Alexander (Vol. 2) (25 page)

‘There’s another one!’ shouted Eumenes, pointing to a house just in front of them, a hundred feet or so away.

From the left came the voice of Perdiccas: ‘Fire! Fire! Alarm!’

Lysimachus arrived breathless from running: ‘They’re out to roast us alive!’ he said. ‘They’re burning all the houses next to the breach and the brick wall. The wooden tower is going up like a torch . . . look!’

Memnon was playing the last card in his hand, counting on the favourable wind. Alexander jumped to his feet: ‘Quickly! We have to stop them lighting other fires – send out the assault troops, the shieldsmen, the Thracians and the Agrianians. Kill all those you find setting fires.’

In the meantime all the companions were running to him to receive their orders. Seleucus, Philotas, Leonnatus and Ptolemy were all present.

‘Listen to me!’ shouted Alexander above the roar of the flames which the wind was driving ever higher and in their direction. ‘You, Seleucus, and you, Leonnatus, take half of the
pezhetairoi
, cross through the quarter they have set fire to and line up on the other side – your job is to block any counter-attack. It is clear they aim to regain control of the breach.

‘Ptolemy and Philotas – line up the rest of the troops behind the breach and station guards on all the gates! I want no surprises from behind. Lysimachus, get the ballistae and the catapults out of here or they’ll end up being destroyed when the tower collapses! Go now! Move!’

The wooden tower was now completely enveloped in fire and the rising wind brought tongues of flame that licked the eastern sector of the breach. The heat was almost unbearable and the glow of the huge torch spread light over an immense area around the walls, so that the Agrianian archers were easily able to sight the Halicarnassians setting the fires and pick them off with their arrows. The beams of the base were soon consumed by the flames and the enormous trellis fell with a terrible crash, raising a column of smoke some three hundred feet high, higher than any tower, higher than any building in the whole city.

Alexander was forced to abandon his observation point because of the heat, but he installed himself on the next tower, near the side gate, where he still had a good view. From there he sent his orderlies off to the various sectors and received news from them on the situation as it developed.

He ordered Lysimachus to use the catapults to destroy the houses near the buildings which were already alight and to contain the fire – the rain of huge stones launched from the war-engines immediately increased the din and the confusion of that infernal night.

But the King’s countermoves proved to be the right ones. The assault troops’ and the Agrianians’ operations put an end to the fires, while the heavy infantry lined up on the other side of the burned quarter dissuaded the Persians and the mercenaries from making any attempt to surprise the Macedonian army, all of whom were dazed and rattled by the violence of the flames.

Eumenes called up many labourers from the camp and had them shovel dust, sand and rubble on to the fires which were still burning. Gradually they were brought under control. The wooden tower that had involved so much work was reduced to a great pile of ash and embers, out of which jutted massive beams, carbonized and smouldering.

As dawn broke, the first rays of the sun struck the golden four-horse carriage on the top of the Mausoleum, while the rest of the city was still in darkness. Then, slowly, as the disc of the sun gradually appeared above the mountains, the cone of light descended the great stepped pyramid and shone on the multicoloured frieze by Scopas and Bryaxis, illuminating the fine Corinthian colonnade, the golden volutes, the fluted shafts, profiled in gold on a background of purple.

In that riot of colour, in that triumph of crystalline light, the spectral silence which enveloped Halicarnassus was truly unsettling. Could it be that not even the mothers of the city cried for their sons who had fallen in battle?

‘Can it be?’ Alexander asked Eumenes, who had approached just then.

‘It is possible,’ replied the secretary. ‘No one cries for a mercenary. The mercenary has no mother, no father, and not even any friends. All he has is his spear, the tool with which he earns his daily bread – the stalest and most bitter of all breads.’

P
TOLEMY RAN TO HIS SIDE
: ‘Alexander, we await your orders.’

‘Take Perdiccas and Lysimachus, divide the assault troops and the shieldsmen between you and search the entire city. The Greek hoplites and our
pezhetairoi
will follow you as reinforcements. You must flush out all the armed men who are left alive, and above all else you must look for Memnon. I do not want him to come to any harm – if you find him, bring him to me.’

‘We will do as you say,’ said Ptolemy, and off he went to inform his companions.

The King waited, together with Eumenes, under the roof of a blockhouse on the walls, from which he had a reasonable view of Halicarnassus. Not long afterwards Ptolemy sent him an orderly with this message:

Alexander had Bucephalas brought to him and set off on horseback through the city streets. All doors and windows were closed tight – the people of the city were terrified and had locked themselves indoors. When he came in sight of the two fortresses which protected the entrance to the harbour, he went immediately to Perdiccas.

‘What shall we do, Alexander?’

The King studied the fortifications, then he turned back and looked in the direction of the walls.

‘Demolish all the houses on the left-hand side of the road that leads here and then destroy all those in the area of the harbour – in this way we will be able to bring up the engines and position them next to the fortresses. The Persians must understand that there are no walls or bastions in all this region behind which they can find refuge. They have to understand that they must leave now, and never return.’

Perdiccas nodded, leaped on to his horse and galloped to the quarter which had been razed the night before to collect groups of labourers and saboteurs, those who were still in a fit state to work. He had to have them woken with trumpet calls because they had fallen asleep where they were when the exhausting night’s work had ended.

The chief engineer, a Thessalian by the name of Diades, had the two upper platforms of one of the siege towers taken apart to use them as supports for a ram with which they would demolish the houses near the harbour. Eumenes called some heralds and sent them off to organize the evacuation of the houses.

When the people understood that there had been no massacres, nor rapes nor looting, they started coming out of their homes. The children first – curious to understand what all the movement in the city was about – then the women and last of all the men.

The demolition work, however, proved to be much more extensive than envisaged because many of the houses were built one on top of another and when one wall was brought down, many others were ruined too. Indeed, because of this it was later said that Alexander had in fact razed all Halicarnassus to the ground.

Within four days a sufficiently large area had been cleared to allow the siege machines to be brought up and they set to work battering the fortresses. But that very night, Memnon, Orontobates and Pixodarus, together with a certain number of soldiers, all embarked on some ships in the harbour and sailed offshore to join the greater part of the Persian fleet to the north, in the waters of Chios.

The surviving Greek mercenaries, however, installed themselves in the acropolis, which because of its dominant position was truly impregnable.

Alexander had no desire to waste more time chasing them out of there, given that in any case they were completely surrounded by his own troops. He had a trench dug around the citadel and left some officers of minor rank in charge, waiting for the mercenaries’ surrender.

Then Alexander called a meeting of his high command in the city’s assembly rooms. Callisthenes was there too, his request to attend having been accepted. While they began deliberating on what was to be done, a Halicarnassian delegation was announced – dignitaries who wanted to meet the King.

‘I don’t want to receive them,’ said Alexander. ‘I don’t trust them.’

‘But there are decisions to be made regarding the political make-up of a most important city,’ Parmenion pointed out.

‘You could introduce a democratic system like the one in Ephesus,’ said Callisthenes.

‘Right,’ said Ptolemy ironically. ‘That way you’ll keep Uncle Aristotle happy, don’t you think?’

‘And what’s wrong with that?’ asked Callisthenes, somewhat irritated. ‘Democracy is the fairest and most balanced system for governing a city, it is the system which provides the greatest guarantee of . . .’

Ptolemy interrupted him before he could finish the sentence, ‘But this lot have really put us through it. We have lost more men on these walls than we did on the Granicus. If it was up to me . . .’

‘Ptolemy is right!’ shouted Leonnatus. ‘They must realize who is giving the orders now and that they have to pay for the damage they have caused us.’

The discussion would certainly have degenerated into a riot, but just then Eumenes heard movement outside the door and went to take a look. When he realized what was happening, he returned to Alexander and whispered something in his ear. The King smiled and stood up.

‘Would anyone care for a biscuit?’ he asked, raising his voice. Not only was the question enough to quieten them all, but they stood looking at one another in bewilderment.

‘Are you joking?’ said Leonnatus, suddenly breaking the silence. ‘I’d eat a whole side of beef, never mind the biscuits. But I do find myself wondering who on earth could have had such a bizarre idea as to bring us biscuits at this moment and . . .’

The door opened and Alexander’s adoptive mother, Queen Ada, entered, dressed in full regalia and followed by a train of cooks with great trays filled with warm biscuits. Leonnatus’s jaw dropped at the sight and Eumenes took a biscuit and pushed it into his mouth.

‘Eat up, and shut up!’

‘Mother dearest, how are you?’ asked Alexander, standing up and moving forward to greet her. ‘Quickly, a chair for the Queen. But what a pleasant surprise! I would never have expected to see you at this moment.’

‘I thought that after all these terrible ordeals then you might just appreciate a good biscuit or two,’ replied Ada, half-way between being serious and facetious. ‘And I’ve also come to make sure that you don’t treat my city too cruelly.’

The King took a biscuit and began crunching on it. ‘They are excellent, Mother, and it was stupid of me to send them back last time. As for your city, that is exactly what we are discussing right now, but now that you are here I think I know exactly what we must do.’

‘And what might that be?’ asked Ada. Callisthenes was about to ask the same question but his jaw dropped as well, leaving him completely speechless.

‘That we nominate you satrap of Caria in place of Orontobates, with full powers over Halicarnassus and all its surrounding lands. My generals will make sure they are all brought under control.’

Callisthenes managed to shake his head, as if to say ‘madness’, but the Queen was moved by Alexander’s words: ‘But my son, I don’t know if . . .’

‘I do know,’ said Alexander interrupting her. ‘I know that you will be an excellent leader and I know that I will be able to trust you completely.’

He had her sit down on his own throne and turned to Eumenes. ‘Now you may bring in the delegation from the city. It is only right that they should know who will be governing them from tomorrow onwards.’

*

The search operations were still under way when Apelles’s arrival was announced. The master of the brushes hurried to pay homage to the young King and make a proposal.

‘Sire, I believe that the time has come for you to be represented as you truly deserve; that is to say, as a god.’

Alexander had to work hard not to burst out laughing. ‘You really think so?’

‘But there is no doubt of it. Indeed, I was so sure of your victory here that I had already prepared a small sketch which I would ask your permission to show to you. Of course, you must understand that the completed work will look quite different on a tableau of ten by twenty feet.’

‘Ten feet by twenty feet?’ repeated Leonnatus, to whom in all sincerity the use of all that wood and that paint for a not so very tall youngster like Alexander seemed like a waste.

Apelles threw him a disdainful look – in his eyes Leonnatus was nothing but an uncultivated barbarian, and what was more he had red hair and a freckled complexion. The great painter turned back to Alexander: ‘Sire, my proposal also makes considerable sense if you bear in mind that your Asiatic subjects are used to being governed by superior beings, by sovereigns who are like gods and who have themselves represented as gods. For this reason I feel I should depict you with all the attributes of Zeus – the eagle at your feet and a lightning bolt in your right hand.’