Creation (20 page)

“I don’t know any. Lais is Ionian.”

Side by side, we proceeded through a heavily wooded gorge. During the night there had been a light frost in the mountains and the hooves of our horses made a cracking sound as frozen twigs, leaves, plants splintered beneath their weight. In double file, before us, and behind us, the cavalry made its way through steep cold woods.

Mardonius and I always traveled at dead center, just behind our commander Artanes. In case of battle, Artanes would lead the attack from the center, as the front column always becomes the left wing and the rear column becomes the right. Naturally, I speak of open country. In that high mountain ravine, anyone who attacked us would have killed us all. But our minds were not on danger—of the military kind.

Abruptly Mardonius said, “I want to marry her.”

“The lady is married.” I thought this worth mentioning.

“He’ll die soon, her husband. She thinks it’s only a matter of weeks, months.”

“Does she plan to ... hurry things?”

Mardonius nodded; he was entirely serious. “The moment that I am able to tell her I can marry her, she will be a widow. She promised me that, on the floor.”

“Such a wife would make me nervous.”

Mardonius laughed. “Once she marries me she enters the harem and never comes out again. No wife of mine will ever receive a man the way she received me. Or hunt deer.”

“Why do you want her?”

Mardonius turned and bestowed upon me the full handsomeness of his smiling, square-jawed face. “Because I want Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyros and Calymna. When Artemisia’s father dies, she will be queen of those places in her own right. That’s Dorian law. Her mother was also a Dorian, from Crete. Artemisia can lay claim to Crete, too, she told me. And she will,
If
her husband is strong enough.”

“That would make you sea lord.”

“That would make me sea lord.” Mardonius turned away. The smile was gone.

“The Great King would never allow such a marriage.” I was to the point. “Look at Histiaeus. As soon as he got those silver mines in Thrace, he was summoned up to Susa.”

“But he is Greek. I am Persian. I am the nephew of Darius. I am the son of Gobryas.”

“Yes. And because you are who you are, such a marriage is impossible.”

Mardonius said nothing. He knew of course that I was right, and he never dared mention the subject to Darius. But some years later, when Artemisia was sole queen, he asked Xerxes for permission to marry her. Xerxes had been much amused; he had even teased Mardonius. “Highlanders,” he had said from the throne, “must never mix their blood with that of an inferior race.”

Irreverent as Mardonius could often be, Xerxes knew that Mardonius dared not remind him of all the Achaemenid blood that Xerxes himself had so blithely—and often so illegally—intermingled with that of foreign women. Curiously enough, the offspring of Xerxes’ foreign wives all turned out badly. But to be fair, they were not given much chance to show their quality. Most of them were put to death in the next reign.

WE ARRIVED AT SARDIS IN EARLY AUTUMN.

I had heard all my life about this fabulous city, created or re-created by Croesus, the richest man on earth, whose defeat by Cyrus is the subject of a thousand ballads, plays, legends—even Milesian stories of lechery and excess.

I cannot remember now what I had expected to see. Buildings of solid gold, I suppose. Instead, I found an entirely undistinguished city of perhaps fifty thousand people, all crowded together in mud-and-thatch houses. Since the streets were simply haphazard lanes, it was even easier to get lost in Sardis than it is in the equally unlovely Susa or Athens.

After Mardonius and I had helped establish our troops in a camp to the south of the city, we rode together into Sardis, where we promptly lost our way. To make matters worse, the people speak neither Persian nor Greek, while no one on earth speaks Lydian except the Lydians.

We rode for what seemed hours, this way and that. Overhanging balconies and upper stories were a constant danger ... particularly when disguised by laundry. We both found the people uncommonly handsome. The men plait their hair in long braids, and pride themselves on the pallor of their soft skin. No man of rank ever ventures out into the sun. Yet the Lydian cavalry is the best in the world, and a mainstay of the Persian army.

Finally we dismounted and led our horses along the river that runs not only through the center of the town but also through the center of the great marketplace. When in doubt, follow a river, as Cyrus the Great is said to have said.

The marketplace at Sardis was even larger than the one at Susa. Surrounded by a brick wall, ten thousand tents and bazaars offer everything there is on earth to buy. As we wandered about, mouths agape like a pair of Carian peasants, no one paid the slightest attention to us. Persian officers are hardly a novelty at Sardis.

Traders from every corner of the world offered their wares. From Athens there were amphorae and kraters. From the satrapy of India, cotton cloth and rubies. From the Persian highlands, rugs. Beside the muddy river there was a row of palm trees to which a hundred ill-natured camels were tethered. Some were being relieved of their exotic burdens while others were being loaded with such Lydian goods as red figs, twelve-stringed harps, gold ... Yes, Sardis is indeed a city of gold because the muddy river is full of gold dust and it was the father of Croesus who first began to pan the gold and turn it into jewelry; he also minted the first gold coins.

In the hills back of Sardis there are mines of the world’s rarest metal, silver. I used to own a silver Lydian coin that was thought to be more than a century old. If it was, then it was minted by Croesus’ grandfather, and so coinage, as we know it, did indeed originate in Lydia, as the Lydians claim. My Lydian silver piece was embossed with a lion, worn almost smooth. I was robbed of it in Cathay.

“They are so rich!” exclaimed Mardonius. He looked capable of sacking the market place single-handed.

“That’s because they waste no money on their houses.” I was still disappointed by the ugliness of the fabled city.

“Pleasure comes first, I suppose.” Mardonius then hailed a Median merchant, who consented to act as our guide. As we made our slow way across the marketplace, I was quite groggy from so many bright colors and pungent odors, from the tiring babble of a hundred languages.

Just past the market wall is a small park with shade trees. At the far end of the park is the old palace of Croesus, a two-story building of mud brick and timber. Here lives the Persian satrap for Lydia.

As we followed a chamberlain down a dusty corridor to Croesus’ throne room, Mardonius shook his head. “If I’d been the richest man in the world, I would certainly have done better than this.”

Artaphrenes was seated in a chair next to the throne, which is always kept empty unless the Great King is in the room. I was surprised to see that the throne was an exact replica in ugly electrum of the Great King’s lion throne.

Although Artaphrenes was holding an audience with a group of Lydians, he rose when he saw Mardonius and kissed him on the mouth. I kissed the satrap on the cheek.

“Welcome to Sardis.” Artaphrenes reminded me more than ever of his father, Hystaspes. “You will be quartered with us here.” Artaphrenes then presented the Lydians to us. One very old man proved to be Ardes, the son of Croesus. In due course, I came to know well this fascinating link with the past.

The next few days we met often with Artaphrenes—and the Greeks. It seemed as if every Greek adventurer on earth had found his way to Sardis. Needless to say, every last one of them was for hire; and Artaphrenes had hired them because they are not only excellent soldiers and sailors but every bit as intelligent as they are treacherous.

Democritus is too polite to disagree with me. But I have seen a side to Greeks that Greeks normally do not present to one another. I have seen them at the Persian court. I have listened to them beg the Great King to attack their native cities because no Greek can endure the success of another Greek. Had it not been for the Greeks in Persia during those years, the Greek wars would not have taken place and Xerxes would have extended our empire to include all of India as far as the Himalayas and perhaps beyond. But the category of what might have been is already too crowded.

Hippias was at the first council meeting I attended in Sardis. He was accompanied by Thessalus and my old school friend Milo.

Hippias recalled our meeting at the lodge the previous winter. “I have since read deeply in the works of your grandfather.”

“I am pleased that you follow the Truth, Tyrant.” I was polite. I did not mention that in those days very little of my grandfather’s teachings had been written down. Now, of course, a thousand oxhides have been covered with prayers and hymns and dialogues, all attributed to Zoroaster.

At the very first council that I attended at Sardis, Hippias proposed an all-out Persian attack on Miletus. The old tyrant spoke with his usual gravity. “We know that Aristagoras is still at Cyprus with his fleet. We know that the demagogues at Athens have sent him twenty ships. By now those ships cannot be too far from Cyprus. Before the two fleets join, we must regain Miletus.”

“The city is well defended.” Artaphrenes was always slow to commit himself to any strategy. No doubt on the ground that it is the essence of statecraft to know when to do nothing at all.

“Miletus,” said Hippias, “began its history as a colony of Athens, and even to this day there are many Milesians who look to my family with affection.”

This was nonsense. If Miletus was ever a colony of Athens, it was long before the Pisistratids. In any case, there were few tyrant-lovers at Miletus, as Aristagoras discovered when he made his bid for independence. The upper classes of the city refused to revolt against Persia unless Aristagoras allowed them to have an Athenian-style democracy. So the adventurer was obliged to give them what they wanted. As we were soon to discover, the age of the tyrants had been artificially prolonged by the Great King’s policy toward his Greek cities. Apparently the ruling classes could not bear either the tyrants or their allies the common people. So all the Greek cities are now democracies in name but oligarchies in fact. Democritus thinks that the present governance of Athens is more complicated than that. I don’t.

Mardonius seconded Hippias’ proposal. He saw a chance to distinguish himself militarily. “This will be the making of me,” he said one night when we had drunk too much sweet Lydian wine. “If they let me lead the attack on Miletus, we’ll be home next summer.”

Mardonius was right when he said that the war would be the making of him. But we did not go home the next summer. The war with the Ionian rebels lasted six years.

After a week of argument in council, Artaphrenes agreed to commit half the Persian army and half the Lydian cavalry to an attack on Miletus. Mardonius was appointed second in command to Artobazanes, the eldest son of Darius, and rival to Xerxes. I was to remain on the satrap’s staff at Sardis.

The first bad news arrived during a ceremony at the temple of Cybele. I thought it fitting. After all, I had no business taking part in the rites of a devil-cult but Artaphrenes had insisted that his entire staff join him at the temple. “We must humor the Lydians. Like us, they are slaves to the Great King. Like us, they are loyal.”

I watched with distaste as the priestesses danced with the eunuchs. It was not always easy to tell which was priestess and which was eunuch, since each was dressed as a woman. Actually, the eunuchs were usually better dressed than the priestesses. I have never understood the veneration that so many benighted races have for Anahita or Cybele or Artemis or whatever name the voracious mother-goddess happens to bear.

At Sardis, on the day of the goddess, those young men who wish to serve her slash off their genitals and run through the streets, holding in one hand their severed parts. Less ambitious devotees of the goddess think it good luck to be splashed with the blood of a new eunuch. This is not difficult. There is a lot of blood. Finally, exhausted, the self-made eunuch throws his severed genitals through the open doorway of a house, whose owner is then obliged to take in the creature and nurse him back to health.

I have seen this ceremony a number of times in Babylon as well as at Sardis. Since the young men appear to be quite mad, I think that they must first drink haoma or else take some mind-deranging substance like that honey from Colchis which induces hallucinations. Otherwise, I cannot imagine anyone in his right mind serving any devil in such a fashion.

At Sardis that day, I saw one poor wretch throw his genitals at an open door. Unfortunately, he missed. He then proceeded, slowly, to bleed to death in the roadway, since it is considered blasphemous to come to the aid of a would-be priest of Cybele who has failed to find, as it were, a proper home for his sexuality.

The ceremony to Cybele was endless. The incense was so thick that the image of the tall goddess which stands—stood—in a Grecian-style portico was almost obscured. She was depicted between a lion and a pair of writhing snakes.

Old Ardes stood next to the high priestess, doing whatever it was that the last member of the Lydian royal house was expected to do on such a high occasion. The Sardians were properly ecstatic, while Artaphrenes and Hippias did their best not to look bored. But Milo yawned. “I hate all this,” he said to me, in his simple, boyish way.

“So do I.” I was perfectly sincere.

“They’re even worse than those Magians back in school.”

“You mean, worse than the Magians who follow the Lie.” I was properly reverent.

Milo giggled. “If you’re still a fire-worshiper, what are you doing dressed up as a soldier?”

Before I could think of some chilling response, a cavalryman clattered into view; he dismounted and tethered his horse within the temple precinct, committing sacrilege. Artaphrenes glared as the man approached him with a message. Artaphrenes’ glare was even more intense when he had read the message. The Ionian fleet had made a rendezvous with the Athenian fleet and the two navies were now at anchor off Ephesus. Worse, from Miletus in the south to Byzantium in the north, all of the Ionian Greek cities were in open rebellion against the Great King.