Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

by Nicholas Nicastro

  The clerk read the decree of the Assembly.

  Note that at every point the intent of his orders was clear: Machon was to support Alexander in “any way within his power;” the effect of the deployment was “to bring honor on Athens by any means practicable.” Obviously these orders applied as much to Machon as to any hoplite in the ranks—Machon himself was responsible for their commission. Yet we all know the end of Alexander’s story, of his premature death in Babylon under such suspicious circumstances. We likewise know that Machon’s master Demosthenes was not above accomplishing by conspiracy what he could not on the battlefield. And so I must pose the question, did Machon support Alexander by “any way within his power”? Did his conduct bring honor to Athens? If your answers to these questions comport at all way with the truth laid before you, then you already have your verdict on the second charge, of violating the sacred trust of his orders.

  The Athenian expeditionary force was presented to Alexander at his camp. With some justification, considering the legacy of Athenian deceit cultivated by the anti-Macedonians, the King declined to accept our contingent into his army. What a stunning dishonor for Athenian arms, to be left on the shore at the outset of the greatest campaign ever to leave Greece! But all was not lost for Machon and his scheming sponsors: Alexander, the ever-mindful, salvaged the honor of our city by accepting one Athenian—Machon—into his inner circle of Companions. It was his fatal misfortune that his magnanimity was wasted on such a man.

  It seems that Machon did not owe his position on Alexander’s staff to his knowledge of military matters, but to his pen. This is curious. I am aware of no one who can attest to the defendant’s competence as an historian; Machon has neither recited nor published anything of consequence. We may well imagine, then, the torrent of lies he must have told Alexander to convince him of his talent. On this point in particular, more than any vain protestations of his innocence, I am most interested to hear the defendant’s statement!

  The invasion began. Alexander was the first to leap ashore on the Asian side, claiming it all as his spear-won territory, and proceeding thence to the ruins of Troy. Wits back home chuckled at the story that he honored his ancestor Achilles with sacrifices under the ravaged battlements; they laughed when they heard that Alexander and his favorite, Hephaestion, stripped naked, anointed each other with oil, and ran around the citadel seven times. They ridiculed him outright for his presumption to borrow the armor of Achilles from the Temple of Athena. Sophisticates far and wide scorned the King’s reverence for history—but sophisticates don’t win wars. The effect of these rites on his troops was inspirational. Would that the Greeks today be a bit more reverent and a bit less sophisticated!

  What the gods thought of Alexander’s obsequies was evident in his first encounter with troops in Darius’s employ. I say ‘in his employ,’ rather than ‘Persian troops’ because the greater part of the enemy was composed of Greek mercenaries. And here again, we see evidence of the decline of honor of our race, that matters have come to such a pass that Greeks would take gold to defend a barbarian kingdom. By all evidence Alexander understood this as well as Darius: in the end, Persians alone could never carry the field against him. Only Greeks can ever defeat Greeks.

  The first battle was joined beneath Mount Ida. On the far side of the Granicus River, the Greeks faced an army almost as large as theirs, barring their way on high banks as strong and secure as a castle. In front were the Persian horsemen on their baleful steeds, cased in armored skins that shone in the afternoon sun, scimitars and javelins solemnly crossed upon their chests. Behind crowded the upturned pikes of twenty thousand Greek mercenaries.

  At this sight, a pall of misgiving spread over Alexander’s army, for they would not only have to defeat the arrayed host of their enemy, but the swift current of the river. Parmenion, a veteran general, counseled the King to delay his attack until morning. The position of the enemy, he said, was impregnable; the banks of the river, he warned, were treacherous, so that even if a crossing could be managed in the stream, the Greeks would never find purchase on the muddy slopes as they fought uphill against mounted foes. These were wise words, to be heeded by any leader of merely mortal stature; Philip himself might have accepted them.

  All looked to Alexander, who said nothing at first, but seemed lost in thought, as if unable to make a decision. But when he finally spoke, it was the words of the Poet that came out. He sang—

  And the silvered fish did swirl and bite

  The tender flesh of newly-dead Lycaon.

  You Trojans will die to a man as I fight

  To far Ilium’s hallowed towers.

  Run you might, my swift blade will try your backs.

  No escape for those who cower

  Beneath the whirling surge of Scamander!

  No sacrifice, no blooded bull on cobbled bank

  Or fair-maned horse cast in the river

  Will save them now, dressed in pain

  Until the price in blood is settled

  For Patroclus and the Greeks slain

  Beside the beaked ships

  While I was away…

  The Greeks’ response to this was, at first, nothing. The words were familiar enough to them, of course, but only as part of a story. Alexander would use the words to write his own epic, studying them at night from the school copy of the Iliad he always kept under his pillow. He deployed Homer’s lines like files of soldiers, crying: “As Achilles fought the wide Scamander, may we churn this stream with our greaves!”

  And with that, they say, he was gone, charging down the near bank--

  IV.

  Several hours later, and with the exhaustion of Swallow’s entire supply of cheese, Aeschines at last seemed to be winding down his presentation.

  With Alexander’s passage the world paused. They say that a shadow passed over Babylon that day, and with it the sound of great wings rustling. Far to the west, over Siwah, the unprecedented sight of an eagle was seen wheeling over the Ammon temple. The very same hour, the priests attest, another eagle flew into the Zeus sanctuary at Dodona, coming to rest in the great oak of the Oracle there. The bird stayed there for some time—calling plaintively, as if for a lost brother—until it took wing again into the mountains. Finally, and again on the same day, the keepers of the Zeus altar at Dion saw a great eagle come out of the east. Swooping down to the altar, it dropped a laurel wreath from its talons, circled seven times, then ascended home to the aerie of divine Olympus. For it was on that spring day, during the archonship of Hegesais in Athens, just shy of the thirty-third year of his age, that the great Alexander died.

  Aeschines paused, but not to wet his throat. He just stood there for several moments, his head bowed, shoulders slumped. Just as the jury became restless he resumed speaking again, in a voice that was very small, yet somehow carried to the very back of the courtroom.

  That the King died of poison I take as granted. After his second and third marriage, his first wife Rohjane had reason to want him dead, and ample opportunity to make him so. You recall that the Babylonians had a taster sample the water she brought in to him. While it is true that this man did not die after he drank, he did suffer later from acute pains of the abdomen. Whatever caused these pains might not have been fatal to a healthy man, but could easily have been deadly to someone who was already weak with sickness. For as we all know, wise poisoners do not strike out of the blue, but wait for some natural illness to cover their handiwork.

  You may judge this woman’s motives and character by what happened the very day Alexander died: Rohjane forged a letter in the King’s name to Barsine, ordering her to attend him in Babylon. This letter reached Susa before news of his death was known there. When Barsine trustingly submitted to the royal escort, which was really a gang of thugs in Rohjane’s employ, she was murdered. Like Rohjane, she was carrying a child of Alexander’s. Please understand that I do not mean to play the partisan in the current dispute over the succession. With regard to her motives, and Mac
hon’s, it need only be said that Rohjane has since delivered a boy, and that the child now figures in this matter in a way he never would had Barsine lived.

  Of Alexander himself I will say no more. I have eulogized him enough for the purposes of this prosecution. Suffice it to say that the world will never again see his like, and that he was too soon taken from us. Jealous men say he was flawed, and in that they are surely right, for whatever was divine in him, as in us all, was inevitably mixed with that which makes us mortal. I never said he was perfect—I only said he was a god.

  Machon will surely attempt some sophistic assault on the charges we make against him. He will argue that it is impossible for a mortal man like himself to corrupt a divine being. For the record, I will say that I believe Machon to be a devious weakling who could not, by himself, have destroyed Alexander. My claim, rather, is that he was a corrupting influence who consistently worked to undermine that which was good in the man, and encourage that which was destructive. I remind you that Machon does not stand charged with killing Alexander. Rather, the good people of Athens accuse him of impiety before a god, and of violating his orders to support Alexander in a manner that would bring honor to this city. Athenians, tell me: having heard his story, do you feel yourselves covered with honor?

  With all that I have placed in evidence, it is perhaps worth recounting the many ways Machon betrayed your trust. At Sardis, he lied about his association with Demosthenes, who was a known enemy of Macedon. At Gordion, he encouraged Alexander’s ambition to untie the celebrated Knot, provoking him to take a risk that only the King’s subtlety overcame. After Issus, he encouraged Alexander to abuse his captive, Stateira. Before the siege of Tyre, he was defeatist. In Egypt, we know by his own words that he plotted against Alexander’s ‘defect.’ At the Susian Gates, he baited the King into what he believed was a foolish mistake, only to be confounded when Alexander succeeded in forcing the Gates anyway. At Marakanda, he goaded the King into killing his friend Cleitus, and boasted that he encouraged Alexander to believe that any offense would be considered just in the eyes of heaven. In that same letter to Demosthenes, he further rejoices at Alexander’s breakdown. We know, based on a letter that Machon wrote from Sogdia, that he intended to use Rohjane to further his designs. We also have material evidence that he received money from the thief, Harpalus, payable in Persian currency. Lastly, and most fatefully, we know that he actively encouraged Rohjane to fear Alexander’s intentions. In this, he as good as encouraged her to act against him.

  Aeschines struck up a rhythm that became almost a dance, shifting from one foot to the other as he ran through these points. Swallow and the rest of the jury rocked with him, very entertained, until he brought them up short with a final, dramatic indictment.

  In the life of our democracy, so much of our time seems consumed by trivialities. And it might seem that our dispute with Machon is over little more than minor matters—words said at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or left unsaid; the petty boasts of a small man, temporarily enlarged by circumstances he neither deserved nor comprehended. Of Alexander’s vices and virtues, you may believe what you wish, as he is not on trial here. It is this man, Machon, we gather to judge, in the light of the responsibilities he solemnly accepted as an agent of this city. And I say that in the discharge of such responsibilities none of us here—magistrate, juror, prosecutor, or defendant—is entitled to judge which are the important charges to keep, and which are trivialities. Our forefathers have made those decisions for us. I would expect the same standard to be applied to myself, if I were in Machon’s position.

  You will shortly hear from the defendant himself. Though he plays the laconic soldier, don’t be fooled: he is as subtle as any con-artist in the stoa, as skilled with words as he is useless with the tools of war. He has his work cut out for him, however. Considering that Alexander is untimely dead, and Machon was sworn to serve Athens by serving Alexander, it seems he has but two choices: he must either admit his malice, or plead utter incompetence. In neither case does he escape his guilt. I therefore beg that you hear his plea and judge it with the wisdom that is worthy of our legacy as Athenians. That done, I cannot doubt that justice, which is our only purpose today, will be served.

  Aeschines finished exactly as the last drop of water ran through the clock. This impressed sophisticated jurors as much as anything he said, for it was difficult to accomplish this feat without making one’s speech detectibly stretched or truncated. Turning to look at his colleagues, Swallow could see in their eyes that the verdict on Aeschines was already in: his was a most impressive return.

  “The clock is set for a quarter-hour recess!” the clerk announced.

  The jurymen used a latrine reserved for them in the alley behind the courthouse. This was a blind wall with a stone-cut channel flushed by running water. As he took his place in the line, Swallow always found himself contemplating the nook and chinks knocked into the masonry, wondering at the generations of jurors who had thus pissed their way to a kind of immortality. The deeper the impressions, he gathered, the more long-winded the advocates. For his part, Swallow preferred style to power, attempting to write his name on the wall as he listened to the reviews of the trial so far.

  “I’d hate to be that Machon right now, poor bastard!” someone said.

  “Serves him right with that haircut!”

  “But he stayed quiet for most of it…that’s more than I would have stood for!”

  “Aeschines handed him acquittal with that crap. There was not a bit of substance to it!”

  “Are you out of your mind…?”

  “…was there a style to that speech…?”

  “It was pure Attic!”

  “No, it wasn’t! But it wasn’t Ionic either!”

  “That’s what makes it so good—it was delivered for the courtroom, not the schoolroom!”

  “This is more about politics than the law.”

  “What’s the distinction?”

  “That was more about that prick Alexander than anything else.”

  “Don’t you understand anything?”

  “…an overuse of enthymemes…”

  “There were no enthymemes…it was all on the surface!”

  “Enthymemes? Listen to these two!”

  “I’ve never seen them so liberal with the clock.”

  “Somebody wants this guy dead.”

  “If his speech takes more than two hours I’ll want him dead!”

  “I give top honors to the lamb!”

  HAR HAR HAR HAR…!

  Deuteros was standing at Swallow’s elbow as he wrapped himself, sucking his lower lip. “I guess I don’t see any reason to change our vote,” he said.

  “Why would we?” replied Swallow. “The defense hasn’t spoken yet.”

  “Do you think it’ll matter?”

  “It will to me. Gimme that bread.”

  “So what does Swallow say about the trial?” someone asked. Others seconded the question, until every face was turned toward Swallow. As one of the most experienced jurymen, he was presumed to have seen and heard it all since the dictatorship of the Thirty. Swallow knew this was an exaggeration—he wasn’t that old—but didn’t exactly discourage their esteem either.

  “I am surprised at nothing from Aeschines,” he said. “Except perhaps the timing of his prosecution. Why does he bring the charges now, so soon after Machon has come back? Why did he not wait until more witnesses returned from the east, so he could present live testimony? I am never comfortable with indicting a man on the basis of something in a letter.”

  The jurors stood pensively at their trough. Swallow continued, “I think that what we were expected to understand was not in the speech at all. And the winner, if the verdict is guilty, will not be Aeschines.”

  The silence lasted a bit longer as his fellow citizens took his meaning, or realized they never would. The argument then resumed as to which school of rhetorical style Aeschines’ speech was best classified.

  W
hen they returned to their seats the man who brought the lamb was still unconscious on the floor. He had missed the entire prosecution, and looked comfortable enough lying there to miss the defense too. There was a certain fairness in this, it seemed.

  Aeschines was sitting now with a plate of figs and myrtle berries. He ate with his eyes glued to Machon, who likewise had not moved, but sat staring narrowly at this feet, as if refusing to gratify his opponent by glaring back. As the clerk gaveled the courtroom to order the defendant finally looked up, his eyes sweeping over the mob that would decide his fate. Though Swallow believed Aeschines’ case was a tissue of presumption and innuendo, he’d said one thing that was clearly true: Machon had his work cut out for him.

  “Having considered the case for the indictment,” said Polycleitus, “the court will now hear the defense. Does the defendant wish to speak?”

  “I claim that privilege,” said Machon, rising. He turned out to be short—so short, in fact, many of the jurors in the back of the room would not see him at all. His voice also had a much higher pitch than one would imagine from his martial appearance.