Alexander

by H A CULLEY

  He didn’t try to disguise his hope for the early death of his little brother. He smiled and embraced his friend before kissing him affectionately.

  ‘What would I do without you to keep me sane?’

  Alexandros of Epirus had come to the assembly in person and asked to see Alexander privately the day after he had arrived.

  ‘Your mother sends her love, Alexander. She misses you a great deal.’

  ‘As I miss her,’ Alexander replied dutifully.

  In fact he had scarcely thought about her at all recently. Once away from her presence, her influence over him had quickly waned. However, he still needed her support and that of her brother.

  ‘She is worried by the birth of your half-brother and the continuing influence that Attalus has with the king, and with many of the nobles.’

  Alexander sighed, feeling depressed again just when he had managed to put the matter out of his mind. Hephaestion, who was present, as always, glared at Alexandros but, if the king was aware of it, he ignored it.

  ‘I agree that it is a real concern, but I don’t see what we can do about it, except hope that the child dies in infancy,’ Alexander replied.

  ‘I don’t think we can rely on that,’ Alexandros said, a trifle more sharply than he had intended.

  Both Alexander and Hephaestion looked at him curiously.

  ‘You and my mother are up to something, aren’t you?’ the prince asked.

  ‘Perhaps, but it’s better that you don’t know what she is planning. There is one thing you can do to help, however.’

  Alexander didn’t reply for a moment whilst he paced the room.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this. What is it she wants me to do?’

  ‘Philip will soon be sending an army into Anatolia to liberate the Greek cities along the coast of Aeolis, Ionia and Doris to create a base from which to conquer Persia. We want you to use your influence to make sure that Attalus goes with this expedition.’

  ‘Why? In the hope that he gets killed?’

  ‘No, just to get him out of Macedon for a while.’

  -X-

  Philip was pleased. After a lot of tedious negotiation the delegates had at long last agreed to set up a council – to be called the Common Council. The number of voting members from each city-state on the council was to be determined by their combined military and naval power. Although Athens had the most powerful navy, Macedon had the greatest army by far. Compared to what followed, getting agreement to the composition of the council had been child’s play.

  Few were initially in favour of giving the council too much power. They saw it as a forum for discussion and negotiation, not as an instrument of government. That would have been of little use to Philip; he needed to unify the Greeks, the Macedonians and the other Hellenes like the Thracians and the Illyrians under his rule if he was to create a large enough army to defeat Persia.

  The next few weeks was a period of intense lobbying, bribery, threats and blackmail before the assembly finally agreed to grant the council absolute power as far as foreign policy and military action was concerned. They swore that, not only would they not attack one another, but that they would all come to the aid of a member state if it was attacked.

  By this time it was summer and the final matter to be decided was the election of the Hegemon of All Greece. He would command both military and naval forces and be the de facto ruler of what was now being called the Greek Community. There was really no other contender and Philip was duly elected as Hegemon. Furthermore, the agreement drawn up mentioned obedience to Philip and his descendants. This clause was to prove vital for Alexander in due course.

  The rest of the year was spent in drawing up the detail of how the Greek Community was to be administered. This went much further than creating a unified military force and exerting control over foreign policy. It gave the council financial powers and introduced a common judicial policy. For the first time the Hellenic city-states and kingdoms were unified under one leader.

  -X-

  The Corinthian amphitheatre was packed for the ceremony at which Philip was to be installed as Hegemon of All Greece. The year was drawing to a close and Philip was eager to launch his invasion of Persia. He had already decided to give the overall command of the expeditionary force to Parmenion but little progress had yet been made with the detailed planning. He was therefore impatient to get the ceremonial out of the way so that he could get on with it.

  As Philip limped his way towards the gold and scarlet throne which had been set up on a raised dais in the middle of the stage he cut a frightening rather than an imposing figure. He had long ago given up wearing a patch over his puckered empty eye socket and his face now sported other scars which gave it a twisted appearance. His hair was streaked with grey and was thinning fast, and his beard was totally white. He wore a long black chiton richly embroidered in gold and a plain black himation which he wore with one corner over his head. He looked more like Thanatos, the harbinger of death, than the ruler of Greece. Perhaps, Alexander thought with half a smile as he sat in the front row of the watching delegates, that was his intention.

  Philip sat on the throne whilst a pure white bull was brought onto the stage by several priests. A stone altar had been set up near the throne and beside it a fire blazed beneath a large copper sheet. When the senior priest sprinkled the animal with water, it shook its head, which everyone took as a sign that it offered itself as a sacrifice. The priest then picked up a hammer and a spike and stunned the bull with a sharp blow to the back of its head.

  The animal collapsed and the priest killed it by slitting its throat. Its bright arterial blood spurted out until its heart stopped, soaking the priest and his assistants and turning their white chitons bright red. The priests then butchered the bull, placing the lean meat on the hot plate to cook. When it was done they placed it on the altar and piled the bones and fat on the fire as the offering to the gods.

  Philip was offered the choicest pieces of meat, which he ate with gusto before licking his greasy fingers in appreciation. The priests then ate before the senior delegate from each city present was offered a morsel of what was left. The sacrifice over, each senior delegate then came forward again and swore that they would follow him as their hegemon.

  He thanked them and swore than he, in turn, would protect them and their cities and would always act in the best interest of Greece. Everyone then made their way to the feast to celebrate Philip’s enthronement and proceeded to get thoroughly and completely intoxicated. As if a testament to the Greeks’ vow of peaceful co-existence with each other, there were only a few minor fights and no-one got killed in a drunken brawl.

  Chapter Nine – The Enemy Within

  Several years before the creation of the Greek Community at Corinth Philip had taken a shine to an ephebe called Pausanias of Orestis. The boy was sixteen and extremely egotistical as well as being very good looking. He revelled in being the king’s favourite for a time but, Philip being Philip, he tired of Pausanias after a short while and transferred his affections to one of Attalus ’ cousins, a boy of fourteen.

  Pausanias had several faults and one of them was an extremely vindictive nature. He took every opportunity he had to taunt and bully Philip’s new favourite and made his life miserable. Instead of telling either Philip or Attalus about his problems, the boy bottled them up inside him until, in despair, he committed suicide by running in front of a galloping horse.

  He didn’t die immediately and before he did he told Attalus how Pausanias had driven him to it. Attalus could have complained to Philip about Pausanias’ conduct but he doubted that Philip would punish the young man sufficiently, so he plotted his own revenge.

  Attalus had a wide circle of friends and he persuaded the son of one of them, who was a year or two older than Pausanias, to invite him to a symposium. As he was only seventeen and still an ephebe, he was delighted by the invitation and readily accepted. At first he suspected nothing. The room was filled with men of varyi
ng ages, none of whom he recognised, except for the man who had invited him. Then, when he was getting a trifle merry, even though the wine was watered, he realised that Attalus had taken the empty place opposite him. The ephebe’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He knew very well that the strategos had never forgiven him for his cousin’s death and the last thing he was likely to do was socialise with him.

  He got to his feet, swaying slightly, and turned to his host to take his leave. Two of the other guests grabbed his arms. At first he thought that they were helping him but they were holding him so tightly that it hurt. Attalus got up and slapped him in the face.

  ‘You piece of filth,’ he spat into his face. ‘I should kill you by rights for hounding my poor cousin to death, but I doubt that Philip would let me get away with that.’

  Pausanias realised that he had walked into a trap. He was not a very brave youth and he began to shake with fear, warm urine running down his legs to puddle at his feet.

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’ he quavered.

  ‘You’re a pretty boy,’ Attalus sneered, stroking his face on which a beard had just started to appear. ‘You’re only good for one thing.’

  The two men holding him tore off his chiton and bent him over a nearby table. The next thing Pausanias felt was a searing pain in his rectum as one of the men started to bugger him. By the time that they had finished they had all taken turns to rape him and he was bleeding quite badly. The youth was too far gone in agony to understand what Attalus said to him before chucking him out of the house, but in essence he promised in the foulest language to do the same again if he complained to the king.

  -X-

  Two of those present took pity on Pausanias and picked him out of the gutter and helped him back to the academy. They dumped him at the entrance, which was where his fellow ephebes found him the next morning. He wasn’t that popular amongst his fellows – he thought too much of himself for a start, and he had few admirable qualities - but he was one of them, so they carried him to his parents’ house where his mother and sister took care of him until he had recovered sufficiently to return to the academy.

  Pausanias had not just been badly hurt physically, his pride had suffered and his honour had been besmirched. He was no virgin but what had been done to him was unforgivable. He hadn’t heard Attalus’ threat but, even if he had, it would have made no difference. He wanted revenge. For some time he mulled over what form that revenge should take. The problem was that Attalus was always surrounded by his sycophants and toadies as well as his personal bodyguard. In the end the ephebe decided to make an official complaint to the king.

  Philip was surprised when he was told that Pausanias wanted to see him. He knew the name well enough but he struggled to recall what the boy looked like when he had shared his bed. The young man who entered was two years older and he had grown up. He now had a sparse beard and the innocence in his eyes which had first attracted Philip had been replaced by one of smouldering anger. He wondered what could have brought about the latter change. Pausanias didn’t leave him in doubt for long.

  When he had finished his tale of woe Philip was surprised more than anything.

  ‘What on earth made Attalus do such a thing? If he did.’

  He wasn’t entirely sure that the youth was telling the truth, though he seemed sincere enough, passionate even. That would be difficult to fake.

  ‘He blames me for his cousin’s death but it was nothing to do with me. He committed suicide.’

  Now Philip recalled what had happened. Attalus had told him at the time but he had decided that there was no evidence that would convict Pausanias of a crime and he’d forgotten about it. He’d been sorry to lose the boy though. He’d been fond of him, whereas Pausanias had been no more to him than a competent sexual partner.

  ‘Are there any witnesses to this alleged rape?’

  ‘None that would support me, basileus. They were all Attalus’ friends and I suspect that they must have all been participants.’

  ‘Why didn’t you complain at the time, when there was still physical evidence of the rape?’

  ‘I was too badly injured for some time and then I was upset and ashamed.’

  ‘So why complain to me now?’

  Pausanias hesitated. He could hardly say that he had been seeking other ways of getting his own back on Attalus first.

  ‘I was ashamed at what had been done to me, basileus, but when I saw Attalus walking around and laughing with some others who had been involved yesterday, I decided that I should swallow my pride and come to see you.’

  ‘I see.’

  Philip was in something of a dilemma. What Pausanias had told him might well be true, but then, if it was, so was the fact that he’d hounded the other boy to his death, so he had little sympathy for him. Attalus was an important man whereas Pausanias, although of noble blood, was only an ephebe whose elder brother had inherited their father’s lands. By all accounts the brothers didn’t like each other and so dismissing Pausanias’ complaint wasn’t likely to have any down side. He made his mind up.

  ‘I’m sorry Pausanias. The complaint you have made against one of my most senior officers is a grave one but there is little or no evidence to support it. I don’t feel that I can even mention it to Attalus in the circumstances, let alone take him to task over it. The complaint is dismissed.’

  Pausanias stood there dumbstruck. He couldn’t believe that Philip had just rejected his complaint that he’d been raped out of hand. He had fooled himself into thinking that the king still had some feelings for him and that he would take his side. What an idiot he had been! He turned on his heel and left the room without formally taking his leave. Philip’s lips narrowed and for a moment he considered calling him back and upbraiding him. Then he relaxed. The ephebe would be upset and so he let the insult to him pass.

  When Philip left on the campaign against the Anti-Macedonian League, Pausanias remained to complete his military training. Philip returned to Pella briefly once or twice during the next two years but it wasn’t until after the treaty had been signed in Corinth that Pausanias saw him again. During the intervening time his resentment towards Philip for his curt rejection of his complaint had festered until eventually his hatred of the king was greater even that that for Attalus and those who had raped him.

  When he had passed out of the academy on reaching the age of eighteen his noble birth earned him a place in the King’s Companions. Nevertheless, he stayed in Pella as part of the contingent guarding the queen, Cleopatra Eurydice, and her children.

  When Philip finally returned in the middle of 326 BC he, like the rest of the Companions, took his turn to guard the king.

  Alexandros of Epirus had accompanied Philip and Alexander back to Pella. As part of his policy of binding as many Greek states as possible to him, Philip had decided that he needed to mend fences with Alexandros. Their relationship had been somewhat strained ever since Philip had divorced his sister, Olympias, and exiled her. Now he had invited Olympias to return, although not to the marriage bed, and had offered Alexandros the hand of another Cleopatra, this one being his daughter by Olympias and therefore Alexander’s younger sister. That meant that she was also Alexandros’ niece but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. The two had become close when she had joined her mother in Epirus and Philip suspected that Cleopatra wouldn’t be coming to Alexandros’ bed as a virgin in any case.

  Mother and daughter arrived a week before the wedding ceremony and Alexander went to see his mother and sister an hour or so after they had arrived. He had gone to see Cleopatra first, which avoided the awkward re-union with his mother for as long as possible. She was delighted to see him and babbled on about how happy she was and how much she loved Alexandros, despite the fact that he was so much older than her. She was now eighteen and Alexander twenty, however he found it difficult to believe that only eighteen months separated them. She seemed so much younger.

  Eventually he felt he couldn’t put off seeing Olympias
any longer and he headed along the corridor towards her chambers. As he rounded the corner he was surprised to see Leonnatus, one of his original companions, and Phaidros, an officer in the King’s Companions, leaving her room. They didn’t see him as they turned the other way and disappeared around the corner.

  ‘Now what’s she up to?’ he thought to himself. ‘She’s only been back here a few hours and already she’s brewing some mischief.’ However he said nothing about it when he went in to greet his mother.

  -X-

  ‘Parmenion will command the expedition and that’s an end to it!’ Philip was arguing with Alexander again, this time over who was to go with the army to liberate the Greek cities along the coast of Anatolia.

  ‘I’m not asking to command it father, merely to accompany it, perhaps as commander of the cavalry.’

  ‘But you’ve already persuaded me to give that post to Attalus.’

  Alexander had forgotten. Alexandros had, for reasons Alexander didn’t understand, implored his nephew to persuade Philip to make sure that Attalus went with the army. As Olympias was about to return to Pella, Philip readily agreed in order to prevent trouble between them. As soon as the wedding was over he intended to ship Olympias back to Epirus with the happy couple. He wouldn’t have invited her in the first place but, as mother of the bride, he had little option.

  ‘Well then, to command the infantry?’

  ‘No, you’ll stay here for the wedding of your sister. Don’t ask me again.’

  Alexander stomped out of the room. The ten thousand men in the vanguard of the invasion force would be leaving from the port of Kavala on the border between Macedonia and Thrace and both Parmenion and Attalus had already left to join their men there. Philip’s original plan had been to capture Byzantium so that he could ferry the army across the Hellespont to Anatolia using his own fleet. Now that he had the large Athenian fleet as well as that of other Greek cities at his disposal, his plans had changed. The ten thousand men, the cavalry horses and the artillery would all sail together from Kavala. As the success of the plan hinged on capturing all the Hellenic cities along the Anatolian coast, thirty lithoboloi had been included under the command of Iphitos.