The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  It was strange after the Persian; sparer in language, stricter in form; but in time yielding up its treasures. When I first read the entrance of Hippolytos, offering his mountain flowers to the pure goddess he alone can see, my eyes ran over. Philostratos, somewhat awkwardly, patted my hand, supposing I wept for my former life—who knows, perhaps even for my present one.

  Not all my thoughts were on Euripides. In the next tent—the camp slaves always pitched them the same way—Kallisthenes taught the squires. I heard things as I passed; even where I sat, if he forgot to keep his voice down.

  Ismenios, though he had kept his word with honor, would talk to me when he could. One day I asked him what he thought of the lessons. He laughed. “I’ve not been for a three-month. I got sick and tired of them.”

  “Truly? When I missed you, I thought you must be on duty. Do you mean he’s never told on you? You could be punished, surely?”

  “Oh, yes. I suppose he’s glad to be rid of me; he thinks I’m too stupid for philosophy. It’s all we get now; meaning his opinions, of which I’ve had enough. When first we joined, we used to learn something useful.”

  Too stupid, or too loyal? Yes, maybe his absence was welcome. He was simple, compared with me who had served at Susa. Hearing what he disliked, he went away, when I would have stayed to listen.

  My Greek was so fluent now, that Alexander was telling me not quite to lose my Persian accent, which he had grown fond of. But if Kallisthenes passed, I was always mute. It pleased him that a young barbarian could not master the tongue of Zeus’ chosen race. I don’t suppose it entered his head that Alexander ever talked to me.

  I was indeed scarcely worth attention. The Persian boy was an old story; nothing in outrage, compared with the Sogdian wife.

  Since the wedding, Kallisthenes had flaunted his austerity. He had been absent from the feast, pleading sickness, though he was about next day. Alexander, still willing to patch things up, even asked him to supper later, but got the same excuse. Few people were asking him anywhere; he was dour company and killed the mirth. Had I known it then, he was acting the new Athenian philosopher (old Sokrates, they say, was a good man at a party); and if I’d known more of Greece, perhaps I’d have guessed why. Even in my ignorance, I thought he called for watching, and would dawdle as I passed his class. For certain matters, he used a different voice.

  Spring had broken. White flowers scented like jasmine opened on wayside thorns; lilies grew by the streams. Icy winds still whistled down the gorges. I remember a night when Alexander and I lay wound together; he disapproved of extra blankets, which he thought were softening, but did not object to me.

  “Al’skander,” I said, “who were Harmodios and Aristogeiton?”

  “Lovers,” he said sleepily. “Famous Athenian lovers. You must have seen their statues on the terrace at Susa. Xerxes took them from Athens.”

  “The ones with the daggers? The man and boy?”

  “Yes. It’s in Thukydides … What’s the matter?”

  “What were the daggers for?”

  “Killing the tyrant Hippias. Though they never did it. They only got his brother, which made him more tyrannical.” He roused himself to tell the story. “But they died with honor. The Athenians set great store by them. I’ll send them back sometime. Very old statues. Stiff. The beautiful Harmodios, he’s not fit to do up your shoes.”

  He would be asleep in a few more moments. “Al’skander. I heard Kallisthenes telling the squires they killed the tyrant, and it was a noble work.”

  “Did he? Thukydides says it’s a common error in Athens. There’s an old song, I’ve heard it, about how they freed the city.”

  I did not say, “He spoke in a different voice.” I had seen conspiracy at Ekbatana; I had felt it first with my skin; I thought that I felt it now. But though I spoke the language, I had not yet learned its little mysteries, the changes of note, the pauses, where secrets show.

  “Well, don’t kill him.” He ran his hand over me laughing. “Aristotle would never forgive me.” A draft came down the bed; we closed in a tighter knot. He had done three men’s work that day, and was soon asleep.

  A half-month later, while I combed his hair before supper, I told him that Kallisthenes had singled out Hermolaos and was forever in his company out of lesson-time. He replied that it was a pity, but love is blind.

  “It’s not love. Sostratos is his lover. I’ve watched him, he doesn’t mind. Sometimes he’s there too.”

  “So? I’ve been wondering what has gone wrong with their manners. That must be Kallisthenes. He never did know the difference between civility and servility. How tedious the man is. But he’s a southern Greek, you must remember. Six generations they’ve prided themselves on never owning a master; it’s destroyed half their greatest men. Xerxes got down as far as Attica, only because they wouldn’t follow one leader. That’s why my father too could have sacked Athens if he’d wanted, and so could I. But between Xerxes and us, three generations, till envy wrecked them again, they were truly great, and Athens was the heart of it. I’ve only been there once. But one feels it still.”

  “Al’skander, do you never comb it through when you’re away? Underneath it’s all in knots. If Kallisthenes hates a master, why did he come?”

  “Because my father refounded Aristotle’s home town as a fee for tutoring me. It was burned out in the Thracian wars when I was a boy; so was Olynthos, where Kallisthenes comes from. He thinks he’s worth as much, though he’s never said so. But why Aristotle sent him, was to keep me Greek. That’s the real reason.”

  His hair was done, but I played with it to keep him talking.

  “Ochos killed his best friend by torture, a man he’d studied with. He got the news in Macedon. ‘Never forget,’ he said to me, ‘to treat Greeks as men, and barbarians as cattle created for men’s use.’” He laid my hand to his cheek.

  “A great mind; but it’s never followed me here. I write to him; I tell him each time I found a city, because he taught me civics and law. But I disappoint him. He can’t see why, with a shake-up of Baktrians and Thracians and paid-off Macedonians and a few landless Greeks, I have to leave them a garrison and a code, not a constitution. The Greek cities of Asia, there I could make democracies; they understand it. But one must have justice, before all … I still send him gifts. I never forget my debt to him. I even put up with Kallisthenes, though he’ll never know what it costs me.”

  I said, “I hope, my lord, he will never cost you more. It is time you had your hair cut.” He never had it curled, and left it to hang in careless locks like a lion’s mane; but he had it cut with care, to keep its shape. In early days, I stole a piece from the barber’s cloth. I have it now, in a little golden box. It is still as bright as the gold.

  I said no more. If I made myself tiresome, he would listen less. His patience was shorter, on the days when he’d been to the harem.

  With the spring, we moved our camp higher up the hills, to a slope by a tumbling river, clothed in a forest of ancient cedars. Even at noon the sun was sifted and mild. Anemones grew there. The stones in the clear brown stream were like polished bronze. The scent of the cedars bettered Arabian spices; their sheddings gave to the tread like harem carpets. It was a place for happiness.

  Though the forest was a paradise to ride in, I still found time for my Greek, and for watching Kallisthenes, and his favorite pupils.

  He never, of course, had all the squires at once. Some were on duty, the night guard would be sleeping. They were assigned to their watches, though Alexander was not strict if they asked to change. Hermolaos and Sostratos had been let serve together. It was their watch that Kallisthenes took trouble with.

  I’ve thought of him often, since I lived in Egypt and read more books. He saw himself as a Greek philosopher; he knew, as I do now, that old Sokrates would never have made prostration; nor would Plato. But Alexander would no more have asked it of them, than he would of Aristotle if he’d made the journey. My lord recognized greatness of hea
rt and honored it, as later he showed in India. He did not honor Kallisthenes, who had first flattered, then insulted him. Why should he? There are always men who take their own measure against greatness, and hate it not for what it is, but for what they are. They can envy even the dead.

  So much Alexander saw. He did not understand, since it was not in him, the power such men have to rouse in others the sleeping envy they once had a decent shame of; to turn respect for excellence into hate. Nor did Kallisthenes understand it in himself. Vanity begets it, vanity covers it up.

  Did he see he was unlike his followers, almost their opposite? He looked back to a greater Greece long dead. To these Macedonian youths, Greece was just a name; he was something new, a fashion in defiance.

  Certainly both Hermolaos and Sostratos showed it, and they were making their mark on others. Alexander was taking notice. The squires’ privilege was that they served directly under the King; no one else could punish them. Sostratos was reprimanded and put on extra guard; Hermolaos was cautioned.

  They were at the end of their term of service; as soon as a new batch arrived from Macedon, they would be relieved. They were not boys being watched for awkwardness, but men, for insubordination; this they knew. An uneasy time. Alexander, when he gave me one of his many presents, said, “But for you, I’d be putting up with those louts in here.”

  So things stood, when he went up the mountain hunting.

  I loved the hunt, though I never killed much; the rough ride, the keen upland air, the tall hounds finding and baying; the waiting tiptoe at the covert, to see what would come out. From tusk-roughened bark and droppings, we knew this time; it would be boar.

  One side of the range was bare, the other full of wooded folds and hollows. In a shade sweet with crushed flowers, the hounds bayed the thick covert, rank for them with boar-scent. Alexander gave his horse to a squire; all the men dismounted. I too, though I was terribly scared of boar. They can knock you over, and tusk you open as you fall; if I got one on my spear I could never hold it. Well, I thought, if I die, he will remember me forever beautiful. And not a coward.

  The men stood straddled firmly, spears leveled, knees bent a little to take the shock if the boar should break their way. The hounds were slipped into the covert. The squires stood near the King, a custom brought from Macedon.

  Something black shot out; there were furious grunting squeals. Perdikkas had killed. He was briefly cheered; the hounds were still working within. The noise came the King’s way; he smiled with eagerness, like a boy. Finding my own teeth clenched together, I made myself smile too.

  A tusked snout pushed forth; a great boar stood at bay, a little sideways from Alexander, staring at the invaders of its home, choosing an enemy. Alexander, moving springily, stepped forward lest it should charge a squire. But at the moment the boar broke out, Hermolaos ran forward, and took it on his spear.

  It was unheard-of insolence. Alexander would have yielded the game to any friend who had right of place when it broke; but the squires were only there to attend him, as they were in battle.

  The boar had been badly struck, and fought fiercely. Alexander, himself not moving, signed to the other squires to help. When the bloody, untidy work was done, he beckoned Hermolaos. He came defiant, to meet eyes he’d seen in displeasure, but never before in anger. He paled. It was not a sight to forget.

  “Go back to camp. Return your horse to the lines. Go to your quarters. Stay there till you are sent for.”

  There was a hush among the rest. “Return your horse” meant he was to be dismounted; a squire’s greatest disgrace, save one.

  He moved to another wood, and the hunt continued. I think we ran down a stag. Then we went back. Alexander never liked putting off.

  That afternoon he had all the squires paraded; a good many, when one saw all the watches together. He told them he knew who was giving good service, and they had nothing to fear. Some had grown slack and impudent; they had been warned already, in vain. He gave out the offense of Hermolaos, who had been brought under guard, and asked him what he had to say.

  I’ve been told that in Macedon, no youth comes of age till he has taken a boar alone. (It was a man as well, in King Philip’s day.) I don’t know if Hermolaos had this in mind; certainly Alexander imposed no such condition. At all events, Hermolaos said, “I remembered I am a man.”

  I too remembered something; Kallisthenes exhorting his class to remember they were men, and using his different voice. I don’t know if Alexander guessed whence the words had come. He just said, “Very good. Then you are fit to take a man’s punishment. Twenty lashes, tomorrow at sunrise. The corps will attend to witness it. Dismiss.”

  I thought, If Sostratos is anything of a lover, it will be worst for him. Well, he should not have encouraged his friend in insolence; he is the elder.

  All the same, having myself seen wounds and pain in the body that I loved, I could not help but pity him.

  It was the first time a squire had been flogged in Alexander’s reign. He bore it quite well. The lash did not lay him open to the bone, as I’d seen it done at Susa; but it cut him, and I daresay he didn’t know it could be worse. It would scar him, a disgrace whenever he stripped for exercise. A Persian could have kept it hidden.

  I saw Kallisthenes put his hand on Sostratos’ shoulder. A kindly gesture; but Sostratos, with eyes only for his beloved, could not see the face behind him. There was pleasure in it. Not a relishing of the pain, but the look of one who sees events fall out as he would wish.

  Well, I thought, if he hopes this will turn the soldiers against the King, he’s a fool; they understand discipline. I did not think it worth mentioning to Alexander; especially as things seemed to get better afterwards. The lessons I overheard were nothing out of the way; the different voice had gone. Perhaps he repented having harmed his pupil. Hermolaos, when after his cuts had scabbed he returned to duty, had become very correct; Sostratos also.

  It was about this time, that the Syrian soothsayer began to hang about the King.

  She had followed the camp for months, a little brown thing, young-old, in tattered clothes stitched with gold thread, and tawdry beads. She had a familiar spirit, and would wander about till he pointed out a man to her. Then she would tell him she’d luck to give him, for a loaf or a silver bit. They laughed at first, till they saw that those who gave, got the luck she promised. She would not divine for everyone; her Master must show the man. She came to be thought well-omened, and never starved. But once, some drunk bullies baited her; she was frightened at first, then looked at the leader suddenly, as if she’d only just seen him, and said, “You will die about noon, the third day of this moon’s waning.” He fell in a skirmish, on the day. After that she was left in peace.

  Once or twice she had offered Alexander luck for nothing. He’d laughed, made her a gift, and not stopped to listen. You were pretty safe in prophesying him victory; but later, when he’d stayed for a word or two, he found small things she foretold fell pat, and would hear her out. With his gold, she bought herself a new gaudy dress; but as she slept in it, it soon looked much like the old one.

  Of a morning, I used to enter the King’s tent by the back way, that went straight into the sleeping-place. (It had been made for Darius, to bring in his women quietly.) One day I found her there, squatting cross-legged outside. The squires had not turned her off, because Alexander had told them not to. “Why, mother,” I said, “have you been here all night? You look like it.”

  She roused herself, and shook the coins in her ears, two that Alexander had given her. “Yes, little son.” (I was a full head taller.) “Master sent me. But now he says it’s not yet.”

  “Never mind, mother. When the luck-day comes, you know the King will listen. Go along and sleep.”

  About a month after the boar-hunt, Perdikkas gave a party for Alexander.

  It was a big one; all his best friends; also their mistresses, if they were suitable; meaning as a rule Greek hetairas of good standing. There were
of course no Persians. A Persian gentleman would rather die than show in public the very least of his concubines; even Macedonians who had ladies taken in conquered cities, did not put them to this disgrace. Alexander would not have allowed it.

  Through the open tent-flap I saw Ptolemy’s Thais, crowned with roses, sitting on his supper couch near Alexander. She was an old friend, almost of his boyhood, having been Ptolemy’s mistress before he crossed to Asia; being then quite young, she was in full beauty still. Ptolemy kept her almost like a wife, though not so strictly, which, after her fame in Corinth, she would not have endured. Alexander had always got on well with her. She was the girl who’d called to him, at Persepolis, to burn the Palace.

  He was dressed all Greek tonight, in a blue robe trimmed with gold, and a wreath of gold leaves, into which I had stuck fresh flowers for him. I thought, He has never been ashamed of me. I might be sharing his couch, if it weren’t that he knows it would grieve Hephaistion. Already it was growing easier to forget Roxane. Hephaistion I never forgot.

  Alexander had told me not to wait up. Yet in his tent I dragged out my little tasks. I felt an odd guilt at the thought of leaving, though, as I’d first watched the feast, it was already late.

  Round the tent the night guard was on duty, the usual watch of six; Hermolaos, Sostratos, Antikles, Epimenes, and a couple more. Antikles had changed over from another watch just lately. I stood in the back entry, smelling the night, hearing the hum of the camp, a dog baying—not Peritas, whom I’d left fast asleep inside—and the laughter from the feast. Light from the open tent slanted between the cedars.

  The women were leaving. They squealed and giggled as the soft cedar-mast tripped their tipsy feet. Their torchbearers led them off among the trees. In the tent, someone plucked a lyre, and they started singing.

  Held by the beauty of the night, the flitting lights and the music, I lingered, I don’t know how long. Suddenly Hermolaos was by me. I’d not heard him, on the soft ground. “Are you waiting up, Bagoas? The King said he’d be very late.” In the past, he’d have put a sneer in it; now he spoke very pleasantly. I thought again how his manners had improved.