Echoes of Olympus (The Atheniad Book 1)

by Darrin Drader

  “I seem to have forgotten. He was dead long before my birth.”

  “Socrates was a teacher. He was arrested and put to death for corrupting the youth,” Alexander reminded him. “The Athenian idea of corrupting the youth involved wandering the polis and engaging people in conversation. He would ask them questions and then follow their responses with more questions. In time, a number of youth found his intellect inspiring and began to follow in his footsteps in hopes of becoming more knowledgeable. The nobility of Athens became concerned that their children were wasting their lives by following this dirty homeless man, so they arrested him, tried him for corrupting the youth, and sentenced him to death. Does this sound like freedom to you?”

  Heliodas was at a loss. “I am sure that democracy has its flaws.”

  “Aristotle was the student of Plato, and Plato was the student of Socrates. Plato had a very specific idea on the ideal form of government. Do you know what that is?” Alexander asked.

  “I do not,” Heliodas answered, his cheeks growing red with frustration.

  “Plato saw the death of Socrates as a travesty,” Alexander explained, “and he realized that democracy all too easily trampled the rights of the individual. He said that the ideal form of government is the rule of the philosopher king – someone who is highly educated and immune to the corruption of his position. He said that democracy was inherently fallible and would ultimately self destruct if not interrupted by conquerors or plutocrats who would pray on the political weakness it created. The philosopher king is not interested in power for its own sake, but for the knowledge of science, logic, and rhetoric, and he would rule according to reason and care for the people, while protecting those who are not in the majority. How do you feel about the fact that one of the most educated minds of Athens stated that the ideal form of government is a form of monarchy rather than democracy?”

  “I think that it must be embarrassing to the citizens of Athens,” Heliodas conceded.

  “Embarrassing enough that they would refuse to teach this outside of the Academy?”

  “So it would seem,” Heliodas said.

  “I am king of Macedonia,” Alexander said, his expression becoming serious. “I am the student of Aristotle who was the student of Plato who was the student of Socrates. I am the great experiment in government known as the philosopher king and I will see these lands ruled by reason rather than the barbarism that it has known for so long.” Following his pronouncement, Alexander took a long drink of wine and turned his attention to other matters as he wandered around the tent, visiting with the other soldiers.

  Hours later and somewhat more sober, Heliodas and Pelephon left the tent and walked toward their own section of camp. “You know that you need not fear Alexander,” Pelephon stated.

  “If I feared him, I would not have joined his army,” Heliodas said.

  “Yet you were hesitant to engage him in conversation,” Pelephon pressed.

  “The entire tent felt that way. I was singled out because I am Athenian.”

  “Do you know why Alexander is so popular with his soldiers?” Pelephon asked.

  “He is the king,” Heliodas answered. “His rank demands respect.”

  “Respect, yes, but that is not the same as popularity and loyalty.”

  “I do not know,” Heliodas admitted. “Have I not been grilled enough for one night?”

  “Perhaps not,” Pelephon said. “To truly fight among us, you must understand. Alexander is popular among the men for two reasons. First, he is a gifted leader. He is neither weak, nor is he heavy-handed. He knows when to use his authority to impose peace, and he knows the best methods to ensure the happiness and freedom of his people.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “He is a fearless warrior… a hero! He fights alongside his men. He is a brilliant tactician, but he does not send his soldiers into a battle unless he believes it can be won, and he shares the risk by joining them. In fact, he often joins the units assigned to the most difficult portions of any given battle. I saw him personally challenge a barbarian warlord who towered above him and bore the scars of many battles along our northern border. He bested the barbarian, just as he has bested every other warrior to stand against him. He commands the respect of his soldiers because he does not ask them to do anything that he would not do himself, and he endangers himself to save the lives of the men under his command.”

  Heliodas understood the loyalty of his men, but he could not help but remember the haunted and ambitious look in the king’s eyes, and he wondered whether such a man could ever abandon the demands of his own ego in favor of the needs of those who followed him.

  The army moved slowly over the following months. It was not easy to coordinate the march of forty-two-thousand troops, but worse, the army could march only as fast as its slowest parts, which proved quite slow indeed. Soldiers on horses, chariots, and lightly armed men moved at a good pace, but the carts, siege engines, and mobile manufacturing gear were slow and cumbersome, and dragged their progress down to less than half of what it would be if they travelled at a regular march. Heliodas passed the time as they waited by volunteering for scout duty, which allowed him to ride out ahead and see much of the Macedonian countryside.

  To the best of their knowledge, the Persians were not expecting this invasion. Alexander had been careful to restrict movement around Pella to ensure that spies could not freely observe their movements. The only minor concern was any information that might have leaked to the Persians through Athens, though there were no Persian agents working in Athens that they were aware of, and there were few (if any) Greeks who were sympathetic to the enemy empire. It was true that Sparta could not be trusted, and they had been in league with Persia at points during the past, but they hoped that information about the gathered army did not travel to Persia through Sparta. Regardless, Sparta was no more popular in Athens than Persia, though it would be easier to sneak Spartan spies into Athens due to the shared appearance and language.

  To Heliodas, it seemed as though a year passed before the army reached the Hellespont strait, which was so narrow that it could have been mistaken for a wide river. On the opposite side was Asia, and Ilion, the polis known during the Age of Heroes as Troy. Heliodas had read few works of literature as part of his education, but The Iliad had been recited to him more than once, and he felt a sense of awe just gazing at the docks and walls along the opposite bank. At one time hundreds of years ago, King Agamemnon and the hero Achilles looked at those shores and prepared to defeat one of the greatest cities of its time.

  Heliodas gazed across the river at the polis. The sun’s rays bleached out the colors of the yellow-brown ground, which seemed all the more desolate because of the rocks and sparse vegetation in this area. The terrain on the opposite side of the strait was a steep bank, though there were ready landings near the entrance to Ilion.

  Crossing the strait involved hastily launching countless boats that had been transported here by wagon. The crossings would continue for a day or possibly longer. Because he had been on scouting duty, Heliodas and his horse were aboard one of the first boats to launch, and they traveled near the one that carried Alexander. He took up a position rowing while several of the soldiers on deck corralled the horses to try to keep them from becoming spooked.

  “I wonder how they will react to us in Ilion,” Pelephon thought aloud.

  “I don’t think that we’ll see a battle,” Heliodas said. “The stories I have heard are that the Ionian revolt is still alive and well, if not as open as it once was.”

  “So you don’t think they will fight us?” Pelephon asked.

  “I can’t say for sure,” Heliodas said, “though my sword and spear stand ready in case they decide to fight for Persia.”

  “As do mine!” Pelephon called out loudly.

  The other warriors on the ship heard enough of the conversation to add in cheers of their own, and soon weapons were brandished and pointed defiantly at the rapidly approachi
ng shoreline. Alexander took no actions to still the war cries as the men on other boats heard their battle cries and joined in.

  A short time later, as their boats neared the beach, twenty men on horses, flying the banner of Ilion, approached. Alexander picked up a spear and hurled it to the shore. The projectile arced up and then struck the ground tip first, sticking in the soil well short of the polis’ soldiers. His boat was the first to land, followed shortly by Heliodas’.

  Alexander jumped from the boat’s prow, pulled the spear out of the ground, and held it over his head as he loudly proclaimed, “Behold the banks of Ionia! We will win the whole of Asia by the spear!”

  The men on the other arriving ships, at least those within earshot, began to cheer. Several soldiers hurled spears of their own, landing them at a distance from their king.

  Heliodas’ ship struck the beach and he released his oar, climbed to his feet, found his horse among the group, and led it into the shallow water. He rode alongside the Macedonian king, as other soldiers were doing.

  Alexander approached the riders of Ilion at the head of his soldiers. “I am Alexander, King of Macedonia. I demand that you surrender your polis to me.”

  The lead horseman fell to a knee and said, “By the orders of the governor Antalgonus, we hereby surrender the polis to your forces.”

  “I accept your surrender,” Alexander said, inclining his head toward the polis’ riders. And thus the polis once known as Troy changed hands once again, this time without spilling a drop of blood.

  “Come,” Alexander called to his soldiers, “I would take a tour of my newest polis.”

  The tour of the polis was swift and peaceful. Alexander cautioned his soldiers to treat the people of this polis as long-lost friends rather than losers to be looted. The polis had an ancient feel. Many of the older buildings possessed columns that were more reminiscent of the Egyptian styles, while the pillars on other buildings were distinctly Greek in nature. The pillars included all of the ones found throughout mainland Greece, including the Doric style, with the round bases and tops, the Ionic, which had a round base but a scroll at the top, and the Corinthian, which had a standard base and was topped with carvings of acanthus leaves. All but the Egyptian pillars were fluted along their bodies.

  Heliodas could not escape the feeling that though this was just a few short miles from the Greek mainland, he was in a much different land now. His feelings were confirmed when he saw his first elephant, which was being led through the agora by a robed man. He pointed out the great beast to Pelephon, who merely smirked.

  “You act as though you have seen them before,” Heliodas said.

  “I have. Several, in fact. When I was younger, I traveled by ship to Ionia with my family. Elephants are not as common as horses on the mainland here, but they are plentiful.”

  Alexander led the way through the polis, finally stopping before a very old stone structure. The building was relatively small and square, with a large door framed by slabs of stone. Above the door was an engraved depiction of a man holding a spear, and another with a soldier on a horse. The third and final image showed a man in a toga holding incense out before him. Alexander turned to one of the riders of Ilion, and said, “I believe I recognize this place. It is the tomb of Achilles, is it not?”

  “It is,” replied the man.

  Alexander approached the door and attempted to turn the bronze handle to gain entrance. It would not budge.

  “Open it,” Alexander said to the riders.

  “We cannot. This tomb has not been opened in over five hundred years. It is forbidden.”

  Anger flashed in Alexander’s dark eyes. “As the new ruler, it is no longer forbidden to your king. Open the door so that I may look upon the face of the great Achilles!”

  With a look of apprehension, the soldier placed his hands on the handle and tried to force it. When his efforts proved fruitless, two other riders added their strength to the effort. They strained for long moments, their faces turning red as their muscles bulged. Eventually they heard a slow scraping sound from within the structure. A moment later, the door swung inward revealing a dark chamber within.

  “Athenian, come with me,” Alexander said to Heliodas.

  Heliodas lit a torch and joined the Macedonian king as they entered the single room within. Lying upon a stone platform were the armored skeletal remains of the once undefeatable Achilles.

  “Look at this,” Alexander said in wonder, holding the skeleton’s broken left heel. “The heel where Thetis held him as a baby when she dipped him in Ambrosia… the heel Paris shot with the poisoned arrow that ended his life.”

  “I always believed that to be a legend,” Heliodas said. “A myth invented by the people who spun the Trojan War into the legends we tell to the children.”

  “You of all people should have more faith in the gods,” Alexander stated.

  “Why would you say that?” Heliodas asked, hoping that Alexander had not heard the stories his mother once told of his godly heritage.

  Alexander lifted the soldier’s bronze shoulder plate and pulled aside the top of the chiton underneath, revealing the birthmark below, which took a shape that looked remarkably like a bull. “I heard the tales before I allowed you into the army. You are the son of Zeus and you carry on you the sign of his favor.”

  “That is what my mother claimed, but there were many in Athens who believed her mad,” Heliodas said.

  “Were you one of them?” Alexander asked.

  “I was,” Heliodas said.

  “That is unfortunate,” Alexander said. “I met your mother when I was younger, after I was brought back to Athens. She was beautiful and intelligent, and she possessed a spirit that was unequaled among the women that I knew in that polis. She was many things, but she was not mad.”

  “So you believe that I am the son of the father of the gods?” Heliodas asked incredulously.

  “You cannot escape your parentage any more than I can escape mine. You bring the favor of the gods to this army.”

  Heliodas said nothing and was not certain that he would repeat this conversation to the other soldiers. Was it possible that Alexander was mad? His haunted eyes did betray a type of madness that was usually only seen with society’s outcasts… and the world’s most powerful men.

  Alexander approached the corpse of the ancient hero, touched the dusty bronze armor, then lifted the ancient bronze shield that rested at his side. Heliodas noticed numerous gashes carved into the polished surface, which also bore a low-relief sculpture of Achilles himself wielding a spear as he strode into battle. “Great Achilles, I take this gift in your honor as we fight to overthrow the Achaemenid Empire.”

  Heliodas’ eyes widened in surprise at the audacity of the Macedonian king who looted Achilles’ corpse, but he remained silent. Alexander turned from the body and strode back out the door and toward his troops, his new shield held triumphantly over his head. The soldiers cheered when they saw the bronze relic from the bygone age.

  Chapter 3

  Thermiandra’s Song

  It was not the type of dream Thermiandra was accustomed to. It wasn’t as though her dreams normally made sense to her, but they almost never compelled her to do anything after waking up. In fact, she normally didn’t remember what she’d dreamt about after waking, but this was different, and it was something that she had no choice but to act upon.

  She remembered back to the beginning. It was a misty black night and Thermiandra was walking among the boulders on the beach of the Aegean Sea. Strange, faceless entities stood around her, but they did not move or acknowledge her in any way, yet she was certain that they were alive. It was as though they were natural elements of the scenery, like foliage, or trees. She wandered down to the water, almost aimlessly, and then stepped in with her bare feet. It was unusually cold, but she continued along the shoreline, submerged to her ankles.

  She continued along, and she noted that the strange faceless entities remained, completely unchanging a
nd uncaring. There must have been ten or more of them in all. Some stood upon the water’s surface dozens of feet from the shoreline. Finally, and for reasons she could not fully remember, she grew frustrated with them – she’d been pleading with them about something - and she decided to embrace the depth of the sea instead of continuing her efforts, completely submerging herself. They would not follow her there. She ran splashing into the water with abandon, going ever deeper until her body slipped into the cold embrace of the sea.

  She turned to look at the surface of the water above, but her surroundings shifted. Of course they wouldn’t let her out that easy, she realized. She couldn’t tell if her new location was indoor or outdoor. The one thing she was certain of was that it was extremely bright - so bright, in fact, that she was forced to close her eyes for a moment while they adjusted to the light.

  “Thermiandra,” called a feminine voice.

  “What?” Thermiandra responded.

  She heard the voice call her name again, gently but firmly, but she could not tell where it was coming from. There was nobody in sight, not even those damnable faceless figures. “I can hear you. What would you have of me?”

  The voice called to her again and again, but she could not tell which direction it came from. Finally she began to run blindly ahead, not knowing if she was going toward the speaker or away. She looked around as she ran, but realized that she could not tell from her surroundings that she had moved at all. “Who are you? What do you want?” she called. She continued to run forward, but then stopped abruptly when she noticed that she was about to step off the edge of a cliff. Still the voice continued to beckon her.

  She could see that there were armies amassed and clashing in the valley below. The individual soldiers were too tiny from her point of view to make out, but she could see that the smaller army was tearing into the larger with abandon while the other seemed almost helpless against the onslaught.