In the meantime, the Macedonians trapped inside the Cadmea citadel managed to break out in a sortie and catch their opponents from behind as they fought hand-to-hand in the narrow winding streets in front of their own homes.
Not one of the Thebans surrendered, not one of them fell to his knees to beg for his life, but this desperate courage in no way inspired any act of clemency from the Macedonians. Indeed, nothing would have availed to stop the cruel vendetta. Blind with rage and drunk with blood and violence, they entered the temples, tore the women and the children from the altars and committed every possible type of atrocity on them.
The streets of the city echoed with the cries of boys and girls pleading for help from their parents, men and women who, even if they heard, simply could not help them.
The Macedonians were not alone now in that they had been joined by all the Greeks, Boeotians and Phocaeans who had suffered Theban oppression in the past. These people, even though they spoke the same language and the same dialect as the Thebans, proved to be the cruellest of all, continuing to inflict violence even when there were piles of bodies on every corner and in every square.
Only the arrival of nightfall, together with exhaustion and drunkenness, brought the massacre to an end.
On the following day Alexander united the council of the League to decide what was to be done with Thebes.
The delegates from Plataea were the first to speak: ‘The Thebans have always been traitors to the Greeks’ common cause. They were alone among our peoples, during the Persian invasion, in forging an alliance with the Great King against our brothers who were fighting for freedom. They showed no pity then, when our city was destroyed by the barbarians and razed to the ground, when our women were violated and our children were taken as slaves to countries so far away that no one will ever be able to find them.’
‘And the Athenians,’ said the Thespian delegate, ‘they helped the Thebans only to abandon them in their moment of need, when the just punishment approached … perhaps the Athenians have lost all memory of the occasion when the Persians burned their city, razing the temples of the gods to the ground?’
‘To make a punitive example of one single city,’ the Phocaean and the Thessalian representatives suggested, ‘will help prevent future wars, and will deter others from violating the peace out of hatred and blind partisanship.’
The decision was taken by a large majority, and although Alexander himself was against it, he could not oppose it because he had proclaimed that he would respect the council’s motion.
Eight thousand Thebans were sold as slaves. Their age-old city, celebrated by Homer and Pindar, was razed to the ground. Thebes was wiped from the face of the earth as if it had never existed.
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alexander let himself fall to the ground from his horse and then he dragged himself off to his tent. His head was full of bloodcurdling cries, of laments and pleas, his hands were covered in blood.
He declined food and water, unstrapped his weapons and threw himself onto his bed where his body was wracked by terrible spasms. It was as if he had lost control of his muscles and his senses nightmares
and hallucinations passed before his eyes and moved through his soul like a storm destroying everything in its path, a hurricane blew through his mind, uprooting any thought that appeared there just as soon as it had begun to take shape.
These were the hours immediately after the storming of Thebes and the pain and despair of an entire Greek city torn up by the roots weighed on his soul like a millstone. The sense of oppression was so strong it exploded in an almost feral cry of delirium and suffering. For those who heard it, however, it was no different from the many other cries that cut through that accursed night, its darkness haunted by drunken shadows, by blood-sodden spirits.
Ptolemy’s voice suddenly broke into his consciousness.
‘It was nothing like a battle in an open field, was it? It wasn’t like the battle on the Ister. And yet the fall of Troy as sung by your Homer was no different from this, and neither was the destruction of many other glorious cities of which not even any trace of memory remains.’
Alexander said nothing. He had sat up on the bed as Ptolemy
CHILD OF A DREAM
talked and the expression on his face was that of a man possessed, almost mad. All he managed was to murmur, ‘I … I didn’t want to.’
“I know,’ said Ptolemy as he lowered his head. ‘You didn’t enter the city,’ he began again after a short silence, ‘but I can assure you that the worst ones, the cruellest, the ones who mutilated these wretches were their very own neighbours the
Phocaeans, the Plataeans, the Thespians, all of them kin to the Thebans, if not identical, in terms of language, stock, tradition
and belief.
‘Seventy years ago Athens was defeated and was forced to surrender unconditionally to its opponents Spartans
and Thebans. And do you know what the Thebans wanted to do? You do know, don’t you? They wanted to burn Athens and to demolish the city walls, to slay the population or sell them off into slavery. If the Spartan Lysander had not been so firm in his opposition to their plans, then today the glory of the world, the most beautiful city ever built, would be nothing but a heap of ash and even its name would have been lost.
‘The cruel fate invoked by the Thebans’ ancestors against a helpless, harmless enemy has today come home to roost with their descendants. It is their inexorable nemesis. And yet today the circumstances are different you
had even offered them peace in exchange for minimal limitation of their freedom.
‘And now, out there, their neighbours, the members of the Boeotian Confederation, are already arguing over how to split up the territory of their mother city and they are calling for your arbitration in this process.’
Alexander moved towards a basin full of water and plunged his head into it. Then he dried his face and said, ‘Is this why you have come? I don’t want to see them.’
‘No. I came to tell you that the house of the poet Pindar, as you ordered, has been spared and I managed to save a certain number of works from the flames.’ Alexander nodded. ‘I also wanted to tell you that … Perdiccas is close to death.
He was seriously injured in yesterday’s attack, but he didn’t want you to be informed.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he didn’t want to distract you from the responsibilities of your command at such a crucial moment. But now …’
‘So that’s why he hasn’t been here to report to me! Oh, by the gods!’ exclaimed Alexander. ‘Take me to him immediately.’
Ptolemy went out and the King followed him to a tent at the far western end of the camp where lamps were burning.
Perdiccas lay on his bed, out of his mind, soaked in sweat and burning up with fever. Philip the physician was sitting by him and was squeezing a clear liquid from a sponge into his mouth.
‘How is he?’ Alexander asked.
Philip shook his head. ‘His temperature is very high and he has lost a lot of blood. It’s an ugly wound a
spear under his collar bone. It didn’t catch his lung, but it cut through several muscles and the bleeding is terrible. I’ve cauterized it, stitched and dressed it, and now I’m trying to give him some liquid mixed with a medicine that should calm the pain and keep the fever down. But I don’t know how much of it he actually absorbs and how much is lost…’
Alexander came nearer and put a hand on Perdiccas’ forehead.
‘My friend, don’t go, don’t leave me.’
Together with Philip he sat up all night to watch over Perdiccas, even though he was exhausted and hadn’t slept for two whole days. At dawn, Perdiccas opened his eyes and looked around. Alexander elbowed Philip who had dropped off to sleep.
The doctor woke up, took a look at the wound and placed his hand on his patient’s forehead he
was still very hot, but his temperature had come down considerably.
‘Perhaps he’ll make it,’ said Philip before going back to sleep.
Shortly afterwards Ptolemy came in.
‘How is he?’ he asked quietly.
‘Philip thinks he might make it.’
‘That’s good. But you should rest now you
look terrible.’
‘Everything here has been terrible, these have been the worst days of my life.’
Ptolemy came nearer, as if wanting to say something, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Alexander.
‘I … I don’t know … if Perdiccas had died then I wouldn’t have said anything, but since he might survive, I think you should know …”
‘What? By the gods … don’t drag it out so much.’
‘Before he lost consciousness, Perdiccas gave me a letter.’
‘For me?’
‘No. For your sister, the Queen of Epirus. They were lovers, and in the letter he asks her never to forget him. I … we all joked about this infatuation of his, but no one ever thought that they really …” Ptolemy handed over the letter.
‘No,’ said Alexander. ‘I don’t want to see it. It’s all water under the bridge. My sister was a young girl full of life, and I don’t see anything wrong in her having desired a man she liked. She’s no longer an adolescent and she is embarking on a marriage with a husband she loves. As for Perdiccas, I certainly can’t take him to task for having wanted to dedicate his last thoughts to the woman he loves.’
‘And what am I to do with this?’
‘Burn it. But if he asks you, tell him it was delivered straight to Cleopatra in person.’
Ptolemy went over to a lamp and held the papyrus sheet over the flame. Perdiccas’ declaration of love was consumed in the flames and disappeared with the smoke into the air.
The ruthless punishment of Thebes provoked horrified reaction throughout Greece: never had such an illustrious city been wiped from the face of the earth. Thebes’ roots ran so deep that they mingled with the very myths of Greek origin. The despair of the few survivors became the despair of all Greeks, who identified
their homeland with the city, in which they were born. The sanctuaries, the springs, the squares where, every memory of their origins was guarded lovingly.
The city was everything for the Greeks images
stood at every street corner, ancient simulacra worn by time which in one way or another were linked to myths, to events that were all part of their common heritage. Every fount had its own sound, every tree its voice, every stone its history. Everywhere there were traces of the gods, of the heroes, of the ancestors, everywhere there were people venerating their relics and their effigies.
To lose one’s city was like losing one’s soul, like dying before one’s time, like becoming blind after having long enjoyed the light of the sun and the colours of the earth. It was worse than being a slave, because often slaves have no memory of their past.
The Theban refugees who managed to reach Athens were the first to bring the news and it plunged the city into deep anguish. The people’s representatives sent heralds everywhere to summon the assembly because they wanted everyone to hear the accounts of what had happened from eye witnesses and not through second-hand tales.
When the truth was clear to everyone in all its frightful drama, an old military admiral by the name of Phokion the
man who had led the Athenian expedition in the Straits against Philip’s fleet stood
up to speak.
‘It seems clear to me that what has happened at Thebes could happen here in Athens too. We have reneged on our pact with Philip exactly as the Thebans had. And, what’s more, we armed the Thebans. Why should Alexander show any leniency towards us?
‘It is also true that those responsible here for these decisions those
who persuaded the people to vote for these measures, who incited the Thebans to challenge the King of Macedon and then abandoned them to face him alone and who now expose their own city to a terrible risk it
is true that these people should bear in mind that the sacrifice of a few is always preferable to the extermination of many, or of an entire city. They ought to be brave enough to hand themselves over and to confront the fate that they have so recklessly tempted.
‘Citizens, when I spoke against these decisions I was accused of being a Macedonian sympathizer. When Alexander was still in Thrace, Demosthenes said that a little boy had climbed up onto the throne of Macedon then
he became a youngster when he reached Thessaly and then a young man when he appeared beneath the walls of Thebes. Now that he has demonstrated all his devastating power, how would you describe him? How do you intend to address him? Will you finally recognize that this is a man in full possession of his own immeasurable power and abilities?
“I have only one last thing to say. I believe firmly that it is necessary to have the courage both of one’s actions and of one’s convictions.’
Demosthenes stood up to defend his own actions and those of his supporters by appealing, as he always did, to the sense of freedom and democracy which had been born in Athens, and he concluded by letting the assembly decide his own fate:
‘I am not afraid of death. I have already looked death square in the face on the field at Chaeronaea, where I barely survived by hiding in the midst of piles of bodies and then fleeing through the mountains. I have always served this city and I will continue to serve it now in these difficult moments. If the assembly asks me to hand myself over, I will do so.’
Demosthenes had been adroit as always he
had offered himself up for sacrifice, but in truth he had spoken so skilfully that for all those listening such a choice would have been almost a form of sacrilege.
