Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

by Nicholas Nicastro

  “Pay attention to the shoes, sister!” he yelled at one of them. “These aren’t cheap shoes!”

  Relieved at last, he took up the blanket again and dressed himself. Since it was a court-day, he arranged it in what he considered formal style, wrapping it around full-length and with the fringe thrown statesman-like over his left shoulder. That done (and looking quite philosophic, he thought), he reached back and stuck his left forefinger into his anus. Rooting about, he found the silver tetradrachm he kept there for safekeeping.

  “Good morning, little owl,” he hailed the coin. Let the slave girls turn their noses up at that!

  True, he favored the northwest corner of the market to spend the night because it caught the first sunshine of the morning, and the crossroad altar gave some privacy from the road. Equally important, though, was that it was a good spot from which to tell the mood of the day. After years of observation, he could read much from the atmosphere in the very first moments of the morning. The speed and disposition of human bodies, their numbers, the presence of magistrates—all were clues.

  By the throngs that were already pouring in, momentous events seemed afoot. Macedonians, notable for their capes and their taste for vulgar displays of gold in public, were much in evidence. Cadets were filing from their barracks on the slope of the Acropolis, fanning out toward the gates of the city. Shoppers seemed weighted down with more than one day’s burden of groceries. Their demeanor, he saw, was very anxious.

  There was a wine-seller’s stall east of the Sacred Way that opened early. The place sold most of its good product, the Chian dry whites and Thasian blacks, in bulk to provisioners coming in from long distances. The proprietor would also mix up a three-measure jug of local stuff for an obol, which was good enough to take the edge off the morning chill. The only thing to beware was his use of dirty water—Swallow had once tucked into a cup of sweet Attic that had been mixed with effluvia from the tannery next door.

  He was on his second cup when his friend Deuteros saluted him.

  “Swallow! Have you heard the news?”

  “Antipater is banging your wife?”

  Deuteros gave a weak smile and pulled out the little cup he kept under his clothes. Swallow poured out two fingers’ worth for him.

  “Big trial today. It’s listed right in the middle of the dais. And it’s not just some crappy inheritance case…”

  Deuteros downed the wine, looked around nervously. Swallow had been going to the courts with him for years, shared the cup with him countless times, and yet never known him to show the slightest effect of drink. He was always sober, always with that subtly hunted look. The reason may have had to do with marrying a girl far too personable and pretty. While this seemed enviable to Swallow (and, indeed, would to most men), Deuteros had contrived to be out of the house virtually all the time since his marriage. Even then, he still seemed to be keeping a permanent watch on the streets, as if expecting to see his wife humiliate him by going out in public.

  Swallow poured out another two fingers. “Tell me why I’m buying you drinks, Deuteros, when you live in a nice house up on the hill?”

  “The defendant is Machon.”

  “Alexander’s boy?”

  “The same. And the prosecutor is Aeschines.”

  “What, he’s back?”

  “Apparently. The charges are ‘betrayal of the public trust’ and ‘impiety’—or something.”

  “Sounds like Aeschines. But he must be very long in the tooth by now. And to come back from such a long way…”

  As his friend was standing and thinking and not drinking, Deuteros tipped more wine from Swallow’s cup into his own.

  “A trial like that has big stakes. What, to try somebody from Alexander’s staff, with his regent’s army breathing down our necks? It’s stupid if you ask me, dear Deuteros. Antipater could bring his rabble right down here. What can the old man have in his mind?”

  The other issued a resonant snort through his nose as he drank.

  “Or maybe that’s the whole point,” Swallow went on. “If Machon ran afoul of the Boy, maybe Aeschines thinks his indictment will keep us in Antipater’s good graces. It seems like a big risk to me, anyway. Nothing can stop those Macedonian dogs! Just to be safe, we should probably vote ‘guilty’ if we get on the jury, right?”

  Deuteros looked around furtively. “You asking me?”

  “Who else is standing here?”

  “Sure, guilty—I guess.”

  “There he stands, an adept of Themis herself!” Swallow laughed, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Athenian justice is safe with men like you, Deuteros!”

  They made their way across to the courthouse. There already seemed to be a throng of men milling outside, though only a few could have been eligible for service. The spectators’ box would be filled today.

  “Good luck!” said Swallow loudly, and then leaning in to Deuteros’s ear, whispered, “Remember the verdict.”

  They parted, each proceeding to the entryway designated for his tribe: Swallow to ‘Kekrops,’ Deuteros to ‘Erechtheus.’ Just inside, the former dropped his juryman’s tag in the box. The archon’s assistant immediately fished the tag out, scrutinizing the name.

  “You again! The state can’t afford your civic-mindedness—unless we start charging you the cost of fumigating the place!”

  “I resent that,” Swallow replied, adjusting his blanket in a manner reminiscent of one of Demosthenes’ dramatic pauses. This got a big laugh from the other jury candidates.

  “Get out of my sight!” the secretary cried, dropping the tag back in the box.

  Before the allotment began, Swallow encountered someone he’d find less welcome on the jury than little Deuteros. Eteocles of Kikynna saw him at the same moment, registering his recognition with a scowl. At that, of course, Swallow had to go over to welcome him.

  “My dear Eteocles! It’s no surprise to see you here, for this event. And not alone, it seems!”

  Eteocles was standing with two other well-kitted nobles, all sweetly redolent of leather and horseflesh. Neither of them would even look at Swallow. With proper reverse snobbery, Swallow despised anyone who rode in on a horse—the conveyance of the old guard, tyranny-loving, fish-feasting, sympotic leisured prickocracy.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” Eteocles sneered. “when your beloved Demosthenes is not party to the case.”

  “But your beloved Aeschines is—and after so many years away! Don’t we all enjoy the sweet ooze of his oratory, like some unglued beehive! I can hardly wait.”

  “May you enjoy the spectacle, dear Swallow! Who knows how long such events will be open to persons like yourself?”

  “And may I return your sentiment! I, for one, would miss the charming futility of your ambitions.”

  Before their exchange could begin its usual descent into undisguised insult, the jury selection began. The magistrate at the door forwarded the box of juror tags to the junior archon in charge of the allotment. The tags went into the rows of slots in the face of the machine, and the mixed black and white cubes poured down the metal tube mounted on its side. As the secretary drew tokens from the bottom of the tube, their color either nominated or rejected the respective row of tags.

  The drawing was repeated ten times. That made fifty citizens randomly chosen from each tribe, so the jury would have, alas, only 500 members. Swallow was hoping for a 1,000 or even a 2,000 man allotment, as the really big juries tended to be have a far more refreshingly democratic rowdiness.

  After the last name was read out, Swallow couldn’t restrain his impulse to tease Eteocles.

  “It seems the gods favored me today, my dear friend! And you, I presume, will return to your barn?”

  “I will be with the spectators. Respect your good fortune, Swallow!”

  This was an unexpectedly gracious response, and it made Swallow ashamed he had gloated.

  II.

  The trial was held in the courthouse chamber with the most room for sp
ectators. The jurors were knotted outside, each holding a short wooden staff painted the same red color as the door lintel. Swallow had just turned in his token to the clerk when he looked back and saw Deuteros waving a red staff at him from the back of the crowd. Both of them had made the jury.

  Swallow saved a spot on a front-row bench for his friend. Since the benches were covered only with straw, naive jurors expended the precious minutes before the session began fetching cushions to sit on. But Swallow knew the key to comfort in the courtroom was to forget the rear and tend to the stomach. The hour was already late to complete such an important trial; most likely the verdict would be delivered after sundown and all would be going home in the dark (though to his “home,” fortunately, Swallow did not have far to go). In anticipation of the inevitable longeurs, he carried in the fold of his blanket a hunk of white cheese and a handful of olives. Seeing this bounty, Deuteros nodded his appreciation, then opened his cloak to flash a loaf of good bread.

  “Now if they only allowed wine!”

  The clerk gavelled the room to order. Since this was an Athenian court, the task took several attempts. Some bumpkin had sneaked a sick lamb to the proceedings, no doubt hidden under his cloak, which bucked free and scampered under the benches. There was some commotion as the baying animal was cornered; the uproar gave the Scythian bailiffs, who looked like vain bears in their animal skins and city jewelry, a relished opportunity to shove people. The lamb was ejected over the vigorous objections of its owner, who also insisted on leaving despite the fact that the doors were sealed, with no one permitted to enter or exit. The dispute was resolved by the application of a club to the juror’s head. Out cold, the man was returned to his seat—hopefully to revive in time to cast his ballot.

  All this time Swallow kept his eye on Aeschines, who was seated on the prosecutor’s bench to the right of the magistrate’s bema. The old master was sitting very straight, eyes moving over some scribblings before him, lips moving slightly, as if in final rehearsal of a prepared speech.

  He looked fit for a man of nearly seventy years. His skin glowed like a ploughman’s in summer—a consequence, no doubt, of a recent sea voyage from his academic posting on Rhodes. His tanned skin set off his abundance of snowy hair and a gleaming white chiton adorned by a purple-fringed girdle. Sitting there, serenely indifferent to the plight of the loose lamb, he seemed to be playing the role of a character who slept very well at night, yet had very important matters weighing on his silver-crested brow. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Swallow, who was old enough to remember Aeschines’s former career on the stage, specializing in kings, gods descendant, and honored corpses lying in state.

  The gavel sounded again, this time swung by the presiding judge. The seat was filled, surprisingly, not by a junior functionary but the King Archon himself. The only trials he presided over were supposed to involve special heinousness, such as parricide and profanation of the Mysteries.

  “Isn’t that Polycleitus?” Deuteros whispered, noting the same irregularity.

  “It is. So they’ve brought Aeschines back, and put Polycleitus in charge. Somebody has a great interest in seeing this Machon put down. Maybe we should change our verdict…”

  “Silence in the courtroom!” Polycleitus commanded. “The clerk will read the indictment.”

  “Hear O Athens! This court is convened according to all proper custom, under the due supervision of those so charged and here present, before a jury properly appointed, and in the names of Themis-bearer-of-scales and Athena-may-she-protect-us, and of Aglauros, Hestia, Enyo, Ares Enyalios, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Heracles, and the spirits of wheat, barley, vines and figs, and of the Boundaries of Attica. We gather here now, on this second day of Pyanopsion, under the archonship of Ciphisodorus, to hear and judge the citizen, Machon, son of Agathon, of the deme Scambonidae, on the charges so listed…”

  The clerk had to rustle through his notes, which seemed to be out of order. There was complete silence in the room now, and a general pricking up of ears and lightening of backsides, with the sole exception of the man who brought the lamb, who slumped down from the bench and hit the floor with a thud. No one helped him.

  “…the charges of, first, that he did contravene the instructions given him by the Assembly twelve years ago when he set out on campaign with the god, known in his human guise as Alexander III of Macedon; and second, that he did commit impiety before said god, who was deified by decree of the Assembly of the People on the sixteenth Metageitnion of last year. These are the charges.”

  “Who brings the indictment?” asked Polycleitus.

  “By the gods, I bring it,” said Aeschines, rising to his cue. His voice had a depth typical of actors, but with an orator’s urgency. It broke on the audience like the crash of a falling boulder—abrupt, inescapable.

  “Begin your statement. Start the water.”

  The clerk pulled the stopper out of the water clock. At the outset, the prosecution had the floor for twenty minutes, with additional time at the discretion of the archon. Blatherers and incompetents were given little indulgence; Aeschines, to be sure, would be given all the time he wanted.

  Athenians, I stand before you today after a long time away. In those years among foreigners I had much opportunity to observe the ways of other people, and to weigh their respective features in light of what I know as a citizen of this city. And in that time I never lost faith in the basic superiority of our arrangements, no matter how sadly abused, and in the inherent repugnance of our people against indecency and injustice, no matter how ubiquitous those vices may now seem. And I appear today with complete confidence that you will again judge rightly as I offer you the facts. Please understand that I make such charges with reluctance, and have so only sparingly in the past, because I do not believe our city is well served by frivolous or malign actions. These procedures, on the contrary, should be reserved only for cases of the utmost seriousness, and on the clearest evidence, as I know you will agree is the case with our friend Machon.

  I know this, because it is understood throughout this city that verdicts on trials of this type, that is of impiety, have grave implications not only for the accused, but for every citizen, as the gods do not discriminate between the impious man and those who abet him. In this sense, it is our entire city that is on trial. You do not need to be reminded that there is dangerous talk afoot, and that those who have led us into disaster in the past have raised their heads again since the death of Alexander. And given that a foreign army is but a few days’ march from Attica, and that the emissaries of that foreign power are present here today, I am bound by my duty and love of my native city to remind her that her responsibilities are to herself first. As I present these truths to you, your job will be merely to perceive, for to perceive what Machon has done, you will also judge him correctly.

  As Aeschines referred to Antipater’s emissaries, his eyes flicked toward the spectator’s gallery. Swallow could easily pick the Macedonians out of the crowd: they were the beardless ones, real Alexander-style buzzcuts, with the expressions of mulish superiority on their rustic faces. Doubtless they were thinking there would be no reason for such cumbersome litigation in Pella. Just a secret order passed to an underling, and thence to some eager, doe-eyed thugs from the hinterlands. They did things differently there.

  The first charge I will address is of Machon’s impiety. I am certain you recall the resolution of the Assembly not long ago, in response to a message from Alexander requesting divine honors. I am also told—for I was not there—that debate on this measure was as non-contested as any ever put before that body. Even Demosthenes supported it, albeit with his usual contempt for men of quality, saying “Let Alexander be Zeus’s boy. And Poseidon’s too, for good measure.” The measure passed by simple acclamation. Read the resolution, please.

  The timekeeper stopped the clock, and the clerk read the city’s conferral of divine honors on Alexander. Swallow well remembered the day that resolution passed. Indeed, it w
as not contested, though not due to any particular love for Alexander, whom city democrats had taken to calling “the Boy.” Many of them had spent the last decade hoping with every fiber of their being that he go down in defeat in Persia. Clouds of birds and herds of sheep and goats were sacrificed to enlist the gods on behalf of the Persian king, Darius. Faced with the Boy’s demand for godhood, with the army of his lackey Antipater poised, as it was that very day, to enforce his adolescent whims, there seemed to be little choice but to indulge him. As it was, most members of the Assembly considered the request something of a joke—a cry for respect Alexander couldn’t earn from the Greeks with a thousand victories. Swallow did not oppose it.

  As I have said, I was not in the city when this measure passed. I cannot speak to whether the motives behind its approval were sincere, or cynical. I can only say that by any measure, whether in glory under arms, or in patronage of the arts, or by that basic virtue of character to which all men should orient like sailors to the pole star, Alexander deserved such honors. Athenians, do we not owe our very city to his magnanimity? Twice the Macedonians could have laid waste to Athens—first, after Chaeronea, when the disaster I long warned of finally came to pass (and Demosthenes, incidentally, was high-tailing it from the battlefield). Recall that Philip could have continued south and exacted our annihilation. But instead of invasion, we received our prisoners back without claim of ransom, and the ashes of our fallen soldiers. Prince Alexander himself came to us as an emissary of peace. The second time was after Philip was assassinated, and some in the Assembly argued the time was ripe to throw off the Macedonian “yoke,” though to my limited knowledge of husbandry, no “yoke” has ever worn so lightly as the one Philip fashioned for us. To be sure, it is our intemperance for action that marks us as deeply as our democracy; as Herodotus wrote, it is easier to incite 30,000 Athenians to war than a single Spartan. Thus it has been, and thus it probably shall always be.