Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

by Nicholas Nicastro

  Confronting Porus, Alexander dismounted and made such signals as to indicate he wished to parley. Porus, staring down on his adversary from the biggest war elephant on the field, halted. While he was not out of his mind as Aambhi suggested, he must have been troubled by the nine wounds he had received that day, and the ordeal of witnessing all three of his grown sons killed. He might have tried to run his enemy down right then, but with his army destroyed and his kingdom’s fate sealed, such spite would have gained him nothing. Instead, he stepped onto his elephant’s bent front leg. The beast gently lowered its master to the ground before Alexander.

  The Paurava king was a giant nearly eight feet tall, with a crest on his helmet that made him seem taller still. His posture there was unbowed and unafraid, though he had no fewer than three arrows still stuck in his body. Alexander seemed little more than a child standing before his father—except that it was the Macedonian who had given the lesson that day.

  “Tell me why you fought me,” Alexander asked him, “when you see your rival here has profited by forswearing the sword?”

  Porus answered, “If you had come to me in friendship, it is you who would have profited.”

  “I can ask for no worthier opponent. Therefore tell me how you should be treated, and it shall be so.”

  “As a king. No more, no less.”

  “It shall be as you wish for your kingdom. And for yourself, whatever you desire is yours. What may I give you?”

  “I have given you my answer. Give to a king as a king ought.”

  And give Alexander did. Perhaps because he was angry at the poor intelligence on the river crossing, or perhaps because Porus presented the kind of ally he trusted more at his back, he did not give the Pauravas kingdom to Aambhi. Instead, he confirmed Porus as ruler for all lands between the Hydaspes and the Acesines, and went on to enlarge his kingdom with lands around the Hydraotes. In return, he stipulated that Porus would contribute as many garrison troops and all the elephants he could spare to the Macedonian army. Porus, for his part, accepted his responsibility, and discharged it faithfully in the campaigns that followed against the Cathaei tribe, so that Alexander’s realm ran to the west bank of the Hyphasis. Beyond that river beckoned the great Ganges plain.

  There is one other detail Aeschines failed to mention in his account of this time: in the chaos of the end of the battle, a crazed, blinded elephant veered into the Macedonian line. Undeterred by lances or arrows, this elephant charged through a phalanx sixteen-shields deep, turned left, and ran right over Arridaeus and his screen of protectors. All the guards on the exposed side were crushed; Arridaeus was thrown when his horse panicked, and kicked by a hoof as his mount escaped.

  This was the worst sort of disaster for the Macedonians. Alexander abandoned his chivalrous interview with Porus the second he got the news. The royal doctor was summoned, and a tent thrown up over Arridaeus’ body to conceal the incident. Soon Alexander and his staff learned the diagnosis: his brother had been kicked in the side of his head. The all-enclosing Corinthian helmet had not protected him, but added to the injury by shattering with the impact. Lacerations had caused him to lose much blood. He was alive, but unconscious in a way that did not promise he would ever recover.

  And so the campaign was both literally and figuratively at a crossroads. Among the generals who ran the army, there seemed a real possibility that all of Asia would bow to a Macedonian master, and consequently to governors selected from among themselves. Yet without Arridaeus how would they ever defeat the Great King of India? For surely the wealthy lands around the Ganges must support a powerful kingdom. No one knew for sure what lay ahead, but imagination filled in the details: the Indian monarch must have an army of half a million men, with elephants twice as large and ten times more numerous than those of Porus.

  Not knowing what to do, the Macedonians did what they’d always done: march east. By then they were suffering from the almost constant rain of that part of the world. The heavens opened every day, letting down a steaming torrent that rusted armor and rotted wounds. Spoiled food and contaminated water fouled the stomachs of the men, and the stench of widespread diarrhea gave away the army’s position to anyone with a nose. To give his men some relief from the heat, Alexander took care to march in the shadow of whatever high ground was available, but this was meager in the region.

  These and other miserable conditions conspired to make a crossing of the Acesines River an expensive proposition. The river was almost two miles wide in the spring, and the natives, by now aware that the Macedonians would seize any vessels they found, hid or scuttled all their boats. Alexander therefore had to dig deeply into the huge fortune he had raided from Persia to purchase the transport he needed.

  There were two deaths around this time that did not come on the battlefield, but that each affected Alexander in its own way. First, Bucephalus at last passed on from old age. Alexander grieved for him as he would for a close comrade, and erected a shrine for him on the hillside where his ashes were buried. He also founded a city in the place where he had crossed the Hydaspes on that stormy night, and called it Bucephala, so that the animal’s name would forever be on the lips of men. There he settled soldiers who had grown too old to serve him, and those who had married Indian women and wished to settle, with his blessing, on the lands they had conquered.

  The other death was of Darius’s mother, Sisygambus. She had been ailing for some time, and had long expressed through intermediaries that she preferred to return to Persia. But Alexander, perhaps out of affection for the kind of mother Olympias never was, kept the old woman close to him. In any case, the heat and constant rain of India in that season wore her down, until at last she stopped eating, and called for Alexander from her deathbed.

  The latter, coming into her presence, was shocked and saddened by her wasted appearance. Kneeling at her side, he begged that she might live to see the shore of the great Eastern Ocean with him. At this, she laughed at him.

  “You are a fool. Neither of us will live to see the Eastern Ocean!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Asia is not little Europe, my dear boy! Its vastness exceeds your imagining, with kingdoms beyond India you cannot conquer in five lifetimes. For your happiness, be content with what you have accomplished. Make an heir with that half-wild woman of yours! That is my testament to you.”

  And with that she allowed him to kiss her hand, and ordered him to leave her, for she wished to die with the survivors of her royal household around her, as she was attended in happier times. And when word came that she was gone, Alexander mourned, putting off eating and washing for three days. He sent her body home unburned, so that she might be buried whole, in accord with the Persian custom.

  XVII.

  Alexander forgot his grief by attacking a hostile tribe called the Cathaei. These people were under the influence of a priestly class called the Brahmins, who were known both for their wisdom and their pride. Alexander’s informants told him that these Brahmins had been fomenting resistance to the “unclean” Macedonians up and down the Indus Valley. The King was therefore keen to confront this enemy head on.

  Hephaestion took it upon himself to go to Taxila to observe the Brahmins there. When he returned, he reported that they lived together in the woods like wild animals. The young ones went completely naked, letting their hair grow long. At the age of 37 were they allowed to shave their heads and wear linen robes. Despite their poverty the Brahmins were held in highest esteem by the people, for only they were permitted to make prayers, conduct sacrifices, or entreat the gods in any way. For this reason they had no need of material wealth: if they became hungry they went to the markets and received supplies from the merchants without needing to ask. But because the Brahmins believed it polluting for anyone of a lesser class to touch their food, their meals could only be prepared by other Brahmins. Similarly, when the unguent sellers saw one of these sages in the marketplace, they would do them conspicuous honor by covering them with expensive
oils. To go about so anointed therefore became something of a badge of Brahmin virtue.

  Hephaestion approached a beautiful young Brahmin who was standing by a stream. His hair was divided into two queues, one draped over each shoulder, and his skin was shining with oil as I have described. The young man was standing on one foot, arms outstretched, with logs two feet long in each hand. He kept this excruciating position, staring straight ahead, never wavering, for the entire time Hephaestion watched him.

  As he did so an older Brahmin approached to ask about the philosophy of the Greeks. Hephaestion obliged by telling him something of the teachings of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Diogenes.

  “You Greeks have some wisdom,” the old Brahmin finally said. “But all in all you concern yourselves too much with politics. There’s nothing less worth the time of a mature mind than the ways men contrive their social relations.”

  “It surprises me to learn that,” replied Hephaestion, “because it is said that you Brahmins advise your kings on all matters of state.”

  “The wise man must raise his children, but does not confine his thinking to childish questions. Would you like to learn the proper objects of serious thought…? Good! First, take off your clothes.”

  Hephaestion declined.

  “Then let that be your first lesson: if you cannot put off your clothes, you cannot lay aside the more profound burdens. Remember what I have told you.”

  With that the old Brahmin walked away. The young one was still holding up his logs; as Hephaestion was conversing with the elder, he had slowly switched from standing on the left leg to the right, but had otherwise barely moved.

  The capital of the Cathaei, Sangala, stood twenty parasangs beyond the river Acesines. The natives defended the place with a triple-line of wagons around the town. Although the Macedonians had the advantage of massive numbers, the Cathaei retreated in good order as their enemies took each line of defense. At length, after many casualties on both sides, the Cathaei were shut up inside the walls. Facing the unpleasant prospect of assault by Alexander’s siege engines, thousands of enemy fighters tried to sneak out of Sangala during the night. Peithon was waiting for them.

  The prisoners were then given a choice: execution, or a place among Alexander’s auxiliaries. They all chose the latter. But it seemed a peculiarity of the men of Asia that such promises were taken lightly. The following night all of them tried to escape yet again. This time the Macedonians showed no mercy: by the time the work was done, they had hacked to death more than 7,000 of the deserters. Another 10,000 were killed in the siege. Upon seeing all these bodies littering the ground, I could not restrain myself from a reproving look at Alexander. To my surprise, he tossed his head with a smile.

  “Don’t worry, Machon! I shall be gone soon enough!”

  The King ordered Peithon to spare ten Brahmins from the general slaughter. Knowing their reputation for virtue, and still assuming they belonged to some Asiatic school of sophists, Alexander had these specimens brought before him. It was his intention to host a debate, and perhaps in this way revive the spirit of inquiry that had steadily been snuffed out by the brutality of the war.

  But he was destined to be disappointed. When he posed a series of philosophical puzzles to them, believing he might learn how they think, none of the prisoners answered. On pain of death, he repeated his questions:

  “Which are more numerous, those now alive or those who have died? Where do more creatures live, in the ocean or on the land? Which came first, day or night? How shall a man make others love him…?”

  Yet even under the most dire threats the Brahmins stayed silent. In this way Alexander learned that they were not sages at all, but a class of haughty nobles who needed to learn humility.

  “I had asked once for you to speak,” he said. “A god does not ask twice.”

  The penalty was severe: for their silence, Alexander had their mouths sewn shut. The Brahmins were then left to languish in full view of the camp. For the most part they did so bravely, except for three who somehow managed to drink through their noses. These were killed as the army decamped to cross the next river to the east, the Hyphasis.

  This was another muddy, roiling torrent that was bigger than any river in Greece. Faced with another laborious crossing, and the prospect of crossing it again on the way home, a change abruptly came over the hearts of the rank-and-file soldiers. Where before everyone simply went along with the rest of the mass, it suddenly became thinkable to demand an end to the misery. In the tents, around the cook fires, in the latrines, the talk was quite open about it. Their immediate superiors, moreover, stopped punishing such chatter.

  Alexander’s position on this was far less clear than Aeschines represents. Idle curiosity to see what lay on the other side of the next hill was part of his nature, to be sure. The prospect of returning to Babylon to become a mere administrator, or worse yet to Pella and inevitable assassination, held little attraction. Better to die in battle, spear leveled against the elephants of the Great King of India! But on the other hand, without Arridaeus or Parmenion the prospect of victory against superior forces was remote. As resigned to death as Alexander was, he still preferred to die as the victor than as the vanquished. Nor was he blind to the suffering of his men.

  You have heard the prosecution relate the substance of a speech the King gave on the shores of the Hyphasis. In this speech, Alexander is supposed to have argued for a continuation of the war to the farthest shores of Asia. When this wish was defied by his men, he railed against the cowards around him, and stripped off his clothes to show his scars. Then he supposedly retreated to his tent, to sulk like Achilles.

  That speech did occur. What my opponent misses, though, is everything the speaker really meant. The simpleminded heroism of Aeschines’ version serves the purpose of Ptolemy and Antipater, to burnish the legend of the god-hero who assures their authority. The real story is a great deal more interesting—it was the subtlest speech Alexander ever produced. For at the same time, he had to encourage his men to fight on, but also to make sure that his appeal was denied. And once it was denied, he had to convince everyone that he was disappointed! It was a short, shrewd performance from a man more used to giving orders than working persuasion.

  He gathered his officers irrespective of rank in a field outside the camp. Just as the setting sun broke through under the storm clouds, he mounted a wagon and raised his hands for quiet. The late sunshine cast a golden light on him that made him seem like his own commemorative bronze.

  “My friends, I have been knocked about a fair amount these last years. My ears have been rung as much as yours, but rest assured I am not deaf yet. It comes to my attention that some of you want to go home. And I must say I understand, for we know why there are so many big rivers in India—Zeus never stops the rain!”

  It was a well-timed joke, but drew only grimaces. Rain in India is not a laughing matter.

  “It is still only a short time since we met the Pauravas in battle. We fought that morning as the superior force, overmatching our enemy in men and horses and, in the end, in valor. Even so, a thousand of our companions will not see home after that test. A thousand more have claimed their rest in the time since, of wounds and sickness. You are wrong if you believe I have not noticed these losses.

  “Now we march toward the lands of the Great King of India, whose domains encompass the balance of Asia. I have been as immersed in rumors of what will find there as I have been in this fetid air, and I must say they are just as unhealthy! So if you want to know what you will find at the Ganges, don’t ask your tent mate—ask me! Go ahead, ask!”

  There was a pause before the officers took his invitation. “What will we find, O King?” they cried.

  “Death,” Alexander said. “And victory. Exactly what you found everywhere else. For have we not learned that the butt of a sword feels the same in every land? Or its edge, for that matter? Whence this morbid curiosity, my friends? Have we not found the same reward everywhere—death t
o some, victory for the rest, and another river to cross? Comrades deserve the truth from comrades. From me you should expect no fairy tales, no rosy scenarios. To civilize the world is hard work.

  “But here’s another dose of honesty, boys: I won’t go on without you. I’ve got more treasure than Croesus, and I could hire ten times your number in mercenaries, but I won’t. We’ve come this far together, and on the strength of your loyalty this campaign will live or die. I want to go east; some of you want to go home, the job only half-done. Some of you say ‘leave something of the world for our sons to conquer.’ I say leave our sons a world at peace, under the rule of a king who knows how much you bled to win it.

  “You all have misgivings, I know. You have questions I haven’t begun to answer. Where does Asia end? Are the elephants in India twice as large as those of Porus? Will we all stray so far from home that we will return more barbarian than Greek? Of these matters, I can only tell you I don’t know yet. But I want us to find the answers together. I await your reply.”

  As you recall, the response came from Coenus son of Polemocrates. This man was a competent infantry commander—his role in defeating Spitamenes and pressing the Indians at the Hydaspes were decisive—but as an orator his talents were decidedly modest. I was there when delivered his rambling argument for withdrawal, and it is a wonder how it has been built up into the tearjerker it has been by Ptolemy and his followers. But the reason is simple enough: given that Alexander’s professed wish to go on was defied, only a brilliant oration would motivate the retreat without diminishing the King.

  Coming forward, Coenus said, “I address you reluctantly, as the humble must naturally be in the face of the Lord of Asia. For who would dispute that you already bear that title, now ruling lands greater in extent than the Great King himself? My king, hear the words of a man who has been with you since before the Granicus. Hear one who was there before the Hellespont, the Danube, or Thebes. Hear one who first rode during the first campaign against the Triballians, and yes, who shed his share of tears at the funeral of your father.