The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  A pavilion had been built, to house the ossuaries till the tomb was ready; they were lifted in from the train of biers. As he rode on between obsequious faces, a shrill keening swelled up behind him; the women had surged upon the catafalque, to wail the fallen. Oxhead started under him; from behind a grave, someone had hurled a clod. Horse and rider had known worse, and neither deigned to look round. If you were at the fight, my friend, this does not become you; still less if you were not. But if you are a woman, I understand it.

  Ahead towered the steep northwest cliffs of the Acropolis. He ran his eye over them, wondering about the other sides. Someone was inviting him to a civic function; he bowed acceptance. By the road, a marble hoplite in antique armor leaned on his spear; Hermes, guide of the dead, bent to offer a child his hand; a wife and husband bade farewell; two friends clasped hands on an altar, a cup beside them. Everywhere Love faced Necessity in silence. No rhetoric here. Whoever had come after, these people had built this city.

  He was led through the Agora to hear speeches in the Council Hall. Sometimes far back in the crowd he heard a shouted curse; but the war party, its prophecies made void, mostly kept away. Demosthenes might have vanished into air. Old Macedonian guest-friends and supporters were thrust forward; he did his best with these awkward meetings. Here came Aischines, carrying it off well, but defensive under it. Philip had showed more mercy than even the peace party had dared predict; they were smeared with the odium of men who have been too right. The bereaved, the ruined, watched them Argus-eyed for a gleam of triumph and were sure to find it. Philip’s hirelings came too, some cautious, some fawning; these found Philip’s son civil, but opaque.

  He ate at the house of Demades, with a few guests of honor; the occasion was not one for feasting. But it was very Attic: well-worn spare elegance, couches and tables whose ornament was perfect shaping and silky wood; wine cups of old silver thin with polishing; quiet expert service, talk in which no one interrupted or raised his voice. In Macedon, Alexander’s mere lack of greed put his table manners above the common run; but here he took care to observe the others first.

  Next day on the Acropolis he made dedications to the City’s gods, in earnest of the peace. Here were the fabled glories, towering Athene of the Vanguard whose spear-tip guided ships—where were you, Lady, did your father forbid you the battle, as he did at Troy? This time were you obedient? Here in her temple stood Pheidias’ ivory Maiden in her robe of folded gold; here were the trophies and dedications of a hundred years. (Three generations; only three!)

  He had been reared in the Palace of Archelaos; fine building was nothing new to him; he talked of history, and was shown Athene’s olive, which sprouted green overnight when the Persians had burned it. They had carried off, too, the old statues of the Liberators, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, to adorn Persepolis. “If we can get them back,” he said, “we will let you have them. Those were brave men and faithful friends.” No one answered; Macedonian boastfulness was a byword. From the parapet he looked for the place where the Persians had climbed up, and found it without help; it had seemed impolite to ask.

  The peace party had got a motion passed that, to recognize Philip’s clemency, his statue and his son’s should be set up in the Parthenon. As he sat for the sculptor’s sketch, he thought of his father’s image standing there, and wondered how soon the man would follow it.

  Was there anything else, they asked, any sight he would like to visit before he left? “Yes; the Academy. Aristotle my tutor studied there. He lives now in Stagira; my father rebuilt the town and brought the people back. But I should like to see where Plato taught.”

  Along the road there, all the great soldiers of Athens’ past were buried. He saw the battle-trophies and his questions delayed the ride. Here, too, men who had died together in famous actions lay in fraternal tombs. A new site was being cleared; he did not ask for whom.

  The road petered out into a grove of ancient olives, whose long grass and field-flowers were dried with autumn. Near the altar of Eros was another, inscribed EROS AVENGED. He asked the story. An immigrant, they said, had loved a beautiful Athenian youth, and vowed there was nothing he would not do for him. He had said, “Then go jump off the Rock.” When he found he had been obeyed, he made the same leap himself. “He did right,” said Alexander. “What does it matter where a man comes from? It’s what he is in himself.” They changed the subject, exchanging looks; it was natural the son of the Macedonian upstart should have such thoughts.

  Speusippos, who had inherited the school from Plato, had died the year before. In the cool, plain white house that had been Plato’s, the new head, Xenokrates, received him, a tall big-boned man whose gravity, it was said, cleared a path before him even through the Agora at market-time. Alexander, entertained with the courtesy of eminent teacher to promising student, felt the man to be solid and took to him on sight. They talked a little about Aristotle’s methods. “A man must follow his truth,” Xenokrates said, “wherever it leads him. It will lead Aristotle, I think, away from Plato, who was a man for making How serve Why. Me it keeps at Plato’s feet.”

  “Have you a likeness of him?”

  Xenokrates led him out past a dolphin fountain to Plato’s myrtle-shaded tomb; the statue stood near it. He sat scroll in hand, his classic oval head stooped forward from heavy shoulders. To the end of his days he had kept the athlete’s short-cut hair of his youth. His beard was cleanly trimmed; his brow was furrowed across and down; from under its weight looked the haunted unwavering eyes of a survivor who has fled from nothing. “Yet still he believed in good. I have some books of his.”

  “As to the good,” said Xenokrates, “he himself was his own evidence. Without that, a man will find no other. I knew him well. I am glad you read him. But his books, he always said, contained the teaching of his master, Sokrates; there would never be a book of Plato, for what he had to teach could only be learned as fire is kindled, by the touch of the flame itself.”

  Alexander gazed eagerly at the brooding face, as if at a fort on some impregnable rock. But the crag was gone, overthrown by the floods of time, never to be assailed again. “He had a secret doctrine?”

  “An open secret. You, who are a soldier, can only teach your wisdom to men whose bodies have been prepared for hardship, and their minds to resist fear; isn’t that so? Then the spark can kindle the spark. So with him.”

  With regret and surmise, Xenokrates gazed at the youth who looked, with surmise and regret, at the marble face. He rode back past the dead heroes to the City.

  He was about to change for supper when a man was announced and left alone with him; a well-dressed, well-spoken person, who claimed to have met him at the Council Hall. Everyone, he learned, had praised the modesty and restraint he had shown, so proper to his mission. Many regretted he should have denied himself, from respect for public mourning, the pleasures of a city so well able to provide them. It would be disgraceful were he not offered the chance to taste them in harmless privacy. “Now I have a boy…” He described the graces of a Ganymede.

  Alexander heard him out without interruption. “What do you mean,” he then said, “that you have a boy? Is he your son?”

  “Sir! Ah, you will have your joke.”

  “Your own friend, perhaps?”

  “Nothing of the kind, I assure you, entirely at your disposal. Only see him for yourself. I paid two hundred staters for him.”

  Alexander stood up. “I don’t know,” he said, “what I have done to deserve you, or your merchandise either. Get out of my sight.”

  He did so, returning with consternation to the peace party, which. had wished the young man to take away grateful memories. A curse on false reports! Too late now to offer a woman.

  He rode north next day.

  Soon after, the dead of Cheir Oneia were brought to their common tomb in the Street of Heroes. The people debated who should speak their funeral praises. Aischines was proposed, and Demades. But the one had been too right, the other too successful;
to the sore hearts in Assembly, they looked sleek and smug. All eyes returned to the ravaged face of Demosthenes. Perfect defeat, enormous shame had burned out, for the time, all spite from him; the new lines on his tight-drawn skin were of a pain greater than hate. Here was one they could all trust not to rejoice when they were mourning. They chose him to speak the epitaph.

  All the Greek states but Sparta sent envoys to the Council at Corinth. They acknowledged Philip supreme war-leader of Hellas against the Persians, for defense. At this first meeting he asked no more. All the rest would follow.

  He marched to the frontier of sullen Sparta, then changed his mind. Let the old dog keep its kennel. It would not come out; but if cornered, it would die hard. He had no wish to be the Xerxes of a new Thermopylai.

  Corinth, city of Aphrodite, proved readier to please than Athens.

  The King and Prince were splendidly entertained. Alexander found time to climb the long path to Acrocorinth, and survey the great walls which, from below, looked narrow as ribbons round the mount’s towering brow. With Hephaistion he gazed, the day being clear, south to Athens and northward to Olympos; appraised the walls; saw where one could build better ones and scale those that were there; and was reminded to admire the monuments. At the very top was the small graceful white temple of Aphrodite. Some of the goddess’s famous girls, the guide advised them, would certainly at this time have come up from the city precinct to serve her there. He paused expectantly, but in vain.

  Demaratos, a Corinthian aristocrat of the ancient Dorian stock, was an old guest-friend of Philip, and played host to him during the Council. At his great house on the footslopes of Acrocorinth, he gave one night a small intimate party, promising the King a guest who would interest him.

  It was Dionysios the Younger, son of Dionysios the Greater, late of Syracuse. Since Timoleon had expelled him from his tyranny, he had earned his bread here by running a school for boys. He was a shortsighted, gangling, mouse-colored man of about Philip’s age; his new calling, and lack of means, had ended his once notorious dissipations, but he had an old drunkard’s broken-veined nose. A combed, scholarly beard masked his weak chin. Philip, who had surpassed the achievements of even his formidable father the elder tyrant, treated him with charming tact, and when the wine had been round was rewarded by his confidences.

  “I had no experience, when I inherited from my father, none at all. My father was a very suspicious man. You will have heard the stories; they are mostly true. All the gods could have witnessed, I never had a thought of doing him any wrong; but to the day of his death, I was searched to the skin before I was admitted to his presence. I never saw state papers, never attended a war conference. Now if he had left me, as you did your son, to govern at home while he was on campaign, history might have a different tale to tell.”

  Philip nodded gravely, and said he could well believe it.

  “I would have been content if he had only left me to enjoy a young man’s pleasures in peace. He was a hard man; very able, but hard.”

  “Well, many causes go to these reversals.”

  “Yes. When my father took power, the people had had a bellyful of democracy; and when it passed to me, they’d had a bellyful of despotism.”

  Philip had perceived he was not always as foolish as he seemed. “But was Plato no help to you? They say you had two visits from the philosopher.”

  There was a working in the ineffectual face. “Don’t you think I learned some philosophy from Plato, when you see me bear so great a change of fortune?”

  The watery eyes had taken on almost dignity. Philip looked at the well-darned splendor of his one good gown, laid a kindly hand on his, and beckoned up the wine-pourer.

  On a gilded bed, whose headpiece was carved with swans, Ptolemy lay with Thais the Athenian, his newest girl.

  She had come young to Corinth, and had her own house already. There were wall-paintings of twining lovers; the bed-table held two exquisitely shallow cups, a wine jar, and a round flask of scented oil. A triple lamp, upheld by gilt nymphs, glowed on their pleasures; she was nineteen, and had no need of mystery. Her black hair was feather-soft, her eyes were dark blue; her rose-red mouth was unpainted, though she had tinted like pink shells her nails and nipples and nostrils. Her creamy skin had been polished and plucked as smooth as alabaster. Ptolemy was enchanted with her. Languidly, for the hour was late, he stroked her over, hardly caring whether reminiscence renewed desire.

  “We must live together. This is no life for you. I shan’t marry for many years. Don’t fear that I won’t take care of you.”

  “But, darling man, I have all my friends here. Our concerts, play-readings…I should be quite lost in Macedon.” Everyone said he was Philip’s son. One must never sound too eager.

  “Ah, but soon it will be Asia. You shall sit by a blue-tiled fountain, with roses round you; I shall come back from battle and fill your lap with gold.” She laughed, and nibbled his ear.

  He was a man, she thought, whom one could really put up with every night. When one considered some of the others…“Let me think a little longer. Come to supper tomorrow; no, it’s today. I’ll tell Philetas I’m sick.”

  “Little finch. What shall I bring you?”

  “Only yourself.” She had seldom known this to fail. “Macedonians are really men.”

  “Ah, well, you would move a statue.”

  “I’m glad you’ve begun to take your beards off. One can see the handsome faces now.” She ran her finger along his chin.

  “Alexander set the fashion. He says a beard gives the enemy a handhold.”

  “Oh, is that why?…That beautiful boy. They are all in love with him.”

  “All the girls but you?”

  She laughed. “Don’t be jealous. I meant all the soldiers. He’s one of us, you know, at heart.”

  “No. No, there you’re wrong. He’s as chaste as Artemis; or nearly.”

  “Yes, that one can see; it’s not what I meant.” Her feathery brows moved in meditation. She liked her bedfellow, and for the first time bestowed on him her real thoughts. “He is like the great, the famous ones; like Lais or Rhodope or Theodotis they tell tales of in those old days. They don’t live for love, you know; but they live upon it. I can tell you, I have seen, they are the very blood of his body, all those men who he knows would run after him through fire. If ever the day comes when they will follow him no longer, it will be the same with him as with some great hetaira when the lovers leave her door and she puts away her mirror. He will begin to die.”

  A sigh replied to her. Softly she fished up the coverlet and drew it over both of them. He was fast asleep, and it would soon be morning. Let him stay. She might as well start getting used to him.

  From Corinth, Philip went homeward to prepare for the war in Asia. When he was ready, he would seek the Council’s sanction to begin.

  Most of the troops had gone on ahead under Attalos, and dispersed to their homes on leave; Attalos also. He owned an old grey ancestral fort on the footslopes of Mount Pydna; Philip received a message from him, begging the King to honor his rough house by breaking the journey there. The King, who had found him both keen and capable, sent an acceptance back.

  As they turned off the high road into the hills, and the sea-horizon widened, Alexander grew taciturn and withdrawn. Presently he rode off from Hephaistion’s side, overtook Ptolemy, and beckoned him away from the cavalcade among the heath and scrub of the hillside. Ptolemy followed, puzzled; his mind had been on his own concerns. Would she keep her word? She had made him wait for her answer to the very last.

  “What can Father be thinking of,” said Alexander, “not to send Pausanias on to Pella? How can he bring him here?”

  “Pausanias?” said Ptolemy vaguely. His face changed. “Well, it’s his right to guard the King’s person.”

  “It’s his right to be spared this, if he has a right to anything. Don’t you know, it was at Attalos’ house it happened?”

  “He has a house at Pella.”<
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  “It was here. I’ve known that since I was twelve. I was in the stables at home, in one of the stalls, they didn’t see me; Attalos’ grooms were telling ours. Mother told me too, years later, I didn’t tell her it was stale fish. It happened here.”

  “It’s a good while back, now. Six years.”

  “Do you think one could forget in sixty?”

  “He’s at least on duty, he needn’t feel himself a guest.”

  “He should have been released from duty. Father should have helped him out.”

  “Yes,” said Ptolemy slowly. “Yes, a pity…You know, I’d not recalled the matter till you spoke of it, and I’ve had less business to think of than the King.”

  Oxhead, feeling some shock through his rider, snorted and shook his glittering head. “That I’d not thought of! Even in our family, there’s a limit on what one can remind one’s father of. Parmenion should do it, they were young men together. But maybe he’s forgotten, too.”

  “It’s only for this one night…I’ve been thinking, if all goes well she may have sold her house by now. You must see her. Wait till you hear her sing.”

  Alexander rejoined Hephaistion. They rode on in silence till the rock-hewn walls of the fort, a grim relic of the lawless years, came in sight round a bluff. A group of horsemen appeared from the gate, to meet them.

  Alexander said, “If Pausanias is sullen, don’t fall out with him.”

  “No. I know.”

  “Even kings have no right to wrong men and then forget it.”

  “I don’t fancy,” said Hephaistion, who had been giving it thought, “that he does forget. You need to bear in mind how many blood-feuds the King has settled, in his reign. Think of Thessaly; the Lynkestids. My father says, when Perdikkas died there wasn’t a house or tribe in Macedon without one at least. You know Leonnatos and I should be at feud, his great-grandfather killed mine, I must have told you that. The King often asks our fathers to supper the same night, to prove all’s well; they don’t mind it now.”