Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great (11 page)

He was but eighteen years old that day, flush from his first victory in battle. For the first time, he was confronted with great numbers of Athenians, who despite their political rivalry with Macedon retained a certain stature in that primitive kingdom. To this day, the people of Pella still speak with pride of how Euripides spent his last days there, producing his
Bacchae
at the sanctuary at Dion,
in the very shadow of Mt. Olympus. It was therefore with an uneasy mixture of superiority and awe that he addressed me, a bonafide Athenian sophisticate.

“
Did thy mother bear ye a tongue along with thy fingers?”

“She did,” I replied. “But I cannot see how my affairs are any concern of yours, stranger.”

The pimply Prince drew himself up to his full height, all of five feet and no inches.

“Mark me as a man who bested thee in battle, friend, for you cavil with the crown prince of Macedon!”

Having rendered for you how Alexander sounded in those days, for clarity’s sake I will now translate his archaic Greek into our modern idiom. To be sure, beyond a certain awkwardness at first, communication was never a problem between us. He did come to take on a less backward mode as time passed, and my ear for his northern dialect improved. But despite the elocution lessons, despite Aristotle’s tutoring, to the sophisticated Greek there was always something of the highland yokel in him, even when he was donning the diadem of the Great King at Susa.

“Well, your highness, I will say that you ‘cavil’ with no one, for I am just plain Machon of Athens, son of Agathon.”

“And do you profess the craft of writer, Machon son of Agathon? Tell me, do you know these lines…”

The word ‘moderation’ when spoken

Is better than renown, and mortals

Who practice it find it superior.

For renown, when taken to extremes,

Is not an advantage to men…
?

“You insult me, sir, for what Athenian would admit he does not recognize the words of Euripides, from the prologue of
Medea
?”

“I mean no insult, sir, but to my mind there too many poseurs carrying the attributes of your noble calling. If I were not Alexander, I would be a poet!”

“There are many in Athens,” I replied, “who would urge both you and your father to pursue that ambition!”

Alexander laughed with what seemed like genuine ease, without a trace of adolescent self-consciousness. On a certain level, I found myself liking him immediately, which was not an unusual reaction to him in those early years. He was not without charm.

“Did you know that your Euripides found sanctuary at the court of Macedon?”

“I have heard it said.”

“I saw you on the field. You fought well.”

“Not well enough, it seems.”

At the time I thought it impossible that the Prince could have recalled glimpsing me among thousands of others through the melee of Chaeronea. He has since gained the reputation of remembering an astonishing number of faces and names—Aeschines himself has repeated this claim. The truth is somewhat more complicated, as I will tell you presently. But again, I could not help being pleased by his flattery.

“You should know that I am not writing poetry. It is a history of this war.”

“Whose style do you favor, then—Herodotus or Thucydides?”

“Herodotus is for children.”

“Exactly right. Soon I will need men like yourself, Machon. Serious historians.”

With that, he turned and walked back to his horse, which was held by a strikingly handsome youth that I later knew to be Hephaestion. The Prince seemed to give his friend an order, and the latter shot a measuring glance at me. Then, before he rode off, Alexander shouted back in my direction.

“I can only hope that I am not a villain in your story!”

He was smiling, but there was also a dark edge in his voice that was unmistakable.

Soon I learned what Alexander had instructed Hephaestion to do for me: I was moved from the stockade to a small officer’s field tent nearby. Inside was a cot, a chair, and writing desk, and a sheath of Egyptian papyrus—truly an extravagant gift!

In truth, it was perhaps too generous. After days living outside, and having never before been confronted with such fine materials, the comfortable surroundings became a distraction. In the short time before I was sent home I got no serious writing done at all.

Contrary to what Aeschines has told you, I was not among those who attended the Prince during his peace embassy to Athens. Indeed, Aeschines’s associates Phocion and Demades were among that party, though I will not descend to my opponent’s level of scurrility in calling them “hacks.” Suffice it to say that I was too closely connected to those who opposed Macedonian power before Chaeronea to merit an invitation. I understand that he mentioned my name on several occasions, much to the embarrassment of his hosts. Attending a sacrifice at the altar of Athena Parthenos, he was heard to ask, “Is Machon in the crowd? Who will point him out to me?”

Later, on his inspection of the Painted Stoa, he said “I think the paintings very fine, though I wonder what my friend Machon would say of them!”

I understand that he referred to me so often Demades made serious inquiries on the question of whether he was simple-minded! In fact, Demades had no understanding of the Macedonian mind—Alexander asked for me not because he was simple, but out of a sense of obligation to a friend on a visit to his home. Indeed, I received a note from him communicating his disappointment that I would not be joining the festivities, and his hope that work on my history was proceeding well. These testaments to his goodwill, and of my vocation as historian, I hereby place in evidence.

“They are so accepted,” responded the clerk.

I next saw Alexander more than two years later. It was after his ascension to the throne of Macedon, following the murder of his father, and a short time after the destruction of Thebes. He was assembling his forces for his invasion of the Persian Empire; in deference to his position as the Captain of the Greeks, our Assembly resolved to send five hundred men to support his cause. Aeschines is quite correct to note that Demosthenes was the primary sponsor of my leadership of this force. He could not be more incorrect, though, in ascribing evil motives to my assignment. Rather, I was recommended by the simple fact that Alexander had shown a partiality for me, and these feelings might be of some use in persuading him to overcome his mistrust of the Athenians. That, and the fact that Phocion, who was far more qualified, didn’t want the job!

I came up to attend the King at Dion, the Macedonian sanctuary of Zeus. At the time I arrived he was feasting his officers under a great tent not far from the theatre. It was a grand affair, in the style of all his celebrations: the tent covered an area larger than this building, and was lined with row upon row of gilded couches arranged around a royal loggia, where King Alexander reclined. Surpassing all other symposiasts, he served his guests the finest Chian wine from craters lined with snow fetched down from Olympus; the toasts were made with golden cups studded with jewels. One side of the tent was given over to trophies from his recent expedition against the Danuban Triballi—heaped pelts of bears and oxen, shields hewn from single enormous logs, belts dripping with amber beads. There was no loot from the sack of Thebes, however. Nor to my knowledge was this event ever mentioned.

“Machon, my friend! Come here and embrace me!”

He greeted me like an old comrade, biding me to sit beside him. His enthusiasm was unique in that company. When they bothered to look to me at all, the rest of the Macedonians cast their eyes on me with obvious suspicion. Hephaestion regarded me unflinchingly from a nearby couch, his hostility unconcealed.

“So tell me of your book! Have you completed it?”

“Honestly, no. All I have so far is a prologue.”

“You lack a protagonist!”

He looked at me with some sort of great significance in his eyes, rolling his cup between his hands. The years since Chaeronea had improved his appearance: his face, though still beardless, had lost its adolescent softness, and the spots were gone. His waxy hair shined in the lamp-light in a way that could be taken for blond.

“Perhaps we can help each other in our projects, you and I.”

He was distracted by a servant who whispered something in his ear. I was just able to hear the message: his mother Olympias had requested to see him. With a sigh that indicated more than simple weariness, he rose to go to her.

“We’ll talk together later,” he promised.

I didn’t see him again for some time, after the third round of craters had been brought in. In the interim I sat alone, attracting stares more frigid than the ice in the wine coolers. As a precaution against the Eye, I clenched the fingers of my right hand around my thumb and spat on the ground. The Macedonians around me responded by spitting on the ground too. This set off the revelers around them, in a wide concentric ring of spitting, until men all over the great tent wet the floor.

A man, gray-haired and heavily scarred in his face, finally approached me. Without introducing himself, and listing with drink, he set his feet and pointed an accusing finger at me.

“I saw you in Boeotia! You held a line of hoplites against three wedges of horse!”

Not knowing what to say, I shrugged. The drunk then leaned forward, an expression of surprised gratification spreading over him.

“You know how to fight!”

He raised his cup, drank to me, and staggered off. Much later, I learned that I had been addressed by Cleitus son of Dropidas, so-called ‘Black Cleitus,’ and that praise from him was a rare honor.

Alexander returned. Taking his place on the couch again, he resumed our conversation as if there had been no interruption.

“I already have an historian for the trip to Asia. Have you heard of Callisthenes of Olynthus?”

“The son of Aristotle?”

“The nephew.”

“I know nothing of him except his name.”

“I will tell you that the Queen Mother doesn’t like him. I will not bore you with the reasons…except to say that he is no soldier…give it here, son!”

He intercepted a servant with a wine pitcher, taking it from him to fill his cup. As anachronistic as the Macedonian court seemed to Athenian eyes, it was informal enough to obligate the King to chase after his own drinks. By comparison, Darius of Persia probably had three flunkies dedicated to the management of his potations.

We sat together, watching his officers carouse. Here and there, cups were drained down throats or down chins, and the cithara players swayed in their pleated costumes, and the blouses of the female entertainment were peeled away in happy, innocent debauch. The King tapped my cup with his own, asking “Don’t you feel like a demigod among savages, when you sit with these Macedonians?”

How could I answer this peculiar question? It sounded like an invitation to insult him. Instead, I kept my silence.

“So tell me, Machon, if you might join our party.”

“That is why I was sent.”

“Not as a commander. I have enough of those! I need officers along who can carry a pack, but who can also marshal ranks and files of a different kind—the kind that goes on scrolls. Do you favor my metaphor?”

It took me a moment to realize that he was asking this question in all seriousness. I said I admired his metaphor very much, of course, which clearly pleased him.

“How long a campaign do you envision?”