Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great (30 page)

“I suppose I am out of a kiss. But I think it wise to keep the distinction we Greeks make between men and gods. Have we all not seen the wages of dishonoring the true divinities, as the jealousy of Dionysus led to the death of our friend Cleitus? Might mortal men, even those of the bravest and most noble character, simply wait for the sanction of the Pythian oracle at Delphi for their divine honors, as Heracles did after he died? Indeed, it seems foolish to make a custom that the people will never follow, as we all know the Greeks back home will never bow to anyone.

“I, for one, think too much of this campaign to endanger it with barbarous formalities. I am too loyal to my king to render him into Darius Alexander.”

With that, Callisthenes went back to his couch and took up his cup. There was consternation on the faces of the Persian nobles, and purple-faced rage on Alexander’s. The mention of Cleitus galled him particularly, as did the name ‘Darius Alexander,’ which had the dangerous potential to stick. But Callithenes’s words were received with some sympathy by the Macedonians, including those who had already consented to prostration. Perceiving this, Alexander swallowed his anger, bidding the party to continue. But he did not forget Callisthenes’s insult.

XIV.

To have understood Alexander, you need to have hunted with him. This stemmed directly from his father’s enthusiasm for killing all kinds of wild beasts. In Philip’s time the report of a bear in the vicinity could shut the capital down for days; the mere rumor of a lion anywhere in Macedon was worth keeping peace treaties unsigned and eminent ambassadors waiting. Prince Alexander inherited his taste for the sport, and it came to dominate his thoughts in a way not even his father shared. His curiosity went to such extremes he once had six stags captured, tagged, and released. The tags ordered whomever found a dead animal to report the time and location of its discovery to the palace. In this way the Prince was in a position to turn the tables on Aristotle, lecturing his tutor on the range and longevity of the Macedonian red deer.

With all of Asia at his feet, the scope of Alexander’s hunting was unprecedented. Indeed, the entire expedition might be understood as a very long, very expensive hunting trip. Alexander, it should be said, thought little of the practices of the Persian nobility, who would either use the bow on animals trapped in walled game parks, or employ armies of beaters to surround great swaths of territory. Darius was said to have ‘hunted’ in this way, encouched in his golden pavilion while animals of all description were driven toward him. The Great King would then, at his leisure, take as much game as he had arrows to shoot. For his part, Alexander made for open country in the time-honored Macedonian fashion—riding bareback, naked except for a sunhat, armed with a single thrusting spear.

His first challenge was the wild asses of the high plateau of Cappadocia. These were blazingly fast animals, easily able to outrun any horse, with the teasing habit of stopping every few miles to allow hunters to get close before racing out of sight again. After hobbling a number of good mounts chasing them, Alexander noticed that the asses tended to run in great, sweeping circles. This suggested the trick of sending out his men one at a time, with each hunter keeping his quarry on the run until he was replaced by a fresh rider. After just a few stages of these relays the animals collapsed from exhaustion.

On the plains of Arabia were vast numbers of wild ostrich. These were not as fast as the asses, yet far more difficult to catch. They ran in straight lines, holding their wings out as they ran, their feet sending up a blinding trail of dust behind them. Some writers, such as Xenophon, have suggested that they use their wings like ships under sail, but Alexander thought this idea must be wrong, since the birds used their wings irrespective of the strength of the wind. In any case, only a lucky bowshot ever brought one down, and on these rare occasions the meat was red and very tasty, much like the better parts of a beef cow. Some of the men also collected the eggs, using the contents for nourishment and the shells as canteens.

The King found more sport on the riverbanks of Assyria. Though that ancient land was full of people and farms, the population of lions in the southern part of the kingdom had lately been on the rise. The cats achieved this by a degree of organized hunting that defied the natives’ attempts to control them. As the new Lord of Asia, Alexander took it as his personal business to defend his kingdom from all invaders, two-legged or four.

The lions were tracked to their lair in an abandoned estate beside the Tigris. Leading a party of thirty cavalry, Alexander planned his attack as he would against any other hostile tribe. The female cats, who were defending several litters of cubs, made a desperate stand. The lions easily snapped the hunters’ cornel-wood spears with their jaws or forelegs; two riders were killed when the cats leaped on the backs of their horses.
A
fter some hard fighting with javelins, Alexander and his men carried the field. All the cats were killed, except for two of the males, who made a fine show of cowardice by swimming the river to escape.

There were other expeditions against exotic game of all kinds. Under the wild pistachios and tamarisks of central Persia they roused giant bustards with wingspans wider than a small temple. By the Indus they stalked wild elephants and hippo. As the army crossed the pass over the Paropamisus, his men starving, Alexander could not resist having a go at the great twirl-horned mountain goats of those mountains. In almost all cases these adventures served to bolster the morale of the men who shared the trail with the King.

The sole and sad exception to this was the instance—during a boarhunt—when the page Hermolaus was foolish enough to deprive Alexander of the final kill. Alexander was furious at this impertinence. Right there in front of the party, he ordered Hermolaus dismounted, stripped of his clothes, and whipped. He even took the crop himself, administering the blows as the Companions, the guides, and the other pages looked on with great embarrassment. All were disturbed both for the humiliated Hermolaus, and for Alexander, who never before treated his pages with anything less than tender forbearance. Yet there he was, wearing a barbarian riding cloak, Persian diadem on his head, horsewhipping one of his countrymen.

Telling Hermolaus that he had lost his privilege to ride a horse, Alexander confiscated his mount for the return to camp. Abandoned, naked in the wilderness, the page was set upon by parties unknown, and his manhood insulted in a way I need not describe. When he arrived back among the other pages, Hermolaus was hobbled, bloodied, and outraged at what he thought to be Alexander’s injustice. No one, however, foresaw the extremities to which the boy’s resentment drove him.

In the King’s defense, everyone knew that taking the prize in the hunt was serious business. Since their days in Pella, Alexander and Cleitus had waged a running competition on who could accumulate the most kills. The difference this time, I believe, was not that Hermolaus was a lowly page, but that Alexander’s patience had greatly diminished since the death of Darius. With every unfamiliar mile, from every new kind of nettle that cut his feet and every drink from a torpid stream that made him sick, the humor drained out of him. This was something the men close to him could see happening by the day. Hermolaus should have seen it, but he had the kind of proud temperament that, in cases like this, lowly pages could not afford.

It was the privilege of the pages to guard the King’s bedchamber as he slept. Often, when indulgence in wine prevented Alexander from reaching his pillow, they physically placed him in his bed. Hermolaus convinced certain of the other boys—namely, Sostratos son of Amyntas and Epimenes son of Arseus—to join him in a plot. At an agreed signal, after the King had gone to bed drunk, they would gather around him when he was most vulnerable, and set upon him with daggers.

Now it so happened that the night they agreed to do the deed Alexander drank very late, coming to bed with the first gray of the morning. It was Hermolaus’s turn to sleep at the King’s door. Rising, the boy was pleased to see Alexander too intoxicated to walk—but with Bagoas at his side, supporting him with his arm. As he passed Hermolaus, Alexander called to the page, telling him that he was a good lad after all, and that he had been wrong to take his horse from him. Then the King winked at him, and patted him on the cheek, saying that his mount was restored, as long as he didn’t “hog the boar” next time. And Alexander proceeded to chuckle at his own feeble pun as Bagoas led him to bed.

This apology took Hermolaus quite by surprise, so that he failed to take Alexander from the eunuch. Instead, he gave the signal belatedly, and the three conspirators were left standing outside the bedchamber, waiting for Bagoas to leave. After an hour of this, they grew nervous that their gathering would attract suspicion, and gave it up.

It was the conspirators’ intention to try again the next night, and the next one after that, until their goal was achieved. It was thanks only to the indiscretion of one of their own that the plot was uncovered: Epimenes disclosed it to his bedmate Charicles son of Menander, who thought the secret would be safe with Eurylochus son of Arseus, who happened to be Epimenes’s brother. He was mistaken, for Eurylochus went straight to the King.

Under torture, certain others were implicated in the plot, most notably including Philotas son of Parmenion. When Alexander went to the prisoners to demand an explanation for their treachery, none would speak at first. The King promised a merciful death to anyone who would enlighten him, for he was greatly puzzled that those in whom he had placed such trust would cravenly betray him. At this, Hermolaus rose to denounce the King’s naivety in posing such a question, when it was clear to all that he had become a tyrant.

“A tyrant? How?” Alexander asked.

Hermolaus described the general outrage at the King’s arrogance, his imposition of barbarous customs, and the endless campaign, which shed Greek blood for the sake of one man’s bottomless vanity.

“And what have you suffered personally, that you would hate me so?” asked Alexander, with some sadness.

“You are a fool to ask me that,” replied Hermolaus. “Better that you beg Cleitus’s pardon, when next you see him in Hades.”

 
With that, the other pages were executed by having all their bones broken with stones. What was left of them was then hanged. Aeschines is wrong, however, to tell you that Hermolaus died with them. His end came much later, as I will describe in due course.

Philotas’s guilt lay not in taking any active part in the plot, but a tacit one. For it so happened that another of the pages, Anticles son of Theocritus, had earlier approached him with important news for the King, but that Philotas did not act to secure the boy an audience with Alexander. Though Anticles had not specified that his news involved a plot against Alexander, Philotas’ inaction hinted strongly at his complicity. Armed men went to Philotas’s tent, placed a bag over his head, and led him away into the night.

Suspicion next fell on Philotas’ father, Parmenion. No direct evidence existed against him, yet the execution of his son, and his position in command of his own troops, made him dangerous. He had also been heard to make some intemperate remarks that had gotten back to the King. Indeed, the old general was all too honest in his appraisal of Alexander’s value to the campaign.

“Arridaeus is responsible for all the generalship,” he declared to his staff of yes-men, “while the wisdom and experience of others”—meaning himself—“is the real glue that holds the army together. The time was past for kings to expose themselves to danger in vain cavalry charges. Real soldiers didn’t mind if a young king gets all the credit, as long as the boy doesn’t believe his own publicity!”

Instead of braggadocio, Parmenion should have had the wisdom of his years. But it was not Alexander who held him to account, but the troika of Ptolemy, Craterus and Perdiccas. That Parmenion claimed credit for Gaugamela was bad enough. The old man’s disclosures about Arridaeus, however, were potentially fatal to the elaborate legend they had built up around the King. If Parmenion got away with it, perhaps Coenus or Peithon or Nearchus might become indiscreet. Worst of all, Callisthenes and Machon might be emboldened to write the truth into their histories!

Even when informed of Parmenion’s arrogance, the King was initially reluctant to act against him. Craterus convinced him, however, by playing on his dread of assassination: