Creation (14 page)

I learned the Gilgamesh story at Babylon. Once upon a time Gilgamesh was a world cult figure. Today he is largely forgotten, except at Babylon. Time of the long dominion is very long indeed. The trouble with the Greeks is that they have no idea how old this earth is. They seem not to realize that everything has already happened that will ever happen, save the end. In India, they think that the end
has
happened, over and over again, as cycles of creation burn out—and rekindle.’

Democritus now sees fit to instruct me in Orphism. Apparently they, too, believe in the transmigration of souls, a process that ends only when, through ritual and so on, the spirit is purified. I defer to Democritus. You are Thracian-born, after all. You have also convinced me that Lais, for all her familiarity with the dark arts, never understood the cult of Orpheus.

“I am not sure that Pythagoras claims to have visited Hades, but he did tell-me a strange story.” Democedes looked faintly troubled, as if he did not much like what he was about to tell us. “Shortly after he came back from Babylon, we were walking on that new mole which Poly-crates had just built in the harbor. Suddenly Pythagoras stopped. He stared down at me. He’s much taller than I. ‘I can remember,’ he said. ‘I can remember everything.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Everything about what?’ I asked.

“ ‘My previous lives,’ he said. He was most compelling. He told me that in an early incarnation he had been the son of the god Hermes by a human being. Now, Hermes was so fond of this boy that he told him that he would give him anything that he asked for except immortality. Only the gods are immortal. So the boy asked for the next best thing. ‘Let me remember at each new incarnation who and what I was in my previous lives.’ Hermes agreed.

“ ‘And,’ said Pythagoras, ‘I can remember what it was like to be a bird, a warrior, a fox, an Argive at Troy. All these things I was, and am, and will be until I am reunited with the whole.’ ”

I was deeply impressed by what Democedes told me, and I have often regretted that I never knew Pythagoras. When he was driven out of Croton by a rival faction, he took refuge in a temple at Metapontum where he slowly starved himself to death. Since I was about twenty years old at the time, I could have gone to see him. They say that he received visitors until the end. At least, I
assume
that it was the end. If not, he may be walking the streets of Athens today, his mind filled with all the memories of a thousand earlier selves.

Democritus tells me that there is a Pythagorean school at Thebes, presided over until recently by a Crotonian named Lysis. Democritus is much struck by something that Lysis is supposed to have said: “Men must die because they cannot join the beginning to the end.”

Yes, that is indeed wise. A man’s life can be drawn as a straight and descending line. But when the soul or the fragment of the divine fire in each of us rejoins the original source of life, then the perfect form has been achieved, and what was a straight line is now a circle and the beginning has joined the end.

I should say here that as a child I was in no way a prodigy. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I was a prophet or a wonder-worker or philosopher at an early age or, indeed, at any age. It was my fate to have been born a Spitama and, all in all, I cannot pretend that I ever found my place in the world anything but enjoyable despite the constant enmity of the Magians who follow the Lie, an enmity more than compensated for by the kindness shown me by the three Great Kings—Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes.

Although my mind has never been much inclined to religion or magic, I do have a speculative nature. I also feel obliged to examine other religions or systems of thought in order to see how much they vary from the way of Truth that I was ordained at birth to follow.

In the course of a long life I have been startled to find in other religions elements that I always took to be special revelations from the Wise Lord to Zoroaster. But now I realize that the Wise Lord is able to speak in all the languages of the world, and in all the languages of the world his words are seldom understood or acted upon. But they do not vary. Because they are true.

DURING CHILDHOOD I LED TWO LIVES: a religious life at home with Lais and the Magians who followed Zoroaster, and life at school. I was happier at school, in the company of my exact contemporaries Xerxes and his cousin Mardonius, the son of Gobryas. Except for Milo, all my classmates were Persians. For some reason, the sons of Histiaeus were never taken into the first section. I cannot think that this exclusion pleased that ambitious man.

Although our military training was hard, I enjoyed it if only because no Magians were involved. We were taught by the best of the immortals. That is, by the best soldiers in the world.

The morning that I first became aware of Xerxes is more vivid to me than this morning. But then I was young. I could see. Saw what? Sun like a plate of gold set against a blue-white sky. Forests of dark-green cedars. High mountains capped with snow. Yellow fields at whose corners brown deer grazed. Childhood is all color. Age ...? The absence of color—for me, sight too.

We began our day’s march before sunrise. We walked in twos; each carried a spear. For some reason I was paired with Xerxes. He paid no attention to me. Needless to say, I examined him closely. As a child of the harem, I knew that if Atossa’s faction prevailed over that of Gobryas, he would be Great King one day.

Xerxes was a tall boy whose pale-gray eyes shone beneath dark brows that grew together in a straight line. Young as he was, whorls of dark-gold down grew on his ruddy cheeks. Sexually, he was precocious.

If Xerxes was at all conscious of his destiny, he did not betray it. In manner, he was neither more nor less than one of the Great King’s many sons. He had a charming smile. Unlike most men, he kept all his teeth to the end.

I did not speak to him; nor he to me.

At noon we were given the order to stop beside a forest spring. We were allowed to drink water but not to eat. For some reason, instead of stretching out on the moss with the others, I wandered off into the forest.

Green laurel suddenly parts. I see the snout; the curved yellow tusks. I freeze, spear in hand, unable to move as the huge bristling body breaks through the hedge of laurel.

The boar gets wind of me; backs away. No doubt, the beast is as alarmed as I. But then, in an odd circling movement, the boar wheels about and charges.

I am thrown high into the air. Before I reach earth again, I realize that all the wind has left my chest.

I thought that I was dead until I found that although I could no longer breathe, I could at least hear—and heard an almost human cry from the boar as Xerxes dug his spear deep into the animal’s neck. I drew my first uneven breath as the bleeding boar staggered into the laurel, where it stumbled, fell, died.

Everyone hurried forward to congratulate Xerxes. No one paid the slightest attention to me. Fortunately, I had not been hurt. In fact, no one noticed me except Xerxes.

“I hope you’re all right.” He looked down at me and smiled.

I looked up at him and said, “You saved my life.”

“I know.” He was matter-of-fact.

Since there was so much that we might have said at that point, neither of us said another word or ever mentioned the episode again.

Over the years I have had occasion to notice that when a man saves the life of another man, he often has a proprietary sense about the one saved. In no other way can I explain why it was that Xerxes chose me to be his particular friend. Shortly after our forest adventure, at his insistence, I moved into the princes’ quarters.

I continued to visit Lais but I no longer lived with her. She was delighted that I was close to Xerxes, or so she said. Years later she told me that our friendship had worried her. “In those days everyone thought that Artobazanes would succeed Darius. If he had, Xerxes would have been put to death, with all his friends.”

If I was aware of any danger at that time, I have no sense of it now. Xerxes was a beguiling companion. Everything came easily to him. He was an expert horseman; he was proficient with every sort of weapon. Although he was not much interested in the lessons that the Magians gave us, he could read with some ease. I don’t think that he could write.

Each year, with the seasons, we followed the Great King from Susa to Ecbatana to Babylon and then back to Susa. Xerxes and I preferred Babylon to the other capitals. But what young man does not?

As students, our lives were entirely controlled by army officers, Magians and eunuchs. Also, the court was the court no matter in what city it was held, and so was the palace school. We had no more freedom than those slaves who worked my grandfather’s silver mines. Yet in Babylon we were aware that a truly marvelous life existed beyond the strict confines of Darius’ court. Wistfully, Xerxes and Mardonius and I used to wonder what it would be like to visit the city when the court was
not
in Babylon. In our nineteenth year, we got our wish.

Mardonius was a quick-witted youth whom Darius appeared to like very much. I say appeared because one never knew what Darius really felt about anyone. He was a consummate manipulator of men, and brutally charming. The Great King was also the most inscrutable of men, and no one ever knew precisely where he stood with him until, sometimes, too late. Certainly Darius was influenced by the fact that Mardonius’ father was Gobryas, a difficult man at best and a potential rival. As a result, Darius was most indulgent of both father and son.

At the Great King’s birthday, in the presence of members and close connections of the royal family, he anoints his head according to ritual and grants the wishes of those close to him. That year at Susa, it was Xerxes who held the silver ewer filled with rosewater, and it was Mardonius who dried with a silk cloth Darius’ beard and hair. “What may I grant you, Mardonius?” The Great King was in a good mood despite his dislike of all anniversaries, and the death that each one presages.

“The governorship of Babylon for the third month of the new year, Great King.”

Although protocol requires that the Great King never show surprise, Xerxes told me that his father was plainly astonished. “Babylon? Why Babylon? And why the governorship for only a month?”

But Mardonius did not answer; he simply crouched at Darius’ feet—the ceremonial position that means: I am your slave, do as you like with me.

Darius stared hard at Mardonius. Then he looked about the crowded hall. Although no one may look directly at him, Xerxes did. When Darius caught his son’s eye, Xerxes smiled.

“I have never known anyone so modest.” Darius affected bewilderment. “Of course, many fortunes have been made in less than a month. But surely not in Babylon. When it comes to money, the black-haired people are much cleverer than us Persians.”

“I shall go with him, Great King,
if you grant me that, as my wish,” said Xerxes. “I will keep Mardonius virtuous.”

“But who will look to
your
virtue?” Darius was grave.

“Cyrus Spitama, if you grant
his
wish, which he has asked me to make for him.” Xerxes had been well rehearsed by Mardonius. “He will see to our religious training.”

“Cyrus Spitama has sworn to convert the high priest of Bel-Marduk to the way of Truth.” Mardonius was pious.

“I am the victim of a plot,” said Darius. “But I must do as kings do on this day. Mardonius, son of Gobryas, you are entrusted with the administering of my city of Babylon for the third month of the new year. Xerxes and Cyrus Spitama will attend you. But why the third month?” Darius knew, of course, exactly what we had in mind.

“The high gardens by the Euphrates will be in bloom, Great King,” said Mardonius. “It is a lovely time of year.”

“Made more lovely by the fact that in the third month the Great King will be many miles away at Susa.” Darius laughed, a plebeian habit he retained to the end of his days. I never found it offensive, rather the contrary.

BABYLON IS MORE OVERWHELMING than beautiful. Everything is made of the same dull brick, baked from Euphrates mud. But the temples and palaces are of Egyptian proportions and, of course, in those days the city walls were so wide that—as the inhabitants never ceased to remind you—a four-horse chariot could make a full turn on the parapets. Not that I ever saw a chariot of any kind on the walls, or anything else for that matter. There were no guards., Such was the totality of the Great King’s peace in those days.

There is something curiously haunting about a city that has existed for more than three thousand years. Although Babylon has often been wrecked in wars, the inhabitants—known simply as the black-haired people—always rebuild their city exactly the way it was before, or so they tell us. The city is at the center of a huge square that is almost evenly divided by the swift, dark Euphrates River. Originally Babylon was well protected by an outer wall, an inner wall and a deep moat. But the second time that Darius was obliged to subdue the city, he razed part of the outer wall. Years later, after Xerxes had put down a rebellion in the city, he destroyed practically all of the walls and filled in the moat. I now think it unlikely that the Babylonians will ever again give us trouble. By nature, the black-haired people are indolent and sensual and obedient. For centuries they have been governed by a highly corrupt and complex priesthood. From time to time the priests of one temple will arouse the people against the priests of another temple and there is violence, like a summer storm—and like a summer storm it is soon over. But these periodic confusions are a nuisance to administrators.

Although I am glad that I was not born a Babylonian, I must say that no place on earth so perfectly caters for the taste of young men, particularly young men brought up in the austere Persian manner.

At sundown we passed through the gate of Ishtar, named for a goddess not unlike Anahita or Aphrodite except that she is a man as well as a woman. In either guise, Ishtar is sexually insatiable and her worship sets the tone for the whole city. The Ishtar gate is really two gates—one to the city’s outer wall, one to the inner wall. The enormous gates are covered with tiles that have been glazed blue and yellow and black, and depict all sorts of strange and terrible beasts, including dragons. The effect is more alarming than beautiful. Of the city’s nine gates—each named for a god—that of Ishtar is the most important for it leads straight into the heart of the left bank of Babylon where the temples and palaces and treasuries are.