Creation (10 page)

THE COURT LEFT SUSA IN FOUR CONTINGENTS. Since the harem’s progress is always the slowest, the women and eunuchs depart first. Needless to say, Lais traveled by litter in the train of Queen Atossa. Lais was now an important lady of the court. The treasury and the furniture of the Great King come immediately after the harem. Next to depart are the clerks of the chancellery with their endless files. Finally the officers of state, the law-bearers, the nobles and the Great King take to the road on horseback or in war chariots. Thanks to Milo, I traveled with the nobles, in a war chariot drawn by four horses.

Shortly after I was assigned to the first section of the palace school, Thessalus insisted that his son Milo be promoted to the same class on the ground that the nephew of the tyrant of Athens was the equal of any Persian noble or priest. So Milo joined our classes and I had someone to talk Greek to. When it came time for us to leave for Ecbatana, Thessalus insisted that I travel with him and Milo.

We left Susa at sunrise. Both rivers were overflowing with swift white water from the snow that had begun to melt in the Zagros Mountains. Yet in a month’s time, those swift rivers would be muddy rivulets. I have never known any place in the world to be as hot as Susa in the summertime, and I have lived in India; or as cold as Susa in the wintertime, and I have crossed the high Himalayas.

Thessalus himself drove the four-horse chariot. He had won the chariot race at the Olympic games, and he was every bit as overwhelming on the subject as Callias. There is something about those quadrennial games at Olympia that maddens even the most intelligent of the Greeks. I think that if Thessalus had had to choose between being tyrant of Athens and winning a victor’s crown at the thirty-ninth Olympiad, he would have preferred the tangle of olive twigs.

For the slow-moving litters and wagons of the harem, the trip from Susa to Ecbatana takes at least a dozen days. For two small boys and a champion charioteer, the trip takes four days. Incidentally, this was my first encounter with the superb road system that Darius was creating. Out of Susa, Darius’ highways go to the north, to the southwest, to the east. Every ten or fifteen miles, there is a post house, as well as an inn and stables. Small villages tend to grow up around the post houses.

At our first stop I could see through the white and pink blossoms of a thousand fruit trees in bloom, the wooden huts of a new settlement. Above Susa, the land is unusually fertile.

Due to Thessalus’ rank, the innkeeper assigned us a small room with a low ceiling and an earth floor. Lesser notables slept in the stables and cattle sheds or on the ground beneath the stars.

Although men of high rank usually travel with their own tents and furniture and retinue of slaves, Thessalus wanted us to travel “the way real soldiers do. Because that’s what you’re both going to be.”

“Not Cyrus,” said Milo. “He’s going to be a priest. He’s always praying, and thinking up curses.” Although Milo could not have had much memory of the city of his birth, his style was very much the mocking Athenian one. I daresay it’s in the bones.

Thessalus looked at me with some interest. “Are you a born Magian?”

“No, I’m not. I’m a Persian ...”

“He’s not a Persian. He’s a Mede.” Milo was tactless. It has never been considered good taste at court to mention the fact that the prophet sent by the Wise Lord to convert the Persians was not a Persian but a Mede from Rages. Despite the pretensions of various members of our family, Zoroaster had no Persian blood. On the other hand, I don’t think that we are Medes, either. I have a suspicion that we derive from some truly ancient stock—Assyrian or Chaldean or even Babylonian. Except for me, the Spitamas are much too dark, too intense-looking, too exotic to be Medes. I, of course, am not typical of the family. Because of Lais, I am fair; and look to be Greek.

Thessalus lit charcoal in a brazier. He then made us soldiers’ bread out of broken grain mixed with water. The result looked and no doubt tasted like sun-dried cow’s dung.

“You have a great heritage,” said Thessalus. He was a handsome man. Early in life he had married a Persian lady from Miletus. Although the Athenians of those days were not as opposed to mixed marriages as they are now, everyone at Athens thought that if a member of their reigning dynasty were to marry a Persian lady she should be, at the very least, a member of our imperial house.

I am told that Thessalus loved his wife in a most un-Athenian way. Certainly, he was an unusually passionate man. So fierce, if brief, had been the love between him and the future tyrannicide Harmodius that Athenian history was changed.

I don’t think that anyone now alive understands exactly what happened. Elpinice, who is usually knowledgeable in such matters, thinks that both Thessalus and his step-brother Hipparchus were enamored of Harmodius, a beautiful young athlete from Tanagra. Naturally, Harmodius was flattered to be loved by the two brothers of the tyrant of Athens. Harmodius was also something of a flirt. Officially, he was the boy-lover of another Tanagran, a cavalry at Athens, everyone quarreled with everyone matters at Athens, everyone quarreled with everyone else. Aristogeiton was furious at the tyrant’s brothers, while Thessalus was angry at
his
brother for trying to take the boy away from him. While the boy himself ... The whole thing is a perfect tangle, and of interest only to an Athenian. On the other hand, the outcome of this mess changed history.

Hipparchus insulted Harmodius’ virginal sister at a public ceremony. He is supposed to have said that he hoped that she was less of a wanton than her brother. In a rage Harmodius went to his old lover Aristogeiton, and together they vowed to avenge this insult. At the Great Pan-Athenaic Festival, not only did Harmodius and Aristogeiton murder Hipparchus, they tried but failed to kill the tyrant Hippias. Although they themselves were promptly put to death, the tyranny was shaken and Hippias’ position became so difficult that he felt obliged to send Thessalus up to Susa to make an alliance with Darius. But things had gone too far at Athens. Because of a lovers’ quarrel, the house of Pisistratus fell, and statues of the lovers were put up in the Agora. Incidentally, when Xerxes conquered Athens, he brought the statues home to Susa where, upon my advice, they were placed beneath a monument to the family of Pisistratus. To this day the young killers can be seen, looking up at those good tyrants whom their jealousy and folly drove from a city that will never again know anything like the long and glorious peace so honorably maintained by the Pisistratids. The whole business is very strange. Only in Athens does one find sexual passion mixed up with politics.

Democritus reminds me that at the Persian court, favorite wives or concubines of the Great King are often influential. This is true. But whenever our queens exert power, it is not due so much to their sexual charms as to the fact that they govern the three houses of the harem and that the queen consort receives a large income
separate
from the Great King’s. Finally, the queen consort is able to deal directly with those eunuchs who control the chancellery. Although I have never known a man as susceptible to beautiful women as Xerxes, I cannot think of a single instance in which his private lust affected public policy. Well, there was one such incident—but that was at the end of his life. If I live long enough, I will tell you about it.

As we ate soldiers’ bread, I did my best to convince Thessalus that I, too, wanted to be a proper soldier.

“It is the best life,” said Thessalus. “Necessary, too. The world is dangerous if you cannot fight. Or lead an army.” He pushed at the coals in the brazier. “Or
raise
an army.” He looked sad.

We all knew that Thessalus had failed to persuade Darius to come to the aid of Hippias. In those days, Darius paid little attention to the Greek world. Although he controlled the Greek cities of Asia Minor and exercised a degree of suzerainty over a number of islands like Samos, the Great King was never much interested in the western world, particularly after his defeat on the Danube.

Although Darius was fascinated by the east, he was never able, except for one expedition to the Indus River, to turn his full attention to the east and to the east of the east. Like Cyrus before him, Darius was constantly distracted by those fair-skinned northern horsemen who are forever pressing on our borders. But then, they are we. A thousand years ago the original Aryans swept down from the north and enslaved what we still refer to as the black-haired people, the original inhabitants of Assyria and Babylonia. Now, as Medes and Persians, the tribesmen are civilized and our clan leader is the Great King. Meanwhile, our cousins from the steppes look at us covetously; and await their turn.

Wistfully Thessalus spoke of Athens and, young as I was, I knew that he was speaking with a purpose. Queen Atossa was my mother’s friend. Words said to me would be repeated to the queen. “Hippias is a good friend of Persia. Hippias’ enemies at Athens are Persia’s enemies and Sparta’s friends.” Thessalus’ frowning face was rosy in the brazier’s light. “Hippias needs the Great King’s help.”

Outside the inn someone shouted, “Way for the Great King’s post!” There was a jangling sound as the messenger changed horses. Even in those days, royal messengers could travel the fifteen hundred miles from Susa to Sardis in less than a week. Darius always said that it was not his armies but his roads that sustained the empire.

“One day Sparta will make an alliance with my brother’s enemies at Athens. When that happens, they will attack Persia.”

Even to a child, this sounded ludicrous. Persia was a whole world. Although I had no notion just what Sparta was, I did know that it was Greek and small and weak and far away. I also knew that Persians invariably defeated Greeks. That was a natural law.

“My brother Hippias is all that stands between Persia and Sparta.” I don’t think that Thessalus was of very great intelligence. Since he was dead before I was full-grown, I never got to know him as one man does another. On the other hand, I had many dealings with his brother Hippias during the tyrant’s long exile in Persia. Hippias was not only impressive but learned.

“Why is Sparta so dangerous?” I asked.

“They live for war. They are not like other people. Sparta is a barracks, not a city. They want to conquer all of Greece. They envy Athens. They hated our father, Pisistratus, because he was loved by all of the people and by all of the gods. In fact, the goddess Athena herself led my father up to the Acropolis, and in front of all the citizens she gave him and his heirs power over her city.” I have no idea whether or not Thessalus believed this story. Certainly no modern Athenian does. Did they in those days? I doubt it.

The truth of the matter is that Pisistratus and his friends persuaded a tall girl named Phya to dress up as Athena. I have met her grandson, who delights in telling how his grandmother then escorted Pisistratus along the sacred way to Athena’s temple on the Acropolis. Since a majority of the people supported Pisistratus anyway, they pretended that Phya was really Athena. The others kept silent—out of fear.

In due course Pisistratus was driven from Athens. He went to Thrace, where he owned silver mines. For a time he was associated with my grandfather Megacreon. As soon as Pisistratus had amassed a brand-new fortune, he paid off the leaders of the aristocratic party of Lycurgus. Then he bought off the commercial party of Megacles. Since he himself commanded the party of the ordinary people of the city, he was now able to return as tyrant of Athens, where he died, old and happy. He was succeeded by his sons Hippias and Hipparchus.

There are two theories—two? there are a thousand!—as to the motives of Hipparchus’ murderers. Some think that they were politically inspired. Others think that they were simply a pair of lovers gone berserk. I suspect the latter. So does Elpinice. As she pointed out only recently, neither of the two young men was connected with the celebrated family that was the focal point for those aristocrats who opposed the tyranny. I mean, of course, the descendants of the accursed ... literally, accursed Alcmeon, who put to death a number of men who had taken refuge in a temple. In consequence, Alcmeon was cursed with the sort of curse that goes from father to son for generations. Incidentally, Pericles is an Alcmeonid, on his mother’s side. Poor man! Although I don’t believe in the various Greek gods, I tend to believe in the power of curses. In any case, from a base at Delphi, Alcmeon’s grandson Cleisthenes led the opposition to the popular Hippias.

“Cleisthenes is a dangerous man.” Thessalus was somber. “He is also ungrateful, like all the Alcmeonids. When Hippias succeeded our father, he made Cleisthenes a magistrate. Now Cleisthenes has gone to Sparta, trying to get them to invade Athens. He knows that only a foreign army could ever drive us out. No Athenian would. We are popular. The Alcmeonids are not.”

Thessalus’ account proved to be true, if not disinterested. A year or so after this conversation, Cleisthenes arrived at Athens with the Spartan army, and Hippias was overthrown. Hippias then swore allegiance to the Great King, and settled himself and his family at Sigeum, a modern town near the ruins of Troy.

Hippias was close to Apollo’s priests at Delphi. He also helped preside over those mysteries at Eleusis where Callias bears his hereditary torch. He is said to have known more about oracles than any Greek. He could also predict the future. Once, in my green and insolent youth, I asked the tyrant if he had foreseen his own downfall.

“Yes,” he said.

I waited for details. He offered none.

Whenever there is a political or moral mystery, the Athenians like to quote their wise man Solon. I shall do the same. Solon correctly blamed not Pisistratus but the Athenians for the rise of the tyrant. He said ... what?

Democritus has now found me Solon’s actual words: “You yourselves have made these men great by giving them support, and that is why you have fallen into evil slavery. Each of you walks with the step of a fox, but taken all together your mind is vain. For you look to the tongue and the words of a crafty man, and you do not see the deed which is being done.”