Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

X

The army reached the river Euphrates via Damascus some weeks later, making an uncontested crossing near Thapsacus. While the King was in that vicinity he paid a visit upstream to Bambyce, where there is a temple to Atargatis. Beyond paying homage to the goddess, however, he had in mind to see a certain wonder he had learned about from Aristotle: namely, the collection of marvelous fish that lived in the lake of the sanctuary.

The lake is in the temple courtyard. At the center of it is an altar in the shape of a phallus, which the acolytes swim out to decorate with flowers during the spring festival. In the water there are fish (some say carp, some say catfish) that are each as big as a man, and utterly tame. To visitors they swim up and roll themselves over to be scratched; some say the fish even have human-like faces. The priests encourage this legend by adorning them with jewels and gold on their fins, and conversing with them as if they could speak. Very few had ever witnessed this miracle before Alexander came, however.

They say that when the King arrived the fish became agitated, churning at his feet as if caught in a net. Suddenly the biggest one leapt clear of the water. Lying on its belly at Alexander’s feet, it raised itself on its bejeweled fins and said, in a clear voice so that all could hear: “With thanks, I consecrate myself to the table of the Great King.” And with that it kissed Alexander’s toe, and dropped dead.

I cannot vouch for the truth of this story as I was not there. In any case, the event made a deep impression on the priests, who fell to their knees in wonder. Alexander, for his part, expected no less a gift for the son of Zeus-Ammon. “We must honor this old fellow’s sacrifice,” he said, speaking of the fish. “Cook! Peristalsis! Fetch a cauldron!”

What the King proposed to do was unprecedented. The Syrians never consumed the fish in the goddess’ ponds, believing this to be a dire sin. Still, a desire to be eaten could not have been more clearly expressed by the fish. And so Alexander and his friends dined on a sacred carp of Atargatis that evening. In the long history of the temple, they were the only visitors to have been granted this honor.

It was at this time that Darius sent an envoy to Alexander. He was a Greek named Aegoscephalus. He had lived in Susa for most of his life, and declared (though for no clear reason) that he was equally proficient in Greek, Persian, Elamite, Akkadian and Aramaic. For his appearance before Alexander he wore the garb of a Persian dignitary, with layered, ankle-length robes and flat-topped, fluted headdress. Receiving him, Alexander gave every indication of being more interested in this striking get-up than in any message the man had to relate.

The envoy began by suggesting there was no reason why Darius and Alexander need be enemies. Had not peace obtained between their peoples for generations, until his father Philip sent an army into Asia? Why had Alexander never sent emissaries to his court to communicate his grievances, whatever those might be? Against Alexander’s sudden aggression, Darius had risen to defend his people, as any king might. Even so, to reestablish peace required only good will on both sides. To this end, Alexander would find a willing partner in the Great King.

The ensuing offer was undeniably impressive. All the lands between the Euphrates river and the Aegean coast would henceforth be ruled by Alexander. Darius would pay the Macedonians any reasonable annual tribute they wished to name, in addition to a ransom of 10,000 gold talents for the release of his son, wife, and mother. To seal the alliance, Darius would hand over his daughter to Alexander in marriage.

Everyone in the room found these terms most favorable-it was the widest conquest of territory and treasure ever accomplished with so few losses and in so short a time. Everyone was satisfied, that is, except Alexander, who yawned in the envoy’s face.

The Greek was sent away so that the king could consider the offer. In reality, the offer was never considered, for Alexander’s mind was already made up. Parmenion shook his head.

“If I were you, I’d take what he’s selling.”

“If I were Parmenion, I would take it too. Bring the man back.”

Aegoscephalus was led in, perhaps sooner than he expected. In making his reply to Darius, Alexander spoke to him in imperious, condescending tones, pointing his finger at him. His reply went something like this:

“First, you shall address me as the Lord of All Asia, as is only fit. Your employer is not my equal, but mere leaseholder on the lands that remain to him…they are not his to trade away, but mine if I wish to take them. The same applies to his money, and to his women, both of which I shall claim as my own in due course. If he wishes to reunite himself with his family, let him come to me and beg for this privilege! He need not be afraid, for Alexander is as fair to his supplicants as he is merciless to his enemies…You say that there is no reason for war between us, but the Persian’s memory serves only his vanity. His ancestors disfigured Greece with their invasions, having looted and burned her holiest sanctuaries. The kings of Persia have meddled in the affairs of Macedon since before the time of Philip. Your king has even boasted that he set the plan in motion that killed my predecessor. In truth, your employer is a pretender, for it is known here that he murdered by poison the legitimate heir to the Persian throne. No reason for war between us? How many more reasons do we need?”

At this point, Parmenion was so disgusted at this hubris that he left the room. For even as Alexander sat there insulting his opponent’s manhood, he bore a scar from when, in single combat, Darius had sunk a javelin into his leg. Equally chilling to Macedonian ears was the way he evaded acknowledging Philip as his true father by calling him his ‘predecessor’. But Alexander was not finished:

“If your employer takes himself for a man, he will take exception to what I say. If so, let him not flee from me, but stand and fight. Rest assured that I will give him every advantage. And if the day is his, he can expect that his enemy will not run, but welcome whatever fate the victor should decree. But until that day, let him know that the Lord of Asia considers him little more than a criminal, and will pursue him to the ends of the earth until the day he appears where his servant does now, on bended knee, and begs my pardon. Now off with you!”

Soon enough, we learned the Great King’s answer to these insults.

That night Alexander received reports from scouts sent to find Darius. They found neither the enemy nor significant resistance, but did learn that an urgent call had gone out to every corner of the empire for all native levies to gather near Babylon. Rumors held that Darius blamed his defeat at Issus not on Alexander’s leadership, but on the tight topography, which restricted the movement of the superior Persian cavalry. Alexander smiled at this conceit, but must have burned inwardly; as you will hear, his desire to leave Darius no excuse for his defeat had more effect on his tactics at Gaugamela than any military consideration.

The Macedonians crossed the Tigris without the loss of a single man. After the army made camp on the easterly shore, two significant events occurred. First, there was a total eclipse of the moon, which appeared high in the sky at the change of the midnight watch. The Macedonians were not so much frightened by the apparition as uneasy about its meaning on the eve of such an important battle. Aristander interpreted the eclipse as evidence that a great contest was underway in Heaven, with the moon allied for Darius and earth for Alexander. The spectacle portended the final victory of the Macedonians.

The second event was the eclipse of Stateira, Darius’s wife. Despite Parmenion’s advice that the Great King’s family should have been left in Sidon or Damascus, Alexander had kept Sisygambus, Stateira and the rest close to him. For him, it was nothing less than a guarantee of his honor as inheritor of the Achaemenid royal house. Despite his protection, however, the Queen was somehow gotten with child, and was far along in her pregnancy. Of the circumstances of her violation I know nothing but the fact of it-I saw her expectant form myself one evening, in silhouette against the fabric of her tent. When she fell ill she sank quickly, despite the best efforts of the king’s personal doctor, Philip. Alexander grieved at her death, decreeing that her funeral be conducted in true Persian fashion.

I witnessed these curious rites. The body was placed under a white shroud and left exposed for three days beside lamps filled with aromatic oil. Instead of cremating her body in civilized fashion, the barbarians prepared a deep grave to house her bones. Believing that deities somehow care for the moral conduct of human beings, the priests of Zoroaster kept up a long series of chants in their native tongue, enjoining their gods to give the dead entrance to their heavenly paradise.

As dogs are sacred to the Persians, packs of yowling mutts kept up a constant din. They came off the leash for a particularly odd custom: the priest broke a loaf of bread into three parts, and placed the pieces on the body at the breast, stomach, and hipbone. Then a dog was invited to climb up on the bier and devour the bread. If this makes any sense at all, it is perhaps rooted in our myth of Kerberos, or in the purificatory use of dead dogs by fools and old women, though these rites seem much distorted in the minds of the barbarians.

Alexander, remarkably, took part in these honors, donning the white funeral garb and mouthing some of the prayers in the Persian tongue. Instead of distributing portions of the sacrificed animals, he forbade the consumption of any meat in the Macedonian camp. These embarrassing extremities led some to speculate that Alexander bore some tender feeling for the dead Queen. None would have denied his right to avail himself of her. Yet in the letter he sent to Darius informing the latter of his wife’s death, the King denied any such relationship. To my knowledge, no one has attested to any contact between him and the Queen since their first meeting. Those of good will assume that Alexander’s observance of the Persian rite was meant to discourage resistance to his rule. Those of ill-will may believe what they wish.

On a plain east of the Tigris, not far from the little town of Gaugamela, Darius gathered the force that would decide his future. We’ve all heard of the host Xerxes brought to humble Greece in the time of Pericles-his army numbered five million men, claims Herodotus. But the number we use to ennoble ourselves in the eyes of our children need not deceive us now. Xerxes brought no more than 400,000 soldiers with him into Greece, and fewer than that were at last defeated by the allied cities at Plataea. Aeschines’ claim that Darius brought a million or a half-million men to his last battle is likewise a fiction.

From every corner of the Persian Empire, arranged all around the upraised standard of the Great King, stood a many-colored host numbering some 250,000 men. I assure you that from where we stood, this seemed plenty. Looking out across the ground Darius had smoothed for the contest, we were confronted with a force that loomed like a mountain range and stretched to the horizon. There were Median spearmen in their belted tunics and trousers, waiting with daggers at their thighs and spears resting on their front feet. There were Scythian axmen in their pointed headgear, and Bactrian, Parthian and Massagetan cavalries that outnumbered the Macedonian levies five to one. There were Persian, Carian and Mardian bowmen, and Lycians in their crested felt caps, and foot soldiers and chariots of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Susian satrapies, and contingents of Syrians, Albanians, Cappadocians, Machelonians, Armenians, Daae, Hyrcanians, Uxians and Sarangae with their knee-high boots, and Mycians, Utians, Paricanians, Chorasmians and Cissians in turbans, and Arachotians, Cadusians, Arians, Gandarans, Sacesinians, Gedrosians, Sogdians, Colchians, Sitacenians, and leopard-skinned Ethiopians and Arabs. There were 200 scythed chariots, and fifteen war elephants with their breech-clothed mahouts. And, of course, there were seasoned Greek mercenaries, all eager to avenge the deaths of their comrades at Issus and the Granicus, and in some cases at Chaeronea too.

Some of the enemy, such as the so-called “Apple Bearer” battalion of Immortals who defended Darius, were clad in fine plate armor; others arrived at the field with wicker shields, or naked, or bearing only clubs. There was no chance for fancy strategy against such a motley force-the Macedonians had no idea how these barbarians would fight. Instead, Alexander made good on his promise to Aegoscephalus and simply offered battle, with a double phalanx of Foot Companions in the center, Parmenion and the Thessalian cavalry on the left, and his Hypaspists and Cavalry Companions beside him on the right. He deployed the rest of his cavalry with their lines swept back, to resist envelopment.

To say that the Macedonians confronted the day’s task with utter confidence would be a lie. With such overwhelming advantage in numbers, Darius did not need to prevail in the first clash, or even the second, third, or fourth. He needed only to hold his army together long enough to grind the Macedonians down, then crush them with wave upon wave of fresh reserves. This was not a plan that required subtle generalship.

Standing the ranks with the other hypaspists, I could sense an unease that had not been there at Issus; many of those men expected to be dead by the afternoon. When I saw Alexander early that morning, there was no trace of the arrogance that marked his treatment of Darius’s envoy. Instead, he was almost deliriously chipper, as if he would finally get his wish that day, and permanently avoid the assassin’s knife. I also noticed that he did not risk besmirching Achilles’s armor by wearing it at his likely defeat.

Now you will recall that when Aeschines told you of Gaugamela, I could not hold my peace at his lies. Of course, Aeschines was not there, so he may not know to what degree the story of this battle has been distorted. My rudeness was wrong, and I apologize for it. But be assured of these facts: the fighting at this battle was real, and it was terrible, and there are Macedonians walking around to this day who lose sleep over the horror of it.

Taking the initiative, Arridaeus directed the Macedonian line forward. This, he knew, was exactly what Darius hoped, that he would charge straight ahead and allow himself to be flanked on both sides. But this was only a bit of misdirection. At the opportune moment, he had the archers on his right wing spin on their heels and push south, making a dash for an area beyond where the Persians had leveled the ground for their chariots. His plan was to make the enemy extend his lines in an undisciplined manner, so that gaps would appear for Alexander to punch through.

It didn’t work. Instead, the Bactrian cavalry on Darius’s left covered the enemy in good order. On the contrary, the rightward extension of the Macedonian line caused a wide gap to form between the archers and the Hypaspists. Darius’s Massagetan cavalry was through the hole in an instant, rampaging in the Macedonian rear. It was fortunate for us that they did not get through in enough numbers to end the battle right there. Instead, the back ranks of the Foot Companions did an about-face and presented their pikes, forcing the Massagetans to find easier prey among the baggage animals and camp followers.

Darius sent out his scythed chariots to soften up the enemy front. Contrary to what Aeschines has said, these terrible things could not be defeated by just stepping aside as they passed. The phalangites tried to do this, but the Persians had changed their tactics: instead of coming on in scattered fashion, the chariots formed a flying wedge too wide to avoid. The chariots were met by a storm of missiles, but most of them got through.

That was when the Macedonians suffered a further surprise: the Persians had modified the axles so the drivers could trigger a spring that extended the iron blades sideward. Hundreds of men were cut down at mid-body. Though I was some distance from all this, for the rest of my days I will remember the screams of the Macedonians. Later, just after the battle, I saw the place where the scythed chariots had rolled through: for a distance of hundreds of yards, there was nothing but lopped extremities and their dying remainders. So suddenly were these men killed that some of their severed legs were left upright in the mud, still standing in the straight rows of the phalanx.

What stopped the chariots at last was the simple accumulation of dead bodies. The torrents of blood pouring on the ground destroyed the footing of the horses, while piles of armored corpses slowed the vehicles down. In time the Macedonian javelins and arrows did their work, and the last chariot was brought down. But never let it be said that this was easy work!

As all this went on, small groups of Persians and even individuals were showing their courage by running out onto the field, challenging the Macedonians. More often than not, if a phalangite or hypaspist was foolish enough to meet them, the Persians won these duels. Yet each of these private victories was really a defeat, for when these impetuous Persians rushed out they opened gaps in their lines. Here, as at Marathon, Plataea, Issus and a hundred other battles, the Persians failed to understand the most important principle of modern war: to stay together, to keep the line, even at the cost of appearing cowardly.

Arridaeus was never fazed by minor reverses. Since I had trespassed on his hiding place, it seemed that further precautions were taken against discovery of his secret. Unlike the rest of the Macedonians, who wore Phrygian or Boeotian helmets that left the face exposed, Arridaeus’s head was encased in an old-style Corinthian helmet, with a visor. The horsehair mane of his helmet had also been stripped off, to make him less conspicuous. Finally, the system of signals he used to command the troops was altered: instead of sending riders to communicate with the trumpeters, which risked attracting attention, the trumpeters were stationed right next to Arridaeus.

The time came when the idiot’s unerring eye detected a significant weakness in the Persian line. The order was given, the trumpets sounded, and Alexander rode out at the apex of a cavalry wedge. He was, this time, dressed not in Achilles’ panoply but the standard gold-fringed cape of Macedonian royalty, with a mailed corselet underneath that he had stripped from the corpse of a Persian noble at Issus. But whatever he wore, we all would have recognized that distinctive half-crouch in which he rode, his shoulders squared to the enemy, spear cocked far forward.

Arridaeus was right again: the light infantry in the King’s path was too thin to stop him. Some among the enemy were riden down; the others fled, opening up a gap in the enemy front. The gap was shallow, with thousands upon thousands of reserves drawn up beyond it. Yet, unaccountably, the Persian allies did not come up to plug the hole. Instead, they stayed rooted in their spots. They wouldn’t fight.

More than anything Darius failed to do, it was this hesitation that lost the battle for the Persians. Fearless and terrible, Alexander tore through rank after rank of mostly unarmored troops, burying himself in the midst of the enemy. His voice, guttural and strange, could be heard back in among the hypaspists:

“Kill me! Who among you will kill me?”

True to their pattern, the Asians wanted nothing to do with this mad, lethal apparition. Men ran from him in any direction they could, disrupting the entire Persian left wing. When Alexander made his turn to make for Darius, half the Great King’s army had lapsed into frenzied, disorganized retreat.

There was heroism on the other end of the Macedonian line, too. The Parthian and Medan cavalry were bearing down hard on Parmenion. Outnumbered, his line began to crumble under the pressure. By his sheer determination, Parmenion willed his men to stand their ground, digging their pikes into the earth as the Thessalian horsemen charged to their rescue. It was a superb defense against overwhelming odds, and the old man accomplished it without Alexander’s help. By that, I mean there was no headlong dash by the king’s Companions to save Parmenion’s skin. Anyone who had been there would know this is a fable-that front was miles long, strewn with obstacles like the wreckage of destroyed chariots and bodies and rampaging elephants! No, Alexander’s rhapsodes cannot have it both ways, cannot make him the hero of the right wing and the left. If you leave this trial knowing anything for certain, it must be this: Parmenion earned the victory at Gaugamela every bit as much as Alexander did.

The King’s only object was a final showdown with Darius. He found him waiting in the center, standing tall and defiant in his chariot. Having long since lost his thrusting spear, Alexander held his sword aloft, making straight for the Great King. Darius was ready for him, his throwing arm cocked with a javelin.

“Wait for me, brother!” shouted Alexander, tears in his eyes.

“Come to me dear boy!” answered hooded Darius.

But before they could clash for the last time, the Great King’s charioteer turned his horses around and fled. This was not at Darius’s order. On the contrary, Darius could very clearly be heard protesting, thrashing his driver with his flail. I don’t know if Darius had taken haoma that day, but it seems the charioteer had. All the witnesses told of the devastated expressions on the faces of both kings as the distance increased between them. Although they perhaps had different reasons, each was disappointed at having been cheated of their final embrace.

My opponent has already expounded on the consequences of Gaugamela, and I will not dwell of those now. What is most relevant here is that Alexander was stunned at this victory. He fought as a man liberated from any thought of tomorrow, and when Darius was carried away, he was suddenly confronted by a universe of decisions. The empire of the Great King was finished. What would replace it was then largely in Alexander’s hands. Yet how could a man with no purchase on the shape of his own future contemplate the dispensation of a continent?

When in doubt, Alexander made gifts. Along with the usual tithes to the major sanctuaries, he decided it was his obligation to honor anyone when had done anything brave in the last 150 years. Descendants of the fallen at Marathon got sacks of Persian cash; he sent pledges to rebuild the city of Plataea for its service against Xerxes. He honored even obscure figures, such as Phayllus of Croton, who had defied his countrymen to send a trireme to fight at Salamis. I don’t know how this was perceived here, but it all seemed presumptuous to me. In this way Alexander sought to attach his name not only to his own victories, but to any victory-as if he had invented valor!

The departure of Darius’s court had again left a swath of fancy detritus in its wake. Unique among these was Bagoas, the court eunuch Aeschines has spent so much of his precious breath railing against. That Bagoas sacrificed his balls is about the only true thing my opponent has said about him. Even on that score, I wonder how Aeschines comes by the extraordinary fact that Bagoas kept his dried testicles in a locket, or that they were the size of chick peas! Why not the size of olives, Aeschines? Or lentils? For my part, I have no idea to which kind of garnish Bagoas’s balls might best be compared. Unlike Aeschines, I will not testify about matters I know nothing about.

I see you all laugh…and that the archon suspects I turn these proceedings into a burlesque! But let him see that I am not laughing, and indeed no one should, for this Bagoas was a troubling presence in Alexander’s court. For it is true that he replaced Hephaestion in the King’s bed, and at a time when Alexander’s connection to his old life in Macedon was growing tenuous. The source of his charm was difficult to describe. He was beautiful, yes, but with the sleek-eyed slyness of a predator. He could no more be mistaken for a woman than a gelding could be taken for a mare. Yet to a man of Alexander’s taste and experience, he may well have presented the best of womanhood without the disadvantages. I will not put too fine a point on it; we all know that soft thighs are never just soft thighs, but that there are a hundred differences in touch, smell, and consequence when we partake of the most womanish male or mannish female. Alexander, as I have said, took the lower position with Hephaestion. With Bagoas, he claimed his place in the mount, and with that perhaps began to imagine wider possibilities for himself-even atop women, if the need arose.

The eunuch was an accomplished dancer and juggler. He also became practiced at manipulating Alexander. Whenever he wanted something, he would merely say, ‘Darius did it for me,’ and Alexander would do it too. He had merely to tell him that Darius had done some foolish thing, and Alexander would emulate it. With eyes wide open, he became a kind of slave to the eunuch. Having taken an oath to aid the King, I therefore made it my business to keep a close watch on this Bagoas, and if necessary to act against his influence. So you see that Aeschines has gotten the truth reversed: I was not conspiring with Bagoas, but against him!

You may wonder what Hephaestion thought of Alexander’s new companion. The answer must have been ‘not much,’ though I believe that like most aspects of his relationship with Alexander this issue was complicated. The King had the prerogative to take whatever lovers he pleased; beyond that, Hephaestion’s devotion to Alexander was so unqualified as to make sexual jealousy nearly beside the point. Still, there must have been some expectation, if only unspoken, that the King’s preference for another meant Hephaestion had to be compensated with more independent responsibility. This is exactly what he got.

It was about this time that news from home reached us of Antipater’s victory over the Spartan rebels at Megalopolis. The word came through it was a hard-won fight, with the combatants finally having at each other with bare hands. King Agis, we learned, found a glorious death in the line, while Antipater personally led 40,000 Foot Companions into battle though he was old enough to be Alexander’s grandfather.

The response to this in the King’s court was a puzzle. At first there was concern that some great disaster had been allowed to happen. When the fact that it was a victory sank in, however, there seemed to be great embarrassment all around, as if the next-worst thing had occurred. Alexander’s jealousy was plain, and troubling. When the messenger finished reading his account, he waved his hand as if to dismiss the whole business from his mind.

“What concern of mine is this? These are the affairs of mice!”

Yet Antipater’s victory over the Spartans was more impressive than any of Alexander’s one-sided romps over the Persians. After all, it was a battle between Greeks, the antagonists each defending a brilliant tradition, both loathe to fall short of their ancestors’ legacy. Unlike Alexander, Antipater is a modest man-he made little celebration of his victory, professing only his subordination to his master. And unlike Darius, the Spartan king inspired ferocity in his men. It would have been a very long road to India if Alexander had faced a few more “mice” like gallant Agis along the way!

Babylon surrendered without a fight. This was for the same reason Egypt did: as a place of consequence in former times whose glory had faded under the Great King, she saw no cost in trading one master for another. We approached the city at first along the Persian Royal Road, and thence directly across the well-watered plains of the Mesopotamians. Before long we glimpsed the ramparts of a massive conurbation, blue in the distance. The effect of seeing these fortifications was sobering to the Macedonians. Smashing the Persian line was one thing, but reducing a city with titanic brick walls hundreds of feet high, and thick enough for two chariots to drive abreast on their summits, was very much another.

The sight was still more humbling at night, as the towers were brightly illuminated; beyond them could also be seen the crown of a great ziggurat, blazing and stretching still higher. Some thought the city itself must be burning, for lamps of such power, producing such a luxury of artificial light, are unknown in Greece.

The answer to the puzzle was soon presented to them, as emissaries from the town of Mennis arrived in camp with gifts of clay vessels filled with naphtha. This is a black liquid that flows from the ground in certain places in that country, including Mennis, which may be used like lamp oil, except that it is far more potent. The emissaries demonstrated its power by sprinkling the substance on the path to Alexander’s tent. When the King appeared that night, at a signal, they struck a spark, and the path was lined with two great sheets of flame. Alexander, though delighted at the show, was not surprised by it, as his tutor Aristotle had once instructed him on naphtha’s remarkable properties.

Not knowing in what mood the Babylonians would receive them, we approached the city in full battle order. The city gates opened, and disgorged not a hostile army, but a torrent of well-wishers. The sides of the road were heaped up with flowers; a mass of citizens more numerous than the army itself surrounded the Macedonians, cheering and welcoming them. An official embassy, headed by the satrap Mazaeus, met Alexander under the gates. Under a blizzard of rose petals fluttering down from the city walls, the Persian disembarked from his jewel-encrusted chariot, placed his sword on the ground, and knelt before his new master. Alexander dismounted and invited Mazaeus to stand before him. The crowd roared its approval, the collared leopards snarled, and a chorus of magi chanted thanks to Marduk, whose worship the Persian kings had suppressed, but whom Alexander was destined to honor as he did all local deities.

The procession continued to the Ishtar Gate, ablaze with great enameled figures of kings and demons, and passed inside. Marching down to the Euphrates, Alexander beheld a stupendous stone bridge more than five stades in length. Every inch of this wonder was lined with ecstatic natives, each waving small cloth banners emblazoned with Alexander’s profile. Indeed the Babylonians, whose notions of decorum differ from ours, thought nothing of presenting their wives and daughters to the Macedonian soldiers right there in the street. Not a few exposed a breast or two to sweeten their hospitality. The riches and temptations crowded so densely around the Macedonians that they staggered with the magnitude of what they possessed. Compared to Babylon, Athens was a provincial town, and Philip’s capital of Pella, a poor and piddling village. It is said that Hephaestion leaned toward Alexander and, echoing what he uttered upon seeing Darius’s royal tent, remarked, “So this is a city.”

This admiration was matched by the Babylonians’ gratitude that the army had not sacked the place. Still, the occasion had its measure of anxiety, as some upstarts on the walls dropped heavier things than rose petals on the Macedonians; when the great bronze statue of Darius came down, a hush came over the crowd that betokened more fear than joy. Alexander, fearing his spear-won property would be looted at the first opportunity, forbade any Babylonian from entering the public buildings until further notice. This edict caused much puzzlement and anger among his new subjects, especially as the newcomers proceeded to take up residence in Hammurabi’s old palace.

Alexander improved his position, however, when he promised to rebuild the ziggurat called Temple-of-the-High-Head, and all the other temples of Bel that had been desecrated by the Persians. These measures earned him the support of the priestly classes, who bear an influence in eastern lands we can hardly imagine. In gratitude, the priests shared a vast bounty of knowledge with the newcomers-their secrets of chemistry, metalworking, agriculture, their 30,000 years of astrological records. From the engineers of the ziggurat of E-sagila our engineers gleaned much that would help them in the construction of the proposed lighthouse at Alexandria. The Babylonians revealed the secrets of the terraced forest known as the Hanging Garden, which, though it had seen better days, still exceeded in ingenuity and splendor anything made in the Greek world. The only question upon which they could not enlighten the Macedonians was the fate of Darius’s money: the royal treasury, they suggested, must have been removed to Susa.

Perceiving that their rustic liberators were easily dazzled by cheap tricks, the Babylonian magi organized magic shows for their delight. This was harmless enough, until the Macedonians took it upon themselves to experiment with naphtha on their own. So it was that a young boy, a worker in the baggage train, cheerfully submitted to being doused and lit. It seems that neither the boy nor the rest of the Macedonians understood that this substance produced heat when burned. So great was his surprise that he had an astonished look on his face as he died-he gave a kind of shrug, and the spectators around him did the same, until there was nothing left of the boy but a blackened, shrugging husk.

As a tourist, Alexander seemed to delight in the place. Its architectural wonders, and its geographical centrality in his future empire, recommended it as his capital. But as he learned firsthand of the burdens of administering such a stupendous city, with a walled area of more than 180 square miles, a population as great as all of Macedon, and hordes of priest-bureaucrats practiced at ankle-biting and boot-licking, his dominion lost its luster.

He stayed there a month for no other reason than he had little idea what to do next. On this question, Arridaeus could be of no help. Hephaestion then seized his opportunity to restore his position at Alexander’s side, urging him to go on to conquer all of Asia. The King agreed to this for no more profound reason than that he wished neither to go back nor stay where he was. The farther he went from the throne at Pella, the more the memory of the place seemed redolent of Philip, whose fatherly command he grew to resent. Friendly god Ammon, after all, had never flogged him, nor banished his friends from the palace, nor begrudged him his overlordship of the universe. Nor did the prospect of a reunion with Olympias have much appeal.

And so, with Hephaestion, he drew up plans for a new war, and reorganized the army. Which is to say, he gave Hephaestion free rein to take revenge on those who had disrespected him, dissolving units whose officers had joked at his expense, or spread unflattering rumors, or who had looked at him in some way that displeased him. At this same time, he welcomed more Persians into his service, for the simple reason that they knew how to administer what the Macedonians had conquered. In many cases Alexander simply took the oath of whatever satrap or native king he found in the lands he passed through. There is much talk of Alexander’s “wisdom” in this regard, in his supposed respect for local custom and native ways. Yet in this he had innovated nothing, but only emulated the policies of the Great Kings, who, if nothing else, were masters of skimming off the cream and delegating away the rest.

And what cream it was! There was no precedent for the fortune in loot turned up on this march: 10,000 talents at Sardis, 50,000 at Susa, 120,000 in the royal treasury at Persepolis. These are magnitudes by the light of which the very preciousness of silver and gold becomes absurd. Although Alexander recognized its utility, unlike many of his fellow Macedonians he took no direct pleasure in the spectacle, smell, and touch of money. Its only use for him lay in giving it away, preferably by the talent. And so we hear of the king giving out rewards of one round talent for increasingly trivial attainments: a talent for each man in a nicely turned-out infantry rank; a talent for a skillful air on the cithara at dinner; a talent for a well-polished cuirass or for policing up the camel dung around camp. So aggressive was Alexander at this gift-giving that his men fell victim to outsized expectations. Ordinary soldiers came to expect a talent for their mere proximity to the King; if overlooked, an otherwise good man who once would have exulted in a word of royal praise went away muttering ‘what, no talent?’

Someone should have told the King that gifting, like any pleasure, could become something of a vice if overindulged. It should come as no surprise that, as they went around with their hands out, none of his friends got around to telling him this.