by Tom Holt
and ‘guilty’. I only helped shape one small part of Alexander’s character, and my motives for doing what I did were always, always for the best. I genuinely wanted to prepare the boy —and the rest of them too — for a useful career of service as rulers of their country; I wasn’t conducting a controlled experiment in creating a philosopher-king, or angling for power behind the throne when the Prince came into his own, or even doing what was necessary to earn money. I was trying to help.
The fact that the world would be a better place if I’d died at birth is something I have to live with. I feel responsible, but not guilty.
Anyway.
Lysimachus came to see me, and he told me about the curriculum, and what I was supposed to be doing, when and where, and a lot of useful stuff like that, for which I was properly grateful. When he’d finished briefing me, he stood up to go, then turned round, sat down again, leaned forward and grabbed me by both elbows.
‘Now listen to me,’ he said. ‘You’re an Athenian.
‘I know,’ I replied, trying to tug my arms free without being too obvious about it.
‘You’re an Athenian,’ he repeated. ‘I admire the Athenians. Your Drama, your poetry, your philosophy — I admire it all. Athens is a great nation. You have given so much to all of Greece .’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘And that’s why I’m warning you,’ he went on, ignoring me. ‘You don’t know these people the way I do, you don’t know how their minds work or how they live their lives. You don’t understand. So it’s very important that you remember what I’m telling you now. Yes?’
I nodded, mostly in the hope that he’d finish quickly and go away. He’d recently been eating onions. I could tell.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now listen. Macedon is a kingdom, a monarchy. You don’t understand how a monarchy works. In a monarchy, there isn’t any right or wrong or good or evil, there’s only two things: what He wants and what He doesn’t. In a monarchy there isn’t any such word as Why? In a monarchy, if He says the sky’s green, it’s green. If He says, Kill my firstborn son, it’s done. If He says, Bring me the head of the murdering bastard who killed my son, that’s done too.
No wrong. No why. Just “Yes, sir” and that’s all. You need to remember that, here, being an Athenian.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I replied, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Thank you ever so much for sharing it with me.’
Lysimachus stared at me for a moment, as if he was trying to decode some abstruse cypher. ‘Just remember,’ he said. ‘And be careful. Aside from Him, there is no law in Macedon.’
I nodded. ‘We have heaps and heaps of law in Athens ,’ I said. ‘No justice, but plenty of law. We’ve got so much we have to hire people to remember it for us. I think I might rather like it here.’
He shook his head. ‘You be careful. In Macedon, people are murdered by the State.’
‘Ah.’ I smiled. ‘It’s different back home. In Athens , scores of people are killed by the State every year, but it’s never murder. What’s the matter, Lysimachus? Why are you trying to frighten me away?’
He shook his head vehemently. Small things were thrown clear of his hair. ‘Stay if you want. Stay as long as you like. Just remember, that’s all.’
I jerked my arms free and stood up. ‘You bet,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember.’
And I have.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Philip of Macedon, so the story goes, was arguing with young Alexander one day.
‘What’s the point of me learning all this political theory and literature and stuff?’ the Prince asked. ‘I’m not going to need it when I’m King.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Philip said. ‘Being King isn’t about who you are, it’s about what you are. And don’t forget, we’re not Persians or Egyptians, we’re Macedonians. If they accept you as their King it won’t be because I’m who I am, it’ll be because you’re who you are.’
Heartwarming, isn’t it? Not to mention completely untrue. On those occasions when Philip did talk to the young Alexander, it was more a case of, ‘Get the hell out of here, can’t you see I’m busy?’
I should know; I was there. And that’s what makes it so bizarre when I hear these delightful little vignettes of family life at Pella . They’re fairy-tales, the lot of them, little bite-sized chunks out of myth and legend, and as everybody knows, myth and legend deal with long ago and far away, not something that happened quite recently in places where I happened to be at the time. How dare they do this to parts of my life? I feel like a man who comes home from buying sprats in the fish market and finds that his house has been taken over and turned into a shrine to some god or hero who happens to have the same name as him; and the custodians of the shrine won’t let him go into his house and get anything, not even a clean tunic.
The first lesson of the first day was military history.
Truly is it said: the best way to learn about something you’re completely ignorant of is to teach it to somebody else. And the key to that, of course, is admitting your ignorance to yourself.
Even more truly is it said: when you don’t know spit, bullshit.
They were sitting in a circle under a fig tree. It was a hot day, about mid-morning, and apart from the flies it was quiet and peaceful. I walked across the courtyard and they all stopped talking and stared at me. Strong men have been known to die of less.
But I’m not a strong man; so I sat down with my back to the trunk of that excellent tree, pulled my hat down over my eyes and said, ‘Military history.’
Nobody spoke. I counted to twenty under my breath.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Here’s some military history for you. Iphicrates of Athens, who was a friend of my father, was pitching camp in the middle of friendly territory. He ordered his men to dig a ditch and built a palisade round the camp. “Why bother?” someone asked. “It’s not as if anybody’s going to attack us here.” Whereupon Iphicrates shook his head. “Don’t you believe it,” he said.
“The worst thing a general can ever say is, Hell, I never expected that.” And that, gentlemen, is why we learn military history. Understood?’
There was a short, polite silence, then someone asked, ‘Did your father really know Iphicrates?’
That threw me. I had only the sketchiest notion of who Iphicrates was — short, scruffy-looking man who came to dinner once, behaved obnoxiously to the flute-girl and fell asleep face down in a plate of thinly sliced smoked eel —
but this terrible child was obviously rather more familiar with the great man’s career than I was. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Now then, can somebody give me three reasons why the Phoenician colonists in Carthage would beat the crap out of the Phoenicians in Phoenicia if ever there was a war between them?’
A longer silence this time; they were all looking at Alexander, and he was thinking it over. ‘You,’ I said, pointing to a thin-faced kid on my right. ‘Any ideas?’
The boy looked startled, but recovered well. ‘The Carthaginians hire mercenaries,’ he said. ‘Mercenaries fight for money, not honour, so they fight to win the battle.’
I nodded. ‘Correct,’ I said. ‘You — Hephaestion, isn’t it? — what do you think?’
Hephaestion rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his wrist. ‘The Carthaginians have fought a lot of wars on land against Greeks,’ he said. ‘The Phoenicians of Tyre haven’t, so they haven’t had the opportunity or the incentive to learn.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Alexander, what’s the third reason?’
Alexander looked at me before answering. ‘If there was a war between Carthage and Tyre ,’ he said, ‘it would be because Tyre was trying to establish its authority over a former colony, and Carthage would be fighting for its freedom.
So the Carthaginians would have more to lose, and they’d fight harder.’
I nodded again. ‘That’s a good answer,’ I said. ‘But it contradicts what your friend here just said about the Carthaginians
hiring mercenaries. Don’t you agree with that?’
Alexander looked up, and then down again. ‘I agree with it,’ he said. ‘But the men running the war would still be Carthaginians, even if the soldiers were mercenaries. Put together determined generals and trained, competent men and you’re likely to win.’
I sat up. ‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Clearly you all know a lot of the basics already. But what you don’t know, I’ll wager, is the great secret of military history; and you don’t know it because although every successful general who ever lived knows this secret, none of them ever mention it. Not even to their brothers or their lovers or their sons. Would you like to know what this secret is?’
Intrigued silence this time. Eventually Hephaestion said, ‘Yes, please.’
‘All right, listen carefully.’ I waited till they were all gazing earnestly at me. ‘The secret is this. Out of every hundred battles, ninety-nine of them are lost by the loser, not won by the winner. Ninety-nine battles out of a hundred go the way they do because one of the commanders makes a bloody awful mistake, which costs him the day and thousands of his men their lives. Now then; name me some battles and I’ll prove that I’m right.’
‘ Plataea ,’ someone called out.
‘Delium,’ said Philotas.
‘ Marathon .’
‘That one where Brasidas was surrounded in Thessaly .’
By good fortune — and because the rule, which is not my own observation, happens to be true — I was able to carry my point in each case.This impressed my students a whole lot. Impressed me, too; I’d never really given it any thought before. Also, quite by chance, I’d been reading about the Brasidas-in-Thessaly battle the night before in that copy of Thucydides’ History I told you about. It was the first time I’d ever come across it, and it was probably that which put the idea in my mind in the first place.
After we’d pushed the idea around for a while, Alexander counter-attacked. ‘It’s a good point,’ he said. ‘But what if you’ve got a general who’s so worried about making a big mistake that he’s all timid and over-cautious about handling his troops? He’s not going to win many battles.’
‘I agree,’ I replied. ‘And that’d be a big mistake on his part. There’s a difference between knowing not to jump off the side of a boat with a rock tied to your leg, and never going on a boat in your life just in case someone ties a rock to your leg and shoves you over the rail.’
Alexander frowned a little. ‘But what if it’s the hundredth battle and the general you’re fighting doesn’t make any stupid mistakes? Then what happens?’
‘You lose, probably,’ I said.
‘But if I don’t make any mistakes either, what happens then?’
I shrugged. ‘You keep on fighting each other till nightfall or it starts raining,’ I replied. ‘Or until your men or his men have had enough and run for it. That’s what happens in nine out of ten of the one battles in a hundred.’
‘I see,’ Alexander said dubiously. ‘So you’re basically saying, just trust to luck?’
I shook my head. ‘Not a bit of it. Luck in war is very like the gods. Never, ever trust your luck; just be aware that it exists, that’s all.’
In other words I was floundering like hell and in grave danger of being shown up as a windbag and a fraud. Fortunately, before any of those highly intelligent and perceptive young people had a chance to start picking my logic to bits, Leonidas arrived with a big fat scroll under his arm to teach them Homer, and I was able to withdraw in good order, leaving behind me the mistaken impression that I’d taught them something they didn’t know already.
I tried to put it off for as long as possible, but I knew it had to happen sooner or later. I’d have preferred later, but I didn’t have any choice in the matter.
It was my seventh day as a teacher, and I wasn’t doing terribly well. My greatest fault as a teacher was a deplorable and pointless urge to show off, to try to impress the students with my knowledge and insight; disastrous mistake.
Being the sons of gentlemen, they were too well brought-up to object loudly enough for me to hear, but the embarrassed look on their faces should have been enough to stop me doing it. The wretched part of it was that I knew I was doing it and knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself.
Besides which, after seven days it was too late to start again at the beginning.
I’d forfeited too much respect, and without respect a teacher can’t teach an olive to fall off a tree. I was losing control of the situation and losing it fast; and that’s why Aristotle came to see me.
When I heard him scratch at the door and glanced through the crack between door and frame to see who it was, my first instinct was to hide under something until he went away again; but if I’d done that he’d only have come in anyway and started poking about, and the embarrassment of being found by him cowering under an upturned basket was something I didn’t want to risk.
‘Hello,’ I said.
He looked at me as if I’d just crawled out of something he was eating, but all he said was, ‘I’d like a word with you, if it’s convenient.’
‘Come in,’ I said. ‘Please.’
Before he was even halfway through the door I remembered that spread out on the floor, with bits cut out of it, was the manuscript of Selections From Aristotle, or at least all that was left of it after I’d mended a pair of sandals and the folding chair.
‘You’re busy,’ he said, taking in the mess at a glance — by any normal criteria he was too far away to realise it was one of his books I’d been mutilating; but maybe he’d just know, the way a mother always knows, regardless of distance, when her child is in pain or danger. ‘So I won’t stay long. But I felt, as a fellow Athenian—’
I made the standard sit-down-please gesture that all human beings recognise. He nodded in return and sat in the folding chair, right on top of the drying glue and excerpts from his Analysis of the Constitution of Corinth .
‘Careful,’ I said. ‘Wet glue.’
Instinctively, he lifted both elbows off the arms of the chair, inspected them and put them back. ‘As a fellow Athenian—’ he repeated.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ I asked.
‘No, thank you. As a fellow Athenian, I thought you might appreciate a few words of advice about dealing with the Macedonians. The study of other cultures is a special interest of mine, as I believe you already know,’ he added, with a deadpan stare, ‘so I believe my insights into the Macedonian mind-set are likely to have a degree of validity.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I replied. ‘Personally, I like these people. What about you?’
He gave me a puzzled look, rather as if he’d asked me what four and four make, and I’d replied ‘Sideways.’ ‘I try and make sure that my personal value-judgements don’t intrude on my scientific evaluation of a nation’s culture. Also, don’t forget, my native city was destroyed by the Macedonians and its people dispersed or enslaved. If I have an emotional response to these people, it’s negative rather than positive. But I flatter myself that I can retain my objectivity even under these circumstances.’
I cursed myself for my lousy memory. It was true, Philip had made an example of Stagira a while back; recently he’d also given permission for it to be rebuilt and for the exiles to be allowed home, as a gesture of goodwill to his son’s illustrious tutor. ‘That’s all right, then,’ I replied lamely. ‘Please, do go on.’
Well, for half an hour or so he told me pretty much everything I’d so far worked out for myself about the Macedonians, together with a few snippets of historical trivia that could never under any conceivable circumstances be of any use to anybody. I sat still and quiet, nodding from time to time and keeping a fixed smile on my face. I was just about to doze off, in fact, when I heard him say, ‘But of course, you know all this already.’
I sat up. ‘Well, actually,’ I said, ‘I do. I mean, I did do a little research before the peace mission started, an
d I’ve been keeping my ears and eyes open ever since.’
‘Of course.’ He nodded his head. ‘What you don’t know is how to convey what you do know to somebody else. And that’s what I’ve just been illustrating for you. I trust you found it helpful.’
‘Actually—’ I began; but a little voice in the back room of my mind whispered Why bother? It’s not worth it. After all, it would be far more practical to patch up some kind of working relationship with this man — I was going to have to work with him for several years, and of the four of us on the tutoring staff, he was the only one who might just conceivably turn out to be a useful ally. ‘Actually,’ I went on, ‘I was going to ask your advice about that. Ever since I started work I’ve had this feeling that I haven’t been going about it in the right way. I’m sure you’ve picked up some feedback from the kids. What would you suggest?’
Aristotle didn’t smile, in the same way a tree rarely does somersaults; but the way he dipped his head a little suggested that he acknowledged this small act of deference, as from a young ram to the lord of the sheepfold, declining to start a fight he couldn’t win. ‘Your attitude is counter-productive,’ he said. ‘You seem to be afraid of them, which is why you display your knowledge the way a peacock shows its tail. For one thing, I suggest, you simply don’t have enough factual information. For another, you should never openly display fear to something you intend to train. If you want a demonstration of the proper way to go about it, may I recommend that you spare the time tomorrow afternoon to go down to the stock-yard and watch young Alexander breaking in horses.’
And on that well-chosen exit line he stood up to leave. Unfortunately, the chair didn’t seem to want to let go of him. I found it hard not to close my eyes; the glue on those confounded parchment patches had soaked through and stuck to his gown. He frowned, and tugged; there was a small ripping noise and the chair dropped away.