The lions easily snapped the hunters’ cornel-wood spears with their jaws or forelegs; two riders were killed when the cats leaped on the backs of their horses. After some hard fighting with javelins, Alexander and his men carried the field. All the cats were killed, except for two of the males, who made a fine show of cowardice by swimming the river to escape.

There were other expeditions against exotic game of all kinds. Under the wild pistachios and tamarisks of central Persia they roused giant bustards with wingspans wider than a small temple. By the Indus they stalked wild elephants and hippo. As the army crossed the pass over the Paropamisus, his men starving, Alexander could not resist having a go at the great twirl-horned mountain goats of those mountains. In almost all cases these adventures served to bolster the morale of the men who shared the trail with the King.

The sole and sad exception to this was the instance-during a boarhunt-when the page Hermolaus was foolish enough to deprive Alexander of the final kill. Alexander was furious at this impertinence. Right there in front of the party, he ordered Hermolaus dismounted, stripped of his clothes, and whipped. He even took the crop himself, administering the blows as the Companions, the guides, and the other pages looked on with great embarrassment. All were disturbed both for the humiliated Hermolaus, and for Alexander, who never before treated his pages with anything less than tender forbearance. Yet there he was, wearing a barbarian riding cloak, Persian diadem on his head, horsewhipping one of his countrymen.

Telling Hermolaus that he had lost his privilege to ride a horse, Alexander confiscated his mount for the return to camp. Abandoned, naked in the wilderness, the page was set upon by parties unknown, and his manhood insulted in a way I need not describe. When he arrived back among the other pages, Hermolaus was hobbled, bloodied, and outraged at what he thought to be Alexander’s injustice. No one, however, foresaw the extremities to which the boy’s resentment drove him.

In the King’s defense, everyone knew that taking the prize in the hunt was serious business. Since their days in Pella, Alexander and Cleitus had waged a running competition on who could accumulate the most kills. The difference this time, I believe, was not that Hermolaus was a lowly page, but that Alexander’s patience had greatly diminished since the death of Darius. With every unfamiliar mile, from every new kind of nettle that cut his feet and every drink from a torpid stream that made him sick, the humor drained out of him. This was something the men close to him could see happening by the day. Hermolaus should have seen it, but he had the kind of proud temperament that, in cases like this, lowly pages could not afford.

It was the privilege of the pages to guard the King’s bedchamber as he slept. Often, when indulgence in wine prevented Alexander from reaching his pillow, they physically placed him in his bed. Hermolaus convinced certain of the other boys-namely, Sostratos son of Amyntas and Epimenes son of Arseus-to join him in a plot. At an agreed signal, after the King had gone to bed drunk, they would gather around him when he was most vulnerable, and set upon him with daggers.

Now it so happened that the night they agreed to do the deed Alexander drank very late, coming to bed with the first gray of the morning. It was Hermolaus’s turn to sleep at the King’s door. Rising, the boy was pleased to see Alexander too intoxicated to walk-but with Bagoas at his side, supporting him with his arm. As he passed Hermolaus, Alexander called to the page, telling him that he was a good lad after all, and that he had been wrong to take his horse from him. Then the King winked at him, and patted him on the cheek, saying that his mount was restored, as long as he didn’t “hog the boar” next time. And Alexander proceeded to chuckle at his own feeble pun as Bagoas led him to bed.

This apology took Hermolaus quite by surprise, so that he failed to take Alexander from the eunuch. Instead, he gave the signal belatedly, and the three conspirators were left standing outside the bedchamber, waiting for Bagoas to leave. After an hour of this, they grew nervous that their gathering would attract suspicion, and gave it up.

It was the conspirators’ intention to try again the next night, and the next one after that, until their goal was achieved. It was thanks only to the indiscretion of one of their own that the plot was uncovered: Epimenes disclosed it to his bedmate Charicles son of Menander, who thought the secret would be safe with Eurylochus son of Arseus, who happened to be Epimenes’s brother. He was mistaken, for Eurylochus went straight to the King.

Under torture, certain others were implicated in the plot, most notably including Philotas son of Parmenion. When Alexander went to the prisoners to demand an explanation for their treachery, none would speak at first. The King promised a merciful death to anyone who would enlighten him, for he was greatly puzzled that those in whom he had placed such trust would cravenly betray him. At this, Hermolaus rose to denounce the King’s naivety in posing such a question, when it was clear to all that he had become a tyrant.

“A tyrant? How?” Alexander asked.

Hermolaus described the general outrage at the King’s arrogance, his imposition of barbarous customs, and the endless campaign, which shed Greek blood for the sake of one man’s bottomless vanity.

“And what have you suffered personally, that you would hate me so?” asked Alexander, with some sadness.

“You are a fool to ask me that,” replied Hermolaus. “Better that you beg Cleitus’s pardon, when next you see him in Hades.”

With that, the other pages were executed by having all their bones broken with stones. What was left of them was then hanged. Aeschines is wrong, however, to tell you that Hermolaus died with them. His end came much later, as I will describe in due course.

Philotas’s guilt lay not in taking any active part in the plot, but a tacit one. For it so happened that another of the pages, Anticles son of Theocritus, had earlier approached him with important news for the King, but that Philotas did not act to secure the boy an audience with Alexander. Though Anticles had not specified that his news involved a plot against Alexander, Philotas’ inaction hinted strongly at his complicity. Armed men went to Philotas’s tent, placed a bag over his head, and led him away into the night.

Suspicion next fell on Philotas’ father, Parmenion. No direct evidence existed against him, yet the execution of his son, and his position in command of his own troops, made him dangerous. He had also been heard to make some intemperate remarks that had gotten back to the King. Indeed, the old general was all too honest in his appraisal of Alexander’s value to the campaign.

“Arridaeus is responsible for all the generalship,” he declared to his staff of yes-men, “while the wisdom and experience of others”-meaning himself-“is the real glue that holds the army together. The time was past for kings to expose themselves to danger in vain cavalry charges. Real soldiers didn’t mind if a young king gets all the credit, as long as the boy doesn’t believe his own publicity!”

Instead of braggadocio, Parmenion should have had the wisdom of his years. But it was not Alexander who held him to account, but the troika of Ptolemy, Craterus and Perdiccas. That Parmenion claimed credit for Gaugamela was bad enough. The old man’s disclosures about Arridaeus, however, were potentially fatal to the elaborate legend they had built up around the King. If Parmenion got away with it, perhaps Coenus or Peithon or Nearchus might become indiscreet. Worst of all, Callisthenes and Machon might be emboldened to write the truth into their histories!

Even when informed of Parmenion’s arrogance, the King was initially reluctant to act against him. Craterus convinced him, however, by playing on his dread of assassination:

“It may be true that Parmenion is innocent so far. But he is proud, and he is popular, and his position is too close to you to take such a risk. You only have this moment to judge him now, but if you pardon him, he will have the rest of his days to conspire against you!”

These and similar absurdities took their toll on Alexander’s resolve, until he took refuge in his divine right to wash his hands of all consequences.

Armed messengers went out straightaway, before the news of Philotas’s death could reach Parmenion by other means. Alexander had written a dispatch to divert the old general’s attention; he was killed as he bent under a lamp to read it.

Parmenion’s execution shook the Greek camp. He had, after all, served both Philip and Alexander faithfully for many years. Among other critical tasks, it was he who had overseen the passage of the army across the Hellespont, and anchored the Macedonian left wing at Issus and Gaugamela. His sad end sent reverberations all the way back to Macedon, where old Antipater must have wondered if he was due similar recompense for his long service.

Even Callisthenes was shaken by it. I sincerely believe that he did serve an inspirational role for the pages, though it is a lie to claim that I instigated the charge against him. And what a feat of mendacity to insinuate that I sought to remove a rival by condemning him! Callisthenes’s history, after all, is already for sale all over the world, while as Aeschines has so clearly said, I have so far published nothing. So in what way have I benefitted from his death?

The prime instigator of Callisthenes’s fall was Callisthenes himself. The story went that Hermolaus, before he hatched his plot against the King, came to Callisthenes with a question: which were the heroes esteemed most by the Athenians?

“That would be the Tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton.”

“And why are the Tyrannicides honored most?” the boy asked.

Callisthenes replied, “Because they freed the people from the state of their oppression.”

“And would similar men be welcomed by the Athenians today, and given refuge in their city?”

“They would be given refuge in any city where Greeks dwell,” answered Callisthenes, “but most gladly in Athens. For she has always opposed tyranny, from the end of Eurystheus’ domination of Greece, when he pursued the children of Heracles into Attica and was defeated there, until recent times.”

“Until…today?”

“Recent times,” said Callisthenes, smiling and saying nothing more.

More serious than the substance of this exchange, Callisthenes had failed to report Hermolaus’s sudden interest in tyrant-killers to anyone. On this basis alone, Alexander was prepared to accept his guilt, for the King defined loyalty as much in terms of what was omitted as what was said. Callisthenes’s record of public statements against prostration, against Alexander’s divinity, also came back to haunt him, for these insults did not dispose anyone to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Upon his arrest, Callisthenes was brought before the King. Echoing his question to Bessus, Alexander asked, “Why have you betrayed me?”

To which Callisthenes charged “Why are you betraying history? Do you believe the boasts of Olympias will assure your fame, Alexander? It is only because of the writings of Callisthenes that the world will know about you!”

After this, the historian disappeared. Some say he was hanged right away, some say stabbed. Still others swear he was clapped in irons and died much later, of despair. But no one is sure.

The weight of endless campaigning, massacre, and deceit began to have its effect on the morale of the men. Those who shared Alexander’s symposium likewise faced narrowing options. As the King’s wife, Rohjane could not substitute for the unabashed Thais, who was by then more or less a fixture in Ptolemy’s tent. The army was by then approaching the Indus-too far for most entertainers to come out from Corinth or Athens. Alexander’s pretensions to divinity would not allow him to condescend to the usual subjects of conversation, namely prostitutes, wine, and buggery delivered or received. Instead, his purview shrank to arcana having to do with battlefield equipment, and feats of horsemanship. In other words, he became a bore. Nor was Callisthenes around to elevate the topics. Matters became so desperate, at last, that the Macedonians were reduced to louche drinking games, such as flinging the dregs of their wine at targets on the floor. The party was desperately ready for something new.

The solution came from the prisoner’s stockade. He was an old priest of Zoroaster with an unpronounceable name that we took to sound like ‘Gobares.’ He was not a Persian or a Mede, but came from the Hycanian region south of the Caspian Sea. The guards had been surprised to see him proselytize among the enemy prisoners, having wrongly believed that since Darius was Zoroastrian, all the Persians must already have been so. Great crowds formed around him as he disputed with his doctrinal adversaries, with the debates becoming so impassioned that the Macedonians took notice, though few of them spoke Persian, Aramaic, or any of Gobares’ other languages. Upon his interrogation and punishment for this trouble-making, it was learned that he had been active in Ionia in years past, and could also speak Greek. This earned him an interview with Alexander, who was curious about the beliefs of the lands he conquered.

He came to the symposium in a simple white cloak with a rude rope tied around his waist. This rope, we learned, was only removed during the act of worship, when it was loosed and tied again to symbolize the conquest of order over chaos. Of these practices Gobares was eager to speak, as if he expected to convert some general or even the King himself.

“Our prophet was Zarathustra son of Pourushaspa, or ‘Zoroaster’ to you Greeks. No one knows exactly when he lived, or where, except that it was at a time before men worked metals, and in the east. As a young man he was a priest of the cult of his people. One day, after he had reached his maturity, he was collecting haoma-water from the center of a pure running stream. As he turned to go back to dry ground, he saw a messenger of Ahuramazda waiting for him there. This messenger, whom we call Vohu Manah the-well-intended, had the appearance of a mortal man, except that a pure light like the dawn through a keyhole emanated from his eyes and mouth. The messenger led Zarathustra to the Creator, who told him that because he was a man of arsa, he was chosen to bring the truth of Ahuramazda to all men. And Ahuramazda also informed him of the proper way to honor Him with prayer, about the ways men of faith may remain pure, and about the observances the Creator desired men to make throughout the year, so that they may help Him in his great struggle…”

Though we never asked him to, Gobares then went into the details of his ritual. The proper observance, he said, is made five times a day, at midnight, sunrise, noon, afternoon, and sunset. Most commonly, it is made by standing before the flame and reciting a short prayer handed down from the prophet himself. The prayer is an affirmation of the Creator’s power that, Gobares said, will aid Him in his struggle with the Hostile Spirit, Angra Mainyu-May-His-Name-Be-Forever-Accursed. It is not recited out of any vain desire to satisfy the worshipper’s needs, but to do the work of driving evil from Creation, until the day when the work of the Hostile Spirit has been expunged utterly, and what he called the ‘Third Time’ begins. As Gobares explained this, he pretended to untie his rope, and as he spoke of the Hostile Spirit, he snapped the ends of it, as if he was lashing Angra Mainyu.

His people had many other strange beliefs. They attributed to that single god, Ahuramazda, the creation of both the spiritual and physical world. They held that men would be judged for the rightness of their actions after death by a great weighing of all they had said, done, and thought. That is because, according to the Zoroastrians, good words, deeds, and thoughts are not the mere private business of individuals, but all have influence on the universal struggle against disorder. If the good side of the scale was heavier the deceased proceeded to a kind of Persian garden, or pairi-daeza in the old tongue of their prophet. If the bad side prevailed, the dead was cast into a chasm that was like Hades, only worse, where Angra Mainyu ruled.

At some future time there would come an ultimate triumph over evil when the bones of the interred dead would rise up and be reunited with their souls. The last battle against the minions of the Hostile Spirit would then be led by the savior named Saoshyant. He would be a mortal man, but would be born of a virgin mother after she bathed in a blessed lake containing Zoroaster’s seed. Upon his victory would commence a Final Judgment, where the resurrected bodies of all who had ever lived would be forced to swim a river of molten iron. To the righteous this ordeal would seem like bathing in mother’s milk, while the not-so-good would suffer the flesh seared from their bones. The torrent would then wash the rejects down to Hell where they, Angra Mainyu, and all his daevas would be finally annihilated. With their destruction would commence the ‘Third Time,’ when all the mortals of the earth would consume haoma for the last time, attain immortality, and realize eternal happiness.

Gobares continued: “Zarathustra did not have great success at first in enlightening his neighbors. After years invested in teaching them, all except one rejected the truth. His single success, the first Zoroastrian besides the prophet, was Zarathustra’s own cousin. The prophet made many more converts later, when he preached among strangers. Today his truth has been accepted by men from Africa to India and, if I might say, in your country as well.”

Craterus was fuming before Gobares was finished.

“Are these the beliefs of adult men, or of children? Really, do you honestly believe that your prayers, personally, will affect the planets in their courses? What arrogance! And do you believe that the gods care for the individual fates of such insignificant creatures as ourselves? What do we care for the fates of ants, though ants are far closer to us than we are to your omnipotent Creator! Really, I’m surprised even Zoroaster’s cousin believed him!”

“I have heard these beliefs before, among the Jews in Syria,” observed Ptolemy.

“The Jews,” replied the unflappable Gobares, “imbibed the teachings of Zoroaster during their captivity in Babylon. When Cyrus the Great allowed them to return to their homelands, they took this wisdom to the west with them.”

“Let the Jews and other slaves delude themselves with tales of virgin births and lakes of fire and dead souls rising!” Craterus scoffed.

Alexander took his chin from his hand, where it had been resting as he pondered the implications of what he had heard. We all looked at him when he spoke.

“There is nobility in believing in a just god. Our Olympians are too much reflections of ourselves, are they not? They do not compel us to be good.”

“Is compelled good any good at all?” asked Hephaestion.

“Perhaps not. But that does not concern me as much as this: there is no place for my father Ammon in your story, Gobares.”

The old man nodded as if to agree. But he was not done.

“Perhaps, O King, you will see something of yourselves in the truth of the Creation. The world began as a thought in the mind of Ahuramazda, the eternal and uncreated one, and the first manifestation of this thought was a spiritual world. With this stage appeared the spirits of all the beings that would later appear as material things: the spirits of the air and the earth, of the Single Plant and the Single Animal, and of First Man. And because the spirits were not yet admixed with their physical forms, Ahuramazda’s first creation was not subject to flaw.

“Yet He was not satisfied by the spiritual world, splendid as it was, because in its perfection there could be no change, and without change there could be no virtue. And so Ahuramazda with his will gave birth to Time, and his son Time, in his turn, begat the Amesha Spentas, the Sacred Immortals. Each of these Immortals was responsible for one of the seven lesser Creations. Sky appeared as a great stone sphere into which the second Creation, Water, was poured. And floating upon Water, like the froth strung upon the sea, appeared the Earth. The fourth, fifth, and sixth lesser Creations were the physical manifestations of Single Plant, Single Animal, and First Man, who lived on the earth, and with the blessing of Time, ramified into all the types and tribes we see today. The last and most important Creation was Fire, for it is the link between the two worlds of the Great Creation, through which the spirits may animate the physical bodies while they live.”

“And does this wisdom explain why you all wash in cow piss?” interjected Craterus, laughing.

“Upon the completion of Second Creation it was perfect,” said Gobares. “But it was also subject to imperfection because it existed as a physical thing. In that instant, before First Man took a single breath, the Hostile Spirit, likewise uncreated, launched his attack. He burst through the stone sphere of the Sky, making the hole we see at those times when the Sun or Moon disappear from view. Plunging down, he landed in the sea, and churned it up with storms, and turned it bitter to taste with the salt of his sweat. And striding out on the Earth, he plucked the Sun from the sky and grazed the land with it, scorching all the many forms of Single Plant. These places are now desert. And places that were not scorched were afflicted by swarms of insects, or the brown of withering, so that the principle of Fire could no longer hold spirit and matter together, or only for a short time in each case. Thus mortality appeared in the world…”

“And so,” asked Alexander, “may we say that Ahuramazda ran a risk when he decided to make a material world, because his creation could be attacked?”

“Yes, that is true. Among some herbads, or priests, Ahuramazda is called ‘the god who risked.’ Yet witness the wonder of His handiwork, as the people of the Good Faith, as we call ourselves, take every one of the Six Creations to be holy. All water is holy, all metal, all plants and animals, all fire, all men-not just this one plant here, or that one man there. All merit our reverence, and in accord with His revealed word, we take all the world as our temple.”

Listening to Gobares, this seemed to me a naive way of thinking, to take everyone and everything to be sacred. If all is worthy of worship then nothing is, I thought. But later I came to observe the basic gentleness of these so-called people of the Good Faith. Their discipline and humility is remarked all around the lands of the Great King. In Babylon I heard a saying that attested to the trust they earned: “Fight by the side of a Greek, eat in the house of a Jew, but sleep under the roof of a Zoroastrian.” Their decency is obvious to anyone walking through the narrow alleys of a Persian village. Where in Greek towns we must dodge sewage dumped from windows, Zoroastrian women set pans of embers sprinkled with marjoram on their doorsteps, to perfume the air for all who must breathe.

“The Great Enemy then visited his predations on First Animal, slaying the Uniquely-created Bull. Angra Mainyu then sought out First Man. He found him sitting in a garden, completely unafraid because he had never known harm in the unmixed Creation. ‘Who are you?’ asked First Man, in his innocence. ‘I am a teacher of a different kind,’ replied the Hostile Spirit. And with that he set upon First Man as his corrupter, appearing to him as a beautiful woman. First Man, who was curious, approached Woman as a child might, without fear, as the Hostile Spirit afflicted him with temptation beyond his experience. Stirred in that way for the first time, he pushed inside the womb of Angra Mainyu. The Hostile Spirit made First Man’s progress inside him smooth, like a woman who was willing, but cold and hard, as if he lay with a figure of polished marble. In that instant Fear was born in First Man. With fear came doubt. With further generations, doubt feasted on the minds of men, making them forget the truth of Ahuramazda’s supremacy. Some of these doubters became the agents of the Hostile Spirit. Corrupted, they are what we call the daevas.”

“The daevas-we’ve heard of them already.”

“You’ve heard of them and seen them. For the daevas are everywhere, in every form. In ancient times, and in ignorant lands today, they are worshipped as gods. They exist only to thwart wisdom. Where there is peace, they bring tumult. Where there is order, they bring caprice. You may know them by their fires, for smoke is the degradation of fire, and the haze that follows in their train. They are the soldiers of Angra Mainyu.”

A different expression appeared on Gobares’ face as he described these acolytes of ruin. For the first time, his tranquility abandoned him, and he stared intently downward, as if trying in vain to temper the force of his condemnation.

“Gentleman, I think we’ve been insulted!” I said.

“I know we have been,” agreed Ptolemy.

“Eminences, I assure you I meant no offense.”

Craterus, rising on uncertain legs, glowered over the priest.

“This is a dog that must be beaten!”

With that, he called for a riding crop. But as a slave went out to fetch one, Bagoas seized his chance to speak up, appealing to Alexander:

“Lord, let me be the one to thrash the priest! I have had the privilege before, in the garden of the Medan palace of Ecbatana, after the dahmobed of the temple breathed his rue-smelling breath on the Great King!”

“This is a job for a whole man,” replied Craterus.

But Bagoas pressed his appeal, training his petulant eyes on Alexander, telling him again that Darius had once been liberal enough to grant him this honor. Against this argument Alexander had no reply, determined as he was to outdo Darius both in the breadth of his mercy and the depth of his wrath.

And so the party was treated to the spectacle of the smooth-cheeked, smooth-bottomed Bagoas putting the crop to the naked back of the priest. This rounded out an evening of Macedonian conviviality very well. The humiliation of a beating from the nutless one so tickled the symposiasts that they either wet themselves with laughter or did a little healthful vomiting. Gobares was the only one who kept his silence, even as Bagoas kept swinging hard; his sole request was to ensure that any crop that touched his body was free of impurities.

That the old man took his punishment well impressed his hosts. They would therefore have occasion to take him out of the stockade again from time to time, when they lacked for amusement. He enters my story again when Alexander is on his return from India.