Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

by Nicholas Nicastro

  Mounted Achilles lofted his shining arms

  Lashed the strong horses to flight, so they sped

  Through the dust of Illium he raised

  By Hector’s black hair spread upon the ground—

  Unlike Achilles, Alexander did not mount the car, but just slapped the lead horse to start him on his way. All watched, curious, as the chariot raced off toward the sea, Batis’s head carving a bloody furrow in the shell-strewn dust. Some time later riders went out to retrieve the chariot. The man’s remains were not buried, but left for the crabs to devour.

  The end of Batis may seem cruel to us. Alexander, too, was often given to merciful treatment of worthy enemies, as I will later relate. The one thing he could not abide, however, was the presumption of arrogance by beaten men. If nothing else, he would teach humility to all the Persians. Some critics, Demosthenes among them, have made much of Alexander’s supposed descent into oriental despotism, pointing to Batis’s death as a notable example. But there is nothing about this execution that smacks of the barbarians. Indeed, I say the opposite: it was Homeric, which we may agree is as Greek as it gets!

  It is one of the imponderables of this campaign that it was the fall of Gaza, not Tyre, that made Alexander’s name throughout the world. That such a well-protected city was reduced so fast, in less than two months, at last established that mere walls were no defense against him. There were sieges to come, to be sure, but in the years to come all the large cities just opened their gates to him. His name alone made walls moot.

  Egypt agreed with the young king. Having millennia of experience in investing weak characters in the trappings of godhood, the Egyptians had become most accomplished in their sycophancy. Not that Alexander was the least worthy of their flattery—on the contrary, he was every inch the gallant conqueror, as young and winning as the old Persian satrap had been cowardly and rapacious. For the reasons I described earlier, when he left the oracle at Siwah he was as convinced of his divinity as I had ever seen him. Cash and favors poured from him like wet from the Nile. Emissaries from all over the world came to pay him homage, or to beg his indulgence in settling their petty disputes. In short, from the time he rejoined his army for the march to Damascus, until he took possession of Babylon, he was much the hero that Aeschines described. This was a period of less than a year.

  At the ancient capital of Memphis he held court, feasting the local nobles and regaling them with the finest poets and musicians from Athens. He sponsored a program of athletic contests on the plain of Giza. At the end of the day, he climbed up the highest Pyramid, that of Cheops, and surveyed the sweep of his new province. To a mind determined to confront all obstacles, the linearity of Egypt, thrusting so grandly into the heart of Africa, was a tonic.

  Sailing up to Egyptian Thebes, he was welcomed at Karnak like its long-lost master. Dressed in flawless white linen, he strode down the aisle of the great Hypostyle Hall between throngs of plaited, intoning priests. He entered the sanctum alone, to gaze at the very image of the god Ammon recumbent in His golden pavilion. The next day he took the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt on his head, and was called Horus, Horus-of-Gold, He-of-the-Sedge-and-the-Bee and the Son of Ra. By the end of the ceremony the Egyptians unveiled a likeness of their new pharaoh: a colossus in black basalt, enthroned with the crook and the flail. This impressed Alexander, as the carving of this statue must have begun well before he entered the country. It is in the nature of the Egyptians to think of everything.

  Here I must turn aside from my story to dispute how Aeschines has portrayed my conduct in Egypt. He makes special reference to a report I sent to the archon Nicetes, and proceeds completely to misunderstand the substance of it. By the orders of the Assembly I was duty-bound to report what I saw in Alexander’s company, whether it flattered him or not. Therefore, if I observe that the King’s troops laughed at him behind his back when he put on Egyptian garb, it is because that is what I saw! Would Aeschines prefer that I mislead the Assembly? Likewise, I did write that Alexander’s enthusiasm for barbarian finery was a weakness in his character, and that this weakness might someday lead him into trouble. Given subsequent events, was this anything less than the unvarnished truth?

  Recall at this time that King Agis of Sparta approached this city with an offer of alliance against Macedon. The Athenians refused, which was fortunate for us, as Agis’s revolt was defeated by Antipater on the plains of Megalopolis. To those who longed for an end to Macedonian hegemony, my reports of Alexander’s defects gave the virtue of patience: if the young king would ultimately destroy himself, why risk the very existence of our state on Agis’s hopeless cause? In this way, what I learned was of direct benefit to you all. Note that this doesn’t mean I sought to destroy Alexander myself! If that was my object, I could have stuck a dagger in his heart on any one of a thousand occasions. So I ask you again, how have I served my city wrongly?

  Returning to the Delta, the new pharaoh turned west, toward the great oasis of Siwah. He announced that it was his intention to consult the god Ammon at his sanctuary, as his ancestors Heracles and Perseus had before him. Taking a small force of two hundred hypaspists, Hephaestion, Aristander and myself included, he started along the coast, skirting Lake Mareotis. On the way he paused at a site he perceived to be an ideal spot for a new city, situated on sloping ground between the lake and the sea. Perhaps inspired by his experience at Tyre, he foresaw how a mole running out to the Pharos island would afford deep, calm anchorage. Anyone with a particle of ambition would already have exploited the site, declared Alexander, except that the Pharaohs of old had never thought any other land worth conquering, and so never built a true seaport from which to rule.

  He was so impatient to see his perfect foundation realized that he immediately began surveying the site. Marching ahead of his secretaries, he dictated the future locations of the temples, the marketplace, and the palace; to compensate for the lack of high landmarks in the area, he left instructions that a lighthouse exactly one stade tall be constructed on the island to guide ships into the port. To be sure, nothing of the kind had ever been built before, but none doubted that Alexander would see it done.

  His clerks fretted that they had no surveying equipment with them, so they could not record the King’s wisdom. Alexander commanded his men to use the flour in their packs to mark the boundaries. The Egyptians warned against this, as the flour would be necessary for the difficult journey across the desert to Siwah. Alexander ignored them, using every bit of grain to lay out the capital’s walls and streets. When he was done, he looked with satisfaction at his design, until a great flock of seagulls arrived and began to eat his city. He deployed his troops to drive away the birds, but it was too late: the lines of flour were trampled by thousands of little feet.

  ‘What can this mean?’ Alexander turned to Aristander.

  The soothsayer had a ready answer: “Fear not, O King! The splendor of your capital will attract men from abroad like gulls from the sea, and make it the Queen of Cities.”

  “The gods were so anxious to see the place built,” added Hephaestion, “that they want you to mark the boundaries with something more permanent, like stones.”

  Both answers pleased Alexander.

  The trip to Siwah took us into a waste so trackless that our guides had difficulty keeping their bearings. Such desolation is unknown anywhere in Greece; rain was so rare there, in fact, that the natives of Siwah long ago stopped building roofs on their houses. Short of water, and with no flour for food, it seemed that the Macedonians were in trouble—until the gods intervened again. Zeus sent a great rainstorm. Then Hermes manifested out of the ground in the form of an asp, and led us directly to the oasis. The Egyptians were amazed at these events, as if they were used to only nominal divinity, not true miracles, from their god-kings.

  Alexander’s party was met in the outer courtyard of the temple by the high priest. The man’s Greek was so poor that instead of referring to Alexander in the vocative case, as ‘O my s
on,’ he used the nominative, as in ‘the son’, or ‘the son of Zeus.’ It was a trifling difference in the sounds of the words, a common mistake for barbarians, but it intrigued Alexander. The priest, in his turn, observed the expression on the King’s face.

  Alexander went alone into the Holy of Holies. He was there for some time, as if in long conversation with the god. While nothing is known of what Alexander asked of the oracle, or the nature of the replies, what he learned there must have confirmed his new, and growing, sense of his unique destiny.

  Returning to Memphis, Alexander installed his governors. In his wisdom, he understood that Egypt is too rich a land to trust to one man alone. He therefore divided its administration among two governors and three garrison commanders. Each was sworn not only to serve their King, but to respect the local governments and religious customs of the natives. He then led his army back to Phoenicia.

  X.

  The army reached the river Euphrates via Damascus some weeks later, making an uncontested crossing near Thapsacus. While the King was in that vicinity he paid a visit upstream to Bambyce, where there is a temple to Atargatis. Beyond paying homage to the goddess, however, he had in mind to see a certain wonder he had learned about from Aristotle: namely, the collection of marvelous fish that lived in the lake of the sanctuary.

  The lake is in the temple courtyard. At the center of it is an altar in the shape of a phallus, which the acolytes swim out to decorate with flowers during the spring festival. In the water there are fish (some say carp, some say catfish) that are each as big as a man, and utterly tame. To visitors they swim up and roll themselves over to be scratched; some say the fish even have human-like faces. The priests encourage this legend by adorning them with jewels and gold on their fins, and conversing with them as if they could speak. Very few had ever witnessed this miracle before Alexander came, however.

  They say that when the King arrived the fish became agitated, churning at his feet as if caught in a net. Suddenly the biggest one leapt clear of the water. Lying on its belly at Alexander’s feet, it raised itself on its bejeweled fins and said, in a clear voice so that all could hear: “With thanks, I consecrate myself to the table of the Great King.” And with that it kissed Alexander’s toe, and dropped dead.

  I cannot vouch for the truth of this story as I was not there. In any case, the event made a deep impression on the priests, who fell to their knees in wonder. Alexander, for his part, expected no less a gift for the son of Zeus-Ammon. “We must honor this old fellow’s sacrifice,” he said, speaking of the fish. “Cook! Peristalsis! Fetch a cauldron!”

  What the King proposed to do was unprecedented. The Syrians never consumed the fish in the goddess’ ponds, believing this to be a dire sin. Still, a desire to be eaten could not have been more clearly expressed by the fish. And so Alexander and his friends dined on a sacred carp of Atargatis that evening. In the long history of the temple, they were the only visitors to have been granted this honor.

  It was at this time that Darius sent an envoy to Alexander. He was a Greek named Aegoscephalus. He had lived in Susa for most of his life, and declared (though for no clear reason) that he was equally proficient in Greek, Persian, Elamite, Akkadian and Aramaic. For his appearance before Alexander he wore the garb of a Persian dignitary, with layered, ankle-length robes and flat-topped, fluted headdress. Receiving him, Alexander gave every indication of being more interested in this striking get-up than in any message the man had to relate.

  The envoy began by suggesting there was no reason why Darius and Alexander need be enemies. Had not peace obtained between their peoples for generations, until his father Philip sent an army into Asia? Why had Alexander never sent emissaries to his court to communicate his grievances, whatever those might be? Against Alexander’s sudden aggression, Darius had risen to defend his people, as any king might. Even so, to reestablish peace required only good will on both sides. To this end, Alexander would find a willing partner in the Great King.

  The ensuing offer was undeniably impressive. All the lands between the Euphrates river and the Aegean coast would henceforth be ruled by Alexander. Darius would pay the Macedonians any reasonable annual tribute they wished to name, in addition to a ransom of 10,000 gold talents for the release of his son, wife, and mother. To seal the alliance, Darius would hand over his daughter to Alexander in marriage.

  Everyone in the room found these terms most favorable—it was the widest conquest of territory and treasure ever accomplished with so few losses and in so short a time. Everyone was satisfied, that is, except Alexander, who yawned in the envoy’s face.

  The Greek was sent away so that the king could consider the offer. In reality, the offer was never considered, for Alexander’s mind was already made up. Parmenion shook his head.

  “If I were you, I’d take what he’s selling.”

  “If I were Parmenion, I would take it too. Bring the man back.”

  Aegoscephalus was led in, perhaps sooner than he expected. In making his reply to Darius, Alexander spoke to him in imperious, condescending tones, pointing his finger at him. His reply went something like this:

  “First, you shall address me as the Lord of All Asia, as is only fit. Your employer is not my equal, but mere leaseholder on the lands that remain to him…they are not his to trade away, but mine if I wish to take them. The same applies to his money, and to his women, both of which I shall claim as my own in due course. If he wishes to reunite himself with his family, let him come to me and beg for this privilege! He need not be afraid, for Alexander is as fair to his supplicants as he is merciless to his enemies…You say that there is no reason for war between us, but the Persian’s memory serves only his vanity. His ancestors disfigured Greece with their invasions, having looted and burned her holiest sanctuaries. The kings of Persia have meddled in the affairs of Macedon since before the time of Philip. Your king has even boasted that he set the plan in motion that killed my predecessor. In truth, your employer is a pretender, for it is known here that he murdered by poison the legitimate heir to the Persian throne. No reason for war between us? How many more reasons do we need?”

  At this point, Parmenion was so disgusted at this hubris that he left the room. For even as Alexander sat there insulting his opponent’s manhood, he bore a scar from when, in single combat, Darius had sunk a javelin into his leg. Equally chilling to Macedonian ears was the way he evaded acknowledging Philip as his true father by calling him his ‘predecessor’. But Alexander was not finished:

  “If your employer takes himself for a man, he will take exception to what I say. If so, let him not flee from me, but stand and fight. Rest assured that I will give him every advantage. And if the day is his, he can expect that his enemy will not run, but welcome whatever fate the victor should decree. But until that day, let him know that the Lord of Asia considers him little more than a criminal, and will pursue him to the ends of the earth until the day he appears where his servant does now, on bended knee, and begs my pardon. Now off with you!”

  Soon enough, we learned the Great King’s answer to these insults.

  That night Alexander received reports from scouts sent to find Darius. They found neither the enemy nor significant resistance, but did learn that an urgent call had gone out to every corner of the empire for all native levies to gather near Babylon. Rumors held that Darius blamed his defeat at Issus not on Alexander’s leadership, but on the tight topography, which restricted the movement of the superior Persian cavalry. Alexander smiled at this conceit, but must have burned inwardly; as you will hear, his desire to leave Darius no excuse for his defeat had more effect on his tactics at Gaugamela than any military consideration.

  The Macedonians crossed the Tigris without the loss of a single man. After the army made camp on the easterly shore, two significant events occurred. First, there was a total eclipse of the moon, which appeared high in the sky at the change of the midnight watch. The Macedonians were not so much frightened by the apparition as uneasy about it
s meaning on the eve of such an important battle. Aristander interpreted the eclipse as evidence that a great contest was underway in Heaven, with the moon allied for Darius and earth for Alexander. The spectacle portended the final victory of the Macedonians.

  The second event was the eclipse of Stateira, Darius’s wife. Despite Parmenion’s advice that the Great King’s family should have been left in Sidon or Damascus, Alexander had kept Sisygambus, Stateira and the rest close to him. For him, it was nothing less than a guarantee of his honor as inheritor of the Achaemenid royal house. Despite his protection, however, the Queen was somehow gotten with child, and was far along in her pregnancy. Of the circumstances of her violation I know nothing but the fact of it—I saw her expectant form myself one evening, in silhouette against the fabric of her tent. When she fell ill she sank quickly, despite the best efforts of the king’s personal doctor, Philip. Alexander grieved at her death, decreeing that her funeral be conducted in true Persian fashion.

  I witnessed these curious rites. The body was placed under a white shroud and left exposed for three days beside lamps filled with aromatic oil. Instead of cremating her body in civilized fashion, the barbarians prepared a deep grave to house her bones. Believing that deities somehow care for the moral conduct of human beings, the priests of Zoroaster kept up a long series of chants in their native tongue, enjoining their gods to give the dead entrance to their heavenly paradise.

  As dogs are sacred to the Persians, packs of yowling mutts kept up a constant din. They came off the leash for a particularly odd custom: the priest broke a loaf of bread into three parts, and placed the pieces on the body at the breast, stomach, and hipbone. Then a dog was invited to climb up on the bier and devour the bread. If this makes any sense at all, it is perhaps rooted in our myth of Kerberos, or in the purificatory use of dead dogs by fools and old women, though these rites seem much distorted in the minds of the barbarians.