Conquest of Persia

by Alexander Geiger

  Notwithstanding my lack of medical expertise, I decide to remove his cover to see whether I could determine what was wrong. He wore nothing but a soiled diaper underneath. Palpating his neck, I detected a slow, regular pulse, as strong and steady as a tolling bell. His skin felt cold and clammy. I didn’t see any wounds, sores, boils, or other obvious indicia of illness or injury. Moving down to his emaciated abdomen, I failed to detect any lumps, swelling, or inelasticity. As I ran my fingers toward the top of his diaper, I felt a thin, almost invisible scar in the area between his navel and right hip. Either a hernia or an appendectomy, I thought.

  And then I jumped away from him, as though hit by a surge of electromagnetic energy. It’s a surgical scar, I kept repeating to myself. A straight, neat, thin, nearly invisible surgical scar. People don’t have such scars in this era.

  I ran out of the chamber, almost bowling over the eunuch standing in the hallway. I handed the lamp back. “Take care of him!”

  *******

  I couldn’t shake the implications of the scar from my mind. Several possible explanations occurred to me, each more farfetched than the last. There might’ve been some unknown virtuoso surgeon somewhere in this ancient world who’d left the telltale incision on Aristandros’s abdomen. Reluctantly, I was forced to abandon that hypothesis. Not only had I never heard of such a surgeon, either during my studies about this era prior to my trip or during the thirteen years I’d spent actually living in this time but the infrastructure needed to accomplish the task was also missing. The requisite scalpels, retractors, forceps, suction tubes, needles, sutures, antibiotics, and anesthesia didn’t exist.

  I considered the possibility that the scar I’d felt and examined was not a scar at all but some kind of a fluke disfigurement or birthmark. Random chance and genetic mutation can produce all sorts of fantastic chimeras but, alas, a straight, neat, thin, nearly invisible surgical scar is far less likely to occur by random chance than a frog with two heads.

  After considering, and discarding, all the extremely improbable scenarios, I was left with only one explanation, which was not only possible but actually quite likely. It was simply difficult to accept psychologically. Aristandros was a fellow time traveler and had acquired his scar prior to his departure from his native era.

  Once I had forced myself to consider this theory, not only did it explain the existence of the scar, it explained a great many other things about Aristandros. It certainly accounted for his ability to predict future events, since for him those events were history. It could also explain his antipathy toward me. If he’d somehow divined that I was a time traveler long before the same thought had crossed my mind about him, he might well have concluded that two time travelers in one place and time were one too many. With two time travelers, the possibility of interference multiplied geometrically. Plus, on a more mundane level, I was the one person in this world who might well unmask him. Sooner or later, even someone as obtuse and oblivious as me was bound to stumble on the obvious thought that, if one person could travel back in time, so could others.

  Strangely, I was pleased with my discovery. Not only did everything about Aristandros suddenly make sense but I realized at the same time that he too had somehow become stranded in this era, just as I had. Notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary, he must have violated the Prime Directive as well. For some reason, the thought made me smile.

  But then another thought wiped the smirk off my face. What if it was my violation that stranded not only me but him as well? Before I could start feeling too guilty about what I may have done to him, however, I decided that my violation of the Prime Directive was unlikely to be the cause of Aristandros’s marooning. He had arrived years before I did. His time hop couldn’t possibly have been intended to last for years. Nah, he’d managed to get himself stranded all by himself.

  I was drifting happily off to sleep, when another thought jarred me wide awake: How come he, unlike me, hadn’t lost his predictive ability when I changed the course of events?

  *******

  The Audience Hall was packed but there was no mixing between the two groups. The walls were lined by Macedonian bodyguards, armed to the teeth. Spread amidst the massive columns on the right side of the spacious hall were the Macedonian officers, in armor and carrying swords and daggers. On the left side, caught between the bodyguards and the officers, were the Persian and Babylonian nobility, courtiers, and high-ranking administrators. They were all dressed to the nines, in luxurious, colorful costumes of linen, felt, leather, wool, and the occasional scrap of silk. They were all unarmed, having been carefully searched before being admitted into the hall. The noise of conversations, laughter, and occasional verbal combat echoed from the marble walls but there was no fraternization. I didn’t observe a single interaction between a Macedonian soldier and one of the gaudily attired dandies.

  The din subsided abruptly when Alexandros appeared at the rear door of the Audience Hall. The Persians and Babylonians fell to their knees and touched their foreheads to the granite paving stones. The lower ranking officials flattened themselves on the floor, arms outstretched to the side, palms down. The Macedonian soldiers mostly stopped talking and gaped.

  It wasn’t the locals’ proskynesis that amazed us; we’d seen them abase themselves many times before. The truly astonishing sight was Alexandros’s getup. He wore one of Dareios’s shimmering robes, heavily larded with gold and precious stones. Someone had attempted to cut down the lavish garment to fit Alexandros’s smaller frame but the job had been botched, resulting in jagged edges and lopsided folds. On his head, instead of the customary simple diadem, he sported a tall, gold-bedecked, felt hat.

  As Alexandros struggled to mount the throne, which was much too big for him, a hem of his robe caught on a step, causing him to lose his balance and crash-land into his seat. The natives gasped, while the Macedonians broke into hearty laughter. By the time he’d managed to position his buttocks in the middle of the seat, with his feet dangling in thin air, and his hat tumbling slowly, step by step, to the bottom of the small ziggurat that formed the platform for his throne, all the attendees had regained their former composure – stern, stone-faced, and trying not to titter. One of the bodyguards snatched up the rolling hat and attempted to hand it up to Alexandros but the would-be emperor waved him aside.

  “Mazaios,” he said, “you may start the coronation ceremony.”

  The satrap of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, still on his knees, placed his palms on the pavement, bowed again deeply, and beckoned to the chief magos of Ahura Mazda. He had been specifically imported to Babylon for this occasion. Neither the local Babylonian clergy nor some run-of-the-mill Persian magos would do. Only Ahura Mazda’s chief priest was authorized to officiate at an emperor’s investiture.

  The wizened old man and his fellow magoi were the only non-Macedonians in the room to have remained standing while Alexandros had made his entrance. At Mazaios’s signal, the chief magos stepped forward to where we could all see him. He was enfolded from head to toe in a shimmering white sheet, a portion of which had been fashioned into a cowl covering his head. His sheet was cinched at the waist by a hempen rope and bronze brooches deployed strategically at the throat and shoulders kept the garment in shape. His face was concealed in the shadow of his hood, with only the burning coals of his deep-set eyes and the trembling points of his forked beard clearly visible.

  The shaman raised his palms toward the ceiling, causing his robe to fall away from his arms, revealing withered muscles and puckered skin. He started chanting a keening prayer to his god. After hitting a particularly long and shrill note, he stopped abruptly and clapped his hands above his head. When his palms came apart, there was a large golden medallion in his right hand. How it got there was anybody’s guess. We were all too stunned by this feat of prestidigitation to utter a sound.

  The magos bowed curtly to Alexandros and threw the medallion on the pavement in front of him, where it promptly burst into flames. I could se
e in Alexandros’s eyes that he was dazzled by the show. He clearly believed the old man had a direct channel to his god. The priest made an embracing motion with his arms, as though ingathering the spirit of Ahura Mazda as it arose from the flaming coin. His fellow magoi interpreted the gesture as an invitation to join the sacred circle and crowded around the guttering flame, dousing it with some powder, which caused the flame to flare up once again.

  “This guy’s quite a magician,” I whispered to Kleitos but my friend was as astonished by what he was seeing as everyone else in the hall. He simply ignored my comment.

  Mazaios, in the meantime, still on his knees, was expectantly looking toward Alexandros for permission to rise. When the signal was slow in coming, he started nodding meaningfully toward the great, elaborate, heavy scepter lying on the pavement next to his left knee. Unfortunately for Mazaios, the chief magos had resumed his chanting. I fully expected to see him pull a dove from under his robe at any moment and evidently so did Alexandros because his eyes remained fixed on the old man.

  Alas, there were no further acts of legerdemain, only endless chanting, singing, and sprinkling of flammable incense on the sacred fire. Eventually, the shaman completed this performance and Mazaios was permitted to rise and present the imperial scepter to Alexandros, which only provoked renewed gales of incomprehensible incantations.

  Eventually, even Alexandros grew tired of the protracted proceeding and asked for the imperial crown to be placed on his head. His request was met by an embarrassed silence.

  “It’s the imperial tiara, your celestial highness,” Mazaios finally said.

  “Alright, so give me the imperial tiara, then.”

  “We can’t, your most merciful magnificence.” Mazaios’s voice was barely audible. “The imperial tiara has disappeared. Presumably Dareios took it with him when we marched to Gaugamela. But it makes no difference, I assure you, your mystical majesty. You are the new Persian emperor as far as everyone in this hall is concerned.”

  Alexandros motioned to Seleukos to approach the throne. “Is he right?”

  Seleukos shrugged. “Traditionally, there are three requirements for ascension to the throne: The would-be successor must possess the imperial tiara; he must hold the imperial scepter; and the previous incumbent must be dead. But as long as the people and the troops accept you as the new emperor, you can always commission a new tiara and declare that Dareios is as good as dead.”

  Alexandros was unpersuaded. “Alright, everybody out,” he finally bellowed. “We’ll resume when the tiara turns up.”

  *******

  The tiara didn’t turn up and Alexandros left Babylon in pursuit of the elusive emperorship of Persia shortly after the abortive coronation ceremony. Before leaving, he saw to the usual administrative provisions. This time, though, he took a more expansive view of the territory to be administered. He appointed satraps not only for Babylonia but also for a number of other satrapies, some of which were at the moment well outside his ability to control.

  Mazaios, as promised, was confirmed as satrap of Babylonia and Mesopotamia. His authority, however, proved to be severely circumscribed. First, Babylon itself was to be controlled by a permanent garrison of a thousand soldiers, composed of Macedonian veterans and Greek mercenaries, commanded by a Macedonian general. Second, while Mazaios would continue to be the highest civilian authority in the two satrapies, all his military and taxing powers were reassigned to loyal Macedonians.

  Alexandros made similar arrangements for all the satrapies not previously placed under Alexandros-appointed administrators and commanders between Egypt and Phrygia and from the Mediterranean to the Caspian. Some of these assignments were aspirational. For example, showing his sense of humor, he assigned the satrapy of Lesser Armenia to the old traitor Mithrines as payment for services rendered.[18] Unfortunately, no Macedonian (or Greek for that matter) had ever set foot in Lesser Armenia.

  When Mithrines appeared somewhat skeptical about his new position, Alexandros sought to reassured him. “It’s part of the Persian Empire, isn’t it? And I’m the emperor of Persia, right? So, what’s to stop me from naming you satrap of Lesser Armenia?”

  “Nothing, your celestial highness.” But it would be some time before Mithrines assumed his new post.

  Having seen to his administrative dispositions, Alexandros ordered the army, except for the garrison he was leaving behind, to prepare to move out on two days’ notice. The baggage train, including all the treasures seized in Babylon, as well as the priests, soothsayers, eunuchs, women, children, and assorted hangers-on would follow a few days later. Unfortunately, and much to Alexandros’s regret, his newly acquired menagerie of elephants, lions, leopards, and scores of other exotic animals would have to be left behind.

  Our next objective: Sousa, the second of the four great capitals of the Persian Empire.

  Chapter 10 – On the March Again

  It proved unexpectedly difficult to persuade the Macedonian veterans to leave the fleshpots of Babylon behind and resume the struggle. The soldiers were perfectly content with the loot they’d amassed and believed, with some justification, that they’d achieved all the original goals of the pan-Hellenic expedition and then some. If the time had come to leave Babylon behind, the place they wanted to go was home.

  Alexandros, on the other hand, still had unfinished business to attend to. After being acclaimed as the pharaoh of Egypt and a demigod, he’d become obsessed with achieving universal recognition as emperor of Persia and keeper of Ahura Mazda’s flame on Earth. He wasn’t going to let some Persian clerics deny him with their incantations the position he’d won on the battlefield against the massed forces of the Persian Empire.

  In the end, Alexandros’s charisma and new-found wealth carried the day. Relying on his dwindling yet still unparalleled rapport with his soldiers, he spent days chatting, haranguing, and imploring them to complete the mission. And he did his best to bribe them. Not only were the troops paid in full for their services up to that point and not only did they get to keep all the spoils previously captured by them but Alexandros also ordered Harpalos, his chief treasurer, to pay, on the spot, a bonus equal to their respective annual salaries to each commander, cavalryman, infantryman, mercenary, auxiliary, and supernumerary. By the time he was done, Alexandros had distributed most of the coin seized from Dareios’s Babylonian treasury. Eventually, the battle-hardened veterans of the pan-Hellenic army agreed to resume the campaign.

  As we marched out of Babylon, in mid-October 255 Z.E., the soldiers sang of victory, homeland, and pretty women. Alexandros dreamt of the royal tiara, a dead Dareios, and complaisant magoi. And I, riding at the head of my squadron, hoped for answers I’d failed to obtain from the comatose Aristandros.

  *******

  In Pella, Antipatros slammed his fist on the rough-hewn tabletop, making the scattered scrolls jump. “Is this what he needed our best soldiers for?”

  Kassandros shrugged. “I’ve been telling you to ignore his requests for a long time.”

  Behind the closed and barred doors of the armory of the royal palace, Antipatros continued to rage. “If I’d had some reserves to spare, Zopyrion and his 30,000 men wouldn’t have been lost!”

  For once, Kassandros was the calming influence. “I know, father. I know.”

  “Thirty thousand fine young Macedonian soldiers – lost.”

  “You could say the same about Korrhagos and his 10,000 men.”

  “Yes, I could. In fact, I was about to. That’s 40,000 warriors lost unnecessarily. Worse than that, we came within a hairsbreadth of losing our entire kingdom. And why? Because Alexandros keeps demanding more and more troops.”

  “He’s been winning, though.”

  “What good does that do us? And what’s he doing with our soldiers now? He’s feasting, guzzling uncut wine, and screwing anything that moves in that whore city of Babylon, turning our men into effete degenerates. He’ll never come home. He’s happy being an Asian despot.”

 
; “We don’t know that, father. It takes months for the messages from our embedded friends to get to us. For all we know, he’s on his way back right now.”

  “In that case, what did he need that last batch of reinforcements for? While we’re besieged on every side.”

  Kassandros held up a newly-arrived letter from Alexandros. “Are we going to show this to his mother? It is addressed to her.”

  “No, we’ll summarize it for her. No point swelling her head even further. She’s hard enough to control as it is.”

  “I’ve got an idea, dad. Why don’t we tell her he’s debauching and drinking himself to death in Babylon? Maybe she can think of some way to get him to come back even if we can’t.”

  Antipatros laughed. “Why not? It does have the additional advantage of being true.”

  “On the other hand, do we really want him to come back? What’s wrong with simply remaining in charge here and refusing to send any more reinforcements?”

  The regent of Macedonia stopped laughing. “As long as he’s king, he’ll call the tune, here as well as there. Whether we like it or not. And even if he never comes back, his troops are coming back. So stop talking nonsense.”

  “It’s not nonsense, dad. Just think about it.”

  “It is nonsense and I don’t want to hear you say it again. Remember, even the walls have ears. Now, let’s go see his mother.”

  *******

  Our column soon stretched for many miles along the royal road from Babylon to Sousa. At our normal speed, it should’ve taken us about three weeks to cover the 375 miles between the two capitals. But we weren’t making anywhere near our normal speed. The army had grown large, fat, and complacent. And then there were the frequent stops and interruptions.

  We were barely two days out when one of the veterans assigned to the rearguard came galloping up, yelling as he approached. A large army was catching up fast. His report seemed puzzling at first since the only force in our rear should’ve been the garrison we’d left behind in Babylon.