Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

II

The trial was held in the courthouse chamber with the most room for spectators. The jurors were knotted outside, each holding a short wooden staff painted the same red color as the door lintel. Swallow had just turned in his token to the clerk when he looked back and saw Deuteros waving a red staff at him from the back of the crowd. Both of them had made the jury.

Swallow saved a spot on a front-row bench for his friend. Since the benches were covered only with straw, naive jurors expended the precious minutes before the session began fetching cushions to sit on. But Swallow knew the key to comfort in the courtroom was to forget the rear and tend to the stomach. The hour was already late to complete such an important trial; most likely the verdict would be delivered after sundown and all would be going home in the dark (though to his “home,” fortunately, Swallow did not have far to go). In anticipation of the inevitable longeurs, he carried in the fold of his blanket a hunk of white cheese and a handful of olives. Seeing this bounty, Deuteros nodded his appreciation, then opened his cloak to flash a loaf of good bread.

“Now if they only allowed wine!”

The clerk gavelled the room to order. Since this was an Athenian court, the task took several attempts. Some bumpkin had sneaked a sick lamb to the proceedings, no doubt hidden under his cloak, which bucked free and scampered under the benches. There was some commotion as the baying animal was cornered; the uproar gave the Scythian bailiffs, who looked like vain bears in their animal skins and city jewelry, a relished opportunity to shove people. The lamb was ejected over the vigorous objections of its owner, who also insisted on leaving despite the fact that the doors were sealed, with no one permitted to enter or exit. The dispute was resolved by the application of a club to the juror’s head. Out cold, the man was returned to his seat-hopefully to revive in time to cast his ballot.

All this time Swallow kept his eye on Aeschines, who was seated on the prosecutor’s bench to the right of the magistrate’s bema. The old master was sitting very straight, eyes moving over some scribblings before him, lips moving slightly, as if in final rehearsal of a prepared speech.

He looked fit for a man of nearly seventy years. His skin glowed like a ploughman’s in summer-a consequence, no doubt, of a recent sea voyage from his academic posting on Rhodes. His tanned skin set off his abundance of snowy hair and a gleaming white chiton adorned by a purple-fringed girdle. Sitting there, serenely indifferent to the plight of the loose lamb, he seemed to be playing the role of a character who slept very well at night, yet had very important matters weighing on his silver-crested brow. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Swallow, who was old enough to remember Aeschines’s former career on the stage, specializing in kings, gods descendant, and honored corpses lying in state.

The gavel sounded again, this time swung by the presiding judge. The seat was filled, surprisingly, not by a junior functionary but the King Archon himself. The only trials he presided over were supposed to involve special heinousness, such as parricide and profanation of the Mysteries.

“Isn’t that Polycleitus?” Deuteros whispered, noting the same irregularity.

“It is. So they’ve brought Aeschines back, and put Polycleitus in charge. Somebody has a great interest in seeing this Machon put down. Maybe we should change our verdict…”

“Silence in the courtroom!” Polycleitus commanded. “The clerk will read the indictment.”

“Hear O Athens! This court is convened according to all proper custom, under the due supervision of those so charged and here present, before a jury properly appointed, and in the names of Themis-bearer-of-scales and Athena-may-she-protect-us, and of Aglauros, Hestia, Enyo, Ares Enyalios, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Heracles, and the spirits of wheat, barley, vines and figs, and of the Boundaries of Attica. We gather here now, on this second day of Pyanopsion, under the archonship of Ciphisodorus, to hear and judge the citizen, Machon, son of Agathon, of the deme Scambonidae, on the charges so listed…”

The clerk had to rustle through his notes, which seemed to be out of order. There was complete silence in the room now, and a general pricking up of ears and lightening of backsides, with the sole exception of the man who brought the lamb, who slumped down from the bench and hit the floor with a thud. No one helped him.

“…the charges of, first, that he did contravene the instructions given him by the Assembly twelve years ago when he set out on campaign with the god, known in his human guise as Alexander III of Macedon; and second, that he did commit impiety before said god, who was deified by decree of the Assembly of the People on the sixteenth Metageitnion of last year. These are the charges.”

“Who brings the indictment?” asked Polycleitus.

“By the gods, I bring it,” said Aeschines, rising to his cue. His voice had a depth typical of actors, but with an orator’s urgency. It broke on the audience like the crash of a falling boulder-abrupt, inescapable.

“Begin your statement. Start the water.”

The clerk pulled the stopper out of the water clock. At the outset, the prosecution had the floor for twenty minutes, with additional time at the discretion of the archon. Blatherers and incompetents were given little indulgence; Aeschines, to be sure, would be given all the time he wanted.

Athenians, I stand before you today after a long time away. In those years among foreigners I had much opportunity to observe the ways of other people, and to weigh their respective features in light of what I know as a citizen of this city. And in that time I never lost faith in the basic superiority of our arrangements, no matter how sadly abused, and in the inherent repugnance of our people against indecency and injustice, no matter how ubiquitous those vices may now seem. And I appear today with complete confidence that you will again judge rightly as I offer you the facts. Please understand that I make such charges with reluctance, and have so only sparingly in the past, because I do not believe our city is well served by frivolous or malign actions. These procedures, on the contrary, should be reserved only for cases of the utmost seriousness, and on the clearest evidence, as I know you will agree is the case with our friend Machon.

I know this, because it is understood throughout this city that verdicts on trials of this type, that is of impiety, have grave implications not only for the accused, but for every citizen, as the gods do not discriminate between the impious man and those who abet him. In this sense, it is our entire city that is on trial. You do not need to be reminded that there is dangerous talk afoot, and that those who have led us into disaster in the past have raised their heads again since the death of Alexander. And given that a foreign army is but a few days’ march from Attica, and that the emissaries of that foreign power are present here today, I am bound by my duty and love of my native city to remind her that her responsibilities are to herself first. As I present these truths to you, your job will be merely to perceive, for to perceive what Machon has done, you will also judge him correctly.

As Aeschines referred to Antipater’s emissaries, his eyes flicked toward the spectator’s gallery. Swallow could easily pick the Macedonians out of the crowd: they were the beardless ones, real Alexander-style buzzcuts, with the expressions of mulish superiority on their rustic faces. Doubtless they were thinking there would be no reason for such cumbersome litigation in Pella. Just a secret order passed to an underling, and thence to some eager, doe-eyed thugs from the hinterlands. They did things differently there.

The first charge I will address is of Machon’s impiety. I am certain you recall the resolution of the Assembly not long ago, in response to a message from Alexander requesting divine honors. I am also told-for I was not there-that debate on this measure was as non-contested as any ever put before that body. Even Demosthenes supported it, albeit with his usual contempt for men of quality, saying “Let Alexander be Zeus’s boy. And Poseidon’s too, for good measure.” The measure passed by simple acclamation. Read the resolution, please.

The timekeeper stopped the clock, and the clerk read the city’s conferral of divine honors on Alexander. Swallow well remembered the day that resolution passed. Indeed, it was not contested, though not due to any particular love for Alexander, whom city democrats had taken to calling “the Boy.” Many of them had spent the last decade hoping with every fiber of their being that he go down in defeat in Persia. Clouds of birds and herds of sheep and goats were sacrificed to enlist the gods on behalf of the Persian king, Darius. Faced with the Boy’s demand for godhood, with the army of his lackey Antipater poised, as it was that very day, to enforce his adolescent whims, there seemed to be little choice but to indulge him. As it was, most members of the Assembly considered the request something of a joke-a cry for respect Alexander couldn’t earn from the Greeks with a thousand victories. Swallow did not oppose it.

As I have said, I was not in the city when this measure passed. I cannot speak to whether the motives behind its approval were sincere, or cynical. I can only say that by any measure, whether in glory under arms, or in patronage of the arts, or by that basic virtue of character to which all men should orient like sailors to the pole star, Alexander deserved such honors. Athenians, do we not owe our very city to his magnanimity? Twice the Macedonians could have laid waste to Athens-first, after Chaeronea, when the disaster I long warned of finally came to pass (and Demosthenes, incidentally, was high-tailing it from the battlefield). Recall that Philip could have continued south and exacted our annihilation. But instead of invasion, we received our prisoners back without claim of ransom, and the ashes of our fallen soldiers. Prince Alexander himself came to us as an emissary of peace. The second time was after Philip was assassinated, and some in the Assembly argued the time was ripe to throw off the Macedonian “yoke,” though to my limited knowledge of husbandry, no “yoke” has ever worn so lightly as the one Philip fashioned for us. To be sure, it is our intemperance for action that marks us as deeply as our democracy; as Herodotus wrote, it is easier to incite 30,000 Athenians to war than a single Spartan. Thus it has been, and thus it probably shall always be.

Alexander, no longer Prince but King, appeared in Boeotia with his army, and besieged Thebes. As is all too typical of reprobates and cowards, the nerve of the anti-Macedonian rabble broke in the face of determined force. Thebes was destroyed-it cannot be denied. But Alexander shared his father’s distaste for vengeance against Athens. He invaded Persia instead, and upon his subjugation of that kingdom he returned to us the figures of the Tyrannicides stolen by Xerxes. Many of you passed those statues on your way to this chamber this morning, though I wonder how many of you paused to consider to whom we owe such relics of our patrimony. Did Alexander deserve divinity? For Athens’ sake, who deserved it more?

I remember Alexander’s embassy after Chaeronea. Though I had meet the Prince before, as a boy in his father’s court in Pella, that occasion did not prepare me for the full splendor of his person. At eighteen years old, his beauty made slaves of men and women. His hair was fair and bright like the mane of a lion, sweeping up and back from his fine brow. Though he was short of stature, his spirit towered over every man in the room, not least over the political hacks sent to greet him, including, as it happened, Machon. Nor was this all that was leonine about the Prince. When he laughed, as he did freely, he showed a set of sharp teeth, like that of a young lion.

In Alexander’s eyes was the real gleam of genius. I particularly recall their different colors, blue on the right, black on the left. The meaning of this feature was never obvious, but seemed to promise a unique destiny, which the Prince did easily fulfill. Yet not even this body could contain the noble spirit within it. That spirit was manifest in a sweetness of odor that seemed to emanate from him wherever he went, bathing his clothes, everything he touched, all around him, even poor Machon, in its perfume.

For the first time, Swallow took notice of the figure seated on the defendant’s bench. His posture there did not show the theatrical flair of his opponent; he was bent over, shut off, as if he wished to disappear. In that position it was impossible to tell if he was short or tall, though from seeing Machon in the Assembly years before Swallow remembered he was of modest height, with curly black hair kept long in the Lacedaemonian style, so it would flow down from beneath his soldier’s helmet. He had a coarse face, with a nose broken to the right. His eyes were also black but not dull. Instead, they shined in that way only the darkest eyes could, from some combustion of personality within. Or rather, they shined a dozen years earlier, before he left for Asia with Alexander.

As Aeschines spoke, Machon stared at the floorboards immediately before him, showing no reaction. He was so passive, in fact, that Swallow wondered if the magnitude of the event had overwhelmed him. The stakes were very high: conviction on a charge of impiety carried a mandatory sentence of death, while violation of the Assembly’s trust carried an indeterminate penalty, but would at least include confiscation of his ancestral property. For Aeschines the risk was only to his career-failure to get at least one fifth of the vote for conviction would earn him a fine of ten minas and permanent forfeiture his right to bring prosecutions in the future. He went on:

But we may well ask, who is this Machon, son of Agathon? Many of you may believe you know him from his role in public life. You know him as a wealthy man who discharged his liturgies with fair distinction, such as financing a tragedy by Kantharos for the City Dionysia fifteen years ago, for which he earned third place. He has rarely spoken in the Assembly or the Council, and when he has it has been exclusively about military affairs. He has served no magistracies, although you might recall one event in which he figured: as a member of the selectmen some years ago, he was chairman on the day a fire broke out in a warehouse at the Piraeus. While the flames were confined on land, Machon dithered, failing to call out the cadets in sufficient numbers, until the fire spread to the fleet offshore. Eight hulls were burned, with damages exceeding twenty talents. Here was an instance where our friend, who affects to have some expertise in the mobilization of men, had an opportunity to display his ability-and failed. Perhaps that is why, when he stood for the post of general from his tribe that year, he was rejected overwhelmingly.

But knowing Machon as I have come to, you would not be surprised at his incapacity. His father, Agathon, was more successful as a public servant, acting twice as naval contractor, yet the source of his wealth was none too clear. There were persistent stories of vast sums hoarded in the house, to avoid additional liturgies. Agathon doled out loans with as little effort as most men put out the condiments at dinner, and exacted interest with ruthless efficiency-yet where is that fortune now? For certain, Machon has inherited it. So are third-rate theatrical productions all your legacy can muster, Machon? The people want to know.

Of his mother’s background the less said, the better. To claim she was a woman of questionable repute would be an exaggeration. It would be more accurate to call her a common whore; her face-or shall I say, several other choice aspects of her anatomy-were nightly spectacles at the Sacred Gate. Upon first meeting her with his friends at some low establishment, Agathon further amused himself by purchasing her freedom. This was not to actually set her free, of course, but to increase his pleasure by placing her in debt to him. That he debased himself by proceeding to marry her was only the final act of a long, sad farce.

The sequel is our friend, the defendant. As I have shown you, he cuts a far diminished figure on the public stage than his father, but in one sense he is a chip off the old block. Shortly before departing for Asia, Machon threw a party for his friends in the city that, to this day, remains infamous. The evening started innocently enough, they say, but by the cracking of the fifth crater Machon brought in a very pretty free-born Corinthian boy, ostensibly to play the harp. The skill of the boy’s play, it is said, made the guests very excited at his talent, and there were demands for kisses from every quarter. The boy was respectable, however, a musician only. At this, Machon flew into a rage. Screaming that he had been cheated, he struck the boy across the face and threw him to the floor. There was, alas, nothing the poor creature could do to escape, as the servants had barred the doors, and to face drunken Machon is a frightful thing indeed. Nor did the defendant’s accomplices object to this behavior. On the contrary, they might best be likened to a pack of ravening jackals, surrounding the prone boy, lasciviously stripping him of his tunic. Machon ordered his footmen to the barn to fetch horsewhips, and for the rest, well, you can well imagine it. Together the host and his guests amused themselves defiling the boy’s tender skin, making their own kind of music out of his screams. Of this episode I will say nothing more. Search your memories and you will recall rumors of it.

Swallow looked inquisitively to Deuteros, who tossed his head in the negative. Neither had heard such a story involving Machon, though tales of similar incidents would circulate in Athens every few years. Whether Aeschines’s recitation of it did any harm to the defendant’s cause was not clear: its effect seemed merely to pique the jury’s interest, sending amused murmurs through the room. Machon, for his part, gave only a single response, looking up with raised brow when Aeschines called his mother a whore. Then he went back to examining the floor.

You see, therefore, that the substance of the charges are not without foundation in the defendant’s dissipated past. Even so I declare that Machon deserves to indulge his cynicism, his hateful politics, and his vices, as any man should be free to keep his gluttonies in private. Where I object-where I strenuously object-is where such men are placed in positions where their foolishness may endanger the welfare of the city, and indeed in this case the welfare of all the Greeks. That Machon was insinuated in just such a position was not the choice of any man in this room, but was foisted upon us by a faction of dangerous fanatics who gave little thought to the consequences of their designs. Their motive was hatred only, and the result may yet be disaster. I am pledged to expose them, by the gods, but to do so I will require more time, and this I humbly request.

Polycleitus made a mark on the wax tablet before him. “Your request is recognized, and is so granted-if the prosecution agrees to adhere to the relevant charges only.”

Aeschines put his hand on his heart. “To that, I do swear.”

“Reset the clock, please.”