Conquest of Persia

by Alexander Geiger

  Surprised to see her without the two serving girls and in a way glad to have a mundane topic to discuss, I barged in without a greeting. “Where are their two ‘mommies’?”

  Artakama looked up. Watching her expression go from distracted to startled to surprised to delighted reminded me of a glorious sunrise bursting into a crisp, clear, endless day. “My liege!”

  She sprang to her feet and, before I could assume an appropriately asexual slouch, smothered me in a tight embrace, squeezing my good intentions right out. I wonder how much it’ll hurt to cut my balls off.

  I tried to interpose the two large satchels I had brought with me between us. “Here, I’ve got some food.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  My reflexes betrayed me once again and I was way too slow to fend off the kiss she firmly planted on my lips. “Please don’t. I simply thought you and the children might need some treats to round out your diet.” I thrust my satchels at her.

  A swift, transparent squall clouded over her countenance. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “I didn’t mean it like that, my love.” I dropped the satchels and tried to wipe her tears away.

  She turned her back on me but couldn’t suppress the shaking of her shoulders. “Just leave! Please, leave us alone! And take your lousy treats with you!”

  I took her hand and forced her to face me. “Come, let’s take a walk. The kids can look after one another for a bit. And I’m sure the serving girls will be back soon.”

  Our walk lasted a couple of hours. We spent it mostly in silence. There was so much I wanted to explain and so little I could actually say. Somehow, I think she read my thoughts. Without any conversation at all, we parted friends.

  I came back twice more during our stay in Sousa, always bearing gifts. She accepted them politely, each time expressing her gratitude and pleasure at seeing me. Her face remained clear, composed, and blank throughout, carefully concealing whatever storms raged inside her heart.

  *******

  As I strode back toward the barracks after my first visit with Artakama, I remembered the little leather tube rolled up in my sleeve. After reading the message, I sat down, unable to continue. As luck would have it, I was passing through the chicken sellers’ colonnade at the time but nobody seemed to mind my unexpected presence, least of all the doomed but still very much animated poultry on whose crates I plopped myself down.

  The note was from Seleukos, who had some inkling of the complicated, contentious, formerly murderous relationship between our Great Seer and me. The message was terse: “Aristandros is dead. Thought you might want to know. Seleukos.”

  The news set off a chain reaction in my mind. All the constituent elements necessary to figure out Aristandros’s story must have been percolating in there for a long time but evidently it required a catalyst to break through the subconscious barriers. Seleukos’s note jarred my mental processes enough to enable even me to see the truth at last.

  Aristandros was a time traveler too – that much was obvious. However, now I finally understood why he hadn’t lost his ability to foresee events even after I’d changed the course of history by averting Kleitos’s impending demise as a fourteen-year-old youngster, which in turn enabled Kleitos to save Alexandros’s life during the Battle of Granikos. Aristandros, as I now clearly saw, was a time traveler sent back to this ancient era at some point after I’d embarked on my own ill-starred journey, even though he arrived in Philippos’s Macedonia several years before I did. Evidently, he’d traveled back from a different future, one that already reflected the changes I’d wrought by my inadvertent but unwise and far-reaching violation of the Prime Directive. The history he’d learned in school included Alexandros’s victory at Granikos. No wonder he remained so uncannily accurate in his predictions even after I’d lost my clairvoyance.

  A new, unexpected thought burst into my consciousness. He must’ve screwed up, too. Maybe even worse than I did. He, after all, never made it back home at all. I wondered what he’d done. Perhaps it was when his vanity caused him to make a spectacular dream interpretation to King Philippos of Macedon, which, on the one hand, catapulted him to the foremost ranks of soothsayers in the ancient world but which, on the other hand, may well have also caused him to become marooned in this gullible and superstitious era. I found little solace in my new realization. I wondered, instead, what his original mission had been, what had gone wrong, and how he felt about it all. Well, it’s too late to ask him now.

  It occurred to me that perhaps he’d been sent back specifically to stop me from interfering with the flow of history. I rejected the thought immediately. Aristandros might have known I was a fellow time traveler but he certainly couldn’t have been aware of the fateful, culpable act I’d committed by saving Kleitos’s life. Well, he obviously figured it out in the wake of Granikos. It all started to make sense. His new-found, unexpected antipathy toward me after Kleitos’s pivotal role in our victory; his decision to neutralize me before I could do more harm; his gradual loss of resolve as he realized he wouldn’t live long enough to make it to the next escape hatch, assuming he even knew about its existence. We should’ve been friends and collaborators.

  My reverie was interrupted by a forceful shove against my shoulder. A huge, fleshy man loomed over me, yelling in a tongue I didn’t understand. Seeing the confusion on my face, he switched to Aramaic, which I understood well enough to get his meaning. He had a customer for the chickens confined in the crates on which I was sitting and was anxious not to lose the sale. I jumped to my feet and got out of their way, still preoccupied with thoughts of what might have been.

  *******

  Alexandros stayed in Sousa until mid-January. At that point, we all knew that our next destination would be Persepolis. We also assumed we’d be staying put until spring because the Zagros Mountains lay between Sousa and Persepolis and all the passes were snowbound. As usual, Alexandros decided to defy expectations.

  “We’re moving out in two days,” he announced out of the blue. He made the usual arrangements. The local bureaucrats were retained in their prior positions. Abouletes found himself confirmed as satrap of Sousiana, perhaps to his own surprise. On the other hand, Alexandros also left behind the largest garrison to date, comprising 3,000 allied volunteers and mercenaries under a Macedonian commander. He left Philoxenos in charge of sealing up once again and guarding with his life the largest hoard of riches the world had ever seen. Finally, he also named a trusted Greek as the treasurer in charge of collecting taxes. Learning from his Persian predecessors, he decided it made no sense to dip into accumulated wealth if one could make ends meet from current income.

  He left behind all the hostages, including the Persian royal family, all the women, including Barsine and their infant son Herakles, all the camp followers, and the bulk of the baggage train. Despite the urging of his most trusted advisors, he hadn’t married Barsine prior to his departure.

  Chapter 12 – Persepolis

  Alexandros was obsessed with gaining recognition as the legitimate emperor of Persia. Perhaps it was the adulation heaped upon him in Egypt that had pushed him over the edge. He’d been crowned pharaoh without any real opposition. The natives, including the priests, welcomed him as their liberator and were happy to worship him not only as their new ruler but also as a demigod. It was heady stuff, especially for a youngster conditioned to believe, practically from birth, that he was destiny’s darling. Gradually, with additional impulses provided at Ammon, Gaugamela, Babylon, and all the other intoxicating venues in between, he’d come to believe he’d been chosen by the gods to become ruler of the Persian Empire and maybe one of their colleagues.

  The Persian ruling class, especially those who found themselves in territories conquered by Alexandros’s army, were willing to acquiesce. Ordinary folks hardly noticed any difference and certainly didn’t care. However, for some reason, the Persian magoi refused to go along. And Alexandros was determined to change their minds.

  Persepolis
, the one capital of the Persian Empire actually situated in ancestral Persis, the home base of the Ahura Mazda religious establishment, and the place where Persian emperors had been traditionally crowned (and buried), seemed as good a place as any to press his claim. Besides, after Sousa, Persepolis was the next stop on the royal road. The only trouble were those snow-bound, impenetrable passes through the Zagros Mountains. But Alexandros was an impatient man who’d always believed in the efficacy of speed and surprise. So what if it was the middle of January? There was an emperorship to be seized.

  *******

  Dareios was obsessed with regaining his empire. He was also completely alone. His predicament illustrated the Achilles heel of Persian governance. When every male relative, every competent military commander, every savvy advisor, and every highly placed eunuch is a potential assassin, it’s hard to get reliable counsel. When there is a different woman in your bed every night, and they’re all vying with one another for primacy, it seldom leads to the development of close personal ties. When the exercise of authority is predicated on terror and fear, rare is the subordinate willing to risk life and limb in order to provide unvarnished advice. And three battles lost, against all odds, to an upstart youngster from backward Macedonia tend to tarnish the aura of the office.

  Dareios’s isolation was exacerbated by the fact that he was an outsider at the court, a stranger to power, a latecomer who emerged from nowhere and seized power at a relatively advanced age, without any help from family, friends, colleagues, or collaborators. His only living relatives – his mother and children – were currently out of reach. There was no one he could ask whether, in addition to letting his empire slip through his fingers, he was also losing his mind.

  Dareios was convinced of two things: First, the momentum of Alexandros’s thrust into the Persian Empire would dissipate over time, even without any overt resistance by Persian forces, as the never-ending rounds of debauchery eroded the invading soldiers’ military fitness and as their ever-increasing riches weakened their motivation to fight; second, the unfathomable resources of what was left of the Persian Empire, in terms of manpower, materiel, and disposable wealth, were more than enough to defeat those insolent invaders from the west, provided a competent leader managed to marshal these resources. He fancied himself as that leader.

  But he was also struggling with doubts. Could it be that he was kidding himself? Had the strategic acumen and psychological insights, which had served him so well till then, suddenly deserted him? Was it possible that he’d run out of luck? Were those whispers, containing the word ‘coward,’ real or imagined? Was it true that he’d lost the favor of the gods? He wished he knew.

  The reports trickling in from Babylon and Sousa seemed to support Dareios’s calculations. Alexandros’s soldiers were wallowing in depravity, reveling in loot, and disinclined to forge ahead. On the other hand, the reinforcements and supplies requested by Dareios in countless dispatches were slow to arrive. He told himself there was plenty of time to get ready but he couldn’t completely suppress the nagging uncertainty at the back of his mind.

  There was one idea about which he was fairly sure: Given Alexandros’s extended stay in Babylon, it was reasonable to assume he’d spend a similar amount of time in Sousa. Certainly, he wouldn’t be moving until springtime.

  *******

  In Sousa, there was no replay of the protracted haggling and cajoling that had been required in Babylon to get the troops back on the warpath. Alexandros, flush with coin, was generous to a fault. He also promised his veterans and newcomers alike that, after a quick strike against Persepolis, the war against Persia would be over and they could all go home, rich beyond their wildest dreams. The soldiers believed him.

  The distance from Sousa to Persepolis was not too daunting, only about 450 miles, on one of Persia’s excellent royal roads. The problem was that it was mountainous terrain most of the way, reaching almost 14,000 feet at its highest points. The weather, in the meantime, was ferocious, with temperatures well below freezing, fierce winds, and copious snowfalls. The day after the men left Sousa, they were hit by a blinding blizzard that made any movement impossible. Not that movement was easy even during the lulls between storms. By footwear, attire, and temperament Greek soldiers were ill-prepared for winter campaigning. Despite Alexandros’s impatience, progress was slow.

  Ariobarzanes, satrap of Persis and Media, the two satrapies covering the Persian plateau, received word of Alexandros’s march almost before the pan-Hellenic army had left Sousa. A professional soldier who’d fought well, albeit in vain, at Gaugamela, he’d been anticipating just such a movement. Unlike Dareios, he didn’t assume Alexandros would hunker down for the winter in Sousa and he surmised, correctly, that the capital for which he was responsible, Persepolis, would be the next target. He’d spent all his time since making his escape from Gaugamela assembling as large an army of all-Persian soldiers as possible. When word came, he was ready.

  Ariobarzanes marched out with 25,000 foot soldiers and 700 cavalry, leaving only a small garrison behind. His destination was the tightest chokepoint along the entire route between the two cities, a narrow, deep defile through one of the highest mountain ranges in the Zagros chain, known as the Sousian Gates. His force reached the famous gorge long before Alexandros’s troops got anywhere close. Ariobarzanes set them to work immediately building a tall, stout wall across the entire width of the pass. It wasn’t a long job; the chasm was barely wide enough for two chariots to pass abreast at that point. Once the wall was finished, Ariobarzanes drilled his troops and prepared to defend the Gates. He was an educated man and was familiar with the Battle of Thermopylai, where a couple of thousand Greeks, led by 300 Spartans, withstood the might of the entire Persian army for three days. He had a better position, a stronger wall, and ten times as many troops. He rubbed his hands with glee at the prospect of routing the pan-Hellenic army – and also to keep them warm in the numbing cold.

  As Ariobarzanes knew, there was a second, longer but easier, route through the mountains. He doubted Alexandros was aware of this alternate route but he had a contingency plan ready, just in case. He posted scouts near the fork between the two roads with instructions to report immediately if Alexandros chose the longer route. In that case, he was ready to withdraw to the outskirts of Persepolis and halt the invaders there. Because of his interior lines, he was sure to get back to Persepolis long before Alexandros reached it. The one possibility Ariobarzanes hadn’t considered was Alexandros dividing his forces. To split one’s forces was a prescription for defeat.

  When Alexandros learned of Ariobarzanes’s seizure of the Sousian Gates, he split his forces. He sent Parmenion, with the bulk of the infantry, the Thessalian cavalry, and the baggage train on the more roundabout route, while keeping only the Companion Cavalry and the elite Silver Shields for himself. He ordered these troops to carry minimal gear for maximum speed, leaving their baggage and heavy weapons with Parmenion. And then, against the unanimous advice of his commanders, he decided to attack Ariobarzanes’s wall across the Sousian Gates, counting on the element of surprise to compensate for the tactical weakness of his position.

  Ariobarzanes wasn’t surprised. When Alexandros’s crack troops reached the wall, boulders started rolling down on their heads from both sides of the gorge, missiles rained from atop the wall as well as from every cave, crevice, and footpath above. The pale winter sky was blotted out by clouds of plunging arrows. Alexandros’s best fighting men were repulsed with heavy losses. The most positive thing they accomplished was capturing one lonesome shepherd who’d somehow found himself in the middle of the fight.

  Alexandros withdrew beyond missile range with his tail between his legs. It was a disastrous foray. He wasn’t, however, disheartened. Immediately after making sure the dead and wounded were being properly looked after, he started planning his next attack. His first order of business was to interrogate the shepherd. Alexandros was familiar with the history of Thermopylai as well and he’d r
ead the story all the way to the end. As every Greek boy knew, the Persians eventually prevailed at the Hot Gates when a traitor led some Persian troops on a path above and beyond the Greeks’ defensive wall, allowing the Persians to take on the Spartans from the back as well as the front.

  Eventually, the hapless shepherd was persuaded, by threats and promises of a king’s ransom, to show Alexandros a path above and beyond Ariobarzanes’s defensive wall. The reason the shepherd was reluctant to show us the path was not because of any compunction about betraying the Persians; he was simply loath to commit suicide. Unlike Alexandros, the shepherd knew that it was impossible to negotiate the path in the middle of January.

  *******

  Dareios was seated on his throne in the Ekbatana royal palace, issuing orders as usual. The assembled commanders pretended to listen while openly snickering at everything he said. Most of the satraps had long since left Ekbatana to look after their own private militias. Bessos, satrap of Baktria, one of the few satraps still left in Ekbatana, was holding his own meeting at the other end of the audience hall, plotting Dareios’s overthrow.

  Suddenly, there was a commotion at the far end of the hall. A disheveled man, his clothes covered in dirt and face streaked with sweat, tried to enter while the guards posted at the door did their best to keep him out. Dareios’s voice, weary with resignation, finally reached the guards. “Let him through, let him through.” More out of curiosity to see what would happen next than in response to a direct order from the emperor, the guards let the man through.

  The bedraggled man ran up to the throne, forgetting to prostrate himself before mounting the steps. Dareios tensed in his seat, unsure of the man’s intentions, but otherwise neither he nor any of his guards made a move to stop him.

  The man thrust a large leather tube at Dareios. “A message from Satrap Ariobarzanes, your majesty.”