The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  Tonight, with well-tempered wine, it all went smoothly. He had the right word for everyone. I heard him ask Kallisthenes if he’d lately heard from Aristotle, which for some reason he answered awkwardly, though he covered it just after. Alexander told the others that as well as his own rarities, he’d ordered the satraps of all the provinces to send anything strange their huntsmen found to the philosopher; and had given him a vast sum, eight hundred talents, to house his collection. “Someday,” he said, “I must go and look at it.”

  The tables were cleared; no Persian sweets that night. There was an air of expectation. Chares himself, whose office was far above serving anything, bore in a beautiful gold loving-cup. It was Persian work, I daresay from Persepolis. This he put in Alexander’s hand.

  Alexander drank; then held it towards Hephaistion, whose couch was on his right. Hephaistion drank, handed the cup to Chares, rose from his place; and, standing before Alexander, performed the prostration. He did it perfectly. He must have practiced for days.

  I drew well back out of sight. This I was not meant to witness, and I knew it was fair enough. I had been bowing to the ground most of my life; so had my forebears back to Kyros’ day. It was just a ceremony, we did not feel it humbled us. For a Macedonian with his pride, it was something else. He had a right, this first time at least, not to have Persians there; and especially not me.

  He got to his feet as gracefully as he’d gone down (I’d seen nothing better at Susa) and stepped towards Alexander, who took him by the shoulders and kissed him. Their eyes met smiling. Hephaistion got back on his couch; Chares took the cup to Ptolemy. So it went on; each saluted the King, and was then embraced by the friend. This time, I thought, not even Kallisthenes can be sour.

  His turn came near the end. As if by chance, Hephaistion spoke just then to Alexander, who turned his head to answer. Neither watched Kallisthenes.

  I watched him. I wanted to decide how much respect he deserved. I soon knew. He did not refuse; he drank from the cup, then walked straight up to Alexander, who he thought had noticed nothing, and presented himself to be kissed. I could picture him later, boasting of having been the only one not to bow. One could scarcely believe a grown man could be such a fool.

  Hephaistion’s eyes signaled to Alexander. He said nothing. Kallisthenes had had the chance to keep his word. Having broken it, he would be despised by the most powerful men at court; also resented, for setting himself above them.

  It was well reasoned; except that they resented him too much. As Alexander turned to him, one called out, “Don’t kiss him, Alexander! He never bowed.”

  The King, having been told, now had to know. He raised his brows at Kallisthenes and turned his face away.

  Enough, one would suppose. But Kallisthenes could never let either well or ill alone. He shrugged, and walked off saying, “Oh, well! So I go short of a kiss.”

  I suppose if you can keep cool in the front line of battle, to do it with a Kallisthenes is nothing much. Alexander just beckoned Chares, who overtook Kallisthenes as he reached his couch. Looking—if you can believe it—quite surprised at his dismissal, he got up again and went out. I greatly approved the King’s not deigning to address the man himself. Yes, I thought, he is learning.

  The last few bowed, as if nothing had happened; the party went on like any friendly meeting. But it was spoiled. Kallisthenes had cut an ignoble figure; but he would make his own story out of it, and encourage others. I thought it over.

  The King came to bed early. I listened to all he told me (remember, I’d not been there), then I said, “I would do much more for a kiss than that. I will kill this man for you. It is time. Just give me the word.”

  “Would you do that?” He sounded wondering, more than eager.

  “Of course I would. Each time you go to war, your friends are killing your enemies. I’ve never killed anyone for your sake. Let me do it now.”

  He said, “Thank you, Bagoas. But it’s not the same.”

  “No one will know. The caravans bring subtle drugs from as far as India. I will disguise myself, when I buy. I know what to do.”

  He took my face in his hand, and said, “Have you done this for Darius?”

  I did not reply, No, this is just the plan I made for killing your lover. “No, Al’skander, I have only killed one man, and that was in a fight, to keep his hands off me. But I will do this for you; and I promise you, I won’t botch it.”

  He let my face go, quite gently. “When I said it was not the same as war, I meant not for me.”

  I should have known. He never killed by stealth in all his life. He had made no secret of Parmenion’s death, once it was done. There must have been a score of men who could have rid him of Kallisthenes and made it look like nature; but what he would not own to, he would not do. And yet, if he had let me serve him as I wished, it would have saved much trouble, and some lives.

  After this, he said no more about the prostration. With the Macedonians, he just went back to the old drinking-parties. Yet there was a change. Those who had agreed to bow, from love, or loyalty, or understanding of his reasons, or simple flattery, resented those who’d refused as putting contempt upon them, and slighting the King. Men had now shown where they stood; where there had been uncertain talk, there was bitterness and faction.

  Yet when we Persians bowed down, they thought nothing of it. Oh, no; we were just displaying our abject natures. It was only blasphemy when done by Macedonians.

  There had been bad blood already between the parties. The force that had first failed to relieve Marakanda had been cut up with some disgrace. They had dislodged the besiegers; but had then gone on to attack a large force of Scythians, and were cornered in a river gorge. Pharneuches the interpreter had been attached to them as envoy; the Macedonian officers, of horse and foot, tried to get him to assume command. No one will know the whole truth; the few survivors put the blame here or there; but it seems the cavalry commander made off with his men across the river, leaving the foot in the lurch; they scrambled after as best they could; all were stranded on a river island, sitting targets for Scythian arrows; and not many swam away to tell the tale. Marakanda had been besieged again; Alexander himself relieved it, rode on to find what was left of the wretched corpses, and gave them burial.

  He was furious at having good men butchered by such bungling, and said he could spare Pharneuches less than such commanders. His own friends said these were men who’d not thought Persians good enough to eat with; only to shoulder their commands when things looked bad. There was rancor about it; it made them more quarrelsome in their drink. Each night I was uneasy lest some brawl should start in the King’s presence. That was the worst I feared. God spared me from foreknowledge.

  It was about this time that Kleitos the Black (so called from his bushy beard) called at the Palace, asking for the King.

  It was he who shared with Hephaistion command of the Companions. If you wanted a type of the old school, you found it here. Alexander always humored him, because he had known him from the cradle; he was the younger brother of the royal nurse, a Macedonian lady of good blood. He would be about a dozen years the King’s elder. He had fought under King Philip; he liked the old ways, free-spoken among one’s peers, despising foreigners. I suppose he could remember Alexander at a year old, tumbling about and puddling on the floor. It takes a small mind to remember such things against a great one; but I don’t think, even by trying, Kleitos could have made his mind much larger. He was a very good soldier, and brave in battle. Every time he saw Persians, you could see him wishing he had killed more than he had.

  It was a pity, therefore, that when he came for audience, Oxathres was the bodyguard on duty.

  I was passing at the time; and hearing him addressed as if he were a servant, paused to look. Though he disdained to notice the rudeness, he did not mean to leave his post and run on errands; he beckoned me up, and said in Persian, “Bagoas, tell the King that Kleitos the Commander asks to see him.”

  I
replied in the same tongue, and made him a little bow; it seemed proper not to forget what our stations had been at Susa. As I turned to go, I saw Kleitos’ face. Two barbarians between him and the King, and one a eunuch! Till then it had all felt natural; now I saw what he thought of being announced by a Persian whore.

  The King saw him quite soon. His business was nothing out of the way; I overheard it. It was only when he came out, and saw Oxathres at his post, that his brow grew black again.

  Soon after this, the King gave a big supper, mostly for Macedonians; a few Greeks were there, envoys from western Asia; and some Persians of importance in the province, whose offices he had confirmed.

  His Household had grown to match his state; it was fit to look after guests of any rank. I could have gone shopping in the bazaar, or watched some dancing, or lit my lamp and read my Greek book, which had become a pleasure. Yet I went to the supper hall. No strange chance took me there. I was just anxious, and hung about. Such warnings may come from God; or from feeling the weather, as shepherds can. If God had sent me, he would have found me some good to do.

  It was strange from the very outset. Alexander had done sacrifice that day to the Dioskouroi, the twin heroes of the Greeks. Kleitos had planned a sacrifice of his own; to Dionysos, for this was the god’s day in Macedon, and he was always one for the old customs. He had poured libations on his two sheep, ready to slit their throats, when he heard the horn blow for supper; so he left everything, and went. But the silly sheep, taking their butcher for their shepherd, trotted along behind him, and followed him through the door. Everyone shouted with laughter; till it came out that these were beasts of sacrifice, dedicated already. The King was disturbed for Kleitos at this omen, and sent to the priests to sacrifice for his safety. Kleitos thanked him for the kind thought; and the wine came in.

  I could see at once this was a night when Alexander felt like drinking. He set the pace; the wine-pourers went round so fast, everyone was tipsy by the time the meat was finished; when, at a decent Persian feast, the wine would first have come in. I am angry to this day, when ignorant Greeks say we taught the King deep drinking. Would to God he had learned from us.

  There was a dessert that day; beautiful apples from Hyrkania. They had traveled well; Alexander had made me take one before supper, in case there should be none left. He was never too busy to think of things like that.

  It seems the nature of man to turn God’s good gifts to evil. At all events, it was over these apples that the talk began to go wrong.

  The fruits of all earth’s four quarters, said Alexander’s friends, now reached him from his own lands. The Dioskouroi had been deified for conquests far less than his.

  Now I know, from my later reading, that this is true. The furthest the Twins ever got from their Spartan home, was up to the Euxine in Jason’s ship; about as far as from Macedon to western Asia, and just the coast at that. Their other wars had been these little Greek ones, cattle-raids, or getting their sister back from some king of Athens; all quite near home. Good fighters, no doubt; but I never heard they could fight hand to hand while leading men in battle. One of them was just a boxer. So Alexander did not deny he had excelled them. Why should he? Yet I felt the breath of trouble.

  Sure enough, the old school started to raise the cry of blasphemy. At this, the King’s friends shouted out (by now everyone was shouting) that the Twins had been born as mortal as Alexander; and it was only spite and envy, putting on a false face of reverence, which had denied him the same honors, better earned.

  As if touched by the ferment in the hall, I had helped myself well to wine out in the anteroom, and was in a haze; as one is in dreams where disasters loom, but one knows one can do nothing. Sober, though, I would have known the same.

  “Alexander this, Alexander that, all Alexander!” Kleitos’ thick raucous voice topped all the rest. It brought me from the anteroom to the entry. He was standing up in his place. “Did he conquer Asia by himself? Did we do nothing?”

  Hephaistion yelled back (he was as drunk as all the rest), “He led us! You didn’t get as far in Philip’s day.”

  This was just the thing to double Kleitos’ anger. “Philip!” he cried. “Philip started with nothing! How did he find us? Tribes feuding, rival kings, enemies all round. He was struck down before he was fifty, and where was he then? Master of Greece; master of Thrace to the Hellespont; all ready to march to Asia. But for your father,” he shouted straight at Alexander, “where would you be today? Without the army he left you ready? You’d be still beating off the Illyrians.”

  I was shocked to the soul that such insolence was being heard by Persians. Whatever was done to the man later, he must be got out at once. I looked for the King to order it.

  “What!” he shouted back. “In seven years? Are you off your head?”

  Never had I known him so to forget himself. It was like some trooper in a tavern. And the drunk fools of Macedonians did nothing but shout along with him.

  “—still fighting the Illyrians!” bawled Kleitos over again.

  Alexander, who was used to being heard above a battle when he raised his voice, lifted it now. “My father was fighting the Illyrians half his life. And they never kept quiet till I was old enough to do it for him. I was sixteen. I drove them leagues beyond their borders, and there they’ve stayed. And where were you? Lying up with him in Thrace, after the Triballians had thrashed you.”

  I had long heard that Queen Olympias had been a turbulent jealous woman, who taught him to hate his father. This, I thought, is what comes of their having no one trained to manage their harems properly. I could have sunk with shame.

  A roar of dispute broke out. The disaster by the river was fought over once again. During the hubbub Alexander came to himself a little. He called for silence, in a voice that at once procured it; I could see him fighting for calm. Presently he said to the Greek guests sitting near, “You must feel like demigods among wild beasts, in all this uproar.”

  Kleitos had heard. Purple with drink and fury, he yelled, “Beasts now are we? And fools and bunglers. It’ll be cowards next. That’s what it will be! It’s we, the men your father made us, we put you where you are. And now his blood’s not good enough for you, you son of Ammon.”

  Alexander was dead silent a moment; then he said, not loudly but in a voice so deadly it cut through everything, “Get out.”

  “Yes, I’ll go,” Kleitos said. “Why not?” Suddenly his arm shot out and pointed straight at me. “Yes, when we have to beg barbarians like that creature there for leave to see you, better stay away. It’s the dead, it’s Parmenion and his sons, it’s the dead are lucky.”

  Without a word, Alexander reached to his dish of apples, drew back his arm, and hurled one at Kleitos’ head. It hit dead on; I heard the clunk on his skull.

  Hephaistion had jumped to his feet, and was standing by Alexander. I heard him say to Ptolemy, “Get him outside. For the gods’ love, get him out.”

  Ptolemy went over to Kleitos, who was still rubbing his head, took his arm and eased him towards the outer doors. Kleitos turned and waved the other arm. “And this right hand,” he said, “saved you at Granikos, when you’d turned your back on Spithridates’ spear.”

  Alexander, who had on his half-Persian robe, grabbed at his sash, as if he hoped to find a sword there. Perhaps in Macedon they’d even worn them at supper. “Turned my back?” he shouted. “Liar! Wait for me, don’t run away.”

  Now he had good cause for anger. Though Spithridates’ kin had always claimed, at Susa, that he’d fallen hand to hand with Alexander, they had done him too much honor; he had tried to take him from behind when he was fighting someone else. Kleitos, coming up in turn behind Spithridates, had cut through his lifted arm. Any soldier in reach, I suppose, would have done the same; and Kleitos boasted of it so often that everyone was sick of it. To say Alexander had turned his back was truly infamous. He was already on his feet, when Hephaistion and Perdikkas gripped him round the middle. He struggled an
d cursed them, trying to break their hold, while Ptolemy shoved Kleitos towards the doors, still uttering some defiance swamped by the noise. Hephaistion said, “We’re all drunk. You’d be sorry after.”

  Alexander, wrenching at their arms with both hands, said between his teeth, “This is how Darius finished. Is it fetters next?”

  He is possessed, I thought; it is more than the wine; he must be saved. I ran up to the struggling knot of men. “Al’skander, it wasn’t like this with Darius. These are your friends, they don’t wish you harm.” He half turned and said “What?” Hephaistion said, “Go away now, Bagoas”; speaking impatiently, as if to a child who comes up for notice when everyone is busy.

  Ptolemy had walked Kleitos down the hall to the doors, and pulled them open. He nearly got away and back into the hall, but Ptolemy kept his hold. They vanished and the doors closed after them. Hephaistion said, “He’s gone. It’s over. Don’t make a show of yourself, come and sit down.” They let him go.

  He threw back his head, and gave a great shout in Macedonian. A score of soldiers came running in from outside. He had called the guard.

  “Trumpeter!” he said. The man stepped forward. It was his duty always to be in reach of the King. “Sound the general alarm!”

  The man lifted his trumpet, slowly, putting off the moment to blow. It would have turned the whole army out. From his post he must have heard nearly everything. Hephaistion, standing behind the King, signed to him “No.”

  “Sound the alarm,” said Alexander. “Are you deaf? Sound the alarm.”

  Again the man raised the trumpet. He saw the eyes of five or six generals fixed on him, saying no. He lowered it. Alexander hit him in the face.