Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

by Nicholas Nicastro

  Nor have I criticized him for the edict that raised the most protest in all the years he lived. I’m talking about his decree to all the cities of the Corinth League that they must take back their exiles. That this measure was a selfish one on Alexander’s part is beyond question: Asia was full of banished citizens from all the Greek cities, many all too eager to hire themselves out as mercenaries. Darius employed many; Agis of Sparta got his hands on no less than 8,000 of them for his revolt in the Peloponnese. For the stability of his empire, this festering pool had to be dried up.

  His reasoning has done nothing to make the homecomings popular among the landed classes here. Naturally, many of us have become comfortable on the estates of our exiled rivals. But I am here to defend myself, not the interests of the five-hundred-bushel men of Attica or the Samian colonies. If you have lost your farm to a returnee, or been forced to tolerate the presence of a political opponent, or of the man who killed your ox or diverted the water from your stream, perhaps you will find sympathy with me. But I count on nothing.

  It is my own fault that I did not leave time enough to complete my account of Alexander’s death. As it was, I did not see him when he was most ill, so there’s not much for me to add to that sad succession of bad omens and sickness. I did have access to Rohjane, though, and offer the following incident, if only to show that I have told you all that I know.

  It was on the third night of Alexander’s illness that Rohjane, who had become an insomniac since her pregnancy, heard someone walking through the royal apartments. She rose and seeing that it was the King, followed him on a circuitous route through the building. At last he came to a back door of the palace. Puzzled, she called to her husband.

  “My King, can that be you? May we celebrate your recovery?”

  The sound of her voice startled him. Drawing up his exhausted self, he replied in a voice so dry it testified to every mouthful of dust of every desert he had ever crossed.

  “You would do better not to interfere.”

  “Interfere in what?” she asked.

  “Barbarians and sycophants! How can you understand?”

  “My lord, let me help you—”

  “You may help me by allowing me the end my Father expects of me! Instead you delay me at the last minute with your foolishness.”

  “If I delay you, I do so only for the sake of your people, and your son who you would never meet.”

  “My son would thank me for my disappearance!”

  By this time their conversation had roused the servants, who gathered around them in collective incomprehension. The King, knowing he had missed his chance to escape, allowed himself to be carried to bed.

  If this story is true—and I see no profit for Rohjane in fabricating it—then it suggests Alexander accepted that his end was near. Instead of making a spectacle of his mortal end, he planned simply to vanish into the desert. No doubt such a disappearance would have served his legend well, like that of a god on loan to mankind, making his return to Heaven.

  I cannot believe, though, that it was the exit he most wanted. He preferred the taste of metal on his tongue—the fatal fall from a speeding horse on a rutted field. Any death in action would have been better than some second-rate apotheosis, this stealing away in the dead of night from a bed of stinking nightclothes. Taking a knife from a skulking assassin, like his father, would not have been much better. At last, with the help of Hermolaus, he found a better way.

  We all went to him as he fell. The wound in his throat did not penetrate his voicebox, but it was still painful for him to speak. Asked to whom he left his throne, he breathed, “To the strongest.” We swooned in disbelief as he faded. This was, after all, Alexander, encased moreover in the armor of matchless Achilles. It seemed impossible that he could die so splendidly armed—until I remembered Hector’s death. He was also wearing the armor of Achilles, having stripped it from the dead body of Patroclus.

  Most of you will probably not accept my story without further evidence. This was exactly the thinking of Perdiccas and Ptolemy when they sought to cover up the manner of the King’s death. Hermolaus, of course, was executed straightaway. The two witnesses on the top of the wall were likewise ordered down and killed. I would have joined them, except that I still had a use as recorder of Alexander’s greatness, and would not be believed anyway if I tried to spread the baseless story that he died in a duel with a minor prisoner!

  The story went out that he died of sickness. His troops mourned him out of genuine respect, yet also embraced each other out of relief that he was finally gone, as if they had collectively survived some great storm. The Persians grieved too. In their case it was less in their esteem for him than because they were about to exchange the known sins of Alexander for those of someone unknown. Their uncertainty has not ended—as it also hangs over all of us.

  Aeschines asks how I know the characters of men like Perdiccas and Ptolemy. I must say I find his case laughable, for as he questions the experience I report after years in their company, he bases his whole prosecution on the written hearsay of absent witnesses! Aeschines, don’t insult these gentlemen by overstating your case! Fine turns of phrase cannot hide your ignorance: if you had been there, for instance, you would know that the head injury Arridaeus received at the Hydaspes has done him some positive good—that he talks more, has taken up the wearing of clothes, and all in all seems ready to reign in his brother’s place. It only serves the purpose of Perdiccas, that fine fellow, to keep Arridaeus from ruling outright.

  From the sound of the water it seems I have a little more time, so I will help you to understand the man you have come to judge today. Aeschines says I lack zeal for the Greek cause. He is wrong—I have fought for that cause all my life, in ways and to extremes far beyond mere talk. I was not only at Chaeronea, but carried a spear against Philip on the island of Euboea, and Acarnanian Argos, and Cardia in the Chersonese and in Thrace. This was while our friend Aeschines took his sinecure on sunny Rhodes. And when I was sent to Alexander to fight for him, and the Fates abruptly decreed that the nature of my help must change, I did my best, though I knew little of diplomacy or of educating barbarous females. Never once have I said that if the Athenians wanted the skills of a diplomat or tutor, they should not have sent a soldier. I wonder if Aeschines had been there he would have done better. Certainly his skills have served the Macedonians well in the past. But I don’t think his golden throat would have done him much good against the Mallian raiders that morning on the Hydaspes!

  It is in your hands to determine whether I will take part in the coming fight with Antipater. For my part, I hope never to pick up a weapon again. A man can see enough war to understand that it is an exceptional opportunity for the triumph of mediocrities. Mediocre men—who ordinarily stand tongue-tied on the bema, who fight half-heartedly for their city, who make affordable sacrifices to the gods instead of genuine ones—can, with the benefit of arms, snuff brilliant minds, rape graceful women, destroy the greatest art, murder children. Mediocrity always triumphs, no matter how lofty the ideal by which we begin, no matter how great the leader. Neither great evil nor great virtue can be around all the time, can see everything. Yet mediocrity flies on horseback all over the battlefield, shouting “On to Pella, boys!”; it is living it up right now on native labor, on the estates owned by Greek barons in Sogdia and Bactria. Foundations crumble, fame fades. All hail the middling, so ubiquitous, and eternal!

  The defendant took his seat with water still running through the clock. Polycleitus let it flow for a few awkward moments as the courtroom absorbed Machon’s strange outburst. To Swallow, this incoherence was the inevitable result of an unschooled speaker forced beyond his skill to defend himself. After all, this was no Demosthenes who had shared the floor with Aeschines all day; where Machon had begun his trial with a face of polished calm, he finished with his manner perturbed, his voice trembling. Whether the jury read his attitude as presumptuous, or as the outrage of a man unjustly accused, might yet figure
in the verdict.

  “The jury will vote,” pronounced the archon. Then, leaning forward with his voice full of significance, he added “The city expects you all to fulfill your oaths.”

  A box was set out in front of the dais. Each juror had been issued two bronze disks: one disk with a hole in the center, signifying a vote of guilty, and one without a hole. As each man filed up to deliver his token, he was obliged to conceal his choice by putting thumb and forefinger over the center of the disk.

  The Scythian bailiffs were watching lest anyone try to influence the verdict by speaking, or by bandying his token uncovered. To defeat this, jurors over the years had hit on a simple convention: votes for conviction were dropped in the box with the left hand, ones for acquittal with the right. When this ploy became too well known, the magistrates decreed that tokens would always be handled with the right hand. The jurymen answered with a variation: if voting guilty, the center of the disk was covered with thumb and forefinger, if not guilty, with thumb and middle finger. So far the authorities had devised no response to this.

  The first vote was on the charge that the defendant had violated his oath. The citizens came up by rows, with Swallow and Deuteros among the first. Swallow delivered his token by thumb and middle finger, as did his friend. As the box filled with votes, the sound each bronze made as it hit the bottom passed from a wooden thud to a bright clink. Aeschines sat with his back straight and his legs together, looking more anxious than at any point in the trial. Machon slouched, his ankles crossed ahead of him as he looked out the window.

  The vote seemed to be closely divided. When the next to last row filed out, the rube who had brought livestock to the courtroom finally woke up. Rubbing his head, he turned to Polycleitus.

  “Magistrate, I appear to have fallen asleep. Where is my lamb?”

  The archon signaled to a bailiff, who shoved the man toward the tally box. Bewildered, the hayseed collected his tokens and went forward, though he couldn’t have heard a word of either presentation. Swallow watched when he dropped his disk: he used his thumb and all four fingers to handle the token, and so his vote was a mystery.

  The last vote was cast. The clerk and his assistant emptied the box and began to count as another set of tokens was handed out to each juror. The voting began on the second charge, impiety, as the counting for the first proceeded. Swallow watched with curiosity as the clerk finished the tally, frowned, and decided they should count again. Because of this the jurymen sat for an unusually long time as their stomachs growled and the full moon dipped into view through the windows.

  At last the clerk handed Polycleitus a clean tablet with the count for both charges. The archon looked to the clerk as if to assure himself of the numbers. The clerk tossed his head in the affirmative. Polycleitus faced Machon.

  “The defendant will stand.”

  XXIII.

  Machon hauled himself to his feet. With the possible exception of the archon, he appeared to be the most dejected man in the room.

  “Regarding the first charge, failure to fulfill his oath to the Assembly, the jury finds the defendant, Machon son of Agathon, not guilty. The votes are 251-249…”

  The room erupted as the jurors turned on each other. Accusations were met with counter-accusations, hands raised in denial, fingers jabbed in every chest. Deuteros was almost pushed off his bench as a juror leapt to his feet behind him, screaming that the vote had been fixed. Another raised his arms toward heaven beseechingly, crying “May the gods protect us from the fury of the Macedonians!” Soon the bailiff’s truncheons were swinging, men were hitting the floor, and two citizens dueled with knives. It took some time before order was restored.

  Swallow was silent throughout the riot. In fact, this was only the second most even tally he had seen in his time. Machon was acquitted by a margin of two. Five years earlier Swallow participated in a corruption trial that ended 251 to 250, with the tiebreaking vote for conviction cast by the archon.

  “Whatever we do, we must talk to that shepherd!” he told Deuteros.

  “On the matter of the second charge of impiety,” Polycleitus announced at last, “the jury finds the defendant not guilty. The votes are 309 to 191. Clerk, release the jurors.”

  The five hundred poured out in the alley in front of the courthouse. The jurors were each clutching their jury-pay—seven newly-minted obols—in their hands. Despite the lateness of the hour, a number of vendors on the agora stayed open for business. A man went around selling fresh water from a spigotted skin on his back. Another hawked flatbread from an oily sack, while a handful of women of various ages haunted the half-shadows around the crowd, murmuring to whomever was nearby.

  Some of the jurors went off right away to taverns specializing in the law court trade. The rest surrounded the bewildered Machon, pounding him on the shoulders, pumping his hand, begging to drink with him.

  “Tell us, were those your own words?” someone asked.

  “Did Demosthenes write the speech?”

  “Demosthenes,” Machon replied, “would not have been so inept.”

  “Has anybody seen Aeschines?”

  “Gone through the back door, I’d think! With his reputation, after so many trials, to be so thoroughly beaten by an amateur…”

  Searching the mob, Swallow caught sight of the shepherd. Someone had left his lamb tied to a stake outside the courthouse; the man had already spent some of his pay on water for the sick thing. Swallow poked the man with his walking stick as the lamb lapped the water from his cupped palms.

  “Friend, tell us—did you hear anything of the case?”

  “Can’t see it’s any business of yours, friend.”

  Swallow tossed an obol on the ground. The other looked at the coin, gathered it under himself with his foot.

  “In case you didn’t see, I was…out… the entire day.”

  “So how did you vote?”

  Silence. Swallow showed him another coin.

  “Are you sure you want to pay him again?” asked Deuteros.

  “There’s another case to be tried tomorrow…and the day after that. For now I must know his answer.”

  The lamb having finished its drink, the shepherd dried his hands on his ragged tunic. “I would love to take your money,” he said, “but no one explained the rules to me. I can’t remember which token I dropped. I can’t remember at all.”

  XXIV

  After his acquittal, Machon was seen carousing with well-wishers. Such good business followed him that the tavern stayed open until dawn. The barkeep had a pretty daughter who poured out the jugs, and kept the roast eel and pork womb coming in a way that made everyone forget the privation of the trial. Swallow and Deuteros found the party soon after it started, the former buying the jurors several rounds of Thasian black from some seemingly inexhaustible source of silver.

  “So where do you keep all that cash, Swallow, that you can treat us all so generously?”

  “You don’t want to know where he keeps his money,” warned Deuteros.

  “From the fact that you are here,” asked another juror, “may we suppose that you were in accord with the final verdict?”

  Swallow smiled. “If you knew me personally, my friend, you would not suppose that at all! But in this case, you are right—I had something to do with the happiness of this occasion.”

  “But did you have a verdict in mind when you came into the courtroom—or was it something Machon said that convinced you?”

  Again, Swallow found himself obliged to make some meaning of what they had heard that day. This time, however, the defendant himself was among those staring at him. Confronted with the question of what verdict he originally favored, he glanced to Deuteros, who was engrossed in skimming the sediment from his wine to the edge of his cup.

  “I will not lie to you—knowing the nature of the charges, and the stakes of the trial, Deuteros and I came to court today intending to vote ‘guilty.’ In this we had only in mind the necessity of giving the Macedonians no e
xcuse to attack the city. Of the wisdom of this view, we shall all learn in the near future. In any case, the credit for forcing me to look more deeply into the questions at hand, into the problem Alexander presented to us all, belongs to Machon alone. It was nothing in particular that he said. Instead, he convinced me that the fate of men like him and the fate of the city are not distinguishable. Athens is men like Machon.”

  Drinks were raised all around, and murmurs made in solemn agreement. Machon’s cup stayed up longer than anyone’s, though, as he stared into the fleshy crevices that contained the eyes of Swallow. The latter, feeling some modesty was in order, then took to emulating Deuteros’s fascination with the debris in his wine.

  “But what of Alexander himself? Now that you have heard what Aeschines has said, and then Machon, which do you think better captured the truth of the man?”

  Swallow frowned. “If I foolishly professed to know the answer to that question, I would scarcely deserve the puzzling interest you all share in my view!”

  “Oh, come now!” groaned the juror. “Though we know you only in the courtroom, that you have an opinion about everything is public knowledge.”

  “Fair enough. If you want to hear me say something of him, though it can only be part of the truth, and something of a truism, here it is: in times such as these, when everything seems diminished, the Greeks yearn for the straightforward heroism of Achilles. To his credit, Alexander tried to fulfill this need. But not even Achilles could provide himself with a worthy enemy to overcome and seal his fame. That, instead, was a gift of Fortune. Alexander was not so lucky. He was forced to march through half the world to find his Hector. This foolish lionizing of Darius, of Porus, of dead competitors like Cyrus and Xerxes, is evidence of his failure. If events had not intervened, he’d still be looking today, I wager.”