Creation (17 page)

We later learned that the girl’s mother was a Babylonian and her father was a Persian. They lived part of the year at Susa and part of the year at Babylon where the father was connected with the banking house of Egibi and sons, a high recommendation in the eyes of the money-mad Mardonius. The girl’s mother was a niece of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, which was of interest to Xerxes. She was intelligent and unsuperstitious, which delighted me.

Nineteen years later, Xerxes married her. She is of course the redoubtable Roxanna. “Whom we take as wife,” Xerxes declared at Persepolis, “to show our love for our loyal kingdom of Babel and for the house of Nebuchadnezzar.”

Actually, Xerxes married her because the affair that had begun so bizarrely on top of the ziggurat continued in a most satisfactory, if clandestine way, until Darius’ death. Once married, Xerxes ceased to make love to her. But they were always on good terms. In fact, of Xerxes’ many wives, Roxanna was easily the most charming. Certainly, she was the best actress.

“I knew perfectly well what was going to happen even before you three came into the shrine,” Roxanna told me years later at Susa. “When the high priest warned my mother that the impious Persian prince was planning to impersonate Bel-Marduk, she was horrified. She was a very devout woman, and quite stupid. Luckily, I overheard them. So when the priests left, I told her that I was willing to make the supreme sacrifice. I would go to the shrine. She said, Never! When I insisted, she struck me. I then told her that if she did not let me go, I would tell everyone about Xerxes’ impiety. I would. also tell everyone how the priests imitate Bel-Marduk. She let me go, and that is how I was ravished by Xerxes and became the queen of Persia.”

This was an exaggeration. She was not queen. In fact, among the wives, Roxanna ranked seventh. But Xerxes always delighted in her company, as did those of us who were admitted to her presence in the harem. She carried on Atossa’s tradition of receiving whom she pleased, but always in the presence of eunuchs and only after menopause.

To everyone’s surprise, Queen Amestris did not hate Roxanna. Women are incalculable.

DURING THE YEARS THAT XERXES, Mardonius and I were growing up, we became more and more—rather than less and less—attached to each other. Great Kings and their heirs do not make friends as easily as they make enemies. Consequently, those friends made in youth are friends for life if the prince be not mad and the friend covetous.

As the years passed, Hystaspes was more often at court than in Bactria. He was always a good influence on Darius. In fact, had he lived a few years longer, I am sure that he would have neutralized the Greek faction at court, sparing us those tedious and expensive wars.

In my twentieth year Hystaspes made me commander of his personal military staff at Susa. Since he had no military forces outside his satrapy, this position was entirely honorary. Hystaspes wanted me near him so that I could help him follow the way of Truth as opposed to that of the Lie. I felt an impostor. I was not religious. In all matters that concerned the Zoroastrian order, I deferred to my uncle who was now settled in a Susan palace where, regularly, he would light the secret fire for Darius himself. Now that my uncle is dead, I can say that he had the soul of a merchant. But he was the eldest son of Zoroaster, and that was all that mattered.

Despite Hystaspes’ constant pressure upon me to develop my spiritual and prophetic gifts, my life had been so entirely shaped by the Great King’s court that I could think of nothing but soldiering and intrigue, of travel to far-off places.

In the twenty-first year of Darius’ reign, at about the time of the winter solstice, Hystaspes summoned me to his quarters in the palace at Susa.

“We are going hunting,” he said.

“Is this the season, Lord?”

“Each season has its game.” The old man looked somber. I asked no more questions.

Although Hystaspes was well into his seventies and invariably ailing—the two conditions are the same—he refused to be carried in a litter even on the coldest winter days. As we drove out of Susa he stood very straight beside his charioteer. The slow-falling snowflakes that adhered to the long white beard made him glitter in the white winter light. I rode horseback. Except for me, Hystaspes had no escort of any kind. This was unusual. When I commented on the fact, he said, “The fewer people that know, the better.” Then he gave the order to his driver. “We take the road for Pasargada.”

But we did not go to Pasargada. Shortly before midday we came to a hunting lodge, set in a heavily wooded valley. This lodge had been built by the last Median king and then rebuilt by Cyrus. Darius liked to think that when he was at the lodge, no one knew where he was. But, of course, the harem always knew exactly where the Great King was at any given minute of any day, and with whom. Every day except this day.

In absolute secrecy, the Great King had arrived at the lodge the previous night. It was plain that he had given the household no warning. The main hall was chilly. The charcoal braziers had just been lit. The rugs on which the Great King walks—his feet must never touch the earth or a plain floor—had been scattered about so hastily that I took it on myself to straighten them.

On a dais was the Persian throne: a high golden chair with a footstool. In front of the dais, six stools had been set in a row. This was unusual. At court, only the Great King sits. But I had heard of certain secret councils where important figures do sit in the Great King’s presence. Needless to say, I was much excited at the thought of seeing the Great King in his secret and truest role, the warrior chieftain of the highland clan that had conquered the world.

We were greeted by Hystaspes’ son Artaphrenes, the satrap of Lydia. Although this powerful figure kept royal state at Sardis, the capital of the wealthy and ancient kingdom of Lydia which Cyrus had taken from Croesus, he was a mere servant here, slave to his younger brother the Great King. As Artaphrenes embraced his father, the old man asked, “Is
he
here?”

At court we can tell by the way the word “he” is said whether or not it means the Great King. This “he” was plainly someone else.

“Yes, Lord Father. He’s with the other Greeks.”

Even then, I knew that secret meetings with Greeks meant trouble.

“You know what I think.” Old Hystaspes fondled his useless arm.

“I know, Lord Father. But we must listen to them. Things are changing in the west.”

“When do they not?” Hystaspes was sour.

I think that Artaphrenes had hoped to have his father to himself for a moment, but before I could excuse myself we were interrupted by the chamberlain, who bowed low to the two satraps and said, “Will your lordships receive the guests of the Great King?”

Hystaspes nodded, and the least important guest entered first. This was my old friend the physician Democedes. He always acted as translator whenever Darius received important Greeks. Next came Thessalus of Athens. Then Histiaeus, who needed no translator; he was as fluent in the Persian language as he was resourceful at Persian intrigue.

The last Greek to enter the room was a lean, gray-haired man. He moved slowly, gravely, hieratically. He had that sublime ease with others that one finds only in those who have been born to rule. Xerxes had this quality. Darius did not.

The chamberlain announced: “Hippias, son of Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, by the people’s will.” Slowly Hystaspes crossed the room to the tyrant and embraced him. In an instant Democedes was beside them, rapidly translating back and forth the ceremonial phrases. Hystaspes always treated Hippias with true respect. Hippias was the only Greek sovereign that the old man could bear.

At the lodge, the comings and goings of the Great King are always silent. There are no drums, cymbals, flutes. And so, before we knew it, Darius was in his chair, with Xerxes standing to his right and the commanding general Datis to his left.

Although Darius was only in his fifties, he was beginning to show signs of age. He often complained of chest pains. He had trouble breathing. Since Democedes said nothing to anyone about his patient, no one ever knew the exact state of Darius’ health. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side—as well as observing an ancient Median custom—Darius had already ordered a tomb to be built for himself near Persepolis, some twenty miles west of holy Pasargada.

That day Darius was swathed in heavy winter clothes. Except for the blue-and-white fillet, there was no mark of royalty. He fiddled constantly with the dagger at his belt. He could never be entirely still—another sign that unlike Xerxes or Hippias, he had not been born a sovereign.

“I have already welcomed the tyrant of Athens,” he said. “As the rest of you are always close to me, you need no welcome in my house.” Darius was impatient of ceremony when the work to be done was not the ceremony itself.

“Now I begin. This is a council of war. Sit.” Darius’ face was flushed, as if he had a fever. He was prone to fevers in cold weather.

Everyone sat except Xerxes, Datis and me.

“Hippias has just come from Sparta.” This was a shock to us all, as Darius intended. Had it not been for the help of the Spartan army, the landowners and merchants would never have been able to drive out the popular Hippias.

Darius pulled the silver curved dagger half out of its scarlet sheath. I can still see the bright blade in that part of my memory where things are visible.

“Speak, Tyrant of Athens.”

Considering the fact that the tyrant was obliged to pause every minute or two so that Democedes could translate what he had just said, Hippias was not only impressive but eloquent.

“Great King, I am grateful for all that you have done for the house of Pisistratus. You have allowed us to retain our family’s land at Sigeum. You have been the best of overlords. And if heaven obliges us to be the guests of any earthly power, we are happy to be yours.”

As Hippias spoke, Histiaeus gazed at Darius with all the intensity of one of those Indian snakes that first immobilize with a glassy stare some frightened rabbit; then strike. But Darius was no frightened rabbit. Despite a decade at court, Histiaeus never understood the Great King. If he had, he would have known that Darius’ face told you nothing, ever. In council, the Great King resembled a stone monument to himself.

“But, Great King, we now wish to go home to the city from which, seven years ago, we were exiled by a handful of Athenian aristocrats who had been able to enlist the aid of the Spartan army. Happily, the alliance between our enemies and Sparta is now broken. When King Cleomenes consulted the oracle on the Acropolis at Athens, he was told that it had been a grievous mistake for Sparta to join the enemies of our family.”

The Greeks put great faith in their confusing and, sometimes, corrupt oracles. It is possible that the Spartan king was really persuaded by an oracle that had always favored the family of Pisistratus. But I think it more likely that he found uncongenial the landowner faction at Athens, led at that time by one of the accursed Alcmeonids, a man called Cleisthenes, whose enthusiasm for democracy was not apt to delight a highly conventional Spartan king. In any case, Cleomenes called for a congress of representatives of all the Greek states. The congress met at Sparta. Cleomenes made the case against Cleisthenes. Incidentally, I have been told that Cleomenes would have settled for the aristocrat Isagoras as tyrant—for anyone, in fact, but Cleisthenes.

Hippias made an eloquent case for himself at Sparta. But the other Greeks were not persuaded, and refused to form a league against Athens on the sensible ground that since they themselves feared the Spartan army, they did not want a pro-Spartan government at Athens. It was as simple as that. But Greeks are seldom direct. The representative from Corinth was particularly subtle. In front of Hippias he denounced
all
tyrants, good and bad. Outvoted, the Spartans were obliged to swear that they would not revolutionize Athens.

“At that point, Great King, I told the congress that as a lifelong student of oracles, I felt it my duty to warn the Corinthians that, in due course, their city will be crushed by that very same faction at Athens which they now support.”

Hippias’ prophecy came to pass. But then, anyone who knows the mercurial Greek character can assume that, sooner or later, two neighboring cities will fall out and that the stronger will crush the weaker and if not divert a river over the remains, as Croton did to Sybaris, so darken the reputation of the defeated city that the truth of the war will never be known. Quite spontaneously, Greeks follow the Lie. It is their nature.

“Great King, should you support the restoration of our house, you will be aided by Sparta. They will forswear their oath. They will follow King Cleomenes. And the usurpers—who are
your
enemies too—will be driven from the city that their unholiness has polluted.”

Hippias stopped. Darius nodded. Hippias sat down. Darius motioned to Datis. The commanding general was well prepared. He spoke rapidly, and as he spoke, Democedes made for Hippias a swift translation of Datis’ Median-accented Persian.

“Tyrant,” said Datis, “under Spartan law there are always two kings. They are of equal rank. One of Sparta’s kings favors your restoration. The other does not. Before a military campaign, the kings draw lots to see which one will lead the army. What would happen if the Spartan command in a war against Athens were to be given not to your ally King Cleomenes but to your enemy King Demaratus?”

Hippias’ answer had been equally well prepared. “There are, General, as you say, two kings in Sparta. One supports me. The other does not. The one who does not support me will soon cease to be king. The oracle at Delphi has said so.”

Hippias looked at the floor while this was translated. Darius maintained his stonelike expression. Like the rest of us, he was not much impressed by Greek oracles. He had bought more than a few in his time.

Hippias became practical. “Demaratus will be deposed as king of Sparta because he is illegitimate. Cleomenes himself has told me that he has the proof.”