God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

by Christian Cameron

  I was impressed. And the Greeks called us barbarians?

  ‘Now – you must have come from Thebes, eh?’ I notice he spat when he said the name of the city, even though it was just a few stades away.

  Plataeans are good haters.

  I nodded.

  ‘So your horse can’t be far. Take the trail here and head that way. Where the trail forks at the top of the ridge – that’s where your horse ought to be, eh?’

  I admitted it was.

  ‘Shall I walk with you?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. I felt . . . strange. As if I was in the presence of the hero himself.

  ‘Take wine with me,’ I said.

  He grinned, and filled the cup again. He took a deep draught, and handed me the cup, and I drank – the rich red wine of Plataea, which men call the Blood of Herakles.

  ‘Drain it,’ he ordered, and I did. I was already feeling odd.

  He laughed, and patted my back. ‘Go conquer the world, lad,’ he said, ‘with my blessing. But when the day comes, remember what a freeman’s duty is, and don’t flinch.’

  What did he mean?

  You’ll see.

  My horse was right where he said it would be, with Ochrid standing worried by his head. I mounted, took the reins and rode back to camp, feeling a little drunk and a little foolish. In a village so tiny it was really just four houses and a roadside shrine, I bought a raw amphora of the local wine and carried it on my hips all the way down the mountain and across the Asopus and up the road to Thebes.

  I saved it for a few days, until we all moved camp to Corinth. The army went north to the Gates of Fire, because Alexander knew that to camp the army around Corinth would be to offend the delegates. But he didn’t send the army home, either. And he took my squadron of Hetaeroi.

  Parmenio sent ‘Uncle’ Amyntas to join us. He was officially welcomed as commander of Asia, and any remaining hopes anyone had of overthrowing Alexander collapsed. The Athenian delegation reached Alexander – without Demosthenes, who proved just as much of a social coward as he was a battlefield coward. He ran off into voluntary exile rather than face the king.

  But to my delight, Kineas came out with his father, and he had Gracchus and Lykeles and Niceas with him. Phokion, of course, was one of the delegates, with Kineas’s father.

  We had some fine dinners and some ferocious competitions, too – horse-racing and javelin-throwing and a dozen other things. The only one I remember well was fighting Kineas with a wooden sword. We both wrapped our chlamyses about our arms – I don’t even remember how this started – and we were showing off for Thaïs – well, I was – fighting too hard, making showy attacks – and we had a flurry – this is the part I remember – that was nearly perfect – cut and counter, back and forth, for maybe as long as it takes me to say this sentence – ended locked up, each grabbing the other’s sword-wrist, and we laughed and embraced.

  And afterwards, I told Kineas about my visit to the Hero’s Tomb. He’d talked of it and we’d meant to visit.

  He shook his head.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘There hasn’t been a priest there in fifty years,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Must be a new man, then.’

  I served the Blood of Herakles to Alexander the night that the League proclaimed him hegemon as his father had been. The night that we climbed the high altar of the city and swore an oath – every city, every delegation, and I swore for Macedon because Alexander was hegemon of the whole alliance – to make war on Persia until all the cities of the Ionian were free, and then until our armies held Persepolis and Ectabana and the Great King was toppled and all Asia was ours.

  It was a mighty oath. We swore to avenge the insults to Athena and Zeus at Athens, to every Greek temple looted by the barbarian, every violated precinct, every outraged family, every city ground under the Persian heel. We swore to liberate every Greek slave.

  We swore.

  The delegates were divided, and it was old Phokion who pointed this out to me. We were coming down the steps of the Acrocorinth, and he was taking his time – he was seventy, and he moved like a man in his fifties, but he also took his time – and Kineas and I waited for him.

  ‘Half those men worry that you will fail to war down Persia,’ he said. ‘And half worry that you won’t fail.’ He laughed. ‘I wish I could come.’

  Kineas took his hand. ‘Come, master!’

  Phokion shook his head. ‘Enough to have seen this night. Too long have Greeks frittered away their birthright. Sparta failed, and Athens failed. Let young Macedon lead us to victory. Let Persia tremble. The young king has the fire.’

  We walked down the steps, the sun set over the Gulf and the gods listened.

  One more thing happened in Corinth – it’s a well-known story. We’d spent the morning wrangling with Demosthenes over the Athenian supply of naval stores to the alliance – there’s nothing like a petty-minded bureaucrat to bring you down to earth when you’ve been imagining yourself the conqueror of Asia – and Alexander had had enough.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he announced to Hephaestion. He looked at me. ‘Come.’

  The three of us simply rose and left the negotiations.

  A small horde of sycophantic Greeks followed us. Really, that’s not fair – your pater was there, and so was Diodorus, and Nearchus, and Alectus, of all people. The army was at the gates, but the hypaspists were outside the city. Just in case.

  I assumed from Alectus’s presence that we were going to visit the hypaspitoi.

  I was wrong.

  We walked down the hill towards the Gulf side of the isthmus, and then out of the city proper into the suburbs. You have to imagine – the captain general of the League of all Greece, wandering down alleys the width of a small bed – dusty alleys, alleys with beggars, thieves and some very ordinary people, who were amused, annoyed or outraged. Or delighted.

  Oh, it was spectacular. Especially as the captain general didn’t know where he was going and didn’t want to tell us or ask directions.

  We wandered for an hour. I wondered what Demosthenes was doing, and Diodorus began an acerbic commentary on the captain general’s sense of direction. Kineas tried to shut him up, but his sharp voice carried, and Alexander heard him.

  He turned. ‘You have something to say, Athenian?’

  Diodorus stood his ground. ‘If you are looking for Diogenes the Cynic, you have only to say so. If this is how we’re going to conquer Persia – well, it’ll be good exercise.’ He smiled. ‘Unless this is a test of rival philosophies – you wander about like Aristotle, Diogenes sits in his olive garden without moving?’

  Most of the Macedonians didn’t get it. I got it. I laughed.

  Hephaestion glared at me.

  Alexander shrugged. ‘Take us there,’ he said.

  Diodorus looked at me. His face was easy to read. It said, This is not going to end well. ‘Diogenes does not accept visitors,’ he said.

  ‘And you know because?’ Alexander asked.

  ‘I tried. The first day we were here.’ Diodorus shrugged.

  Alexander smiled. ‘Perhaps you were not Alexander,’ he said.

  After Alexander walked on, Diodorus made a face. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, in a voice calculated to suggest that this pleased him more than the alternative.

  But he got us to the philosopher’s house, and we knocked, and a slave answered the door and insisted that his master would not receive anyone, no matter how well born, noble or beautiful.

  Alexander pushed past him.

  I was content to wait outside, but Alectus pushed right in behind the king. Bodyguard. Of course.

  But the rest of the followers took that as an excuse to stay with the king.

  I shook my head but followed Diodorus. Kineas stopped at the doorway. ‘My father says I should never enter a house where I’m not invited,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘Good advice.’

  He smiled. ‘I�
�ll wait here, then.’

  I went in, against my judgement, to find that we were in a tiny house, far too small to hold twenty well-born men and their slaves and servants. It had a small courtyard, and in the middle of it lay an older man with an average body, a little inclined to paunchiness, naked, sunbathing.

  His eyes were closed.

  Alexander stood watching him.

  Diogenes, if it was he, made no move to speak or welcome us. No rage, no anger, no interest, nothing. He just lay with his eyes closed.

  This went on for an incredible length of time. It was excruciating – embarrassing – you have to remember that no one had ever ignored Alexander. For any reason whatsoever.

  Time stretched. Men scratched themselves, spoke in increasingly loud whispers, looked around. If you want to get the measure of men, make them be silent for a long time. See what they do.

  On and on.

  I just watched. Mostly, I was waiting for Alexander to explode.

  On and on.

  Alexander stood as immobile as the philosopher.

  On and on.

  Back up the hill, we were building the alliance that would conquer Persia and change the world, and here in this garden, we weren’t worth the shit in our bowels. I knew that the fucking philosopher knew we were here, knew who we were, and honestly, actually, didn’t care.

  Good for you, friend. Point made. Let’s go.

  Or let’s gut him and leave him to bleed out and see how he feels about that.

  I can be a bad man. I had some bad thoughts.

  Alexander cleared his throat. I had never seen him so ill at ease.

  Diogenes opened one eye. Very sporting of him – almost courteous. The pompous twit.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked.

  ‘I am Alexander,’ the king said.

  ‘Yes,’ Diogenes agreed.

  ‘I . . . admire you very much. Is there . . . anything – at all – I could do for you?’ Alexander sounded like a boy with a crush on a great warrior. I’d never heard him sound like that – all his near-mythic certainty veiled.

  Diogenes closed his eyes. ‘You could get out of my sun. You are shading me.’

  Hephaestion spluttered.

  Diodorus fled. He didn’t want to roar out his laughter.

  I got out in a hurry, because I was tempted to pummel the philosopher with my fists. Just to teach him respect for his betters. Kineas was sitting on the step, with his stick on his shoulder and one fist against his chin.

  Diodorus was moving so fast he was almost running.

  Kineas gave me an odd grin. ‘I take it that was bad?’ he said.

  He got to his feet as Alexander emerged.

  ‘I could kill him,’ Alectus said, at his shoulder.

  I laughed. My eyes met Alectus’s and we shared a moment of barbarism.

  Hephaestion was shaking. ‘Useless, pompous bastard. I’d kick him, but it would soil my feet!’

  Alexander stopped in mid-stride, pivoted and put a brotherly hand on Hephaestion’s shoulder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you are wrong. He behaved exactly as he should. We intruded in his house. We were not invited. And we deserved nothing better. In fact,’ Alexander smiled, ‘if I were not King of Macedon, I would want to be Diogenes. And I would expect kings to stay out of my garden.’

  ‘You’d keep yourself in better shape,’ Hephaestion said.

  Someone laughed.

  Alexander looked over at Kineas. ‘What did you think, Athenian?’

  Kineas shrugged. ‘I didn’t go in.’

  Alexander stopped as if he’d received a blow.

  ‘Diogenes is very careful about his privacy,’ Kineas said, as if this statement would make it all better.

  ‘How do you know?’ Hephaestion asked.

  Kineas shrugged. And very wisely, said nothing. It was that night that I found out that he and Diodorus had both been students here for a few months – had sat in that garden and listened to the great man.

  Saying so would have been foolish, and Kineas was wise.

  But Alexander told the story for the rest of his life. Once, by the Ganges, he told the part about Kineas. He looked across the river and said, ‘Perhaps the Athenian was the wisest of all.’ The king looked at the ground. He was trying to impress a passel of Indian philosophers. ‘He didn’t try to enter the man’s house.’

  And one of the old Indian men shook his head. ‘There is no single answer to any question,’ he said.

  The king liked that.

  THIRTEEN

  We marched for home. It was late in the year, and there was snow in the passes again, and the Greeks were happy to see us go.

  Alexander was determined that we would march by way of Delphi so that he could consult the oracle. We marched two days through snow, and Poseidon’s mane got icy mud in it and it took me a day to comb it out, with Polystratus bringing pots of warm water. Poseidon was sick, and I didn’t want to lose him. He wasn’t getting any younger, though.

  Delphi, and the Pythia, was not open for business. She only prophesies a few months a year – the Pythia then, an older woman named Cynthia, was quite well known and very intelligent. They are not always like that.

  She had her priests send the king a respectful message explaining that she could not simply sit on the tripod and implore the god, as it was out of season. Alexander shrugged, dismounted and tossed his reins to a slave.

  ‘The men and horses need a rest, at any rate. We’ll be here two days.’ He looked at me. ‘Go and tell her that she will prophesy. Negotiate any way you wish, but get it done.’

  I got all the glorious jobs.

  So I took Thaïs, and went down to the village to visit the Pythia.

  Really, she was a very ordinary woman – for a forty-year-old virgin who was well born and ferociously intelligent. We found her grinding barley behind her house. She was using a geared handmill – I’d heard of them, but never seen such a thing.

  She took it to pieces in her enthusiasm to show me how it worked.

  She and Thaïs were not immediately friends by any means – in fact, on balance, I could see I’d miscalculated, and this was a woman who lived and worked with men, and had little time for women. But Thaïs’s intelligence shone through, and her superlative social skills, and in an hour the three of us were drinking wine.

  ‘He needs you to prophesy,’ I said, finally. ‘Blessed Pythia, all Greece needs you.’

  She smiled. ‘You know that the Great King is one of our patrons?’

  I nodded.

  She laughed. ‘He’s doomed. Do you know your Persian politics?’

  I shook my head. ‘The only politics I know are those of the Macedonian court. Well – Athens. I know a little of Athens.’

  Thaïs wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad. ‘Bagoaz is Grand Vizier,’ she said. ‘He rules by intrigue and murder. He killed Arses, who was Great King, and he’s replaced him with some minor nobleman.’

  The Pythia smiled. ‘Well! Nicely put. Except that young Codoman just made Bagoaz drink poison and is now master in his own house. But he’s only a distant relation of the Great Kings of the past – and many of the eastern nobles do not accept him at all.’

  I had never heard so much about Persia. To us, Persia was the great enemy, a magnificent unknown. I suppose that Parmenio knew such stuff, but up until then, I didn’t.

  ‘There has never been a better time to invade Persia,’ the Pythia said, sipping her wine. ‘I speak no prophecy, young man. Codoman has Greek mercenaries, Greek scribes, Greek administrators. He runs his household with Greeks. He is virtually at war with his own Mede nobles. Persia is divided internally, taxes are late coming in, and over a third of the total administration of the country is already in the hands of men sympathetic to your king.’

  Thaïs smiled. ‘I would like to know more about such things,’ she said.

  ‘I will tell the king. But he sets enormous store by matters of religion, and he wants the blessing of the gods.’ I shook my head.r />
  The Pythia nodded. ‘Then he can return in the spring, and I will prophesy for him.’ She finished her wine. ‘I have work to do. Tell the king that nothing save force of arms would get me to my tripod.’ She smiled, I smiled, and Thaïs finished her wine.

  The Pythia forestalled her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Stay with me a while,’ she said.

  Thaïs smiled to herself and stayed.

  I asked no questions. But I summoned Polystratus and sent him to the king with a message.

  Alexander walked down to the Pythia’s house a few hours later with a dozen Hetaeroi and the duty hypaspitoi. I was reminded uncomfortably of the entourage that followed him to the visit with Diogenes. But it was bitterly cold, and we were all swathed in multiple chlamyses, and many men had fleece hats – all the hypaspitoi. We trooped to her door.

  Alexander knocked politely.

  Thaïs opened the door. She smiled. ‘The Pythia was expecting you.’

  Alexander ducked through her doorway, went inside and bowed to the Priestess of Apollo. Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her out of her house.

  She didn’t raise a squeal. She was not a small woman – she was well enough formed that I wondered at her virginity – but the king was in top shape and carried her easily, without unseemly grunting.

  It is four stades from the town to the temple, and all steeply uphill.

  He carried her all the way, even though we were all around him. Thaïs followed. She caught my hand.

  I looked at her.

  She blew me a kiss.

  I was jealous – sure in my head that Thaïs had just lain with the Pythia. Angry. Resentful. Puzzled. She’d just gone with that woman. Not a glance, not a look.

  So I followed Alexander up the hill, tormenting myself.

  Thaïs was laughing.

  Damn her.

  We went up the hill all the way to the temple, and if Alexander was flagging, he never gave a sign. He carried her up the steps of the temple and in through the great bronze screens, which were open. Somebody had accepted a bribe.