Alexander the King

by Peter Messmore

  Hephaestion’s face brightened. Then an ominous scowl swept over the same face. “Is that all? Have I not earned more?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. Let me finish! After the weddings, I’m naming you Grand Vizier. You will own the official title of the Great King’s second in command. If anything happens to me, you will be my official successor if I haven’t produced a son.” Alexander stopped and let his announcement sink in. It had just the effect that he knew it would.

  “You honor me greatly. I thought that I was to be removed from you for life. My heart soars with love and devotion for you. I won’t disappoint.”

  “You will also become the sole commander of the Companion Cavalry. Craterus will also marry a Persian, but not one of royal Achaemenian lineage. That isn’t the message I want to send. Only you and I will marry high Persian royalty. Do you understand what I am announcing with these actions?”

  “It’s clear,” Hephaestion answered. “What else do you intend for Craterus?”

  “He and Polyperchon will continue west, leading 11,500 Macedonian veterans home. I will make him supreme commander of all Macedonian forces in Europe. As I told you, he will replace Antipater. This is all delicate, so keep quiet about everything until we reach Babylon. However, when our men see the marriage ceremonies, everything will become apparent.”

  “You don’t ever intend to rule from Macedonia or Greece, do you?”

  “Never! Except for future expeditions to North Africa and unknown Europe, I will live and die in Babylon. The marriages will be the start of my new world order. The development of a new, cosmopolitan man will result. The best of our blood and the best of the Persian and Mede blood will become the basis of a superior human in time. Aristotle gave me private teaching on this. The only thing I want from Greece now is for them to worship me as a god. Efforts are already under way for that to happen.”

  “Your vision amazes me. No one in history has ever thought this way. You are the only one of Aristotle’s students who could make this happen.”

  Alexander smiled and knew that his friend spoke ultimate truth. “Leave me now, Hephaestion. The wedding ceremonies will last five days, and I want to be involved in the planning. I’ve learned how important symbols are in the lives of kings. You will see powerful symbols in the ceremonies that will become legend for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.”

  Alexander handed Hephaestion a sealed scroll. “Go to the Companion Cavalry and read them this royal degree announcing your command. It bears my ring seal, so no one will question it.” He handed Hephaestion the scroll and gave him a strong pat on the back with his good arm. “Our life adventure continues, and more glories await us both. Everything that happened before this is merely prelude. You and I will set a standard in the decades ahead that no man will ever reach. That thought gives me more pleasure than you can imagine.”

  Hephaestion left and Alexander called for his personal guard. “Get Eumenes and Anaxarchus in here,” he commanded. He had neglected historical recording of his legend in recent weeks. He wanted to make sure that the vision that Hephaestion had spoken of would not be lost. Ultimately, that was the most important thing in his life.

  He poured a large kantharos of Macedonian wine and waited for his royal secretary and chief propagandist. Life was becoming good again.

  ARISTOTLE’S REFLECTIONS FROM A SPIRIT WORLD

  3

  Callisthenes’ murder marked the turning point for me. My nephew was difficult and had an independent mind, but he didn’t deserve to be killed for that. Why didn’t Alexander just send him home? Grief, then anger about his death burned inside me for years.

  It was apparent that Antipater was next. During Alexander’s years in the east, I had met often with the Macedonian regent and we had become friends. He was prudent, wise, and a great leader in Alexander’s absence. Gradually, his letters to me began to express alarm about Alexander’s return to Babylon. News of the king’s purges of his provincial governors and veteran generals at Susa was especially troubling to Antipater.

  Alexander’s pretensions to divinity galled both Antipater and me. Greeks and Macedonians would never accept this sacrilege or any of the other grandiose, Persian practices that Alexander adopted. We both knew that if we ever saw Alexander again, he would demand that we perform the ridiculous proskynesis. Antipater wrote me that he would laugh in Alexander’s face before he groveled on the floor like some effeminate, eastern sycophant.

  More than all of this, however, was my hurt that resulted from Alexander’s intellectual betrayal of both my teaching and me. He had been a brilliant student, the best I ever had. At Mieza, I had been convinced that he accepted my thesis that the best ruler of men was an enlightened, supremely educated king. He was supremely educated, but any semblance of enlightenment had vanished years before.

  I agonized for months, and then a plan started to emerge in my troubled mind. Your historians may call it a plot; I prefer to call it a plan. My decision was the result of a series of actions that Alexander had already implemented or would soon put in place. I dared not commit any of this to writing at the time but decided to make another trip to Pella. Private words with Antipater were the only way to set in motion what must be done.

  ≈

  Antipater, then in his middle seventies, listened to my proposal with respect and silence. At last, he told me that I was right. “Without direct intervention to stop Alexander and Hephaestion, both of our lives are in danger,” he said. “I had not thought of Hephaestion’s role in the total scheme, but news of his appointment as Alexander’s Grand Vizier proved Antipater’s point. A careful, coordinated plan to remove them both is required.”

  The second day of my Pella visit, I met with Cassander, Antipater’s son. His father had informed him of our previous day’s conversation. Cassander told me that getting to the king was almost impossible. He was insistent that Hephaestion must be removed first. “He loves Hephaestion so much, that his death might be the end of Alexander by itself,” he said. I had not understood that the two of them were still that close. I accepted Cassander’s reasoning.

  Antipater and Cassander left the method of their elimination to me. The day I left Pella for Athens, Antipater told me that the event that must set our plan in motion would be when Alexander summoned him to Babylon. He related that he would refuse to go and would send his son in his place for negotiations. I had that much time to develop a removal plan. It would not be simple.

  ≈

  During the years preceding my Pella visit, I had started to study chemicals. When I arrived back at the Lyceum, I put my mind to the subject with a deadly purpose. I allowed none of my students to work with me on this. Future gods will hold me alone responsible for what happened.

  Weeks later, I was successful. I discovered a secretion that came from a sea creature that was tasteless, colorless, and odorless. Several of my laboratory animals and a slave died during the testing process. One drop of the fluid in a rhyton of wine would slowly kill anyone who ingested it. Death would be unhurried, often taking days. The poison’s effects were easily mistaken for a variety of other natural illnesses. The toxic liquid fit our needs perfectly.

  I made a final trip to Pella to deliver enough of the fluid to accomplish our plan. That was the extent of my involvement. I was the prime mover, but I left it to the conspiratorial designs of Antipater and Cassander to complete the final acts.

  While I waited for news of Alexander’s return to Babylon, I worked in Athens to build support for Antipater. He would become vulnerable after Alexander’s elimination and the Greeks loved to take advantage of a political and military vacuum. I lost sleep over my actions, but after I had given the matter my best thinking, normal, restful patterns returned. Even now, in this spirit world, I do not regret my actions.

  I always taught my students that moral virtue is a mean between two less desirable extremes. This is what I did with Alexander. I pray to the gods that I may encounter when I leave here that they will
forgive me for any flaws in my logic.

  CHAPTER 23

  ECBATANA

  Ecbatana, high in the Zagros Mountains, was the Persian Great King’s traditional summer retreat. It was also his northernmost capital. Ecbatana was the royal refuge during the intolerable heat of summer that made the Great King’s more southern and lower elevation capitols uninhabitable.

  In Ecbatana, Alexander held a multi-day festival honoring Dionysus. The festivities featured symbolic plays honoring the spirit of Dionysus, numerous athletic contests, grand musical productions, and poetry readings. Three thousand Greek actors, magicians, and orators infused the festival’s events with themes of Hellenic culture. It was the grandest, wildest, most drunken festival that Alexander had ever hosted.

  Practically every evening, the king held marathon drinking parties. At one of these, with slurred speech, Alexander and Hephaestion discussed the success of the festival. Clearly, there would be many more like this one. “At times like this, I re... realize how good my life has been,” Alexander stammered. “All of our travails and sacrifices have been worth it. After my Macedonian and Greek problems are solved, I will expand my empire.”

  “It doesn’t get any better than this,” Hephaestion answered vacuously. “Both of us will shake the world even more in the coming years. I’m so pleased that you made me your second in command. You know that this will make many enemies for you, both in Persia and Macedonia.”

  “I’ve always handled threats,” Alexander answered as he spilled red wine down the front of his Persian-style, linen blouse. “Cassander should already be in Babylon waiting for me. When I get there, we will begin negotiations about Antipater. I’m still furious that he refused my command to come to Babylon. I’ll order him to go back and tell his father that he must come east immediately. Otherwise, I will send army units to get him. That will be the extent of our negotiations!”

  Hephaestion wiped wine from his lips and was quiet. Then he responded to his friend’s plan in the usual way. “It’s your only course of action. The two of them represent great danger to both of us.”

  Then he changed the subject to one that Alexander knew obsessed him. “What of Craterus?” he asked.

  “He is disconsolate that I have placed you above him. However, he has other orders and missions that will occupy him. He will never interact with you again. Does that please you?”

  Hephaestion smiled and grasped Alexander by the shoulder. He was nearly as drunk as Alexander and carelessly waved his rhyton in the air. As he made the gesture, he spilled blood-red wine on both of them.

  Three slaves appeared immediately to clean up the mess. Another one trotted out of the banquet hall to fetch new clothing for the king and his closest friend.

  “I wondered who would be the first to dump a full rhyton,” Alexander said good-naturedly. “It shows that Dionysus attends our party. Let’s drink until sunrise. We can sleep for days, now that matters are in hand. You’re even with me now, but I wager one thousand talents that I can drink you under the table.”

  “I accept your bet,” Hephaestion answered. “You are the world’s greatest king, but my body can hold twice the wine that yours can. Let the contest begin.”

  Alexander’s Royal Cupbearer, Iolaus, stood nearby and heard Alexander’s challenge. Quickly, he fetched two new rhytons of wine to the king’s table. He presented a solid gold one to the king. He gave a lavishly decorated, pure silver one to Hephaestion.

  Alexander and Hephaestion waited for Iolaus to pour a small test sample of both wines and drink first. However, both were so intoxicated that they did not notice that Iolaus merely feigned drinking from Hephaestion’s rhyton. Unaware, Hephaestion started the contest, and the party continued.

  That simple action changed everything.

  ≈

  Early the next morning Hephaestion collapsed. He was unconscious and barely breathing.

  Alexander sobered up as much as he could, then examined his friend. He decided that the poor man just couldn’t keep up with him in drinking. As a precaution, however, he ordered Hephaestion taken to his royal bedroom, where his personal physician would examine him and treat him if necessary.

  The king had seen countless men pass out from drink before; he was not overly concerned. Self-pleased that he had won the contest, he stumbled out of the banquet hall to a nearby bedroom and collapsed onto a bed. His last muddled thought was that Hephaestion would sleep it off. The king then passed out and slept for a day and a half.

  ≈

  Hephaestion finally revived. However, he was lethargic and had a low-grade fever. He had not left the king’s royal bed where the slaves had placed him.

  When Alexander finally awoke, he walked, with some difficulty, to his royal bedroom at the other end of the palace to visit Hephaestion. He spotted his friend still in bed and was alarmed. Hephaestion looked awful. His usually clear skin was ashen and his facial features were sunken. “You look like Darius when we caught him,” Alexander said with brutal honesty. He gently stroked Hephaestion’s brow. “But they tell me that you are better. My physician prescribes a strict diet for you with no drinking for a while.”

  Hephaestion flashed his eyes at Alexander but was unable to speak.

  “I’ve recovered enough from the drinking, and I want to watch my Successors compete in the stadium tomorrow,” Alexander continued. “I’ll check on you from time to time. You’re strong and will get through this.”

  The king ruffled Hephaestion’s thinning hair, then turned to leave the bedroom. Something caused him to pause and look back at his friend. He gave him a half-wave, clenched his left fist before his chest, and then left.

  Hephaestion couldn’t and didn’t return the gestures.

  ≈

  The next day Hephaestion grew stronger. Still weak, he was ravenous. Against his physician’s orders, he ordered and ate a whole, boiled chicken. Then, continuing to honor Dionysus, he ordered Iolaus to bring him wine to settle his stomach.

  Before the morning was over, Hephaestion fell into unconsciousness again. Alexander, three stadia away watching his boys compete, was summoned to his friend’s side. But he arrived too late.

  Hephaestion died alone, soon after wolfing down a forbidden meal and resuming his uncontrolled consumption of wine.

  The most important person in Alexander’s life was gone.

  ≈

  “Get away from me!” Alexander screamed. “I’ll tell you when to return.” He lay on Hephaestion’s dead corpse, sobbing and retching. None of his Royal Bodyguards had ever seen him like this.

  The king of the world’s greatest empire stayed next to Hephaestion’s cold body for a day and a half. At last, still alone in his bedroom, he sat up. He wiped layers of tears from his face and began speaking to a dead person. The last time he did this was after his father’s assassination so many years ago.

  “You were the one great love of my life. Countless times, I was so angry with you that I nearly ordered your death. You were vain, vainer than I am. You acted like a child most of your life.”

  “You were also dull. I’m surprised that I ever found any value in you. You easily could have become just another of my boyhood friends.”

  “Yet I never doubted your loyalty and unwavering love for me. Life without you is going to be empty.”

  “You will be honored with a grand funeral in Babylon. I’ll preside over your embalming personally. When I recover from your loss, I’ll request your deification from the priests at Siwah. The governor of Egypt and the priests there owe me. You deserve it for your long service to the son of Zeus-Ammon.”

  “Your funeral will be the grandest a human has ever had. When I am old, these last, private moments and your funeral will be all that I have. I want the memory of you to stay with humankind and me forever.”

  “All of this will be done.”

  Alexander, overcome with continued grief, sobbed openly. Finally, he regained superficial control and continued his diatribe to the dead. “If
one of your wives is pregnant, though I doubt that either is, I will care for your son or daughter. They will become royalty and great leaders. This, and more, I promise you.”

  Alexander then stood, exuded his last sobs, and walked to the door of his bedroom. “Get in here,” he shouted. “I’m ready to return to the world of the living.”

  Perdiccas entered first and awaited his king’s orders.

  “I’ve cut off all of my hair to honor Hephaestion, just as Achilles did for Patroclus. It is the least I could do for my friend. Order all of our horses’ tails sheared as well. When that is done, execute that miserable physician who killed Hephaestion.”

  ≈

  Nearing the end of his mourning, Alexander commissioned a magnificent, monumental lion honoring Hephaestion and ordered it placed in Ecbatana.

  But Alexander’s life had to go on. He accepted Ptolemy’s view that the cause of Hephaestion’s death was the result of excessive drinking and an inept physician. The tragedy also caused him, for a few months, to reduce his own reckless consumption of wine.

  His friend’s death also caused him to reconsider his mortality. Two weeks after Hephaestion’s death, a period that he thought was sufficient for his body to cleanse itself of alcohol, Alexander summoned Roxane to his personal quarters.

  “I am ready to give you a son,” he began speaking through the translator. “I know that I have ignored you. I also know that you understand my continuing grief over Hephaestion’s death. However, life continues despite our tragedies. The gods always have their way with us.

  “What I rejected before I left Pella, the siring of a male, royal offspring, I now accept and understand. If I should die without a son, my empire would disintegrate. The strongest, most vicious of my generals would win what I sacrificed so much for. The rest would wage civil wars for decades. That would negate my entire life.”

  Roxane waited for the translation, then smiled. Regally, she swept back her full head of hair from around her eyes and then gave Alexander a simple answer. “When do you want to begin?”