Fire From Heaven (51 page)

While the audience stirred and chattered, Hephaistion leaped down the steps to the half-way gallery, and began to race along it. The friends followed promptly; they had been trained not to waste time. Around the gallery, the young men with their speed and purpose were a spectacle in themselves, suspending panic till they had passed by. They reached the end steps that led down towards the parodos. These were choked already, with bewildered foreign guests from the lower tiers. Hephaistion shoved through with the ruthlessness of battle, elbowing, shouldering, butting. A fat man fell, tripping others; the stairs were jammed; the tiers were a confusion of people scrambling up or down. In the still centre of chaos, forsaken by their heirophants, the wooden gods in their circle turned all their eyes on the wooden King.

Unmoving as they, straight-backed on her carved chair of honour, ignoring her daughter clutching her arm and crying out to her, Queen Olympias sat staring out towards the parodos.

Hephaistion felt a red rage for anyone in his way. Not caring how he did it, his companions all left behind, he fought through to his goal.

Philip lay on his back, the hilt of the dagger standing out between his ribs. It was Celtic work, with an elaborate plaited pattern of inlaid silver. His white chiton was almost unstained; the blade sealed the wound. Alexander was bent above him, feeling for his heart. The King’s blind eye was half-closed, the other turned up at the living eyes above him. His face was set in a stare of shock, and an astonished bitterness.

Alexander touched the lid of the open eye. It gave limply with his fingers.’ Father,’ he said.’ Father, Father.’

He put his hand to the clammy brow. The gold crown slipped off, and fell with a brittle clink on the pavement. For a moment his face fixed, as if carved in marble.

The body stirred. The mouth parted, as if to speak. Alexander started forward; he raised the head between his hands, and leaned towards it. But only air came from the corpse, loosened by some spasm of lung or belly; a belch, with a little froth of blood.

Alexander drew back. Suddenly his face and his body changed. He said, as sharply as a battle-order, ‘The King is dead.’ He got to his feet and looked about him.

Someone called out, ‘They caught him, Alexander, they cut him down.’ The broad entry of the parodos was seen to be full of chiefs, unarmed for the feast, confusedly trying to form a protective wall.

‘Alexander, we are here.’ It was Alexandros of Lynkestis, pushing himself into prominence. He had found himsel?f a panoply already. It fitted; it was his own. Alexander’s head seemed to point, in silence, as sharply as a hunting dog’s. ‘Let us escort you to the citadel, Alexander; who can tell where the traitors are?’

Yes, who? thought Hephaistion; that man knows something. What was his armour ready for? Alexander was looking about the crowd; for the other brothers, Hephaistion thought. He was used to reading Alexander’s thoughts in the back of his head.

‘What is this?’

The press parted. Antipatros, having forced his way through a turmoil of scared guests, had reached Macedonians who at once made way for him. He had long been appointed sole Regent of Macedon, with effect from the royal army’s leaving. Tall, garlanded, robed with restrained splendour, clad in authority, he looked about him. ‘Where is the King?’

Alexander answered, ‘Here.’

He held Antipatros’ eyes a moment, then stepped back to show the body.

Antipatros bent, and rose. ‘He is dead,’ he said unbelievingly.Ê ‘Dead.’ He passed his hand over his brow. It touched his festal wreath; with a gesture of dazed convention, he dropped it on the ground. ‘Who-’

‘Pausanias killed him.’

‘Pausanias? After so long?’ He stopped abruptly, discomposed by what he had said.

‘Was he taken alive?’ said Alexandros of Lynkestis, just too quickly.

Alexander delayed the answer, to watch his face. Then, ‘I want the gates of the city closed, and the walls manned. No one to leave till I give the order.’ He scanned the crowd. ‘Alketas, your division. Post them now.’

The egg is hatched, thought Antipatros, and I was right. ‘Alexander, you must be in danger here. Will you come up to the castle?’

‘In good time. What are those men about?’

Outside, the second-in-command of the Royal Guard was trying to get them in hand, with the help of what junior officers he could find. But the soldiers had lost their heads entirely, and were listening to some of their number who cried out that they would all be accused of conspiracy in the murder. They turned with curses on the young men who had killed Pausanias; it would look as if they had needed to stop his mouth. The officers were trying vainly to shout them down.

Alexander stepped from the sharp blue shadow of the parodos into the cool brilliant early light. The sun had scarcely climbed since he had walked into the theatre. He vaulted up on the low wall by the gateway. The noise changed, and died down.

‘Alexander!’ said Antipatros sharply. ‘Take care! Don’t expose yourself.’

‘Guard - by the right - form phalanx!’

The scuffling mass took shape, like a scared horse calmed by its rider.

‘I honour your grief. But don’t grieve like women. You did your duty; I know what your orders were. I myself heard them. Meleagros, an escort for the King’s body. Bring him to the castle. The small audience room.’ Seeing the man look about for some makeshift litter, he said, ‘There is a bier behind the stage, with the things for tragedy.’

He stooped over the body, pulled out a fold from the purple cloak crumpled under it, and covered the face with its bitter eye. The men of the escort closed round their charge, hiding it from sight.

Stepping out before the silent ranks of the Guard, he said, ‘Fall out, the men who struck down the murderer.’

Between pride and dread, they stood forth uncertainly.

‘We owe you a debt. Don’t fear it will be forgotten. Perdikkas.’ His face smoothed with relief, the young man came forward. ‘I left Oxhead in the road outside. Will you see him safe for me? Take a guard of four.’

‘Yes, Alexander.’ He went off in a blaze of gratitude.

There was a felt silence; Antipatros was looking oddly under his brows.

‘Alexander. The Queen your mother is in the theatre. Had she not better have a guard?’

Alexander walked past him, and looked in through the parodos. He stood there in perfect stillness. There was a stir about the entry; the soldiers had found the tragic bier, ornately painted and draped with black. They set it down by Philip’s body and heaved him on to it?. The cloak fell from the face; the officer pulled down the eyelids and pressed them till they closed.

Alexander, motionless, stared on into the theatre. The crowd had gone, thinking it no place to loiter in. The gods remained. In some surge of tumult, Aphrodite had been toppled from her base, and lay awkward and stiff beside it. Flung clear in her fall, young Eros leaned on her fallen throne. King Philip’s image sat stockily in its place, its painted eyes fixed on the empty tiers.

Alexander turned away. His colour had changed, but his voice was even. ‘Yes; I see she is still there.’

‘She must be in distress,’ said Antipatros. He spoke without expression.

Alexander gazed at him thoughtfully. Presently, as if something had just chanced to catch his eye, he looked aside.

‘You are right, Antipatros. She should be in the safest hands. So I shall be grateful if you, yourself, will escort her up to the citadel. Take what men you think sufficient.’

Antipatros’ mouth opened. Alexander waited, his head tilted slightly, his eyes unwavering. Antipatros said, ‘If you wish, Alexander,’ and went upon his errand.

There was a moment’s lull. From his place in the crowd, Hephaistion came out a little, signalling no message, only offering his presence, as his omens prompted him. No message was returned; yet between one step and the next, he saw God thanked for him. His own destiny, too, was opening out before him, in unmeasured vistas of sun and smoke. He would not look back wherever it should take him; his heart accepted it with all its freight, the bright and the dark.

The officer of the bearer party gave an order. King Philip on his gilded bier jogged round the corner. From the sacred vineyard, borne on a hurdle and covered with his torn cloak, his blood dripping through the plaited withies, some troopers brought Pausanias. He too would have to be shown before the people. Alexander said, ‘Prepare a cross.’

The noises had died to a restless hum, mingled with the roar of the Aigai falls. Lifting above it his strong unearthly cry, a golden eagle swooped over. In its talons was a lashing snake, snatched from the rocks. Each head lunged for the other, seeking in vain the mortal stroke. Alexander, his ear caught by the sound, gazed up intently, to see the outcome of the fight. But, still in combat, the two antagonists spired up into the cloudless sky, above the peaks of the mountains; became a speck in the dazzle, and were lost to sight.

‘All is done here,’ he said, and gave orders to march up to the citadel.

As they reached the ramparts which overlooked the Pella plain, the new summer sun stretched out its glittering pathway across the eastern sea.

Author’s Note

All records of Alexander by his own contemporaries have perished. We depend on histories compiled three or four centuries later from this lost material, which sometimes give references, sometimes not. Arrian’s main source was the Ptolemy of this story, but Arrian’s work opens only at Alexander’s accession. Curtius’ early chapters have disappeared; Diodoros, who covers the right time and tells us much of Philip, says little of Alexander before his reign begins. For these first two decades, nearly two thirds of his life, the only extant source is Plutarch, with a few retrospective allusions in the other histories. Plutarch does not cite Ptolemy for this section of the Life; he would have been a first-hand witness, so he probably did not cover it.

Plutarch’s account has here been set against its historical background. I have used, with due scepticism, the speeches of Demosthenes and Aischines. Some anecdotes of Philip and Alexander have been taken from Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders; a few from Athenaeus.

I have inferred the age at which Alexander entertained the Persian envoys from their recorded surprise that his questions were not childish. On the character of Leonidas, and his searching the boy’s boxes for his mother’s home comforts, Plutarch quotes Alexander himself verbatim. Of the other teachers, who are des?cribed as numerous, only Lysimachos (’Phoinix’) is mentioned by name. Plutarch seems not to think much of him. Alexander’s estimate appeared later. During the great siege of Tyre, he went for a long hill-walk; Lysimachos, boasting that he was as good as Achilles’ Phoinix and no older, insisted on going too. ‘When Lysimachos grew faint and weary, though evening was coming on and the enemy were near at hand, Alexander refused to leave him; and encouraging and helping him along with a few companions, unexpectedly found himself cut off from the main body and obliged to spend the night in a wild spot in darkness and extreme cold.’ Singlehanded, he raided an enemy watch-fire to snatch a burning brand; the enemy, thinking his troops were at hand, retreated; and Lysimachos had a fire to sleep by.

Leonidas, left behind in Macedon, got only a load of expensive incense, with an ironic gift-tag saying that from now on he need not be stingy towards the gods.

Philip’s telling Alexander he should be ashamed to sing so well - presumably in public, since it was recorded - is from Plutarch, who says the boy never played again. The tribal skirmish after is invented; we do not know where or when Alexander first tasted war. It can only be back-dated from his regency. At sixteen, he was trusted by the first general in Greece with a command of vital strategic importance, in the full expectation that experienced troops would follow him. By then they must have known him well.

The encounter with Demosthenes at Pella is all invention. It is true, however, that the orator, who as last speaker had had some hours in which to compose himself, broke down after a few stumbling sentences, and though encouraged by Philip was unable to go on. With eight witnesses to his story, Aischines can here be trusted; whether he was to blame - they were already old enemies - cannot be known. Demosthenes never liked to speak extempore, but no reason appears for his needing to. He came back with a virulent dislike of Alexander, remarkable towards so young a boy, and seems to have sneered at Aischines for sycophancy to him.

The taming of Boukephalas is given by Plutarch in such detail that one is tempted to guess the source may have been a favourite after-dinner story of Alexander’s. My only addition is to suppose the horse had lately been ill-treated. By Arrian’s dating it was already twelve years old; it is not conceivable that a mount with a long record of vice would be offered to the King. Greek war-horses were elaborately trained, and this must have been done already. But I cannot credit the astronomical asking price of thirteen talents. Chargers were too expendable (though Alexander cherished Boukephalas to an age of thirty). Philip may well have paid this huge sum for his victorious Olympic racer, and the stories become conflated.

Aristotle’s years of fame in Athens began only after Philip’s death; those of his works which have been preserved are of later date. We do not know what, exactly, he taught Alexander, but Plutarch speaks of his lifelong interest in natural science (while in Asia he kept Aristotle supplied with specimens) and in medicine. I have assumed Aristotle’s views on ethics to be already formed. Among lost works of his was a book of letters to Hephaistion, whose special status he must, it seems, have recognized.

Alexander’s rescue of his father from the mutineers is from Curtius, who says Alexander complained bitterly that Philip never admitted to the debt, though he had had to take refuge in shamming dead.

Diodoros, and other writers, describe Philip’s victory komos after the battle of Chaironeia; but none of the accounts mentions Alexander’s presence.

The sexual mores of Alexander have been much discussed, his detractors tending to claim he was homosexual, his admirers to rebut it with indignation. Neither side has much considered how far Alexander himself would have thought it a dishonour. In a society which accepted bisexuality as a norm, his three state marriages qualified him for normality. His general restra?int was much noticed; but, for contemporaries, his most striking peculiarity was his refusal to exploit defenceless victims like captive women and slave-boys, a practice then universal.