Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great (44 page)

The felicity of this phrase earned Aeschines murmurs of assent. He seemed to absorb this encouragement and magnify it, becoming still more compelling as he went on.

Though Machon is an uncommon liar, he cannot help but ensnare himself as any liar must. Note that several times in his narrative he esteems himself as a skilled warrior. Yet in his account of Chaeronea he clearly states that he was “in the sixth rank of a phalanx eight shields deep.” As we all know, veterans are never placed in the middle of the phalanx! They are either in front, to inspire the rest with their valor, or in the last rank, to prevent cowards from fleeing. So which is it, Machon—are you not such a doughty fighter after all, that you were stuck in the middle? Or was your account of the battle a fiction after all? See how he sits there, having sought so vainly to disrupt me before!

All these matters distract us from the real issue. To my mind, these are and always have been the specific charges against Machon: that he violated his oath to the Assembly, and that he showed impiety. That he failed in his service is proven by his own testimony. By his own admission he was in charge of “managing” Rohjane, yet he also suggests that the woman had a hand in Hephaestion’s death. Once a poisoner, always a poisoner: I have argued myself that this same person slipped the fatal dose to Alexander. So on this count the effect of Machon’s work was far less than negligible—his gentle instruction was the very incubator of her crimes.

Regarding his other claims of service, such as repelling a Mallian raid on the King’s tent, no one else corroborates his story. Yet he admits that he tried to twist Alexander’s mind in an effort to “help” him. What arrogance! As if anything poor Machon would have to say would affect the fate the gods had in store for noble Alexander! It is interesting, though, that Machon admits wishing for the King’s death, and therefore the failure of Greek arms, during the invasion of India. By the gods, what sort of patriotism is that?

I must address the issue of the alleged letter to the governor of Egypt. Gentlemen of the jury, I will not stand here and claim that Cleomenes was a virtuous man, or that he did not deserve the end he found under Ptolemy. He was indeed rapacious, grasping, despicable—any adjective you chose! But to claim that he alone caused the famine in Attica is to engage in irresponsible exaggeration, for the truth is that the shortages began as early as the archonship of Aristophanes, which was almost exactly the time Cleomenes was first appointed tax collector. So unless we are prepared to believe that this man seized control of the grain trade instantaneously, it cannot be true that he caused the famine. Ships carrying grain from the Black Sea were sailed through a war zone during those years; anyone may go down to the Piraeus and talk to the captains there, who will speak of massive disruptions in this trade.

Again, I excuse nothing. That Cleomenes’ greed may have worsened the crisis deserves our contempt. But that is a far different proposition than suggesting Alexander turned a blind eye to crimes that caused hunger in Greece. The letter Machon bandies about, therefore, is a transparent forgery. That Eumenes would even share such a letter, if it had indeed come from Alexander, beggars belief.

Machon’s impiety requires no proof from me, for it festers in the open, in every word that he utters. It lies not only in his contempt for Alexander, and his lack of respect for the beliefs of his elders, and his inordinate fascination with the ravings of Zoroastrians, Brahmins, and other aliens. You may hear it in the way he speaks of Macedon, where great Olympus stands, as if it were foreign territory—or in his eloquence when he describes the charms of notorious courtesans! This last we possibly excuse, as his mother was a whore. But what we cannot excuse is his mendacity, Athenians, for his is the type of thinking that has always placed our city in danger. His affinity for ambiguities of his own making, his championing of the weaker argument over the stronger—these are the legacies of men like Machon. Hearing his testimony, is it any surprise that strumpets, pacifism and sophistry have become our leading exports? For this reason, for his presumption, for his failure, indeed for every reason in the world, I ask you to take the only just course—conviction. Only with that may we begin to repair the damage he has caused to us all.

For the final time, Aeschines brought his statement to a close just as his time expired. Deuteros nudged his friend and Swallow nodded in response. Aeschines had made a strong response to Machon, and had been clever in linking the defendant to that class of professional obfuscators who had been in ill-repute since Athens had first lost her empire. True, only yokels still believed the agora to be crawling with sophists. Philosophy had run out its string, having long since been domesticated, professionalized, and packaged for the consumption of rich men’s sons. Yet nobody was ever disappointed who counted on the votes of ignoramuses.

It was hard to tell now which advocate had the advantage. It was beyond dispute that Machon had an interest in blackening Alexander’s name, and as the orator said, men don’t just fall into such fabulous success. Yet Aeschines could not allay concerns over the pardon of Cleomenes quite so easily. Claims of forgery were easy to make, and could not erase a few simple facts: before Alexander, no hunger—after Alexander, hunger. If it wasn’t by his encouragement of Cleomenes, Alexander had to be responsible for the famine in some other way.

Swallow looked at the sky through the window—daylight was fading. More than for the fate of Machon, he feared he would lose his sleeping spot by the shrine if the trial went on much longer. With a shudder, he realized he might even be forced to go home to sleep with his wife.

Polycleitus indicated to Machon that it was his turn. The defendant took his feet with none of Aeschines’ élan. Instead, he seemed exhausted.

I must tell you that I was not expecting to have to speak again. Never in my life have I had to keep my mouth running for so long! Really, Aeschines, I have new respect for those in your profession. In war, we try to have at it and settle the issue as quickly as possible. In the courts I see it is the longest-winded set of lungs that carries the day.

Before I rest, I must tell you a few more things. First, although Aeschines tries to put the best face on it, he cannot excuse Alexander’s letter to Cleomenes. The argument that Cleomenes was not so bad because he only aggravated your misery is just too subtle for a simple soldier like me to understand. Alexander did not just pardon the man’s past crimes, though that is bad enough. He also forgave in advance any others he would see fit to commit in the future. It therefore follows that if Cleomenes did take it upon himself to starve the Greeks at some later time, that would have been fine with Alexander. I say this without taking any satisfaction in it—had he lived beyond his grief, the King himself would probably have regretted his action. Didn’t he always regret the awful things he did? As it was, the letter was written and delivered, and the offer was never rescinded. These are the facts.

Nor does the mere assertion that the letter is a forgery necessarily make it so. The clerk has the original, and originals of other letters the King sent to the Athenians—I invite the clerk to make a comparison of the documents. Does the seal match? Is the style comparable? I have nothing at all to lose from giving back my time for this purpose.

The clerk just staring, doing nothing, while Polycleitus glanced at the clock.

I see the magistrates are late for dinner, so I will not insist. And so on to my second point, which is this: I do not now bear, nor have ever borne, any ill-will toward Alexander. To say that I try to save my skin by harming his reputation is nothing but a handy supposition by my accuser. Against Aeschines’ word I have almost twelve years of continuous service, which is a long time to serve under someone one supposedly hates! The truth is the very opposite of what my opponent says: as time passed, I grew to esteem him more, for no man had ever faced the challenges he did. To conquer an empire, to become the target of universal flattery, envy, and hope—these would try the sanity of any man. For suffering these assaults who can despise him? I could not have done half as well as he.

Indeed, if I truly wanted to disparage Alexander I could do no better than to repeat the stories that have persisted here in Athens. I could have said he was nothing but a brat, a drunk, a barbarian, a sodomite, a lunatic, or best of all, an illusion! For at one time or another I have heard it claimed that Alexander died at the Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, and Multan, and that the Macedonians had concealed this truth from the world for their own purposes. I have also heard that he is alive right now, in this city, preparing to succeed where Xerxes failed by annexing Attica to his mongrel empire! Beside these rumors, my tale is tame stuff.

Nor have I criticized him for the edict that raised the most protest in all the years he lived. I’m talking about his decree to all the cities of the Corinth League that they must take back their exiles. That this measure was a selfish one on Alexander’s part is beyond question: Asia was full of banished citizens from all the Greek cities, many all too eager to hire themselves out as mercenaries. Darius employed many; Agis of Sparta got his hands on no less than 8,000 of them for his revolt in the Peloponnese. For the stability of his empire, this festering pool had to be dried up.

His reasoning has done nothing to make the homecomings popular among the landed classes here. Naturally, many of us have become comfortable on the estates of our exiled rivals. But I am here to defend myself, not the interests of the five-hundred-bushel men of Attica or the Samian colonies. If you have lost your farm to a returnee, or been forced to tolerate the presence of a political opponent, or of the man who killed your ox or diverted the water from your stream, perhaps you will find sympathy with me. But I count on nothing.

It is my own fault that I did not leave time enough to complete my account of Alexander’s death. As it was, I did not see him when he was most ill, so there’s not much for me to add to that sad succession of bad omens and sickness. I did have access to Rohjane, though, and offer the following incident, if only to show that I have told you all that I know.

It was on the third night of Alexander’s illness that Rohjane, who had become an insomniac since her pregnancy, heard someone walking through the royal apartments. She rose and seeing that it was the King, followed him on a circuitous route through the building. At last he came to a back door of the palace. Puzzled, she called to her husband.

“My King, can that be you? May we celebrate your recovery?”

 
The sound of her voice startled him. Drawing up his exhausted self, he replied in a voice so dry it testified to every mouthful of dust of every desert he had ever crossed.

“You would do better not to interfere.”

“Interfere in what?” she asked.

“Barbarians and sycophants! How can you understand?”

“My lord, let me help you—”

“You may help me by allowing me the end my Father expects of me! Instead you delay me at the last minute with your foolishness.”

“If I delay you, I do so only for the sake of your people, and your son who you would never meet.”

“My son would thank me for my disappearance!”

By this time their conversation had roused the servants, who gathered around them in collective incomprehension. The King, knowing he had missed his chance to escape, allowed himself to be carried to bed.

If this story is true—and I see no profit for Rohjane in fabricating it—then it suggests Alexander accepted that his end was near. Instead of making a spectacle of his mortal end, he planned simply to vanish into the desert. No doubt such a disappearance would have served his legend well, like that of a god on loan to mankind, making his return to Heaven.

I cannot believe, though, that it was the exit he most wanted. He preferred the taste of metal on his tongue—the fatal fall from a speeding horse on a rutted field. Any death in action would have been better than some second-rate apotheosis, this stealing away in the dead of night from a bed of stinking nightclothes. Taking a knife from a skulking assassin, like his father, would not have been much better. At last, with the help of Hermolaus, he found a better way.

We all went to him as he fell. The wound in his throat did not penetrate his voicebox, but it was still painful for him to speak. Asked to whom he left his throne, he breathed, “To the strongest.” We swooned in disbelief as he faded. This was, after all, Alexander, encased moreover in the armor of matchless Achilles. It seemed impossible that he could die so splendidly armed—until I remembered Hector’s death. He was also wearing the armor of Achilles, having stripped it from the dead body of Patroclus.