ALEXANDER AT THE WORLDS END

Tom Holt

Here are set forth the histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, that mens

actions may not in time be forgotten, nor things great and wonderful

accomplished both by Greeks and foreigners...

Herodotus

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to see it like it is and to

tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth and live with the

truth. Thats what well do.

Richard M. Nixon

CHAPTER ONE

Written in Alexandria-at-the-End-of-the-World in Sogdiana in thetwenty-third

year after the foundation of the city, the seventy-third year of my life, by

Euxenus the son of Eutychides, of the deme of Pallene.

Consider Alexander, and consider me. Both of us came a long way to die, but my

journey wasnt like his; mine led me out of vast tracts of folly and into a

small village on the borders of wisdom.

Once, when I was young, I believed in democracy. When I was a little older, I

believed in oligarchy, government by the enlightened few; after that, in

monarchy, the rule of the philosopher-king. Now I believe only in drainage,

public sanitation and clean water.

Oh, yes; Ive come a lot further than Alexander.

My father used to say, I told you once, that the greatest misfortune a man

can know is to bury his own son. Of course, he was quoting from one of those

mouldy old tragedians my grandfather Eupolis knocked around with at one time,

but the sentiment is commonplace enough. My father, a remarkably fortunate man,

never got to put this to the test. The consequences for his sons, all seven of

us, were accordingly catastrophic.

You looked puzzled, my young friend. Sorry, you said, I dont quite follow.

How could it have been any better for any of you if some of you had died?

You remember the conversation, Phryzeutzis, Im sure. We were

* Iskander, about 50 miles north-east of Tashkent

standing in the shade of the gatehouse watching them put up the scaffolding for

building the first of the rainwater tanks, which goes to show how long ago it

was. As I recall, it was as hot as a smithy that day, even in the shade. I

confess I was in one of my more garrulous moods. As usual, I was talking about

myself. Most of it was probably going right over your head.

Over the course of my excessively long life, I explained, Ive made something

of a study of luck, in roughly the same way as a three-legged cat studies the

habits of mice, and I believe Ive detected a pattern in the way it operates.

Take, for example, the history of my family over the past few generations. Its

a wonderful illustration of my theory. You can keep the score if you like.

Excuse me? you said.

Keep score. Count up instances of good luck versus instances of bad luck, and

tell me who wins in the end.

All right, you said.

Here goes, then. Now then, lets see. My great-grandfather (who died long

before I was born) was a nothingish sort of man who lived an uneventful life in

Pallene, fairly but not very near the glorious city of Athens

Athens , you repeated. In Greece , right?

In Greece , I confirmed. In his day, Athens was the greatest power in Greece,

the only place in the world ruled by a democracy, the home of the finest poets,

painters, philosophers, scientists and the like that the world has ever seen.

Ah, yes, you said. Youve mentioned it before.

Of course, we didnt know each other so well in those days.

Anyway, I said, he farmed his land, voted in Assembly when he could spare the

time, went to the Festivals, raised a family, got on with his life in a

reasonably efficient manner and probably went to his grave wondering when the

show was going to start. He was neither rich nor poor, famous nor infamous, and

though he died on active service in the early stages of the Great Peloponnesian

War against Sparta , I dont suppose he made a big deal about it; I picture him

dying unobtrusively somewhere, probably of dysentery after drinking bad water,

rather than falling ostentatiously among the clash of arms. He was, by any

definition, a lucky man, although his good fortune lay entirely in the fact that

he had no luck of any kind, good or bad.

Youre losing me again, you said.

Am I? Sorry. Youll get the hang of it as I go along, I expect. Now then, I

went on, my grandfather Eupolis, on the other hand, had far more than his share

of luck. Having survived the plague that wiped out a large slice of the

population of Athens

Good luck, you said, folding down a finger on your right hand.

Quite so, I said, except that it disfigured him for life.

Bad luck, you said firmly, folding down a finger on your left hand. Anyway,

I continued, because of the plague he inherited substantial amounts of

property by virtue of being the only one left

Good luck, you said. I guess, you added.

But found himself bereft of family at an early age

You frowned sympathetically. Of course, at that time I didnt know about your

family history. Bad luck, you said.

And went on to contract a disastrously unhappy marriage

You nodded. More bad luck, you said.

I smiled. Not long after that, I said, swatting away an unusually persistent

fly, he took part in the ill-fated Athenian invasion of Sicily , where the

whole of our army was massacred

Still more bad luck, you pointed out. Ill run out of fingers soon.

The whole of our army, I repeated, except for him

Ah, you said cheerfully. Good luck at last.

Him and his deadliest enemy

Oh. Properly speaking, thats more bad luck, isnt it?

Absolutely, I replied. A good man loves his friends and hates his enemies.

After a series of hair-raising adventures lots and lots of luck; a jumble of

good and bad, like the junk lots at the end of a public auction he made it

back to Athens (good luck) only to be charged with sacrilegious treason and put

on trial for his life (bad luck), escaping by a hairs breadth

Good luck? you suggested hopefully.

I nodded. You could say that, I replied, though from what I can gather, pure

fluke would be nearer the mark. After that, I added, he continued the

distinguished career as a writer of comic drama that hed begun before the War

interrupted it. He lived to see the fall of the great Athenian democracy (bad

luck), which with good reason he detested (so good luck really), survived his

shrewish and deceitful wife (good luck), whom hed been devoted to (bad luck)

and died at a ripe old age (good luck) after choking on a flshbone (bad luck),

survived by one son, my father Eutychides.

Sorry, you said. I lost count some time back. But I think it was pretty

evenly matched.

I shrugged. In Greek, I explained, Eutychides means son of a lucky man.

Grandfather had his faults, Heaven knows, but you couldnt fault his keen sense

of irony.

You smiled, and offered me the pitcher of water. You were laughing.

Whats the joke? I said.

Nothing, you replied. Have a drink. You need to drink more in this hot

weather.

Never mind that, I said. Tell me what I said that was so confoundedly funny.

Usually when I make a joke you just stare at me with a half-witted expression on

your face.

All right, you said. Though it isnt funny, just well, curious. Sounds to

me, you said, that your grandfather had luck the way we have rats in our

barn.

While I think of it, maybe I should just explain at this point why Im not

writing this in Greek. I should be, I know. After all, Greek is now the common

language of the known civilised world, whereas this barbarous Scytho-Sogdanian

dialect, which is so obscure it hasnt even got a name, has never previously

been used for writing and probably wont be used again; as witness the fact that

Im having to use the Greek alphabet to write it down in, notwithstanding that

there arent Greek letters for half the peculiar noises these people (sorry; you

people) make with your mouths. If theres a reason, its because I simply dont

want to be an Athenian any more, or even a Greek of any description. In which

case, you ask, why are you doing something so absurdly, quintessentially Greek

as writing a book sitting talking to yourself with a stick and a bit of

sheepskin, as my neighbours call it which nobody will want or be able to read?

To which I immediately reply that I wish I knew. I do, honestly. My excuse,

however, is that it behoves those of us who have seen momentous events to record

them for the benefit of generations yet unborn, so that the deeds of great men

shall not be wholly forgotten, and the mistakes of the past shall not

unwittingly be repeated in the future. Or something like that.

Where have we got to? Oh, yes, my father, and luck.

I had another discussion with you about this, Phryzeutzis (if thats your damn

name; it sounds more like a dog being sick than anything Id call a name, but

Phryzeutzis is the nearest I can get to it in Greek letters), a month or so

back, if you remember; and since youre probably going to be the only reader

this book ever has, I cant think why Im painfully transcribing it here. But I

did make some rather brilliant points, as I recall, and I expressed myself with

more than usual clarity, succinctness and wit; and anyway, most of the time you

were watching a beetle climbing up the doorframe and not paying proper

attention, so here it is again, for you to read and digest at your leisure.

My father, I told you, as we watched them digging the big trench for the main

drain I was insisting on (very sweetly, they were humouring an old man), was a

stolid man; solid bronze all the way through and never claimed to be anything

else. He never wore a thin coating of silver and pretended to be a drachma.

You turned your head and looked at me. Whats a drachma? you asked.

Its an Athenian coin, I replied. They were always made of pure silver, but

at the end of the War we were so poor we took to making them out of bronze and

coating them in silver. Didnt fool anybody.

Ah, you said. This is money were talking about, yes?

Thats right, I said, nodding.

The little round metal buttons with a horse on one side and Alexander on the

other.

(You didnt say Alexander, of course; you cant pronounce Alexander, you poor

savage. You said something like Zgunda. But I knew who you meant.)

Correct, I replied, rather grumpily. Except that in those days, they didnt

have Alexander on them anywhere, they had Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, eternal

patron of Athens .

I see, you replied, optimistically in my opinion. Athena is the giver of

wisdom, and you Athenians were especially fond of her.

Thats it.

Why?

You have this aggravating habit of asking difficult questions. Not difficult, of

course, in the sense that sixteen multiplied by four take away six divided by

three is difficult; awkward to explain to one of your limited intelligence is

probably a better way of putting it.

Well, I said, because we Athenians honour wisdom above all things.

Oh. You looked puzzled. Strange. You didnt choose to amplify that rather

odd remark; instead you asked me whether stolid was a good or a bad thing to be.

I thought about that for a moment. Neither, really, I said. Or both. Of

course, he was lucky

You laughed, for some reason. Sorry, you said. Please, go on.

He was lucky, I continued, slightly annoyed at the interruption, to be living

during an uncharacteristically peaceful time in Athenian history. Well, I say

peaceful; it wasnt.We were caught up in a series of nasty little wars us

against the Spartans

Just a moment, you said. I thought you told me the war was over by his time.

Thats your trouble, you never pay attention. The War, yes. That finished when

Father was seventeen. The wars against Sparta in his day were just wars. We were

also fighting the Persians, and with the Persians against the Spartans, and with

the Thebans against the Spartans, and with the Spartans against the Thebans

Why? you asked.

What? Because we were at war, of course.

Yes, but why? What was the war about? You looked so worried it was almost

comical. It must have been pretty complicated, if your enemies kept becoming

your friends and the other way around.

I frowned. I cant remember, I said. Mostly, I think, it was about who owned

which cities. The cities of the various empires, I mean.

You nodded; then something else bothered you. Athens had an empire, then? you

asked.

Sort of. Well, we were protecting them against the others, you see. Except when

they rebelled.

And then you protected them against themselves?

Pretty much. You see, the Spartans and the Thebans and the Persians were

picking on our cities, trying to take away their freedom, so we had to prevent

that. And sometimes our cities wanted to go over to the enemy, so we had to

prevent that too.

I see, you said, though I think you were probably lying. And you were

protecting them because you were a democracy.

Thats it.We believed that no man should be superior to another.

Right. And thats why you had an empire. I think I get the idea. But all these

wars, you went on, they must have made life terribly difficult for you and

your family, when you were growing up.

I smiled and shook my head. Oh, no, I said, it wasnt anything like the War.

Actually, it was a fairly good time to be an Athenian. We had the democracy back

again the Spartans abolished it at the end of the War, but when we threw out

the Thirty Tyrants

They were Spartans, then.

No, I said patiently, they were Athenians. Anyway, after wed got rid of

them, and when wed started rebuilding the empire and tribute-money was coming

in from the cities of the empire, it was almost like it had been back in

Grandfathers day.

You closed your eyes for a moment. You mean, during the War?

Well, yes. But the War wasnt all fighting, there were big gaps in it when life

wasnt too bad. And in Fathers time, too, we were really quite prosperous,

thanks to the state-owned silver mines. In fact, a few years before I was born

we were able to pay people just to sit in Assembly and listen to the debates.

You were suitably impressed by that; or so I thought. You mean, people wouldnt

go to the debates unless they were paid? I thought Assembly was where you did

the democracy.

I sighed. This is why its so hard for me to teach you anything, I said. You

keep wandering off the point. And the point is, life wasnt so bad after the

War, in my fathers day. Nothing much was going on; not like it was during the

War.

You gave me an odd look when I said that, presumably because you still hadnt

grasped what I was trying to tell you. Maybe its just as well Im writing all

this down for you. Youll be able to read it through slowly and carefully and

finally get it all straight in your mind.

You were telling me about your father, you said.

Yes indeed. I smiled fondly. He was a man for his time, really. He cared

about his property and his family and that was about it. And he had seven sons.

Ah, you said, I think you said something about that once before, when we were

talking about luck that time.You seemed to think that was bad luck.

No, I answered slowly, so youd be able to follow, that was good luck. Well,

his good luck, anyway. A large family is a sign of the gods blessing. No, we

were the ones who had the bad luck, after he died. You see, back home, when a

man dies all his property doesnt just go to his eldest son, its divided

equally between all his sons, because thats much fairer, you see.

Ah, you said. Democracy.

I laughed. You could call it that, I suppose. But the upshot of it was that

Fathers property, divided seven ways, didnt come to very much for each of us.

In fact, it wasnt enough to keep a pig alive. Now do you see the point I was

making? Father had good luck, pretty well all his life; but as soon as he died,

the bad luck started for us. None of us could make a living, so we had to give

up farming and find something else to do. And that, basically, is how I ended up

in Macedonia , with King Philip and Prince Alexander.

The plain truth of the matter is that my childhood was far too pleasant to be

memorable. Not, of course, that I thought it was pleasant at the time. I seemed

to spend most of my time hiding from people; my six elder brothers, all trying

to palm their chores off on me, or my father, or the latest in a long succession

of teachers and tutors. I got to be quite good at hiding, but not nearly good

enough. I learned a lot of basic strategy that way never hide in a tree,

because once they spot you theres nowhere else to run to; the last place

theyll think of looking is the place where theyve just looked, and so on and

I got plenty of fresh air and exercise. But the lesson I never did learn was

that its stupid to waste a whole day hiding rather than do a mornings work.

Thats simple commercial good sense, not spending a day to earn a morning; but

in all the courses of tuition my father arranged for me (and he was fanatical

about education, for reasons Ill explain in a moment), simple good sense was

never part of the curriculum. Like so many things in my life, I never got around

to learning that until I was far too old for it to be of any use to me.

Thinking about it, I may have made it sound as if the inevitable division of my

fathers property into seven worthless shares came as a dreadful shock that

dawned on us some time between the moment of his death and the morning after the

funeral. Far from it; even when he was a relatively young man with only four

sons, Father was obsessed by it, virtually to the exclusion of everything else.

It coloured his whole life, and so hard did he try to find some workable

solution to the problem that he neglected a great many other things, and so made

the situation far worse.

Its worth mentioning at this point that we Greeks (or at least we Athenians,

back in those days; I keep using this magic new word Greeks as if it actually

means something, but it doesnt. And what I know about the rest of the Greeks,

the ones who werent Athenians, could be written on the back of a potsherd with

a rusty spearhead) had very strict views on how an honest man should make his

living. Basically, he grew it, or for choice watched it grow, while other people

did the actual hoeing and planting and pruning. The ideal was that a man

inherited enough land from his father to grow enough food to qualify him for a

respectable place in society we divided people up into classes, according to

how many measures of produce, wet and dry, their land produced in a year; so

many measures and you could vote, so many more and you could fight for your

country, and if your estate was big enough to produce five hundred measures a

year, it stood to reason that there was no way youd be able to eat all that

stuff

yourself without dying of chronic obesity, so you were obliged to use the

surplus for the good of the community, by fitting out a warship for the fleet or

financing the production of a play at one of the Festivals. Thats how come the

Athenians of old had the best fleet in Greece , invented the Drama and never

seemed to put on weight.

Best of all, of course, was having enough money to be able to afford enough

slaves to do all the fieldwork for you. Failing that, it was considered

honourable, if tiresome, to work in the fields yourself, and some fairly rich

men (Grandfather Eupolis, for example) quite enjoyed fooling about in the dust

with a mattock or a pruning-knife. As far as earning a living went, though, that

was it. Anybody who worked for someone else, even if he was a free man, felt

that he was no better off than a slave. Nearly all the craftsmen and artisans,

the smiths and carpenters and potters and wheelwrights and so forth, had their

four or five scruffy acres of vines interplanted with barley and so could

imagine they were really gentlemen farmers who happened to make door-hinges or

sandals for a hobby. Merchants saw themselves as farmers who whiled away the

parts of the year when nothing much was doing on the land by renting a space on

a ship and taking a pleasure-cruise to Egypt or Italy , fetching along a few

jars of wine or oil or honey just to help defray expenses. And the people who

simply had no land at all, not even enough to lie down on without trespassing,

had no choice but to admit that they were good-for-nothing outcasts from society

and try to make a living out of politics.

Actually, that wasnt too hard at all. What with payment for attending Assembly

and payment for sitting on juries (and we were such a savagely litigious nation

that the demand for jurors usually outstripped the supply of layabouts by an

alarming degree), a man could eat reasonably well and feed his family just by

sitting on a stone bench all day, listening to the flower of Athenian oratory (a

science in which were still unsurpassed in all the world; wonder why?) and

doing his civic duty. If that wasnt enough, however, there always used to be

the third means by which Athens provided for her less fortunate children, namely

the three obols a day she paid a man to sit in a warship and pull an oar. Since

it was the moral effect of so many fine warships cruising up and down their

coastlines that encouraged our loyal allies on the islands to part with the

tribute money that paid for the juries and the Assemblies, the third option was

necessary to provide for the other two; hence, I suppose, all those wars. At any

rate, we Athenians proudly declare to all wholl listen that Athens is the only

place in the world where a man can make a living sitting on his bum being

entertained by professional orators. Its a proud boast, and one that nobody

before or since has ever sought to emulate, for some reason.

So it was understood that I and my brothers wouldnt actually starve, whatever

happened. But theres more to life than just staying alive, the gods know; and

so my poor father fretted himself half to death trying to dream up schemes

whereby all eight of us would be able to live like gentlemen without having to

listen to speeches. He was an ingenious man, my father, Ill give him that. One

way round the property qualifications was to own a workshop or a factory. Some

of the greatest Athenians of the past had done precisely that; Nicias the

General, Cleon the Orator, Hyperbolus and so on. It was respectable, so long as

you simply owned the building and the slaves and didnt actually dirty your own

hands.

So Father snooped around looking for promising businesses to invest in, in the

hope that in time theyd grow successful enough to do one of us boys as his

share of the inheritance. Sadly, the only businesses my father could afford to

buy into were either failing or doomed from the start. Offhand I can recall the

franchise in the state-owned silver mines (he bought the concession on the only

chunk of rock in Laurium that didnt have any silver in it); the trumpet factory

(how many trumpets a year do you think a city the size of Athens consumes, for

pitys sake?); the sandal-making shop that would have got the contract to supply

sandals to a large contingent of the Athenian army, if that contingent hadnt

been the one decimated by the Thebans at Mantinea; the charcoal-burning yard on

Lemnos, which he bought shortly before Lemnos was taken away from us by the

Spartans, and which he sold for the price of a second-hand hat a month or so

before we got it back again.. . If hed only kept the money he poured into these

disasters and laid it aside in a temple, thered probably have been enough to

buy three of us a merchant ship each. As it was, his prudence and foresight left

us when he died with nothing but the land, the stock and the farm instruments;

even some of the slaves had had to be sold to cover his liabilities from a

joint-venture trading scheme involving a shipload of prime Euxine timber that

hit a submerged rock somewhere near Byzantium.

But at least hed seen to it that I had an education, though Im not sure a bit

and brace and a set of chisels wouldnt have been more useful. Father had got it

into his head at an early stage in my development that I was going to be the

clever one, and its perfectly true to say that Athens has always appreciated

cleverness, more so than any city in Greece . Unfortunately, cleverness is a bit

like sulphur or charcoal; producing the stuff is all very well, but the

by-products can make the whole district uninhabitable. Athenian cleverness is

nasty stuff to be around, like tar or nitre, and people who make their living in

the cleverness industry law, philosophy and politics, as if there was any

difference between them tend to die young. Accordingly I wasnt too keen on

the idea, in spite of Fathers insistence, which is why I kept running away and

hiding.

There were three ways you could earn a living by making speeches. First, there

was good old-fashioned informing, though that was going out of fashion even

then. Basically, an informer made it his business to bring actions at law

against those who allegedly betrayed or injured the State. If they got a

conviction, they were awarded a fat slice of the convicted mans property, while

the remainder went to the Treasury to pay for such things as jurors wages.

Good, honest work; but for some reason a degree of stigma went with the job, and

there was always a slight risk of having your throat cut on a dark night.

Writing speeches was far more socially acceptable, though it didnt pay quite as

well. We Athenians are tolerant people; we understand that not everybody is

blessed with an inspired turn of phrase, and sometimes its not very fair to

pitch a honey-tongued professional informer against a doddery old farmer in a

talking match to the death. It was, therefore, open to the defendant to pay

someone to write his speech for him.

Slightly more prestigious was teaching philosophy, with special reference to

ethics, morality and how to turn these lofty concepts arse-about-face in the

course of a public address. Since a fair number of the practitioners of this art

were gentlemen who studied and taught the subject either as a hobby or for

wickedness, rather than as a commercial proposition, my father decided that this

was the least degrading of the three options and looked around for someone to

apprentice me to.

And that, to cut a long story short, is how I came to be involved with Diogenes,

the Yapping Dog, quite possibly the most unpleasant and distasteful person Ive

ever known. He had no original ideas, nothing to say, no redeeming qualities of

any kind except a certain flair for meretricious annoyance and

self-advertisement, and a complete and total lack of fear. Hes dead now, of

course; and if I were Hercules or Theseus or some other hero from the old

stories and could go down to Hell and bring back just one soul with me, itd be

Diogenes.

Dear gods, I remember with appalling vividness the day my father took me to meet

him for the first time. Being my father, hed formulated his cunning scheme and

set his heart on it as being the definitive answer to the problem of what to do

about Euxenus, before stopping to consider the one basic practicality on which

the success of the project depended, namely money. A last-minute glance at the

household accounts made him revise quite drastically his choice of who I was to

be apprenticed to. Up to that point, my fathers criteria for selection had been

reputation, valuable contacts, proven rates of success, et cetera. Came the day,

however, and it all boiled down to who would be prepared to take me on for the

money available, and the choice suddenly dwindled down to one.

That was the time when Diogenes was running his celebrated (or notorious)

living-in-a-barrel gimmick. The idea was to show up the mindless materialism of

us regular folks by dispensing with any vestige of luxury and retaining only the

barest of essentials; to wit, one upended oil-jar, with a sort of hole-cum-door

smashed in the side for him to crawl in and out of. It was a marvellous

attention-grabber, which he exploited shamelessly by rolling this confounded

thing from pitch to pitch, wherever there was likely to be a large, good-natured

crowd, and squatting in it looking all haggard and unworldly until hed

attracted a substantial enough audience to justify a performance. Of course, he

didnt actually sleep in the wretched thing. As soon as the show was over, hed

dump it somewhere and either sneak back to his own warm, cosy house or (more

usually) spend the night with one of his devoted female disciples whose husband

happened to be out of town. The remarkable thing was that nobody (except me, of

course) ever seemed to notice that the whole thing was a racket. In retrospect,

I think it was because everybody wanted him to be genuine, and so assumed he

was, without question.

Come to think of it, nearly everything about the Yapping Dog was a lie, and a

strange kind of lie at that; he went out of his way to make himself seem far

worse than he actually was. When he stood up straight and combed his hair and

washed (I think he did all three simultaneously about five times in his entire

life) he was a reasonably tall, well-proportioned man, quite good-looking in a

bland sort of a way; but somehow or other he managed to make himself look like a

scrawny, ugly little dwarf. I think he smeared soot under his eyes to make them

look sunken and hollow, and his deformed crouch was a masterpiece of

histrionics, though he undoubtedly suffered for his art. As his accredited

pupil, I was allowed to watch when nobody else was looking, and he stood up and

stretched his sorely abused spine with a quite heart-rending groan.

Anyway. Diogenes was on duty in his jar when we found him (he was never hard to

track down, at least during working hours). He was sitting in the shade, half in

and half out of the jar, with his other celebrated prop, the lantern (which he

lit and carried round in broad daylight, claiming to be looking for an honest

man. Great line. If anybody can tell me what it means, Id be ever so grateful)

and nibbling at a crust of stale bread which he kept handy at all times.

Diogenes, my father said.

Get lost.

My father (stolid, respectable, robustly healthy, a great eater of garlic and

onions) didnt know what to make of that, so he pretended he hadnt heard.

Diogenes, he repeated.

Didnt you hear what I just said? Gods, it must be awful to be deaf as well as

stupid. Go away, youre ruining the view.

My father, a born straight man, turned round to see what he was talking about.

What view? he said. Theres just a wall.

So?

Now, being a boy of tender years, Id instinctively guessed what Diogenes game

was within a minute of first setting eyes on him after all, his entire persona

was little more than Bad Boy and as far as I was concerned, the best of luck

to him. But I also knew my father, who was as straightforward as they come;

insult him to his face three times and hed just look confused, but try it a

fourth time and youd be going home with your teeth in your hat. For some reason

I decided it wouldnt be good if Father broke the strange mans neck, so I

intervened.

Come on, I said. Weve come to the wrong place. This isnt Diogenes the

philosopher, its only a chicken.

Be quiet, said my father automatically; he always said Be quiet when one of

us spoke, right up till we were grown men. But Diogenes leaned forward a little

and raised one grubby eyebrow.

What did you call me? he said.

A chicken, I repeated.

You think I look like a chicken?

I nodded. A featherless biped. Sorry we disturbed you.

Now that, of course, was the most outrageous flattery, but Id guessed

(correctly) that Diogenes craved flattery almost as much as money. To explain:

once, when Diogenes was going through one of his periodic picking-on-great-men

phases monstering, he used to call it he took to showing up at the public

lectures staged by the celebrated Plato (student of Socrates, Founder of the

Academy, greatest living philosopher; a nasty bastard who picked his nose while

eating dinner). Once, when Plato was lecturing on What Is Man? and got to the

bit where he contrasted/compared Man with other animals, he used this phrase

featherless biped, and Diogenes took a fancy to the expression. At the next

lecture, therefore, Diogenes sat in the front row, waited till Plato used The

Phrase, stood up and threw a plucked chicken onto the middle of the stage.

There you go, he said in a loud voice. Platos Man.

I know; it loses a lot in the telling. Probably you had to be there. But that

was the end of Platos public lectures for several months, and the poor fellow

found it hard to get about during daylight for the crowds of small boys whod

materialise out of nowhere and follow him about going Ter-wuck-wuck-wuck! and

waggling their arms up and down. If it had been anybody else, Id have felt

sorry for him.

Anyway, the flattery did the job. Ill talk to you, he said to me. Youre

obviously the brains of the family. What do you want?

My father cleared his throat. Diogenes, I want you to consider taking my boy

here as your apprentice. Of course, Im willing

What did he just say? Diogenes interrupted.

He wants you to consider taking me as your apprentice, I said.

Ah. Right. Diogenes smiled, and scratched himself ostentatiously. That was

another thing about him; all his disgusting habits were so obviously

affectations that I, for one, was never offended by them. He should have said

so himself. All right, how much?

My father mentioned a sum of money. Diogenes looked at me pointedly. I repeated

what Father had said. Diogenes spat.

Try again, he said. Dammit, I wouldnt even teach you philosophy for that.

My father, who was controlling his temper so ferociously that I was afraid his

neck would snap, pointed out pleasantly enough that that was in fact what he

wanted me to learn.

Huh? Diogenes grunted.

I repeated what Father had said, word for word. The hell with that, Diogenes

replied. Any bloody fool can teach philosophy. In fact, only a bloody fool can

teach philosophy. What I teach is how to be human, for which my rates are rather

more than your man there is willing to pay. Sorry, kid.

To be honest, I was starting to get a little bit tired of Diogenes cabaret act.

Either Father was going to stand there and take it, which wasnt right since

hed done nothing to deserve it, or else pretty soon he was going to kick

Diogenes halfway to Boeotia , and I didnt want that to happen, either. Suit

yourself, then, I replied. Youd have made a lousy pupil anyway.

Diogenes looked at me, and I recognised the look; recognition, together with a

warning: This is my pitch, keep off He ignored the feed line, and yawned.

But, he said, I do occasionally do charity work. All right, then. He stood

up, three quarters upright so as to be shorter than my father. You gods, he

droned, in best hiring-fair fashion, with one hand uplifted, witness that I

take this boy as my apprentice and in return for his service and the woefully

inadequate sum agreed upon by the parties hereto I undertake to teach him how to

be a featherless biped and a good dog, amen. Then he looked my father straight

in the eye and held out his hand for the money.

Good, he said, after hed counted it (twice). We start tomorrow, first light,

sharp. Bring your own lunch.

On the way home, Father was unusually silent. Normally hed think aloud as we

walked together.

Euxenus, he said at last, theres a lot you can learn from that man.

I was surprised. In fact, I was surprised that hed made the deal at all. Yes,

Father, I said.

That man, (and Diogenes was always that man in our household from that day

forth), is very good at what he does. In fact, thats probably the best

investment Ill ever make on behalf of you boys.

The remarkable thing about my father that stolid, misguided man was that

from time to time he was entirely right.

CHAPTER TWO

Curiously enough, the first day I spent as an apprentice human being under the

tuition of the celebrated Diogenes was also the day on which a minor tribal

chieftain in the far north of Greece was killed in a battle with some

neighbouring bunch of savages. The mans name was Perdiccas, and he had been the

ruler of a district called Macedonia .

Perdiccas was the second of the three sons of King Amyntas. Hed achieved the

throne by murdering his elder brother Alexander in the normal course of

business, and would undoubtedly have been a highly satisfactory ruler by

Macedonian standards if only hed had the chance. He was survived by a son and a

younger brother, who was appointed regent until Perdiccas son came of age.

Predictably enough, the boy died not long after, and Amyntas youngest son,

Philip, became king. He was twenty-three years old.

Eight years earlier, the brilliant and successful Theban general Pelopidas,

finding himself at something of a loose end between massacres, amused himself

for a while by persecuting the northern primitives. Anxious to get rid of him

without parting with anything of value, King Perdiccas offered him his younger

brother as a hostage, and so off young Philip went to Thebes for three years as

a guest of Pelopidas and his even more brilliant and successful colleague, the

Theban commander-in-chief Epaminondas, a man regarded by his contemporaries as

the most innovative and clear-sighted military thinker of his day. It was

Epaminondas who virtually reinvented the art of war by changing the criteria of

victory. Previously, you won a battle by taking possession of the battlefield,

piling up a great heap of the enemys discarded arms and armour, and dedicating

the spoils to your regional patron god; it was Epaminondas who demonstrated to

the world that the best way to win a battle is to kill as many of the enemy as

you can, and the hell with piles of shiny helmets and breastplates. The novelty

of this approach wasnt lost on impressionable young Philip, and since he wasnt

a proper Greek anyway and accordingly lacked the true Hellenic feel for a truly

beautiful and satisfying heap of verdigrised armour, he set himself to

contemplating the new Theban approach to war with a view to mastering it and if

possible improving it further.

Well, Philip served his apprenticeship, I served mine. That first morning, I

showed up for work bright and early, with my wax tablets for making notes and my

lunch in a goatskin bag on my shoulder, to find that Diogenes wasnt there. For

some reason, this didnt come as a total surprise to me. As I think I mentioned

earlier, Id observed at our first encounter that although Diogenes was beyond

doubt very dirty and scruffy, it was a comfortable, really rather cosy sort of

dirtiness and scruffiness that looked as if it was designed to give a firm feel

of authenticity without causing distress or inconvenience to the man who had to

live in it. It certainly wasnt the sort of miserable, demoralising squalor

youd expect from, say, sleeping rough in a broken old storage jar.

(Very perceptive of me. Diogenes appearance was quite the work of art, and when

I got to know him better I found that he took longer over his face, clothes and

hair every morning than the most fastidious society hostess.)

I sat down in the shade and waited, and in due course Diogenes showed up,

rolling his damned jar like Sisyphus in the stories. You could hear him coming

from quite a distance, because the jar made a sort of grumbling, grinding noise

like the distant sound of an olive-press. It was a hot day, and when he finally

came into view Diogenes was sweating freely.

Dont just stand there, he panted, catching sight of me, come and help me

with this bloody thing.

I carefully put down my satchel and ran over. Hed managed to get the thing

stuck in a rut in the road, and it took both of us a fair deal of cursing and

shoving to work it loose. When at last wed managed to stow it where he wanted

it to go, he flopped down on the ground and told me to go and fetch some water,

which I did.

Thats better, he said, wiping his beard and handing me the cup.

All right then, lets get a few things straight before we start on this

apprenticeship thing. He looked at me for a moment, and shook his head. Youre

a smart kid, I can tell you that by looking at you, so I wont waste my time or

energy trying to impress you. Actually, Ive been giving this business a bit of

thought and I do believe there are a few things I can teach you, beyond all the

meaningless bullshit I do for money. Thats assuming you want to learn, he

added. Because if you dont, you can bugger off and amuse yourself all day,

Ill keep your fathers money and well both be happy.

I thought for a moment. I dont mind learning, I replied, so long as its

interesting and useful. My father thinks I should be a philosopher.

Diogenes nodded. Very worthy aspiration. Havent a clue what it means. Have

you?

A lover of wisdom, I replied. At least, thats what the word means

literally.

Diogenes rested the back of his head against the wall of the jar, which was

comfortably warm, and closed his eyes. A lover of wisdom, he repeated. Which

begs a nice pair of questions: whats wisdom, and is it something you can love?

Excuse me? I said.

Oh, come on, Diogenes replied. Fairly basic stuff, this. All right, lets

take the second bit first; only because the first ones too hard for me, mind.

Lover of wisdom; well, I assume you know what love is.

More or less, I said.

All right. So, there are things you can love beautiful people, the city you

live in, your parents and children and theres other things you cant, like a

mattock-handle or cutting your toenails or cleaning caked mud off a ploughshare.

You can appreciate a well-made mattock-handle, if its a nice straight-grained

piece of ash thats been properly shaped and smoothed so it wont blister your

hands, but I defy anybody who isnt crazy or very, very sad to be in love with a

mattock-handle. Now then, can you spot the difference?

I think so, I said. A mattock-handle is meant to be useful, in a practical

sort of way. The other things you said are more well, inspirational.

Diogenes nodded. Sounds good to me, he said. And the same goes for my other

two examples, I guess. Gutting your toenails makes walking more comfortable, and

cleaning mud off a ploughshare makes ploughing easier. Beautiful men and women,

the city and your friends and relations, on the other hand, can be useless or

even downright aggravating and youll still love them. All right so far?

I think so, I said.

Mphm. His voice was getting lower and slower, and I thought he was about to

fall asleep. So if philosophys the love of wisdom, wisdoms something thats

capable of being loved, we appreciate and value useful things but we love things

that inspire us without necessarily being useful and quite often arent; in

fact, bearing in mind the vast amount of unhappiness and pain caused by love in

this life, its a reasonable observation that anything capable of being loved is

also capable of making your life thoroughly miserable, whereas if your

mattock-handle rubs your hands and youve got any sense, you mend it or sling it

and get a new one. Conclusion, therefore: wisdom is more likely to be a pain in

the bum than anything useful. Is that a sensible thing for a young man to spend

his time learning?

I shook my head. I suppose not, I said.

Diogenes opened his eyes and sat up. You suppose damn right, he said, with an

unexpected degree of animation. Oh, I know a bit about wisdom, you see, and I

could teach you some if you really wanted me to. I could teach you to understand

a little of human nature by studying history, and then youd begin to see what a

mess we humans make of things whenever we try living in cities and organising

each others lives. Now thats inspirational stuff; you get this sort of heady,

dizzy feeling that comes with moments of great insight. But all itll do is

depress you and make you want to pack in trying to be a good citizen and go live

in a jar. Instead, I suggest you take my word for it when I tell you that wisdom

which is just another way of saying the truth isnt something you want any

truck with. Keep well clear of it; sell it to other people if itll make you a

drachma, by all means, but dont think of trying it yourself. No, what I imagine

you want to learn is something useful and helpful, the sort of thing thatll

earn you a living and keep you safe and warm in later life. What do you think?

That sounds eminently reasonable, I said.

Good, because it so happens that thats what Im eminently qualified to teach

you. I can teach you the opposite of wisdom, which is folly, and the opposite of

truth, which is lying. Deal?

I looked at him gravely. Deal, I said.

Good lad. He looked round to see who was passing by, then looked back at me.

All right, he said, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Im sorry? I replied, puzzled.

You heard me, Diogenes repeated. What do you want to do for the rest of your

life? Farmer? Speechmaker? Mercenary soldier? Do you want to be the man who goes

round with a mop and a bit of rag cleaning out the baths when everyones gone

home? Or would you rather be the King of Persia, say, or the Dictator of

Syracuse ?

I smiled. It isnt as easy as that, I said. Theres some things I cant be,

however much Id like to.

Diogenes frowned. Why not? he said. Youre not thinking clearly. All right,

lets be scientific about this.What do you, me, the blind man who sells sausages

outside the Theatre of Dionysus and the Persian governor of Ionia all have in

common?

I scratched my head. I dont know, I admitted.

For a start, Diogenes replied, theyre all featherless bipeds.

I assumed that was a joke, but he was serious. Well, of course they are, I

replied. Theyre all people. Human beings. But then, sos everybody.

True, said Diogenes. Sos everybody. He stood up, not bothering to crouch.

I hadnt realised how tall he was. And if they gave out prizes for meaningless

generalisations like they do for plays, theyd be draping both of us in garlands

right now. The hell with this, lets go and earn some money. Its not as worthy

or admirable as sitting in the shade all day talking drivel, but He suddenly

crouched down beside me and lowered his voice. Can you keep a secret?

Of course.

Its more fun.

I looked at him. Im not sure I agree, I replied.

He sighed, crossed his legs and sat down in the dust. Thats the trouble with

you people, no sense of wonder, no appreciation of magic and the supernatural.

Thats why your visions so limited.

I frowned. Sorry, I said, Im confused. I thought you were talking about

money, not magic.

I was. He lowered his voice again; later I came to recognise that stage

whisper of his as a sign that I was about to be made a fool of. All right, how

about this? Suppose I was to tell you that theres a special magical talisman,

an artefact with the power to make people give you anything you want, do

whatever you tell them to. Interested?

I would be, I replied. If I thought such a thing existed.

Oh, it does, Diogenes said. And whats more, Ive got one.

Really? I was young, remember. I dont believe you.

All right, Ill prove it to you. He jumped up and started to walk away. I had

to run to keep up with him.

Where are we going? I asked.

Youll see.

As we walked, he kept on about the extraordinary powers of this talisman of his.

Not only could it make people obey you, so that they could refuse you nothing;

it could even make them like you. Love you, even. In spite of myself, I was

getting interested; but Diogenes was walking so quickly that I didnt have

enough breath to ask questions with. With his special magical artefact, he

continued, he could move mountains literally, he could cause a mountain to be

taken from one place and put down in another. He could create cities, destroy

them; he could feed and clothe all the starving poor, or he could enslave a

whole nation; the virtue of its magic was such that it could carry him across

the sea, take him to the most remote corners of the world, from the Isles of Tin

in the far west to the furthest reaches of Sogdiana...

Wed stopped in front of a bakers shop.

But to start with, he said, lets do something easy. Watch carefully. Im

going to make the baker give me a loaf of bread.

All right, I replied.

He nodded resolutely, walked over to the bakers window and tapped on the sill.

Good morning, he said, Id like a quarter-measure loaf. Wheat, not barley.

There you go, the baker replied. One obol.

Diogenes opened his mouth, fished out a coin (we used to carry our small change

in our mouths back then) and put it down on the sill. Thanks, he said, and

walked back to where I was standing.

Satisfied? he said.

But you didnt do any magic, I protested. You bought the loaf.

Thats right, Diogenes replied. With my magic talisman.

I didnt say anything; didnt seem to be much point. After all, that was just

silly.

Youd be amazed, he went on, talking with his mouth full as we walked back to

where hed left the jar, at how much magic were all capable of.

Really, I said, sulking.

Oh, yes. For instance, I can make water go uphill.

I frowned. Really? No fooling?

No fooling. Of course, I need my magic talisman.

I could feel a headache coming on. Oh, no, I replied. You cant pay water to

flow uphill.

No, but you can buy a jar to carry it in.

That was so silly that I was about to say something rude. But I didnt. In fact,

I didnt say anything.

Magic, Diogenes went on, is easy. Just like most things in life. The trick

lies in persuading people that theyre difficult.

I stopped where I was. All right, I said. I think I can see what youre

getting at. Youre saying that... I paused, trying to find the right words.

What a thing is depends first of all on how we define it. You defined magic as

being able to make people do things, but you didnt exclude paying them money

from the definition. Thats how you were able to trick me.

He shook his head. No trick, he said. You made it difficult for yourself,

thats all.

But, I insisted, some things really are difficult, because well, they just

are.

He smiled. Really? Name one.

All right. I thought for a moment. Flying through the air.

He shook his head. No. I can do that.

Oh, yes?

Honestly. I give you my word. Put me on a mountain or on the top of the old

tower in the Potters Quarter, and I promise you I can fly through the air.

He said it so convincingly that for a moment I believed him. Really?

Oh, yes. He grinned. Just not for very long, thats all.

My brother Eudaemon loved playing soldiers. I can picture him now, with his

wooden sword and the shield my father made for him out of a torn cloak stretched

over a vine-sapling frame, charging up and down the rows in the small vineyard

on the slopes of Parnes, chasing invisible Spartans. Well, I say they were

invisible, and for sure I cant see them any more, but in those days they were

as plain as day (I was five at the time, and Eudaemon was seven). The difference

between us was that while Eudaemon sallied forth to meet them, one small boy

against a thousand fire-breathing hoplites, I tended to hide behind the old

fig-tree until theyd gone.

My fathers attitude towards my brothers martial aspirations tended to vary

from day to day, depending on circumstances. For instance, when Eudaemon soundly

defeated a phalanx of newly planted olive saplings (they outnumbered him

thirty-five to one but eventually he overcame and beheaded them all), Father

chased him three times round the terrace and broke his stick over Eudaemons

shoulders when he finally caught up with him. On the other hand, when one of our

neighbours asked Eudaemon what he wanted to be when he grew up and Eudaemon

immediately answered a soldier, Father nodded sagely and said there were far

worse careers for an ambitious young man of good family. Later, I found out the

reason for that reaction, and its a salutory lesson for anybody who tends to

read books.

It was many years later, after Fathers death, and we were going through the box

he kept his books in (he had well over twenty of the wretched things) with a

view to sharing them out between us and maybe selling any that were worth money.

While the rest of us browsed happily, snatching the rolls out of each others

hands and reading bits aloud in silly voices, Eudaemon grimly worked his way

through all of them till he found the one he was looking for, then stuffed it

inside his tunic and hurried away. Well, naturally we couldnt let that pass

without finding out what it was that meant so much to our dear brother (we

assumed it must be something with naughty bits in) and we left off fighting over

the other books and persecuted Eudaemon until wed managed to get the book from

him. But it wasnt dirty poetry or anything like that; it was a scruffy and

well-used copy of Xenophons Persian Campaign, a most dangerous and pernicious

thing as Ill explain in a moment. Anyway, we tried teasing Eudaemon about this,

but he got so angry and so violent that we had to give it back to him before he

hurt somebody.

You, my ignorant young friend, dont know the celebrated Xenophon from a stick

of rhubarb, so Id better tell you a little bit about him; because if anybody

was to blame for all the things that eventually happened, it may well have been

him. Xenophon was a mercenary soldier, one of those sad, nasty people who were

unaccountably still alive at the end of the War sorry; the Great Peloponnesian

War and lacked the patience to wait around at home till the next war began.

Instead they went toddling off to Persia to fight for young Prince Cyrus against

his brother, the rightful king. Of course, it was a complete and utter fiasco,

Cyrus army was beaten; his Greek mercenaries, about ten thousand of them who

survived the war, found themselves stranded deep in the heart of the Persian

Empire, which at that time stretched from the Greek border as far as the edge of

the known world; as if that wasnt enough, all the Greek armys senior officers

were lured to a banquet by the local Persian representatives and murdered.

Awkward, to say the least. At this point, our hero Xenophon (an Athenian,

needless to say) was elected commander-in-chief by his fellow desperadoes and

proceeded to march them home, from Cunaxa, where the Tigris meets the Euphrates,

across deserts and mountains and all manner of other romantic and godforsaken

terrain, through Media, Armenia, Pontus, Paphiagonia (it goes without saying

that we had only the vaguest notion where the blazes any of these places were,

but that didnt matter; they sounded fantastic) until finally reaching the

Bosporus, which was effectively home. Every step of the way, according to

Xenophons insidious little book, they fought and made mincemeat out of hordes

of Persian warriors, shrugging off their vastly superior numbers like an ox

dispersing a cloud of flies with a shake of his head and a contemptuous flick of

his tongue.

All this happened about fifteen years before I was born, and if it hadnt been

for Xenophons unfortunately compelling way with words, itd have gone the way

of all the other battles and wars in which foreigners have beaten Greeks and

been forgotten about and buried. No such luck. To my fathers generation, whod

grown up at the lowest point of the War and lived through our defeat and the

fall of the democracy, Xenophons escapade was incredibly significant and

inspirational. If Greeks stopped killing Greeks, they said, and started killing

Persians instead, there was no limit to what we could do. All the wealth and

power of the Great Kings empire could be ours. The Persians were weak, effete,

apples ripe and hanging heavy on the branch waiting to be picked or fall of

their own accord. And so forth. It didnt help matters that Xenophons pirate

band was made up of men from all over Greece, Athenians and Spartans and

Boeotians, deadliest of enemies during the War but now comrades-in-arms taking

on the whole world and winning...

If it made sensible grown-ups go a bit crazy, think of the effect this tripe had

on my poor brother, with his vine-prop spear and his home-made scrap-leather

helmet with a single tatty crows feather for a plume. Apparently my father had

been polluting his brain with it for years, reading it to him as a special treat

in return for extra chores and double shifts breaking up clods of earth on the

terraces. Its easy enough to imagine the scene; theres Eudaemon with his

mattock, too big and heavy for a boy his age but thats all part of the

challenge; every recalcitrant chunk of dirt and tree-root is the head of a

Persian soldier, a Mossynoician peltast or a Bactrian-camel-rider or even an

Immortal of the Kings own guard. And every blow would send a shudder of pain

down through his elbows, jarring his spine and making his head ring, until his

eyes glazed over with berserk fury and he slashed wildly at the ground, striking

great showers of sparks off stones and never ceasing from smiting and smiting

until at last he missed his aim completely and knocked the head off the mattock

against the trunk of a tree.

Youre reading this, Phryzeutzis, and wondering why on earth Im making such a

big deal out of this. Among your people, youre about to remind me, a boy

practises every day with his bow as soon as hes old enough to string it on his

own. By the time hes twelve years old he rides with the fighting men when they

go cattle-rustling; by fourteen hell either have killed some other miserable

little kid or been killed himself. Yes. Well.

I suppose its different for you I mean us here at the end of the world. You

dont recognise childhood as a sovereign nation among the ages of Man. Children

are just adults who havent finished growing yet; the fact that they cant do as

much work is offset by the fact that they need less food, and so theyre

tolerated until theyre fit to be deployed, so to speak. Its a different

attitude from ours, theirs, the Athenian way of looking at things, and Im too

old now to care whether its better or worse. Lets just say that since Eudaemon

was a little Athenian boy, and little Athenians dont have to bring home the

severed head of an enemy warrior in order to prove theyve graduated to

adulthood (we have a little ceremony with music and cakes and an embroidered

tunic instead), then I hold by my assertion that encouraging his obsession was

the wrong thing to do.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Eudaemon wanted to be a soldier; so Father set about

trying to find a soldier to apprentice him to. Now, we Athenians didnt have

anything like a standing army (the navy was different, as I think I explained

earlier) and we were getting into the pernicious habit of hiring mercenaries

whenever we needed people killing in bulk, rather than putting on bronze

underwear and doing the job ourselves. I think that was what my father had in

mind when he talked about soldiering being a worthwhile career for a young man

of good family; true enough, some mercenaries were making good money, and

somehow or other professional soldiering managed to escape the

working-for-someone-else stigma (probably because the average mercenary worked

for himself first and whoever was paying him a poor second).

Anyway, there was one mercenary living near us, an extraordinary fellow by the

name of Bias an appropriate name, it means violence. He was a sight to see,

Bias was, on a fine spring morning. In retrospect, I suppose he was a walking

advertisement for his own prowess.

He used to go down to the market every morning in his fanciest armour

mirror-polished Boeotian helmet, corselet of gleaming gilded scales,

silver-plated greaves clipped round the calves of his legs, and a whacking great

Thracian cavalry sabre bouncing up and down on his hip, regardless of whether or

not carrying arms in public happened to be illegal that week. People used to

stop and stare at him as he bought his pint of sprats (he tended to carry them

home in his helmet) and if anybody was so ill-advised as to stop him and admire

a particular item of his outfit, hed gladly spend an hour or so telling them

the whole gory history of where hed acquired the piece, who it had formerly

belonged to and how, in graphic detail, hed killed the previous owner. All

Bias clobber was taken from the bodies of his slain foes, of course, prizes of

war (or, if you prefer, second-hand); the idea being, I suppose, to advertise

his excellence in his chosen profession and designed to create opportunities for

sales pitches. I remember when I was a kid skipping along behind him trying to

spot the hole in the backplate whose previous incumbent hed reportedly kebabbed

with a javelin at no fewer than forty paces; there was no trace of a

puncture-mark or a brazed-on patch, so I guess he must have had it invisibly

mended.

In due course my father apprenticed Eudaemon to this remarkable person. Money

changed hands, and Eudaemon went to live at Bias house. Now, it occurred to me

that, for someone who made his living fighting in wars, Bias spent an

unconscionable percentage of his time at home in Athens , where there werent

any. For all his splendid outfits and stirring tales of valour, Bias never

actually seemed to do any fighting, and therefore didnt seem to me to be a

suitable person to teach our kid the warriors trade. I mentioned this to Father

and got a thick ear for my pains, appropriately enough. But time went on, and

whenever Eudaemon was allowed home for a visit (he lived about two hundred yards

away) I got the impression from what he told us that he was receiving a

first-class education in the noble arts of armour-polishing, sword-burnishing,

cloak-darning and cleaning mildew off leather, but that was about as far as it

went. Eudaemon, of course, was fiercely loyal, as youd expect a soldier to be.

According to him, a mans got to look after his kit if he expects his kit to

look after him, and no soldiers worth a damn who doesnt spend a substantial

number of his waking hours bulling up metal and waxing leather. As it happened,

this was confirmed by my fathers recollections of his brief period of military

service, many years earlier, which he spent either polishing his gear or getting

it covered in mud while digging miles of trenches across a flat, uninhabited

plain many miles from where the fighting was taking place; so he accepted the

Bias/ Eudaemon version of the military curriculum without question, and got

annoyed with anybody who suggested that he was being taken for a sucker.

Nevertheless, rumours of the scepticism that was rife in the lesser members of

our household seemed to have reached Bias, because he started giving Eudaemon

lessons in military theory. All of these came out of a remarkable book (I wish I

still had my copy, but it went the way of all flesh last year, when I needed

some thin rawhide to mend a broken hoe) by a man called Aeneas the Tactican,

whose qualifications for pontificating about the art of war seemed to consist

solely of having written this same book. What Aeneas lacked in hands-on

experience, however, he more than made up for in imagination. His book (and,

therefore, Bias lessons) positively teemed with cunning schemes and devilish

contraptions for winning wars at a stroke and bringing the boys home before

harvest. There were ox-powered troopships and mechanical gadgets that hurled

rocks, there were dastardly ploys for deceiving the enemy (unless, of course,

theyd also read Aeneas book), there were stratagems and counter-stratagems and

counter-counter-stratagems for the really advanced student. And, best of all,

there were the bees.

Oh, gods, the bees.

Imagine youre trapped in a city under siege, with seventy thousand men camping

out under your battlements, vowing to slaughter every living thing inside the

walls. They have archers and battering-rams and siege-towers, not to mention

plenty of food and drink.You, on the other hand, have a first-generation copy of

Aeneas the Tactician, so there isnt anything to worry about really. Every day

the enemy shoot and bombard and hammer away; you repel every attempt, sword in

one hand and book of instructions in the other. Eventually, the enemy get

depressed. Some of them start talking loudly about going home. Their general is

getting worried, and consults his chief engineer.

No problem, the engineer replies. We cant climb over the walls or bash them

down, so what well do is well dig a tunnel under the walls and then collapse

it, bringing the walls tumbling down. The general smiles broadly and off the

engineer goes, requisitioning buckets and organising shift rosters; and the next

thing you know, your sleep is troubled by a sort of underground scratching

noise, which is too loud to be cockroaches and too quiet for an earthquake.

Just in time, you figure out whats going on, and immediately consult The Book.

Sure enough, theres the answer. Its wonderful. It goes like this.

First, find out as best you can where the enemy tunnel is.Then, dig a tunnel of

your own to intercept it. When youre nearly through into the enemys main

shaft, you stop and go round the city collecting up all the hives of bees you

can possibly find, stunning the vicious little creatures by puffing smoke at

them with a portable brazier and a pair of bellows. Then you take the hives of

drowsy but evil-tempered bees down your tunnel, break through into next door,

sling in the beehives and seal the hole up quick. In due course the bees wake up

with a foul hangover and set about finding someone to blame for their injuries.

Since ten standard beehives contain something of the order of five million bees,

life in the enemys mines is likely to be unbearably exciting for quite some

time. Once youve given your black-andyellow-arsed allies a chance to do their

stuff, you open the hole up again and flood the mines with smoke, enabling your

men to get into the enemys diggings and cave in the tunnels, leaving them the

whole lousy job to do again.

I remember that the first time Eudaemon told us about this, I laughed so much I

had to go outside and take deep breaths of cold night air to regain my

composure, much to my brothers irritation. What, he wanted to know, was so damn

funny about a thoroughly ingenious, utterly foolproof military manoeuvre? I

replied that if he couldnt see the joke, I wasnt going to be able to explain

it to him, and we left it at that. I may even have apologised, under duress, for

my lack of proper respect. Of course, the next time I came across Aeneas book

well, thatll keep.

So there we were, the sons of Eutychides, all apprenticed to our various

vocations, all quietly chugging along with them to humour our father and not

really giving much thought to the future. I knew, of course, that what I was

learning from the illustrious Diogenes wasnt, in purely commercial terms, worth

spit. I assume Eudaemon realised the same thing, deep down in his liver, and the

same for the others as they played at surveying or banking or trading in exotic

spices. It didnt matter really, because Father was fit and healthy and in due

course wed each marry a girl with enough of a dowry to make up the difference

between our inheritances and what wed need to bring in a decent living.

Time passed, though, and one by one all the gullible heiresses in our part of

Attica married other people. This was annoying; it meant that our brides would

be from more distant regions, which would mean a lot of traipsing about the

countryside going from holding to holding five acres in Pallene, seven more

out as far as Marathon maybe, two more over Phyle way; grandfather Eupolis

inheritance had been scattered enough as it was without the further headache of

subdividing it and then matching up the bits with more far-flung snippets.

Before you ask, there was no question of selling inconveniently situated land

and buying other land to take its place. In those days, that simply wasnt done;

itd be like selling the members of your family you didnt happen to get on with

and buying someone elses sweet-natured aunt. Land, after all, was for ever; it

was people who came and went. It was thinking like this that made the relatively

straightforward task of making a living in Attica such a complex and difficult

matter, and led the Athenians as a nation to turn their back on self-sufficient

agriculture and dabble in world domination instead.

Came the time, however, when even the girls of our age in Acharnae and the back

end of the Mesogaia were all married, but not to any of us. Naturally enough, we

started to ask why. Generally speaking, Athenian fathers are only too delighted

to get their daughters off their hands as quickly as possible, only just

stopping short of giving them away, one free with every five jars of olives. It

turned out, however, that my father, and our family in general, had acquired

such an unhealthy reputation for eccentricity (because of my fathers knack of

apprenticing his sons to world-famous deadheads) that nobody wanted to know us,

let alone marry into our obviously jinxed house. Perhaps it would have been

different if my mother had been alive (she died when I was three). Shed been

the daughter of a very prestigious and respectable family you could tell how

grand they were from the fact that most of them were in political exile at any

given moment and Im sure her peoples solid reputation would have gone a long

way towards undoing the damage. But once she died her family didnt want to know

us, so that was no help. And of course the more obvious it became that we

werent going to be able to marry our way out of trouble, the more feverishly my

father schemed and contrived to make sure wed all be provided for. I tell you,

he reminded me of a boy trying to untangle a ball of wool; the more he tugged

and yanked at it, the tighter the tangles became, and the harder he pulled. Its

something of a miracle, in fact, that we managed to keep things together as long

as we did.

In the event, my father died as stolidly and disastrously as hed lived. He was

stung by a wasp during the olive harvest, and fell out of a tree. It was a

singularly fatuous way for him to die; there wasnt any call for him to go

shinning up trees at his age, but the slave whose job it was had bruised his

knee and gone limping home, and Father was worried in case the wind blew the

olives down (we were late with the olives that year, for some reason), leaving

them on the ground, spoiling. So, being Father, he clambered up into the

branches with his long stick for knocking the olives down, and hed already

cleared all the ones worth having; all that were left were a few small, hard

specimens up in the high, thin branches, but (being Father) he was determined to

show up the malingering slave by doing a thorough job. The wasp stung the back

of his left hand, the one he was holding onto the branch with; I suppose he

automatically let go, and went crashing down in a tangle of twigs and foliage,

landing awkwardly and breaking his leg.

Now, that wasnt enough to kill him, Heaven knows; but he was alone out there,

unable to move, with the sun setting, which meant that all our sensible

neighbours had left the terraces and started home. And of course it would have

to be the one night in the year when we had a freak rainstorm.

Normally, of course, wed have realised something was wrong when he failed to

come home, and gone out to see what the matter was. But of course we had a house

at Phyle (house is an overstatement; it had been a house back in Grandfather

Eupolis day, but by that point it was four walls and a vague recollection of

the shape of a roof, which we patched up with trimmings and branches whenever we

had occasion to use it, for example during the olive harvest) and we naturally

assumed that Father had decided to sleep there rather than trudge all the way

back to Pallene.

He was still very much alive the next morning, when our loathsome neighbour

Demonax found him and (grudgingly, we assume) helped him down the hill to our

roofless, tumbledown house. That, however, was the limit of neighbourly charity

as far as Demonax as concerned; he had olives to get in, and if Eutychides was

fool enough to go falling out of trees and breaking legs, he should be grateful

for a shoulder to lean on as far as the house, where undoubtedly the slave or

one of the maids would show up before noon. So he left him there, wrapped in his

sopping wet cloak, either failing to notice or failing to care that Father was

developing a rare old fever.

Well, the slave with the bad knee tottered back up to the olive grove, saw that

Father wasnt there, assumed hed gone home and set about getting in the rest of

the olives. He knew he was in trouble for sloping off the previous day, and was

anxious to regain a bit of lost favour by putting in a full days work. It was

only by chance that he stayed so late at his work that he decided to stop over

at the house himself; where he found my father, half off his head with fever,

apparently having a heated argument with Grandfather Eupolis about the merits of

Euripides play The Trojan Women.

By this time, of course, it was too late in the day to think about trying to get

him home, or even finding help. So Father had to spend the night there, with

nothing to eat (the slave had only taken his own lunch with him, and of course

hed eaten that) and precious little in the way of warmth or comfort. As soon as

it was light, the slave set off to find help. He made the mistake of hammering

on Demonaxs door. Our neighbour replied that hed already wasted enough

valuable time larking about with the old fool, and he had better things to do,

etc. By the time the slave gave up and left, encouraged on his way by Demonaxs

two unspeakably ferocious dogs, it was already midmorning, and by the time the

slave had gone back home, found someone whod listen to him (my feckless

brother Euthyphron; hardly the person youd choose to turn to in a crisis),

organised a makeshift litter and some bearers, and slogged back out to Phyle, it

was dark again.

By now Father was in terrible shape, so Euthyphron decided to take him home in

the dark. I suppose it wasnt his fault that it rained again; it rains so rarely

in Attica that the risk was practically negligible. But hed been going back and

forth to Phyle since he was a little kid, he shouldnt have got lost and spent

the whole night wandering up and down, round and round in circles, until he

finally blundered into the house at Pallene, soaked to the skin, about an hour

before dawn.

Even after all that, youd have expected Father to pull through. True, he had

dreadful congestion in his lungs by this stage, as well as the fever, but this

was Attica , where as a rule people generally dont die of a broken leg. We

called for a doctor, and he came; a short, fat, busy little man from

Halicarnassus who drained off an alarming amount of Fathers blood in a series

of little bronze dishes while mumbling prayers to Asclepius in a sing-song voice

that nearly drove me round the bend. His considered opinion was that the real

cause of the illness was the wasp-sting. Some people, he said, react very badly

to being stung, and thats just how it goes. We pointed out that we kept bees,

and Father had been stung more times than hed eaten salted fish, but the doctor

shook his head and said that bee-stings and wasp-stings had quite different

effects and attacked different humours in the body. Then he siphoned off another

jugful of Fathers blood just to be on the safe side, charged us a drachma, and

went home.

But we didnt imagine for a moment that he was going to die; we knew he was very

ill, but the worst we anticipated was the inconvenience of having to hang around

the house listening to him argue (with incredible bitterness, most of the time)

with the ghost of his dead father when we all had work to do. I suppose the

apprehension set in when we realised that none of us knew how the estate, the

family business, actually worked. Oh, we knew about its component parts, but

Father had always kept a firm and exclusive grip on the overall management of it

all, and we didnt have a clue what needed to be done. Slaves and day-labourers

kept turning up at the door wanting to be told what they should be doing, and we

didnt know. It was utterly thoughtless of Father, we told each other, to be

lying there raving like a loon when there was so much work to be done that only

he could do.We knew whose fault it would be when he recovered and found that

everything was in a total mess; thered be no point trying to explain...

And then one of us raised the possibility I dont think anybody said it in so

many words of what would happen if he didnt recover; what if he died, and

left us all alone? At first that didnt bear thinking about, and besides, he

wasnt going to die, so stop being so damn morbid. But time went on, and

although his slanging match with our late grandfather grew steadily more

vitriolic (we could only hear one side of it, of course, but we remembered

Eupolis and were sure that at the very least he was giving as good as he got),

his voice was getting steadily weaker. He didnt recognise any of us, or even

seem to be aware that there was anybody there except his own father. When he

started telling the old man that it was his neglect and mental cruelty that

killed our grandmother Phaedra, we were all so embarrassed we got up and left

the room.

He died on the seventh day of the fever, in the middle of a stream of abuse. It

was the first time wed ever heard him use that sort of language, or express

himself so passionately about anything. In fact, after Grandfather died, I cant

remember Father ever mentioning him (aside, of course, from this occasion) in

anything except a vaguely respectful tone such as youd use about some minor god

you believed in but didnt actually know very much about.

Well, soon enough I expect to see him again both of them, in fact

on the other side of the blind river, that drab and featureless place where we

Greeks go when we die. Ill be able to ask them both what it was that passed

between them that was important enough to blot out everything else from Fathers

mind in the last hours of his life. Ive often speculated idly about what on

earth it might have been. The prospect of satisfying my curiosity on this point

is, in fact, about the only thing that reconciles me to the thought of death,

which in all other respects has nothing to recommend it whatsoever.

CHAPTER THREE

A thenian children, my illiterate young friend, are plagued from their earliest

years by the poet Homer. For reasons which I have never and will never

understand, were required to learn vast acreages of his dreary masterpieces by

heart, and anybody who cant or wont is immediately dismissed out of hand as

perverse or just plain stupid. Ignorant little ratbag, doesnt even know his

Homer, they say, and reinforce their reproof with the backs of their hands.

Bizarre. After all, theres nothing in the iliad and next to nothing in the

Odyssey thats of any practical value to anybody; quite the reverse, in fact.

Four-fifths of the Iliad is endlessly repetitive battle scenes, describing a

style of fighting that would get you killed in less time than it takes to blow

your nose if you tried it on a modern battlefield, and the rest of its an

extremely dubious, if not downright blasphemous, take on the lifestyle and

morals of our gods. Theres some stuff about shipbuilding and carpentry in

general in the Odyssey, I grant you; but as a guide-book its been proven

useless time after time. The gods only know how many poor fools have set off to

find all the wonderful places that Homer firmly asserts are out there,

somewhere between Troy and Ithaca ; according to those of them whove made it

back in one piece, Homer got it wrong. As simple as that.

But there was one bit in the Iliad that made one hell of an impression on me

when I was a small boy; in fact, it scared me stiff, and still does. Im not

talking about those comically gory descriptions of spearpoints coming out

through the backs of peoples skulls. They just make me giggle. The bit Im

talking about is the scene where Hectors off to join the fighting and

Andromache, his wife, is urging

him not to go. Whatll become of me and the kids, she says, if you get yourself

killed? Theres nothing worse in all the world than the fate of a woman whose

husbands killed in war. Suddenly, shes left on her own, with nobody to protect

her. At best, the people she thought were her friends ignore her, at worst they

come sniffing round like wild dogs looking for easy prey. And if the city falls,

what has she got to look forward to but slavery and degradation at the hands of

the people who killed her husband?

That sense of loneliness, of no longer being protected against the world by

someone who you thought you could rely on to be there; I know how that feels.

Thats how we felt, my brothers and I, when our father died. For all our

splendid and expensive educations, we hadnt got a clue what we were supposed to

do. It was like looking down as you walk along and seeing that there isnt any

ground, that in fact youre walking on thin air over a damn great chasm. All we

knew was that with Father gone we were in deep trouble we knew that because

hed been telling us so ever since we were children. Now, in spite of his best

efforts, the very catastrophe hed worked all his life to avoid had come about,

and we were the ones who were going to have to deal with it.

My brother Eudaemon dealt with the problem by running away. He left without

telling anybody on the morning after the funeral, taking with him my fathers

armour and sword (no great loss; after forty years of neglect they consisted of

nine parts verdigris, one part force of habit) and all the badly hidden money,

just enough to pay for a passage on a ship, if you didnt mind sleeping on top

of the cargo. We tried to find out where hed gone, and a friend of the family

reported hearing that the mighty Bias (who vanished from sight at the same time,

to the great sorrow of various creditors) had joined an army being raised by

Philomelus of Phocia against the Thebans. It seemed logical to assume that

Eudaemon had gone with him, and when we heard a while later that Philomelus and

a large part of his army had been wiped out, we shot out urgent messages begging

for news and offering a cash reward for any information, but no replies were

forthcoming, not even obvious lies.

My brother Eugenes, easily summed up by the phrase hatefully pragmatic,

pointed out that at least this meant one less brother to share the estate with.

With Eudaemon gone, he explained as we sat under the old fig tree outside the

back door at Pallene, we would now have just over seventeen acres each rather

than barely fifteen.

For gods sakes, interrupted my brother Eudemus (the sensitive one;

apprenticed to Lysias the banker, and the only one of us with any real prospect

of being able to make a decent living), thats a disgusting thing to say.

Im just trying to be practical, Eugenes replied irritably. Somebodys got

to be, after all. Dammit, if itd bring him back Id willingly hand over my

entire share to the King of the Centaurs, but it wont. Hes gone, were still

here. And maybe, just maybe, that could make it possible to keep the family

together, so that the rest of us wont have to go out risking our lives halfway

across the world

Do you really think so? interrupted my brother Euthyphron.You may remember, he

was the one who coped so remarkably badly with the job of getting my father home

from Phyle. There was no malice in him, but he was an idiot.

Well, Eugenes replied, its conceivable. Lets look at this scientifically,

shall we? He fished a wax tablet and a stylus out of the fold of his tunic.

Now then, last year we got an average return of eleven medimni per acre on

barley, twenty metretes per acre for the vines and two metretes for the olives.

Very roughly, and not allowing for interplanting barley in the vineyards, weve

got thirty acres suitable for barley, seventy acres of vineyards and twenty of

olives and other general rubbish Grandfathers beans, the great lupin

experiment, other junk like that. Split seven ways he paused for a moment,

scowling and counting on his fingers split seven ways, we each get four and a

quarter acres of the barley fields, ten each of vines and two and three quarters

of the leftovers, making a total of seventeen acres. Everybody with me so far?

Eudemus was about to make another formal protest at the distastefulness of this

conversation, but the rest of us shushed him. This was interesting.

All right then, Eugenes went on. Heres the good bit. Four and a quarter of

barley at eleven medimni the acre is forty-seven medimni. Ten of vines at twenty

metretes, thats easy enough, two hundred metretes. Two and three quarters at

two, wet or dry probably over-optimistic, but it doesnt make much odds anyhow

call it five and a half measures for ready money. Add those all up another

pause while he did just that and the total for each one of us, he announced

triumphantly, is two hundred and fifty-two and a half measures each, wet and

dry. Not enough for Cavalry class, sure, but well easily qualify for Heavy

Infantry, and theres no shame in that, none at all.

We looked at each other like men rescued at the last minute from a shipwreck.

Thats amazing, said my brother Eumenes, more commonly known inside the family

as The Human Weasel. Even splitting the estate up like that, were all still

rich. And thats all because Eudaemon took it into his head to totter off and

get himself killed?

Hardly, broke in my brother Eudorus. If Eudaemon was still here, wed have

fifteen each, not seventeen. By Eugenes reckoning, wed all still be producing

enough to make Heavy Infantry. And theres the point. Father wasnt stupid, he

could do sums just as well as Eugenes can, probably better. And he still thought

we were done for. So whats changed?

That was typical Eudorus; hence his nickname Apometeorus, that which descends

upon one from a great height. He took a delight in exterminating optimism

wherever he happened to find it, like a man clearing his barns of rats. The

worst thing was, he was always right.

I dont see that, Eugenes replied. Its a matter of simple arithmetic.

Eudorus shook his head. No, its not, he said. Youre basing your argument on

a false premise. Euxenus, youre the tame philosopher. Explain to your brother

what a false premise is.

Eudorus, I need hardly add, was also the eldest, which probably accounts for his

pessimistic nature. Hed lived longer than any of us with Fathers obsessive

conviction that we were all headed for ineluctable destitution and poverty, and

so it was a fundamental article of faith with him.

I know what a false premise is, thank you very much, Eugenes said. I just

dont think Im guilty of one, thats all.

Eudorus sighed. He had the knack of making a noise just like an icy winter wind

sighing through the eaves. All right, he said, let me explain itto you so

youll know better in future. Youre basing all these clever calculations of

yours on these figures for average yield. Would you mind telling me how you

arrived at those figures? I mean, is there any solid basis for them, or did the

Muses tell them to you in a dream when you were herding goats on Parnes?

There was a slight crackle in the air, evidence of Eugenes painfully keeping his

temper. Simple, he said. I looked up last years census in Fathers accounts,

divided the yield figures by the acreages, and got the figure for the average

that way.

Eudorus nodded. Splendid, he said. Obviously it didnt occur to you that to

take an example at random the long five-acre at Pallene regularly gives us

sixteen measures of wheat to the acre, while Old Rocky at Phyle barely gives us

six in a good year. Now you tell me, brother. Which of us gets the five-acre,

and who gets stuck with Old Rocky?

Needless to say, there was a loud and confused chorus of replies to that

question. Eudorus shut us all up with a ferocious scowl, and went on.

Another point, he said. We get sixteen measures per acre off the five-acre

because we manure it properly. We can do that because weve got nine mules. We

can afford to keep nine mules because weve got a hundred and twenty acres. Now,

if each of us has seventeen acres, it stands to reason or at least, it does in

the version of reality where Im compelled to live that we cant each keep

nine mules. In fact, well be hard put to it to keep one. And what about labour?

We get good yields because we plough three times and we harrow and we break up

the clods and we make sure the terraces are kept up. When I say we, of course,

Im referring to the slaves; the slaves which our father, with typical

fat-headed generosity and respect for tradition, set free in his will. No

slaves, no work-force, no triple ploughing. Result: reduced yields. Face it,

brothers, the old man knew what he was talking about. This familys finished in

agriculture, and theres no two ways about it.

There was a long, wretched silence; an invariable sign that Eudorus had been

talking. All right, then, Eumenes piped up. If youre so damned clever, you

tell us what we should be doing.

Eudorus sighed again, and I instinctively pulled my cloak up to my ears to ward

off the freezing cold wind. Its pretty obvious, actually, he said. But

youre not going to like it.

You dont say, Eugenes muttered.

(Its just occurred to me, my Scythian friend; Ill bet youre completely and

utterly bemused by the fact that all my brothers names begin Eu-. Im afraid

youre just going to have to live with it; we did. Once an Athenian family gets

it into its collective head to have a tradition like that, youre stuck with it.

Be grateful that at least all the names are different. In one of the oldest and

grandest Athenian families, all the men were called either Callias or

Hipponicus, and had been for a thousand carefully recorded years.)

What weve got to do, Eudorus went on, ignoring him, is this. The land is

split between four of us four only, no more. The other three will have to make

shift for themselves as best they can. I know its hard, but its the only thing

we can do. Its that, or sitting on juries for a living.

This time, the post-Eudorus silence was very long and quite deadly. Eventually,

Euthyphron, of all people, cleared his throat nervously and said, I agree with

Eudorus.

Of course you do, Eudorus said. Because Im right, and we all know it. Now,

how are we going to do this? I propose we draw straws, but we can fish for

pebbles in a hat if anybodys got strong feelings on the matter.

(Youll have noticed, Im sure, that nobody once thought of suggesting that we

do the really obvious thing, namely not split the estate up at all, just carry

on living together as wed always done with our nine mules and their abundant

manure. Well, its probably really obvious to you, and its become really

obvious to me now that Im an old man whos seen the whole world and devoted his

life to philosophy. But back then we were young. More to the point, we were

young Athenians. It would never have occurred to us in ten thousand years not to

divide up the estate, because that was what happened when a father died. Even

Eudorus suggestion was outrageously radical, the sort of desperate expedient

people are forced into in the worst of extremes, like when starving men in a

dungeon must either turn cannibal or die.)

In the end, we fished for pebbles in a hat. There were four black pebbles and

three white ones. I have my white pebble still. A clever man I met in Propontis

some years later managed to drill a hole through it, using a tiny sliver of

sapphire as a drill-bit, so I could wear it on a string round my neck. Id hate

to lose it; after all, its the only bit of my fathers land I ever got to keep

for my own, so Ive had to make the most of it. Does that sound bitter,

Phryzeutzis or whatever your barbarian name is? Of course it does, because I am

bitter. Im as angry and wretched and full of hate now as I was all those years

ago, when I opened my fingers and looked down and saw a white pebble in the palm

of my hand. There are still some mornings when I wake up out of a dream about

home and realise where I really am, and start crying and crying until my chest

hurts and I can scarcely breathe. Im afraid thats what it means to be an

Athenian, you see. We have this absurd devotion to our rocky, barren,

evil-natured, dry, thin-soiled, infertile, poxy little armpit of a country, and

thats what makes us so terribly dangerous when were defending it and so

utterly dangerous when were deprived of it. Theres an old story about the time

when Xerxes the Great King of Persia invaded Greece with a million men, the hour

of our greatest glory when we silly little Greeks killed his soldiers by the

hundred thousand and threw him back across the Hellespont . After the great

battle at Plataea , so the story goes, the Spartan king captured the Persian

generals luggage and broke it open. Hed never seen the like; gold and silver

tableware, silk and furs and tapestries, precious stones and ivory and

sandalwood and all the legendary wealth of Asia , heaped up in obscene confusion

on the floor of the generals tent. According to the story, King Pausanias stood

staring at all this stuff for quite some time; then he scratched his head,

turned to his second-in-command and said, It doesnt make sense.

What doesnt? the other man said.

These people have all this wealth, he said, all this gold and stuff, all

these things. Why in the gods names should they risk their lives to come all

this way and try to take our miserable, poverty-stricken little country away

from us?

(A good story, that; for all I know, it may even be true. Remember it, please;

keep in your mind the expression on those thin Greek faces at the sight of all

that luxury, that Oriental plunder. It might help you understand a bit of what

comes after.)

On the day my father died, Queen Olympias of Macedon gave birth to a son.

In fact, it was a busy day all round. On that day, King Philip of Macedon won a

battle; the Macedonian general Parmenio won another battle; King Philips prize

racehorse won its event at the Olympic Games; and in Ephesus , the world-famous

temple of Artemis burned to the ground.

Philip and Olympias named their son Alexander. It wasnt the best-omened name

they could possibly have chosen. The first King Alexander had collaborated

shamelessly with the invaders during the Great War against Persia , and the

second Alexander had reigned for barely a year. Shortly before she gave birth,

Olympias (who came from the barbarous tribes of Illyria and kept live snakes as

pets) was struck by lightning during a freak thunderstorm. It was a miracle she

wasnt killed and didnt lose the baby. For many years, King Philip suspected

the boy wasnt his son at all, and Olympias didnt help matters much by dropping

heavy hints that the father of her child was a god, either Zeus himself or one

of those strange and faintly ridiculous Illyrian

gods-of-drinking-a-lot-and-falling-over, in whose honour the secret order to

which Olympias belonged staged jolly little orgies, at which they drank

themselves silly, danced naked round a campfire and tore living things (human

beings, if they could catch any) into small pieces before stewing them in a

cauldron and eating them.

I dont remember hearing about the birth of an heir to the Macedonian throne at

the time; reasonably enough, I think. True, even that early in his career,

Philip was starting to show signs of being a strong, innovative king with an

apparently endless appetite for war and conquest, but it was still easily

possible to ignore him. If youd have asked me or my brothers to say who the

King of Macedon was on that tiresomely eventful day, its quite likely that we

wouldnt have known.

No more money, Diogenes said with a sigh, no more lessons. Sorry. I was

shocked. Wed spent so much time together, had so many long-winded debates about

abstruse philosophical issues, that I honestly believed we shared some kind of

bond of friendship. Besides, what had he actually taught me that anybody would

possibly want to know? Nothing. And there had been a great deal of money, over

the years.

Im sorry you feel that way, I replied stiffly. I was under the impression

that wed gone past that stage.

Diogenes raised one eyebrow. Really? How strange. Anyway, not much I can do

about it now, not if theres no more money. Pity. I dont like leaving a job

almost but not quite finished.

That was a bit too much for me to let pass without comment. Come on, now, I

said. Admit it, youve taken me and my family for suckers. You havent taught

me anything.

Diogenes scowled at me so ferociously I thought he was going to burst into

flames. You little bastard, he said. You ungrateful little snot. Ive taught

you everything you know about being human, and this is the thanks I get.

Not quite, I said icily. Youve had enough thanks from my family to buy a

warship.

He stood up. I dont think theres anything more to be said, he replied. I

forgive you for your disgusting behaviour; after all, your fathers just died,

so I suppose I have to make allowances. Im just rather sad to see how little of

what Ive taught you had actually managed to penetrate that thick layer of

bricks you call your skull. Im disappointed, Euxenus, bitterly disappointed.

And with that he walked away, a perfect study in sorrowful contempt.

Fortunately, there werent any stones or bits of broken pot lying about, or Id

have committed a crime against philosophy.

So there I was, a young man in his twentieth year, with no land, no skill or

profession, no apparent means of earning a living; in precisely the situation my

father had spent his life trying to avoid. If Id had in my hand the money hed

spent on my education, Id have been comfortably set up for life.

Having nothing better to do, I wandered through the streets towards the

market-place, just as any Athenian in my position would do. There was once a

Scythian, one of your countrymen, who lived in Athens for a while and then went

home. When his neighbours asked him what was the most remarkable thing hed seen

in the Great City , he replied, The market-place.

Oh, they said. Whats that?

Well, answered this Scythian Anacharsis, his name was its a large open

space in the middle of town set aside for respectable people to swindle each

other in.

A bit harsh, but theres an element of truth in it. Certainly, the market-place

is one of the places in the City where Athenians go to get the better of each

other, along with the Law-Courts and Assembly. Come to think of it, quite a few

of the landmarks of Athens are dedicated to the Athenian passion for doing down

ones fellow citizens.

I sat down under the shade of an awning and tried to think of a way of earning

some money. The prospects werent encouraging. I had no goods to sell and no

trade or profession to offer. Until the next census I was theoretically a member

of the highest class of Athenian society, the pentacosiomedimni or

Five-hundred-measure-men, eligible for the supreme offices of state; but my

total wealth came to just under seven drachmas plus whatever somebody might be

persuaded to pay me for my shoes...

True enough. But, outside our family, who knew about it? No reason why anybody

should. In the eyes of my fellow citizens I was still a man of wealth and

leisure. Once Id grasped that, I didnt need to ask myself, What would Diogenes

do if he were in my place? I already knew.

For an obol I bought one of those little jars of cheap, disgusting wine, and

drank the contents to bolster my nerve. Then I looked around for a group of

people, any group of people. As it happened, there were ten or so likely-looking

types standing about reading the latest three-days-rations list; so I picked up

my empty jar, wandered over and sat down under the list.

Hey, you, someone said. Get out of the way!

I ignored him. He said it again. I looked up with a frown.

Do you mind? I said. Im trying to concentrate here.

The man whod yelled at me looked puzzled. What do you mean? he said. Youre

just sitting there.

I deepened my frown into a scowl. Are you blind as well as stupid? I replied.

What do you think this is? And I pointed to the jar.

Its a jar.

I sneered at him. Its a jar, I repeated. For gods sakes. If I was as

unobservant as you, Id climb the old tower in the Potters Quarter and jump

off, just to save myself further humiliation. Assuming I could find it, that

is.

Instead of getting angry, the man just looked more curious; likewise the others

with him. All right, he said, whats so special about the damn jar?

I grinned. Its not the jar, you fool, I replied. Its whats in it. I

paused and furrowed my brows. Why am I telling you this, anyway? Its none of

your business, go away.

Like hell I will, the man said. This is the Market Square and Im an Athenian

citizen. Tell me what youve got in the jar.

I shook my head. Certainly not, I told him. You want one, go find your own.

This ones mine. I made a show of standing up and getting ready to leave; at

once, the crowd (which had grown already) clustered round to stop me.

Tell us whats in the jar, the man said urgently. Go on, we arent going to

take it off you or anything. We just want to know what it is.

Ill bet you do, I said angrily. But if you think Im sharing my birthright

with the likes of you, youre badly mistaken. Go to hell.

The word birthright caught their attention. Someone at the back called out, I

know him, thats Eutychides boy.You know, Eutychides from Pallene, the one who

just died.

Thank you so much for reminding me, I said bitterly. As you correctly pointed

out, my father died a few days ago, and yes, this jars my portion of his

estate. Now go away and leave me in peace with my property, before I take you to

law.

Another one of them leaned forward for a closer look. Eutychides the

Five-hundred-measure-man? And all you got was that little jar?

I nodded. And whats in the jar. I wont warn you again, whoever you are.

Bugger off, before I do you an injury.

There were about thirty people in the crowd by now; I judged that to be a

sufficient number.

Go on, someone called out. Tell us what youve got in the jar, you rich

bastard.

I couldnt have asked for anything better if Id written his lines myself. Who

are you calling a bastard? I answered angrily, taking care not to contradict

the word rich. The point wasnt wasted.

You going to tell us whats in the jar, or what?

All right. I sighed, and sat down again. All right. If you all promise to

clear off and leave me in peace, Ill tell you. Satisfied?

There was a general murmur of agreement, and they started sitting down too, with

a certain degree of elbowing and shoving from those who wanted a better view.

Thank the gods, I muttered to myself, for the abiding curiosity of the

Athenians.

My grandfather Eupolis, I said, was a great friend of the celebrated

philosopher Socrates probably the wisest man the world has ever known. I

paused for a moment. I take it you people have at least heard of Socrates?

Of course we have, someone said impatiently. Get on with it, will you?

And if youve heard of Socrates, I went on, youll know about his tame demon,

the one he talked about at his trial?

(Tame demon is the best translation I can manage into this brutal, crack-jaw

language of yours, Phryzeutzis; the Greek is daimonion ti, and it also means

something like tiny piece of the essence of divinity. But tame demon was what

I wanted these people to think about.)

Sure we have, someone said.

Right, I went on with a nod. Well, after Socrates had been tried and

sentenced to death, my grandfather went to visit him in prison, and took him a

basket of figs and a little jug of wine.They talked for a while, and then

Socrates asked my grandfather if hed like to take the tame demon. Now, my

grandfather was incredibly excited at this, because of course it was the demon

who lived inside Socrates ear and whispered to him all the incredible bits of

wisdom that made him so famous.

Hang on, though, my grandfather said. Will he stay with me? Or will he try

and run away?

Socrates nodded. Oh, hes utterly devoted to me, he replied. He wont want

to live with anyone else after Im gone. If you want to take him, youll have to

find something to shut him up in, to stop him escaping. My grandfather looked

round and saw the empty wine-jar. Will this do? he asked; and between them

they managed to coax the demon out of Socrates ear and into the jar. This jar,

I added, holding it up, where it remains to this day. Of course, I went on,

the demon hated being cooped up in a jar, so it always refused to say a single

word to my grandfather, or my father after him. But when I was a little kid of

about seven, I was playing in the house one day and I thought I heard a voice

from inside this funny little jar.

Hello, I said. Whos there?

Well, to cut a long story short, the demon and I became friends; I didnt know

anything about Socrates or any of that stuff, and the demon was fed up with

sulking in a jar for years on end, not to mention as lonely as hell. So he was

prepared to talk to me, though not to anybody else. And now that my fathers

dead and weve shared out his property, Ive taken the demon as my portion.

After all, I added, its worth a damn sight more than all the rest put

together.

There was a long, impressed silence; then someone said, I can see why that

jars a wonderful thing, but how come its valuable? I mean, what use is a tame

demon?

I laughed. Are you kidding? I said. A real live demon? Socrates demon? The

demon responsible for all the wisdom of the wisest man who ever lived?

Fair enough, the man conceded. Actually, I did hear tell once that the demon

used to tell Socrates where treasure was buried.

I shook my head vigorously; last thing I wanted was a reputation for finding

buried treasure. That way, Id have people following me and bashing me over the

head every time I dug a hole to shit in. Dont talk rubbish, I said. Tell me,

when did anyone ever see Socrates with any money? No, the sort of treasure the

demon helped him find was a sight more valuable than mere silver. After all, I

added, its an Athenian demon.

That got a good laugh. Oh, sure enough, Athenians are as fond of money as the

next man; theyve sacked enough cities and sold enough children in search of it,

Heaven knows. But ask the average Athenian you meet in the square which he

values more, silver or wisdom, and when he says wisdom, theres a fair chance he

means it. Or thinks he means it, anyway. Of course, what he calls love of wisdom

is just this same curiosity. Youve seen a cat sniffing at a pot lying on its

side, tentatively reaching inside with its paw, then kicking at it, trying to

get it to roll. Thats how we Athenians regard the whole world; we cant let it

alone, we have to keep on prying and poking and sniffing and batting at it to

try to find out whats really inside. Its been our greatest strength and our

undoing, this forever-yearning-aftersome-new-thing, as the celebrated

Thucydides put it. You cant honestly call it wisdom personally, Id define

wisdom as knowing when to leave well alone but you can see how the confusion

arises.

That demon, somebody said, can you ask it questions?

Of course, I replied.

All right, the man said. Ill ask you a question and you ask the demon, and

you can tell me what he says.

I shook my head and tried to look rich and objectionable. Why should I? I

said.

Ill pay you.

I looked offended. Get lost, I said.

Ill pay you three obols.

For three obols, I answered, I wouldnt ask my demon what colour the jar is.

All right, the man said. Four.

Go to hell.

Five.

I hesitated, just for a third of a heartbeat. No way.

All right, the man said, one drachma. A drachma for just one question.

I looked down at the jar. I bit my lip. I frowned. I looked at the jar again. A

drachma? I repeated.

A silver drachina.

I sighed. Oh, all right, I said, and held out my hand for the money. All

right, whats the question?

The man cleared his throat. Ask the demon, he said, whether my new business

ventures going to be a success.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and lay down with my left ear pressed

against the side of the jar. I stayed there without moving for so long that my

left arm and both my legs went to sleep.

Well? the man asked eventually.

Shut up, I snapped.

Sorry.

When I couldnt stand the discomfort any longer I sat up, groaned (no need to

fake that) and opened my eyes. You ready? I said.

Yes.

All right. And I recited

Woe to the neck of the dog, to the sharp steel claws of the eagle!

Woe to the land where the pig is preferred to the natural son!

Further repent your grief, as the rays of the sun curl upwards;

Behold as the stone peels back, revealing the olive within.

There was a long silence.

(Admit it, Phryzeutzis, youre impressed; it sounds just like the sort of thing

the oracles of the gods come out with, and it doesnt mean anything. Or rather,

it could mean anything you want it to, which is the secret of a truly great

oracle. Let me confess: I was only able to do this sort of thing because my

brother Euthyphron and I used to spend hours making the stuff up as a game when

we were kids. He was better at it than me, so you can see how good he was.)

Thats amazing, the man said eventually. How the hell did you know that?

I shrugged my shoulders. I havent got a clue what youre talking about, I

said. It wasnt me, remember, it was the demon. Did it make any sense to you?

It sounded like complete rubbish to me.

Oh, no, the man said vehemently; and he went on to explain. The dog, he said,

was the Egyptian god Anubis, and that referred to the stake he was thinking of

buying in a partnership trading wine for Egyptian wheat. The steel claws of the

eagle were arrowheads (steel heads; eagle equals feathers equals the fletchings

on the arrow) and arrows mean archers, and archers mean the King of Persia,

because hes shown as a running archer on the backs of his coins; Egypt was a

possession of the Persian Empire; so beware of Persian intervention against

Greek trading interests in Egypt. The bit about the pig, the man said, was

brilliant; it referred to Judaea , where they dont eat pork but where the

Persian governor had just had to execute his own son for joining a conspiracy

hence the pig survives, but the son doesnt; the pig is preferred. Now, so far

the oracle seemed to be advising him against the venture; but then it said

repent your grief, followed by the bit about the olive being inside the stone,

instead of the other way round in other words, ignore your misgivings and do

the opposite of what you were intending to do, namely not go ahead with the

project. Thats absolutely amazing, the man repeated. Thank you. Now I

understand!

For about two heartbeats I just sat there with my mouth open, staring. I was

dumbstruck. (For example, the pig and son bit I just put that in because it

sounded good; in Greek, pig is huos and son is huios. I didnt even know Judaea

had a Persian governor.) You see? I somehow managed to croak. Didnt I tell

you?

In the end I had to refuse their money and go away, to somewhere I could lie

down in the shade and rest my aching head. I made fifteen drachmas in a couple

of hours, but it was hard work; not making up the drivel, but listening to the

poor fools explaining why it was so absolutely right.

Mind you, the odd thing was that it was right, as often as not. For example, the

man with the trading venture to Egypt made a point of seeking me out when he got

back and giving me twenty drachmas and a solid silver bowl embossed with lions

and goats; hed got rid of all his stock and quadrupled his money, in spite of

being quite viciously persecuted by Persian customs officials. He wasnt the

only one to get an apparently spot-on oracle, not by a long way.

I think the gods have a sick sense of humour. I think thats how we know they

exist.

CHAPTER FOUR

Now youve got some money again, Diogenes said, we can continue with your

education.

We were sitting outside my house in the City, enjoying the sun. Id had a busy

morning woken up at the crack of dawn by a nervous merchant, one of my regular

customers, who hadnt been able to sleep after hearing a rumour about Italian

pirates infesting the straits of Rhegium; next, another merchant (two thirds of

my customers were merchants, either individual traders or ship-owners) wanting

to know if there was going to be any call for bone-handled bath-oil scrapers,

because he knew where there was a consignment of twelve gross going cheap; a

lovelorn middle-aged widow, desperate to know if her handsome young boyfriend

was only after her money; another merchant... Not that I was complaining, far

from it. By luck or innate shrewdness Id stumbled on the secret of making money

by fraudulent prophesy. It was quite simple: give the impression that you dont

need the money and you actually find the whole business of forecasting the

future both irksome and distasteful, and youll have them queuing up outside

your door.

Thats very kind of you, I replied, smothering a yawn, but now that Ive got

the money I dont need the education.

Oh, really?

Really. Just ask yourself which one of us lives in a jar, and youll see what I

mean.

Of course, Diogenes didnt really live in a jar, as I think I mentioned

earlier. That said, he didnt live in a large, comfortable house a hundred yards

back from the Painted Cloister, either; he had a cosy but definitely cramped

little house just up the hill from the Mint, unhappily downwind of the Areopagus

tannery. You forget, he said, I choose to live in a jar. Im like a snail, I

carry my house with me wherever I go.

And you leave a trail of slime to show where youve been. Yes, its a good

analogy. I poured more wine into his cup. Ill be honest, though, I owe it all

to you. You taught me how to lie and cheat. Im just better at it than you are,

thats all.

Diogenes smiled. Dont you believe it, he said. If all I was interested in

was money, Id be so rich by now the Great King would be coming to me asking for

a loan. Thats the trouble with you, you judge people by your own pathetic

standards.

I nodded. Thats right, I said. Actually, though, youve raised an

interesting point there. How shall I put it? We both share the same basic

philosophy, yes?

The one you stole from me. Agreed.

The one my father bought from you.

Hired, not bought.

Whatever, I said. We both accept the truth of the contention that a man can

be whatever he can deceive his neighbours into believing he is; thats the

fundamental credo of the Mysteries of the Yapping Dog. Now, I use this truth to

take money away from fools. So do you, but only to a very limited extent. What

is it you do want, Diogenes?

He lifted his hat, wiped his forehead and put his hat back on his head. To

teach, he said. To disseminate the truth, both by word and example. Its all I

care about. And thats the difference between you and me, Yapping Pup. You cheat

people out of money in order to live and prosper. I do it to punish them, and by

punishment to teach them. I dont swindle a man out of a drachma. I fine him a

drachma for being gullible enough to pay me money.

Like you punished my father?

He shook his head. That really bothers you, doesnt it? And yet hes one of the

people I gave good value to; I showed you how to make a good living, which is

exactly what he wanted.

I thought for a moment. But youre such a useless teacher, I said. Teachers

show people how to lead better, more virtuous lives; how to be better citizens,

how to be better at their chosen trade or vocation, how to be morally better

Diogenes made a rude noise, something he was very good at. Thats not

teaching, he said contemptuously, thats propagating a lie. Teaching is

showing people the truth.

I smiled. And the truth is?

That human beings are basically foolish, wicked and cruel. That human

aspirations are vanity, and human values of good and evil are shallow and false.

That, when all is said and done, human beings are no better than the gods. He

finished off his wine and helped himself to some more. Id have thought youd

have known that, a clever boy like you.

Thats just Yapping Dog talk, I said. Save it for the customers.

He shook his head. Take it or leave it, he said. Doesnt bother me. I tell

the truth as I see it. Youre perfectly entitled to be wrong if you want to;

after all, this is a democracy.

An ox-cart rumbled past, dangerously overloaded with jars of dried figs. I could

see its axles bowing in the middle, so that the wheels slanted inwards. So

youre saying that basically were all no better than animals or gods, and

anybody who pretends otherwise is a liar. And yet you taught me that I could be

anything I wanted, anything at all. Even a god, I seem to remember you saying

once.

Diogenes nodded. Thats right, he said. Provided you lie convincingly enough.

Use your logic, boy. If all human pretensions are lies, why be cheapskate and

petty and lie on a small scale, when you could equally well tell big lies;

Olympian lies that make you so tall you can reach out and scoop up handfuls of

cloud?Thats the point of what Im telling you. Recognising the truth is all

very well, but it doesnt get you anywhere, its just depressing.

Id agree with you there, I said, if I thought it was the truth.

Be quiet and listen, youre getting free education here. I must be mad, telling

you this for nothing. In fact, thats why you dont believe me, I guess. People

never believe anything they havent paid money for.

Youre drifting away from the point.

Am I? Oh, yes. The point is, he went on, closing his eyes and leaning back

against the doorpost, that when enough people believe a lie, it becomes a sort

of half-truth. Its like the way they build causeways in harbours; they cut down

a hundred thousand trees, sharpen the ends and hammer them into the silt, all

crammed up so close together that you can walk across them, even drive a cart.

The causeway works; it does the job of dry land where dry land isnt but where

dry land ought to be. Build a house on a causeway and pretty soon youll forget

that you arent on dry land. But youre not. Your house is resting on the tops

of twenty thousand log-ends jammed into the mud; and sooner or later that muds

going to wash away or subside, and your house is going to fall into the water.

He sighed. You ram a hundred thousand false ideas into peoples minds, youll

get a structure firm enough to stand on, for a while. But it isnt real, and in

the end itll turn out badly, no way round that.

Not necessarily, I said. If you do a proper job, make sure the foundations

are really firm

Then your house may stand for a thousand years, he yawned drowsily. And

people will come to rely on it so much that when it eventually falls in, they

wont be expecting anything of the sort and so theyll all be drowned. But

youll be dead and long gone, so it wont bother you; sure, as far as youre

concerned, the causeway gets the job done. Its true during your lifetime but it

turns back into a lie for your great-great-great-grandchildren. He opened his

eyes and grinned. Now thats something you should be able to grasp, of all

people.

I shook my head. Doesnt follow, I said. Youre referring to Grandfather

Eupolis inheriting all that property from people who died in the plague, and

youre saying its a lie that he was rich, because his grandchildren are back to

being poor again. But Eupolis was rich; weve just fallen on hard times since.

Whatever. Diogenes leaned back and let his hat drop down over his eyes. Maybe

youre right and Im wrong. Be reasonable; you cant expect me to use true

arguments when Im not getting paid. Its like the people who have speeches

written for lawsuits; if they were telling the truth, they wouldnt need a

lawyer.

Id been in the fortune-telling business for over a year by this time. As youll

have gathered, it was being kind to me. Still, I wasnt happy with it. I was

caught in that strange little fold of society, people with money but no land,

and I didnt like it at all. Most people in my position, my merchants and

ship-owners and factory-owners, felt the same way, but there wasnt anything we

could do about it. In spite of the fact that we had more silver money than many

Knights, even some Five-hundred-measurers, we still counted as Oarsmen class; we

couldnt hold political office or be on the Council, all we could do was speak

and vote in Assembly. Now, in Grandfathers time, that was enough; Assembly

ruled everything, and men like the celebrated Cleon effectively ran the City

that way, holding no office but getting their way simply by making speeches that

people liked listening to. Back then, in fact, it was a positive handicap to

hold office, because if you did, you could be held accountable and put to death

if something went wrong in the Citys affairs, whereas someone who just spoke

his mind in an Assembly debate was as free as the wind. Things had changed since

then, though. There wasnt any specific law or statute you could point to, but

the centre of gravity had definitely shifted; and people like myself were shut

out, and didnt like it one bit. Not that it mattered a damn, of course; there

were so few of us, and the share of the Citys wealth that we controlled was

negligible.

A substantial proportion of the unhappiness and evil in the world today is the

fault of a man by the name of Dion, who was for many years the chamberlain, or

chief adviser or grand vizier or what have you, of the mighty and absurd

dictator Dionysius I of Syracuse.

Dion was, by all accounts, a noble and virtuous man with the soul of a poet and

the mind of a philosopher; but I cant really explain about Dion without first

telling you a bit about Dionysius, whos much more fun to talk about anyhow.

Dionysius was a ferocious, jolly man who seized power in Syracuse, the

wealthiest city in Sicily, after a bloodbath and divided his time thereafter

between screwing money out of his unfortunate subjects and writing plays, which

he submitted to the Inspectors of Plays and Warships in Athens in the hope that

one of them would be presented at the world-famous Dramatic Festivals.

Theres a family connection here, of course, though I dont suppose youll

understand a word of what Im about to tell you, poor ignorant Phryzeutzis.

Heres a grossly simplified explanation.

We Athenians invented Drama. Drama is where a whole bunch of people dress up in

masks and fancy costumes and get up on a platform in a special building called a

theatre, and pretend to be someone else; invariably characters from our rich

Greek heritage of myth and legend. In the course of this deception, they recite

poetry which purports to be what the characters in the story say to each other,

but which is in fact written well in advance by a poet and given to them to

learn by heart. Most of the people who take part in these affairs are members of

the chorus there are about twenty of them and they all say the same words

simultaneously (were expected to believe that people did that sort of thing,

back in our mythical past) but the four most skilful poetry-reciters pretend

to be the protagonists in the story, and theyre allowed to speak on their own.

Dramas, or plays as theyre also known, are staged twice a year in Athens , at

two religious Festivals called the Lenaea and the Great Dionysia. For three

days, every Athenian who can spare the time sits on a hard stone bench from dawn

to dusk watching the actors and listening to the poetry; every day there are

three tragedies (sad stories, which end with half the people dead and the rest

utterly miserable) and one comedy (funny stories intentionally funny stories

in which nobody dies, but unpopular people get beaten up with huge padded sticks

fashioned to represent the male reproductive organ). My grandfather Eupolis was,

according to himself, probably the greatest of all the Athenian comic poets; and

to be fair to him, he did win the first prize on a number of occasions.

Dionysius, however, wrote tragedies purportedly unfunny plays which was

appropriate for a Syracusan. In Sicily, you see, although theyre utterly

provincial and not really proper Greeks, theyve always been mad keen on

Athenian Drama; so much so that when Eupolis was stranded in Sicily as one of

the very few survivors of the huge Athenian army sent to conquer Syracuse in the

Great Peloponnesian War (they failed, miserably, and nearly all of them died;

served them right, it must be said, since the invasion was utterly unprovoked

and only undertaken in the hope of accumulating enough plunder from the

obscenely rich Sicilians to help pay for Athens war with Sparta). He managed to

survive and escape capture in the heart of enemy territory thanks to his ability

to recite by heart large chunks of the latest tragedies, as performed at the

Festivals hed himself written comedies for.

Dionysius was, by all accounts, a pretty competent writer of plays. But he

wasnt Athenian, he was the ruler of a city that had more or less directly

caused the defeat of Athens in the War, his philosophy of government was

directly opposite to Athenian ideas of democracy, and on top of all that he was

without question one of the nastiest pieces of work ever to hold power in a

human community. As a result, his plays were always turned down flat by the

Inspectors and never performed.

This annoyed Dionysius, but it didnt stop him writing; quite the reverse.

Instead of having his plays performed in Athens , however, he had to make do

with reading them aloud to his assembled courtiers, who were supposed to sit

still and listen attentively, and then tell him how good they were afterwards.

Which brings us on to Dion. Now, Dion really did like poetry; he genuinely liked

Dionysius poetry. Hed have liked it even if Dionysius hadnt been his master

and a psychotic killer. But one evening, during a reading of Dionysius

masterpiece Jolaus, Dion made the mistake of falling asleep. Dionysius noticed,

and flew into a murderous rage. At first he ordered his guards to cut Dions

head off there and then; he changed his mind just in time, but only because it

occurred to him that beheading was too quick and easy a death for someone

capable of nodding off during a recital of the greatest tragedy ever. So

instead, he sentenced him to hard labour for life in the stone quarries.

When this story was first told in Athens , a lot of people suddenly went all

silent and thoughtful at the mention of the stone quarries of Syracuse . Thats

because it was those same quarries where the men taken prisoner by the

Syracusans during the War ended up; suffice to say, none of them ever came back.

Not one.

Somehow or other, though, Dion managed to survive in the quarries for three

years, at the end of which time Dionysius relented, pardoned him and had him

cleaned up, given a decent meal and brought back in honour to the royal court.

And to celebrate his old friends pardon and return, Dionysius announced, he was

going to hold a grand banquet and read them all his latest play, Niobe In

Chains.

Dion, looking rather thin and rather frail, had the seat of honour for the feast

and the subsequent recital, Well, to cut a long story short he sat quietly

through the first half-hour of the play-reading and then stood up and started to

walk slowly towards the door.

Hey, roared Dionysius, looking up from his roll. Where the hell do you think

youre going?

Back to the stone quarries, Dion replied.

That was Dion; noble, fearless, a champion of truth and integrity, thick as a

brick. Dionysius stared at him speechlessly for a couple of heartbeats; then he

roared with laughter, tore up the manuscript and made Dion his chief minister.

When Dionysius was on his deathbed (as a result, so they say, of the lethal dose

of raw wine he gulped down to celebrate the news that finally one of his plays

had been accepted by the Athenian Inspectors) he made him regent and Lord

Protector during the infancy of the utterly worthless crown prince, who in due

course became King Dionysius II.

The younger Dionysius was said by those who knew him well to be so bland and

ineffectual a man that if you dissolved him in water and drank him, youd hardly

notice the taste; in consequence, Syracuse was ruled by the noble Dion, who

announced as soon as the old reprobate had been safely reduced to charcoal on

his funeral pyre that the bad times were over at last and henceforth Syracuse

was going to be run along the lines of the most perfect state, namely the

theoretical Republic devised and written about at interminable length by the

celebrated Athenian philosopher Plato.

Thats right: Plato, the featherless biped, Diogenes habitual victim. Plato had

been a pupil of Socrates, the legendary wizard whose little demon I pretended to

keep imprisoned in my jar. After Socrates death (he was convicted on twelve

counts of being generally guilty, and quite properly executed; according to

Eupolis, he was a veritable human toad) Plato set up a thinking shop called the

Academy, where rich young men went to learn wisdom and stuff, at highly

competitive rates. When not lecturing or putting up with Diogenes, he wrote

books of philosophy, including this same Republic that Dion admired so much. In

this celebrated work, he set out his idea of the perfect society; and to be fair

to him, he did have a few good ideas. For example, in Platos Republic, poetry

was illegal. No poets were allowed inside the City, and all books of poetry were

to be called in and publicly burned; specifically including (and this is why

Ive always had a soft spot for the old fool) Homer.

The main thrust of Platos work, though, was that democracy isnt a terribly

good idea (it was, after all, a democracy that executed Socrates). Instead,

Platos state was ruled by a king; but not just any king. Platos king had to be

a philosopher; in fact, he had to be a philosopher who was more or less bullied

into being a king against his will.

Something tells me that it was this, rather than the stuff about outlawing

poetry or abolishing families and replacing them with state-hired nannies, that

appealed to Dion. According to Plato, the king/philosopher was to be supreme

ruler, advised and guided by a select group of other philosophers who governed

the people, who were to be treated more or less as slaves. I can see Dion

reading this stuff and thinking Yes! Do away with ruthless oppression of the

citizen body by a drunken, intemperate madman and replace it with ruthless

oppression of the citizen body by a load of philosophers. Just the thing, and

utterly Syracusan.

So Dion sent a messenger to Athens begging Plato to come to Syracuse and help

set up the perfect society; and if he could bring along a couple of dozen other

philosophers, so much the better. To his eternal credit, Diogenes, when asked,

refused to go; but he was one of the very few who stayed behind. It was,

Diogenes said, like the lancing of a monumental boil, as all the philosophers

left Athens in a fleet of hastily chartered bulk timber freighters, sailing west

to found the perfect society among the people whod massacred their

grandfathers.

For some reason, they didnt even ask me. But they made a special point of

inviting Platos most devoted and brilliant pupil, a man of my own age by the

name of Aristotle; and thats why Dions ghost deserves to rot for ever at the

bottom of the Great Shit Lake in Hell, with giant seals gnawing his testicles.

Aristotle; that sad, bewildered, ill-used, misunderstood, brilliant, pedantic

little man, the cause of so much evil.

He wasnt Athenian, of course; he was the son of a doctor from a little place

called Stagira , up north somewhere, and when he was young his father went to

work for King Amyntas of Macedon, the father of the King Philip Ive already

mentioned. But young Aristotle knew what he wanted to be when he grew up, and

when he was seventeen he made the long and dangerous journey south (oh, I can

picture him, that thin, nervous, fastidious traveller, suffering the torments of

the damned from dusty, rutted tracks and flea-infested mattresses) to sign up

with Platos Academy. There he stayed, not even paying any fees because he was

so brilliant and so admiring, until the time came for the whole circus to move

to Syracuse .

They had several good years there, playing perfect societies, until finally the

Syracusan people (whod put up with Dionysius, but who found that the one thing

they couldnt take was too much perfection) threw them out with prejudice and

stuck young Dionysius on the throne. Dion escaped with his life, most of his

philosophers and a new perspective on what was really needed for a truly perfect

society, namely young Dionysius head on a pole in the middle of the market

square. Despite several attempts, he never quite attained this state of grace;

but he did finally manage, with the help of some non-philosophical mercenaries

recruited from the pirate bands of Rhegium, to throw young Dionysius out, make

himself king and rule in absolute, blood-soaked perfection for a year or so

before someone with a bad attitude towards wisdom in general slit his throat for

him and brought Dionysius back, quite possibly (knowing the Syracusans) in the

misguided belief that hed turn out to be as good a playwright as his old man.

Aristotle followed his master Plato home, of course, and for a while there

wasnt quite so much talk about perfect societies and philosopher kings as

there had been. Plato, in fact, never recovered from his bad experience. He

lived to be nearly ninety, but he grew steadily dottier as he grew older, so

much so that even Diogenes stopped teasing him. Aristotle stuck by him, out of

loyalty and love and because the Academy was still a thoroughly sound commercial

concern, until he died; but all the while Aristotle was thinking long, hard

thoughts about such matters as human society and perfection and the sort of

low-down, dirty little bastards whod chased him out of cosy Syracuse. It was at

this time that he evolved his theory of Natures, which states that every living

thing has its own Nature, which defines its existence. You are, in other words,

what youre born as; and everybody who isnt born a philosopher or a seeker

after perfection is by nature a slave (physei doulos; it sounds so much neater

in Greek).

Bear with me, Phryzeutzis; even after all this time, Im still a devoutly

yapping dog, or a Cynic as we came to call ourselves when we wanted to be a

little bit more respectable (the word sounds impressive but it just means

doggy). None of it ought to have mattered, you see; it should just have been

word-games, entertainments with lies, like King Dionysius plays. It was

Alexander who made the evil possible, but the fact remains, if it hadnt been

for Dion, there wouldnt have been an Alexander, and I would be home now, in

Athens , instead of here at the end of the world.

You know Pigface (I cant remember his real name and I couldnt pronounce it if

I could), the big, burly man who trudges round the villages with that enormous

basket on his back selling bits and pieces of trash to the country people? Well,

he passed through this morning just before dawn (I expect you were still fast

asleep, you layabout) and I saw that he had a few Athenian-made scent bottles in

with the rest of his junk; I could only just see the necks, poking up out of the

straw and felt they were wrapped in, but Id recognise Attic ware at night down

a mineshaft. Well; I guess that means the place is still there, or it was a few

months ago, when those pots began their commercial odyssey. I dont suppose the

man who made them ever imagined theyd end up out here, right on the pie-crust

of the world. You could say the same about me, too, of course.

There are parts of your life that move slowly, like goats going back up the hill

after theyve been milked childhood, of course, and bad experiences, like

being in the army or a nasty illness and there are other parts that skim by,

like swallows or kingflshers. As often as not theyre the good times, or else

those parts of your life where one day was just like another, you had somewhere

to sleep and enough to eat, and you were like a man with an old mule yoked up to

his cart, letting him find his own way home.

My years as a jobbing oracle to the wealthy and gullible traders of Attica

passed like that zip, all gone, and before I knew it Id stopped being a cocky

kid and weathered into a minor landmark, a very small part of Athens . What

happened to me during that time, I wonder? Well, I did get married.

Her name was Myrrhine, and the thing that most attracted me to her was four

acres of mature vines in the Mesogaia. They were good vines; south-facing, well

dug-in and laid out so as to leave enough room to plant useful raps of barley

between the rows (which not only supplements your cereals yield and makes the

most use of precious land, but also slows the growth of the vines and so

produces better grapes). Her father even threw in the complete set of vine-props

a worthwhile consideration at the time, when good, seasoned ash prop-shafts

were at a premium, what with all the good timber being used up by the

spear-makers. Also included in the deal were two big wicker baskets for

harvesting the grapes. I couldnt persuade him to include the pressing-vat, but

I got it at cost, with a pruning and grafting knife on top as luck-money (but it

was worthless; the blade was bent and I never could get it to keep an edge).

Myrrhine herself well, she was sixteen when we got married, and I was eight

years older. Her father was solid Heavy Infantry class, with one serving son

(the other had been killed in the Theban war) and an honest enough man according

to his lights. Certainly, nothing he told me about Myrrhine was a lie.

She ate. Non-stop. Incessantly. You dont see fat people in Attica as a rule;

those of us who can afford to get fat dont, because your upper classes of

society have all been taught the Athenian doctrine of beauty. Its a linguistic

thing, I fancy; our word for beautiful is also the word for good, and ugly

also means bad, and the words also have political meanings that you simply

cant bleach out of them kalos means beautiful, good and upper class, aischros

is ugly, bad, common. In consequence, we cant imagine things being any other

way, because we cant find the words to express it. I tell you, it plays merry

hell with light comedy; the best-loved and most-used plot in modern comedy is

rich boy meets lovely peasant girl, they fall in love, his dad wont let them

marry, your variation on the theme here, and at the end it turns out that shes

not a peasant after all, shes a rich mans daughter who was snatched from her

cradle by an eagle or stolen by pirates or some such trash its got to be that

way, or else if shes an Oarsmans daughter, how can she possibly be pretty?

Yes, I know Im hedging round the subject. Its deliberate. I feel really

uncomfortable telling you about this, because its a part of my life Im not

particularly proud of. Not that I did anything wrong. I married her for the

dowry, and I was the only husband they could get for her, even with five acres.

I fulfilled my part of the bargain by taking her off her fathers hands and

keeping her housed, clothed and fed (the latter element being no trifle, Im

here to tell you). She didnt expect anything more out of the arrangement and

that was just as well. I wasnt cruel or horrible. I just kept out of her way,

which wasnt a problem for me. I took to giving consultations on the steps of

Hephaestus temple, and when I wasnt working I was out at the vineyard that

is, I spent about as much time at home as the average Athenian husband, who gets

up an hour before dawn and goes out to the fields, comes home when its getting

dark and very soon afterwards goes to sleep.

But I know I made a bad job of the marriage, and it was for the simple reason

that outside of the dowry, she didnt interest me in the least. The gods alone

know what she found to do all day; we had a houseboy for the domestic chores,

and she simply couldnt spin or weave to save her life, though she tried so

desperately hard (but wool costs money, and she wasted so much of it I had to

stop her trying). I think most of the time she just sat and ate, great handfuls

of the coarse, dry barley bread I bought in the hope that it would discourage

her (but no; even the stale ends I got cheap were always gone by the time I got

home), washed down with a substantial proportion of the yield of her dowry. She

had a little bird in a cage for a while, but one day I came home and it wasnt

there any more. The houseboy tried to convince me shed eaten it, but my guess

is she let it out for a fly round the room and it got away. Thatd be entirely

possible; she was the clumsiest person I ever knew, except for Aristotle of

Stagira.

She lived to the age of nineteen and died in childbirth; poor girl, she

desperately wanted a baby, it was the only thing she ever asked of me, and it

killed her, as everybody said it would. They told me that because she was so

obese, her heart would never stand the strain of labour. Unforgivably, my main

reaction when they told me she was dead was exasperation (serves her right, she

should have listened), followed immediately by the numb despair caused by the

knowledge that if she died childless the dowry reverted to her father.

So that was my career in husbandry, so to speak, and a fine mess I made of it.

Diogenes summed it up perfectly. You put in just the right amount of effort,

he said, as we walked back together from the funeral, but you made a mess of

the proportions. If youd spent a bit more effort on the girl and a bit less on

the vineyard, youd be a father and a man of property today instead of a

Thank you, I interrupted. And thank you very much for waiting till now to

point it out tome.

He shrugged. I was thinking of her, he said. Shes gone safely home now. Itd

have been wrong to keep her here just to spare you from feeling guilty.

I didnt speak to Diogenes for a week after that; but for once I believe he was

being sincere, not just trying to be annoying for effect. I dont know; where

the monstering stopped and the philosophy began, I dont think even he knew most

of the time.

What else did I do during that time? Well, I became a philosopher. Sounds grand,

doesnt it? But in Athens in those days you were a philosopher by default; if

you could tell your right from your left without tying a hank of straw to your

left foot and you werent a total recluse, sooner or later youd find yourself

talking philosophy with someone or other, in the queue at the cheap fish stall

or while you were waiting for your shoes to be mended.

In Eupolis day it had been plays; all Athenians were crazy about the theatre,

they followed it avidly, the way you people follow the horse-races and the

archery leagues and the cockfights, only more so theres much more to discuss

and argue over in Drama than there is in cockflghting. But the love of the

theatre gradually petered out after the War. They stopped writing Eupolis kind

of comedy, the topical satires, and turned to the wishy-washy love-stories were

stuck with nowadays, while tragedy died for lack of interest, because everything

had already been said. So the Athenians, always yearning for something new,

turned their enthusiasm towards philosophy, and soon enough they were even

starting to get it muddled up with religion, which made it even more addictive.

Now, philosophy for its own sake interests me about as much as watching iron

rust, but I am (as you may have noticed) a garrulous sort, fond of nothing so

much as the sound of my own voice, and since I was one of the Founders of the

Cynic school of philosophy, the pupil of the one and only Yapping Dog, Id have

had a hard time steering clear of philosophical debates even if Id been born

mute or half-witted. Diogenes thought it was all desperately amusing, of course;

it was clear proof of the validity of his theory of self-fulfilling bullshit,

and he did everything he could to encourage it, sending earnest young men to

follow me about writing down my maxims and apothegms on those little portable

wax tablets that fit so neatly into the palm of your left hand, and attributing

to me some of his wittiest and most profound (not to mention outrageous and

blasphemous) sayings. I had the privilege of perfect strangers thronging round

me in the street and not knowing whether they were going to fall at my feet or

knock out my teeth. Still, it was very good for business and Ill be perfectly

honest, I enjoyed it. Political and social philosophy was my forte, since you

didnt need to know any arithmetic or geometry and you didnt have to go

traipsing round naming species of plants or measuring shadows or finding out

what causes volcanoes.

But I shouldnt, I really shouldnt ever have started taking it seriously. It

was, after all, mere self-fulfilling bullshit, and I ought to have been on my

guard about the self-fulfilling part. But its such seductive stuff; you

wouldnt be human if you didnt have your own pet theories on how to create the

perfect society. Everybody does it; you do, Phryzeutzis, Ive heard you. The

worldd be a better place if we could all just get along together, Ive heard

you say, and thats political philosophy, of the most pernicious and dangerous

sort, I might add. Oh, it doesnt matter fleabites if its just you saying it;

but if someone who people listen to comes out with something like that the

triter the better, because its easier to understand it becomes invested with

a thick furry pelt of profundity, and the idiot proposer of the notion gets a

reputation for marvellously uncluttered vision and cutting clean through to the

heart of the matter. And if the next thing he happens to say in an unguarded

moment is along the lines of, The worldd be a better place if we lined up

those damned Thebans and shoved em off a cliff, next thing you know, the

Citys filled with men in armour trying to find where their regiments supposed

to be mustering, and you cant buy olives because the navy commissioners have

bought the lot for the Fleet. Not to mention, of course, all the deaths and

amputated legs and burned-out houses. Wonderful stuff, political philosophy;

like strong wine, only cheaper.

But of course you know itll never do any harm if its you saying it, because

first youre not important enough for anybody to take any notice of, and second,

youd never be irresponsible enough to say anything dangerous or inflammatory,

like the other fools do. Oh, no. Never meant anything by it. Just harmless

philosophy, thats all.

Of course, working conditions can colour your view of any trade or vocation.

Think of the poor charcoal-burner, who spends his life with red eyes and tears

running down his face, or the wretched man who works all day in the lime-kilns;

or the sword-grinder, whose snot and spit come out like wet mortar because of

all the fine grit-dust he breathes in as he sits behind his grinding-wheel. What

about the scorched and blistered hands of the smith, or the shredded fingertips

of the leatherworker, or the red-raw palms of the oarsman? The seamstress ends

up blind, the potters knees wear out, the tanner gets tanned himself, and as

for the miserable creatures who work in the mines well, if they were mules

youd have knocked them on the head and cut them up for the dogs years ago, out

of simple humanity. The farmer, of course, plies many different trades and each

one mutilates a different bit of him, from the top of his sunburned head to the

verrucas on his feet after hes trodden the seasons grapes, by way of his

permanently stooped shoulders and hopelessly twisted back.

Worst afflicted of all, it goes without saying, is the poor bloody philosopher,

who must exercise his calling at dinner-parties and drinking-parties, or huddled

in the dust under the shade of a tree or a tall building. When he isnt being

stuffed like a barn-yard pig with rich food, his host is trying to soak him to

death in neat wine; and some of the couches you find yourself lying on are just

instruments of torture in disguise, like the celebrated bed of Procrustes in the

old fable. Gods help you if you fall asleep after a heavy dinner on the average

Athenian dining-room couch; youll wake up feeling as if someone had cut off

your head while you were asleep and then stuck it back on with fish-glue without

taking proper care to see if the seams were lined up just right.

But the physical pain and discomforts nothing compared with the mental agony of

a really protracted, seventeen-course dinner where your host fancies himself as

a bit of a philosopher, and you darent sit up and point out his deplorable

errors of logic unless you want to find yourself out in the street before

theyve even brought in the mullet baked in cream cheese.

(Now, Ive noticed, Phryzeutzis, that in these parts, the host of a feast or

banquet provides all the food himself. The greater the ostentatious expense, the

rule seems to be, the greater the prestige. Foolish, of course, but logical.

Where I come from, though, the tradition was different. At an Athenian party,

all the host provided was the wine but gods help him if it ran out and it

was up to the guests to produce the food. Thats why youd sometimes see those

solemn little processions, headed by a kitchen slave bearing a huge dish covered

over with a towel, as a gourmet shipped his dinner across central Athens in the

cool of the early evening.)

And yet, just as pure refined silver comes out of the hell of the mines, so true

philosophy somehow drains out of the endless boozy nights we philosophers spend

in the course of our arduous vocation. I can best illustrate this, I think, by

telling you about a dinner party I went to in Athens when I was just beginning

to be recognised as a force to be reckoned with in the cut-throat arena of

political theory. Our host was a man called Memnides, a relentlessly generous

patron of the sciences whod made a lot of money in the Black Sea grain trade

over the years. There were always one or two house philosophers lounging around

at his place, mostly the philosophical equivalent of punch-drunk old boxers

whose bodies and reactions are shot but who can still make a fight of it out of

sheer technique and experience; men like Speusippus and Erastus, whod been

minor-league sparring partners of the likes of Plato, hard to injure as theyd

long since spat out their last remaining tooth. Then thered be young

garlic-primed fighting-cocks like me, some new discovery from out of town, like

Coriscus or Aristotle, and always at least one true heavyweight champion, such

as Diogenes All these names are whizzing over your head like the first volley

of arrows on a blustery day, when the archers are still trying to gauge

elevation and windage. Dont worry about it; most of them live now only in the

minds of old men like me with memories like a miser s barn, where nothing thats

truly useless ever gets thrown away. And as for the few youd be expected to

have heard of if you were an Athenian, the truth is that fame and glory attach

themselves almost at random in philosophy, with no more regard for merit or

originality in their choice of target than a seagulls droppings falling from a

great height. There were always plenty more to take the places of the ones who

went down and stayed down, and quite soon you stopped trying to tell them apart

and just thought of them by the categories they fell into Platonist,

Peripatetic, Cynic, what have you.

As was his custom, Memnides chose the starting point of the debate, and then let

it go where it wanted, provided it didnt leave a trail of blood and bone all

over the furniture. Because Diogenes and I were there, Memnides selected a topic

that was pretty well certain to be political whichever way it decided to drift.

If I was the Great King, he said, and I was to say to you, heres five

thousand families and enough money and goods to start a colony, where would you

go and howd you go about setting it up? Coriscus, your citys a fairly recent

foundation, you should have some pretty clear insights into the process. What do

you reckon?

The part of me that wasnt groaning, Ye gods, not again! was happy enough at the

choice of subject. It was one that the conscientious philosopher practised

daily, the way a musician practises scales; as he trimmed his vines or dug over

his trenches, hed be polishing up his opening remarks or racking his brains for

a new and original take on the stock elements of the argument. As it happened,

this was a topic that had always appealed to me, in spite of its bone-crushing

banality. It was one of the few subjects in political theory that actually

interested me, but I tried my best not to let my enthusiasm get in the way of

my professionalism.

Well, said Coriscus (the out-of-towner, you may remember, and as such the only

man present who might conceivably have something new to say), I reckon weve

got the balance just about right in... (damned if I can remember the name of the

place; its nothing but a pile of overgrown masonry now anyhow, after it got

under the feet of an advancing army in some war or other). We believe that we

have the perfect blend of the three systems of government, monarchy, oligarchy

and democracy. It all happened quite by chance, of course, but we found long

since that there wasnt really anything we could do to improve on what good

fortune had given us.

Really? Memnides said. This sounds interesting. What happened?

Coriscus smiled. A rockslide, would you believe, he said. We built our

Council Chamber on the south-facing side of our Citadel Rock, our version of

your Acropolis, if you like. Its a sort of miniature mountain right in the

middle of town with sheer cliffs on three sides, wonderful for defence and with

a natural spring on top. Unfortunately there was some sort of fault in the rock

where we built the Chamber, because one day, quite without warning, it fell off

the edge into the Basket-Weavers Market with the whole Council still in it.

Diogenes grinned. Youre making this up, he said. It sounds too good to be

true.

Youd believe me if you could see the Citadel Rock, Coriscus replied. Really,

we should have seen it coming, but we didnt and that was that. Our entire

government was wiped out in under a minute, and there was nobody left with the

authority to hold elections or co-opt an inner council or nominate archons or

anything like that.

Well, once wed hunted through the rubble and cleared up and buried the dead

quite a lengthy business, Im afraid, we specialise rather in basket-making we

realised what a fix we were in. To make matters worse, weve always had

something of a history of infighting, ever since foundation times. Originally,

you see, the land all belonged to the descendants of the founding families, and

they didnt let go without a fight. There were still enough of them left to form

a substantial and influential lobby for returning to the original constitution,

which was an oligarchy, of course.

I trust you didnt, though, someone interrupted. Thatd have been a

retrograde step, surely.

Coriscus nodded. Oh, we couldnt have had that, he replied. The Geomoroi

thats what we called the founding families were so unpopular with the trading

community, wed have had civil war. We do a lot of trade, being up there on the

Black Sea , so there were enough merchants to make a difference.

So what did you decide? Memnides prompted.

Coriscus held out his cup for a refill. I was coming to that, he said. But

first Id better just mention how we arrived at our decision. After all, it has

some bearing on what we decided, and proper scientific method

Yes, yes, someone interrupted. Get on with it. This sounds interesting.

Memnides young nephew took the empty cup over to the mixing-bowl and filled it

up. When hed returned with it, Coriscus carried on.

Pretty well everybody was on the scene by this time, he said, so the few of

us who were still thinking straight sneaked round with the red ropes

Oh, you did that too? Aristotle broke in, scrabbling in his sleeve for those

tablets of his, which go with him everywhere. Thats interesting.

(They were referring to the long ropes dipped in red paint which the Athenian

city watch used to stretch across the market-place and then slowly carry forward

just before Assembly time, to herd people out of the market square and into

Assembly. Anybody who was dilatory about going to do his duty as a citizen got a

broad red stripe across his backside and had to endure the wit of his friends

and acquaintances until the paint wore off. In the old days, democracy in Athens

was compulsory; in fact, once when wed just come out of a pretty nasty minor

civil war, the Council decreed that anybody who hadnt supported either faction

in the recent bloodbath should be heavily fined and deprived of his rights as a

citizen. Apathy, you see, just isnt our way.)

Anyway, Coriscus continued, trying not to be vexed at the interruption, once

everybody was all together, one of the priests of Dionysus he was the nearest

thing we had to a figure of authority got up and said that we were all going to

stay where we were until we agreed by an overwhelming majority on adopting a new

form of constitution. And to encourage our deliberations, he was going to post

six of his temple guards round the well; anybody attempting to draw water from

it before the debate closed would be thrown down it, by order of the god.

It was a hot day, and the temple guards looked like they meant business; so it

was a singularly constructive and orderly debate.

I wont bore you with the order of speeches or the detailed arguments or at

least I will, but not now; Im going to write them all down one of these days,

because some of them were pretty good. Suffice it to say, we took a vote just

after mid-afternoon and got the necessary majority, and this is what we decided.

The first proposal was for a monarchy. Nobody wanted that at first, but some of

the arguments in favour continuity, consistency, a legislature that was above

party squabbling or private or factional interests were hard to deny. It was

agreed that it would be nice to incorporate the good features of monarchy,

provided we could dispose of the drawbacks.

Next, someone proposed democracy; full democracy, Athenian style. This was a

very popular suggestion at first, until we started hearing the downside;

ill-informed decisions based on the whim of the mob, irrational mood-swings, the

tendency of the many to prey on the few unless restrained from doing so, the

dangers of apathy and so on. Again, we had to face up to the facts and agree

that a pure democracy with all due respect to present company would be a

very uncomfortable place to live in, rather like building a house on the rim of

an active volcano.

Someone put forward oligarchy, a proposal that got support from the usual

vociferous minority. Well, we werent having that; but we had to agree whether

we liked it or not that oligarchy does have a few things going for it, such as

continuity and consistency again, the fact that the ruling group are, as it

were, professional rulers rather than amateurs and so can be expected to do the

right thing as opposed to the thing thatll be popular most of the benefits of

monarchy, but without the risk of placing all your lives and property in the

hands of just one man.

The obvious flaws in each of these that hadnt yet been aired were then

discussed quite fervently, at times and once again some points were raised

that we just couldnt ignore, even though we didnt like many of them on an

intuitive level. They were all quite basic kings have nothing at all to keep

them in line; oligarchies have peer pressure but are much more likely to

encourage corruption and the growth of monopolies; democracies tend to eat their

children, like absent-minded sows. One man put up the idea of an elected

oligarchy, combining the two more favourable systems once every three years or

so Assembly elects a Council of two or three hundred, who rule the city like

oligarchs until its time for the next election. The man whod suggested it

couldnt seem to understand why we were all laughing, though several people

tried to explain that yes, hed developed a very neat fusion of the two

concepts, but hed also unerringly picked out the worst parts of both, and the

result would be a perpetual shambles, with gangs of council members fighting

each other tooth and nail for the good opinion of the voters, which would

obviously be far more significant to them than the welfare of city or people. It

would be an even worse version of the rule of the great demagogues, Cleon and

Hyperbolus and Theramenes and their kind, whod effectively destroyed the City

not once but many times. Eventually the man got the message; he apologised for

wasting our time and sat down again.

And then someone came up with a really good idea, or rather a series of ideas

linked by a common theme: absolute power tempered by fear of death.

First, at the top of the heap, would be the kings. Not king singular; thered

be two of them, like in Sparta , one Big King whod lead the army in war and one

Little King whod mind the store during his absence. Each king would be able to

veto anything the other one proposed; five vetos against him and the offender

would be dragged up to the top of Citadel Rock and chucked off, without mercy or

appeal. Every ten years the Council would have the right to execute or exile

either or both of them, but only in respect of things theyd done off their own

hook, without the Councils endorsement.

Now, for the Council, which was to be made up of the five hundred richest

citizens, we borrowed another Athenian idea, the Lawsuit of Illegality

(Ah, yes, the graphe paranomon; if someone proposes an enactment that, if

passed, would change the constitution, he can be prosecuted and, if found

guilty, put to death. On the other hand, if hes acquitted and the prosecutor

got less than a certain percentage of the votes of the jury, then the prosecutor

is put to death instead. The Athenian constitution hasnt been fiddled with much

over the centuries, for some reason.)

which we adapted slightly so that any councillor could challenge any other

councillors proposals, with the hemlock or the long drop awaiting the loser;

the counterbalance being that every five years Assembly could impeach and

execute any councillors whod been guilty of fudging up secret deals to avoid

open confrontations that could get one or both parties killed. In addition, the

kings and the councillors could raise any taxes they liked, but each year they

had to present accounts to Assembly to show that all the money was accounted for

and explain what it had been spent on, and if the accounts werent accepted,

either king and the treasurer of the Council would die.

Finally, public office was to be compulsory, on pain of death; so, if you were

next in line to inherit the throne or a seat on the Council you had no choice

but to accept. This has the tremendous advantage that at any given time, at

least nine-tenths of the Government are only there under protest, and the

chances of power ever falling into the hands of somebody who wants it are kept

to an acceptable minimum.

There was a long silence.

And it actually works, does it? someone eventually asked. I mean, you really

do run your city like that?

For the last hundred and twenty years, Coriscus replied.

I see, Aristotle murmured, rubbing his chin with his left hand and writing

furiously with his right. And may I ask, how many kings and councillors, in

round numbers, have been put to death during that time?

Coriscus smiled and picked up his cup. None, he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

K ing Philip of Macedon started off his reign with a series of hard, difficult

wars against the seemingly inexhaustible supply of savage and barbarous races

who filled up the mountainous wastes to the north and west of his kingdom

Illyrians, Thracians, Thessalians, Triballians, Paeonians and Getae. Much to

everyones surprise he beat them all and, more surprising still, instead of

burning their villages, killing the men and selling the women and children as

slaves, he turned as many of these apparently sub-human creatures as he possibly

could into good Macedonians, or at least the nearest imitation he could get.

Mildly interesting to an Athenian observer; we relish strange tales from the

hills, and of course at that time we made it our business to stay au fait with

the latest reports from the region because we had valuable colonies up there,

inhabited by real Athenians whod left Athens for reason of business or health.

We started to take a little more notice when Philip, having run out of hairy

tribesmen to slaughter and tame, turned south. Its a long story and rather a

sad one if youre an Athenian. The short version is that he began by appointing

himself the guardian of Apollo wed always assumed that Apollo, being a god,

was big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, but apparently not; it

came to Philips attention that some impious wretches from the city of Phocis

had annexed the sacred shrine and oracle of Delphi, helped themselves to the

huge reserves of money deposited there (Apollo is honorary banker to the cities

of Greece, something Ive always found most odd. After all, hes a god; not the

sort of person youd trust to look after your cloak in the baths, let alone your

lifes savings) and were behaving in a generally disrespectful manner. By the

time he managed to wangle an excuse for intervening, the man whod masterminded

the coup was dead and his henchmen scattered, but nevertheless Philip ploughed

steadfastly on, beat the Phocians to a pulp, scooped up a couple of valuable

cities that had been carelessly left lying about, and somehow wandered sixty or

so miles further south until he came up against the Athenian army at the

celebrated narrow pass of Thermopylae. Wed rushed our forces up there to

protect our colonies, mines and other valuables, just in case Philip

absent-mindedly slipped them up his sleeve, as guests sometimes palm spoons at

dinner-parties; on this occasion he took the hint and proceeded no further.

Nevertheless, anybody who hadnt heard of Philip before was well aware of him

now, and we were in the uncomfortable position of people whove acquired an

antisocial and boisterous new neighbour, whose children steal apples from the

home orchard and whose dog chases the sheep.

No matter, we thought; all except a man by the name of Demosthenes, a

professional lawyer with a speech impediment who started saying worrying things

in Assembly not long after Philips picnic in Thessaly . Demosthenes had a fine

turn of phrase and it was a treat to listen to him on a warm, lazy morning when

there wasnt much else to do. There was always a splendid turnout when we knew

he was planning to speak; but we didnt really take any notice. After all, the

idea of the wild and woolly Philip being a serious threat to Athens was a

fantasy, as imaginative and amusing as that old comedy by Aristophanes where

women take over the government of Athens and start voting in Assembly. We

Athenians love comic fantasy.

Not long ago I met a man who told me a story hed heard about young Alexander,

Philips son; according to this man, the incident referred to must have taken

place about this time. Im convinced its either wholly or partly false youll

see why in due course but there may be a grain of truth in it, so Ill pass it

on, and you can make up your own mind.

Background, Phryzeutzis: you probably know by now that we Greeks tell stories

about a mighty hero called Hercules, the son of Zeus Himself. In the stories,

the first sign that Hercules was going to be a mighty hero was when a couple of

snakes crawled into his cot a few days after he was born and tried to sting him,

whereupon he strangled them with his bare hands. Now, according to what this man

told me, Philips wife Olympias felt that her son deserved a proper start in

life just as much as Hercules, and arranged for a couple of fangless, elderly

snakes to be turned loose in the bed where Alexander was sleeping; the idea was

that the young prince (who was old enough to throttle snakes, and undoubtedly

knew the story) would take the point, recognise a good public-relations

opportunity when he saw one, scrag the unfortunate snakes and let the goddess

Rumour do the rest. The plan worked just fine, up to a point. The snakes did

their part, following a carefully laid trail of live ants trapped in runny honey

up the side of the bed and on to the princes pillow; Alexander noticed them

and, quick as lighming, snatched a dagger from under his pillow (which nobody

knew was there) and slashed the heads off the snakes before you could say

garlic. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, Alexanders next step was to storm into the great hall of the

palace, fling the headless remains down at his mothers feet, and in a very loud

voice demand to know why shed seen fit to try to murder him. This put Olympias

in a rather awkward position she couldnt tell the truth for fear of looking

extremely silly, but the evidence of the dead snakes and the trail of ants and

honey did seem to point towards an assassination attempt. Accordingly, Olympias

was forced to frame a minor Macedonian nobleman and his wife and have them put

to death on the spot, which annoyed Philip when he heard about it and caused a

coolness between them that lasted for some time.

As I said a moment ago, youll soon see why I dont accept this story as the

whole truth. But that picture of the young Alexander, stalking past the

astonished nobles with a pair of dead snakes dragging behind him where most kids

his age would be trailing a wooden horse on a string or some other favourite toy

that I can believe in; and if it isnt true, it should be. So, by including it

in this book of mine, Ive given it a certain degree of truth and thereby, I

guess, improved history.

Athenians of my generation play a memory-game, a sort of reminiscence

competition. Where were you and what were you doing when you first heard about

Olynthus ? they ask each other. Pruning my vines, says one. In the market

square. In Assembly, of course. You remember that brothel in Tripod Street ?

Well, I was just coming out of there when I met my cousin, and he told me.. .

But its true enough; everybody remembers hearing the news. It was one of those

moments rare enough, thank the gods when you feel the outside world bursting

through the walls we all build to keep it out of our personal lives, like a

flood battering down a sea-wall; a moment when you realise youre suddenly

ankle-deep in history, and the level is all set to rise faster than you can run.

I was in Pallene, of all places, helping my brother Euthyphron. Gods alone know

what I was doing there; but Euthyphron had sounded so pathetic when I bumped

into him in the street, moaning about how impossible it was for a man on his own

to cope with all the work that had to be done in the height of summer on a

miserably rocky, strung-out holding like his. I offered to change places with

him there and then; he pretended he hadnt heard me.

You remember the mountain terraces, he sighed, leaning on his walking-stock

like an old man of seventy (hes a year younger than me). Three ploughings in

summer, minimum; really, threes the absolute minimum, you need to go four if

you expect to do any good. Fewer than three and come autumn youre just wasting

good seed-corn.

I couldnt agree more, I replied. Which begs the question, why are you here

in the City rather than back home working?

Now, I didnt remember Euthyphron as being particularly hard of hearing, but

something must have happened to him since I left home, because he had great

difficulty hearing a lot of what I said to him.

As if thats not bad enough, he went on, the damn ploughs virtually clapped

out the share-irons thin as a leaf at the point and you remember where Father

mended the break in the drawbar by wrapping it round with rawhide? Well, thats

starting to peel off, but where am I going to get rawhide from this time of

year? Just my luck, of course, to get the old knackered spare and not the

My heart bleeds, I interrupted. Of course, it simply hasnt occurred to you

to get a new one made.

He must have heard that all right, because he turned his head like a crow

looking up from a carcass and gave me that special look of scorn thats reserved

for a working farmer talking to a landless townsman.

Its all right for you, he said. Oh, yes, youve done very nicely for

yourself, youve forgotten what its like actually working for a living. Well,

Im here to tell you, I just havent got that much coined money, thats all; not

with a wife and four daughters to provide for, and the roof on the old barn

needing fixing but I just didnt have the time to do it, so I had to hire a

carpenter; do you have any idea..

Id been about to offer to buy him a new plough anyway, as a peace offering; but

the way he put it, I realised that it wouldnt be a gift so much as blood-money

to appease the wrath of twenty generations of sturdy Attic yeomen whom Id

foully betrayed by turning my back on the land in favour of a life of Persian

luxury. Bless him, though, he didnt hold it against me. As a reward (though

really I was just doing my belated duty) he allowed me to help with the

ploughing and so re-establish contact with the better part of myself that Id

walled up in some dark recess of my mind; while Euthyphron played with the new

plough down on the home enclosures, he let me take the old, rickety heirloom up

onto the high terraces, where the stones are the size of a mans head and have

always seemed to me to grow faster than the grapes.

Please be careful with it, he said, almost pleadingly, as I yoked in the oxen.

If that split in the sole opens out any further, the whole thingll only be fit

for firewood.

So there I was, right up high like an eagle, nursing that decrepit heap of a

plough through the dust-thin topsoil of a terrace no wider than the width of my

own shoulders, when our neighbour came running past down the hill.

Id known Chaereas all my life twenty-six years, in case youre interested

and in all that time Id never seen him run. Itd never have occurred to me that

he was capable of it. As far as I was concerned, Chaereas slouched quick

slouch in the mornings, agonisingly slow slouch come evening, when he dragged

his weary bones home again (and politeness demanded that if I met him on the

track I had to walk the rest of the way with him, at his pace; and you know how

exhausting it can be, deliberately walking slowly). Yet here he was, racing down

the hill like a stag with the hounds at his heels. I let go of the handlebar,

took my foot off the footplate and watched, dumbfounded.

Chaereas? I called out.

Cant stop. Hed seen the plough directly in front of him, but he was going

too fast to slow down; instead he soared over it with a mighty leap, like a

prize-winning hurdler at the Games. A man twenty years younger would have been

proud of that jump.

Chaereas! I yelled down the hill after him. What the hells going on?

The Macedonians, he called back. Theyre coming! Run!

By that point he was too far away to hear me, but I couldnt leave it at that. I

left the plough and team standing the great thing about nine-year-old oxen is

that they stay put and followed after him as quickly as I dared go, which

wasnt nearly fast enough. I didnt catch up with him, in fact, until I reached

the village, where I saw him huddled in a crowd around a couple of other

neighbours of ours, who were saying something about Philip of Macedon...

It shouldnt have come as such a shock, really. Philip had been playing war in

Chalcidice for some time, threatening and harassing our colonies and allies up

there into leaving us and joining him; but for some reason we still hadnt been

able to work up enough enthusiasm to send an army and sort him out. I think it

was because of what happened at Thermopylae , where, if you recall, the sight of

an Athenian army holding the pass had sent him scuttling away like a fox whos

seen the sheepdog. Sooner or later wed make a proper show of force, instead of

sending a few cut-price mercenaries, and hed bolt off back to his mountains and

his mead-hall and his week-long drinking matches with the tribal

warrior-chieftains. He was, after all, just a Macedonian; they may look a bit

like proper Greeks, but that didnt mean a thing. A savage is a savage is a

savage; and when you stand up to them, they run. Everybody knew that.

The news that broke that summer day in my twenty-sixth year was that Philip of

Macedon had stormed Olynthus, the principal city of Chalcidice and a loyal

friend of Athens; once inside, hed ordered a general massacre, after which hed

rounded up the ten thousand or so survivors and marched them off in slave-irons

to be sold abroad.

A lot of speeches were made around that time; very good speeches, most of them,

packed with memorable phrases. But what immediately comes to mind when I think

of that day is old Chaereas hurdling my fathers beat-up second-best plough,

with a look of terror on his face as if the Great King and ninety thousand of

his archers were treading down the backs of his heels. Theyre coming! hed

said, but he was a bit behind the times. Theyd already arrived, and we hadnt

even noticed.

Extraordinary times bring to the fore extraordinary men; and the fall of

Olynthus was no exception. In her hour of need, Athens turned to me, Euxenus son

of Eutychides of the deme of Pallene, a man extraordinarily ill-suited to the

task assigned to me.

We were quite a party, the Athenian embassy to Philip; there was Aeschines,

whod been an actor before he turned to politics; there was Demosthenes, a

lawyer; there was Philocrates, an earnest and utterly terrified little man who

understood Philip so well that he should never have been allowed to join the

party, let alone lead it whenever he was in the mans presence, he watched

Philip with the motionless resignation of a fledgeling bird on the ground

watching a polecat, because he knew, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, that

it was only a matter of time...

There were ten ambassadors. Correction; there were nine ambassadors and me. When

I canvassed my family and friends for possible explanations of why Id been

chosen, I got a wide selection of plausible replies, but no overall consensus.

My sister-in-law Praxagora reckoned theyd chosen me because Philip had a habit

of killing messengers, and who else was so uniquely expendable? My brother

Eudorus, who was also a professional actor, opined that Id been included as

official scapegoat, a complete nobody on whom Aeschines and Demosthenes could

dump the blame when the whole mission came to nothing. Diogenes grinned and said

they must have chosen me to lull Philip into a true sense of security. Anyway, I

went.

Before I tell you about this momentous event in my life, Ill just pause for a

moment or two and indulge in a little narcissistic mirror-gazing. In my

twenty-sixth year I was one of the tallest men in Athens . Between the ages of

thirteen and seventeen Id sprouted at an unbelievable rate people told me

they used to stand there and watch me getting taller, until it made them feel

all dizzy and faint. It was my excessive height, according to some, that made me

go bald at a relatively early age. That high up, they said, you cant expect

anything to grow except a little moss and the most tenacious species of

rock-flower. Now, most of the other freaks of altitude Ive met have made up for

it by being thin and stringy, as if theyd been made out of wax and stretched

when they were three parts set. Not me. In spite of the fact that Id given up

farm work at a relatively early age and never took any exercise that I could

possibly avoid, I had broad shoulders and forearms as thick as some mens

calves. I could pick up great big oil-jars that took two ordinary men to shift

I didnt, as a rule, but I could have if Id wanted to and from the age of

thirteen onwards, fights and aggravation were things that happened to other

people, not to me. Looking back, of course, this was a handicap.

That said, I was a pretty feeble specimen when it came to anything involving

stamina. My diminutive brother Eumenes, for instance, could walk under my

outstretched arm without ducking and if we walked together he had to trot to

keep up with my great shambling strides. But if we happened to be walking

uphill, it wouldnt be long before hed be tapping his foot impatiently, waiting

for me to catch up. Eumenes, of course, was a farmer.

When an Athenian asks you, What does so-and-so look like? what he means is,

Is he good-looking? Thats essential information for an Athenian, because of

this beautiful-good/ugly-bad thing Ive touched on before. We reckon that beauty

is like a seal, pressed into the soft wax of our faces when were born, so that

for ever afterwards people will be able to tell at a glance whether were good

or bad. By that criterion, I was sort of middling-nothingish, which I suppose is

fair enough (but I still dont believe in the general rule). Baldness is

regarded as a sort of amusing eccentricity-cum-folly in Athens , like

absent-mindedness, wearing outlandish or inappropriate clothes or mild

kleptomania; people made it plain that though they didnt condone it, they

didnt really hold it against me either.

(I can see you smiling, Phryzeutzis; you think that because I cant see you

doing it, I wont know. But its true; when I was younger, I was a very tall

man, and if I could only get this pathetic excuse for a back of mine to

straighten out, I could prove it to you. All right, dont believe me if you

dont want to; but the only man I ever met who was noticeably taller than me was

Hephaestion the Macedonian, Alexanders friend; the one the Persian queen

assumed must be Alexander, because he was the tallest man in the room. And no, I

dont know why Im making such an issue of it. I suppose its because its

really the only respect in which Ive excelled my fellow men and so in spite of

myself Im really rather proud of it, deep down, even though it was none of my

doing.)

Philocrates was supposed to brief us on the ship, so that wed arrive in Macedon

fully informed and up to date, ready for anything that the man already widely

acknowledged as the worlds greatest living negotiator might have lined up for

us. But Philocrates was seasick. Desperately seasick. In fact, he was so

wholeheartedly and continuously seasick that he set me thinking seriously about

the theory of reincarnation, as proposed by the great Pythagoras and endorsed

fairly recently by the celebrated Plato. Id never had much time for it myself;

but watching Philocrates hurling second-hand food with tremendous force into the

Aegean, the Straits of Euboea, the Gulf of Pasagae and the Thracian Sea, I found

myself reconsidering my position on the issue. It was fairly obvious that

Phiocrates had already chucked up every morsel of food hed ever eaten in his

life before we were even clear of Cape Sunium , so everything he vomited after

that must have been stuff hed eaten in previous incarnations.

Of my other co-ambassadors, Demosthenes and Aeschines disagreed so completely

and so violently that I couldnt face asking either of them for fear of starting

off a war thatd have made the Olynthus campaign seem like a polite difference

of opinion by comparison; and none of the others seemed all that better-informed

than I was. So much, then, for the series of introductory lectures on the

present crisis, Macedonian culture and heritage and King Philips bargaining

style. However, as one of my colleagues pointed out, it doesnt require a

significant amount of preparation or background knowledge to squeal for mercy,

so it didnt really make much odds.

Obviously, Phryzeutzis, youve never seen a ship in your life, and I expect

youre pulling all sorts of muscles in your imagination just trying to picture

in your mind what one of these extraordinary contraptions looks like. Try this.

Imagine a fairly deep, round clay bowl thats still wet from the wheel; but you

dont know that, so you pick it up and your fingers cave in two of the sides,

leaving you with something that looks a bit like a pear split longwise. Sticking

up out of the middle is the trunk of a tall tree, stripped of its branches. Tied

to the top of this tree and at right-angles to it is another, smaller beam of

wood, from which hangs the linen bag used to catch the wind thats the sail.

Front and back theres two posts sticking up, like the head and tail of a goat;

on either side of the goats tail, there are two broad wooden planks on the end

of poles, which trail in the water. The helmsman the man who tries to make the

boat go where its supposed to be going drags on these planks to make the boat

change direction (try holding your hand out flat, thumb upwards; then plunge it

into water and push sideways. Youll feel your hand shoving water out of the

way, but not immediately. Pushing against the water is how you steer the ship).

Thats it, basically. The whole thing is made out of wooden planks, fitted

together closely enough to be watertight; its horribly fragile, and when the

wind blows on the sea and stirs it up, the boat is tossed up and down, it can

turn over or get swamped, or it can be blown against a rock, whichll smash it

to pieces. Imagine trying to float down the river inside an upturned parasol,

and youll get the basic idea.

No wonder, then, that sailors people who make their living crossing the world

in these things are a nervous bunch, prone to irrational fears and

superstitions. All Greeks are superstitious to some extent, but sailors are

quite obsessive about it, and in particular they pay great attention to dreams,

bad language and sneezing. Sneeze when youre walking up the gangplank and

theres a good chance theyll refuse to get on board unless, of course, your

head happens to be facing to the right at the time, in which case they take it

as a good omen. Sailors are as foul-mouthed as the next man when theyre on

land, but once the ship is under way theyll throw you over the side if you say

Damn! or To the crows with you. (A crow in the rigging, by the way, is

recognised as the worst omen of all, so if someone sees a black shape drifting

through the air towards the ship, everybody stops what theyre doing and crowds

on to the deck, stamping and whistling and throwing nuts and handfuls of olives

and anything else that happens to come to hand.) But its dreams above all that

theyre interested in. There you are, sleeping peacefully on the deck just as

the suns about to come up, and some clown of a sailor comes and digs you in the

ribs with his toe and demands to know what youve been dreaming about. I asked

one of the sailors on that voyage to explain to me what all the various dreams

meant; it took him a full hour. I can only remember snippets of it a goat

means big waves, especially a black goat; a pig means a storm so violent that

your chances of survival are minimal. Owls mean pirates. A dream about seagulls,

on the other hand, also foreshadows a disaster, but of a non-lethal variety

the ship will probably sink, but nobody will drown. Dreaming about flying on

your back or crossing the sea on foot mean good luck try to remember how many

times youve dreamed of flying on your back, and youll begin to appreciate the

fundamental pessimism of your average sailor. Oh, yes, and dancing on board ship

is right out; theyll chuck you overboard so hard youll probably bounce.

Im only telling you all this because it explains how I came to hear about

Aeschines dream. Now, I think Ive already mentioned that Aeschines was a

professional actor before he found he could make a better living out of

politics; he was a good actor, too, specialising in winsome young girls,

long-winded old crones and messengers reporting bloody murder. I dont know;

maybe all those years of cramming his mind with all that poetry, all that vivid

and striking imagery, had done something to him. Perhaps he was like that

anyway, which was what prompted him to take up acting in the first place.

Anyway, on the third morning, when we were within sight of the town of Pasagae

(or where Pasagae had until recently been, before Philip played rough games with

it) I overheard him talking to one of the sailors, an incorrigible dream

monitor.

Never set eyes on the place in my life, he was saying, but I knew it was

Pasagae as if Id lived there since I was a boy. Strange feeling, actually.

The sailor nodded. And when you saw it just now, was it like what you d seen

in your dream?

Ive no idea, Aeschines replied. That is, no, it didnt look anything like

what were looking at now. But thats because what were looking at now is a

heap of fallen walls and ashes.

I dont think the sailor liked the way this story was going. Well? he said.

What happened?

Aeschines frowned. Im not sure, really, he said. Oh, I can remember the

dream quite clearly, and it seemed to be making perfect sense while I was

having it. Now, though

Just then the sailor looked up and caught sight of me; I saw him seeing me, but

by then it was too late to make an unobtrusive exit, which is something that

needs a good deal of notice and forward planning on something as small and

confined as a ship. I should explain that somehow or other, the crew had got

wind of the way I made my living and, being extremely superstitious, they

believed it wholesale, all the stuff about the little demon who lived in a jar.

Euxenus, the sailor called out. Come over here. I need you to explain a

dream.

Obviously hed forgotten that hed spent all that time the previous day telling

me how to interpret dreams. Anyway, there was no point in arguing. I fetched the

jar out of my luggage and went over to join them.

I was standing in the market square at Pasagae, Aeschines said, talking to

some people I apparently knew, when a dog suddenly appeared out of nowhere and

started running in and out of the stalls, pulling them down and killing people.

I could hear the screams. It was awful.

The sailor had turned a revolting green colour. Go on, I said to Aeschines, in

a nice calm voice. This is quite interesting.

Well, Aeschines went on, pretty soon the dog had smashed up the whole town

and rounded up all the sheep and it was herding them into a pen by this point

we were in Pella, except it was also Athens; youll just have to take my word on

that, I knew when a lion jumped out and swatted it over the head, and it fell

over. Then the lion led the sheep across the Hellespont into Asia only they

werent sheep any more, they were bees, and the lion hed stopped being a lion

but it was still him was marching up and down the rows inspecting wings and

stings, like they were soldiers on parade, then packing them up into hives and

loading them on a mans back until he could hardly stagger. After that they both

flew away east; and I knew they went a very long way, but I was there waiting

for them at the other end. When they got there, the number of hives was

enormous; and I was standing in the gateway of a city, desperately trying to get

the gate shut to stop them getting in; but it was one of those dreams, you know,

the sort where the gate wont budge even though theres nothing obstructing it,

and every time you look up the people whore after you are closer and closer.

Anyway, they lined up all the hives in front of my gate and pulled off the

doors; and all these hundreds of thousands of dead bees came tumbling out. There

werent any live ones left at all. Then the lion was dead too, and I was

standing in Assembly back home, and I could smell the lions dead body, all the

way from Asia . I looked round for somebody to ask what was going on, but

everybody was running on the spot and wouldnt talk to me. I tried to make them

listen but they pushed me over and started kicking me as I lay there. And thats

when you the sailor woke me up. Well? he concluded, looking at me. Have

you the faintest idea what that means?

Yes, I replied. You want to lay off eating that strong cheese last thing at

night. Its indigestion, thats all.

Neither of them thought that was funny, but at least I wasnt asked to interpret

any more dreams. When we made landfall the next day without shipwreck, pirates,

mutiny or manifestations of divine anger, Ill swear the superstitious man was

disappointed.Theres no pleasing some people.

Its a long but not too arduous journey from the mouth of the river Axius to

Pella , where Philips palace was. Hed sent a troop of cavalry to escort us,

with spare horses for us to ride; Macedonians dont walk anywhere if they can

help it. At this point in my life Id had mercifully little to do with horses;

my father owned one because he was obliged to do so, by law, being in theory a

member of the Athenian Cavalry by virtue of his wealth and political status. Its

name was Chestnut, and it ate a kings ransom in barley and lived in a stable in

Pallene, and if I was naughty as a boy, he threatened to feed me to it. I

regarded this as a pretty terrifying threat. A man sitting on a horse is a long

way off the ground, and I couldnt see the point in taking that sort of risk.

Now you, Phryzeutzis, and all your bone-idle countrymen are perfectly at home

aboard the horrible things, which I regard as proof that in spite of appearances

to the contrary, at heart youre all still ignorant savages.

Nevertheless; we were supposed to be diplomats, and refusing to go anywhere near

the dreadful creatures would probably have caused grave offence, so we rode from

the coast up to Pella . I did a wonderful impersonation of a sack of oats slung

over the back of a donkey.

Macedonia is divided into two parts, highlands and lowlands. The mountains form

a double horseshoe, hemming in the rich, pleasant farmlands above the Gulf of

Thermai . Pella was in the plains, and it wasnt in the least what Id been

expecting. We Athenians reckoned we knew about the Macedonians; they were

brutal, drunken hooligans who lived in mountain passes and dressed in

goatskins. That was true enough of the highlanders; but Philips family were

lowlanders, and although they dutifully maintained old national customs like

blood-feuds and succession by right of assassination, theyd been doing their

best to improve themselves for several generations. Philips grandfather, for

instance, had hired the great and perpetually unpopular Athenian dramatist

Euripides to be his court poet, and he did it only partly to annoy the hell out

of the highland tribal chiefs (who had to sit still and listen when theyd far

rather have been out in the fresh air killing something; having read the

collected works of Euripides, I cant blame them. So would I).

Be that as it may; wed been expecting some kind of long-house built out of

tree-trunks, and what we found was a fantasy in white and painted marble,

although the mosaic-pattern cobbles were a bit on the garish side for my taste.

Actually, I had a head start on my fellow ambassadors. I happen to like dogs,

even big, enthusiastic ones, and they like me. As we made our way through King

Philips courtyard, there were dogs everywhere, the pride and joy of the

highland barons. When they saw an Athenian who didnt immediately cringe away

and try to climb the nearest wall when something the size of a horse, with a

lolling pink tongue and teeth like shipwrights nails, planted two enormous

forepaws on his shoulders, they were intrigued. I was, as far as they were

concerned, in; and I hadnt said a word yet.

It wasnt long before I found out where theyd got their ideas from about what

Athenians are like; but Ill come to that in a minute.

Gods forgive me for saying this, but I found I quite liked the Macedonians.

Partly, Im sure, it was relief at finding they werent grunting savages who

wore the neck-bones of their enemies as hair decorations. To a certain extent,

besides that, I was ashamed of the attitude of my fellow diplomats, who acted

from the start as if they expected to be stuck on spits like thrushes and

roasted whole for dinner Demosthenes was the worst offender, as youd expect,

given that his whole life was devoted to convincing the City that Philip was

evil incarnate and the Macedonians were his attendant demons, but all of them

except me were appallingly rude from start to finish. I could also try to

rationalise by saying that the rather free-and-easy informality of Philips

court appealed to me in my Yapping Dog persona.

Excuses, excuses. I couldnt help liking them. They were just like those

enormous dogs of theirs; all it took was a little friendliness and a little

fortitude, just enough to show that you werent afraid of them, and they went

from growling mastiffs to big soft puppies in no time at all. The difference

was, they were prepared to like us if we liked them, particularly if we showed

even the slightest inclination to treat them as proper Greeks which they

werent, lets face it, but Im not so sure thats necessarily a bad thing. That

was almost the first thing I picked up on, that grudging awe of us just because

we were Athenians. They regarded us, I think, the way we regard the gods; we

acknowledge that theyre probably wiser than us, undoubtedly a hell of a lot

stronger, and we most certainly dont like them. We disapprove of them, and we

console ourselves for being inferior in every other respect with the satisfying

knowledge that morally, were far superior to the whole lot of them. I could

feel that same moral superiority, as of straightforward, simple folk confronted

with sophisticated decadence, being held up against me like a shield. I felt

they had a point, at that. So I went along with it.

Excuse me for a moment, but that reminds me of Diogenes... We were walking

through the Potters Quarter one day when I was still quite young, and he

pointed out a rather dashing young man in the latest fashions, hair curled and

scented, beard neatly trimmed right back.

What do you reckon? he said, loudly enough that people could hear.

I think he looks very smart, I said.

Diogenes shook his head. Affectation, he replied.

A little later, we passed the Academy, and Diogenes stopped and pointed out a

fairly well-known foreign philosopher who happened to be visiting the City from

one of the islands. He was an impressive spectacle; very plainly dressed in

coarse homespun wool, with bare feet and a long grey beard, clean but uncombed

and untrimmed.

What do you reckon? he said.

Affectation?

Youre learning.

I nodded, and we walked on a bit further until we came to a well. I stopped,

dipped the bucket, drew it up and pointed at it. What do you reckon? I said.

He looked down and caught sight of his reflection. Point taken, he said, and

we walked on.

So yes, the Macedonians pose of primitive manly virtues was just as much an

affectation as our culture and sophistication; but so what?

Show me a man with no affectations whatsoever, and Ill show you a dead body.

I dont remember much about the room where we first met Philip, except that it

seemed to be full of Philip, with not much space for anything else.

Actually, he was a short man, neither slight nor stocky; youll see a hundred

men like him if you walk from the City to the hill when the farmers are out

pruning or bashing up the clods with mattocks. But Philip was like a beautiful

woman, his face was his fortune; and if you cast your mind back to that

conversation we had about good luck and bad luck, King Philips face is an

excellent illustration of my point. It was his appearance that made him

undoubtedly the most skilful negotiator and manipulator of mens hearts and

minds that Ive ever met in my life.

King Philip was incredibly ugly. Actually, you could see quite clearly that once

hed been quite strikingly good-looking; but hed lost his right eye in some

baffle, and the scarring was quite revolting. The eye itself was still partly

visible, just the white bit of it, turned upwards as if he was trying to look at

something perched on his left shoulder, and the seams of the scar that ran down

from the forehead, across the eyesocket and down the cheek almost to the corner

of his mouth looked like a childs first attempts at moulding in clay, where

hes pressed two edges together and tried unsuccessfully to smooth them over

into a join.

Now, you can imagine the effect of that on an Athenian (beauty equals good,

remember, and ugliness equals evil); ruggedly handsome in left profile,

hideously ugly in right. Now, as if that bizarre dichotomy wasnt bad enough,

there was the fact that you couldnt help staring, no matter how hard you tried.

It wasnt something you could ignore or get used to; you had to stare. And it

was obvious he made it obvious that he knew you were staring, and that it

wounded him deeply, the horror and the pity, all the pathos of a handsome man

suddenly reduced to a monster. He never said anything; he just met your eyes and

looked at you with his one good eye.

Absolutely invincible negotiating technique, and he exploited it to the full; in

fact, it was his negotiating technique, happily dropped into his lap by

indulgent Fortune. Without it, I dont suppose hed have been half the diplomat

he was, and diplomacy was easily as important a factor as force in his

incredible success. It helped, of course, that he had a soft, quite musical

voice that made his northern accent a pleasant thing to listen to rather than a

jarring, scraping pain.

So Philip filled the room; there was no time or space to look at anything else,

because everything tightened down into that one mutilated eye. There were other

Macedonians there, of course, big noble-looking men with hairy black arms and a

vague impression of beautiful but fierce women, but every time we met Philip it

was like we were alone with him, not even conscious of each other. For a

negotiating team, this was a distinct disadvantage.

He trashed us, needless to say. No bluster, no raised voice when he wanted to

shout us down, he simply spoke a little more quietly, so that we had to shut up

in order to hear what he was saying. He never mumbled, though. I swear you could

have heard Philip of Macedon whispering on the other side of the straits of

Euboea . Thats not to say he didnt make threats. He was all threat, he

radiated danger as the sun radiates light, and everyone who stood where he shone

knew he was in danger of his life. It was a very immediate, physical danger you

knew for certain that if you happened to say precisely the wrong thing, hed

jump up out of his chair, draw his sword (he was always armed, usually with a

broad, blue Thracian steel sabre) and crack your skull open before you could

even move; and hed do it and get away with it because he was Philip, from whom

nobody and nothing in the world was safe.

Apart from that he was a pleasant enough man, and I rather liked him.

All the time we were there, there was no respite. When we werent negotiating (I

use the term for convenience only; we negotiated in the same way as a roast

quail negotiates with the man whos eating it) we were being entertained, either

with intimidating quantities of food meat, meat and more meat, as much of it in

one meal as the average Athenian sees in a year and lethal doses of strong,

neat wine, or with very high-class recitals of music and poetry performed by

expensive imported artists, which Philip obviously enjoyed almost as much as the

heavy banqueting. He was, I should point out at this stage, a ferocious

drinker; one of those dangerous drunks who doesnt show it on the surface one

bit. The only difference I could see, in fact, was that when he was drunk he was

more inclined to extremes of both cruelty and humanity, though there was no way

of knowing which youd get.

For instance; one evening, when the boozing had reached the stage where our

hosts were too fuddled to notice and be offended by the fact that wed stopped

trying to match them flagon for flagon quite some time ago, a man and a woman

came storming into the dining hall, with a sleepy-looking guard chasing after

them. Before they could be caught and slung out, Philip raised his hand to

signify that he was prepared to listen to what they had to say, whereupon the

man launched into an incredibly complicated story about a disputed parcel of

land about the size of a large hat that adjoined his and the womans properties,

a hole deliberately drilled in a lead water-pipe to steal water from a private

supply, an errant goat that turned up a week later with the womans brand

mysteriously in place of the original mark, and I dont know what else. About

four minutes into this, the woman joined in, although from what little I could

follow she was talking about unlawful lopping of the low branches of a tree

growing just her side of the boundary, a vine trampled and broken by a stray

donkey, some extremely arcane stuff about the mans sons friends dog killing

somebody elses neighbours daughters tame polecat Ill be honest with you, I

gave up on that one at quite an early stage.

I was surprised at how long Philip just sat there and took all this. I kept

expecting him to blow his top with impatience and order the guards to throw both

of them down the nearest well but at that time, you see, I didnt know how

seriously Philip took his duties as supreme arbiter, or how strong was the

tradition that the King of Macedons subjects had a right to an audience, at any

time of day or night, when circumstances justified it. Eventually, though, hed

had enough. He started to speak in that low, calm voice Ive been telling you

about, but by now the two litigants were so engrossed in their tales of the

others iniquities that they went on yammering and ignored him completely. I

braced myself for the sight of blood on the floor; instead, I heard Philip

banging on the table with his cup.

All right, he said. Thatll do. Now then, I wont pretend I followed what you

two were saying. I dont suppose itd have made any difference if I had. The

plain fact is, youre both rotten neighbours and Im damned glad I dont have to

live next door to either one of you. Ready? Good. My judgement is that you will

both be fined one drachma, and you will both go away and not come bothering me

again. Understood?

The woman shook her head. Thats not good enough, she said. I want justice.

Tough, Philip snapped. I havent got any. Youll have to make do with Law,

instead.

But the woman wasnt having any of that. All right, she said, Im lodging an

appeal.

Philip frowned. Dont talk soft, he said, Im the King, the fountain of all

justice. Who else is there for you to appeal to?

To Philip, of course; Philip when hes sober.

Philip was having a good day; the woman got her appeal, and got judgement in her

favour, too. But the silent three or four heartbeats after shed said that was

the longest three or four heartbeats I can ever remember, and when it was over I

checked my reflection in a polished silver plate to see if my beard had gone

white while Id been waiting.

As soon as the two litigants had been shooed away again, everybody started

talking at once. Philip was pouring himself a stiff drink, probably feeling hed

earned it. I was just starting to relax when I heard raised voices from up on

Philips table, a mans voice and a womans.

The woman was Philips wife, Queen Olympias. The man was Aristotle.

Whats he doing here? I asked myself, feeling a bit like the man in the old

story who dies and goes to the Islands of the Blessed only to find when he gets

there that his mother-in-laws there too.

The argument they were having was a wonderful illustration of diametrically

opposed slanging-match techniques. Queen Olympias was yelling at the top of her

extremely powerful lungs. Aristotle, on the other hand, was waiting till she had

to stop and draw breath and then carrying on where hed left off, ignoring

everything shed said and talking in his most monotonous, plonking tone of

voice. Philip rolled his eyes (an alarming sight, I assure you) then belted the

table with his fist so hard that cups and jugs fell over on all sides.

You two, he murmured. Pack it in.

Did I say just now that everybody in the world was afraid of Philip? Everybody

bar one. Whether or not Philip was afraid of Olympias, on the other hand, is a

moot point. I dont think he was; he tolerated her, because killing her would

cause more problems than it would solve and besides, he was on-and-off in love

with her fascinated would be a better word probably for the same reason,

that she wasnt afraid of him.

Theyd met when they were both very young, at a weird religious bash in her home

territory in the wilds (the very wilds) of Illyria . Olympias people were

snake-worshippers, and she was as keen as mustard on the whole snake thing. Why

Philip was up there getting initiated into a snake cult, the gods only know; he

was about as religious as my neighbour Philemons old mule and besides, the

snake people weren t even his gods. It was lust at first sight for him ten or

so years later, she was still a sight to see, although a lot of wine and

honey-cakes had passed through the gates of her teeth in that time, and there

was quite a lot more of her in every direction. What she saw in him I dont

know, could have been any one of many things or maybe the snakes told her to

marry him. In any event, the outcome of all this had been a splurge of

diplomatically useful daughters and a son, by the name of Alexander.

Aristotle, I quickly gathered from the text of the slanging-match, was up here

as the boys tutor, and whatever it was that he was teaching the lad, Olympias

didnt hold with it. Not one bit.

I wont try to reproduce the way Olympias spoke; Greek wasnt her native

language and she hadnt bothered to clean up her accent or her grammar. So Ill

translate it a bit and put down what she would have said if shed been able to;

after all, Im pretending to be a historian, and thats what historians do.

Evil, thats what he is.Those were the first words of hers I actually made

out. Hes poisoning my sons mind with his Athenian lies. If you were any sort

of a father, youd throw him in the river instead of paying him good money to

Philip stood up, crossed the floor to where she was standing in three long

strides, and slapped her across the face so hard that she stumbled backwards and

sat down heavily, jarring her back against a table. Everybody stopped talking;

but I rather got the impression that this wasnt the first time that Philip had

done something like this, not by a long way.

Teach our son all this blasphemous Athenian trash, Olympias carried on as if

nothing had happened (though she dabbed blood from her cheek and upper lip with

her sleeve as she spoke). Im telling you for the last time, if you dont do

something about it then I will, so dont say I didnt warn you.

Philip growled, softly and with considerable menace; it was a characteristic

noise of his, one which I think he made without even realising it. You lay one

finger on that man and Ill kill you, he replied, his voice only just audible

even in the deathly hush. Now get out of my sight. Go and sleep it off

somewhere you cant be seen.

Olympias stood up, spat with great force on the ground between Philips feet,

and hobbled out of the audience chamber. For his part, Philip breathed out

slowly, then turned to Aristotle and nodded.

I apologise for my wife, he said. I wish I could say it wont happen again,

but I respect the truth too much for that. Ill assign you a guard for the next

three days or so; after that shell lose interest, shell be trying to get at me

some other way.

Aristotle smiled, very thinly, and thanked him. Something told me that he wasnt

in the least reassured. I cant say I blame him.

That said, Philip went on, Id be interested to know what exactly have you

been teaching the boy that shes taken such an exception to? She was saying

something about blasphemy, wasnt she?

Quite so, Aristotle replied nervously. But I really cant imagine why she

found it so offensive. Today we were considering animals, and I was pointing out

that every living thing has its own nature, to which it cannot help but be

faithful dogs bark and wag their tails, birds sing and lay their eggs in

nests, snakes hiss and crawl on their bellies in the dirt

Snakes, Philip repeated. You told him snakes were animals.

I believe so, Aristotle replied. I mentioned various examples in todays

lesson; not necessarily the ones I gave you just now, but quite possibly the

same. Snakes are quite an obvious

I see, Philip interrupted. What else did you say about snakes?

Aristotle paused for a moment, frowning. Let me see, he said. I mentioned the

fact that their jaws are flexible, not fixed; that they shed their skins

repeatedly during their lifetimes; that they can extend and retract their

tongues; that the eyes of a decapitated snake close of their own accord forty

minutes after death, and likewise the severed head of a poisonous snake will

still bite and discharge its poison an hour after being struck from the trunk

I didnt know that, Philip broke in. Is that true?

Oh, yes, Aristotle replied confidently. Ive observed it myself, and it s

recorded by good authorities. He frowned. Would that have offended her, do you

think?

I doubt it, Philip replied. Quite the reverse, in fact. Anything that

suggests that snakes dont die the way other animals do ought to please her no

end. What else did you say?

Aristotle tugged at his beard he actually did do that, the only person I ever

met who did. I honestly cant remember, he replied. Oh, yes, I pointed out

that the snake, contrary to popular belief, is in fact deaf, and can only detect

sounds by feeling vibrations transmitted through the

What did you just say?

Aristotle gave him a startled look. Snakes are deaf, he repeated.

They have no ears. Therefore they cannot hear in the way that

Ah. Philip nodded. Thatll be it, then. You see, she sings to her snakes for

an hour every morning and evening. Thats how she prays to them. You implied

that they cant hear her prayers.

Well, properly speaking they cantp

And if they cant hear her prayers, Philip went on, they cant hear her

telling them the names of the people shes put curses on. Which means the curses

wont work. He smiled. Actually, Im surprised she confined herself to

shouting at you.

Really, Aristotle said, rather disdainfully.

Philip nodded. I wouldnt have, if I was her. Anyway, he went on, as Aristotle

cringed visibly, no harm done. But if I were you, Id check my bed carefully

before getting into it for a week or so, just to be on the safe side. You might

see if the housekeepers got some of that fine-mesh Persian gauze, to make a

canopy out of, in case someone bores a hole in the ceiling and drops something

down on top of you. Itd be highly appropriate if the snakes punished you for

your wicked slanders, dont you think?

Aristotle had gone ever such a funny colour. It hadnt occurred to me he

began, but Philip didnt let him finish. Apparently not, Philip said. Which

surprises me, you being a philosopher and a wise man generally, and knowing how

she feels about snakes. Well, it only goes to show; we can all learn something

new every day, no matter how clever we are.

CHAPTER SIX

Alexander, the Macedonian told me, is the kings son. What more needs to be

said?

I frowned. Id been trying to find out more about the boy, simply because

Aristotle was his tutor and I didnt like Aristotle. If it turned out that young

Alexander was violent, unruly and big for his age, and that he regularly set

booby-traps for his teachers or threw the writing-tablets at them or stabbed

them with the pen when they said hed got something wrong, it would have

delighted my soul and brightened my day, since a good man delights as much in

the discomfiture of an enemy as in the good fortune of a friend.

All right, I said. But apart from that; whats he like? Is he quiet? Noisy?

Does he climb trees? Does he go for long walks on his own and keep pet frogs in

jars, or is he more into playing with other kids of his own age? It must be

strange, I went on, being the Kings son. Where I come from, either theyre in

school or theyre out on the hill with the goats or scaring birds off the

planted fields. I dont suppose the Kings son does that sort of thing.

The Macedonian looked at me as if I was asking detailed questions about his

mothers sex life. The Kings son learns the arts of war and government, he

said stiffly. As is fitting. He is accompanied by the sons of noblemen, who

will grow up at his side and in time become his trusted ministers and captains

in war. He also learns such noble accomplishments as hunting, falconry,

athletics, dancing and music, although, he added, its not proper for a

nobleman to play or sing too well, just enough to be able to join in the singing

at the banquet without disgracing himself. And of course he learns to honour the

gods of his country.

Right, I said, trying to imagine Aristotle giving falconry lessons. Well, I

agree that thats just the sort of thing a kings son ought to know.

The Macedonian raised an eyebrow. You do? he said.

I shrugged. Why not? I said. My father sent me out to look after the goats so

I could learn about keeping livestock and in due course become a farmer. Every

man trains his son to take over his trade or occupation. Its just common

sense.

Oh. The Macedonian a middle-aged nobleman called Parmenio, one of Philips

chief advisers shrugged. Im surprised to hear you say that, you being an

Athenian. And, he added, with the tiniest curl of his lip, a philosopher, so I

gather. I thought you had different ideas.

Oh, yes? I said. Youre thinking of Aristotle, arent you?

Parmenio nodded. Yes, he admitted. I grinned.

You dont want to go judging the rest of us by him, I said. And besides, he

isnt even a proper Athenian, hes from Stagira . Really, hes one of you more

than hes one of us.

Parmenio shook his head. I dont think so, he said. You should hear the

things hes cramming into that boys head. I dont hold with it, Im telling

you. He wrinkled his forehead, aware that he was talking to a foreigner and, by

rights, an enemy. However, he said, since the King feels its appropriate

Im sure Philip has his reasons, I said. My guess is, he feels its important

for his son to understand the way the Athenian mind works, the way its

important for a hunter to understand the mind of the deer.

Parmenio wasnt very keen on that analogy. Subtle and perfidious Athenian, I

could see him thinking, as if the words were inscribed on his forehead. Its

not my concern, he said. And neither, he added sternly, with due respect, is

it yours.

Oh, quite, I replied. Just idle curiosity, thats all.

I went away with an image in my mind of a crown prince with all the

individuality of a coin-blank, in between being punched out of the silver sheet

and hammered between the forming dies to give it its shape. In fact, I used that

comparison when I was talking to Lysicles, one of my fellow ambassadors, later

on that day.

Its a well-known syndrome, Lysicles replied, lying back on his couch and

dropping a grape into his mouth. Great mens sons never amount to anything. All

through their early years theyre completely overshadowed by their fathers, like

weedy little plants growing under big trees. Everybody tries so hard to turn

them into exact copies of the Old Man that they never learn the ability to think

for themselves. I expect youll find this young Alexanders a little tiny

Philip, like the wee clay figures the Egyptians put in tombs; an exact copy, but

much smaller in every respect. Its a well-known fact; the more illustrious the

father, the feebler the son. Thats why great empires ebb and flow like rivers,

he added, stifling a belch. Up one generation, down the next. Take the

Persians, he went on. First theres Cyrus. Cyrus the Great. Carves out a

mighty empire, conquers half the world. And who does he have for a son?

Hydaspes, of whom virtually nothing is known. His son? Darius the wet-slap.

Darius, who we beat the shit out of. And who does he have for a son? Xerxes. The

moral: a great conqueror, an empire-builder like Cyrus, has a weak son and a

pathetic grandson and greatgrandson.

I thought for a moment before answering. Possibly, I said. Though Im not

quite so sure. I mean, its true that our great-great-grandfathers beat King

Darius army

You bet your life, Lysicles yawned.

But, I went on, not before hed burned Chalcis and Eretria and trampled over

most of Greece without anybody daring to oppose him. And as I recall, the first

thing he had to do when he became king was put down major rebellions in pretty

well every province of the empire, which he succeeded in doing in just over a

year

If hed been anything theyd never have rebelled in the first place. And

remember, the Scythians beat him too. And theyre just savages.

True, I admitted. But in their country it snows half the year, and the rest

of the time its so hot you die of thirst in a day if you dont know where the

wells are. I sort of got the impression he realised Scythia just wasnt worth

the effort and came home again.

He was weak, Lysicles replied firmly. A strong kingd never have risked his

prestige starting a war he knew he couldnt win. Nothing buggers up a kings

prestige like losing a war. Look at Xerxes.

I was only arguing for devilments sake. Xerxes burned Athens to the ground, I

pointed out, the voice of sweet reason and pure truth. Not to mention a whole

bunch of other cities. And he got back home again with most of his army intact.

Sure, we won a few battles, but maybe it was the same as Darius and Scythia .

Maybe he realised Greece just wasnt worth the effort.

Lysicles smiled. If I were you, he said, Id be a bit careful talking about

Xerxes war around these parts. Might be a sore topic.

That was a good point. Back in those days, when King Xerxes invaded Greece with

his huge army, the King of Macedon voluntarily joined the Persian Empire rather

than try to fight a perfectly sensible decision on his part under the

circumstances, since hed have stood no chance at all, but one which had been a

source of endless embarrassment to the Macedonians ever since. Sure enough, as

soon as it became apparent that, against all the odds, the Greek allies were

winning the war and Xerxes was going home, the Macedonian King did his best to

set matters straight by betraying the Persian order of battle to the Greek

general staff on the night before the decisive battle of Plataea; a helpful act,

but not desperately honourable. (Who was that famous general who once said,

Ive nothing against treachery; it s traitors I dont like?)

Come to think of it, the King of Macedon in those days was also called

Alexander. A family name, presumably.

I left Lysicles to catch up on his sleep (I never knew anybody who needed as

much sleep as he did) and wandered out into the fresh air. It happened to be one

of the few afternoons on that mission that we actually had to ourselves; Philip

had been called away, and Parmenio, who was supposed to keep us entertained and

busy when Himself wasnt about, loathed pointless socialising almost as much as

he loathed Athenians. The respite came just in time for me; Ive never liked

being indoors terribly much at the best of times. I strolled round a courtyard,

found a side door that opened onto an alley and walked up it until I came to

another courtyard, where someone was halfway through building a house. There

were piles of stone blocks, all neatly cut, shaped and stacked, scaffolding,

ropes, orphan tools and all the other junk you find heaped up on building sites,

but there was nobody about. I sat down on a heap of blocks, yawned and stretched

my arms, taking sincere delight in the absence of human voices.Then I noticed

movement behind a pile of timber. I sat still and waited.

It turned out that there was a boy behind the pile. He was so engrossed in what

he was doing that he didnt realise I was there. I stood and watched him.

He didnt look very much like either his father or his mother; even so, I had no

trouble recognising him. He may have been a thumb-joint taller than most boys

his age, certainly no more than that. He had a long, straight nose, full lips

like a girls, and big eyes. His hair was naturally curly. Both his knees and

elbows were scabbed with recent grazes, and he had a big purple bruise on his

right forearm.

Hed found a nest of wild bees among the stones, and was studying it carefully.

From time to time he poked at it with a long stick, until a scouting party of

bees came buzzing out to see what the matter was. As they emerged from between

the stones and started to fly, he flicked them out of the air with the split end

of his stick, snapping them down with a short, brisk jerk of the wrist. The

speed of his reactions and his eye/hand co-ordination were little short of

phenomenal.

Been stung yet? I asked.

He didnt jump or even look round, just went on concentrating on the job in hand

as he replied. Seven times, he said. Twice on the arm, three times on the

leg, once on the neck and once on the face.

Does it hurt much?

Yes.

I smiled, but he wasnt paying me any attention. Then why do it? I asked.

Because they stung my dog yesterday.

Good reason, I said. Its the mark of a good man to avenge his friends and

dependants. But why do it that way? Why not smoke them out?

He narrowed his eyebrows without taking his eye off the bee he was tracking. I

hadnt thought of it, he admitted.

Did you try and think of a better way? I asked. Or does the exercise of skill

and speed please you so much that you dont want to find one?

I dont understand.

No reason to suppose you would, I conceded. After all, youre what, ten?

Nine, he replied. And seven months.

I got up and walked round to where he could see me, provided he could be

bothered to look.

Youre an Athenian, he said. One of the ambassadors.

Thats right, I replied. But I used to be a farmer, and when I was your age

we had a swarm of wild bees nest in a cavity between the doorframe and the front

door. Nearly drove us out of the house for a couple of days, until my father

smoked them out.

How did he do it? Alexander asked.

With a brazier, I replied, one of those little portable ones on a tripod,

like they make in Corinth . He cooked up some damp kindling until it was smoking

well, then he stood the tripod in the doorway and puffed the smoke up into the

nest with a pair of bellows hed borrowed from our neighbour the smith. That

made them all drowsy and sleepy, and we were able to bundle them into an empty

hive wed got handy wed lost a swarm the year before, and this way we were

able to replace it for free.

Alexander thought about that, and let a bee go by unswatted. Didnt you all get

stung while you were doing it? he said.

Once or twice, I answered him. Not nearly as much as seven times. Of course,

we knew to muffle ourselves up in cloaks and blankets.

I could see him digesting the information, the way a cormorant digests a whole

fish; you can see the shape of it in his long neck as it goes down. So you took

bad luck and made it into good luck, he said thoughtfully. Thats clever.

Thats wisdom, I said, which comes from knowledge and experience. Instead of

fighting our enemies and destroying them, at the cost to ourselves of many

painful stings, we overwhelmed them with our superior wisdom and added them to

our household. We got a good load of honey from that swarm for many years.

He dropped the stick. Youre saying that killing the bees is the wrong thing to

do. I could be capturing them and making them work for me.

I nodded. Youve got it, I said. And you wont get stung so much, either.

Its brave to fight in the forefront of the battle, but you shouldnt do it

unless it achieves a useful end. As it is, every bee you kill is one less to

bring you honey. Youre wasting resources.

He frowned. But they stung my dog, he said. Oughtnt they to be punished for

it?

By captivity, I said, not death. And anyway, the bee that did the actual

stinging is dead already; you cant punish him where hes gone.

Alexander smiled. You make it sound like bees go to the Elysian Fields when

they die, he said.

Well, why not? They have flowers there, dont they? In which case, it stands to

reason they have bees.

Now youre making fun of me, Alexander said, in a tone of voice that suggested

that that wasnt a prudent course of action.

Not at all, I said. Bees arent a laughing matter. We have the best bees of

all, back where I live, in Attica . Of course. I expect youve heard of the

Hyblaean strain.

No, he admitted. But Aristotles going to teach me all about the different

varieties and breeds of animals and birds. He knows all about that sort of

thing.

I bet.

Sorry?

Doesnt matter. So, I continued, what are you going to do? Are you going to

continue the war, or make peace on favourable terms?

Alexander thought for a moment. Oh, make peace, he said. Trouble is, I

havent got a hive to put them in.

Ah, well, I said, thats no excuse. We farmers, when we havent got something

we need, we go away and make it.

How do you make a beehive? he asked.

Out of strips of bark, I told him, which you sew together with bits of

trailing ivy. Or if you prefer, you can use osiers, like youd use for weaving

baskets. Anyway, once youve got the shell, so to speak, the next step is to

line it with clay. Then finally you add a loop to hang it from, and there you

are. Keeps the frost and the birds out, but you can still get in when its time

to rob them of their honey.

Thank you, Alexander said. Which is better, the bark or the osiers? I know

where theres a big old apple tree we could strip some bark off, but osiers

might be a problem.

There, I said, youve answered your own question.

He smiled. So I have, he said. All right, Ill get the bark, and you

I held up my hands. Whoa! I interrupted. So Ive been conscripted, have I?

Youve got to help me make it, Alexander said, with an odd note of urgency in

his voice. Wheres the point in knowing how to do something if you dont go and

do it?

I shrugged. Whats wrong with knowledge for its own sake? I said. No, dont

bother with that, itll be quicker to make the beehive. All right, you want me

to look for some ivy, I suppose.

Yes, Alexander said.

And a needle, I added. Got to have a needle for the sewing. Before you ask, I

can make one out of wood, thats no problem.

Alexander was a remarkably quick study. If he had a fault, it was impatience; he

wanted very much to be able to do a thing without having to go through the

humiliation Im sure he saw it as that of having to learn, of being

subservient to another who happened to have a piece of knowledge he hadnt

acquired yet; he wanted to gulp down knowledge like a sick man gulps down

medicine, to be able to take it and immediately be in a perfect state of being

able to do whatever the task was, without any intermediate stage of

halfknowledge or apprenticeship. Id say, This is how you do such-andsuch,

and hed interrupt and say, Yes, I know, when fairly obviously he didnt. But

he was amazingly sharp and quick, and his level of concentration was astounding

for a human being that age.

There, he said, regarding the finished article with a satisfied look on his

face, thats good, isnt it?

Itll do, I said. Itd have been even better if wed waited for the clay to

dry properly like I told you, but itll get the job done. Now I suppose you want

to smoke out the bees.

He looked at me. Of course, he said. Otherwise there wouldnt be any point

making the hive. Come on, well ask the priest in the small temple if we can

borrow his portable brazier. Hell say yes, he knows me well enough. We can ask

for some of that thick smelly incense; thatll make good smoke.

I laughed. Thats an interesting thought, I replied, using expensive

imported incense to smoke out bees. You can ask if you like, but I wouldnt hold

your breath if I were you. I think youll have to wait until youre a great

warrior and youve conquered the Spice Islands beyond the Great Ocean before you

can go using the stuff that freely.

Of course, that made him all the more determined to get the incense, and so of

course he did. Best quality stuff, too; it smelt disgusting, all sweet and

cloying.

Thatll do fine, I said. If it has this effect on us, think what itll do to

the bees.

We also requisitioned a small shovel and a slab of potsherd, for scooping the

dazed bees up with. As we put these items with the rest of the kit, I saw that

Alexander was looking at them nervously. I asked him why.

I was thinking of that story, he replied.

Which one? I asked him. Theres several, you know.

He looked at me oddly, and I suddenly realised: no sense of humour. Oh, well,

nobodys perfect. The one about the Lydians, he said. You know, where they

went to fight the Persians, and they were so sure they were going to win that

they took along a whole bunch of chains and collars and stuff to chain the

prisoners up in, and after the battle they ended up wearing them themselves. I

think a lot about that story, he added.

You do? Well, fair enough. I dont think the bees are going to chain us up and

make us go round collecting honey from flowers.

I didnt mean it literally, he said patiently. It just feels a bit like

whats that expression?

Tempting Providence ?

He nodded. Thats the one. But I suppose we need to scoop them up quickly while

theyre still groggy from the smoke, so wed better take this stuff with us.

Gods; it had been years since Id last smoked out bees, and I wasnt quite sure

Id remember how to do it. Theres quite a knack to it, mostly getting the smoke

to go in the nest. In the event, Alexander appropriated the bellows and clung

onto them so tightly that I didnt even bother suggesting that I should handle

that part of the operation. Interesting sidelight here; a few years later, I

asked him if he remembered this episode and he said yes, of course. During the

conversation, this issue of him having to be the one who did the difficult bit

came up, and he said hed insisted because hed worked out that the

bellows-operator was far more likely to get stung if things went wrong than the

man holding the tripod; if there was a risk of danger, a front rank to be fought

in, then it was up to him to take the position of most danger, because he was

the leader. He quoted me those famous lines of Homer, the ones people who dont

know any Homer tend to spout at you out of context

Tell me, Glaucus, why are we honoured among the Lycians

With thrones and banquets and the respect due to gods?

Because we always tahe our stand in the front ranh of the fighting...

Except that hed got it wrong, or else whoever taught it to him knew a

different version; hed somehow managed to incorporate into it that other famous

bit about Glaucus the Lycian, so that his third line went Because we are always

the best, excelling all other men .

Which isnt the same at all. But when I tried to tell him this, he wouldnt

believe me; he said that obviously the Homer we had in Athens wasnt the real

Homer, and if one of us was wrong, it was me; it stood to reason that the

Macedonians would know the real Homer, because he was descended on his mothers

side from Achilles himself. He clearly took this all so seriously that I

resisted the urge to point out that, following his system of logic, if I was

ever in a lawsuit Id know more about the law than anybody else because an

ancestor of mine successfully proposed a measure in Assembly (Which is true,

believe it or not; a decree abolishing certain trade tariffs imposed on citizens

of Locris Opuntia trading in Athenian markets, passed shortly after King Xerxes

war. A futile piece of legislation, since the tariffs were on commodities the

Locrians didnt deal in; but never let it be said that our family hasnt

scratched its name in a corner of the wall of history.)

Anyway; the bees didnt stand a chance. One whiff of that nauseating incense and

they fell out of the nest into our shovel like dung from a cows backside,

everything going exactly according to plan and no unforeseen contingencies

arising. I mention this in my role as historian, because I think its the first

recorded instance of Alexanders unbelievable luck, the same elemental force

that made it possible for him to walk into Babylon , the worlds most fortified

city, without striking a blow, or conquer unconquerable Egypt without having to

fight a single battle. Alexander was always lucky; a quality he shared, in

pretty well exactly the same way, with my father.

Right, I said, as we ladled the last squirming dollop of bees into the hive.

Weve captured them. Now what do we do with them?

He looked at me as if Id just asked him why he breathed. Take them to my

father, of course, he said.

Fine. I nodded slowly. Tell you what, I said. You take them to him. You

dont have to mention my name, tell him you caught them all by yourself. Im not

sure I want to be in the picture when you plonk down a hundred thousand hungover

bees on your fathers dining-table.

I cant do that, Alexander replied, shocked. I cant take the credit for

something I havent done. Whered be the point in that?

I sighed. The concept of diplomatic immunity was known in Macedon, but only in

the category of quaint and impractical foreign customs, along with the

Hyperborean savages who worship the souls of fish, or the Hyrcanian ascetics who

believe that painting themselves with the urine of pregnant sheep makes them

invulnerable to arrows. You did all the hard work, I pointed out. Not to

mention all the difficult tactical planning. I just advised on the technical

aspects. If you storm a city who gets the praise, you or the man who built the

battering-ram?

Both of us, Alexander replied firmly. I led, and you helped. Glory, he

added, reciting carefully, is the only commodity that seems to increase the

more you spread it around.

Id heard a similar version of that saying; it started Glory and dogshit are the

two commodities.. . Think, I urged him. By the time your father gets back,

those bees will have woken up, and they arent going to be pleased about how

theyve been treated. Besides, unless you give them a chance to settle down in

their new home, theres a good chance theyll just up sticks and move on, and

theres no knowing where theyll go after that.

Alexander thought about it. That makes sense, I suppose, he conceded. Perhaps

youd better give the hive to me. Ill find a place for it and then take my

father to see it once he gets back.

My excuse for going along with the proposal well, there were three of them.

First, young Alexander seemed like a serious, thoughtful young fellow, not

inclined to mischief. Second, it reduced the risk of my being blamed for a swarm

of bees being turned loose in a packed dining-hall. Third, by this point what I

really wanted to do was put space between me and the soon-to-revive bees. Up to

you, I said. Hes your father, and theyre now your bees. But if it all goes

horribly wrong, Ive never set eyes on you before. Understood?

You mean youd want me to lie to my father?

Yes.

He was profoundly unimpressed by the idea, but eventually we agreed that hed

limit the assignation of blame to one of the Athenians, whose name he didnt

quite catch. To make it true, I had to mumble my name two or three times under

my breath so hed be able to say with a clean conscience that he hadnt been

able to make my name out when I told it to him.

I left Alexander and walked away. As soon as I was out of sight, Alexander took

his trophy and scuttled off into the town, where lived an old man and his wife

whod once been Philips chief steward and housekeeper respectively. In this

capacity theyd somehow earned the young princes extreme displeasure.

Now heres the difference between Alexander as a young boy and countless tens of

thousands of other bright, imaginative lads of his age. Any boy worth the name

could have scrambled up onto the old couples roof and dropped the hive down the

smokehole. It took the future hero of the Granicus to bar all the doors and

windows from the outside first (silently and unassisted), so the poor fools were

trapped in there, facing an angry phalanx of bee-stings with nowhere to run.

Didnt quite work out that way, however. The hive got stuck, about a forearms

length down the hole, and wouldnt go any further; nor could it be fished back

out again. For all I know its still there; assuming that whoevers got that

cottage now doesnt mind a roomful of smoke every time he tries lighting a fire.

So when Philip got home, there was no magnificent trophy of the bee-hunt to

delight his warrior heart.What he did get, however, was a glowing account of the

merits of one of the Athenian ambassadors, with special reference to his skill

both as a teacher and as a miliary engineer.

I didnt know about that, of course. The first I heard was when two officers of

the household (translate: two hulking great Macedonians in armour) turned up at

the door of my quarters telling me that I had to go with them at once, and not

answering my pleas for further information.

I knew it had to be something to do with Alexander, since I hadnt done anything

else on my own since Id been there. The picture of Philip smashing Queen

Olympias in the face stuck in my mind as firmly as that damned beehive in the

chimney, and by the time I reached Philips audience chamber I was fine-honing

my philosophers deathbed speech a tradition started by the illustrious

Socrates (Dont forget. Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius, whatever thats

supposed to mean; hence the customary obscurity of these utterances).

When I got there, I found Philip (filling the room as usual), the Queen,

Alexander, an old man with a shiny bald head, and Aristotle. Of course, as soon

as I saw Aristotle I more or less gave up hope the most I could expect is that

my deathbed words would make it back to Athens , probably in heavily garbled

form, unless they turned out to be good enough for him to plagiarise.

Thank you for joining us, Philip said politely. Now, to come straight to the

point

Do you keep a snake in a bottle? Queen Olympias interrupted.

For a brief moment I shut my eyes, since I didnt particularly want to see a

repeat performance of the Queen of Macedon trying to learn how to fly; but there

was no chunky, solid sound of bone against bone, and I opened them again.

Olympias was glaring at me.

Do you keep a snake in a bottle? she repeated.

Olympias wasnt quite the formidable presence that her husband was;

nevertheless, she could have stapled a seven-ply shield to an oak door just by

scowling at it. This was, I judged, no time for finely honed Athenian

evasiveness. No, I said.

Oh. She didnt look happy. Id heard you did.

I contemplated trying to explain, but decided not to. For all I knew, conjuring

the spirits of the dead into small non-returnable wine jars was grounds for

crucifixion in those parts; or perhaps it was fraudulently pretending to conjure

ghosts into jars that was the capital offence. I had no idea; and its a good

general rule of thumb that if you havent got the faintest idea whats going on,

the truths as good as anything else. At that, the bald-headed type looked up at

me (up to that point hed been studying the straps of his sandals).

Dont you claim to speak to the immortal part of the soul of Socrates, which

you keep sealed in a jar? he said, in a loud, high, clear voice. I gather

thats how you earn your living.

Gods in Heaven, I thought, are there any of these damned Macedonians who arent

expert interrogators? Who was going to cross-examine me next, I wondered? The

cooks dog?

Thats true, I said.

Thought so, crowed Olympias, bashing the arm of her chair with her balled

fist. I told you he keeps a snake in a bottle.

I suppose I should have seen that one creeping up on me. Olympias people

believe that snakes are the spirits of the dead; theyre immortal and they go

from body to body, shedding the old one when its worn out just as a regular

snake sheds its skin. I reckoned itd be best if I kept my face shut, and thats

what I did.

I see, Philip said, after a moment. Well, that seems to cover it. Right? he

added, looking back over his shoulder at Olympias. She nodded. The old man

grinned. Aristotle looked as if hed woken up out of a nightmare about being

marooned on an island inhabited by cannibals to find it was all horribly true.

Thats all right, then, Philip said. In that case, Id like to offer you a

job as my sons tutor.

I felt well, imagine how youd feel after youd been wandering in the desert

for two days, slowly dying of thirst, and then someone sneaked up behind you,

knocked you down and started drowning you in a shallow pool of fresh spring

water. My fears about being tortured to death flocked out of my mind like an

audience leaving the theatre, only to find themselves sharing a narrow gateway

with a whole lot of new fears about offending Philip by refusing his offer,

which were all trying to crowd in.

Im honoured, I stalled. This is truly a great distinction

He means no, Olympias grunted, chewing on a stray curl of hair that had crept

out from behind her ear. Offer him money. If he wont take the job, see if

hell sell the snake.

Olympias, Philip purred (and it wasnt a domestic cat kind of purr).

Euxenus, he went on, please dont be afraid to speak your mind. As Im sure

you know, my son already has two highly qualified tutors; my cousin Leonidas,

(the bald man nodded very slightly), and your celebrated compatriot Aristotle,

both of whom enjoy my fullest confidence. The Queen, however, he went on, his

voice hardening a little, feels that another perspective, perhaps one that

encompasses more of the spiritual, mystic side

Tell him we want the snake, Olympias rumbled, in that remarkably deep voice of

hers. I dont care a damn about the Athenian, but I want that snake for my

son.

You know, it was almost worth all the terror and embarrassment just to watch

Aristotle squirm. He was hating this, I could see. I formed a hasty assessment

of my position. I could refuse altogether, and risk having to be persuaded to

change my mind Philip had a staff of full-time persuaders; he recruited them

from among his cavalry farmers, on the grounds of physical strength and

familiarity with the use and properties of red-hot metal or I could sell them

the empty jar and risk assassination on the grounds of having swindled the royal

house of Macedon. Or I could take the job. The last choice had the fringe

benefit of a number of chances to dump on the celebrated Aristotle, not to

mention the prospect of a chance of getting a closer look at that damned map,

which had become something of an obsession with me...

The map that invariably lay across Philips knees whenever wed had meetings

with him looked to be (and was, as I was able to confirm later on) very old,

with a long and remarkable history; turns out it was one of the maps made by

Aristagoras of Miletus, who governed the city in the old days when it was part

of the Persian empire. He sent out maps, among the first ever seen in Greece,

with his requests for aid from the mainland in the great rebellion against

Persian rule; they impressed the hell out of everyone except the Spartans, who

actually took the trouble to read them and work out how far away Miletus was.

Other cities, including Athens, sent token contingents or other forms of aid and

comfort to the rebellion; after it had been utterly crushed, the Persian King,

Darius, sent a punitive expedition to deal with the mainland states whod taken

part, and destroyed two great cities, Chalcis and Eretria. The Athenians

managed to defeat the expedition at the celebrated battle of Marathon, and it

was the need to avenge this defeat that led King Xerxes to invade Greece with

his vast, unwieldy army of a million men, after which it became an established

principle in the Greek mind that Greece would never be safe until the Persian

Empire was overthrown. So, as you can see, Phryzeutzis, Aristagoras pretty

sheets of engraved bronze had a lot to answer for, one way or another; and here

one of them was, in the possession of the King of Macedon, another mighty

conqueror. The fact that he used it more as a dinner-tray cum writing-desk than

as a whetstone for his aspirations was neither here nor there.

I shall be honoured to accept, I said.

Oh, good, Philip replied, with a very slight trace of a yawn. Have a word

with Leonidas here later on today; hell make the arrangements and sort you

out, tell you how everythings set up. Its, um, a pleasure to welcome you to

our household. He sighed, and gave Olympias a mildly poisonous look. You and

your potted snake, he added.

At this point, I suppose I ought to say a few words...

Dont sigh like that, Phryzeutzis; quite probably this is the bit you actually

want to hear. After all, most people who learn that I knew Alexander when I was

younger cant wait for me to tell them: what was he like, what was he really

like?

And, over the years, Ive learned a little speech which I can recite mindlessly,

the way the herald recites the formal part of the law without knowing or caring

much what hes saying. Probably youve heard it yourself, I cant remember.

Anyway, I recite the speech and they go away again, feeling that theyve somehow

folded the fabric of history back on itself, so that their present has in some

way touched the past. It makes them happy, and stops them bothering me.

You, I feel, deserve something better. Now, lets analyse the question; when you

ask me, What was he really like?, what youre asking (whether you realise it

or not) is, What did you think about him? because thats the only way that

question can ever be answered when one mortal man talks to another. What did I

think of him? That way, Alexander is filtered through me, like whey strained

through fine cloth.

You want a straight answer, Phryzeutzis? Ill give you one. I know, Ive been

putting this off since I started telling you this story, because its quite

difficult for me to say this. But without this rather essential piece of

information, you wont be able to make an awful lot of sense of what I have to

say about the man later, or indeed what I say about myself. So; here goes.

I have no opinion about Alexander one way or the other; and thats a deliberate

decision on my part, one thats cost me a lot of peace over the years. Let me

give you an analogy its what we Athenians do best, they say, the subtle art

of talking about something else instead of what weve been asked about.

Suppose you lived in the valley on the river-bank, and one year the rains were

so heavy that the whole plain flooded, washing out your house and crops and

leaving you destitute. Now suppose you lived near the desert, and one year it

didnt rain at all, parching your land, killing your stock and driving you out

to make your living begging in the streets of some city. In one case, you curse

the rain because it keeps falling; in the other, you curse it for not falling at

all.

But cursing the rain is pointless, Phryzeutzis; it cant hear you, its a force

of nature, something beyond benevolence or malice. Blame someone if you must

the king, for not building a dam or an embankment; your father, for settling on

the edge of the desert; your neighbour, for blocking the drains or bleeding off

water from the spring that feeds your well. Blame human beings, whose actions

and decisions you can at least understand; blame the rain and you just look

ridiculous.

Alexander was a force of nature; he was a force of history. Think about him

dispassionately for a moment. Think of the hole youd make in history if you cut

him out of it, like a carpenter fret-sawing a pattern out of a brass sheet to

inlay into a piece of wood; see if anybody or anything else would fit in that

hole, so as not to destroy the integrity of history. I think youll be

surprised.

First, Alexander wouldve been nobody if he hadnt been Philips son. Philip

took the old Macedon and changed it out of all recognition, made it the greatest

power in Greece . By the same token, Philip couldnt have done this if the great

cities of Greece Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth hadnt bled themselves weak

and silly with their own incessant wars, hadnt grown weak and lazy and fat, and

most of all tired, so that they couldnt be bothered any more. The same goes for

Persia; if the Persian empire hadnt been on its last legs anyway, if the

Persian king had been anything like as good a soldier as his predecessors Look

at it another way. All round this Alexander-shaped hole weve sawed out of

history are these factors that made him possible, and the more you look at them,

the more important they become, the smaller Alexander gets. Its quite possible

that if Alexander had died when he was a week old, Macedonians or Greeks or both

would still have overthrown the Great King and taken his empire. It may have

taken them longer; then again, they may have made a more thorough job.

Now weve reduced Alexander, lets grind him flat. As a man, Alexander had his

faults. Lots of them. He had no depth or breadth of feeling or understanding

insofar as he had a sense of humour Ill swear he learned it by rote, as he

learned many skills that he reckoned a great man ought to have. He had no sense

of pleasure beyond the gratifications of succeeding in his task; he was hardly

interested in sex, in beauty of any kind, in anything that wasnt needed for the

work in hand; he selected the qualities that made him up like a man packing for

a long journey, taking with him only the things he knew hed need. In a sense,

Alexander was painfully flat; look at him face on, he was so broad he blocked

out the light; look at him sideways, youd hardly know he was there.

Thats Alexander, then; a flat shape in history, like a country sawn out of one

of Aristagoras sheet-bronze maps; an image representing a substantive thing,

not the thing itself. Now, this flattening effect is something I reckon happens

to all Great Men to a certain extent. What they do starts to replace what they

are, until theres nothing left except the shape of their achievements in

history. But Alexander, being Philips son, was born that way; he was brought up

and trained to be the conqueror of the world, to finish what Philip had started.

More than that; Philip was an enormous man, both in his place in history and in

himself Ive said, I think, how he seemed to fill any room he was in, making

anybody else seem incidental and irrelevant. Alexander was both bigger and

smaller than his father. Alexander well, its possible to convince oneself that

he was a god; rather harder to believe that he was ever a human being. Youd

have to crush a dozen Alexanders in an olive-press before you could extract

enough humanity to make up an ordinary person. As a human being, he was tiny.

Most of all, though well, were considering what I thought of him; and when

you look back, as I frequently have, there he always is, in the background of my

life, following me about like a sausage-makers dog. He was born on the day my

father died. As soon as he was old enough to be of any account, he sort of

welled up out of the ground and enveloped me, as if Id put my foot in quicksand

or an enormous cow-pat. Afterwards well, well come to that. This is going to

sound a little crazy, bearing in mind our respective fortunes and place in

history; but over the years I came to regard Alexander as my shadow a flat,

dark thing that was always beside me, a step behind or in front depending on

which direction the sun was shining but always there, matching my every move in

another dimension, following or leading me; dammit, a part of me but completely

separate, not like me at all.

Shall I tell you something Ive never told anyone before, Phryzeutzis? I plan on

being better than Alexander some day, greater than Alexander, better remembered,

ever so much more loved. Because I am better than him I cast him, my shadow,

in a sense I made him in my image, but I am a whole man, he was only ever flat

and dark, made unnaturally long and wide by the angle of the sun behind me. I

shall beat him yet, Phryzeutzis, by virtue of leaving behind me something of

value, by improving the lives of countless thousands of people who havent even

been born yet. Gods, Ive beaten him already, havent I?You doubt that, ask

yourself this: which one of us is still alive?

Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. Yapping Dog philosophy; we creep up on the

statues of great men at dead of night and chop off their balls with a cold

chisel. Serves you right for asking.

First on the agenda: to tell Philocrates, the leader of the embassy, that I

wouldnt be going back to Athens with him.

I didnt get the response Id expected. Unrealistically, Id hoped for something

like You cant do that, Athens needs you, your insight, your clarity of vision.

Didnt get that. Id been afraid of You bastard, youre betraying your city for

a fistful of dirty Macedonian silver. Didnt get that either. Id have happily

settled for Its probably for the best, it means therell be at least one

pro-Athenian voice at Philips court or Its your life, mate, and if you think

this is where your work lies, then go to it and the best of luck. Huh.

In fact, the conversation went something like this:

Philocrates, I said, I wont be going back with you. Philips asked me to

tutor his son, and Ive accepted.

Philocrates, who looked as if he hadnt really been listening, blinked a couple

of times. What? Oh, all right, he said. Thanks for letting me know. Ill see

if we can get a refund on your fare.

Id scribbled a note to my brother Eudemus, the banker, entrusting my property

in Athens to his care and hinting at what would happen to him if it wasnt all

present and correct when I returned. Philocrates looked at it as if Id just

handed him a live rat, then promised faithfully to deliver it and tucked it away

in a fold of his gown. As it turned out, Eudemus did well by me; he let my house

to a foreign merchant and invested my money in a grain-ship making the run

between Athens and the Black Sea , which brought in a reasonable return and

managed not to hit any rocks, an unusual state of affairs for a ship as heavily

insured as a grain-freighter.

Next, I went to see Leonidas. Remember him? He was the ancient, bald cousin of

King Philip whod ambushed me with a trick question when I was being auditioned.

On my way to see him I ran into a Macedonian guard officer Id somehow managed

to strike up some sort of proto-friendship with (we both liked dogs and the

poetry of Semonides of Amorgos, and wed sat next to each other for an evening

at some damned banquet or other). I asked him if he could tell me anything about

the man.

Leonidas? my friend said. Sure. Then he hesitated for a moment. Leonidas

the Princes tutor? he asked.

Thats right. Older man, bald, the Kings cousin

Ah, yes. Him. My friend lowered his voice a little. Better known around the

court as either the Clayball or the Old Felt Hat; theyre both apt enough,

because theyre both things you can mould into any shape that fits.

I see, I said. So hes adaptable? Versatile?

My friend smiled. You could say that, he replied. Or you could say hes a

devious, slippery old bastard whos spent a lifetime around the court and hasnt

been killed yet which, for a Macedonian of royal blood, is a remarkable and

somewhat disreputable achievement. Over the years, so they say, hes changed

tack more often than a clipper sailing up and down the forks of Chalcidice .

Ah, I said.

My friend put a massive hand on my shoulder by way of silent commiseration. I

dont know what your business with Leonidas is, he said, but whatever it is,

dont turn your back on him for a split second. And whatever you do, dont try

to get between him and the Prince. Those who do tend to have accidents you

know, falling down flights of steps in the dark, accidentally drowning in

shallow rivers, that sort of thing. I imagine he believes Philips on the way

out so hes making sure of his influence over the Prince, as a form of insurance

for his old age. The gods only know how your friend Aristotles managed to last

this long without ending up at the foot of some cliff.

Precisely what I needed to hear; I almost went dashing off after Philocrates to

beg him not to cancel my berth on the boat home. But (I reasoned) if I were to

run out on them now, King Philip and the Queen wouldnt be best pleased with me

either; so I had the choice, antagonise someone who was well on his way to being

the most powerful man in Greece, or make a deadly enemy of one of his most

trusted advisers. Broad as its long, really, I concluded.

So I went to see Leonidas.

I found him in a corner of a shield-makers workshop in the armoury. He was

sitting on a low three-legged stool, scraping little scraps of parchment with a

well-worn block of pumice.

Economy, he said, before I had a chance to ask him what he was doing. I

scrounge bits and pieces of waste parchment from the shield-menders they use

it for wrapping the handles and scrape them down till theyre fit to write on.

Then, when theyre all filled up, I bring them back here, borrow a stone and

clean them off again. Make all the ink, too, and melt the wax for the writing

tablets. Never chuck anything away if I can help it. All the time Ive been

running the school, havent had to ask the King for an obol for equipment.

I believed him. He had the appearance of a man who bought a really expensive

luxury cloak thirty years ago and still expects to get a further twenty years

wear out of it. Just the sort of man, in fact, to be obsessive about details.

Excuse me, I was eventually able to say, after Id sat through a long sermon

on the divine right of kings. Are you expecting me? Im Euxenus, the new

tutor.

He looked up at me and grinned. He still had all his own teeth (and at his age

too).

I know, he said. I was there, remember? Youre the snake-charmer. You use a

tame snake? Heard tell theyre easier to train than a dog, those snakes, if you

find one big enough. Folks round here have em to keep the rats down.

I decided not to rise to any of that. Someone said something about a school, I

replied. Is this it?

He laughed. Not even close, he said. Schools not in Pella , its over to

Mieza, day and a halfs ride south-west of here, in Midas Garden. Thats

vineyard and orchard country. He was talking to me as if I was a hard-working

but backwards ten-year-old. So youre going to come and teach, are you? What?

I hadnt the faintest idea; my brief from King Philip had been to teach, that

was all. Oh, I can teach anything, I replied. Im an Athenian scientist, to

us the whole world is our

I do Homer, said Leonidas, and music and accounting. Aristotle he didnt

actually gob and spit when he said the name, but the contempt in his voice was

unmistakable and communicated with splendid economy Aristotle, he does

geography and politics and rhetoric, abstract mathematics, natural sciences, all

that. Weve got a trainer who does athletics and drill. What does that leave

that you can teach?

Logic, I replied firmly. And ethics. And land management, I added, suddenly

remembering the one thing I did know a little bit about. But Leonidas shook his

head.

I do land management, he said, under accounting. And Aristotle does it under

geography and politics. Whatre you going to do it under?

I looked him in the eye for a moment. He was beginning to get on my nerves,

something that many people try to do but very few manage to achieve. All

right, I said, you tell me. And before you say anything else, I didnt ask for

this job. Queen Olympias had me sent for, under the mistaken belief that I can

do snake magic. If you want to go to their majesties and tell them Im surplus

to requirements, you go right ahead. He didnt move or speak, so I went on.

All right, I said, youre in charge of this school, you tell me what I can do

to help.

He rubbed his chin, on which grew the longest, straggliest beard you ever saw m

your life. It seemed to drip off his face like a slow leak in a water-pipe. All

right, he said. You can do astronomy, medicine, military history and

literature, except, he added sternly, Homer. I do Homer. Sound good to you?

Sure, I replied. Especially Homer. I never could be doing with Homer.

He looked at me as if Id just boasted of raping his mother. Thats settled,

then, he said. Now I guess you want to hear about the school.

I nodded and sat down, or rather I perched on the edge of a workbench. Thatd

probably be a good idea, I said.

He sighed, picked out another scrap of parchment and went on with his endless

slow polishing.

You being Athenian, he said, you dont know about Macedonian ways. Well?

Not a lot, I admitted. So Id be grateful for any

In Macedon, Leonidas interrupted, we believe in loyalty. Most important thing

of all. So when the heir to the thrones still just a kid, we choose other kids

his age, noblemens sons, to be his life companions they grow up together,

get educated together, each one of them knows what hes going to be when he

grows up. Makes sense that way. Always worked, in the past. And thats who the

schools for Prince Alexander and the companions.

I nodded. It does sound like a good idea, I replied. Its always struck me as

odd that in my country, the most important work of all, running the city, is the

only work nobodys ever trained for. I mean, I went on, not allowing the old

vulture to interrupt me, shoemakers sons learn their trade from childhood, and

likewise carpenters, poets and scent-bottle painters. Nobody learns government

until its too late, and even then the only people weve got who profess to

teach it are men like me, whove never held power in their lives.

Leonidas smirked at me. And that qualifies you to come here and teach it, he

said. Dont follow.

Ah, I replied, but youre forgetting something. We Athenians can teach

ourselves anything. And we do. But its in spite of the way we bring up our

children, not because of it. Well, thats not strictly true either. When were

young were taught to have enquiring minds. Once you have one of those, you can

learn anything.

Except Homer, Leonidas said, studying the parchment scrap in his hand. Homer,

youve just got to sit down and learn by heart.

There I agree with you, I replied. All right, youve told me about the

general idea of the school. Now tell me about the kids.

He grunted, and settled himself a little more comfortably on his stool. Well,

aside from the Prince, theres Hephaestion. Good kid, not the quickest but he

tries harder than the rest so he keeps up. Harpalus, hes a bright kid, too

bright even; mustard for figuring, hell be treasurer or chancellor one day.

Ptolemys bright but doesnt try. Callas is a good boy, but thick. Cleitus, hes

the pick of the bunch for brains and character together, but the Prince doesnt

like him. He likes Philotas thats Parmenios son; you came across Parmenio?

Thought you might have. Philip wouldnt be half what he is today without

Parmenio, though nobody understands that except me. Pity his sons an arsehole,

but that cant be helped, and maybe hell grow out of it. Theres others too,

but you keep an eye on them and the rest wont matter.

And Alexander? I said. What about him?

Leonidas looked me in the eye. Met him? I nodded. Then youll already know.

Hes what well all make of him, no more and no less. He stood up, and although

he was just a little old man and I was half as tall again and probably twice his

bulk, I felt myself shrinking back. Thats why this jobs important, boy.

Thats why if you dont do it right, Ill kill you. Got that?

I blinked a couple of times. I think so, I replied. No pressure or anything;

just do a good job, and I get to stay alive.

Thats it exactly, Leonidas confirmed, sitting down again. I could see now

that he was Philips cousin. Like you just said, no pressure.

*

This is the way things happen, Phryzeutzis; this goes some way towards

explaining why things are as they are. Because there had been a time when I was

destitute and desperate enough to make my living pretending to talk to a ghost

in an empty wine-jar, I found myself in Mieza, one of four men charged with

responsibility for building the next king of Macedon, King Philips heir.

Because of the empty jar, and the swarm of wild bees choosing to nest in the

foundations of that building, and Queen Olympias snake fetish; trivia,

unpredictable scraps of the-way-things-happen, too random and inconsequential to

be dignified with a grand name like destiny or fate, or even luck. Go further

back, and youll see the moment when I chose the wrong coloured pebble when my

brothers and I were casting lots for who stayed and who went away. Go further

back and theres my father, dying an unnecessary death in the steading at Phyle

because a slave had hurt his leg and was afraid of being thought a malingerer.

All these diverging possibilities; hold a dried leaf up to the light so that it

becomes transparent and you can see the veins, how they branch and fork, all

derived from one stem but ending up divided into countless small choices. Well,

I was just one of these random sequences of cause and effect; Aristotle was

another, so was Leonidas, so was Philip gods alone know how many of them there

were, whether they were all equally important, or some more so than others.

Dont know, dont care. The only possible conclusion is that nothing was

anybodys fault, simply because the fault must go right back, from the frayed

ends of the vein back into the stem, from the stem to the branch, from the

branch to the tree, from the tree to the root, from the root to the seed, from

the seed to the tree.

So why do I feel bad about it, Phryzeutzis?

Consider, if you will, the difference between men and gods. Oh, Im not talking

about your gods, Im talking about proper gods, the ones I grew up with; Zeus

and Hera and Athena and Apollo and Ares. Now a god is much, much stronger than a

man, and he lives for ever, and nothing can harm him hes like a city, if you

like, or a way of governing cities; and the point about a god is, he doesnt

care. Doesnt give a damn. Nobody can call him to account, punish him, threaten

him or frighten him, and because he lives for ever hes got no purpose or

meaning to his existence. A god lives for his pleasure, his entertainment, for

himself. Like a city, a god exists to exist; simply continuing to be there is

all thats expected of him, all he can really achieve. Now take a man; weak,

fragile and mortal. He can be called to account, punished, threatened,

frightened; to him, right and wrong and good and evil are very meaningful

things; and because his life is so short and lacking in value, he needs to

believe it has a meaning. So there we have it. Virtuous, honourable,

conscientious mortals and amoral, careless gods. Zeus doesnt give a damn, and I

do.

And guess which one of us decides what happens.

This is the way things happen, Phryzeutzis. This is the way things are.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I remember my last day as an Athenian ambassador, the day before I became a

Macedonian teacher.

Demosthenes the Athenian, in his own opinion and that of several others the

greatest orator of his time, had been working on his speech ever since we left

Athens . He was going to make just one speech one honey of a speech, one

sledgehammer, battering-ram, warship-beak, grandmother and -father of all

speeches speech. After hearing it, Philip would immediately curl up like an

overturned woodlouse and die. If by some astounding miracle or divine

intervention Philip managed to live on an hour or so after Demosthenes had made

his speech, he was going to spend his last agonising minutes in this life

apologising to the Athenian people and forswearing every last inch of Athenian

territory, every last stool and jar and bowl and blacksmiths apron hed stolen

from them. Once the Macedonians had heard Demosthenes speech, theyd all form

up in column and march off a cliff into the sea. Compared with being on the

wrong end of Demosthenes speech, being hit by Zeus thunderbolt was a tickle

under the chin with the very tip of a long, soft feather. It was going to be, we

got the impression, some speech.

Naturally, we begged Demosthenes for previews, but he wouldnt let us hear so

much as a word. We implored. We cajoled. We threatened. We tried guessing

Hey, Demosthenes, my friend here reckons youll say and at some point in your

speech. Is that right? All in vain. As soon as we started on at him, hed

withdraw to a corner of the deck or the inn, cover his head with his gown and

ignore us until we went away. Now there arent many places to hide on a ship, so

he even took to climbing up into the rigging or burrowing down between the jars

in the cargo hold, like a mouse. Obviously, we couldnt wait to hear this

speech.

Well, the days went by; no speech. We reached Pella ; no speech. Day followed

day, negotiating session merged into negotiating session; we conceded everything

that Philip wanted and got nothing in return; no speech. It was like the hot,

thundery weather of late summer, when you look up at the sky every morning and

you know itll rain today, but it doesnt; its hot and tense and even the goats

in the pen and the mules in the stable get restless and quarrelsome, but still

no rain and no thunder. No speech.

Then we worked it out; he was waiting for the final day of the talks, to ensure

that he got maximum effect. There Philipd be, nicely relaxed and off guard

after his diplomatic triumphs, imagining that it was all over and he could tick

Athens off his list of Things To Do Today; then, at the last minute, Demosthenes

would pop up like the god at the end of a tragic play and blow Philip into

wind-strewn chaff, right when he imagined he was safe. We couldnt help admiring

the audacity of the plan, to say nothing of the firm grasp of tactics and the

insights into Philips personality after all, it was broadly based on Philips

celebrated battlefield manoeuvre of letting his enemy breach his line and pass

through the middle of his forces, the better to cut them off and surround them

at the very last moment. Fitting, we thought. Brilliant, even. Not to mention

inspirational and a tremendous morale-booster.

And the moment came. It was after wed officially concluded the embassys

business and made our last concession wed been quite open-handed about it,

giving away big raw cutlets of our national endowment, since we knew for certain

that once Demosthenes had made his speech, wed get em all back again and we

were just about to plunge into yet another drab, long-winded Macedonian court

ceremonial when Demosthenes reared up on his hind legs, cleared his throat and

began to speak.

Gentlemen, he began. Were it not for the fact that

And he froze. Either hed forgotten the words or hed been seized with a

near-fatal dose of stage fright. Whichever it was, he couldnt move, not even

enough to open his mouth. He was like one of the many statues of Demosthenes

about to make a speech, the ones that at one time were put up all over the place

as a symbol of anti-Macedonian feeling, except that a lot of those statues were

pretty lifelike and at that precise moment Demosthenes, frankly, wasnt. I

couldnt help but be reminded of that old story about Perseus and the head of

Medusa the Gorgon, which was so incredibly ugly that it turned whoever looked at

it to stone interesting parallel, that, given the way Philip looked.

For a long while, nobody moved, and theres a fair chance wed all be there

still, all turned to stone, if it hadnt been for Philip. As soon as hed got

over his initial bewilderment and hed worked Out what had happened, he leaned

forward a little in his chair and tapped Demosthenes on the arm, just above the

elbow.

Its all right, he said. It happens to all of us now and again. Now, try

taking a deep breath, and start again.

Demosthenes looked at him, breathed in and began to shake.

Try just telling us your name, Philip said. Just say something, to break the

ice. Come on, you can do it.

D-d, Demosthenes mumbled. D-d-d.

All right, Philip said. Now try looking straight past me at the back of the

room. Pick a point, something you can fix your eyes on; lamp-sconce, ornament, a

particular pattern in a tapestry, doesnt matter what. Just look straight at it,

and tell it your name. Out loud. Go on.

Demosthenes eyes locked onto something, and he gasped for a moment like a

stranded fish.

D-d-d-demos, he said. D-d-d-d-mosthnes.

Philip clapped his hands together. Well done, he said. All right, this is

good, were making progress. Again and this time, a bit more slowly and

fluently.

Demosthenes, of course, never made his speech. Philip coaxed and coached him to

the point where he could say his name, his fathers name and his city and deme,

then let him off the hook.

Im disappointed, though, Philip said, as Demosthenes sat down, staring at the

ground between his feet. Ive been looking forward to hearing a Demosthenes

speech ever since the conference began. Youll have to come back another time,

when youre feeling a bit better.

The embassy left for home. I stayed.

I hadnt planned it, gods know. Id never before shown any inclination to want

to leave Attica quite the opposite, in fact. It wasnt as if I was unhappy

there, or that the job at Macedon was anything wonderful. On the other hand, I

didnt have any cause not to stay; no family worth speaking of (at least, none

whod talk to me), no debts, no obligations. It was like dying, and being

reborn, though as what remained to be seen.

Later the same day I found myself in a cart headed for the village of Mieza . It

was a big, heavy farm-cart, and the rear offside wheel squeaked. In the cart

with me were Leonidas and Alexander, who Id already met; Parmenios sons

Philotas and Nicanor; another boy called Menippus, about whom I remember nothing

at all; and the principal of the school, Lysimachus. We went for the rest of

that day in stony silence, nobody daring to say a thing in front of the stranger

(me), and put up for the night in a small, comfortable inn about halfway between

Pella and Mieza. When the innkeeper saw us, and the two Thracian cavalrymen we

had as outriders, he went white as a sheet and dashed back inside; a few seconds

later, his wife and son emerged, looking equally panic-stricken, and started

unloading our kit without a word.

It was unnerving, that silence. I was beginning to wonder what on earth Id

walked into. Was it some really ancient, bizarre custom, that the young hope of

Macedon went everywhere in complete silence, broken only during lessons? As an

Athenian, I wasnt sure I could stand that. Athenians talk. All the time. The

surest way to drive an Athenian mad is to shut him up in a confined space on his

own and deprive him of conversation; and even then hell talk to himself,

disagree, shout, lose patience, start a fight... But that theory, mercifully,

proved false; I could hear them whispering to each other when they thought I

couldnt hear, though I couldnt make out anything of what they were saying. I

wanted to break the silence myself by talking to one of them, asking a simple

question and defying them to break all the rules of polite conduct by not

answering; but I had an attack of Demosthenes fever and couldnt bring myself

to say a word. Dinner, consisting of bread, cheese, cold sausage and a

pleasantly sweet, strong, neat wine, went down in silence except for wordless

demolition noises, and we were shown our sleeping quarters in dumb show and left

alone for the night.

I tried to put it all out of my mind; instead, I asked myself why Aristotle

wasnt with the party. That thought, however, wasnt conducive to sweet dreams.

I kept remembering episodes from mythology where the victim is sent on a mission

by the wicked king to a distant town or province bearing a sealed letter which

contains instructions for his own execution. The big mystery, why Id been

offered the job in the first place, didnt seem such a mystery after all.

Aristotle had been here what, two years? Five? I couldnt remember offhand,

but long enough, surely, to have wormed his way into the Kings confidence and

affection. I could picture the scene; the throne-room, dark except for the

ambivalent light of one smoking lamp. Aristotle approaches the royal presence

and whispers for a moment in Philips ear. The Athenian herald, Euxenus. What of

it, my friend? Do you know him? Know him! Why, your majesty, I hate him above

all mortals, as would you if only you knew.. . Tell me more, Aristotle, tell me

more . . . Philip nods; his one eye burns fiercely in the gloom. I see, he says

quietly, I see. Well, well have to do something about that, wont we? Leave it

to me, my friend. Aristotle bows deeply; thank you, your majesty, you cant know

how long Ive dreamt of vengeance... Think nothing of it, my good and faithful

servant. The mans as good as dead.

Well, you know how it is when youre lying awake in the middle of the night,

fretting. You can imagine anything, any kind of horror, and convince yourself

that its true. And guilty conscience had something to do with it, of course

What, I never told you, Phryzeutzis? Well, Id better tell you now, otherwise

this whole business of Aristotle and me isnt going to make a whole lot of

sense. Yes, the wretched man had every reason to hold a grudge against me, after

what Id done to him. Its not a story I like telling, mainly because it puts me

in a bad light; but what the hell, this is History.

Actually, it was all Diogenes fault; at least, he put me up to it. Aristotle

collected cities; that is, he was compiling a huge database of the constitutions

of Greek city-states, with the aim of reducing all this data down and using it

to compile the authoritative, all-time Number One best model constitution for a

Greek city. He was quite serious about the project; hed been to all manner of

out-of-the-way places, asking questions and getting under the feet of the city

fathers, and whenever a stranger from a city he hadnt distilled and bottled yet

arrived in Athens hed scamper off with his tablets and stylus and be asking

detailed questions about procedures for the co-option of council members to

replace a deceased Superintendent of Drains before the unfortunate traveller had

had a chance to shake the dust out of his cloak.

For some reason Diogenes and I found this noble project unbearably amusing; so

we decided to sabotage it. Aristotle had never met me or heard of me; so

Diogenes saw to it that a rumour went round concerning the arrival in Athens of

a citizen of Escoracaschia (meaning, loosely translated, Pissoffsville;

theres advanced Athenian wit for you), the furthest-flung Greek colony in the

world.

That citizen, of course, was me. We hired a room in a cheap inn, bought some

raggedy old travelling clothes in the market, and waited. Sure enough, along

came Aristotle, tablets in hand, imploring me to spare him just an hour or so of

my time...

Sho nuff, I replied, in the corniest stage-Doric accent I could muster.

Mighty civil of you to take an interest in us plain folks from Hyperborea, you

bein a book-learned gennelmun an all.

Then I told him all about my native city; how it lies on the southern tip of an

island that lies opposite the north-eastern coast of Europe, an island so

distant and remote that for half the year it rains nearly every day, and great

banks of fog sweep down from the hills and cover everything, so that between the

driving rain and the impenetrable mist day was as obscure as night, and instead

of using our eyes to find our way about we used our noses, planting aromatic

herbs at strategic points as beacons to guide us to our fields and villages; how

the said rain and fog makes it impossible for us to tell each other apart except

at very close quarters, with the result that we long ago ceased trying, and now

no longer differentiate between other mens families and wives and our own; how,

in consequence, we dont recognise such concepts as ownership and property but

hold everything in common, so that a man who blunders in out of the rain sits

down in front of the hearth and makes that house his home, until such time as

the wind and the rain stave in the roof and send him on his travels again; how

there is no crime or wickedness in our city because, when youre soaked to the

skin and coughing your lungs up all the time, you simply dont have the energy

to start fights or plot against your neighbour (and since you havent the

faintest idea who your neighbours going to be from one day to the next, there

really isnt much point); how, in short, thanks to the unremitting violence of

nature and the utter savagery of our environment, we live in a sort of earthly

paradise with neither poverty nor excessive wealth, without crime or discord,

freed from the snares and delusions of the flesh and the petty aspirations and

ambitions of the natives of happier climes. In fact (I added, picking up a jug

of water), being this far south, in this unwholesome and decadent land of

sunshine and warm earth, my heart ached for the feel of cold rain dripping down

between my neck and collar, the comforting dampness of a leaky boot, the

spiritual solace of a lungful of phlegm at which point I solemnly upended the

jug of water over my head, closed my eyes and relaxed my face into a beatific

vision of contentment.

And Aristotle believed it. He fell for it, this dedicated man of science, this

pre-eminent logician, like a stranger off an Egyptian grain-freighter who meets

a man in the market square offering to sell him the Acropolis for five hundred

drachmas. He took the whole thing so seriously that it frightened me; but I

didnt dare tell him, the joke had gone too far. So he thanked me profusely,

folded his tablets carefully away, and scuttled off like a startled crab to

write up his notes and incorporate them into his work in progress.

So taken was he by the world-view of the good people of Escoracaschia Ap

Eschatois (Pissoffsville At The End Of The World, to give it its official

designation) that he wrote up a monograph on the subject and announced that he

would deliver it as a public lecture, admission one obol. Then he sent to

discover whether by any lucky chance Oumeleresas son of Oudemiapolis

(Comeoff-it, son of No-such-city; subtlety our speciality) was still in

Athens and might possibly be prepared to attend the lecture and answer questions

from the audience.

At this point I told Diogenes that the joke had gone far enough and I wanted

nothing more to do with it. No power on earth, I told him, would induce me to

get up on a platform in front of people who probably knew me and make a public

exhibition of myself. Absolutely not. No point even considering the idea.

So there I was, on the platform, doing my best to shade my face under the brim

of an impossibly broad, floppy hat that Diogenes had dug up somewhere for me;

and there was Aristotle, declaiming his monograph to a painfully large audience

with all the passion of one who has long sought and finally found.

It was a long time before somebody laughed, and even then it was just one

snigger; a soft, muffled snort, the sound made by a man whos got a gathered

handful of cloak stuffed in his mouth and still cant stop himself from

laughing. But once that noise had broken the silence, others followed in a

torrent, like water coming through a compromised dam, until the whole crowd were

roaring their heads off and there was Aristotle, his nose buried in his

manuscript, not looking up, still carefully reading. When the noise was so loud

he could no longer hear his own voice he looked up, with an expression of

bewilderment and sorrow on his face that would have melted a heart of stone.

Whats the in-matter? he said. Why are you laughing?

Not the best thing to say, under the circumstances. I tell you, if my celebrated

grandfather Eupolis the comic poet had ever managed to get a laugh like that,

hed have prayed to Apollo to shoot him dead on the spot, since life could hold

nothing better for him if he lived to be a thousand. Aristotle, meanwhile, was

on his feet, waving his hands in my direction and yelling that if they didnt

believe him, here was a citizen of the city, in person, whod confirm that every

word hed said was absolutely true.

Whereupon I stood up and took off my hat, and the whole crowd went quiet. I

looked at them, and then at Aristotle; and some evil god put words into my mouth

that Ive repented ever since.

All right, boss, I said. Now can I have my three drachmas?

That was when they started throwing things fruit, mostly, some chunks of

sausage, a few stones and shards of pottery. About the only life-threatening

thing that got thrown was the leg off a small bronze tripod, and I entirely

agree that it was right and proper that it hit me a glancing blow on the side of

the head and sent me down like a sacrificial bull when the priest whacks its

neck with a big axe. The next thing I knew, therefore, was opening my eyes to

Diogenes malevolent grin and the worse headache, bar two, Ive ever had in a

long and headache-prone life.

And that, Phryzeutzis, is why I was afraid Aristotle might have arranged an

obscure and bloody death for me, out in the wilds of the Macedonian countryside,

where it could be blamed on renegade Illyrians or bears. It was, youll agree, a

singularly obnoxious thing to do (quite apart from the humiliation and shame,

hed spent a sizeable portion of his ready cash on having a hundred copies of

the monograph made for immediate sale, all of which ended up as fish-wrap and

shield-grip padding), and if Id been Aristotle I wouldnt have rested until the

man responsible for such an outrage was paying his three obols to Charon the

Ferryman for his one-way ride across the River of Death.

Anyway; dawn broke, and there I was, still awake, still largely unmurdered, and

wishing very hard that I was safely back in Attica, where if someone wants to

kill you they falsely accuse you of treason in the Law-Courts and the whole

thing is done in a calm, civilised manner. I sneaked out into the courtyard, hid

in a doorway until I saw the landlords son going by with a bucket of oats for

the mules, jumped out on him and grabbed him by both arms.

All right, I said. Whats going on? Why wont anybody talk to me?

But the poor lad just stared at me and made a soft whimpering noise, so I let

him go and sat down on the mounting block, feeling very confused; at which

point, someone behind me cleared his throat.

Morning, said Leonidas. Youre up early. Trouble sleeping?

I nodded. Tell me, I said, what is it with you people, or with me? Why wont

anybody talk to me?

Leonidas grinned. Theyre scared, he said. I blinked. Scared?

Terrified.

Of me?

Of the snake.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

By now, Leonidas went on, words reached all four corners of Macedon; beware

of the Athenian wizard and his familiar spirit. Superstitious people. Almost as

bad as theThessalians. Mind you, he added darkly, Thessalians have good reason

to be superstitious, every third one of ems a witch.

For all I knew that was meant to be a joke, but I didnt feel like laughing (and

besides; from what I gather, its true). Thats crazy, I said. Look, how many

times do I have to tell you people this, there is no snake, repeat, no snake, in

my goddamned jar. Understood?

Leonidas shook his head slowly. You say there isnt, he replied. Queen

Olympias says there is. Who do people believe? Need you ask?

Oh, for... Id had enough. Wait there, I said, and dont move. Ill be

back. I stomped off, fetched the jar and stomped back. Now then, I said,

youre to be my witness. Im releasing the neck of the jar, Im lifting off the

lid. There now, as you can plainly see, there is no...

And that was when I dropped the jar (fortunately it landed in a big pile of

horseshit and didnt break); about a tenth of a second after, this dinky little

black and green snake popped its head out of the jar and stuck its tongue out at

me.

Excuse me. I have this thing about snakes. Never could be doing with the

horrible creatures.

You were saying? Leonidas said, without batting an eyelid.

The snake wound itself out of the jar and slithered away among the straw. I

didnt move a muscle.

Youre a brave man, Leonidas went on. One tiny nip from that and youd be

dead before you could blink an eye.

Just what I wanted to hear. After about a minute I managed to get a grip on

myself, and I was just about to explain that it was either a practical joke, an

attempt on my life by Aristotle, part of some political chicanery involving

Queen Olympias, a really bizarre comcidence or a trick of the light, when I

noticed that Prince Alexander was standing in the doorway looking at me.

Marvellous. The perfect way to start the day.

My ancestor Hercules strangled two snakes while he was still in his cot,

Alexander said.

Leonidas smiled at him. Hercules, he said. Fancy. Id heard that was you.

Alexander gave him a look thatd have made a Scythian feel homesick. No, he

replied, it was Hercules.

Ah, well, Leonidas replied. I expect if youd had snakes in your cot, youd

have strangled them right enough.

I managed to get my legs moving and used them, having first picked my jar out of

the horse dung. It was a bad enough day already without eavesdropping on

whatever private feud there was between Leonidas and Alexander. Another time Id

have lapped it up like a dog slurping up spilt wine inside informations

always useful, as my father told me often enough but right then I wasnt in

the mood. I stomped back inside, wiped off the jar with a handful of loose straw

and got my kit ready for the next stage of the journey.

And yet, I thought. There are worse fates that can befall a man than unexpected

miracles that prove conclusively that hes not a charlatan and a rogue,

especially when he is a charlatan and a rogue and hes just about to start a new

job. The best odds said that Olympias arranged for the snake to be there;

except, since she presumably wanted me there to counterbalance Philips

basically non-snake-oriented tutorial corps at the Mieza school, why would she

have given orders for a deadly poisonous snake to be hidden in my jar, just

where it was most likely to give me a nip as I carelessly opened it? Id be no

good to her dead; so, unless it was some kind of primitive ritual thing ordeal

by serpent, to judge whether I was worthy of the task, etc. that effectively

knocked that theory on the head, leaving me with the Aristotles Revenge

version. It made sense, after all. By arranging for Euxenus the purported

snake-charmer to die at the fangs of his own stooge, hed be able to spice his

revenge with ridicule and contempt on a par with what Id exposed him to all

those years ago.

And Aristotle wasnt on the cart with the rest of us.

I gave it up as a bad job, picked up my luggage and took my place on the cart.

As before, conversation stopped dead as soon as I appeared I remember

thinking, you poor fools, what a boring day youve got ahead of you and its all

your own fault. Then, as the cart started to roll, Alexander got up and came and

sat beside me.

Is it true? he said. That youve got one of the sacred serpents in a jar?

I sighed. Maybe, I said. Maybe not.

Alexander didnt like that answer. I asked you a civil question, he said. Is

it true?

All right, I replied. If youd asked me that question an hour ago, Id have

said no. But just now I happened to open the jar and yes, there was a dirty

great snake in it. Terrified the life out of me. I can only imagine someone put

it there for a joke.

Alexander nodded. Thats right, he said, only it wasnt a joke. I put it

there.

At that moment I came perilously close to changing the course of history. You

put it there, I repeated.

I just said so, didnt I?

Fine. I took a deep breath. Would you mind telling me why?

To see how youd react when you found it, of course. I wanted to see if youre

a fake or a real wizard.

I see. And what conclusion did you reach?

Alexander smiled. If youd been a fake, the snake wouldve bitten you. So

obviously youre a wizard.

You think Im a wizard?

Isnt that what I just said?

Right. Thats settled, then, Im a wizard. Get out of my face before I turn you

into a rat.

Alexander didnt like that either. How dare you talk to me like that? he said

angrily.

Ah, but I can talk how I like to whoever I like. Im a wizard, remember.

Officially.

Yes, but even wizards only have one neck.

What a marvellous way, I thought, to begin our relationship of teacher and

pupil. If, on the other hand, I replied, Im not a wizard, then of course I

wouldnt dare to speak to your majesty in such a disrespectful manner. Well? Am

I still a wizard?

At that moment I happened to catch sight of old Leonidas. He was smirking. I

didnt like that much, either. Athenian, go home, seemed to be the message, and

I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was stuck in the middle of a group of

very stupid, primitive people, all of whom were cleverer than me.

If you arent a wizard, Alexander said, the snake would have bitten you.

I nodded. Maybe it did, I answered. Maybe it bit me and I didnt die, because

Im a wizard.

Just then the boy Hephaestion leaned forward and smiled. He had one of those

good-natured I-know-Im-thick-so-forgive-me smiles that can solve all sorts of

problems, up to and including treason and murder. Maybe hes a different sort

of wizard, he said. Not the sort of wizard the snakes used to, but still a

wizard. By the way, what is a wizard, exactly?

I felt as if Id just been arrested and the arresting officer took another look

at me and said, Sorry, mistaken identity, and let me go. I could also feel a

dirty great big cue sitting up and begging me to follow it up.

Now theres a sensible question, I said. Anybody? Whats a wizard?

Nicanor, Parmenios younger son, held up his hand. Someone who can do magic,

he said.

All right, I said, lets start from there. So whats magic?

His brother Philotas, a stocky, broad-faced kid sitting with his back to the

driver, held up his hand. Magic is what gives you power over people, he said.

Good answer, I said, but enlarge on it a bit. Otherwise King Philips a

magician. Not, I added, that Im saying he isnt. But carry on, please.

Philotas thought for a moment. You use magic to make people do what you want,

he said. If you arent a king or something. Kings and people like that have

authority.

I see, I replied. In that case, let me show you some magic. Here, hold out

your hand.

Philotas looked at me with grave suspicion but did as I said.

Here you are, I said, reaching in my mouth for a single obol and putting it in

his hand. A magic charm for you. Go into a bakers shop, tell him to give you a

loaf of bread and hand him the magic charm. Hell do exactly what you tell him

to.

There was a moment of puzzled silence; then somebody laughed. From memory I

think it was Hephaestion. Everybody laughed then; not so much because it was a

funny joke but because the tension was released. Everybody, that is, except

Alexander. He just looked at me.

So you are a wizard, he said quietly.

Yes, I replied. And I learned wizardry from a very great and powerful wizard

in Athens , by the name of Diogenes. He taught me to cast spells on people so

that theyd believe anything I told them was true; and if people believe

somethings true, then pretty soon it is true.

Alexander shook his head. Thats nonsense, he said.

Really? I raised an eyebrow. All right. Suppose you believed I was the King

of Macedon. Suppose everybody in Macedon believed it. Wouldnt that make it

true?

He shook his head. No, he replied. Itd make it a lie that everybody

believed.

Thats a first-rate definition of the truth, I said.

No it isnt, he replied.

I nodded approvingly. Congratulations, I said. Correct answer. Youve

successfully mastered the first thing I needed to teach you before you can

become a wizard too.

But I dont want to become a wizard, Alexander said. Wizardrys all about

lies and deception.

Fine. So what do you want to be when you grow up?

Alexander shrugged. I want to be a god, he said, as if stating the blindingly

obvious. Gods do magic, but the magic they do is real.

It wasnt a bad place to be. In fact, it was a wonderful place, in a

self-conscious sort of way. Rolling hills neatly dressed in vineyards and

orchards, like a well-muscled man in well-cut clothes; a well-behaved lowlands

climate, with the mountains behind like a painted backdrop in the theatre; it

felt as if it had been modelled in clay as the perfect setting for the happiest

days of your life, and then handed over to a work-gang of giants, who set about

bashing rocks and diverting rivers according to the architects plans.

Well, it was better than Attica ; most places are. Attica is a hard country, all

rock and dust, everything there is an effort. Mieza was no effort at all.

Nothing could start until Aristotle arrived, so Alexander led his schoolmates

off into the hills to hunt things, while I settled into the quarters that

Principal Lysimachus had assigned to me. At first, I thought I was being shown

round the schoolhouse itself, or some royal hunting lodge; it was a huge house

by Attic standards, with a front room as big as any in Athens and a back room

almost as big. The furniture was amazing; I learned later that it was all stuff

that had accumulated at the palace in Pella over the years diplomatic gifts,

spur-of-the-moment purchases that had seemed like a good idea at the time, that

sort of thing; there was a gold-plated tripod stand and an Egyptian painted

couch and an ivory folding chair and a huge, huge silvered bronze mixing-bowl

that must have held five gallons, embossed with scenes of heroic carnage on one

side and amorous centaurs persecuting scantily clad women on the other. There

was a cedarwood footstool upholstered with genuine Tyrian purple, worth a

fortune in spite of the large scorch-mark on one side where someone had left it

too close to the fire. The overall effect was so overwhelming that I shoved most

of it over to one side of the room and set up a sort of camp on the other with a

plain wooden stool and a low plank table I found in the outhouse.

In the same outhouse I found a box; a heavy olivewood chest with a smashed lock,

which I dragged out into the light and opened up. It was full of books; twenty

genuine books, all rather sticky and tacky after spending so long in contact

with the olivewood, but all perfectly legible providing you were careful about

unrolling them. Gods only know how they got there; my best guess is that they

were another diplomatic gift, of the how-lovely-what-is-it? variety, which had

been put away out of sight, rediscovered some time later and jemmied open in the

vain hope that such a robust locked box must contain something worth having.

Then the connection books-school formed in someones mind and they were shipped

up here, out of the way of the men and horses.

My excitement at this discovery waned just a little when I discovered that

eleven of them were Homer; four Iliads, three Odysseys, two Homeric Hymns and

two Cyprias. Even so, that left eight proper books, of which only one (the

collected plays of my grandfather Eupolis) had been nibbled by mice into a state

of total uselessness. The other seven were: the poems of Archilochus; a

long-forgotten epic poem about Hercules by Panyasis; selections from Aristotle;

Thucydides History of the War, mercifully abridged; a seventy-year-old pamphlet

by someone called Chrysippus suggesting improvements to the franchising system

for exploiting Athenian mining interests at Laurium; an anonymous commentary on

military tactics in Homer, seeking to prove their relevance to modern-day

warfare; and my ill-fated brother Eudaemons preferred bedside reading, Aeneas

theTacticians monograph on the art of war. I flicked through this chance

accumulation of dross, took the Archilochus and Chrysippus pamphlet for myself,

earmarked the selections from Aristotle for mending leaky boots, and dumped the

rest in the front room for the use of my young and impressionable charges.

Practicalities were all taken care of with typical Macedonian robust efficiency.

Meals happened four times a day, monolithic affairs involving huge slabs of

roast meat, cheeses the size of cartwheels and enormous baskets of coarse barley

bread, washed down with raw red wine mixed half-and-half. On special days, I

gathered, there were olives, maybe the occasional fig. Laundry was in the hands

of three gigantic troll-women, who reminded me alarmingly of the Three Wise

Witches the ones who live at the end of the world and share one eye, one ear

and one tongue between them. There was an issue of clothing once a month; one

cloak, one tunic, one pair of sandals, ditto boots, one hat, all of them fairly

recent cast-offs from the nobs in Pella. For some reason I kept getting Philips

hats and Parmenios tunics; the royal hats all had a thick band of grease just

inside the brim, and Parmenio apparently spilt more wine down his front than he

ever managed to get into his face. Once I got a stunningly beautiful silk shawl

embroidered with countless blue and red snakes, heavily scented with saffron and

violets and heavily stained in one corner with a dark brown stuff that was,

beyond any shadow of doubt, human blood, which raised all sorts of interesting

speculations in my mind as to what Queen Olympias duties as high priestess of

the snake cult actually involved. The boots were standard army issue, but the

sandals were soft and comfortable, if several sizes too big. In fact, everything

in Macedon was several sizes too big, from the crockery to the lifestyle to the

country itself too big for me, and Im no dwarf, remember; extremely curious,

that, because I met very few Macedonians who were taller or broader than me, but

all their clothes seemed to have been made for the elder brothers of the Titans.

Aristotle arrived, eventually; at which point Lysimachus came to see me.

I dont know to this day whether Lysimachus was a Macedonian with a speech

impediment or an offcomer whod been in Macedon too long. As a general rule I

had no trouble at all understanding the Macedonians, but whatever dialect or

accent Lysimachus spoke in gave me endless problems, which was awkward when he

was notifying me of timetable changes or amendments to the curriculum. He was a

long, thin, harassed-looking man with a tiny little nose and enormous eyes, and

loud noises made him jump even when he knew they were coming well in advance.

When the school first started up and the young Alexander, banished here against

his will from the royal court in Pella, manifested his displeasure by refusing

to have anything to do with the proceedings, Lysimachus finally managed to coax

him into co-operating by setting up a vast and intricate role-playing game, in

which Alexander was the young Achilles, and Lysimachus took the role of

Achilles aged and decrepit old tutor, Phoenix. At first, the whole school had

to be run in accordance with the rules of the Homer game; everybody was assigned

a role to play and had to stay in character every minute of every day. By the

time I arrived this requirement had been relaxed considerably, so that we only

had to be our Homeric counterparts at morning assembly and after the plates had

been cleared away following the evening meal. Even those two occasions were too

much for me; because Id arrived late on the scene, the only role still open for

me was that of the wily Ulysses, a character Ive loathed and despised ever

since I was a small child. Besides which, Im hopeless at acting. I feel like an

idiot, pretending to be someone Im not. But Lysimachus, by necessity, had

taken real pains to be Phoenix , which argues a latent genius for histrionics on

his part. After all, Phoenix as written by Homer has all the character and

individuality of a small root; in order to be such a shallow and ill-defined

personality so intensively and for so long, Lysimachus must have had an

imagination capable of bending thick iron bars.

When not being Phoenix , Lysimachus was a pedantic, worried man with a small

gift for administration and a disturbing habit of bursting into tears whenever

things started to go wrong. In later years Alexander demonstrated a genuine

fondness for the poor old fool, which was in keeping with his habit of being

very kind to simple, humble folks who agreed fervently with every word he said.

I can picture you looking at me, Phryzeutzis, and grinning lopsidedly; heres

this little man, youre thinking, taking every opportunity he can to snipe at

the great Alexander now that hes dead and gone. Maybe, maybe. I never claimed

that I liked the boy, even at the height of my period of hero-worship. But the

main reason I assume my mask of Yapping Dog, first class, when I start talking

about him is that well, in part Im responsible. And if I was writing this in

Greek youd understand better, because we use the same word for responsible

and guilty. I only helped shape one small part of Alexanders character, and

my motives for doing what I did were always, always for the best. I genuinely

wanted to prepare the boy and the rest of them too for a useful career of

service as rulers of their country; I wasnt conducting a controlled experiment

in creating a philosopher-king, or angling for power behind the throne when the

Prince came into his own, or even doing what was necessary to earn money. I was

trying to help.

The fact that the world would be a better place if Id died at birth is

something I have to live with. I feel responsible, but not guilty.

Anyway.

Lysimachus came to see me, and he told me about the curriculum, and what I was

supposed to be doing, when and where, and a lot of useful stuff like that, for

which I was properly grateful. When hed finished briefing me, he stood up to

go, then turned round, sat down again, leaned forward and grabbed me by both

elbows.

Now listen to me, he said. Youre an Athenian.

I know, I replied, trying to tug my arms free without being too obvious about

it.

Youre an Athenian, he repeated. I admire the Athenians. Your Drama, your

poetry, your philosophy I admire it all. Athens is a great nation. You have

given so much to all of Greece .

Thank you, I said.

And thats why Im warning you, he went on, ignoring me. You dont know these

people the way I do, you dont know how their minds work or how they live their

lives. You dont understand. So its very important that you remember what Im

telling you now. Yes?

I nodded, mostly in the hope that hed finish quickly and go away. Hed recently

been eating onions. I could tell.

All right, he said. Now listen. Macedon is a kingdom, a monarchy. You dont

understand how a monarchy works. In a monarchy, there isnt any right or wrong

or good or evil, theres only two things: what He wants and what He doesnt. In

a monarchy there isnt any such word as Why? In a monarchy, if He says the skys

green, its green. If He says, Kill my firstborn son, its done. If He says,

Bring me the head of the murdering bastard who killed my son, thats done too.

No wrong. No why. Just Yes, sir and thats all. You need to remember that,

here, being an Athenian.

Ill bear it in mind, I replied, struggling to keep a straight face. Thank

you ever so much for sharing it with me.

Lysimachus stared at me for a moment, as if he was trying to decode some

abstruse cypher. Just remember, he said. And be careful. Aside from Him,

there is no law in Macedon.

I nodded. We have heaps and heaps of law in Athens , I said. No justice, but

plenty of law. Weve got so much we have to hire people to remember it for us. I

think I might rather like it here.

He shook his head. You be careful. In Macedon, people are murdered by the

State.

Ah. I smiled. Its different back home. In Athens , scores of people are

killed by the State every year, but its never murder. Whats the matter,

Lysimachus? Why are you trying to frighten me away?

He shook his head vehemently. Small things were thrown clear of his hair. Stay

if you want. Stay as long as you like. Just remember, thats all.

I jerked my arms free and stood up. You bet, I said. Ill remember.

And I have.

CHAPTER EIGHT

P hilip of Macedon, so the story goes, was arguing with young Alexander one day.

Whats the point of me learning all this political theory and literature and

stuff? the Prince asked. Im not going to need it when Im King.

Dont you believe it, Philip said. Being King isnt about who you are, its

about what you are. And dont forget, were not Persians or Egyptians, were

Macedonians. If they accept you as their King it wont be because Im who I am,

itll be because youre who you are.

Heartwarming, isnt it? Not to mention completely untrue. On those occasions

when Philip did talk to the young Alexander, it was more a case of, Get the

hell out of here, cant you see Im busy?

I should know; I was there. And thats what makes it so bizarre when I hear

these delightful little vignettes of family life at Pella . Theyre fairy-tales,

the lot of them, little bite-sized chunks out of myth and legend, and as

everybody knows, myth and legend deal with long ago and far away, not something

that happened quite recently in places where I happened to be at the time. How

dare they do this to parts of my life? I feel like a man who comes home from

buying sprats in the fish market and finds that his house has been taken over

and turned into a shrine to some god or hero who happens to have the same name

as him; and the custodians of the shrine wont let him go into his house and get

anything, not even a clean tunic.

The first lesson of the first day was military history.

Truly is it said: the best way to learn about something youre completely

ignorant of is to teach it to somebody else. And the key to that, of course, is

admitting your ignorance to yourself.

Even more truly is it said: when you dont know spit, bullshit.

They were sitting in a circle under a fig tree. It was a hot day, about

mid-morning, and apart from the flies it was quiet and peaceful. I walked across

the courtyard and they all stopped talking and stared at me. Strong men have

been known to die of less.

But Im not a strong man; so I sat down with my back to the trunk of that

excellent tree, pulled my hat down over my eyes and said, Military history.

Nobody spoke. I counted to twenty under my breath.

All right, I said. Heres some military history for you. Iphicrates of

Athens, who was a friend of my father, was pitching camp in the middle of

friendly territory. He ordered his men to dig a ditch and built a palisade round

the camp. Why bother? someone asked. Its not as if anybodys going to attack

us here. Whereupon Iphicrates shook his head. Dont you believe it, he said.

The worst thing a general can ever say is, Hell, I never expected that. And

that, gentlemen, is why we learn military history. Understood?

There was a short, polite silence, then someone asked, Did your father really

know Iphicrates?

That threw me. I had only the sketchiest notion of who Iphicrates was short,

scruffy-looking man who came to dinner once, behaved obnoxiously to the

flute-girl and fell asleep face down in a plate of thinly sliced smoked eel

but this terrible child was obviously rather more familiar with the great mans

career than I was. Yes, I replied. Now then, can somebody give me three

reasons why the Phoenician colonists in Carthage would beat the crap out of the

Phoenicians in Phoenicia if ever there was a war between them?

A longer silence this time; they were all looking at Alexander, and he was

thinking it over. You, I said, pointing to a thin-faced kid on my right. Any

ideas?

The boy looked startled, but recovered well. The Carthaginians hire

mercenaries, he said. Mercenaries fight for money, not honour, so they fight

to win the battle.

I nodded. Correct, I said. You Hephaestion, isnt it? what do you think?

Hephaestion rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his wrist. The

Carthaginians have fought a lot of wars on land against Greeks, he said. The

Phoenicians of Tyre havent, so they havent had the opportunity or the

incentive to learn.

All right, I said. Alexander, whats the third reason?

Alexander looked at me before answering. If there was a war between Carthage

and Tyre , he said, it would be because Tyre was trying to establish its

authority over a former colony, and Carthage would be fighting for its freedom.

So the Carthaginians would have more to lose, and theyd fight harder.

I nodded again. Thats a good answer, I said. But it contradicts what your

friend here just said about the Carthaginians hiring mercenaries. Dont you

agree with that?

Alexander looked up, and then down again. I agree with it, he said. But the

men running the war would still be Carthaginians, even if the soldiers were

mercenaries. Put together determined generals and trained, competent men and

youre likely to win.

I sat up. Thats good, I said. Clearly you all know a lot of the basics

already. But what you dont know, Ill wager, is the great secret of military

history; and you dont know it because although every successful general who

ever lived knows this secret, none of them ever mention it. Not even to their

brothers or their lovers or their sons. Would you like to know what this secret

is?

Intrigued silence this time. Eventually Hephaestion said, Yes, please.

All right, listen carefully. I waited till they were all gazing earnestly at

me. The secret is this. Out of every hundred battles, ninety-nine of them are

lost by the loser, not won by the winner. Ninety-nine battles out of a hundred

go the way they do because one of the commanders makes a bloody awful mistake,

which costs him the day and thousands of his men their lives. Now then; name me

some battles and Ill prove that Im right.

Plataea , someone called out.

Delium, said Philotas.

Marathon .

That one where Brasidas was surrounded in Thessaly .

By good fortune and because the rule, which is not my own observation, happens

to be true I was able to carry my point in each case.This impressed my

students a whole lot. Impressed me, too; Id never really given it any thought

before. Also, quite by chance, Id been reading about the Brasidas-in-Thessaly

battle the night before in that copy of Thucydides History I told you about. It

was the first time Id ever come across it, and it was probably that which put

the idea in my mind in the first place.

After wed pushed the idea around for a while, Alexander counter-attacked. Its

a good point, he said. But what if youve got a general whos so worried about

making a big mistake that hes all timid and over-cautious about handling his

troops? Hes not going to win many battles.

I agree, I replied. And thatd be a big mistake on his part. Theres a

difference between knowing not to jump off the side of a boat with a rock tied

to your leg, and never going on a boat in your life just in case someone ties a

rock to your leg and shoves you over the rail.

Alexander frowned a little. But what if its the hundredth battle and the

general youre fighting doesnt make any stupid mistakes? Then what happens?

You lose, probably, I said.

But if I dont make any mistakes either, what happens then?

I shrugged. You keep on fighting each other till nightfall or it starts

raining, I replied. Or until your men or his men have had enough and run for

it. Thats what happens in nine out of ten of the one battles in a hundred.

I see, Alexander said dubiously. So youre basically saying, just trust to

luck?

I shook my head. Not a bit of it. Luck in war is very like the gods. Never,

ever trust your luck; just be aware that it exists, thats all.

In other words I was floundering like hell and in grave danger of being shown up

as a windbag and a fraud. Fortunately, before any of those highly intelligent

and perceptive young people had a chance to start picking my logic to bits,

Leonidas arrived with a big fat scroll under his arm to teach them Homer, and I

was able to withdraw in good order, leaving behind me the mistaken impression

that Id taught them something they didnt know already.

I tried to put it off for as long as possible, but I knew it had to happen

sooner or later. Id have preferred later, but I didnt have any choice in the

matter.

It was my seventh day as a teacher, and I wasnt doing terribly well. My

greatest fault as a teacher was a deplorable and pointless urge to show off, to

try to impress the students with my knowledge and insight; disastrous mistake.

Being the sons of gentlemen, they were too well brought-up to object loudly

enough for me to hear, but the embarrassed look on their faces should have been

enough to stop me doing it. The wretched part of it was that I knew I was doing

it and knew it wasnt the right thing to do, but somehow I couldnt stop myself.

Besides which, after seven days it was too late to start again at the beginning.

Id forfeited too much respect, and without respect a teacher cant teach an

olive to fall off a tree. I was losing control of the situation and losing it

fast; and thats why Aristotle came to see me.

When I heard him scratch at the door and glanced through the crack between door

and frame to see who it was, my first instinct was to hide under something until

he went away again; but if Id done that hed only have come in anyway and

started poking about, and the embarrassment of being found by him cowering under

an upturned basket was something I didnt want to risk.

Hello, I said.

He looked at me as if Id just crawled out of something he was eating, but all

he said was, Id like a word with you, if its convenient.

Come in, I said. Please.

Before he was even halfway through the door I remembered that spread out on the

floor, with bits cut out of it, was the manuscript of Selections From Aristotle,

or at least all that was left of it after Id mended a pair of sandals and the

folding chair.

Youre busy, he said, taking in the mess at a glance by any normal criteria

he was too far away to realise it was one of his books Id been mutilating; but

maybe hed just know, the way a mother always knows, regardless of distance,

when her child is in pain or danger. So I wont stay long. But I felt, as a

fellow Athenian

I made the standard sit-down-please gesture that all human beings recognise. He

nodded in return and sat in the folding chair, right on top of the drying glue

and excerpts from his Analysis of the Constitution of Corinth .

Careful, I said. Wet glue.

Instinctively, he lifted both elbows off the arms of the chair, inspected them

and put them back. As a fellow Athenian he repeated.

Would you like something to drink? I asked.

No, thank you. As a fellow Athenian, I thought you might appreciate a few

words of advice about dealing with the Macedonians. The study of other cultures

is a special interest of mine, as I believe you already know, he added, with a

deadpan stare, so I believe my insights into the Macedonian mind-set are

likely to have a degree of validity.

Thats very kind of you, I replied. Personally, I like these people. What

about you?

He gave me a puzzled look, rather as if hed asked me what four and four make,

and Id replied Sideways. I try and make sure that my personal

value-judgements dont intrude on my scientific evaluation of a nations

culture. Also, dont forget, my native city was destroyed by the Macedonians and

its people dispersed or enslaved. If I have an emotional response to these

people, its negative rather than positive. But I flatter myself that I can

retain my objectivity even under these circumstances.

I cursed myself for my lousy memory. It was true, Philip had made an example of

Stagira a while back; recently hed also given permission for it to be rebuilt

and for the exiles to be allowed home, as a gesture of goodwill to his sons

illustrious tutor. Thats all right, then, I replied lamely. Please, do go

on.

Well, for half an hour or so he told me pretty much everything Id so far worked

out for myself about the Macedonians, together with a few snippets of historical

trivia that could never under any conceivable circumstances be of any use to

anybody. I sat still and quiet, nodding from time to time and keeping a fixed

smile on my face. I was just about to doze off, in fact, when I heard him say,

But of course, you know all this already.

I sat up. Well, actually, I said, I do. I mean, I did do a little research

before the peace mission started, and Ive been keeping my ears and eyes open

ever since.

Of course. He nodded his head. What you dont know is how to convey what you

do know to somebody else. And thats what Ive just been illustrating for you. I

trust you found it helpful.

Actually I began; but a little voice in the back room of my mind whispered

Why bother? Its not worth it. After all, it would be far more practical to

patch up some kind of working relationship with this man

I was going to have to work with him for several years, and of the four of us

on the tutoring staff, he was the only one who might just conceivably turn out

to be a useful ally. Actually, I went on, I was going to ask your advice

about that. Ever since I started work Ive had this feeling that I havent been

going about it in the right way. Im sure youve picked up some feedback from

the kids. What would you suggest?

Aristotle didnt smile, in the same way a tree rarely does somersaults; but the

way he dipped his head a little suggested that he acknowledged this small act of

deference, as from a young ram to the lord of the sheepfold, declining to start

a fight he couldnt win. Your attitude is counter-productive, he said. You

seem to be afraid of them, which is why you display your knowledge the way a

peacock

shows its tail. For one thing, I suggest, you simply dont have enough factual

information. For another, you should never openly display fear to something you

intend to train. If you want a demonstration of the proper way to go about it,

may I recommend that you spare the time tomorrow afternoon to go down to the

stock-yard and watch young Alexander breaking in horses.

And on that well-chosen exit line he stood up to leave. Unfortunately, the

chair didnt seem to want to let go of him. I found it hard not to close my

eyes; the glue on those confounded parchment patches had soaked through and

stuck to his gown. He frowned, and tugged; there was a small ripping noise and

the chair dropped away.

Sorry, I said, but he wasnt paying attention; hed gathered the torn part of

his gown in one hand and was staring at a little parchment scrap that was stuck

to it. Plainly legible were the words In many respects, the Corinthian assembly

resembles that of the Athenians; not, perhaps, the most memorable line hed

ever penned, but distinctive enough, it seemed.

Good afternoon, he said, and left.

So, inevitably, there I was, sitting on the rail with my hat on against the sun,

as the first horse was led into the ring.

I have nothing against horses. I know how to ride one, more or less; you sit on

the middle facing the end with the ears, its not exactly difficult. But Ive

always found it hard to be interested in horses, the way some people are.

Alexander, on the other hand, was obviously a connoisseur, and an expert. Hardly

surprising; in Macedon they have both the money and the room for serious

horse-rearing, and horses have always been part of the aristocratic lifestyle,

so I imagine hed been riding since shortly after he was old enough to walk.

Philip, I knew for a fact, was most definitely a horsey sort of man, and in a

way it was significant that a new batch of horses brought him out to Mieza,

something the education of his son never managed to do.

And a pretty tedious spectacle I found it, I have to admit. A horse was brought

in, the various trainers and horse people persecuted it until it did what they

wanted it to, and then they brought in another one. The sight of ten or so men

bumping and wobbling their way round a ring on the backs of unwilling animals

didnt strike me as either inspiring or amusing, and since I didnt understand

the process I didnt feel there was much I could learn from the experience.

Still, it would have been the height of bad manners to slope off before the King

left, so I was stuck there. I wedged my heels onto the rail below me and let my

mind wander.

I was startled out of my reverie by the sound of someone screaming. I looked up

and saw one of the trainers, or whatever it is you call them, being dragged

along the ground behind a ferocious-looking brute of a tall black horse with a

white splodge on its forehead. Somehow the mans foot had got tangled in the

reins; as he bumped along the ground, leaving a dark-brown trail of blood in the

dust as he went, so with each step he dragged on the left-hand rein, making the

horse run in a wide circle. The more they tried to catch hold of him, the faster

the horrible creature ran, and I joined the spectacle just before the wretched

mans head hit a stone or something with a very definite cracking noise, and he

stopped struggling and flopped, like a wooden doll being dragged along behind a

small child.

After that there wasnt quite the same degree of urgency about stopping the

runaway horse; they stopped trying, and without anybody chasing after it and

flapping their hands in its face, the animal soon slowed down and came to a halt

long enough for them to dart out and cut the dead man free from the reins.

Get the damned thing out of here, I heard Philip shouting; charitably, I

assumed he was talking about the horse. But Alexander, whod been sitting next

to him, stood up and raised his hand in a hold-it sort of gesture.

Its not the horses fault, he said.

Like hell it isnt, Philip replied irritably. Whose is it, anyway?

I heard someone say that it belonged to a Thessalian called Philonicus.

Strange, Philip said. Id have thought hed have had more sense. Its

obviously way past training.

I dont think so, Alexander said, in an embarrassingly clear, distinct voice.

I say theyre just going about it the wrong way, thats all.

I can only assume he was doing it on purpose. If so, he got the result he was

looking for. Oh, really? Philip said. And you know everything there is to

know about handling horses, and we dont.

I know enough to be able to handle this one, Alexander replied, as cool as you

like. That was a habit of his, or a mannerism or whatever; the more heated and

excitable the other man got in an argument, the colder and more detached he

became. Oughtnt to be too difficult, he said. Why, would you like me to show

you?

Philip didnt know whether to shout or roar with laughter; either would have

made things worse. It was pretty clear to me as an outside observer that the

relationship between these two had reached the crisis stage where one of them

was going to have to do something melodramatic and probably regrettable in order

to resolve it. It was just a pity that it should have to involve something as

horribly dangerous as a rogue horse that had just killed a professional

horse-tamer. But from what I know of Alexander, I wouldnt be surprised if this

was how he wanted it; the bigger the risk, the bigger the victory, after all. If

this crisis had been on the cards for any length of time (and Im sure it had)

itd be just like Alexander to engineer the breaking-point to be something like

that, a very dangerous situation that he felt confident he could handle.

Alexander was always a gambler, and he only ever bet on certainties and he never

wagered less than his life.

Youre going to break this horse, arent you? Philip said, lowering his voice

ominously.

I think Id like to try, Alexander replied.

All right, Philip said. Suppose you fail, and suppose by some miracle you

manage not to break your damn neck in the process; whats the bet?

Alexander thought for a moment. Ill buy the horse, he said.

That took Philip entirely by surprise. You will, will you? Hey, you, he

snapped at the man next to him, how much does Philonicus want for that horse?

The man whispered in Philips ear. Louder, Philip said, so we can all hear.

Thirteen talents, the man announced.

(Yes, sorry, Im losing you again, Phryzeutzis. You dont know whether thirteen

talents is the annual revenue of Babylon or the price of a bushel of garlic.

Well, lets put it this way. Itd take your average working man, a stonemason,

say, or a carpenter, over two hundred years to earn thirteen talents.)

Still going to buy the horse? Philip said.

Yes, Alexander replied.

Really. What with?

Alexander looked at his father without any visible expression on his face. Oh,

I expect Motherd lend me the money, he replied.

Now dont ask me what all that was about; but the way Philips face tightened

showed that Alexander had just said something unforgivable, bad enough that

Philip would let him try to tame the horse because he was so angry he wouldnt

care if his son did get himself killed. Good tactics on Alexanders part

(And I thought of what Id taught him: make the other guy make a mistake.

Precisely what Alexander had just done. Whatever the outcome now, Philip would

be in the wrong. If Alexander tamed the horse, hed be quite the young Hercules

or Theseus, subduing monsters before he was through potty-training. If, on the

other hand, he was killed or badly hurt, then whose fault would it be for

letting him do such a crazy thing? The mistake hed forced Philip into making

was losing his temper to the extent that he allowed himself to be put in this

no-win position...

Did I do that? I wondered.)

Bet, Philip said softly, and you can be sure it was quiet enough for everybody

to hear. Ive never heard so much venom packed into one little word, before or

since.

So Alexander hopped down from the rail it was the lissom movement of a child,

the sort of thing you cant do when youre a grown-up, no matter how fit you are

and walked calmly to the centre of the ring, where the monster horse was

standing, radiating hatred and viciousness in all directions. I didnt really

want to look; on the other hand, how many chances do you get in a lifetime to

see a prince of the blood get horribly mutilated? In Athens thered have been

someone going round with a tray, selling apples.

First he just stood there, looking the horse in the eye; then he walked round

it, patted it on the side of the neck, slipped off his cloak and took hold of

the reins, turning the animals head towards the sun. Then he got on its back

and rode it round the ring a few times.

Youre probably way ahead of me. As soon as I told you that he made the horse

face the sun, you reached the same conclusion that Alexander had; the stupid

creature was afraid of shadows, and whenever it saw its own shadow, or the

shadow of its riders cloak or anything like that, it bolted. That was all there

was to it.

After hed shown off his horsemanship for a minute or two Alexander pulled up in

front of his father, jumped down, looped what was left of the reins over a rail

and resumed his seat. For a long time, nobody said anything, or moved; then

Philip nodded his head, ever so slightly.

You noticed that too, he said. Very good.

I think Ill call him Oxhead, Alexander replied, looking straight ahead.

I see.You think Im going to buy you this horse, do you?

Yes.

Philip shrugged. All right, he said. With luck I should be able to get him

for twelve.

Alexander shook his head. Hes worth thirteen.

All right.

Now then; assuming one of them set up the other, which was it? At the time I was

sure it was Alexander whod taken Philip; now Im not so sure. I wouldnt put it

past Philip to have arranged something like that, a test so close to the edge

that nobody would ever believe it was a set-up. And that, of course, was why it

would be such a triumph, the foundation for a legend; nobody in their right mind

would ever believe a father would risk his sons life in order that his son

could triumph over him in public. Nobody, that is, except Philip, who was afraid

of nothing. If he did plan it, it was one of his best ever pieces of strategy;

because that was when Alexander first knew what hitherto hed only believed.

As for my lesson, Aristotle was quite right, bless his heart. In order to train

this boy, you had to turn his head towards the sun and keep him from seeing his

own shadow. Understand that simple fact and you could make him do anything you

wanted.

By the time I got home that evening, I still liked the Macedonians. But in a

slightly different way.

After that, I knew what I was supposed to do. It helps.

Thanks to the books I found in the outhouse, I was able to learn enough to be

able to teach. I did a swap with Aristotle, my astronomy and medicine for his

lyric poetry and prosodic theory, and learned how to write poetry from

Archilochus and how not to from Panyasis; I traded literature for economic

theory with Leonidas, and managed to distil enough economics out of the

silver-mines franchising pamphlet to bluff my way (actually, any damn fool can

work out economics from first principles; you start with A has a loaf of bread

but no money, B has a silver coin but no food and carry on from there). As for

military history, I had Thucydides account of the War, the commentary on

tactics in Homer and that old favourite, Aeneas military handbook, so I was

spoilt for choice.

Teaching poetry was a piece of cake. None of the Macedonians had any interest in

the subject whatsoever, so by mutual consent we whittled the curriculum down to

being able to compose lines that scanned in pentameters and hexameters, iambics,

dactyls and anapaests, to recognise the dumb-beast basic lyric forms (alcaics,

anacreontics, hendecasyllables, sapphics); basic caesura rules, elisions, epic

license and archaic forms yes, I know this means nothing to you, Phryzeutzis;

what passes for poetry in this barbarous land works on an entirely different

system of lines ending in words that sound vaguely similar, so I wont even try

explaining how real poetry works. Lets say that if Id been teaching them

carpentry instead of poetry, theyd have learned the names (but not the uses) of

the saw, the rasp and the bow-drill, and which end of the hammer you use to hit

the nail with.

Ive mentioned economics already. Young Harpalus, the fat kid, was talented and

enthusiastic in this field, which was a nuisance, but the rest of the class were

happy just to mark time. I based everything on the one bit of economic theory I

remembered from my own schooldays, namely Socrates theory of growth. Actually,

like so many of Socrates theories, its so full of holes you could use it for

straining curds its a misbegotten fusion of science, politics and mysticism,

which equates the tendency of things in nature to grow (trees and grass and

stuff like that) with the practice of lending money on interest, on the basis

that money somehow reproduces, like mice in the thatch, and so its all right to

borrow because each silver owl you borrow will hatch out a clutch of little baby

owls, whichll pay the interest on the loan and still leave you change for

things like food and rent. Piffle; but I made it sound totally convincing, and

in due course youll see what hatched out of it when Alexander and Harpalus

eventually came into serious money.

But what they really wanted to learn and I wanted to teach, because I had

three books to teach it from was military history; so we fiddled about with

the curriculum until it ended up like the proportion of wine to water in the

mixing bowl during the closing stages of a really evil party. I taught them the

battles of the Persian Wars (from memory), the major engagements of the

Peloponnesian War (from Thucydides book), the theory of chivalry and clean

warfare (from Homer) and the future of military science (from Aeneas the

Tactician; thirty years out of date and still every bit as impractical as the

day it was written). I tell you, Phryzeutzis; if Id been a slightly better

teacher, or if theyd had slightly less inherent ability, I could have

guaranteed the safety not only of Greece but the whole of the Persian empire .

Leonidas, of course, objected to my teaching Homeric warfare, because Leonidas

taught Homer. It was his subject, the only one he knew anything about, the only

one that really mattered in the eyes of Philip and the other boys fathers. I

felt it was bitterly unfair that he should be getting at me over this; after

all, I loathe and despise Homer, and wanted nothing at all to do with the

matter, but the fact remains teaching war without Homer is like teaching a lad

to be a smith while omitting any reference to metal. Cant be done.

The net effect of this was to make me even more rabidly anti-Homer than before;

which in turn brought me into conflict with Aristotle, who worshipped the stuff,

and by association Alexander, who liked Homer in the same way a fish likes

water. All that blood and honour, that simple equation between prowess, exertion

and reward it was the sort of world he most wanted to live in, regardless of

whether or not it bore any relation whatsoever to real life.

We fell out over it, in fact. What brought it to a head was a discussion on the

role of the archer in various philosophies of war. Id pointed out that whereas

the Greeks had never reckoned much to the bow and arrow, the Persians had won

their empire with them. I was just explaining why this was Ibex horn, I said.

The only decent bows in Greece are made of ibex horn, and theyre difficult and

expensive to build, so very few people have them. The majority of the bows we

use are just plain wood, and Greek trees make lousy bows. The Persians, on the

other hand, make vastly superior bows out of slivers of horn, wood and sinew

laminated together; the materials are plentiful and theyre good enough at it to

be able to make the bows affordable, so everyone who wants one has a chance to

own one. So the Persians fight with the bow, whereas we Greeks prefer to fight

with spears, in armour; and we prefer to fight that way because we have a

different notion of what winning means. For the Persians, winning means killing

the enemy. For us, it means making the enemy run away and leave us in possession

of the disputed territory. Thats what we call honourable warfare, and its

purely fortuitous that armoured spearmen can bash the crap out of archers

nineteen times out of twenty, because otherwise Id be telling you this in

Persian

Excuse me, Alexander said. Please note: whatever else I may have failed to do,

Id at least taught him the rudiments of civility. But thats not the reason.

I suppose I should have been used to remarks like that by then; but we were

running late and I wasnt in the mood. Really, I said. Then maybe youd care

to tell us what the real reason is.

Simple, Alexander said. The bows a cowards weapon. It says so in Homer.

I took a deep breath. It does indeed, I replied. Repeatedly; though that

doesnt stop Ulysses from single-handedly exterminating the sons-of-bitches

whove taken over his house at the end of the Odyssey with a bow, something hed

have had no chance of doing with a sword or a spear. In fact, youll remember

that he proves hes the king because hes the only one whos man enough to be

able to string the mighty bow, which implies they werent quite so snooty about

bows on Ithaca , at least. Point of interest, by the way; any bow thats been

laid up in the rafters for twenty years and never strung, like Ulysses bow was

supposed to have been, would have snapped like a dry twig long before you could

get a string on it, but nevertheless

Ulysses wasnt a man of honour, Alexander interrupted. He was as devious as a

fox.

Or as we say in Athens , an intellectual, I snapped back. Yes, Ill grant you

that. Its not really relevant to the subject at hand, but its true enough.

Alexander looked at me, and when he spoke again hed lowered his voice. Really,

I should have known better. You dont like Homer, he said.

True, I admitted.

Well, thats not right, Alexander replied. Even you must see that

You do, dont you? I broke in. You really enjoy the stuff, I can tell.

Of course.

I nodded. Id been fattening him up for this. All right, I said, who would

you rather be, Achilles or Homer?

Alexander smiled. Thats easy, he said. Homer.

Really?

Of course. By the time Achilles was your age, he was dead.

I nodded again. Absolutely true, I replied. Eternally famous, yes. The

greatest hero of all time, yes. Destined to live forever

Because of Homer, Alexander pointed out.

Because of Homer, thank you, destined to live for ever, yes. Dead, yes. And

Homers still alive, I take it?

Of course not.

I see. Homers dead too. I smiled. Listen, everybody. Alexander would rather

be Homer than Achilles. Tell me this, Alexander, whod you rather be? The

all-comers champion at the Olympic Games, or the little fat guy with a scroll

who calls out the names of the winners?

Alexander didnt like that. Not one bit.

The rest of them did.They tried to keep straight faces; by and large they

managed it. But theyd had to put up with Alexander being Alexander for a long

time. Id had enough of it after three or four weeks; theyd had to deal with it

all their lives. I made a lot of friends that day.

(Clever me. Just like the man who fell out of the fig tree; he broke his back,

but he shook down an awful lot of figs.)

I take your point, Alexander said eventually. I was wrong. Thank you for

pointing out my mistake.

The look he gave me as he said that made me feel cold all over. Something had

happened to him in that moment, and Ive been wondering ever since what the hell

it could have been.

All right; consider Achilles. He was the son of a goddess and a mortal, forever

torn between the limitless possibilities of his mothers divinity and the

constraints of his fathers gross mortality. When he was little more than a boy,

the Trojan War began; almost single-handedly he overthrew the Trojan Empire and

brought the war right up to the walls of the city itself. At that point, after

fighting always in the front of the battle and achieving every possible

objective, he made a mistake; he took offence, fell out with the king on a

matter concerning his honour, backed himself into a corner so that he could no

longer participate in the war without a disastrous loss of face. So he sulked in

his tent, while Zeus gave victory to the Trojans and the Greeks were slaughtered

like pigs in the autumn. Only when it was too late to save his dearest friend

did he return to the war, kill the enemy champion and avenge his friend; and for

his mistake he was punished, dying too soon before the city could be taken, shot

with an arrow by a man by far his inferior. Achilles failed; yet he was the

greatest hero of them all, and in Homers Iliad hes caught for ever, like a fly

trapped in amber mounted in gold on a brooch, everlastingly both pre-eminent and

imperfect.

Consider Homer. He was poor and blind, and he was taken prisoner by the enemies

of his people, but all the same he won immortality in his old age by creating

something that can never die. Homers life was wretched, and he was a success.

Consider Alexander.

Well, thats my best shot at a theory; at that moment, because of my foolish

verbal trap, Alexander made a conscious decision to be Achilles. Consider; when

he was little more than a boy, he began the Persian War; almost single-handledly

he overthrew the Persian Empire and brought the war into countries that none of

us knew existed before he arrived there to conquer them. At that point, after

fighting always in the front of the battle and achieving every possible

objective, he made a mistake; he fell out with his friends and the Macedonian

people over a matter concerning his honour, backed himself into a corner so that

he could no longer give up the war without a disastrous loss of face. So he led

them into the mountains and the desert, where so many of them died. Only after

he had caused the death of his dearest friend did he think of giving up the war,

and for his mistake he was punished, dying too soon before the empire could be

established, wounded by an arrow shot by some common soldier, dying of a fever

resulting directly from that wound.

(And consider me, poor and half-blind among the enemies of my people no

offence, Phryzeutzis, but this city was built by Macedonians in Sogdiana and Im

a long way from home trying in my old age to make a record of what Ive seen,

a book that only you will ever read.)

Well, after that the atmosphere was rather strained for a day or so, and I

decided Id better do something to redeem myself, or at least help put that

unfortunate incident out of everybodys mind. Fortunately, Id anticipated that

sooner or later thered be some sort of crisis in the student/teacher

relationship, so Id kept back a choice nugget of comic relief, the sort of

thing that dissolves tension in a wave of shared merriment. It was a pity that I

was going to have to use it up so soon; but the situation seemed to require it.

I read them the bit in Aeneas the Tactician about the bees.

CHAPTER NINE

I remember once standing in the Potters Quarter in Athens , chatting aimlessly

to someone about something, when quite suddenly I heard the most almighty crash.

I turned round and saw that a wall had collapsed. There was a cloud of dust, and

someone was screaming, and people were starting to run. In the end, as I

recall, they pulled four bodies out of the rubble, all dead. I didnt see a

thing, of course. I was looking the other way.

Story of my life, I guess. I was certainly looking the other way while Philip

was waging his not-quite-a-war against the Athenian people; I was in Mieza,

teaching the next generation of Macedons best and brightest about the war

before the war before last. I was teaching them about the theoretical weaknesses

of the traditional Greek heavy infantry formation (Id figured it all out for

myself from first principles; I was ever so pleased with myself) while Philip

was training these same kids fathers and uncles and elder brothers to command

the new model Macedonian phalanx, which was designed to exploit those same

weaknesses and turn the citizen-soldiers shield-wall (bulwark of Greek freedom

for two hundred and fifty blood-spattered internecine years) into an easy joke.

But we didnt get much in the way of news in Mieza.We were living in an awful

kind of cheesy literary epic, pastiche Homer of the worst possible kind, where

Aristotle and Leonidas and Lysimachus and I were Cheiron and Peleus and Phoenix

and whoever the hell I was meant to be (I objected so strenuously to being

Ulysses that eventually I was relieved of duty) tutored the young Achilles and

his comrades, the flower of Grecian youth. In that regard it was all very

tasteless and tacky and, to be honest, quintessentially Macedonian. I was

constantly reminded of the way the Macedonians periodically tried to put on a

play, something famous by Sophocles or Euripides. They made up costumes that

were nineteen parts out of twenty accurate and authentic recreations of what the

Athenian chorus and actors would have worn, but that remaining one-twentieth was

enough to spoil the whole effect. The heels of the boots would be too high or

too low, the expressions of the masks too menacingly comic or too ridiculously

sad, or one of the colours would be wrong, or (worst of all) some wealthy patron

of the arts wouldnt be able to resist fitting out the chorus with genuine

purple scarves when the Athenian producer wouldve found a way to get roughly

the same effect with henna. Likewise, theyd speak the lines with passion and

feeling, but not quite understand what they were actually saying, while archaic

or poetic turns of phrase that they werent familiar with could cause absolute

and hilarious chaos.

I particularly remember one well-meaning, conscientious soul whod been

dragooned into being an actor in real life he spent his days smearing pitch

round the necks of wine-jars who turned out to have genuine talent and an

uncanny insight into what he was saying. He was doing ever such a good job and I

was sitting there enjoying the play no end when he came to a bit that he

obviously hadnt been able to puzzle out. The line should have been After the

storm, I see the blessed calm; but he put the wrong emphasis on the word galen,

and managed to turn it into After the storm, I see the goddamn ferret. Which

was bad enough; but what reduced me to uncontrollable giggling was the way he

said it, with a tremendous soaring rush and a both-arms-wide gesture of sheer

joy, as the poor fool tried to gloss over the apparently meaningless gibberish

with a spectacular piece of histrionics.

Tsk. Macedonians. The fact that they were smart enough to overrun Greece while

the majority of us didnt even realise what they were doing pales into

insignificance compared with their inability to get a line of poetry right. The

point is, they had no business fooling about with poetry in the first place. A

lion would look ridiculous pulling a farm-cart.

By the same token, Macedonian princelings had no place sitting under the shade

of carefully trimmed beech trees discussing the finer points of Alcaic prosody

or the authenticity of the Dolon episode in the Iliad. At their age they should

have been with their elders on the battlefield or in the camp, polishing armour

and carving thick slabs of meat off the whole sheep roasting on the spit. But,

being young noblemen, they laboured and strained and excelled themselves, to the

point where they could just about have passed for my social equals at an

Athenian dinner party.

Case in point; Philip made one of his unaccounted impromptu visits, and made it

known that hed like to hear how Alexander was getting on with his music. So we

all trooped into the little theatre (did I tell you wed dug a little theatre

out of the side of a hill? It was small and the seats were just banked-up turf

and from time to time a stray goat would wander across during the course of a

performance to nibble at the grass growing between the paving-slabs on the stage

floor, but by the time wed finished it was a theatre; or at least, it was

useless for anything else) and made ourselves as comfortable as we could. Then,

when we were all perching comfortably, Alexander strode onto the stage and

started to play the harp.

Needless to say he played it competently; competent verging on well, in fact,

because hed chosen quite an awkward piece with tricky fingering, but he was

making it seem much easier than it was.

Well done, Philip grunted. Thats very good.

Alexander looked up, grinned and started to play something else. This time he

played something downright difficult, and whats more he played it not only

flawlessly but also with feeling, a genuine interpretation of the music rather

than just making a noise that sounded like it. While this was going on, Philip

was getting steadily more and more annoyed, until finally he stood up with a

scowl on his face.

Thats too good, he said. Arent you ashamed to be able to play the harp that

well?

At which, as you can imagine, Alexander dropped the harp as if it had just come

still cherry-red hot from the blacksmiths forge and stomped back to join the

other kids, with not the slightest trace of expression on his face and (to the

best of my knowledge) never touched a musical instrument again as long as he

lived.

That was, of course, a slap in the face for Aristotle, because music was one of

his subjects oh, he didnt actually teach the harp himself, there was a little

man who came in to do that. But Aristotle taught the theory of music, and

musical appreciation, and the mathematical foundations on which music is based;

and there was Philip accusing him, by implication, of training his son and heir

for the life of a four-obols-a-day professional musician, the kind you buy in

the slave sales for two-thirds the price of a good quality field hand.

Like Athens and Thebes around that time, Aristotle and I had formed an uneasy

defensive alliance against Philip, not because hed given us cause but just in

case he ever did (a bit excessive, you think, Phryzeutzis? You never met Philip)

and I remember him coming to see me that evening, after wed managed to get away

from the obligatory Macedonian family feast. If itd been anybody else my heart

wouldve bled for him.

What am I supposed to do, he complained sorrowfully, teach mediocrity? Fair

enough, if thats what he wants, he has plenty of Macedonians far better

qualified than I am. But I just cant do that, Euxenus, I dont know how to

teach a boy so much and no more. I wouldnt have the first idea how to go about

it.

I nodded sympathetically. Of course not, I replied. Its because you arent

really a teacher. Youre a philosopher, a scientist; you have to teach the whole

truth because its all you understand. A teacher doesnt always understand;

often as not he doesnt. But he knows how to get across as much of the subject

as is good for the pupil. Its a different skill.

Aristotle sighed. There you are, he said. I dont really understand what

youve just said. I know what the words mean, but when you examine them

carefully they dont make sense. With respect, I feel that youre much closer to

your own definition of a teacher.

I yawned; it was late and Id had a lot to drink, and I had to be up early in

the morning. Thats me, I said. Im just a porter who carries knowledge. I

pick it up out of the book, lug it across and dump it in the boys minds, so

many basketfuls per shift until Ive filled my quota. Whats in the basket, I

neither know nor care.Thats why Im a good teacher, gods forgive me.

He smiled. You have the knack of putting things in a striking way, with imagery

and other pleasing rhetorical touches, he said. I believe you would do well in

politics if you ever found anything you believed in. But you dont really

believe in anything, I think; thats your Yapping Dog philosophy.

I stretched out on a couch and rubbed my forehead. Thats not quite true, I

said. I believe quite passionately in the imperfection of all known political

theories. I believe that once youve brought them out of Platos Republic and

tried to make them work in the cesspit of Athens , youll find that none of them

can survive prolonged contact with the lowest common denominator, human nature.

I yawned again. I dont know, you have this fine slogan, Man is a political

animal, and I suppose I agree. You cant put three human beings together for

more than a week without politics of some description breaking out, like mildew

on damp apples. Its definitely part of our nature, Id never try and argue

otherwise. All Im saying is, its part of human nature in the same way that

greed and violence and vanity are all parts of the mix. Its there and it cant

be got rid of, but its wrong to encourage it. And its doubly wrong to make

people believe that if we all sat down and put our thinking caps on and studied

enough data and made a big effort, sooner or later wed be able to come up with

the perfect political system. Its like saying that if only we tried really hard

we could make ourselves grow wings.

Aristotle shook his head. Thats just the Yapping Dog credo again, he said.

We are all imperfect, we are all doomed to stay that way, nothing can be done

for us. I cant accept that, Im afraid. Humanity is capable of perfecting

itself; if it wasnt, it wouldnt be human.

I put my hands behind my head and closed my eyes. Now were just swapping

slogans, I said. Youre welcome to yours and Ill keep mine, and that way we

neednt start a fight. Meanwhile, I really am feeling rather tired, so if its

all the same to you

I dont think he heard any of that. All the time I knew him he suffered from

this terrible intermittent deafness. Consider the gods, he went on, sitting

upright and looking at me as if to suggest I really ought to be taking notes.

Because theyre immortal and invulnerable, they can survive and flourish

without needing to perfect themselves. Indeed, perfection would be torment for

them, since they live forever; theyd be in a permanent state of having reached

the end of a journey. Now consider animals, and the lesser forms of humanity

that are little better than animals. They lack the resources and abilities that

would make it possible for them to perfect themselves; they lack reason and

self-awareness and the ability to differentiate between right and wrong, good

and bad. Now, between the two extremes, consider Man. He has the ability to rise

above the animal, and he has the need to do so, because he is mortal and finite,

and because as a mere animal he would be entirely unsuccessful, having no fur to

warm him or claws or sharp teeth or thick hide to defend him against the more

powerful predators. Consider the means by which he is to achieve that

perfection; surely by co-operation, by virtue of the fact that a combination of

many men together is far more than the sum of its parts. This is Man in his

political mode

Oh, I know, I said. A pile of unlaid bricks is a pile of bricks, but the same

bricks put together is a wall. Comes a time, though, when all walls fall down.

You show me a wall thats still standing and Ill show you a wall that hasnt

fallen down yet. Trust me, I added, with a quite ostentatious yawn, I know

about walls falling down.

Im sorry? Aristotle said, puzzled. I dont think I quite

You wouldnt, I interrupted. You werent there. Sorry, private joke. Hed

annoyed me now, and I wasnt feeling quite so sleepy. All right, I went on,

now it comes down to ways of looking at things. I could say, why build a wall

if its designed to fall down sooner or later? Wheres the point? Or I could

say, just because itll fall down in a hundred years time, or a thousand,

doesnt mean to say we shouldnt build it now and keep the sheep out of the

newly-planted beans. Attitude, thats all. Im prepared to concede that youve

got a good attitude and Ive got a bad one, but that begs the question of whats

good and whats bad. Your wall may keep the sheep out for a thousand years, or

it may fall down tomorrow and kill a bunch of people. Your politics is

dangerous, Aristotle, and if it tends to cause more harm than good, maybe you

shouldnt play around with it.

Credit where its due, hed been listening attentively and not taken offence. I

see you sitting on a hillside, he replied, surrounded by stones. Youre wet

and cold, and sooner or later youll get fever in your lungs and die. Now, you

have the wit and the skill to build a house out of the stones, and to light a

fire inside it thatll keep you warm. But you say, no, if I build the house it

may fall on me and crush me, and if I light the fire it may throw sparks into

the thatch and burn me while I sleep. So you stay out on the hill and die.

Maybe, I conceded. Maybe I last twenty years, whereas if Id built the house

and it had fallen on me Attitudes, you see. Or opinions, if you prefer. The

different ways you and I trade off risks and benefits. Maybe the real difference

is that youre trying to make me think the way you do, while Im quite happy to

let you do what the hell you like, provided you do the same for me.

He shook his head. Euxenus, plucked to safety at the last moment from a

tempestuous sea, complains that I infringe upon his right to swim.

I smiled. Aristotle, who cant swim, imagines that everybody whos in the water

will drown if he doesnt save them. And now, with the very greatest respect, I

want to go to bed. That way, come morning, Ill be wrong but happy and you can

be right and dead on your feet.

For some time now, Phryzeutzis, Ive been hearing your voice at the back of my

mind. Youre not complaining, exactly; youre just asking in a bemused tone of

voice why someone whos led such a quiet and pedestrian life as I obviously have

should feel any kind of obligation to make a record of it for future

generations. Its not, you point out, as if anything interesting ever happened

to me. Oh, sure enough, you add, at various times I met a whole bunch of other

people who led interesting lives, but thats not the same thing. Maybe, you

suggest, I should forget about telling my life story and tell theirs instead.

I can quite understand. After all, who the hell would want to read the history

of just one ordinary man, the annals of how he earned his living, where he

lived, who his friends were, who he slept with, whether he ever got ill, what

was his favourite sauce to go on pan-fried whitebait. This isnt, I grant you,

the sort of thing anybody outside his immediate family would ever conceivably

want to know, unless he was someone really important and famous (in which case

it might have some bearing on our understanding of the way things happened; he

burned such-and-such a city to the ground because its gates were painted blue

and he never could be doing with blue; his wife snored, which was why he sat up

all night plotting how to overthrow the republic; a little bit of human interest

makes history palatable, like a spoonful of honey and grated cheese on top of

rough wine).

I understand your puzzlement, and I forgive you for it. You see, my problem is

that all the interesting stuff happened in the second half of my life (assuming

I dont live to be as old as Nestor, in which case wed have to make that the

second third), but much as Id like to I cant really skip the tedious early

stuff, because you need to have waded through it to understand why things turned

out the way they did. When I started this story, I did consider jumping in at

the stage Ive just reached and then stopping and going back to do the

explanations (And the reason for this was that when I was only a kid.. .); but

thatd just be confusing. The fact is, people dont live their lives like that,

starting off in their late thirties, nipping back to catch up on their

childhood, then carrying on where they left off which is a pity, in my opinion.

Im sure Id make a far better job of my childhood if I could do it now, with

the benefit of everything Ive learned over the years, instead of having to try

to cope with one of the most influential and formative parts of my life equipped

only with the shallow and imperfect understanding of a young boy. Its always

struck me that asking a kid to cope with being young is like telling a farmer

that if he makes a good job of ploughing the field with his bare hands, youll

reward him by giving him a plough.

The truth is, my life never went according to plan, or a plan, or anything

resembling a plan. It just sort of sprawled. Some lucky people have lives like a

new colony, where the public buildings and houses and streets and markets and

town walls are all laid out and completed before the first settler moves in. The

rest of us are like old villages which grew up haphazard, strung out along a

road or squashed in between two mountains. Consider; I was born to be a

gentleman farmer, a man who does just enough work to maintain his self-esteem

and spends the rest of his time in aimless and harmless enjoyments. Instead, I

became a professional liar, a fraudster, a parasite; and my reward for that was

to be entrusted with the education of the Prince of Macedon and the next

generation of the nations rulers and noblemen. Now, when I first embarked on a

career in lies, the last thing Id have expected was to find myself in a

position of such responsibility, so of course I didnt plan or prepare for

anything like that. Instead, I just drifted down the river. My few attempts at

living a regular, honest life, such as my marriage, failed quickly and totally,

so I stopped bothering. To all intents and purposes, I was living in my sleep,

in the same way as other people walk in theirs. By and large, an inoffensive and

undemanding way to use up your days, but hardly the stuff of gripping and

life-enhancing history.

Then, quite suddenly (Here comes the sort of thing youve been waiting for.)

my life changed and I found myself involved with and initiating momentous and

significant events, doing things that will affect the lives of countless people

yet unborn, finding myself a place in history. A remarkable, unforeseen change,

and all because of an olive.

The olive in question was a small, wrinkled, rather elderly example that nobody

had wanted; so it was left in the bottom of the bowl while its younger, plumper

brethren were dragged away and eaten like the seven boys and seven girls

supposedly sent every year to the Minotaur. Eventually, our sad olive was the

only one left; at which point it was scooped up by a greedy individual by the

name of Myronides and swallowed whole.

Myronides had the bad habit of talking with his mouth full, and he tried to

swallow the sad olive while in the middle of a lively, really quite heated

discussion with Leonidas, Euxenus son of Eutychides (me) and General Parmenio,

Philips most trusted advisor. As a result, the olive went down the wrong way,

wedged itself sideways in his throat and blocked off his windpipe in the manner

of the 300

Spartans who held off the Persian army atThermopylae. Rather more successfully,

in fact; Myronides choked, went an alarming shade of purple, and died.

Id never seen a man choke to death, and I didnt see it happen this time I

was looking the other way, as usual, chatting to the man on my right because I

was bored to tears by Myronides and the rather fatuous argument hed been waging

for the past quarter of an hour. The first I knew of it was when someone said

Myronides? in an alarmed voice, and someone else said Gods, hes dead! and

people started jumping up and crowding round and yelling for doctors.

If I sound a trifle callous, its probably because I didnt like Myronides much.

He was loud and rude and stupid, but stupid in a crafty way so that he was

always able to kid people into going along with his stupid notions. He was, Im

ashamed to say, an Athenian and a philosopher.

The reason he was there, having dinner with King Philip, his chief minister and

his tame intellectuals, was that he was pitching an idea; and the real reason

why I took an instant dislike to him was that the idea he was pitching was one

that I should have thought of myself. In brief, he was there to ask the King to

sponsor him in establishing a new colony on the Black Sea coast, where the wheat

comes from.

Before Alexander, the Black Sea region was where all ambitious colonists went if

they could. A disturbingly large proportion of the bread eaten in Attica was

grown there, and reached us by way of the Greek cities of the Crimea; there was

plenty of money to be made in those parts, the natives were either friendly or

negligible, and the Greek presence had been there long enough to make it

something of a home from home.

The other sweet thing about the Black Sea region was that it didnt belong to

anybody (apart from the people who lived there originally, who obviously didnt

matter). The whole stretch of coastline from Byzantium to Colchis was there for

the taking. It was far enough away from Greece proper that you didnt have to

get involved in the endless round of dreary little wars between Athens and

Sparta if you didnt want to, and the Persian Empire stopped at the Caucasus ,

with the mountains and the violent, unruly Sarmatians between the Great King and

the bit the Greeks lived in.

In consequence, the region appealed to both sections of society from whom

colonists are usually drawn; poor, practical-minded people who want an easier

living, and woolly minded idealists who want to found a brave new world. Its

plain enough that these two types go together like oil and water, having very

little in common beyond the vague belief that geography holds the key to human

happiness. Unfortunately, most every colony ever founded has been made up of a

mixture of the two, and since the idealists are mostly reject or inadequate sons

of the ruling class, they tend to be the ones who get put in charge of the

venture. Typically, they set out with noble aspirations of founding the worlds

first true democracy, which generally lasts until halfway through the sea voyage

out, by which time the fifty per cent of the colonists who underestimated how

much food theyd need on the journey have traded their notional

five-hundred-acre allotments with their more practical co-settlers for a couple

of jars of cattle-feed-quality barley. Again typically, its the scions of the

great and good families who forget to bring a packed lunch; so when they get to

journeys end, they tend to adjust the constitution of the Great Experiment a

little, usually the parts dealing with land ownership, taxation and

representation of the people. Sooner or later theres a civil war of sorts, and

since the scions of noble houses are the only ones who could afford to bring

along such expensive items as armour and weapons, things generally end up

following the pattern everybody left home to get away from, but with the

erstwhile younger sons finally having a bit of land to call their own. Its a

wonderful system, highly successful and very, very Greek.

That, as I say, is the usual way its done; but Myronides had something better

to suggest.

For some time, Philip had been hiring mercenaries to augment his own troops in

his itty-bitty wars. From a purely military point of view, this was good

business. Mercenaries generally make better soldiers than civilians, because

they fight for money and they only get paid when theyre winning. The problem

Philip was facing lay in the fact that he now had rather more mercenaries on the

payroll than he could afford, and the point at which you thank your paid helpers

for their excellent work and suggest that they leave your prosperous, fertile

country and go back to their rocky hillsides is notoriously ticklish. Sometimes

they dont want to go.

Atypically for an employer of mercenaries, Philip did have enough quality

citizen-soldiers to sling them out and make sure they stayed out, if he had to.

But why incur such an expense of manpower and resources, both of which hed need

for his next round of itty-bitty wars, if he didnt have to? Myronides idea was

to pack them all off to a colony in idyllic Taurus, where the old Borysthenes

river winds lazily to the sea; itd cost next to nothing, hed be rid of a

nuisance,

the mercenaries would be as happy as a pig under an oak tree and King Philip

would have a strategically placed outpost on the land route from Greece to

Persia, for as and when he had time to extend his interests in that direction.

And Myronides, fat, loud, obnoxious and plausible, would be the outposts first

governor.

And would have been, but for that one sad olive.

Like I said, I was looking the other way when it happened. But before that,

before I lost interest in it, Id been taking a lively part in the debate wed

been having about the Ideal Colony. Perhaps youll recall that Ive mentioned

before how popular this tiresome and faintly ridiculous subject was back then,

as a topic for philosophical debate. If so, youll remember that it was a

favourite subject of mine not because I was desperately interested in it, quite

the reverse, but because it happened to be one I was very good at (and there was

also the unmissable opportunity to dance dialectic rings round Aristotle, who

took it so desperately seriously, with his mammoth collection of constitutions

of city-states and all).

That evening, Id been on pretty brilliant form until my head started to hurt.

Mainly to aggravate Aristotle and get my revenge on Myronides for thinking of my

idea before I did, Id taken it upon myself to rubbish both democracy and direct

military rule as ways of running the sort of colony that was being envisaged

here. Rubbishing Aristotle was easy enough after all, its perfectly true that

democracy isnt the way to go in these cases, for the reasons I mentioned just

now. I was on rather less solid ground with Myronides proposal, but Myronides

didnt have the verbal skills to win a debate with me if he was trying to argue

that fire is hot. Offhand I cant remember what I said, but by the time I lost

interest, Myronides had fewer legs to stand on than a flatfish, and was getting

rather desperate hence, I suppose, his carelessness in eating olives. Damn. I

hadnt thought of it that way before. It seems as if I was responsible for his

death, if you care to look at it from that angle.

Well, for some reason Myronides demise stole my thunder, and even after theyd

towed away the body and mopped up the spilt wine nobody seemed very interested

in resuming the debate where it had left off. I made an excuse and cleared off

as soon as it was polite to do so. Ironically, it was one of the six nights each

month when Theanos husband was away with the horses (didnt I mention Theano?

Not much to tell, really. She was the daughter of one of the local tenant

farmers, and had married one of Philips chief grooms in the hope of getting out

of Mieza for good; but her husband had fallen in love with one of the boys who

worked in our kitchens and had got himself assigned to the royal steading across

the valley from us so as to be near him. She found me interesting because I was

Athenian and exotic, and spoke with what she maintained was an attractively

sophisticated Attic accent. Well, it takes all sorts), but what with death at

the dinner table and my bad head I really wasnt in the mood. She shrugged and

said shed hang about for a bit even so; it was a positive pleasure to get out

of the house for a few hours, she said, even if only to go and sit in someone

elses. I said I didnt have a problem with that, but I wasnt likely to be

terribly good company. So whats new? she replied sweetly, and mixed herself a

drink.

You dont mind, do you? she added, as an afterthought.

I made a vague gesture intended to convey warm-hearted hospitality. You go

ahead, I said. Finish the jar, if the risk of having all your teeth dissolved

doesnt bother you. And to think, I used to reckon Attic wine was rough.

Thanks, she said. But I wasnt talking about the wine. What I meant was, you

dont mind me hanging around here?

Be my guest. Well, strictly speaking youre my guest already, so really what

Im saying is, carry on being my

Im going to have a baby, she said.

I thought for a moment before replying. Thats nice, I said. Whens it due?

She glared at me. No, she said, think. Im going to have a baby.

Thats what I thought you said, I answered. Surely thats a good thing.

I dont think my husbands going to see it like that.

Im not usually that obtuse, really; but Id had a long day and a fretful

evening, and you know how difficult it can be to think clearly when your heads

splitting. I see, I replied.

You see, she repeated, and I couldnt help noticing that she used that same

flat, expressionless tone of voice that Alexander favoured when he was angry.

Probably a Macedonian thing, I told myself. Well, thats fine.

I swung my legs off the couch and sat up. All right, I said, Im open to

suggestions. What did you have in mind?

She looked at the wall a foot or so above my head. Oh, I dont know, she said.

Hanging myself is probably favourite. They say hemlocks the most comfortable

way, but I wouldnt want to try that without some sort of recipe. Maybe you

could ask your friend Aristotle if he knows what the recommended dose is. Hes

heavily into botany, isnt he?

I didnt like the sound of that; Theano wasnt much given to melodrama as a

rule. I could ask, I suppose, I said, but hemlocks something of a sore

subject with us Athenians, and philosophers in particular. Dont you think

youre over-reacting somewhat?

The Alexander look was replaced with a generous eyeful of pure poison.

Over-reacting, she said.

Yes, I answered. Over-reacting. You may find this difficult to believe, but

where I come from, pregnancy isnt usually regarded as some kind of death

sentence. In fact, theres quite a few people who wouldnt be here today if

someone hadnt got pregnant at some stage. Tell me, has the concept of divorce

filtered its way into this delightful country of yours? Or am I looking at a

duel to the death, or something equally quaint?

Her scowl deepened; then she giggled. Actually, she said, thats rather sweet

of you. But I dont think itll improve matters if Pisander kills you too. But

yes, we do have divorce, and its only legal to kill an adulterer if you catch

him in the act.

I nodded. Same as in Athens , I said, more or less.

She sighed. Oh, youre all right, she said. The worst that can happen to you

is an order for damages.

What about you? I asked.

She shook her head. He wont kill me, she replied. Dead, Im not worth

anything. No, hell divorce me and sue you, and thatll be the end of it. Itll

probably cost you the price of a couple of good horses but you can afford that,

Im sure. Still, Im sorry. I didnt do it on purpose.

I frowned. Dont be horrible, I said. Everythings going to be fine, youll

see. I mean, this isnt the first time something like this has happened, and I

dont suppose itll be the last. Just so long as we both take it as it comes and

dont panic

That made her really angry.

I know, I know. But really, I was completely out of my depth here. After all, I

hardly knew the girl. And in Athens , we have a rather more pragmatic attitude

to these things. Well, for a start itd all have been sorted out by men; her

father or her brother would have talked to me about it, and wed have put

together some sort of deal for the husband, and then wed have made arrangements

for her and the baby. A nation thats produced some of the finest minds the

world has ever known is more than capable of dealing with such minor domestic

crises in an organised and efficient manner. Up in the wild and woolly north,

however, it seems to be the case that situations of this kind arent held to be

properly concluded without substantial displays of emotion.

You bastard, she said; and she was clearly about to expand on the subject when

someone started banging on the door.

Hell, I thought. You told me he was away at the steading, I hissed.

He is, she replied nervously. He rode up there this morning with a string of

yearlings.

More banging on the door. All right, I said. Go in the back room till I can

get rid of them.

The good news was, it wasnt her loathsome husband Pisander. The bad news was,

it was three soldiers.

Are you Euxenus? said one of them. The Athenian?

I nodded.

He wants to see you.

Oh. Right.

You didnt need to be Solon or Pythagoras to work out who he was; and it didnt

require much imagination to guess what He wanted to see me about. I should have

been expecting it, of course. A man drops dead at the Kings table, and a fellow

guest hurriedly makes his excuses and darts away. Furthermore, said fellow guest

had previously been arguing with the dead man; said fellow guest and said dead

man were both Athenians. Hell, if Id been in Philips place Id have arrested

me before theyd finished sweeping up the spilt chickpeas.

Can I just get my cloak? I said, heading for the back room.

No need for that, the soldier replied. Were only going to the other side of

the yard.

Not that itd have done you any good, his expression added. Military history and

tactics seminar number three: always post a man outside the back-room window.

Why they thought I could teach them anything about the subject, I havent a

clue.

All right, I said. Any idea what this is about?

The soldier shook his head. Sorry, he added; and the hint of genuine

compassion in his voice as he said it was probably the most chilling thing Id

ever heard in my life. When the arresting officers sorry for you, you know its

not going to be fun.

As a fountain of justice, Philip had a certain reputation for flair when he was

sober, at any rate. For example, when sentencing two undesirables to permanent

exile, his judgement had been: (to the first undesirable) Leave Macedon

immediately; (to the other one)

Catch him up. Then there was the old man who was convinced for some reason

that Philip had decided the case against him on account of his age; so he dyed

his hair and appealed. Go away, Philip said. Ive already said no to your

father. A laugh a minute, in other words, provided you were sitting in the

right part of the room.

As I was led back into the hall, therefore, I wasnt feeling particularly

chirpy; and any residual traces of confidence I may have had left melted away

when I saw that, as well as King Philip, I was in the presence of General

Parmenio, Prince Alexander and a bunch of other high-ranking Macedonians who

hadnt been at the dinner. The whole assemblage had too much of an air of

justice being seen to be done for my liking, and I was wondering whether there

was any point at all in trying to argue that strictly speaking I was still an

accredited Athenian diplomat (having never reported to Assembly, filed my

accounts and been officially discharged from my duties) when Philip looked up

and nodded to the soldiers. They took a few steps backwards, and Philip

gestured for me to join the party.

Not disturbing you, I hope, he said.

No, no, not at all, I replied.

Philip nodded. Thats good, he said. I was afraid you might have gone to

bed.

I shook my head vigorously, as if denying charges of having murdered my mother.

Not a bit of it, I said. Wide awake, in fact.

Thats all right, then, Philip said, looking as if he was slightly taken aback

at the force of my assertions. Its been an eventful evening, he went on.

And I know youre not one for staying up late.

That, clearly, was a dig at my habit of sloping off from the communal feasting,

which I knew was bad form by Macedonian standards. I couldnt think of anything

to say, though, so I just stood there. Philip helped himself to a drink, then

went on.

If youd cast your mind back to what we were talking about earlier, he said.

Before Myronides had his accident. You remember?

Here we go, I thought. More or less, I said, trying not to sound too cautious;

bewildered innocence was going to be my line, Id decided (and, come to think of

it, I was innocent, though in the circumstances I didnt feel innocent in the

least. And neither would you, with all those grim-faced people staring at you).

The proposed colony. And colonies in general.

Exactly, Philip said. Its a rather interesting subject. And what you had to

say seemed to make a lot of sense.

Thank you, I said.

Well, Philip went on, weve been discussing the subject, and the consensus

seems to be that theres a lot to be said for Myronides idea, but the points

you raised against it were also pretty valid. Good points on both sides, in

fact.

Ah, I said.

Talking of which, Philip went on, Id forgotten till you reminded me that

Archilochus led a colony to the Black Sea . Interesting.

I blinked. For the moment I hadnt a clue who he was talking about. Excuse me?

I said.

Archilochus, Philip repeated. Archilochus the famous poet. The famous poet

youve been teaching to Alexander and his friends.

Right, I said. Archilochus. Yes. I found this book of his poetry, you see, it

was in an outhouse, and...

With uncharacteristic forbearance, Philip ignored me. Very interesting, he

went on. I cant help wondering, in fact, with all the work involved in setting

up a whole new city , how he ever found time to sit down and write all that

poetry.

Well, quite, I said, nodding like a buffoon. Still, you know what they say,

if you want something done, ask a busy man.

Philip smiled. Are you a busy man, Euxenus? he asked.

Me? My mind went blank. I suppose so, I said. Well, not all that busy, I

suppose. But fairly busy.

Good. Because theres something I want you to do for me.

Somewhere at the back of my mind I heard a little voice timidly suggesting that

possibly I wasnt going to die quite yet after all. Anything, I said. You

name it. Id be honoured, of course.

Philip clicked his tongue. You dont know what it is yet, he said.

No. No, I dont, thats perfectly true. What can I do for you?

Philip swigged down the rest of his wine and snapped his fingers for another

jug. This idea for a colony, he said. As I said, I like the idea but I dont

like the problems you pointed out. Tell me, do you think those problems could be

sorted out, or is the whole idea not worth bothering with?

I dont know, I replied. Id have to think about it some more.

You do that, Philip said. And when youve got an answer, come and tell me.

And if itll help concentrate your mind, if the projects viable and if you want

the job, I cant see any reason why you shouldnt be in charge of it. After

all, he went on, Alexander here speaks very highly of you; very highly

indeed, he added, with a slight edge to his voice. And Aristotle reckons

youve got the necessary grounding in economics and politics and all that stuff,

as well as a healthy dose of common sense, which is what Id say is the most

important qualification. And Olympias he smiled; no, grinned. Definitely a

grin I know you can count on her support. Shell agree, youre uniquely

qualified. So, why not go and get a good nights sleep, and start thinking it

over in the morning?

I felt like a fish who finds a hole in the net just when hes about to drown in

air. Of course, I said. Right away. Thats . . . Well, thank you.Yes. Right

away. And, still babbling, I backed away and got out of there as quickly as I

could.

Theano was still there when I got home.

Well? she said. Youre not dead, then. What was all that about?

I flopped down in a chair and started to shake. Its all right, I said.

Everythings going to be fine.

And whats that supposed to mean?

I made myself sit up, and looked her in the eyes.

Go home and pack, I said. Were going to Olbia.

CHAPTER TEN

O f course, that was just more melodrama; sure, we were going to Olbia, but not

for some time.

Even if youre the king of Macedon, you cant organise something as complicated

as the foundation of a new city overnight. Usually, when the Athenians or the

Corinthians found a colony, it takes a year or so of debate, deliberations,

acrimony and name-calling before the project is even approved by Assembly (and

Ive never heard of a case where they didnt get approval; but if a things

worth doing, its worth doing properly and with an appropriate level of public

spectacle). Then theres another year to eighteen months of arguing over who the

oecist is going to be sorry, I keep forgetting. The oecist is the citys

official Founder, the man who lays the first stone or ploughs the first furrow,

the man whose name gets repeated by smiling children at every Founders Day

festival, whose head goes on the coins, whose soul receives prayers and

sacrifices appropriate to a minor deity for as long as the city continues to

exist. Doesnt matter a toss if, having laid the first perfectly square stone or

clung grimly to the bespoke ivory plough-handle, he immediately hops onto a

fast, comfortable ship, goes back home and never sets eyes on the place again;

hes now as close to being an immortal god as its possible for a human being to

get, short of shinning up a drainpipe into the castle of Olympus when theyve

all gone to bed and swigging ambrosia from one of the dirty cups. In this case,

of course, we already had an oecist (me), but that wasnt the end of it, by any

means.

Oh, theres all sorts of things that have to be decided before the expedition

sets sail, some of which may even be important; and you can bet your life that

every single decision will be hammered out in furious debate between two

bitterly opposed factions, while the third, fourth and fifth factions sneak

around behind their backs forming alliances and plotting to overthrow them the

day after tomorrow. Somehow Id imagined itd be different in Macedon, with a

strong and autocratic king making all the really significant decisions. True

enough, he did; but those werent the decisions that took time. Rather, it was

the trivia he delegated to the proto-colonys provisional ruling council that

caused all the fuss, and really, a man like Philip should have known better. For

of course these were exactly the sorts of things that I and my fellow babblers

had been brought up from infancy to argue over in an appropriately fascinating

manner until somebody paid us to stop, and even though we knew that this time we

werent getting paid by the hour, force of habits a terrible thing and sos

professional pride.

Well, at least it gave me ample opportunity to get to know my fellow

councillors, although on balance I think itd have been better for all concerned

if the first time wed met had been at the dockside. These men were the idealist

part of the standard colonial mix, the ones who were sailing in the hope of a

brave new world and a brighter tomorrow. Its a general rule that cities, like

prudent men making gifts to a worthy cause, never give away anything for which

they might conceivably find a use one day, and the upper crust of any bunch of

would-be settlers tends to be made up in roughly equal proportions of the

useless and the malignant. Accordingly, among my Founding Fathers I had two

noblemens sons of such unutterable depravity that I couldnt for the life of me

work out how theyd managed to pack so much activity into such short lives

without completely ruining their health; a big-time political loser whod been

given the choice between a brighter tomorrow in Olbia and no tomorrow at all in

Macedon; five or six extremely earnest, extremely young noblemen whod read

Plato and Aristotle and Xenophon and gods know what else, and who knew for a

fact that humankind are basically a decent enough bunch of chaps provided you

dredge deep enough, and theres no problem so great that it cant be solved if

only men of goodwill are prepared to sit down together and talk through their

differences in a rational manner; and one deaf-mute, one kleptomaniac and a

congenital idiot.

And so it went on. My colleagues argued and bitched; Philip sent the occasional

brisk note asking how much longer he was going to have to keep paying these

tiresome mercenary soldiers Id undertaken to get off his hands; I floundered,

banged tables, wheedled, horse-traded and sent replies to the royal court in

Pella that werent exactly lies provided you interpreted them just right; all in

my spare time, of course, when I wasnt teachingYoung Macedon the correct use of

the caesura in Archilochean iambics and the Spartans blockade of Attica during

the Great Peloponnesian War. Just in case this wasnt enough excitement, I also

had the joyful prospect of Theanos divorce and Pisanders lawsuit against me to

look forward to.

By his own lights, Pisander had been unexpectedly decent about the whole thing.

Apart from slapping her about a bit and drawing pretty patterns on her left

forearm with a hot iron, hed accepted the position without anger or bitterness

and had come to see me in a thoroughly polite and businesslike manner, as seller

to buyer, to open negotiations. Unfortunately, I wasnt nearly as civilised and

pragmatically minded as he was. I hadnt actually met him before; as soon as he

told me who he was and I realised that he was a head shorter than me and quite

slightly built, my rage at his vicious treatment of his wife knew no bounds, and

I bounced him off a wall or two before asking him to repeat his opening offer.

After that, we negotiated through an intermediary.

Theano herself didnt seem to be inclined to make things any easier for me. She

stayed away, didnt answer the notes I sent urging her to leave her husbands

house and move in with me; she hadnt even said whether or not she was coming to

Olbia with me.When the stage in the divorce proceedings came where she had to

leave, she moved back to her fathers house, much to his dismay, since hed

recently remarried himself, so there wasnt a vacancy for another female in what

was anyway a pretty small, hand-to-mouth household. I went to see him and put it

to him that her attitude wasnt doing anybody any good; everything was a mess,

and the baby hadnt even been born yet. After huffing and puffing for long

enough to make sure money changed hands, he agreed with me and said hed see

what he could do to talk her round an ambitious undertaking in which he was

entirely successful, achieving with two short words (Get out!) what Id failed

to do with several long and extremely well-phrased letters. In my own defence, I

should add that she hadnt actually read my letters, mainly because she didnt

know how to read. As an Athenian, of course, Id just assumed... Well, I learned

one valuable lesson from the experience though, as youll see in due course, a

whole bunch of others were entirely wasted on me.

So Theano moved in, and things got very awkward. Now you, my worldly wise young

friend, will tell me that anybody with the sensitivity of a stale bun would

have realised long before this stage in the game that it wasnt entirely

realistic of me to expect her to throw herself into my arms, in a passionate but

respectful manner (as befitting someone of her inferior social standing) and

thank me with shining eyes for rescuing her from a life of wretched drudgery and

lovelessness. And really, I wasnt expecting that, exactly. Neither, however,

was I expecting a sharp blow on the side of my head from a hard-thrown pottery

cup.

What was that for? I asked, dabbing at the point of impact with my forefinger

to see if it was bleeding. It was just a suggestion, thats all.

Go to hell, she replied.

I frowned. What we had here, I perceived, was a communications problem.

And no wonder. Bear in mind, please, that I was brought up in a traditional

Athenian family, and that my mother died when I was quite young. Consequently,

Id never had much occasion to talk to women when I was growing up, and then my

wife died young too so I didnt learn the language at that stage in my life,

which is when most men find themselves assimilating this uniquely challenging

skill. Also worth bearing in mind is the fact that Id spent a very significant

part of my adult life talking to men (and on a competitive basis, at that). I

was, by any standards, a good debater, skilled in the logic-based, fundamentally

adversarial form which discussion or argument among men generally takes. I

imagined that you discussed things with women in basically the same way.

Wrong.

I suppose its a matter of upbringing as much as anything else; if we taught

little girls how to conduct a structured, logical argument in the same way we

teach little boys, maybe we wouldnt run into these ghastly problems we tend to

come across on those occasions when we find ourselves with no choice but to try

to have sensible discussions with women. In practice in normal everyday life,

such a need arises so rarely that it wouldnt begin to justify the amount of

effort involved, so we dont bother. Upper-crust trophy wives need to be able to

talk intelligently, as do the really high-class prostitutes; otherwise it is

indeed a prodigious waste of time and resources.

(Im aware, Phryzeutzis, that things are rather different here, and that men and

women share their lives, rather than living parallel lives under the same roof,

as we tend to do in Athens . Im sorry to say, its an indication of how

primitive your culture really is. You see, the same symbiotic relationship does

indeed occur in certain sections of society in Greece ; but only among the very

poor and backward, where its necessary for the women to labour in the fields

alongside the men, doing the same sorts of work, which means that husband and

wife are in each others company pretty much all the time. Once you get away

from this basic subsistence level of society, though, you find the regular

pattern emerging; men go out to work in the morning and come home at dusk,

having spent the day alone or with other men; women stay in the house and do

womens work, visit each other, and so on. Thats why, incidentally, if you look

at the paintings on Greek pottery and woodwork and the like, the men are painted

reddish-brown and the women are all white, or a very pale pinkywhite; men spend

all day in the sun, women scarcely ever leave the house. I wouldnt worry about

it, though. As your society develops and matures, so youll gradually come to

adopt more enlightened attitudes, patterns of behaviour and, finally, patterns

of speech.)

All right, I said. I can see we need to talk about this. So why dont you

calm down and get a grip and then we might be able to work out just what it is

thats bugging you so much.

She made a curious sort of angry squealing noise. I dont want to calm down,

thank you, she replied. And I know perfectly well whats bugging me without

any help from you, Mister So-Damned-Clever Athenian.

All right, I said. So whats the problem?

You are.

I sighed. A less patient man would have given up long since, but Im not like

that. Youll have to try to be a little more specific if were going to make

any progress here, I said. See if you cant narrow it down a bit. Just what is

it about me that makes you lose control and start throwing things? My face? The

way I eat soup? The sound of my voice?

She glared at me. All of them, she said.

I scratched my ear thoughtfully. Odd, I said. Ive been looking and acting

and sounding the same all my life, and yet thats the first time anybodys ever

slung the crockery at me. Can you account for that?

She shook her head. They do have crockery where you come from? she asked.

My dear girl, were the biggest producers of fine-grade tableware in Greece .

Then I cant understand it, she replied. Id have thought an arrogant,

interfering, manipulative, self-centred bastard like youd have been dodging

flying plates since you were old enough to crawl.

I was amazed. I dont understand, I said. What on earth are you talking

about?

Oh, go to hell, she said.

Thats not an answer, I pointed out. Youll have to do better than that if

you want me to accept

She banged the wall with her fist. I dont want you to do anything, she said,

except get out of my life and stay out, before you do any more damage. Cant

you understand that? I dont like you, and youre a menace. Because of you, Ive

been thrown out of my own house and my fathers house, Ive lost my husband and

Im pregnant. If you can suggest a way that things could possibly be worse,

short of having me lose an arm or go blind, itll be one hell of a tribute to

the power of your imagination. She scowled at me, then added, Oh, yes, I

forgot. Just to round it all off to perfection, you propose to make it up to me

by whisking me miles away from home and stranding me in the middle of nowhere,

in a log cabin surrounded by savages, to spend my days as your combination

whore, brood-mare and skivvy. Thats surely an offer no girl in her right mind

would ever dream of refusing.

She put her hand down on the table not far from the little oil-jug, and I

instinctively jerked my head away. Its a well-known fact: once they get a taste

for throwing things, they find it quite difficult to stop. She noticed and gave

me a look so full of scorn itd have wilted cress. Its all right, she sighed.

Im not going to hurt you if thats what youre worried about.

Oh, but you have, I replied immediately (even I can spot an obvious cue when I

see one). Hurt me, I mean. I shook my head sadly, the very model of injured

benevolence. Just try looking at the situation rationally for a change, instead

of letting all those rampant female emotions take you for a ride. We start off

with a convenient, amicable business arrangement one which you first suggested

yourself, if youre capable of remembering back that far. All right, so things

got a bit out of hand and you found yourself in an awkward position not

something you couldnt have anticipated, unless you had a really weird

upbringing, but I suppose you decided to ignore the risk, figuring itd never

happen to you; some people have the ability to do that, and up to a point I

almost envy them. I cant, but Im a born worrier. Anyway, along comes a

problem, quite properly you come to me for help

I never she interrupted. I ignored her and raised my voice a little.

You come to me for help, I repeated firmly. I consider the position and come

up with an eminently practical way of dealing with it, and what do I get in

return? Obstructiveness and hostility, thats what, in addition to all the

expense and embarrassment Im already being put to on your behalf. But thats

all right, I went on. I do understand, its a really difficult and unsettling

time for you, youre frightened and upset and so you lash out at me,

naturally, the way a child in that sort of situation would take it out on its

parents, the people whore responsible for it and take care of it. Its a

perfectly natural reaction, Ive observed it many times with frightened kids,

and since Ive more or less taken over that role in your life

At this point she made a loud, unpleasant noise, somewhere between a scream and

the squeal of a pig with a burned nose. Shut up, will you? she yelped. I

dont care how bad a state my lifes in, I dont have to listen to this. And to

think, I found you attractive because I liked the sound of your horrible whining

Athenian voice!

Theano, I said; she jumped to her feet, but I was a little quicker and caught

her by the arm. Unfortunately, it was the arm her loathsome husband had chosen

to practise his pyrography on, and she screamed with genuine, unpremeditated

pain. I let go at once, of course, but the harm had been done; the association

had already been formed in her mind.

Theano, I repeated. Look, Im sorry

Waste of breath, of course. She was out of there like a thrush thats managed to

wriggle out from under the paw of an inexperienced fox.

I sat down, feeling unaccountably upset. Not by the rudeness and ingratitude

Im proud of the fact that Im the easy-going sort, the kind who doesnt take

offence unless its really unavoidable, and besides, there were all manner of

extenuating circumstances in this instance, as Id been trying to explain to

her. No, what was bothering me was the fact that she was clearly still

distressed, even after everything Id said to prove to her that I understood

exactly what was going on in her mind; which in turn suggested that something

else was bothering her, something I just couldnt begin to grasp

And me a philosopher. Me, a scientist, a man who hunts the truth to its lair

and brings it struggling to the surface, a man whod been studying his fellow

men that, after all, was what my apprenticeship with Diogenes had been all

about effectively since childhood. And heres me, one of the brightest and the

best, unable to get inside something as simple as the mind of a Macedonian

peasants daughter.

I freely admit, it was an uncomfortable moment; like trying to pick up a rock

youve been able to lift since you were sixteen years old, and suddenly finding

one fine day that its too heavy for you. I didnt like the feeling one bit, and

for a while I was tempted to let her go to the crows and take the problem with

her, so that I wouldnt have to try to deal with it again. For two pins...

But there wasnt anybody on hand to give me two pins, and my professional

conscience wasnt going to let me turn my back on a problem just because it was

disagreeably awkward.

Instead, I went to bed. As it so happened, the book I was reading at that moment

was the collected works of Semonides, one of my all-time favourite lyric poets;

and the line which jumped up off the paper at me like a friendly dog as I pulled

down the scroll was:

God made womens minds entirely separate from

True, I thought, and fell asleep.

She was back again by the time I woke up, of course; fast asleep on a couch in

the main room, with her hair still up and her shoes still on. I left her there,

dressed quickly and hurried out without any breakfast; Id overslept, and a

quick glance up at the sky told me that if I didnt look sharp, Id be late for

school.

Today, I announced, well consider what I believe to be one of the most

significant military actions ever to take place between two Greek armies; and it

so happens that Im extremely highly qualified to pontificate about this

particular slice of military history, because my own grandfather, the great

comic poet Eupolis of Pallene, took part in it. In fact, he was so deeply

involved in it that its a miracle Im here at all.

Im referring, of course, to the destruction of the mighty Athenian army sent

under the command of General Nicias to conquer Sicily in Syracuse towards the

end of the Great War between the Athenians and the Spartans. My unfortunate

grandfather was a soldier in the second expeditionary force that was sent out to

break the stalemate that resulted from the Syracusans entirely understandable

reluctance to meet an army as huge and ferocious as the first expeditionary

force on its own it was one of the largest armies ever to leave Athens, and

once Grandads mob joined it, it was staggeringly big.

Too big, in fact; they didnt bother to bring any food with them, and when they

joined their chums under the beleaguered walls of Syracuse , they found them

half dead from starvation. The only food to be had, in fact, was the occasional

pumice-hard crust or shard of plaster cheese-rind slung over the ramparts by the

chubby and prudent Syracusans, either from basic compassion or a savage sense of

humour.

Well, after a couple of disastrously botched attempts to progress matters a

night-attack on the enemy and a sea-battle, in both of which the Athenians

contrived to turn victory into heartbreaking defeat with that extreme deftness

and sureness of touch that we manage so well the generals realised that they

had no choice but to raise the siege, fall back to friendly territory and get

something to eat. Now this clearly was no big deal; in spite of their losses,

the army was still enormous, and apart from the garrison of Syracuse itself, the

enemy had no field army of any description, let alone one big enough to last

five minutes against a force comprising half the male citizens of the largest

city in Greece who were of military age and owned enough property to serve as

heavy infantry. In other words, the march from Syracuse to Catana was going to

be nothing more arduous than a walk in the country followed by a slap-up dinner

at a friends house; what better way, in fact, to spend a day or so?

I paused there for a moment and looked round. In spite of the family connection,

it was entirely possible that these born warriors already knew more about the

affair than I did (actually, most of what I was telling them was reheated

Thucydides; Grandfather Eupolis scarcely ever talked about the war, so Im told,

except very occasionally in his sleep); in which case theyd be looking bored

or smug, and I could skip the rest of the narrative and get straight on to the

nice chewy conclusions to be drawn at the end. But no, they all looked

revoltingly fascinated and attentive, so I carried on with the story.

So off they marched, I said, and to begin with they were cheerful and their

morale was high. But after a while they began to get a rather creepy feeling, as

if someone was following. So they stopped and the generals sent a few men to

take a look; and sure enough, trailing along behind them like the village dogs

following a sausage-maker on his way home from market was a rabble Im being

polite calling them that, even a rabble of Sicilian scruffs and no-goods,

hired hands, tenant farmers sons, city trash, small boys, without a decent

helmet or breastplate between them. But what they did have were throwing-spears

and bows and arrows and an infinite quantity of good, hand-fitting stones, the

size and weight your father told you never to throw at people in case you did

someone an injury.

It wasnt an army; it didnt have the gear or the social standing to be an

army. And since it wasnt an army, it couldnt fight a battle, so it didnt.

What it could do, though, was buzz round our resplendent and immaculately

polished army like a swarm of angry bees, stinging and buzzing away before they

could be swatted. Trying to catch them was a waste of time; youd feel the

chunk! of a slab of rock on the back of your bronze-encased head, and down youd

go; by the time you were on your feet again, theyd be nowhere to be seen. The

few men who did go scampering off among the rocks in full armour and hot pursuit

never came back, of course; twenty or so adolescent thugs were waiting just

over the skyline to pull the breathless hero down and tear him apart with their

fingernails.

Nothing for it, then, but to keep marching; in full armour, because of the

unceasing shower of stones; in the heat of the day, because they darent stop;

wandering about, herded like goats bewildered by the yapping of small, fierce

dogs they tried to shake them off by marching at night, but they didnt know

the way, and the enemy did. The further they went, the further they were driven

from the road they should have been following, the one that had wells and

streams along it; no water, no food, but lots of dust and heat and the constant

nagging persecution of the enemy that wasnt even an army...

In the end, they broke into two sections, one straggling behind the other. The

first party staggered down to a river; tortured with thirst, they plunged into

the water and the Sicilians killed them as they drank I gather they didnt

make any attempt to fight, they just lay in the water and guzzled it, all filthy

with silt and blood, till an arrow or a stone stopped them, or until the

Sicilians rounded up the survivors and marched them back the way theyd just

come towards Syracuse.

On the way, they passed the place where the other half of the army had been

killed, in a walled orchard on some wealthy Syracusans country estate. My

grandfather was one of a handful who got out of there before the archers and

slingers finished off the job. The rest stayed, kneeling behind their shields

until hunger, thirst or the unofficial weapons of the Sicilians did for them.

Only a fraction of the army lived to be taken prisoner; but there were

thousands of them nevertheless, and they died of starvation and neglect squashed

together in the stone-quarries of Syracuse, the only secure place big enough to

hold such a multitude. They died simply because there wasnt enough food or

water to spare for such a huge number of men, and nowhere big enough to shelter

them.

I stopped there and looked at my audience. They looked uncomfortable, like

children whove just become aware that their father isnt the biggest, strongest

man in the world, and that there isnt really a Good Fairy who watches over them

while they sleep. In retrospect, maybe it was an unkind thing to do to them, at

such an early and impressionable age, to strip them of the comfortable belief

that high breeding, solid plate armour and obeying orders without question will

always see you right, no matter how dismal the situation. After all, these boys

had been raised to be soldiers, and a soldier must have something to believe in,

else hed turn tail and run at the first sight of the sun flashing off the

enemys helmets.

Right, I said, thats the facts of the case. You dont need me to tell you

that it flatly contradicts everything Ive taught you so far about military

theory. In case some of you werent listening, Ill just repeat that one basic

lesson: in war, the side that doesnt screw up, wins. But in this case, apart

from a few logistical problems which they were by no means the first to

encounter, I dont think the Athenians made a mistake. They saw theyd bitten

off more than they could swallow, so they resolved to withdraw in good order.

There was no field army to oppose them. More to the point, there was no reason

to oppose them, because they were going away, with no suggestion that they were

likely to come back. According to basic military theory, there was nothing to be

gained by fighting an enemy whos pissing off of his own accord. After all, what

did the Syracusans actually gain by the exercise, apart from a lot of healthy

exercise burying the dead? They killed thousands and thousands of men; so what?

And thats the point, surely. The Syracusans changed the rules. Up to that

moment, everybody in the world knew why people fought wars; it was to decide a

simple question, such as who owns this attractively situated plain, or whos

going to rule this city. When other means of deciding the issue fail, the

question is put to the gods, who hold up a set of golden scales with the fates

of each side in the pans you remember the scene from Homer, no doubt, and very

memorable it is, too. We Greeks designed heavy infantry warfare to be efficient

and suited to our needs; first, it always gave a clear result; second, it was

decided by courage and physical strength rather than the cleverness of

individual generals; third, it was relatively safe, even for the losing side;

fourth, only the ruling class, the men who can afford armour, are allowed to

take part. Weve fought this way for hundreds of years without a significant

change in the way we go about matters because it works, it does what we want it

to do. As a result, war in Greece has never been about killing as many people as

possible, which would be infamous and an affront to the gods. So; what went

wrong?

There are many possible answers. You can say that the Sicilians arent proper

Greeks (though, by the same token, neither are you; and youre just as shocked

as I was when I first heard the story). You can say that the attack on Syracuse

was simply state piracy and utterly unprovoked; and thats true, too, but hardly

unprecedented. Maybe you could claim that, after enslaving their fellow Greeks

for fifty years, the Athenians were so bitterly hated that something like this

was inevitable, sooner or later. You can argue that this all happened at the end

of the longest and nastiest war in our history, at a point where one side

finally lost its temper and played spitefully, like a violent child. All sorts

of reasons; maybe you can put them all together and end up with enough reasons

to make sense of what happened. But thats not good enough for us, because were

trying to learn history here, and the whole point of history is to find out how

certain things happened with a view to making sure they never happen again. One

day, youll be at the head of an army in hostile territory, and youll see far

away in the distance a big mob of enemy skirmishers keeping pace with you, and

youll think of me then and ask yourself, What do I do now?

All right, heres the answer. Not necessarily a definitively correct one, but

something you can write down on your tablets and learn by heart; the side that

doesnt screw up, wins; making assumptions is an easy way to screw up. Never

assume that the rules will stay the same, that the difficult job is too

difficult or the easy job is too easy. My grandfather and his comrades-in-arms

assumed that walking to Catana was easy, and destroying a vast army with sticks

and stones was difficult; they made assumptions. Now, if I were you, Id lie

awake at nights worrying about what Ive just told you. In fact, the night when

you can put it out of your mind and go back to sleep should be the night before

the day you hand over command to someone else. Any questions?

I hadnt expected any (Id made an assumption, see?) so I was a little bit put

out when Alexander solemnly raised his hand and looked me in the eye.

Well? I said.

Alexander swatted away a fly. I think its obvious where the Athenians went

wrong. Their army was too big. They had more men than they could feed, and then

they sent more men instead of food. And all their soldiers were heavy infantry,

with no light troops or cavalry; if theyd had cavalry and archers, they

wouldnt have got into such a mess. And they didnt know the way, they cant

have or they wouldnt have ended up wandering aimlessly about. Thats three

mistakes. If theyd have got one of those three right instead of wrong, theyd

have made it to Catana without any trouble. So I dont see what the fuss is

about.

I nodded slowly. Youre right, I said, as far as the details go. But you tell

me, why did the Syracusans attack them when they were going home anyway? Why

didnt they just let them go and be glad to be rid of them?

Alexander frowned. Easy, he said. If theyd reached Catana alive, they could

have come back later; fewer of them, with food and cavalry support and guides

who knew the way. They couldnt do that if they were dead. It made sense to kill

them all.

I studied his face for a moment. You reckon, I said.

Why not? He shrugged his shoulders. What was the name of their general, by

the way?

Gylippus, I replied. He was a Spartan.

Well, said Alexander, if Id been Gylippus, Id have done the same thing.

I smiled. And so would I, if Id been Alexander.

After class, I went to a meeting of the Town Planning and Statues sub-committee.

It was the seventh meeting wed had so far, and wed covered the town plan in

the first half hour. That left the statues.

I dont know why youre making such a fuss, one of them said to me, his face

bright red. After all, you know youll have yours, and slap bang in the middle

of the market-place too. So I cant see why you begrudge the rest of us a little

recognition. After all, were the ones founding this city, were entitled. .

Theres a kind of exasperated noise best described as the sound patience makes

when its been heated to steam and escapes through a gap in ones teeth. I made

it. I dont want a damn statue, I said. If I have a right to one, I hereby

waive it. Now, statues of the gods, yes, we need a few of those; but forty-seven

others have you any idea how much valuable cargo space theyre going to take

up? Not to mention the expense.

Depends where your priorities lie, someone else said disdainfully. Youre an

Athenian. Wouldnt you just love it if you had genuine authentic statues of

Cecrops and Theseus and Aegeus and Alcmaeon, taken from life? Think how proud

youd be, with that kind of tangible proof of your nations heritage.

I drummed my fingers on the ground. Sure, I said. I really want to be

remembered as the oecist whose people starved over their first winter because

all they had in the holds of the ships were statues of themselves. Tell you

what; lets have the statues carved out of hard cheese. That way, when were

done admiring them, we can eat them.

There was a gloomy silence.

All right. My heart sank; Theagenes was speaking, and Id come to dread his

intervention. Whenever there was deadlock, up would pop Theagenes the voice of

reason, with a compromise pitched with geometrical precision exactly halfway

between the opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately, halfway between sensible and

utterly fatuous is still utterly fatuous. All right, Theagenes said, how

about this? Instead of lots of separate statues, what about one big statue? A

frieze or something like that, with all of us on?

I shook my head. A frieze that big wouldnt even fit on the ship, I said.

Wed have to build a ship specially, or buy one of those great big barges they

use for shipping marble from Paros .

Theagenes nodded. Fair enough, he said. What about this; we hire a sculptor,

take him with us, and he can do all the statues once we get there? That way

well save all that space on the ship, and we can have as many statues as we

like instead of having to decide in advance.

It took me about three heartbeats to make up my mind to support this proposal

with every last scrap of enthusiasm I could fake. After all, no sculptor skilful

enough to know which end of the chisel to hit was going to want to leave Greece

and go and settle in Olbia; wed search for one, in vain, until it was time to

go, and by then itd be too late to have our portraits carved result, no

statues. Ideal.

Of course, at that time I hadnt yet formulated Euxenus Law; namely, never

underestimate the perversity of human nature. We found our sculptor all right.

His name was Agenor, and he was born on a little chip of rock off the south

coast whose name escapes me for the moment. His love for and skill at carving

stone led him in time to Corinth, and after a year or so there he started

wandering from city to city, staying in one place just long enough to establish

a reputation as a highly competent marble-basher and then get himself chased out

of town by whoever was running the place, be it a democracy, monarchy or

oligarchy. Agenor, you see, was a dreamer, an idealist, a thinker of such deep

thoughts that it always amazed me that he didnt bash his own thumb with the

hammer more often than he did. Everywhere he went, he found fault with the way

the city was governed, and being Agenor he felt it his duty to explain these

shortcomings, loudly and in public, whenever he found somebody willing to

listen. In Athens , they formally exiled him. In Sparta , they flayed the skin

off his back and threw him out of a window; the only reason they didnt hurl him

from the city wall is that Sparta hasnt got any city walls. In Megara they

dumped him in a cesspit. In Sicyon they tied him backwards on a three-legged

mule and let the children chase him out with sticks. In Orchomenus they

sentenced him to death and left him in a cell under the citadel with the tools

of his trade (an ancient tradition of the city), and he escaped by chiselling

out a hole in the rock and slithering through it. In Ambracia they listened to

him, and had a brief but highly unpleasant civil war as a result, from which he

escaped with great difficulty and the loss of the top third of his left ear. In

Pella they found him a job cutting paving-slabs for road-making, and when he

said it wasnt quite the sort of work he was looking for they said, tough, make

yourself useful or well cut out your tongue. Oh, Agenor was delighted to have

the opportunity to join us, and after a brief show of reluctance I agreed to

take him. After all, I reasoned, he could hardly be more of a pest than most of

my fellow Founders, and if I had my way, wed be laying a lot of paving-stones,

so he might come in useful after all.

So we had deadheads, we had enthusiasts, we had idealists, we had the antisocial

and the mentally inadequate; we also had some genuine farmers, men whose fathers

had had one too many sons, and some craftsmen with useful skills that they were

willing to exercise in return for a fair days pay, and some ex-slaves who knew

all there was to know about hard work for little reward; and we had a thousand

Illyrian mercenaries, whod been led to believe that the life they were

embarking on was going to be better than the one they were leaving behind. In

other words we had Greeks, two and a half thousand of them including women and

children. It was a better start in life than many cities get, because we also

had food and animals and materials and tools, provided for us by the King of

Macedon; we had five ships of our own and the loan of twenty-five others there

and back; we had the services of a hundred professional stonemasons for a year,

to be paid by Philip in arrears on their return; we had a splendid and extremely

long written constitution, composed by a committee chaired by Aristotle himself,

of which seven copies housed in shiny bronze canisters were ceremoniously placed

in a cedarwood chest in the hold of the expeditions flagship on the day before

we sailed how the mice managed to get at and chew up all seven copies to such

an extent that nothing legible remained I simply have no idea, or at least not

in front of witnesses. We had all this; and we had me.

And, at the last minute, looking extremely unhappy as her father and two

brothers shooed her up the gangplank with my son in her arms, we had Theano;

expensive, ungrateful, hard-done-by Theano, who didnt want to go and whod far

rather have worked herself to death washing clothes by the river.

Two and a half thousand idiots and one angry girl, and a fair wind for Olbia.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Excuse me, youre saying, but wheres Olbia? You sound sheepish, perhaps

slightly ashamed that you dont know where

Olbia is; but its a good question, and one I really ought to have asked rather

earlier than I did.

The sad truth is, I thought I knew. I thought Olbia was a natural harbour at the

bottom edge of the almost-island of Chersonesus*, the roughly rectangular chunk

that dangles like a spider from the roof of the Black Sea coast at the mouth of

the Gulf of Maeotis, with a mountain range on one side and the sea on the other;

an area colonised by Greeks for many years, with a pleasant climate and friendly

relations with both the neighbouring Greek colonies and the local savages.

There is indeed such a place; its called Heracleia, and we werent going there.

Olbia, by contrast, is lodged in the mouth of the Hypanis river like a strand of

meat wedged awkwardly between your teeth. Its got a wonderful natural harbour;

to the east, theres a promontory very like a folded thumb and pointing

forefinger, or a wolfs head with a very long snout. We werent going there,

either; someone had beaten us to it, a mere three hundred years earlier.

The place we were actually headed for ** was a little triangular bay nibbled

into the coastline between Olbia and Tyras, roughly level with the fingernail of

the pointing forefinger of land I mentioned a

* The Crimea .

** Between Odessa and Mykolayiv in the Ukraine .

moment ago, which the sub-committee on Names and Public Holidays had, in the

comfortable shade of a fig-tree in Mieza, resolved to call Philippopolis en

Beltiste (The city of Philip in the best place anywhere). In practice, we

didnt often refer to it as that. To be honest, if you were to ask me what the

most commonly used name for it was, Im not sure Id be able to tell you. Some

of my fellow Founders actually did insist on calling it

Philippopolis-and-the-rest, which made them a joy to listen to after theyd had

a drop to drink. (Try it and youll see what I mean.) The Illyrians called it

something unpronounceable in Illyrian. My friend Tyrsenius (Ill tell you about

him later) took to calling it Oudama (nowhere) and the name stuck, at least

with some of us. This confused the hell out of the Illyrians and the

Gallippidae, the local natives; in Greek, you see, the part of the word that

means no can be either ou- or me- depending on whether its in a principal or

a subordinate clause and whether the verb is infinitive or subjunctive, which

meant that wed find ourselves referring to it as Oudama and Medama in the same

sentence. The Illyrians firmly believed that there were two colonies being

founded simultaneously, and needless to say theyd been sent to the crummy one,

which made them very sad. The Callippidae drew roughly the same conclusion, and

spent countless thousands of man-hours searching for Medama in the hope of

striking a better deal with the Medamites for the sale of their wheat and

barley. In fact there was one bright spark who set himself up as the official

Medamite commercial attachn Oudama and got a lot of good business that way,

until we caught him at it and asked him to stop.

In the best place anywhere was an exaggeration, to be sure. But there were

worse places to be, among them Attica and, for that matter, Macedonia . Dont

believe what they tell you about the Black Sea climate, all those horror stories

about freezing cold winters and roasting summers; its a little cooler than

Greece, but not offensively so. The main difference is in the terrain. Its

flat. For an Athenian, used to being surrounded on all sides by rocky mountains,

its a rather dizzy feeling to see land that level or a sky that big. In Attica

, and nearly all of Greece for that matter, we grow our food in the thin layer

of dust and dirt that covers the lower slopes of the mountains. Olbia is one

enormous level, deep-soiled plain, perfectly suited for growing wheat; drop

crumbs from your breakfast and theyll take root and grow. Of course, we

Athenians have known this for years. For every coarse barley loaf eaten in

Athens , we import six medimni of Black Sea wheat, and in return we palm them

off with Athenian oil, honey, wine and figs, which weve carefully educated them

to prefer to their own.

And who are they, I can hear you asking. The simple and unhelpful answer is, the

Gallippidae. The name is Greek and means sons of fine horses (and what thats

supposed to mean is another matter entirely). The proper answer is that theyre

Scythians whove packed in the nomadic life, settled down and earned the arts of

agriculture and getting cheated by Greeks.

(Ah, you say, with a smile on your face. Like us.

Yes, Phryzeutzis, very much like you. I mean us. like our people here, theyre

renegade descendants of the horsemen of the steppes, who saw the obvious merit

in trading a life of mobility, self-reliance, freedom and yoghurt for the

security of the same little square of dirt and the uncertain charity of Mother

Demeter Maybe they got sick of yoghurt, you suggest.

Maybe they did. Maybe they just grew tired of moving on. Quite possibly the urge

to roam from one set of mountains to the next is the childhood all races and

nations go through and grow out of, as soon as they come to know better...

I suggest, here in Sogdiana on the Iaxartes river, a place I never knew existed

until I wandered here, as far from Attica as its possible to get.

Ah, you reply indulgently, but once you got here, you decided to stay.

Absolutely. This is clearly the place Ive been looking for all my life.

Wherever the hell it is.)

Very like us, Phryzeutzis; industrious, slow, suspicious, hospitable, ferocious,

incomprehensible we Greeks have one word for all of that, barbaros, barbarian,

a foreigner, someone who when he speaks makes ba ba noises with his mouth

instead of speaking proper Greek. The Callippidae had become a little bit

Greekified, in that they lived in houses rather than wagons and dug in the dirt

rather than milking mares and ewes. Theyd even acquired a taste for Greek

delicatessen and some of our showier consumer goods. But barboroi beyond

question, now and forever.

Could be worse, my friend Tyrsenius said, as we leaned over the rail and

stared at it. Definitely, could be worse.

Wonderful stuff, optimism. Its like honey; take the lid off the jar and somehow

it gets everywhere, clinging to your fingers, smearing on everything you touch.

Also, too much of it makes you want to be sick.

Flat, I commented.

And green, Tyrsenius added. Except for the yellow bits. Thats corn,

presumably.

Wheat, I confirmed.

We looked at each other.

This could be a nice place to live, he said.

I nodded. I expect the people who live hered agree with you.

He shrugged. I know these people, he said. They arent fighters. Warriors

yes, but not fighters. Well get no bother from them.

My friendTyrsenius Tyrsenius the Flamboyantly Wrong, as someone once dubbed

him was the nearest thing we had to a native guide. For years his father had

made the long trading run from Elba, off the west coast of Italy, to Olbia;

hugging the coast all the way, starting off with a cargo of Italian pig-iron

that mutated at every stop he made until it turned into the dried fish he traded

for wheat on the shores of the Black Sea, ready to be converted into honey in

Athens, honey to crockery in Corinth, crockery to sheepskins in Illyria,

sheep-skins to timber in Istria, timber to wine in Apulia, wine to cheese in

Sicily, cheese to pig-iron on Elba.. . Wizards, they say, can turn one thing

into another, can even turn base metal into gold if theyre clever enough. My

friend Tyrsenius, like his father before him, was a true wizard, though. He

could turn iron into wheat.

And he knew these people, or people a hundred miles or so further down the coast

who looked and sounded quite like them; close enough for a public contract, as

he used to say. Warriors, not fighters; I liked the sound of that, though I

wasnt quite sure I understood what it meant. Maybe theyd just kill us once and

go away.

You see, he went on, they wont be expecting us to stick around. They know

about Greeks here, you see. Greeks arrive on ships, they buy stuff, they sell

stuff, they go. Sometimes they hang about waiting for the winds to change,

sometimes theyll even build a city as a base for future operations, but sooner

or later they push off, they dont go out into the fields and get their hands

dirty. Theyll be delighted weve come, just you wait and see.

I shrugged. I had grave misgivings. I also had a thousand Illyrian mercenary

soldiers, whose spears laid all low before them and (further or in the

alternative) whose deaths in glorious battle wouldnt draw too many tears from

King Philips one good eye if the worst came to the worst. I clearly had nothing

to worry about. Maybe theyd all want Agenor to carve their portraits.

How long before landfall? I asked.

Tyrsenius grinned. Youre learning the technical seafaring terms, I see. Not

long.

Not long, I repeated. Thats another technical seafaring term, is

He nodded. Thats right, he said. It means I dont know exactly, but not

long.

In fact, a contrary wind kept us hanging about for what seemed like for ever;

during which time someone spotted our sail and scampered back to the village to

raise the alarm. The reception committee we found assembled on the beach when we

finally came ashore didnt look nearly as delighted at our coming as Id hoped

or Tyrsenius had promised.

Theyre just shy, thats all, my friend Tyrsenius whispered to me, as the

golden Olbian sun flashed off a scimitar-blade. Once theyve gone through the

motions, a little show of hostility just for forms sake, well all get on like

a house on fire.

Not the most comforting of images. Marsamleptes, the Captain-General of the

Illyrians, was making grumbling noises as our keel hit the sand. He was probably

trying to tell me something or ask me a question, but apparently he still hadnt

quite grasped the fact that I couldnt speak Illyrian. He was probably telling

me that his boys would eat them alive; that or we didnt stand a chance. One of

the two was always a fair bet with Marsamleptes, a straightforward man who

tended to chew the ends of his moustache at moments of great stress.

Such as this.

All right, I said, here we go. No sudden movements, anyone.

It feels strange, describing to an Eastern Scythian (thats you, Phryzeutzis)

what it felt like for the Athenian leader of a largely Illyrian expedition to

come face to face for the first time with a Western Scythian. Im not sure which

of us is the funny foreigner, and which of us is Us. The situation at the time

was further confused by the fact that, as an Athenian, I was quite used to

seeing Western Scythians , but in a less than helpful context.

The City of Athens , you see, has for quite some time now used Scythian slaves

as policemen. Sorry, you dont know what that word means; it means men paid by

the state to keep order and catch and punish people who break the laws (or at

least, thats the theory). We had to use foreign slaves for the job because no

self-respecting Greek, let alone Athenian, would dream of doing a job that

involved exercising practically unlimited power over his fellow citizens. Quite

right, too. Ask yourself; what kind of man would you get volunteering for a job

like that? Men who want that kind of power are by definition the last people

youd allow to have it.

So; we imported barbarian slaves, choosing Scythians because theyre quick at

learning our language, skilled with the bow and arrow which is why in Athens we

just called them archers and (because of their entirely alien views on what

constitutes wealth and happiness) almost impossible to bribe. They did the job

well, by and large, but in spite of that maybe because of it youd be hard

put to find a Greek with a good word to say about them, or about Scythians in

general. Now, I pride myself on being the sort of man who as a general rule

isnt particularly bothered about the colour of peoples skins or hair or eyes,

as witness the fact that I took an almost immediate liking to the

not-quite-Greek Macedonians. But a Scythian, with those distinctive cheek-bones

and dark intense eyes I cant help getting the shivers sometimes when I look

at them, and a sixty-year-old memory yells at me from the back room of my mind,

Run for it, here come the archers!

As if that wasnt enough to contend with, I also had my friend Tyrsenius

last-minute confession about the role Id assigned him as chief interpreter.

Of course I speak the language, he told me when I asked. Not absolutely

fluently, of course, he added. I mean, from listening tome you wouldnt

necessarily assume I was Scythian by birth or whatever, but I can make myself

understood, most of the time.

Of the dialect of this particular region, it turned out, he knew about five

phrases; things like Where are we? and Which way is the sea? These were, it

goes without saying, useless questions to ask, because he had no chance

whatsoever of understanding a single word of the reply.

In the event, it wasnt relevant. The chief spokesman spoke excellent Attic

Greek As a result, he assured me, of spending twenty years in Athens as an

archer, before I saved up enough to buy myself out and come home. He looked at

me for a long time without speaking, and behind him his escort of tall,

solemn-faced warriors allowed their fingers to creep forward and touch the

strings of their bows. It was a shall-I-eat-him-now-or-save-him-for-later look,

and even thinking about it all this time later still bothers me some.

I know you, he said. Its a gift I have, I never forget a face.

That startled me, for sure. How can you know me? I replied. We only just

met.

He shook his head. Every face Ive ever encountered, he went on, tapping his

forehead, stored away somewhere, in here. And besides, he added unpleasantly,

even if I had a rotten memory Id still remember you.

I looked at him again; and, though the face was still entirely unfamiliar, I

noticed that he did have a significantly crooked nose and a gap in his front

teeth. A memory dropped into place.

Oh, I said.

(It was a long time ago. I was young, not used to drinking undiluted wine on an

empty stomach. And it wasnt just me; in fact, I didnt really participate, I

was just tagging along with the rest of them and happened to be the one that got

caught You want to hear the story, dont you? Oh, all right. Like I said, I was

little more than a kid at the time, and wed been at a fairly boozy party. When

it finally wound up, we roamed around the streets for a while, singing

abominably and breaking up minor works of civic art, the way one does at that

age, until we found ourselves outside the house of some girl that one of us

fancied. So we started singing serenades, according to the time-honoured

tradition; and when the archers showed up to shoo us off, we made a bit of a

fight of it, just to prove we were free-born Athenians who dont take kindly to

being pushed around by foreign slaves. . . And one of us, cant remember a thing

about him, got a little bit carried away and clubbed one of the archers across

the face with the arm off a statue that had got in our way earlier. There was a

loud crunch and ever so much blood, and the man went face down; we were sure

wed killed him. At that point, my fellow revellers did the sensible thing and

ran like hell. But it was the first time Id ever seen real, messy violence, and

I just stood there staring, a torch in one hand and a walking stick in the

other, watching the way the blood trickled out, cutting channels through the

dust.

One of the archers told me to put down my stick and my torch they arent

allowed to lay hands on a citizen unless he hits them first or resists arrest. I

heard the words but I wasnt listening, if you see what I mean. He said it three

times, then tried to take the stick out of my hand. I was so completely out of

it by that stage that I reacted purely on instinct; I smacked him hard across

the face, not as hard as the boy with the bit of statue but enough to break his

nose and knock out some teeth. He howled and stumbled off into the shadows; the

third archer looked at me, and the man on the ground, then slowly pulled his bow

out of his quiver, stepped through it to string it, drew an arrow out of his

quiver; I knew for a fact that he was going to shoot me. It was something about

the deliberate nature of his movements, the fear and wariness in his eyes. It

was as if I could read his thoughts, as clearly as if they were cut in marble on

a wall. Why should he risk getting killed or mutilated by coming within range of

my stick, when he could kill me from ten yards away, with no witnesses to say it

wasnt self-defence? I could watch the debate behind his eyes how would he

account for having his bow strung and ready? Obviously hed thought of something

he reckoned would pass muster. Was he certain he could kill me cleanly, without

the risk that Id live long enough to accuse him of cold-blooded murder? He

calculated the odds and accepted them, with a tiny nod of the head, and started

to draw the bow

At which point, I realised that if I dropped the torch I was holding, he

wouldnt have enough light to shoot by, and I could escape. So I did; and that

was the last I ever saw of him. But the other man, the one I hit with my stick

)

Thats right, he said.

I chewed my lower lip for a moment. What I really wanted to ask was, Did the

man die? The one who got hit with the statue? But I didnt. Small world, I

said.

Very, he replied. And full to bursting with Athenians.

At this point, I really wished wed tried to do this through Tyrsenius; in which

case, wed still be at the We-come-in-peace stage. Anyway, I replied, were

here as representatives of King Philip of Macedon, on whose behalf I extend

friendly greetings from our people to yours. May I ask whether you are

authorised to speak on behalf of your people? If not, might I ask you to bear a

message to those who are?

He sniffed. He did that a lot. Something to do with having an awkwardly broken

nose, I guess. All those years of sniffing and dribbling snot...

My name is Anabruzas, he replied. Whats yours?

Euxenus, I replied, in a very small voice.

Euzenus.

Euxenus, I corrected him. Epsilon, umicron, xeta

Euxenus. Well, thats interesting. Euxenus anything else, or just Euxenus?

Forgive my curiosity, but...

Euxenus, son of Eutychides of Pallene in Attica , I recited. Now attached to

the household of King Philip, and duly authorised on his behalf

He nodded. Thanks, he said. Id gathered. What do you people want here?

Trade?

I took a deep breath, but couldnt think what to say; at which point, my friend

Tyrsenius interrupted.

Isnt that wonderful? he exclaimed, shouldering past me. That you two should

turn out to know each other, I mean. Im Tyrsenius, son of Mossus, commercial

attachNow, our objective here is twofold; first, as youve already guessed,

wed like to trade with you we have a fine selection of the usual quality

goods together with some additional items that Im sure will interest you.

Secondly, wed like to discuss establishing a more permanent presence here to

facilitate further trading opportunities in the future

I could see the Scythians patience draining away, like seed-corn through a rip

in the sowers bag. First things first, I said, treading hard on Tyrsenius

foot. Im sorry, I dont think I caught what you said a moment ago, when I

asked if you were authorised

He gave me a look that wasnt quite a scowl but certainly wasnt a warm and

friendly smile. Im the headman of the village over that hill, he said,

jerking his head backwards to one side. We have nothing to trade that youd

want, and we dont want anything youve got. Maybe youd have more luck a bit

further down the coast.

Tyrsenius, the clown, interrupted again. Luck is what you make of it, my

friend, he said, flashing a mouthful of teeth, like a panther. Im sure that

your people will find something here that takes their fancy; and our prices are

probably much lower than you think.

The Scythian sniffed again. If I were his wife, that constant sniffing would

drive me crazy. Theres an awful lot of you, he said, for traders. He peered

past me at Marsamleptes, who was standing behind me doing pyramid impressions.

Illyrian? he asked.

I nodded.

Right, the Scythian said; then he sidestepped so hed have eye-contact, and

started making that extraordinary two-cats-fighting-in-an-alley noise that

passes for a language in Illyria .

Gods alone know what the two of them actually said; but from what I was able to

piece together later, the gist of the conversation was something like,

What are these arseholes really doing here?

Were founding a colony.

Oh, yes? You and whose army?

(Nod in my direction.) His.

(Pause.) How many of you are there?

One thousand, most of us veteran warriors. If you oppose us, we will kill you

all without mercy.

Oh. In that case, welcome to Olbia.

The Scythian took two steps back, and looked at me. Then he shook his head and

sighed, and walked away to talk to his followers, who numbered about fifty. I

called him back.

Well? he said.

The other man, I said. Was he all right?

No. He died.

Oh. Thank you.

Youre welcome.

He talked for a while with his friends; the discussion was heated, to say the

least. He walked away while they were still talking.

If you want land, he said, we can probably come to some arrangement. Were

leaving now.

Right, I said. Well, it was. . . Goodbye, I said.

He looked at me. Didnt say anything. Didnt need to.

There, said my friend Tyrsenius when theyd gone. I told you everything would

work out just fine.

Under other circumstances Id have worried myself sick after that. But I didnt

have the time or the energy. Too much else to do.

Unpacking a brand new city off a small fleet of ships is a complicated business

at the best of times. Uncharacteristically, Id given the matter some thought,

and hit on the inspired idea of organising our disembarkation and the setting up

of our temporary quarters in advance. First priority, Id decided, was to

delegate. Id given responsibility for getting the gear off the ships and onto

the beach to one group of Founders, finding and felling timber to another,

organising work details to a third, and so on. Id let the individuals concerned

in on the secret and told them what they were supposed to be doing; they told me

they understood perfectly and that I could rely on them to make sure everything

went as smoothly as a well-fitted hinge.

I was younger then, and rather more naive.

Alpha Section, in charge of disembarkation, immediately started a bitter dispute

with Epsilon Section, i/c putting up our first temporary shelters, over where

the stuff was to be piled up on the beach. Epsilon wanted it all piled up neatly

here, while Alpha reckoned that transferring it to dry land and leaving it where

it fell was more than enough to discharge their responsibilities to the

community. Before Id realised what was happening and sprinted up the beach to

separate them, theyd already started a fist-fight, and a couple of passionate

Epsilons had thrown a load of jars of seed-corn into the sea by way of proving

beyond question the superiority of their viewpoint.

While I was dealing with them, a messenger from Beta Section, i/c finding

timber, trotted up to inform me that there didnt appear to be any trees in the

whole of Olbia. When asked how thoroughly theyd searched, he admitted that

theyd gone only as far as the edge of the neighbouring rise, about three

hundred yards, so I suggested that it might be an idea to widen the scope of the

search a little before we all piled back onto the ships and went home again.

While I was doing this, the fight between Alpha and Epsilon flared up again,

this time involving a couple of the Illyrians who were under the impression that

Epsilon were sabotaging food supplies and ought to be killed immediately. In

consequence, I was quite busy for a while (none of the interpreters were

anywhere to be seen, of course, so I was having to communicate with the

Illyrians by waving my arms in the air and waggling my eyebrows) and wasnt on

hand to sort out the savage row that erupted in Gamma Section (allocation of

work details) over who was going to draw the black pebble and have to try to

control the Illyrians. They were throwing stones at each other by the time I got

round to them, one of which hit me just above the right ear and forced me to sit

down for five whole minutes, during which time I should have been pointing out

to Delta Section (unpacking and distributing essential equipment) that we

werent really going to need the ceremonial rostrum quite yet, and they

shouldnt be wasting their time setting it up before theyd found the axes we

needed to chop down the trees that Beta Section were convinced didnt grow in

Olbia.

At this point, Zeta Section (surveying the site of the new city and drawing up

plans) reported in to say that the maps wed been given, on which wed proudly

drawn in the provisional street plan in cheerful red ink, bore no relation

whatsoever to the actual topography, and had we in fact landed in the wrong

place? It was a fair point, and they deserved better of me than a rudely-phrased

suggestion that they try holding the maps the right way up; but I maintain that

stomping off and sulking back on the ship wasnt a very mature response, so it

was really all their fault that that job didnt even get started. I didnt

notice this until some time later because as soon as I could see straight again

I had my hands full with stopping one of the Illyrian contingents marching off

to the village the

Scythian welcoming committee had told us about and razing it to the ground on

general business principles.

Then my friend Tyrsenius, seeing that I wasnt really handling things terribly

well, decided to help me out by going round the various sections issuing a whole

lot of contradictory orders, reinforced by terrifying scowls from the bunch of

Illyrians who had for some reason attached themselves to him as a sort of

spontaneous royal guard. Thanks to his intervention, Alpha Section found

themselves in charge of collecting in the axes which Delta had finally just

found and issued to Gamma Section, Red Subsection, and re-issuing them to Beta

Section, whod come back with news of a small stand of nondescript saplings on

the other side of the ridge, which could come in handy for tent-poles if we

hadnt brought any with us (which we had).

Id made up my mind to wander off and hide somewhere till nightfall when

something truly unexpected happened. Agenor the sculptor remember him? Well,

at various times when he hadnt been able to make a living from pure and

unsullied art, hed filled in as a stonemason, on one project rising to the rank

and dignity of assistant foreman. The wise Founders of Gamma Section had

assigned him to Subsection Green (utterly useless people, in charge of keeping

out of the way) and hed been standing around for several hours watching things

degenerate into a state of primeval chaos, and thinking what a negative turn of

events this was. Finally, unable to bear any more, hed jumped down from the

rock hed been sitting on, rounded up his fellow spectators, led them up the

beach and set them quietly and efficiently to work digging trenches, with spades

he effortlessly charmed out of Delta Section (who wouldnt have given them to me

if Id gone to them on my knees and promised them each their weight in silver

money).

One of the sulking Zeta Section Founders, noticing this, strolled across and

asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. Digging foundations, Agenor

replied. The Founder asked, foundations for what? The city wall, of course. The

Founder, managing to keep a straight face, asked him what on earth made him

think the wall should go there, when his Section hadnt even found North yet.

Agenor looked at him oddly and said that of course the wall went here, because

if he cared to look at the map (which Agenor had glanced at a day or so earlier

for the first time) hed see that that over there was the promontory marked on

the map as Promontory, and that pointy-topped hill was Hill, so all you had to

do was draw an imaginary line between the two points and start digging.

It took about ten minutes for word to spread that someone had turned up who Knew

What He Was Doing; whereupon Agenor found himself surrounded by nearly everybody

in the expedition, all demanding at the tops of their voices to be told what to

do. Itd have fazed me, and probably Agamemnon and Zeus as well, but you cant

fluster an ex-foreman of masons that easily. Bless his heart, he had the

courtesy to send someone over to fetch me, and made a show of consulting me

while issuing his orders; as far as I was concerned, I was delighted to approve

anything he said, on the grounds that he seemed to Know What He Was Doing, and I

patently didnt.

From then on, things went rather more smoothly.

Zeta Section announced that wed come to the right place after all, and set to

work with measuring rods, squares and little wooden pegs. Beta found a

substantial copse of nice tall pines theyd somehow managed to overlook, and

started chopping them down. Alpha unloaded the rest of the cargo and put it at

the disposal of Epsilon, who laid the equipment out in neat stacks, nicely

convenient for Gamma to collect and take with them to perform the various tasks

to which Agenor had assigned them. It was all wonderfully efficient and

civilised, and even the Illyrians joined in and worked hard for several hours

without killing or maiming anyone.

There you are, observed my friend Tyrsenius, sipping a cup of wine hed

managed to find somewhere (drop my friend Tyrsenius out of the sky onto his head

in the middle of the Libyan desert and five minutes later hell have found a

chair to sit on, a jug of drinkable wine and a cute girl to pour it for him). I

told you itd all go smoothly once everybody knows what theyre supposed to be

doing.

And there was me worrying, I replied. I should have known itd all be all

right.

Tyrsenius shrugged. You need to learn how not to worry, he yawned. Its a

basic survival skill for anybody in a position of authority. I tell you, you

dont get far running a merchant ship if you spend all your time with your head

in your hands, fretting.

True, I conceded, in the hope that itd shut him up. It didnt.

Now, if you really want something to worry about, he went on, you could do

worse than worry about the Scythians. I dont trust em.

I blinked. Wait a minute, I said. Not five minutes ago you were saying how

well it had all turned out, and at least we werent going to have to play

dominance games with the natives because theyre all so damn friendly.

He smiled indulgently. You know your trouble? he said. You take people at

face value too much. You want to watch that, you know.

I was about to protest that Id had serious misgivings the moment I first set

eyes on them, but I didnt get the chance.

In Olbia, he continued, the nicer they are to you, the more youve got to

watch them. You learn to do that instinctively when youre a merchant, but of

course youve never done anything like this before. Now, if I was in your shoes,

Id send a couple of hundred Illyrians down to the village in full armour, just

to make a tactful show of force.

If you were in my shoes, I muttered, youd have blisters. Your feet are much

bigger than mine.

He gave me a puzzled look for a moment, then smiled. Good to see youve still

got your sense of humour, he said.

A day or so later, as soon as the expedition could be trusted to be left on its

own, I led a party to the Scythian village to open a dialogue.

There was me, and my friend Tyrsenius, and Agenor the itinerant sculptor (whod

kindly made the time to come with us) and Captain-General Marsamleptes, and the

little man with a squint who was probably the only person in the expedition who

could understand what both Marsamleptes and I were saying, and a bunch of

Founders, and some particularly villainous-looking Illyrian soldiers in their

best armour to add a suitable nuance of menace to the proceedings. And also,

for some reason, there was Theano, whod tagged along on the pretext that she

was bored and had nothing to do.

The news that we were on our way to the village was relayed by the inevitable

squadron of small boys who were permanently on duty in the patch between the

village and the city site, so when we toiled up the hill and got our first sight

of our new neighbours, nearly all of them were there to meet us, bearing with

them their strung bows and unsheathed scimitars, and other traditional Scythian

tokens of welcome. My old friend Anabruzas came out and stood in front of them,

flanked by hostile-looking men with helmets and wicker shields.

Youve come, then, he said.

Well, it was perfectly obvious that we had, but I didnt say anything clever. I

just nodded. Taciturn strength, I thought; thats what these people respect.

All right, Anabruzas said. What do you want?

We need to talk, I replied. About land for the colony.

Anabruzas scowled at me. Sorry, he said, none to spare. Youll have to go

somewhere else.

Id been hoping we werent going to have to do all that. I dont think so, I

replied. We just need to rearrange things a little, thats all.

Anabruzas scowl tightened up a little. You dont seem to get it, he said.

Theres only so much land, and we need it.You cant grow it on a tree or dig it

up out of the ground. Either its there or it isnt.

I shook my head. Sorry, I said, dont agree. Theres only six hundred or so

of you, and all this plain; only about a fifth of its under the plough, and

even thats far more than it takes to feed a hundred-odd people. Theres more

than enough for all of us, provided youre prepared to be reasonable.

No, Anabruzas said.

A fat lot of good being taciturn had done me. Thats just silly, I said.

Look, youre welcome to keep everything youve already got ploughed and

planted. The stuff thats just lying idle will do us.

Anabruzas laughed. Thats not the way we do things, he said. You ever heard

of rotation of crops? One year plough, two years fallow; thats how we get such

good yields. We need all this land, and thats all there is to it.

Im sorry, I said, but thats lazy, wasteful farming. Come on, Anabruzas,

youve lived in Athens , you know how we do things there. One year under corn,

one year under beans, plough five times before planting and use plenty of dung.

It works for us.

Thats as may be, he said. But its not how we do things. If you want the

land, youll have to fight for it.

By this time, Marsamleptes had learned to recognise the Greek words for

fighting, battles and so on, and now he woke up out of his daydream and started

glowering horribly at the Scythians like a dog who can see birds. The Scythians,

though plainly alarmed, scowled back.

If we fight, I pointed out, youll lose. No question about it.

Anabruzas nodded. Quite likely, he said. But I promise you this. By the time

youve killed every last one of us and thats what itll take well have

taken so many of you with us there wont be enough of you left to found any damn

city.

Itd be ten to one, I pointed out.

Doesnt matter, Anabruzas replied. Better dead than Delos , any day.

(There I go again, making assumptions. You dont know what or where Delos is;

well, its a small island in the Aegean , famous for two

things. Ones being the birthplace of Apollo himself, and the others the slave

market; biggest in Greece , they say.)

Well, I suppose it could have been worse. We might have started fighting there

and then; if my fellow Founders had had their way, I expect wed have done just

that, and Marsamleptes (who hadnt killed anyone for weeks and was starting to

look pale and thin as a result) would undoubtedly have made a thoroughly

professional job of it. All I could think of to do was turn away and walk back

down the hill, hoping very much that Id get clear without being hedgehogged

with arrows. I kept on going, and nobody shot at us; didnt somebody say

somewhere that any peace conference where you escape with your life can be

considered a success?

You made a right hash of that, Theano said.

Yes, I replied.

Obviously, tact isnt your strong point.

No, I agreed.

Of course, she went on, I knew that already. Youve got an amazing ability to

say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

Apparently, I said.

She walked on in silence for a moment, then continued, The worst thing was when

you told him he was welcome to keep the land theyd already ploughed and sown

have you any idea how insulting that sounded? Or when you told him how much land

they needed

All right, I said. I think youve made your point.

She smiled. Just so long as you know, she said. After all, I know from bitter

experience, youre so damn ignorant, maybe you hadnt actually realised

Thank you, I said.

Because, she went on, I cant see how somebody could know they were doing

something like that and keep on doing it. I mean, it just doesnt make sense

Thank you for your input, I said. Ill try and bear it in mind.

You didnt have to be anybody clever Aristotle, say to work out what the

likely sequence of events would be. Messengers would go out from the village to

other settlements all over the Olbian hinterland; men with bows and scimitars

would assemble like ghosts in the grey dawn, and wed be jerked out of our sleep

by the screaming of women and the hissing of fire on the thatch. We wouldnt

stand a chance. Itd all be over before we had a chance to put our shoes on.

So Marsamleptes organised the defences, and none of us got much sleep for the

next week or so. We scrabbled together huge piles of brushwood and lit them at

sunset; we posted sentries; we all took our turn to peer anxiously at the border

of the light and the darkness, imagining stealthy shapes where the shadows were

longest; we worked in armour until every scrap of clothing we possessed was

dripping with sweat and snagged to ribbons, and the swords dangling from our

shoulders got in the way of everything we did, digging trenches and hauling

masonry blocks and putting up scaffolding. We were exhausted and uncomfortable

and very, very short-tempered with each other, but we were ready for them.

Of course, nothing happened.

Our scouts, creeping up to the skyline to spy on the activity in the village,

reported back that they appeared to be going about their business as if nothing

had happened. They werent clanking about the place like refugees from the

Iliad, or sitting up all night screaming, Who goes there? at quietly scuttling

foxes. Lulling us into a false sense of security, my friend Tyrsenius called

it; of course, hed clambered into his armour the moment he got back from the

peace conference and set about ringing his tent with a wonderfully intricate

system of tripwires linked to five enormous cow-bells (where he got them from,

gods only know; but Tyrsenius always had everything), the incessant clanging of

which really started to get on our nerves after the first couple of hours. After

a week of not being killed, though, he was strolling around the place (still

head to toe in shining bronze, of course) announcing that we were over-reacting

quite dreadfully and hed said from the very beginning that there was absolutely

nothing to worry about from that quarter.

The work, meanwhile, slowly began to take shape.

Its remarkable how small a large copse can be, when you cut it down, trim its

branches off and hammer its component trunks into the ground to make a stockade.

By my system of reckoning, any stand of trees large enough to get lost in is a

wood, probably even a forest; but the small forest we located on the first day

was all used up by the time wed built the first gatehouse, let alone any wall

for itto be a gate in. Given our nervous state, we didnt dare send any logging

parties out of eyeshot of the camp without an equivalent number of armed

escorts, and of course we also had to make sure the camp itself was never

without an adequate garrison. This didnt leave too many bodies over to do any

productive work, and the few who actually did some soon began to harbour

uncharitable thoughts about their fellows who spent all day lounging about

leaning on their spears, watching and occasionally making helpful suggestions.

Nevertheless; up the stockade went, our first priority, and after that we felt

just a little bit more secure, enough to allow ourselves the luxury of taking

off our breastplates while we worked.

Originally, the idea had been that instead of wasting money buying stone (I

mean, whod be stupid enough to buy the stuff when all you need do is chip it

off the sides of cliffs?), wed quarry it ourselves from the nearest exploitable

seam of granite or sarsen.

It was an understandable mistake, bearing in mind that we were Greeks, brought

up on the tiny patches of flat ground squeezed in between enormous bare

mountains. We never imagined for a moment that stone might be hard to come by,

just as a fish probably cant understand the concept of a desert. After wed

wasted a lot of valuable time and manpower in prospecting for suitable material,

we gave up and asked Tyrsenius if he knew where we could get building stone

from; and in due course, purpose-built barges trundled along the coast from

Odessus, riding low in the water under their burden of neatly trimmed modular

sandstone blocks. The cost was staggering, so we sent a ship back to Macedon for

more money, one thing we could be sure we wouldnt run short of so long as

Philip was alive.

If wed only done this in the first place, announced Tyrsenius, formerly our

self-appointed Director of Quarrying Operations, as he checked the manifest of

the latest stone barge, wed be a fortnight further on by now. I do wish people

would listen to me now and again; itd save you all a lot of time and effort.

Agenor, now firmly established as Director of Works, suddenly remembered that

not long ago hed been a professional sculptor and demanded marble instead of

sandstone for the fae of the gate-house, which we were building directly

behind the gate in the stockade. I told him to go to the crows with that idea,

whereupon he appealed to the Founders and explained that if at some point he was

going to decorate the gatehouse with a commemorative frieze depicting the

founding of the city, he would need not just marble but good marble, a point

which the Founders held to be entirely valid. I told them to go to the crows

too. We held a number of quite passionate Works committee meetings, noted the

objections formally on the record and told Agenor to shut his face and get on

with his work, which he did once Id promised him all the marble he could use

once the city was built and priorities could be reassessed.

There was a moment I cant remember when, exactly, but it quite suddenly,

while none of us were watching at which point it stopped looking like a huge,

random mess and started looking like a baby city. Not Athens , thats for sure,

or even Pella ; but a city. There were streets, or narrow strips where you could

believe streets would one day be; we stopped walking all over the place and kept

to them. We even gave them names; Main Street and Gate Street and South Street

and West Street, none of which appeared in the list previously agreed by the

relevant sub-committee, but if you said the plot two thirds of the way down

West Street on the left as you face the sea, people would know where you meant.

It was a bizarre feeling, once we allowed ourselves to acknowledge that it had

happened. And time went on, the Scythians didnt attack, the money didnt arrive

from Macedon but the barges kept coming from Odessus, we arranged further credit

with Olbia City for more food, tools, canvas and rope, we found more timber a

days walk away, we stopped wearing armour and sending armed escorts, we

finished the first well, we completed the preliminary land survey and began

drawing lots for who was to get which parcel of land, still the money didnt

come, we broke up the palisade because it was getting in the way and we needed

the timber for other things, we finished the first house, we started the first

temple, we held countless endless meetings, we made our first plough, we laid

the foundations of the granary, the money arrived but there wasnt nearly

enough, the fourth house fell down in the night and we started it again from

scratch, we looked up and found wed been there a year Theano and I got

married; something of an afterthought, fitted in on a spare afternoon while we

were waiting for the plaster to dry before making a start on the roof. The

Scythians hadnt attacked yet. We were still here. And the next day. And the day

after that.

I began to record the history of the city, on a piece of parchment that had come

wrapped round a large cheese. I recorded our first harvest, the first couple of

deaths and births, the first major theft, the first rape, the first sale of

land It wasnt anything special, in fact it was mostly downright primitive. But

it was alive.

Extraordinary...

CHAPTER TWELVE

W hen my son was a year old, I chose a name for him. Id left it rather late,

putting off the chore for a variety of insubstantial reasons perhaps at the

back of my mind I believed that if I ignored his existence hed go away. Why I

should want to think like that I have no idea; I wasnt conscious of not wanting

the child, or not feeling the usual degree of paternal affection. Maybe it had

something to do with the fact that Theano and I werent getting along

particularly well, though theres no logical connection there that I can see. On

the other hand, logic doesnt usually have much to do with anything in such

circumstances, as far as I can tell.

I named him Eupolis; nominally after his great-grandfather, the Comic poet, but

really because Eupolis means (or can be made to mean) from the best of cities;

it was a propitiatory sacrifice, an act of dedication for the colony itself, as

well as a pun on the highfaluting official name the Founders had chosen. As

such, it was well received and taken by my honest neighbours as a vote of

confidence, or an act of faith. Something like that, anyway.

Fair play to us; we built that city quickly and well. I believe that a large

measure of our success was due to the fact that the Founders, having settled

every last theoretical detail from the names of the streets to the colours the

statues were to be painted before the expedition left Macedon, left us alone

once we actually got there, and we were therefore able to ignore everything

theyd decided, which was a great help. As for all that wonderful theorising

about the ideal form of government for the ideal colony, all the model

constitutions and draft law-codes we drew up and then tore to bits over someone

elses wine and chickpeas, in practice it all turned out to be about as much

practical use as a tiny, pearl-encrusted gold pickaxe. We didnt bother with any

of that stuff; no need. The problem we had wasnt deciding how best to impose

the orders of the ruling class on our subordinates; quite the reverse. Where we

ran into difficulties was in finding anybody who was prepared to give any

orders at all.

Odd? Well, it was an odd set-up, I suppose. What made the difference was that,

whether by random chance or disguised good fortune, we arrived on the Black Sea

coast with a profound shortage of expertise. We had farmers, and a handful of

people who knew a bit about building things, and that was about it; all the

other technical knowledge pooled between us lay in the fields of killing and

toss-arguing, and neither discipline (we quickly acknowledged, thank the gods)

helps much when youre trying to put a roof on a barn or mark out a wall in a

straight line.

Now, if wed all been as useless as each other, I expect wed have wiped each

other out in bitter feuding within a week or so, as each faction of opinionated

ignorance tried to bring its rivals round to its way of thinking by force of

arms, like they do in real cities. But we did have experts, though not nearly as

many as wed have liked, and so pretty soon we had a workable system of

government. Each expert was in charge of the project that needed his expertise

and the rest of us kept our faces shut and did what we were told. As oecist I

theoretically had the right to interfere, veto and command; but as they say,

just because youve got ten fingers doesnt necessarily mean you can play the

harp. Like every farmer I knew a bit about everything, just enough to be able to

see that there are some things youve got to entrust to the man who knows what

hes about.

The system worked because none of our experts wanted to give orders after all,

who wants responsibility when hes got to live with the consequences himself?

Agenor the sculptor, for example, knew about dressing stone, and as much

practical architecture as a site foreman needs to do his job. He wasnt an

architect; but we made him be one. The first thing he did, accordingly, whenever

called upon to build anything, was to make it clear that he wasnt an architect,

and that hed much prefer it if somebody else told him what to do

Having reluctantly accepted the commission, he proceeded with extreme caution,

like a cat walking along a branch of a thorn tree, happily listening to all

relevant suggestions and actively canvassing opinions from anybody foolhardy

enough to express them. In short, quite by chance, wed hit upon that golden

mean we philosophers had been babbling about for generations: a society where

the people who didnt want power were landed with it, and all decisions were

reached cheerfully by consensus. Trust me; it works. Whether you could make a go

of it in any context other than that of a completely new settlement, a bunch of

people with tools standing on a grassy field with no food or shelter apart from

what they contrived to make for themselves, I have no idea. That, by the way,

was another beneficial side-effect of the settlement process; it cured me for

ever of the pernicious urge to speculate about things I dont know spit about.

The Founders, meanwhile, kept pretty much to themselves, as I mentioned a moment

ago. By some happy chance, they realised of their own accord that they were

hopelessly out of their depth here, and that any prospect of getting fed,

clothed and housed depended on the efforts of the rest of us, whod do a far

better job of providing for them if not interfered with.

We have a problem, my friend Tyrsenius informed me, as we shared a jug of wine

under the shade of the east wall of our nearly completed temple.

(Temple, singular; where the original Foundation plan had provided for no fewer

than fourteen temples, wed edited and modified a bit, coming to the conclusion

that the gods were going to have to muck in like everybody else in this colony,

share a house and learn to get along with each other without squabbling.)

Really? I said, with my hat over my eyes.

You bet, Tyrsenius replied. If only youd listened to me earlier, of course

Quite, I said. Refresh my memory. Whats the matter?

Tyrsenius sighed. Were broke, he replied. Worse than that, were up to our

ears in debt. I was going over the accounts this morning, and

I sat up and pushed my hat back. Weve got accounts? I said, startled.

Of course, Tyrsenius replied irritably. Im your treasurer. What do you think

I do all day?

I shrugged. Thats wonderful, Tyrsenius, I said. And whats in these accounts

of yours?

Our borrowing, he replied grimly. What we owe to the other cities, Odessus

and Olbia City . Think about it; weve been buying food and building materials

and gods know what else from them since the day we arrived here, on the

assumption that King Philipd bail us out and send money.

I yawned. Which he has done, bless him, I said. Thanks, in no small part, to

the incredibly persuasive letters I send him every month

Well, you havent been persuasive enough, Tyrsenius replied. To be precise,

youve failed to carry conviction to the tune of twelve talents, three minas.

And thats what Id call a problem.

I poured a little more wine. The cities dont seem all that worried, I said.

They keep supplying the stuff, and I havent noticed them badgering us for

money. Dont worry about it.

He scowled at me. Of course they arent badgering us, he said. Its all

secured on land. Our land. And interest is running, let me remind you

So? I shrugged. What do you think is going to happen? Are the Odessans going

to show up one morning with spades and buckets and dig up all the land and cart

it back to Odessus? Dont see it myself. If they want more land, all theyve got

to do is go out and take it, right in their back yard. Theres more than enough

for everybody. Youre thinking like were still in Greece , my friend.

He shook his head. Youre telling me their securitys worthless, then.

I nodded. For all practical purposes, I replied. It comforts them to know

theres mortgage stones all over the fields here; I suppose it helps them

balance their books and all. But in real life they know theyre going to have to

wait till were on our feet and producing before they get their money. They

trust us. Everythings all right.

Tyrsenius blew out through his nose, like a horse. You reckon, he said.

Sure, I replied. One thing they wont do is anything thatll make life

difficult for us like trying to call in the debts. If we go under, theyll

never get paid. So theyve got to keep supporting us. Good for us; in the long

term, good for them. Plus, theyve got King Philip as guarantor at the end of

the day, and his credits good, Im sure.

You think so?You think hell hold still and be sued if we default on a loan?

I smiled. What an enticing mental image that is, I said fondly. But no,

thats not what I mean at all. Be realistic. What theyre getting in return for

goods and services delivered is the most valuable currency in the world

Philips awareness that theyre doing him a favour. Have you been listening to

the news from Greece lately?

Tyrsenius looked puzzled. Not sure I follow, he said.

All right, I said. Suppose you lived in Sicily or somewhere like that, where

they have those villages perched on the rim of a giant volcano. Now, suppose

that the next time the volcano starts rumbling and burping fire and generally

giving notice that its about to play war, youre in a position to whisper in

its ear, so to speak, that youve been going out of your way to be nice to the

volcanos pet nephew; the volcano recognises this, so when it erupts, the other

villages get swallowed up in the lava flow, but you dont. Worth a few bad

debts, dont you think?

Tyrsenius thought about it for a moment, then snuggled his back against the wall

and put his hands behind his head.

My point exactly, he said.

Im not going to write the history of Philips piecemeal gobbling-up of the

Greeks. Its a long and tortuous story, and to be honest with you Im not sure I

can remember the details after all this time, particularly since I wasnt there

when it was happening. What you need to know is that my royal patron had worked

his way down through Greece , stirring up trouble and then stepping in to stop

the resulting brawls; and once he was in somewhere, it proved rather difficult

to get him out again. He was everywhere, the voice of sweet reason, agreeing

with everybody at the same time. His operating system reminded me a lot, in

fact, of those same Scythian archers who kept the peace back home. When a fight

broke out, they didnt rush in and intervene, thus uniting the warring factions

in the common cause of beating the shit out of them. Instead they waited till

the fight was over, and then stepped in and arrested anybody who was still

standing. That was Philips way, except that hed also started the fight.

It was, of course, that wonderful diplomatic skill of his that made it possible,

and somehow everybody played along, though they must have seen for themselves

what he was up to. In Athens , for instance, my old colleague Demosthenes

harangued Assembly nearly every day with ferocious, entirely accurate accounts

of Philips evil cunning. I gather that Demosthenes speeches were so popular

that the City ground to a halt, with everybody who could manage to squeeze into

the Pnyx hanging on his every word. When hed done theyd applaud him till the

ground shook then proceed to vote down his proposals and do what Philip

wanted, for the simple reason that if they didnt, it might give him a pretext

for declaring war, and that would be that.

The only city that openly defied him was Sparta ; and he only tolerated them, I

think, out of sentiment. You see, Sparta wasnt the world-class power it had

been in Grandfathers time. It had, quite simply, grown old; it was a little,

wizened shadow of what it had once been, and Philip made a point of treating it

with the respect due to an honoured but rather senile ex-hero, tolerating its

tantrums and threats with a broad smile that told the rest of Greece that he

knew exactly what the realities of the situation were. At least the Spartan

sense of humour was still alive and kicking; when Philip sent a long and

beautifully reasoned letter to the Spartan high council, demanding various

concessions and backed with a delicate infusion of blandishments and threats,

the Spartans duly considered it and sent back a reply, which read In reply to

yours: no.

But plucky little Sparta was an exception. The rest of Greece knew what was

going to happen, but there was nothing they could do. They were on the edge of

the volcano, roasting chestnuts in the glowing ash while they could and waiting

for the sky to turn red.

The other day I came across one of the letters Alexander wrote me at about that

time I was patching my oldest and most highly prized pair of boots, not for

the first time, and when I came to peel off one of the many layers of parchment

Ive pasted on the underside of the uppers over the years, there it was;

three-quarters legible, and the rest easy enough to guess from the context.

There was nothing special about that letter, beyond the fact that it had managed

to survive so long and so much; just like me, I suppose. Its absolutely typical

of the letters he sent me while he was trailing round Greece acting as Philips

adjutant; my theory is that he treated his letters to me as practice exercises,

to make sure he didnt forget how to conduct a formal correspondence with a

respected elder of lesser rank, They read like the examples you get in those

Complete Letter-Writer books, the sort that provide a model letter for every

conceivable occasion letters from fathers to sons; letters from ambassadors to

kings; letters from creditors to debtors, class one (apologetic), class two

(dismissive), class three (overbearing and arrogant); letters from husbands to

wives; letters from recently appointed stewards to their masters informing them

of increased annual yield or reports of dishonesty among the casual labour but

I knew for a fact that Alexander was far too proud to copy out forms and

precedents written by somebody else, because when I told him to back in Mieza he

flatly refused, and told me why in no uncertain terms; so I guess he was in

effect writing his own and using me as a kind of quality control.

His letters were always meticulously constructed:

1)Formal greetings;

2)Conventional enquiries about my health and brief report on his own;

3)Admirably lucid and concise precis of the state of play in the current

campaign excellent practice for writing dispatches, and clearly showing that

hed taken to heart what Id taught him when we did class exercises in military

prose composition back in the old days;

4)Interesting and informative observations on matters of geographical,

political, anthropological and botanical interest that had come to his attention

since his previous letter; why he sent these to me rather than Aristotle (who

liked that sort of thing) I dont know, unless he wrote the same letter to both

of us, changing only the name at the top and the address on the outside;

5)One amusingly whimsical anecdote, human interest story or similar

lighter note, also serving to reiterate some point or statement made earlier in

the letter about some major current topic, thereby completing the structural

loop;

6)Exhortations to reply and best wishes.

Of their kind, they were perfectly good letters easily B, often rising to B+,

and always a straight A for presentation and handwriting; Id dutifully reply in

the appropriate manner, singling out the good bits for elegantly muted praise

and tactfully drawing his attention to omissions or infelicities of style (I

was fascinated by your account of the black sticky substance the olive-growers

of Thessaly use to protect their trees against rats, but I think I may have

missed the part where you say whether it actually works or not. Does it?);

throughout our correspondence, which lasted until Philip died, I cant say I

learned anything about Alexander that I didnt know already, or ever read a word

that couldnt just as fittingly have been written to somebody else.

We had one good harvest, followed by a bad one, followed by one that was just

about good enough. The problem, we found, was the seed-corn; Greek seed wasnt

used to the rich and productive soil, and something went wrong with it in the

second year. For the third year we bought about half our seed from Odessus; by a

strange coincidence, about half the crop came up.

In the third year we cut down all our olive trees and burned them. It was

obvious they werent going to come to anything, and we needed the space. It was

at this point that someone pointed out that the Greeks bought their Black Sea

grain with olives, because olives didnt grow here.

That apart, there wasnt much for me to record in the official history. We

carried on building and borrowing, we gradually ploughed up more land without

any protests from the Scythians, who stayed out of our way so completely that we

wouldnt have known they were there. The days were full, and at night we were

too tired to do anything except go to bed.

Like everybody else, Id been allotted thirty acres, with the right to stake a

claim on any unclaimed land I liked provided I ploughed and sowed it within a

year. Like nearly everybody else, I had my work cut out coping with thirty

acres. For one thing, it wasnt like thirty acres in Attica , which would work

out on average as seventeen acres of usable soil and thirteen acres of bare

rock. I only wish my father could have seen it; so much flat, fertile,

deep-soiled ground, enough to provide a good living for a whole damn dynasty.

But I was out of practice; it had been years since I hung off the handles of a

plough from dawn to dusk or spent a week bashing clods with a mattock or digging

trenches. Embarrassingly, there were some things Id just plain forgotten how to

do; rather than ask, though (an oecist has his pride, after all) I guessed, and

usually got it wrong. I sowed my beans too thick and my borage too sparse. I cut

timber when Sirius was rising it should be overhead and got plagued with

woodworm. I built myself a cart, but made the felloe too narrow (two spans

instead of three). I began ploughing when I saw the first cranes in the sky,

which would have been right in Attica but not here; I ploughed at the winter

solstice, after the Pleiades had set, but luckily it rained just enough to fill

in the hoofprints of my oxen shortly afterwards, and so I got away with it. I

pruned my vines when Arcturus first appeared at dusk, which was fine, but I cut

them back too fiercely and did them no good at all. In fact, there wasnt an

awful lot that I did get right, and I suppose that if Id been back home Id

have come to grief. But a poor harvest in Olbia was better than a good year in

Attica , when all was said and done, and at least I made a point of learning

from my mistakes.

What with buggering up the ploughing and making a hash of the pruning, I didnt

see much of my wife and son, which in retrospect was a good thing. The less she

saw of me, the less I could get on her nerves, while the normality of everyday

life did a lot to smooth over her sense of having been badly used. After all,

spinning and carding and grinding flour and keeping house are pretty much the

same wherever you do them, and in most ways she was no worse off than shed been

before she met me. When our paths did cross we treated each other more like good

neighbours than anything else; a few friendly words of greeting and

encouragement in the morning, polite enquiries about each others day in the

evening, and so forth. When I wanted my tunic darned or she wanted me to rehang

a sticking door, we each helped out cheerfully, the way you or I would do if the

man next door came and asked for the loan of a pruning-hook or a hand with

driving in a row of posts. Mind you, that was pretty much the prevailing

attitude throughout the colony; we were all neighbours and we did our best to

get on with each other on the grounds that sooner or later wed need a favour.

The fourth harvest was pretty good; good enough that wed be able to put away a

years supply of grain, which is the minimum an Athenian farmer wants to have

squirrelled away before he can start sleeping at night, and still have a surplus

we could sell for cash. Id finished my cart by then, new full-width felloe and

all, and I started picking up when Orion first put in an appearance, exactly as

I was supposed to. In fact, there wasnt much left that could go wrong; except

that, while I was loading the cart, I lifted a heavy stook awkwardly and felt my

back give way. There was nothing for it but to slide agonisingly to the ground

and wait for someone to walk by.

Now in Attica , where we all work little tunic-sized scraps of land, its very

rare to be out of sight of at least one other person. Here, in the abundant

vastness of Olbia, you could go for hours at a time without having anybody

intrude on your privacy; particularly at a busy time like that, when everybody

was bustling back and forth from their fields to the barns, with too much to do

and not enough time to do it in. I tried crawling, but I didnt get further than

about twenty yards before I gave it up, on the grounds that I was in enough

trouble already.

Needless to say, in my misery I couldnt help thinking of my father (youll

recall that he died under not dissimilar circumstances); and from there I

started to worry, the way you do. If I died, what would happen to my son? Whod

work the place till he was old enough to inherit? In Attica my wife would have

bought a slave, but thanks to our damned principles wed resolved that we

wouldnt bring any slaves to Olbia, it was going to be a true republic of free

men, purged of decadence by the ennobling effects of self-reliant labour; and

besides, there wasnt enough room on the boats for both slaves and oxen, and if

things get really tough you can eat an ox. So if there was nobody to work the

land, presumably Theanod have to give it up and make a living by prostitution

or doing laundry, in which case my sons only way of claiming his inheritance

would be to wait until he came of age and then file a lawsuit; maybe Tyrsenius

would take him on as an apprentice (an image of my father, looking serious and

saying, Teach a boy a trade and hell never starve filled my mind like a wild

bees nest in the crack between your lintel and the wall); but when I thought

about that for a while it didnt cheer me up too much. Sure, Id trust Tyrsenius

with my life, but thats not quite the same as trusting him with my money, let

alone my sons birthright; in addition to which, the man was an idiot, and

likewise I really didnt like the idea of my son fooling about on ships, which

can sink, particularly if theyre owned by idiots who probably havent got the

sense to tar them in the off season...

Why are you lying on the ground? someone asked.

It was Theano. She was the last person Id expected to see (all right, hear; I

was lying on my face, and all I could see were her toes); she never came out to

the fields, because women dont, in the same way that dogs rarely if ever fight

in the front rank of the phalanx.

Hurt my back, I said.

What?

Hurt my back, I repeated.

Oh. Howd you manage that?

Lifting, I said. Look, can you help me up?

All right, she said. What do I do?

At first, she did more harm than good; but eventually I was able to explain

(between the screams) the correct technique for helping a man with a bad back,

and somehow we got me up and lying in the back of the cart, on top of all that

nice soft straw.

Now what? she said.

Drive the cart home, I told her.

All right. How do you do that?

Nothings ever wasted, they say; my experience teaching the young nobility of

Macedon how to scan an iambic pentameter had taught me the rudiments of

communicating information, enough to explain to Theano the approved method of

driving a cart.

Grab that stick thing, I said. Now get on the cart and give the ox a smack

round the bum.

Done that, she replied, as the cart suddenly lurched forward.

Only, I added, not quite so hard. Now, you see those leather straps?

She sighed. I do know what reins are, she said. Theres no need to be

Grab them, I said. Pull the left one to make him go left, and the right one

Yes, I know all that. What about stop?

We got home, somehow; and as luck would have it, the Founder Archestratus (who

hadnt been near me for eighteen months) had chosen that evening to come round

and bitch about the colour the walls of the temple were being painted. With

hindsight, a three-legged dog would have been more use, but theres never a

three-legged dog around when you want one; so he helped Theano get me indoors,

then delivered his harangue and went away.

This isnt good, Theano said, looking at me critically as I sprawled in the

chair. I had the feeling that I was making the room look untidy, but I couldnt

help that.

No, it isnt, I replied. By the way, wheres the boy?

Next door, she replied. You dont think I just put him away in the

clothes-press when I go out, do you?

Sorry, I replied. No, its a disaster, I went on. Next years foods lying

out there feeding the rooks, and theres bugger-all Ill be able to do about it

before it all goes mouldy and rots.

Oh, she said. What do you expect me to do about it?

I shrugged. Dont know, I replied. Picking it up and carting itto the barnd

be a good place to start, though.

She frowned. What, on my own? You must be joking. Ill go round your friends a

bit later on, Im sure theyll lend a hand once they know

I shook my head, though that wasnt a god idea. Think, I said. Theyve all

got their own stuff to get in, its one of the busiest times of the year. You

may get a few promises of help, but I dont suppose any of em will actually

turn up. Which is understandable, I added.

She didnt seem to believe me, and went out. An hour or so later she came back,

looking angry.

Fine friends they turned out to be, she said.

I sighed. You werent rude to them, were you?

I told them what I thought of people whod let a mans harvest rot because

theyre too selfish and bone idle

You mean, yes, you were?

She shrugged. Friends like that you can do without, she said. So now what?

I was lying on something (turned out to be a little wooden horse Id made for

the boy). When I shifted to get comfortable, I felt as if I were a fish, being

gutted while it was still alive.

lie still, for gods sakes, Theano snapped. Itll never get better if you

keep wriggling about like a maggot on a fishing-line.

I gave up and lay still, the horses nose sticking into my backside. If they

wont help and I cant move, who does that leave? I asked sweetly.

You want me to do it, she said.

Yes.

All right, she said.

And she did.

To be fair, Tyrsenius rolled up on the first day and watched her for an hour,

making helpful comments; and a few others showed up too and helped for as long

as they could in the intervals between getting in their own cut grain. Mostly,

interestingly enough, they were Illyrians, men whose names I didnt know and

couldnt have pronounced if I did. Later on I found out that they, like Queen

Olympias, were devout snake-worshippers, and once the word got out that I had

this sacred snake in a jar. . . Never mind; they helped, and eventually the job

got done, which was just as well; I was laid up unable to move for ten days, and

it was another three days after that before I could do any useful work and make

a start on the winnowing.

Thanks, I said.

Thats all right, she replied.

Wed been married for four years at this point, and those were the nicest things

either of us had ever said to the other. After that, however, things started to

get a little easier between us. On her side, I think it was mostly time and

acceptance the further away she got from the things she perceived as

grievances, the less they seemed to matter. For my part, I couldnt help but

respect the way shed handled the crisis, which could have been far more serious

than it turned out to be if she hadnt put herself out to the degree she did. We

started talking about things more; she took much more of an interest in the work

of the farm, and I found it was worth listening to what she had to say. Often

shed surprise me by knowing the answer to a problem that had me foxed, or

remind me of some elementary thing Id completely forgotten, such as

cross-ploughing (plough twice; once up and down, the second time side to side).

When the plough wed brought with us finally shook to pieces at the end of the

season and proved to be beyond repair, she helped me build a new one. First we

searched the woods till we found an elm sapling of the right height and

thickness, which we bent down with ropes, trussed up to a former to take the

shape of the stock, and left it there for a month. When it was ready, we fitted

the eight-foot ash pole to the stem of the stock, with mould boards and

double-backed share-beam. Then we cut a linden sapling for the yoke, and she

whittled down a billet of beech for the handle and put it up in the rafters to

smoke until it was time to put the bits together. Finally we salvaged the iron

ploughshare from the broken plough, heated it up enough to make the metal

expand, then cooled it to shrink the iron onto the wooden beam. It was a lovely

job when it was finished, though I say so myself.

There have been parts of my life when its felt like Ive been asleep.

Sleeps a curious thing, if you stop to think about it. You lie down and close

your eyes, your brain still reverberating with the various issues and projects

of the day must remember to fix that broken floorboard tomorrow before it does

someone an injury, wonder if the sinew from the old plough-ox is cured yet, Id

have time to card it tomorrow, why are the Scythians so damned quiet, and just

what is Tyrsenius up to with those seventy jars of quicklime? and before you

know it, the whole tedious and unproductive nights over and theres suddenly

enough light to carry on where you left off the day before. Sleep cuts out the

boring bits of life, so we dont go mad sitting still in the dark.

With my life, though, its generally been the other way around. Ive tended to

sleep through the good, quiet bits and only woken up when somethings going

wrong, or theres a fresh tranche of shit to be waded through. For example; I

was ten years in Olbia. When I arrived I was twenty-eight years old, supposedly

at the height of my strength and abilities, old enough to have got past the

awkward, ignorant part of youth, but not so experienced and work-hardened that I

couldnt do a full day with the mattock and still be fresh the next morning.

When I next opened my eyes I was thirty-six; almost completely bald on the top

of my head, grey flashes in my beard on either side of my chin, rather less

flexible in the back and legs, the joints of my left hand just starting to feel

cramped. I had a ten-year-old son, old enough to be useful at last, whod

recently started working with me during the day. I was getting to know him,

though that was something of a disappointment; on the rare occasions when Id

thought about what my son would be like, Id always assumed that hed be

something like I was, reasonably bright with an enquiring mind and a taste for

words. While Id been asleep, however, hed grown up into my brother Euthyphron,

a perfect little farmer, whose interest was wholly confined to thirty specific

acres out of the whole world.

As we worked together I tried to teach him things poetry, history, philosophy,

science, even (gods forgive me) Homer. He was a polite lad and he humoured me by

pretending to listen, but I could see he wasnt interested in the slightest

degree by anything that wasnt obviously useful or relevant. When I told him all

I could remember of what Id read about foreign lands in Xenophon or Herodotus,

he looked away, his mind on what he was doing or just at rest, that trance-like

state that only farmers at work can achieve. Only if I happened to mention, say,

the fabulous oxen of the Egyptians or the incredible fertility of the mud of the

Nile delta would he look up and actually take note of what I was telling him;

and even then I could see him thinking: So what? Thatd be worth knowing if we

were in Egypt , but we arent, so who cares?

I tried telling him the history of our family, their experiences in the wars;

but of course, hed never seen Athens or lived in Attica . I told him stories of

the gods and heroes, but he quickly reached the conclusion that the gods and

heroes were a load of rich bastards who never did a days real work in their

lives, and so were beneath contempt. I explained to him Socrates theory of the

origin of rain, how the sun is supposed to suck water up off the sea and drop it

on the mountains, whence it flows back down the rivers and returns to its

source; that caught his attention for a little while, but he soon realised it

wasnt important enough to bother with. After all, who cared why rain fell so

long as it kept falling? Now, if I knew how to make it rain or how to stop it

raining, thatd be great, but I didnt; forget it. As for Homer well, there

were a few bits he managed to learn, mostly the parts where he describes men

working in the fields. They stuck in my sons mind because (in his expert

opinion) they were pretty silly ways to go about things, and we knew a whole lot

better, so why did we bother to learn by heart stuff that was just plain wrong?

Didnt make sense. The only poems he learned were the Works and Days, which he

thoroughly approved of dates for ploughing and planting and pruning and

pricking out, helpfully condensed into easily remembered hexameters, though the

old-fashioned diction bothered him a lot. Hed go into a study and then

re-emerge to say

that hed thought of a way to change such and such a line so that it wasnt

old-fashioned any more but still scanned, maybe even included some additional

snippet of information that the old fool had left out; when I tried to explain

that, actually, he was missing the point, hed cast his mind adrift once again

and let me babble to myself without further interruption.

Maybe I should find him a trade, I suggested to Theano one evening. Learning

a trade broadens the mind, as well as giving you something to fall back on.

She made a little dry laughing noise. Like you learned a trade, you mean?

I frowned. All right, I said, so that didnt work out the way it was planned.

But in the event it achieved the desired result. If I hadnt learned my trade

with Diogenes, Id be earning my living voting in Assembly and eating nothing

but dried fish and barley-husks. It was my trade that got me here, doesnt

matter how it got me here.

She thought about that for a moment as she threaded a needle. You remember that

game you tried to teach me, the one with the bone counters and the chequered

board?

Draughts, I said.

Thats the one. She narrowed her eyes and licked the end of the thread. All I

remember is that instead of going up and down the board, the little counters

move sort of sideways, across the corners of their squares

Diagonally, I said.

Whatever. Well, it seems to me youve lived your life like those counters move

making progress, but never straight ahead the way you planned to go, always

what was that word again?

Diagonally.

Which means, she went on, that youve come a hell of a long way, but not the

way youd ever intended to come. Am I right?

I thought for a moment and nodded. You could say that, I replied. Though

maybe youre bending the facts a bit to make them fit the comparison. So what do

you think? I went on. Should we find someone to apprentice him to?

Im not sure, she said. Itd be a big step. And a lot depends on who you had

in mind.

I took a deep breath. It crossed my mind, I said, that we could send him back

to Athens , where he could learn pretty well anything. He could go with

Tyrsenius friend, you know, the dried-fish man

She looked at me as if Id just suggested that our son would go down well as a

pot-roast, with leeks and maybe just a touch of marjoram.

No, she said.

But think of the advantages he could have in Athens that hed never have here,

I said. He could live on the farm with Euthyphron or Eugenes, and go to the

City to learn law or banking or medicine we havent got a half-competent

doctor here, hed make a good living

Hell make a good living off thirty acres, she replied severely. What else

could he possibly ever need?

I rubbed the back of my neck, where the muscles were always stiff. Theres so

much hes missing here, I said. Dammit, hell grow up just like the other kids

here, not even properly Greek. I mean, apart from the language we speak and a

taste for olive curd, what difference is there between us and the Scythians in

the back country? Thats an awful lot to lose, you know, everything that being

Greek stands for

Oh, yes? she said. Such as what?

Such as...

Obviously I knew the answer; all the things Id tried to teach him that he

didnt want to know. But for some reason, I realised, Theano didnt value them

either. I was rather shocked.

You want him to be like you, she went on, in that calm voice that meant she

was getting ready to be seriously angry. You want him to learn all that clever,

white-is-black, Im-right-and-youre-wrong trouble-making stuff. What the hell

is wrong with living quietly and making an honest living? Why does he have to be

Greek, and not just a human being?

For a moment I couldnt really understand what she was trying to say.

Everything we know, I replied. All the science and poetry and philosophy

But its all bullshit, Theano interrupted. Euxenus, you made a living by

pretending you had a magic snake that told you the future. You know its all

bullshit, else you could never have done that. What the hells so important

about bullshit that you want our son to go to Athens to learn it?

I shook my head, trying to keep my temper. I thought you understood, I said.

After ten years of living with me, I thought youd be able to understand by

now.

A moment later, I saw that Id said something really bad. For one thing, she

didnt even answer, just looked at me...

Come on, I said, thats what all this has been about. A fresh start, a whole

new city , a chance to build the perfect city with Greek ideas

and all the advantages weve got, but away from the stony soil and the dry,

barren mountains

She was breathing out through her nose by this point, a sure sign of impending

volcanic activity. Oh, really, she said. Thats what its all about, then.

Its what do you call it? scientific research.

In a way.

like cutting open dead bodies to see where the bones go. And whats going to

happen when your scientific research is over, Euxenus, and you report back to

whoever the hell it is you report back to, some bunch of idle old men sitting

under a tree in Athens ? Whatre you going to do next, for your next experi

dammit, what is that word?

Experiment, I told her.

Thank you, yes, experiment. Are you going to see if you can make a pair of

wings to fly with, or pull the moon down into a bucket? Or are you going to find

another stupid peasant girl to cut up, to study how she works?

I confess, I didnt see the logical connection there, and I still dont. Come

on, I said soothingly, youre laying it on a bit thick, arent you? What makes

you think Ive even considered going back to Athens ? Ever? Theres nothing for

me there.

She glared at me as if she was trying to set light to my beard by sheer

eye-power. Then why in the gods names do you keep on and on about the horrible

place? she said. To me, to Eupolis, to everybody who can be bothered to

listen. In Athens we did it like this, of course if we were in Athens all wed

have to do is ask so-and-so

I shook my head. Athens is where I grew up, I said. Thats where I learned

to do things. So when I say thats how we did such-and-such, Im saying this is

the way I know how to do it. Thats all.

Like hell, she snapped. You know what, Euxenus? You arent really here at

all. All thats here is like like a diplomatic embassy youve sent out to

gather information and carry out an experimence

Experiment.

Oh, shut up. The real Euxenus is still back in your damned Academy with all

those old men, and youre an. . . She closed her eyes, dragging the right words

out of her memory with a violent effort. An accredited observer, she said

triumphantly, like the students your friend Aristotle used to send to other

cities to write reports on their laws and their government stuff. And you know

what the joke is, Euxenus? You play the philosopher and the scientist like this,

but its all lies anyhow. You were never a philosopher, you were a fraud. You

never hung out with all those clever old men, she went on. You lurked round

the market square selling your snake in a bottle. With no snake, she added

vindictively. Well, the hell with you. You can do what you like, but Eupolis

isnt going to Athens and he isnt learning any trade. And with that she

stomped off into the back room and slammed the door.

Ive heard great orators. I knew Demosthenes personally. But none of them could

get one tenth of the condensed nuances of meaning into two hours of

speech-making that Theano could cram into the slamming of a door. Its a wonder

the hinges lasted as long as they did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T here are days when the world changes. Between sunrise and sunset, something

happens, and nothing is ever the same again. I always had a suspicion that if

such a day happened during my lifetime, itd be on the day after Id been out

all night at a really obnoxious party, whichd have left me so hung over and

drained that I stayed in bed all day and so slept through the great event that

changed the world, and would have to rely on other peoples accounts of what

happened for ever after.

Well, for once I beat my own low expectation of myself. On the seventh day of

the month Metageitnion* during my tenth year in Olbia, in the slack period

following the harvest and the mad panic of getting the years corn threshed and

stored, I was down at our newly finished jetty helping to stow thirty-seven jars

of my surplus grain on board a ship bound for Athens. It was the Start of the

trading season; the sea was relatively calm and predictable, nothing much to do

on the farm for five or six weeks, prompting the industrious man to better

himself by seeking opportunities away from home, either in person or through the

proxy of his merchandise. Thirty-seven jars was substantially more disposable

surplus than Id had before, so I was feeling bright and cheerful. I almost

wished I was going with them, to see Athens again, maybe even look up my

brothers, find out what theyd been up to, inspect the crop of nephews and

nieces, walk the familiar fields and pontificate on how much better everything

was in Olbia...

* August-September

But going home would involve being on a ship, and Ive never felt comfortable on

the wretched things (and me an Athenian; for shame!), so I suppressed the

impulse and went home.

It was early morning, about the time when people were leaving the city to walk

to the fields. Always a cheerful time of day; youll see parties of neighbours

going in the same direction, chattering away with early morning enthusiasm about

the prospects (which are always good on the walk out to the fields, and dismal

on the way back) until theyre joined by some other neighbours, who join in the

conversation until they run into a group from another part of the city heading

in the same direction. At this point the scope of the discussion widens to

include anything anybody happens to have on his mind, from the comedies at last

years Lenaea to the price of nails to the political situation in Thrace

doesnt matter that none of them know the first thing about what theyre

discussing; Athenians have never allowed mere facts to stand in the way of a

good opinion.

On the seventh day of Metageitnion in the tenth year since the founding of the

city of whatever it was wed resolved to call it that week, I fell in with a

mixed bunch of neighbours on my way to work. It was a fairly typical mixture for

our city. There were two Macedonians, Ptolemocrates and Amyntas, whose land

backed on to mine; a Corinthian called Pericleidas, a nodding acquaintance from

over the other side of the valley: a Milesian by the name of Thrasyllus, who

played the flute quite well; and five Illyrians, whose names I still didnt know

after ten years. One of them could speak excellent Greek and he told me his name

was Illus; like his friends, he went to work with his quiver on his belt and his

bow in its case over his left shoulder. When I commented on this, he explained

that it was mostly force of habit, understandable in a forty-year ex-mercenary

whod first gone to the wars at the age of fourteen. Two of the Illyrians and

Amyntas and Pericleidas had their sons with them, so add another five to the

group, ages ranging from six to nine. We were all carrying our mattocks, and

Ptolemocrates and an Illyrian called Bassus or something such had spades as

well. It was early, an hour after dawn, and the day promised to be hot and

sunny. Most of us were wearing our broad-brimmed hats, apart from Amyntas and

his two boys, who were wearing felt caps copied from the local design.

Wed almost reached the point where Thrasyllus and Bassus the Illyrian were

going to turn off when we noticed that one of the boys had stopped in his tracks

and was staring at the horizon, as if watching something absolutely fascinating.

It so happened that his father, an Illyrian, had been boasting about the boys

remarkable eyesight earlier on, and Ptolemocrates, whod been sceptical about

the mans claims in this regard, decided to conduct an experiment and asked him

to describe what he could see.

Horsemen, the boy replied.

Ptolemocrates frowned. Where? he said. I cant see anything.

Over there. The boy nodded. Look, there was the sun flashing on something.

Hes right, I put in. I saw something flash just now.

Ptolemocrates was impressed. Well Im damned, he said, I do believe hes

right. I think I can just make something out myself; but I wouldnt have known

they were horsemen.

Wed stopped by now to look for ourselves. I can see a couple of dots, said

Illus. And I guess theyre going too fast to be on foot, and if theyre

carrying something metal, they cant be cattle or deer. So the boy must be

right. But he figured it out, he cant actually see more than a couple of tiny

specks.

Yes I can, the boy replied, theyre all wearing yellow, so I guess theyre

Scythians.

(The local people did wear rather a lot of yellow, for reasons I never could

grasp. Something to do with some plant or flower which grew all over the shop up

here and made an excellent dye for wool.)

Are you sure? I said.

Sure Im sure, the boy answered.

All right, I said. How many of them do you think there are?

The boy nodded his head and muttered under his breath as he counted. Fourteen,

he said.

That threw me. Are you sure? I repeated, knowing as I said it that I was doing

a fairly good impersonation of a cross between an idiot and a tree. The boy

didnt waste any more words on me, just nodded.

Out hunting, I suppose, someone remarked.

Illus shook his head. Not this time of year, he replied. Nothing to hunt.

Could be rounding up strays, but why so many?

Having disposed of alternatives two and three from the mental checklist wed all

prepared, we were left with alternative one, something that none of us liked

the thought of very much.

War party, Amnytas said at last. Raiding cattle from their friends up the

valley, maybe?

Dont think so, said the boy. Theyre heading in this direction, actually.

You sure?

Course Im sure, the boy complained. Why does everyone keep asking me that?

Be quiet, ordered the boys father. See if you can tell more about where

theyre headed.

The boy scrambled up into a low ash tree to get a better look. Right this way,

it looks like, he called down.

You sure? I mean, theyre not headed towards the city, are they?

No, the boy replied. Dont think so.

Oh, I thought. Id wondered if it might be an embassy from the village with its

escort, but that scuppered that particular theory. We were using up the nice

comforting speculations like a starving family eating the seed-corn. I dont

suppose you can see if theyre armed, I asked.

Not from this distance, the boy answered. Most of them have got stuff that

flashes in the sun occasionally, but theyd have to be a whole lot closer before

I could say what it is.

We stood in silence for a while, waiting for the boy to come up with some more

details. It was pretty obvious what we were all thinking.

Maybe we shouldnt be standing out in the open like this, said Pericleidas the

Corinthian nervously. Well, he added, if it is a war party, and its headed

this way

He was only saying what we were all thinking; problem was, we were in open, flat

country, where we could see and be seen for a long way. Nowhere much to hide.

Look, the boy called out, theres some people just coming up out of the dip.

Scythians? I asked. Or cant you see?

Theyre on foot, the boy said. I guess theyre our people.

I had a bad feeling, and I wasnt the only one. Could we signal them, do you

think? someone asked.

No point, Illus replied. If we can see the Scythians, so can they. More to

the point, maybe the Scythians havent seen us yet. If thats the case Id like

to keep it that way.

I thought for a moment. Our best betd be to keep still, I said. Put down

your tools and anything that might catch the sun, then stand under the tree.

Everyone did just that. Theyve seen the men on foot, the boy announced.

Definitely seen them, theyre changing course a bit and riding towards them.

What are our men doing? asked Thrasyllus. Can you tell?

Just standing there, I think, the boy answered.

Its not as if theres anywhere they can go, someone said unnecessarily; the

same was true of us. I was beginning to wish I was an Illyrian, who always

carried his bow with him even when he went for a shit in the woods. Id got my

mattock, of course; wouldnt want to be hit with one of those. But the Scythians

fought with arrows mostly; arrows from a distance, then close with the lance and

scimitar to deal with anyone left standing. I began to feel sick.

Any ideas? Amyntas asked nervously.

Nobody replied.

Theyre really close to our people now, the boy said a bit later. Theyre

breaking into a gallop, charging at them. I cant see I think theyre going to

ride round them in a circle.

What, theyre going to leave them alone? said Thrasyllus.

No, the boy replied.

By now, we could see fairly well for ourselves, though the boy continued to call

out a commentary, like some people do when theyre watching the Games. At that

moment, oddly enough, I thought of Alexander; Whod you rather be, I asked him,

the all-corners champion at the Olympic Games, or the little fat guy with a

scroll who calls out the names of the winners?

It went like this.The Scythians rode round our people there were five or so of

them and shot arrows, killing a couple. Then they rode in. One man just stood

there and was chopped down. The other two ran a little way. The Scythians left

them where they fell and then carried on heading for us.

Did you see that? Thrasyllus demanded. They just

All right. I pulled myself together, though it wasnt easy. Never seen violent

death before, you see. Thats enough. Illus, youre a soldier; is there

anything we can do? Or do we just stand here and wait?

Illus shook his head. Nowhere to hide and no cover worth spit. I dont see how

were going to get out of it this time.

Marvellous, I thought; but what I said was, Well see about that. Illus, I want

you and your friends with the bows to shoot down as many as you can. You never

know, if we sting them a bit they may go away.

Illus looked at me. For a moment there hed thought I was actually going to come

up with something clever, but Id disappointed him. If we shoot a couple itll

probably only make things worse, he said. We could try surrendering. If we

tell them who you are, maybe theyll spare us to keep as hostages.

I shook my head. I dont think so, I said. Just do as I say.

I remember watching them get closer, changing from small shapes of horsemen into

people, with discernible faces. They were young sixteen to nineteen; I

remembered reading somewhere that young Scythian warriors arent admitted to

full manhood until theyve killed someone, and Id always assumed that was just

sensationalist rubbish, like the stories about the crocodiles of Egypt or the

island in the far north where at times the sun shines at midnight. But the faces

of those men, or boys, or whatever they were, seemed to me to be filled with

fear, every bit as much as ours; they were facing something they knew they had

to do but which terrified them. They were new to this sort of thing, the same as

I was, and they were well aware that they were about to play a game with us

which had no rules, no guarantee of safety. They were afraid of getting killed,

the same as we were.

At seventy-five yards they broke into a gallop and shifted formation, flowing

round us like a river bursting its banks. One of the Illyrians drew his bow and

loosed an arrow; it missed. The Scythians were drawing their bows now; a couple

of shots went wide, then Pericleidas the Corinthian staggered and sank down to

his knees. Hed been hit, and there was an arrow sticking out of his stomach

about a thumbs length above the navel, a little to the right of centre. He

wasnt dead, but the pain and shock were so great he couldnt speak or even make

a noise, only mouth the words, as if he didnt want the enemy to hear. I was

staring at him, trying to think what to do, when Ptolemocrates suddenly swore

loudly and keeled over, shot through the heart. A moment later I heard the sound

of something heavy crashing through tree-branches and a heavy bump as it hit the

ground; theyd shot the boy down out of the tree. One of the other boys, who was

standing quite close to me, started to scream; he had an arrow through the

middle of his left hand. On my other side, an Illyrian was bending his bow,

taking aim, when an arrow hit his jaw about halfway along. The bow flew from his

hands and the arrow cartwheeled sideways; I stared at the arrow sticking

straight through his face, the broad barbed head standing a hands breadth clear

of his cheek on the other side. He was still on his feet, looking groggy with

shock; he tried to speak, and as he did so the arrow bobbed up and down.

And that, Im thoroughly ashamed to say, was enough for me. Id never seen

actual fighting before, though of course Id speculated endlessly about what it

must be like. Lets say it wasnt at all like Id expected, and leave it at

that.

The wounded Illyrians bow had landed a foot or so from where I was standing. I

grabbed it, then pulled a handful of arrows from his quiver. He saw what I was

doing and tried to say something, making the feathers on the arrowshaft sticking

out of his face waggle about in a ludicrously comic fashion. What he was

actually trying to say, the gods only know.

An arrow flew past dangerously close, a foot from my right shoulder, if that. I

couldnt help it; I ran. At least two of them called out my name, but I didnt

want to hear what they were saying. I ran.

I went about eighty yards without looking round. Then I heard hooves drumming,

not a terribly long way behind. I had no idea what to do.

There was one Scythian horseman, a kid of seventeen, bearing down on me. Hed

stowed away his bow and was holding his lance. I only saw him close for a very

short time, six or so heartbeats, at which point I realised that I wasnt

running. I was down on one knee, bending the bow Id taken from the Illyrian,

with one of his arrows on the string. I was never any good at shooting arrows,

as a boy or later on in life; its always been one of those things that other

people make seem easy, but which goes by me entirely. At the actual moment when

I relaxed my fingers and let the string pull off my hand, I may even have had my

eyes shut (Ive been told thats what I do when I loose the arrow, though Ive

never been aware of it). If I did, I opened them in time to see where my arrow

had bone. By fluke, luck or providence, it had punched through the boys thigh,

pinning him to his saddle. Needless to say, the horse was going mad, prancing

and thrashing about, trying to shake loose whatever it was that was causing all

that unexpected pain. Ordinarily the boy would have been thrown clear, but the

arrow pinned him tight in his seat. His eyes were huge and round, and his mouth

was nearly a perfect circle.

I left him to get on with it, dropped the bow and carried on running. I was the

only one who tried to escape, just as I was the only one who got away. You hear

stories about men whore the only ones to survive out of this or that mighty

army; theyre supposed to be crippled with guilt and remorse for ever after, and

I can understand that, in a way. But as I ran, I was praying to all the gods,

Let them hill the others and forget about me, concentrate on the others, maybe

theyll exterminate each other so there arent any left to chase me. Im not

proud of it. The number of things Ive done in my life that Im proud of you

could count on the fingers of one badly mutilated hand.

I was never a great athlete, but I ran a good race that day, and I only stopped

when I tripped over something and found I couldnt get up. Id twisted my ankle

and I couldnt move. Now that was a horrible feeling, that helplessness, that

feeling of clumsy, lethal stupidity. I managed to drag myself round so I could

look back towards where Id come from; I couldnt see any horsemen coming. There

was a dip and a slope in the way, so I couldnt see the fighting. For a moment,

in fact, I wondered whether any of it had actually happened, until I caught

sight of a thin red weal across the inside of my left forearm, where the

bowstring had hit me. Apparently, so competent archers assure me, thats a sign

of a sloppy loose, holding the bow all wrong with your left hand.

I tried crawling, but it hurt and I got only a few yards before I gave it up as

a bad job; I was too far from home for that. The ridiculous thing was that I was

home, I was in our fields, a piece of land owned by an Illyrian called Bardylis

(he had the same name as one of their national heroes, who was killed fighting

Philip at the age of ninety imagine that, I thought as I lay there, ninety

years old and he still couldnt escape from this shit, youd have thought a time

would come when you didnt have to do it any more, but apparently not) and any

moment now, assuming the whole plain wasnt crawling with marauding Scythian

war-parties, Bardylis might appear over the brow of the hill, looking for

somewhere out of the wind to eat his lunch, and find me. Hed stare and ask me,

in atrociously bad Greek, what the hell had happened to me; and what was I going

to say to him?

In the event, it was a war-party of our own that found me. Apparently, someone

else had seen the whole thing and scampered back to the city to raise the alarm.

He went to my house, but of course I wasnt there; Theano sent him to find

Marsamleptes, who wasnt there either, so he went home, got his horse (being a

sensible sort; his name was Lytus, an Illyrian) and rode out to Marsamleptes

holding, which was only a short way out of town. Marsamleptes knew exactly what

to do; hed been quietly and hopefully planning, and so was able to mobilise an

early response unit I think thats the right jargon in under an hour. They

rode to where the fighting had been, but all they found were dead bodies. It was

sheer chance that they stumbled across me, following what theyd mistakenly

thought was the trail of the retreating Scythians (in fact, it was a

goat-track). A couple of them took me home on a spare horse, while Marsamleptes

continued the search. He came home late that afternoon looking thoroughly

miserable; hed found neither hide nor hair of the Scythians, just the

bodies of the men wed seen being killed before the horsemen turned on us, and a

courting couple whod sneaked off into a small copse on the edge of our

territory and been spitted with lances and left to die. He found two dead

Scythians at the place where my group had been killed, both shot with arrows; no

trace of a young lad with an arrow in his thigh, or a dead or wounded horse.

It didnt occur to anybody that Id been with that group; they assumed that Id

been on my own and that the Scythians had tried to ride me down, and Id somehow

got away from them. Many of the Illyrians regarded my miraculous escape as proof

that the sacred snake was watching over me; I gather that there was this story

about how as I was lying there with Scythian lancers all round me poised to

strike, a monstrous snake sprang up out of the earth and coiled itself about me,

protecting me from the spear-thrusts with its impenetrable scales and driving

the attackers away with spumes of poison (or, in some versions of the story,

fire) sneezed out of its nose. In any event, my standing with the Illyrians went

up considerably, and Marsamleptes, a superstitious man, took to averting his

eyes when he spoke to me and treated me with great respect, in spite of several

requests to pack it in. Needless to say, I never contradicted any of it, not

even the snake stuff, and this is the first time, Phryzeutzis my friend, that

Ive ever told anybody the truth about what happened there. After all, where the

hell is the point of lying to you? For all you know, I might be making the whole

thing up, just to make my story a little bit more interesting.

Now, youre thinking that this unprovoked attack by the Scythians was what I was

talking about when I said that that day, the seventh of Metageitnion in the

tenth year of the colony, was a day that changed the world. Not a bit of it. The

truly significant and memorable event of that day took place in Greece , at a

place called Chaeronea , which is between Thebes and Delphi . There, King

Philip, ably assisted by Prince Alexander and the other young Macedonian nobles

whod been brought up with him, fought a battle against the Greeks who still

resisted him and utterly defeated them, thereby effectively making him the ruler

of the whole of Greece. A thousand Athenians died that day and a further two

thousand were taken prisoner; among the dead were my brothers Eudorus and

Euthyphron. My brother Eudemus lost an eye, but escaped; Eumenes and Eugenes

were both captured, but were later released unharmed along with the rest of the

Athenians.

According to the reliable accounts of the battle, it was Alexander who led the

charge that broke the Theban Sacred Band, the best soldiers in all of Greece .

As well as directing his troops with outstanding skill and flair, he forced his

way into the thick of the fighting and turned the tide of the battle by the

sheer ferocity of his onslaught; he was like an Achilles, they said, something

out of Homer and the old stories, utterly regardless of his own safety, and he

came back to his tent after the battle almost unrecognisable for blood,

spattered on his face and hair, his own blood and that of the men hed killed.

They say that Philip didnt know what to think; his heart was bursting with

pride at the outstanding prowess of his son, but at the same time he was

furiously angry that on the day of his crowning achievement Alexander had

eclipsed him and taken all the glory for himself. Personally, I have a clear

mental picture of the scene, as Philip looks at his tall, handsome young son all

covered in dried blood, like something not human; he looks at him for a while

with his one good eye and says nothing. After the battle, they say, Philip got

more drunk than hed ever been before; he danced up and down the battlefield,

kicking the bodies of the dead and singing (loudly and off-key; Philip couldnt

sing):

Demosthenes, Son of Demosthenes, Of the parish of Paeanea, proposes these

Which is how the heralds at Assembly made the formal announcement each time

Demosthenes had got up to urge the Athenian people to resist Philip, in those

immortal speeches of his. Demosthenes, they say, ran like a hare almost as soon

as the battle started. Hed bought a new shield especially for the occasion; it

had the words GOOD FORTUNE painted on it in huge gold-leaf lettering. He threw

it away when he bolted, and Philip used it as a chamber-pot for weeks until the

leather rotted away.

Interesting, Ive often felt. I mentioned earlier that remark I made, about

Homer and Achilles, Whod you rather be, the all-corners champion at the Olympic

Games, or the little fat guy with a scroll who calls out the names of the

winners? Now, the Olympic Games, like the battle of Chaeronea, is a time when

all the Greek states send their finest men to compete together for honour and

glory and all the dearest values of free Greek citizens; and on the day when

Alexander took part and came away the all-comers champion, I was at another

battle, of which Im the only surviving witness, the only one who can call out

the names of those who took part. At the time, I also gave a certain amount of

thought to the fact that I was the only son of Eutychides who wasnt at the

battle, the only son of Eutychides who got home that night, albeit with my own

little consolation prize of a twisted ankle. It bothered me, I have to say, and

not just because the seventh of Metageitnion turned out to be a bad day all

round for the Eutychides boys; to be the only one left (or left out), twice in

one day

you cant help thinking about things like that, even if youre not a great and

notorious philosopher.

I dont know. The best rationalisation Ive heard so far is the story about the

enormous snake, and I dont believe that for a moment.

What I dislike most of all about catastrophic tragedies is the amount of extra

work they cause. They hauled me back to my house, propped me up in a chair with

my twisted ankle on a footstool and started arguing with each other. A Founder

by the name of Agesilaus (as soon as the news reached the city the Founders had

suddenly materialised, like monsters in a bad dream, and scampered round to my

house in a flock; they were all there, looking impatient and helping themselves

to wine and figs, when I was carried in) immediately demanded that we abandon

the colony and return to Macedon, before the Scythians swooped down and

massacred us all; to hear him talk, youd think the whole plain was carpeted in

Scythians squashed together heel to toe, with scarcely any room to breathe, let

alone draw a bow. About two-thirds of the remaining Founders all started

jabbering at once; we were here to stay, we werent going to be chased out of

our homes by a bunch of renegade savages, immediate retribution employing the

maximum degree of force, where was Marsemleptes when he was needed, something

must be done. Id have been quite happy to let them babble themselves hoarse,

even though it was my wine they were lubricating their throats with; but my

friend Tyrsenius, whod also appeared out of nowhere or who might have been

there before they arrived, saw fit to intervene at this juncture, pointing out

that even as he spoke Marsamleptes was out hotly pursuing the marauders and

would doubtless return at any moment with their heads woven into a string, like

onions. At this, the other third of the Founders boiled over, like an unwatched

pot on the fire on whose authority, how dare he escalate the incident and risk

bringing the whole Scythian nation down on our heads, he would be held

personally responsible, although in accordance with the chain of command

ultimate responsibility lay with the oecist

Hey, I objected feebly. All of a sudden its my fault. Did I miss something?

A pointy-faced Founder called Basiliscus nodded enthusiastically. As de facto

commander-in-chief he began; but he didnt get any further, because at that

moment Theano, whod been hovering in the background with a big basin of

steaming water and a bandage, sprang at him, emptied the bowl over his head and

bundled him out of the door. He was too stunned to resist.

And the rest of you, she said, scowling horribly. Get out. And you,

Tyrsenius. Go on.

If itd been a band of marauding Scythians, they might just have hung about and

tried to argue the toss. Since it was Theano in full Cerberus mode, they did the

only sensible thing and left without a word.

Thank you, I said. I think.

She frowned. What the hell do you think youve been playing at? she replied.

Sit still. She swept out into the inner room and came back with the basin

refilled. Lets get this ankle strapped up first.

I have an idea, I said, as she wrapped the bandage round, that throwing the

city council out into the street is a severe breach of protocol.

Good. And besides, if anybodys going to get into trouble for it, itll be you.

The chain of command, and all that stuff.

Thats all right, then, I said.

Glad you think so. Now, is that too tight?

What, the bandage? No, not really.

Then its not tight enough. Hold still while I just

Hey!

She pulled the bandage tighter still and tied it off. If you had any sense

youd rest it, she said, but I never yet saw a man who had that much sense.

Just try and go easy on it, or itll be months before its right again.

They were back before very long, but this time they asked nicely before they

came trooping in. This time, they had Marsamleptes and a couple more Illyrians

with them, plus Tyrsenius (honorary interpreter), one or two farmers and

Ptolemocrates widow. There werent enough seats, needless to say, so Tyrsenius

sent my son and a couple of other lads to borrow chairs, trestles and

saw-horses; meanwhile, the later arrivals had to make do with standing or

crouching on the floor.

Marsamleptes, who looked very tired, made his report in incomprehensible

Illyrian, and one of the men with him translated it into passable Greek as they

went along. There were a few raised eyebrows, sharp intakes of breath and other

histrionics as he reported that theyd found no trace of the raiders beyond the

two dead Scythians, but I ignored them pointedly.

All right, I said, summing up. Looks like it might well have been a cattle

raid or a spur-of-the-moment lark by some of the young braves. Quite likely it

wasnt officially sanctioned in any way. Any suggestions as to where we take it

from here? Sensible suggestions, I added.

Sure, replied one of the Founders, whose name escapes me for the moment. We

should retaliate. Theyll think better of bothering us again if we burn a few

houses and run off their horses.

A farmer by the name of Chersonesus replied to that. Maybe thats exactly what

they said when they were planning the attack, he said. And if we attack them,

whats the odds theyll feel obliged to reply in kind? Next thing we know well

have a war.

And theres more of them than there are of us, someone else pointed out.

All the more reason for giving them a really nasty jolt, answered one of the

Illyrians. Look at it the other way. If we do nothing, what kind of message is

that going to send them? I say weve got no choice; hit them hard, and then try

talking.

Agreed, said a Founder. People like that only understand one thing.

Before the debate could develop further, the extra chairs arrived, and we were

held up for a minute or so while the people who were standing fought over them.

In the end there was one singularly rickety-looking saw-horse left over, and

three men who preferred to stand rather than trust it.

Were getting out of control here, I said. This is probably how the Trojan

War really started, and any other war you care to name. I agree that we cant

just ignore whats happened, thatd be asking for trouble. So would responding

to an unofficial attack with an official one. No, the sensible thing would be to

talk first, and fight only if that doesnt do any good.

Wonderful, jeered the Founder Agesilaus. Give them notice were going to

attack, so theyve got time to get ready. Was that the kind of military theory

you taught back when you were a schoolmaster? If so, gods help Macedon.

I shook my head. Theyll be expecting an attack right now, dont you worry, I

replied. Im afraid the element of surprise is a luxury we just dont have.

Look, what were doing here is setting a precedent for whatever troubles we have

with them in the future and therell be trouble, mark my words, so we might as

well use our brains here and see if we cant come up with something a little bit

more advanced than starting a fight. After all, I couldnt help adding, I

thought this was supposed to be the Ideal City . If were really superior

citizens, lets try acting the part.

Ptolemocrates widow didnt like the sound of that. Excuse me, she burst out,

but its my husband whos just been murdered, and youre the people whove got

to do something about it. I cant believe Im hearing this; talk nicely to the

people who slaughtered my husband

That was more the sort of thing the meeting wanted to hear. I wasnt having any,

though. Oh, fine, I said. You just lost your husband; lets see if we cant

widow a few more women too, to keep you company. Yes, all right, I added

quickly, that wasnt a nice thing to say, Im sorry. But sometimes the truth

can be ugly. Weve had a terrible shock dammit, I was there, it could just as

easily have been Theano as you making that particular speech. But weve got to

use our heads now, if we dont want to throw away everything weve worked for

these past ten years. Otherwise we might as well do what Agesilaus here

suggested when the news first broke and pack up and go back to Macedon I

notice hes changed his tune since, for which Im grateful. Or is there anybody

else here who thinks we should do that?

Nobody said anything.

All right, I said, heres what I suggest and its only a suggestion,

nothing more; this is a free city, and well abide by our principles. We send a

mission to the Scythians and demand that they hand over the men who did this. We

make it absolutely clear that if they dont, theyre going to regret it. Then we

see what happens before we do anything we might have cause to regret later. My

guess is theyre absolutely terrified right now, expecting us to come tramping

across the fields in full armour with burning torches. Lets show them were not

savages, and maybe well find out they arent savages either. Well? Anyone got

anything to say?

Nobody had; and, to my intense relief, they went away and left me to the serious

bout of delayed shock Id been needing to get out of my system for the last hour

or so. Please remember, this was the first time Id been involved in fighting,

or seen violent, deliberate death. It was all right for the Illyrians, and most

of the Macedonians as well. Theyd been soldiers, they knew about this sort of

thing, whereas I knew about it only to the degree that I know about Ethiopia

Ive read about it and on balance I believe that it exists, and I have a vague,

probably entirely false mental image of what its probably like. I suppose it

was just as well that I had the familiar, almost comforting business of sorting

out the idiotic squabbles of my contemptible fellows to take my mind off it all.

If Id been one of them, with someone else to load the responsibility onto, I

expect Id have been scared out of my wits.

Once Id pulled myself together and dealt with the urge to crawl under a couch

and curl up into a tight little ball, I forced myself to figure out what needed

to be done.

In theory, we Founders were merely the representatives of the colonists, and any

major decision should have been put to a full Assembly and argued out until a

consensus was agreed. The hell, I decided, with that; time was of the essence

here, and what the colonists really wanted was to be told that everything was

under control and nothing like this would ever happen again. Failing that, of

course, theyd all want their say (or their shout, more like) and if the embassy

idea didnt work, I was quite happy to indulge them, if only to avoid having to

take responsibility for the management of what could turn into a genuine war.

I thought it over for a few minutes, then yelled for Theano, who was still in

the back room.

Did you hear all that? I asked.

She nodded. It says something when the most sensible, practical person among

this citys leading citizens turns out to be you, she said sweetly. On

balance, maybe packing up and going home really would be the best thing

Do me a favour, I interrupted. Go and fetch Agenor and Marsamleptes, tell

Marsamleptes to get twelve good, reliable men, with their armour on but under

their big cloaks, swords only. Tell Eupolis to get the horse saddled up. All

right?

She nodded. Just those two? she said.

Who else would you suggest? I asked.

She considered for a moment. Polybius, she said. I know hes a Founder but

hes too meek and wet to interfere, and youd better take one of them with you

or the othersll play war.

All right, I said. Thats sensible. Anyone else?

Tyrsenius.

I scowled. Oh, come on, I said. Ive got enough on my plate as it is.

She shook her head. For one thing, she said, youll need him as an

interpreter for the Illyrians

Balls, I interrupted. I know more Illyrian than he does. Come to think of it,

so do you. So does Anthemius daughters pet ferret, come to that.

Also, she went on, rather rudely ignoring me, the Scythians know him and

trust him, itll be useful to have someone they

I held up my hand. Hang on, I said. What do you mean, know and trust? How

the hell can that be? We havent had anything to do with them for years.

Theano frowned a little, as if shed realised shed been indiscreet. Tyrsenius

has, she replied. He is a merchant, remember, hes got to have someone to

trade with. Hes been dealing with them for ages.

Really, I said. Whats he been dealing in?

Corn for oil, wine, dried fish, pottery, a few other bits and pieces

What other bits and pieces?

She shrugged, just a little bit too vigorously. Oh, you know. Jewellery. The

odd piece of furniture. Cloth. Metalwork. The usual things.

I looked at her. Metalwork, I said.

Sure, metalwork, she said. Big bronze mixing-bowls. Lamp-stands. Ornamental

breastplates. You know the sort of

You mean armour, I said.

A few bits of armour. That ornate, decorated stuff, status symbols really. Only

a few pieces.

I breathed out through my nose. Fine, I said. Tyrsenius has been selling

armour and weapons to the Scythians for how long did you say?

I didnt. And you said weapons, not me.

A considerable time, then. Years rather than months.

Its a very popular line. And its not as if they dont have perfectly good

weapons of their own. Better, in fact.

Oh, so Im right about the weapons, then.

Youre blowing it up out of all proportion, she said angrily. He hasnt sold

them anything they cant make for themselves; and if they didnt buy from him,

theyd get the stuff from Olbia City or Odessus. And really, its just expensive

toys for a few of the top men.

Armour and weapons, I repeated. And youve known about it all this time and

never saw fit to mention

So? Theres all sorts of things I dont tell you. And you know

why? Because they arent important. Euxenus, I saw a thrush today. Euxenus,

Calonice bought a jar of sprats the day before last. Euxenus, one of the straps

has gone on my second-best pair of sandals...

All right. I held up my hand again. Well talk about it later. Is it your

considered opinion that I should take Tyrsenius with me?

Yes, she said.

All right, fetch him as well, though its against my better judgement. Anyone

else?

She nodded. Me, she said.

You? I snorted. Dont be ridiculous. If they get the idea that we let women

participate in making decisions

Actually, she said coldly, many Scythian tribes have women elders, its quite

usual in many parts of the region. But that wasnt what I meant. I think you

need someone to carry the jar.

Jar? I furrowed my brow. What jar?

The one with the snake in, of course. Do you know why the Scythians have left

us alone all these years? Well?

I stared at her. You dont mean

Of course. Once they heard the colony was led by a great wizard with a familiar

serpent.

I groaned. Marvellous, I said. All right, you come along as the high

priestess or whatever. Now go and round the rest of them up, quick as you like.

Theres no time to waste if were going to get all this sorted out.

Once shed gone, taking the boy along with her, I tried to concentrate on the

job before us, but it was hard going. Instead of focusing on what I was going to

say or the possible excuses they might come up with, I found my mind slipping

back to this strange image of my wife Theano and my friend Tyrsenius...

None of which had anything much to do with the present situation. Yes, I knew

that. But once you start thinking about that its really difficult to stop, and

the more you try the harder it gets. By the time the party was ready to leave

Id become all quiet and preoccupied, which must have been quite impressive. At

least it took my mind off the desperate nature of the crisis we were facing...

Theano. And Tyrsenius. Tyrsenius, my so-called friend... I snapped myself out of

it. Right, I said, listen to me. When we get there nobody and I mean that,

nobody says a word unless and until I ask him a question, all right? You can

say what you like before and you can say what you like after. While were there,

keep it shut and dont pull faces.

He nodded. Absolutely right, he said (and I thought, You bastard. Bloody fine

friend you turned out to be.) You can rely on us,

Euxenus. We wont let you down.

I sighed. All right, I said. Lets go and get this sorted out, once and for

all.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I t was agony getting on the horse, and worse getting off again. My ankle had

stiffened up, the way they do, and there was no way I could put any weight on

it; I hung from the shoulders of two of the Illyrian soldiers like a drunk being

helped along by his friends. How I was going to get back into the saddle to go

home I really didnt know. I had visions of swaying home slung over the horses

back like a sack of onions; this particular mental picture competed fiercely

with the Theano/Tyrsenius image, with the result that I was in a foul mood by

the time we got there, and in no mood to take any crap from anybody.

As we hobbled into the village, the people stared at us as if we were harpies or

the demon warriors who sprang out of the ground when Cadmus sowed the dragons

teeth, then scuttled back into their houses and slammed the doors. If my old

acquaintance Anabruzas, the former City archer, had turned up ten minutes or so

later than he did, we may well have given up and gone home.

But he showed up, with ten or so venerable-looking whitebeards and a bunch of

scared-looking men with bows. Anabruzas himself didnt look too happy, either.

There you are, I snapped (the hanging about hadnt helped my temper). Right,

you know why were here.

Anabruzas nodded. Ive got a pretty fair idea, he said. You want to hear our

side of it?

Not really, I replied. Your people killed some of my people. They tried to

kill me. Now, it may be that your lot has some legitimate grievance against our

city, but whatever it was, it doesnt justify murder. So heres the deal. You

hand over the murderers to us, no fuss, no rhetoric. In return; first, Ill do

what I can to keep my friends from coming over here with torches and setting

fire to your village and thats going to take some doing, but I promise Ill do

my best. Second, if you want to file a formal complaint about anything you say

we ye done, Ill listen and Ill try to make them listen too. Otherwise well,

itll be out of my hands.

Anabruzas was quiet for some time. Im not authorised to make deals like that,

he said. I cant order anybody to do anything, thats not the way we do things.

Its up to the head of each household

I shook my head. Sorry, I said, Im not interested. Some day, when Im

writing a book about Scythian laws and customs, Ill come back and you can tell

me all about it. Right now, Im holding you personally responsible, because I

know your name and you can speak Greek. Unless you personally want a war, you

personally do something about it.

He gave me a look of pure fear and hatred, roughly half and half. I cant, he

said.

Pity, I replied. Because my friend here his names Tyrsenius, I think you

know him my friend here can make himself understood in your pathetic excuse for

a language, and in a minute hes going to announce in a very loud voice that

Anabruzas has refused our demands and we have no alternative but to declare war.

I think you might find life a bit interesting after that.

Anabruzas expression didnt change. Ill do my best, he said. How does that

sound?

Were getting there, I said. Bear with me a moment, will you?

I got my two supporters to take me back a yard or so, then called Tyrsenius

over.

Listen, I said. Can you really talk their language?

Yes, Theano put in, before he could open his mouth. Not too well, but well

enough.

All right, I said. And does he really know any of these people?

She nodded. The head man, for one.

You mean him? Anabruzas?

She nodded again. For what its worth, she added, hes telling the truth

about not being able to order the heads of house to give those men up. He just

hasnt got the authority.

I shrugged; difficult, when both your arms are round the shoulders of tall men.

Someones got to, I replied. Tyrsenius, I need to ask for a couple of

hostages. Who do you suggest we ask for?

Tyrsenius thought for a moment. Anabruzas wife and daughter, he replied.

Sorry, I dont know their names. But I know they exist, because he had me get

them each a Phoenician mirror you know, the ivory ones with the carved backs

Sounds good to me, I said. Right, you two, take me back over there.

I told Anabruzas that I wanted his wife and daughter as hostages until the

murderers were handed over. At first I thought he was going to lose control

altogether and attack me, but he calmed down I could almost see him

suppressing the anger, it was like watching a piece of iron cool down from

bright red to cool grey and eventually agreed.

Wait there, he said.

The ten or so minutes that followed, after Anabruzas had gone stomping off,

leaving us alone with a bunch of scowling elders and utterly expressionless

guards, were thoroughly awkward and embarrassing. I had the distinct feeling

that Id overplayed my hand and set rather more store on the threat of war with

us than was actually merited, and if Anabruzas had come back with a war-band, I

wouldnt have been in the least surprised. But when he returned, he had with him

a short, sullen-looking woman of about his own age, and a fourteen-year-old girl

who walked with a limp.

Is that them? I asked. Tyrsenius nodded.

Anabruzas tried to shoo them in our direction, as if he was herding goats across

a fast river. The girl didnt seem to mind too much, but the woman was swearing

at him and waving her hands furiously in the air.

The girls a bit simple, Tyrsenius whispered. The limps because she fell off

a horse and bust her leg, and the bones didnt set straight. You want to watch

yourself around the wife, though. Shell have all the skin off your bones.

We went home after that. An awful lot of people came to stare at the hostages,

and it was comical to watch them standing in the doorway of the barn we put them

in; the older woman ranting and shaking her fists, the girl solemnly waving and

smiling. Together they served the useful purpose of beguiling the colonists into

forgetting just what it was that had caused them to be there; they were a freak

show of the highest quality, and nothing calms down an over-excited bunch of

people than high-class entertainment.

A day or so later I was at home, trying to mend a broken mattock handle with

newly boiled rawhide and glue, when someone came and told me there was a

deputation from the Scythian village waiting to see me. I quickly washed the

glue off my hands and went to see what they wanted.

It was Anabruzas. With him were a couple of the silent old men and a boy. I

recognised the boy; Id have known his face even if hed been able to walk.

The wound from the arrow Id shot into him had gone badly septic, and theyd had

to amputate the leg four inches above the knee. Gods know why he hadnt died, of

the amputation as much as the wound itself. Clearly the Scythians knew a thing

or two about medicine. He looked thoroughly wretched, as was only to be

expected. Theyd carried him in on a stretcher, and he just lay there and stared

up at the sky.

All right, I said, trying to look stern and uncompromising, thats one of

them. Wheres the others?

Anabruzas gave me a filthy look. Thats all youre getting, he said. Sorry.

Thats not good enough.

Tough. He gave me a smile that had nothing to do with friendliness. I told

you, I cant give orders to my people, Im not a king or a magistrate or

anything like that. The only people who can give orders are the heads of

households.

Really, I said. So whats he doing here?

Anabruzas looked at me for a moment. I can order him, he said. Hes my son.

There was a long and awkward silence, filled with all the unfortunate history

wed somehow contrived to share over the years.

I see, I said.

Well?

Well what?

Well, do I get my wife and daughter back now?

I frowned. Thats the deal, is it? You trade me your son for your wife and

daughter. What charming people you are.

Once again, I could see him visibly not getting angry. Its common sense, he

said. His life is ruined anyway, theyre both reasonably healthy, fit for work.

All right, the girls a liability, but she can still card wool.

I nodded slowly. Thats how you see people, is it? Strictly

Sorry, I dont understand long words, Anabruzas said. Im trying to prevent a

war, and this is the best I can do. I cant think of anything else I can offer.

If youve got any suggestions, Im listening.

Suddenly I felt tired and not terribly nice to know. Take your wife and

daughter and go to the crows, I sighed. Ill do the best I can. No promises.

He smiled again. Thats all right, he said. I wouldnt trust them if you made

any.

Once the story got about, the sheer melodrama appealed to my people so much that

they almost forgot about our own dead, they were so entranced by it all. This

was tragedy come to life, and Anabruzas made a wonderful tragic hero. What with

that and the freak show as well, they seemed to feel, the Scythians had paid

their debt in pure entertainment. Even the families of the men whod been

murdered admitted that they couldnt ask a great deal more, especially once wed

concocted a false confession in which the poor lame bastard supposedly admitted

that hed been the driving force behind the whole raid, and the others had just

been following his orders (we made him out to be some kind of high-ranking

commander of the Scythian armed forces; a sort of Alexander to Anabruzas

Philip).

On the day we put him to death, everybody turned out at first light and hung

around the market square for hours so as not to miss a thing. Some of them

brought garlands and offerings of flowers, bread and fruit. Quite a few of the

women were in tears, which goes to show what a soft-hearted lot we Greeks can

be. There was a moment of pure farce just before the actual business

Marsamleptes men dropped the poor kid as they lifted him off the stretcher to

carry him to the chopping-block, and the stunned look on his face was highly

comical, in a sense. There was a muted cheer as the axe went down, but nobody

seemed particularly cheerful as the head was ceremoniously carried to the steps

of the market hall and hung up in the temple porch; it all seemed fairly

pointless somehow, and afterwards people drifted quietly away, much to the

disappointment of those whod brought along wine and sausages to sell.

After three days we took down the head and sent it back with the body to the

village in a cart. They didnt seem particularly interested they dont go in

for funerals to nearly the same extent as we do and the carter told me it was

almost as if they were doing us a favour taking the bits off our hands.

We heard about what had happened at Chaeronea some ten days after this, from the

captain of an Athenian grain-freighter. Obviously, he didnt tell me about what

had happened to my brothers; I only found that out when my friend Tyrsenius got

a letter from one of his business associates back in Athens . He turned up on my

doorstep late one evening, put the letter in my hands and walked away without

saying anything.

I was pretty much out of things for a day or so after that, and so I missed the

next development in our relationship with the Scythians. As far as I was able to

piece it together afterwards, however, it went something like this.

There was an old man in the Scythian village who had a very fine horse. The son

of an important man in the next village along saw this horse one day, found out

that its owner was too old and sick to ride it more than once or twice a month,

and asked if it was for sale. The old man said no; sure, he didnt ride it, but

he just liked owning such a beautiful animal. That didnt suit the young man,

who reckoned it was a waste and a crying shame. He kept increasing his offers

until he was offering a ridiculous amount for the creature, but the old man

wouldnt have any of it. He was too old, he said, to be interested in money, he

just wanted to own a really exceptional horse, and would the young pain in the

bum please stop bothering him? The young man was starting to get obsessive about

the horse. He felt it was a personal affront, and he was going to have the horse

if it was the last thing he did. One of his fathers hangers-on smelt money, so

he crept out one night, stole the horse and brought it to the village.

When the young mans father found out what had happened, he quite understandably

went berserk. Stealing horses is a very serious crime for all Scythians I

dont know why Im bothering to tell you this, Phryzeutzis; you undoubtedly know

more about the nuances and implications of all this than I ever will and the

thought that hed been party to horse-theft, even without knowing it, was enough

to stop him sleeping at night. He immediately had the horse killed, chopped up

into small bits and burned; then he did the same with the poor fool whod stolen

it, and sent his worthless son off to live with some cousins a couple of

villages away. He felt a bit better after that, but he still couldnt sleep; the

theft of such a fine horse was big news, and he knew itd only be a matter of

time before people linked the theft with his sons excessive offers and general

bad behaviour. So he put about the story that the Greeks from the colony had

stolen the horse, as a way of getting back at the villagers for the killings.

Now, one of the men whod taken part in the original escapade (who was still, of

course, very much at large, though extremely nervous at all times) heard of this

and decided to try to make something of it. He hated us anyway, which was why

hed joined the raid in the first place, and after what had happened to

Anabruzas son he was convinced that unless he did something quickly itd only

be a matter of time before he met with a pretty unpleasant end. Hed been trying

to nerve himself to leave the village; but that would have meant being parted

from his wife and children, because his father-in-law had made it perfectly

clear that if he left the village hed leave it alone, and he didnt want that.

The business with the horse (which was, for all he knew, perfectly true) seemed

to him to be a first-class opportunity for stirring up the villagers against the

Greeks and launching a proper attack thatd make us go away once and for all.

That may sound like extremely wishful thinking; but the villagers had some

pretty odd notions about us at the best of times.Try as they might, they could

never understand how anybody could willingly leave his home, the place where

hed been born and brought up, to go hundreds of miles away and make a new home

somewhere else. That wasnt something they could ever imagine doing; for better

or worse, they reckoned, a man belongs where hes born, and thats where he

stays if he possibly can; which is why exile is a far more cruel punishment than

death among these people. Accordingly, they figured that we were either mad or

else had been banished for some awful crime; in either case, it wasnt going to

take much to shift us, since wed already abandoned one home and were therefore

capable of abandoning another, if only we were given the incentive.

The fact that the original raid had happened at all proves how high feelings ran

in the village. We hadnt known a thing about it, but the only reason wed had

ten years of peace was because of an old witch (every village has a witch; she

gets drunk, breathes in the smoke of strange poisonous herbs, and rides on an

eight-legged horse into the spirit kingdom to ask the advice of the ghosts

there. They take it all very seriously, and the village witch is as near as they

get to a community leader) who refused to let them do anything to us. The

ghosts, or her own good judgement, had warned her that tangling with the Greeks

could only end in disaster; even if they managed to dislodge us, itd cost so

many lives and so much property that the village would cease to be functional.

Accordingly, whenever she was consulted about us (fairly regularly, it seemed)

she made it unequivocally clear that as long as she was alive, anybody who

picked a fight with us would get no help from the ghosts in this world or the

next.

But she died, about a month before the raid, and when the villagers met to

choose their new witch it was pretty clear that the successful candidate would

be someone who talked to a different bunch of ghosts or could get them to give a

different answer on this subject. Predictably, the new witch came back from the

spirit world with the news that the ghosts had revised their views about the

Greeks, to the effect that they were now extremely unhappy with anyone who

didnt help drive the offcomers into the sea with all due dispatch.

That there wasnt an immediate all-out attack was, it appears, largely due to my

old acquaintance Anabruzas. Every time the subject was raised, hed stand up and

say that he didnt give a toss about what the ghosts said, he wasnt going to

have anything to do with a war with us, for the simple reason that he knew

Greeks the way none of the rest of them did, and a war could have only one

outcome; namely, that the ghosts would suddenly have so much new company out

there in the spirit world that theyd be hard put to itto find a patch of grass

to graze their horses on. The villagers believed in the ghosts, but they also

knew and respected Anabruzas; hed gone away and come back a rich (by their

standards) and wise man, hed learned all manner of strange and incredible

skills in the city of the Greeks, he knew how to cure diseases and make things,

hed picked up a wonderful way with words. He now argued that it didnt make any

sense that the ghosts should have changed their tune to such a drastic extent

just because one witch had died and another had taken her place. They all knew,

he said, that the new witch was telling them what they wanted to hear, which

wasnt necessarily the same thing as the truth. He knew all about that sort of

thing, he told them, after living in the city of Athens , where the people met

every day in Assembly to do democracy, which is the art of telling each other

what they want to hear and then taking a vote to turn it into the truth. The

Athenians, he said, were perfectly capable of passing a law stating that the sea

is pink, if thats what they wanted it to be; but the sea wouldnt be noticeably

pinker as a result, if they voted till they were blue in the face. The Athenians

didnt usually go that far, of course; but they did vote that everybody should

be happy and well fed and rich and that there wouldnt be any more stealing or

fighting in the streets and that Philip of Macedon would crawl down a hole and

die; and if the villagers believed that the ghosts were telling them that it was

now all right to attack the Greeks, theyd be demonstrating that they had no

more of a grip on reality than the people of Athens and if that was the case,

then the ghosts have mercy on them all.

But Anabruzas had a son; a foolish, rather crazy kid who didnt get on with his

father and was at that age where hed do anything provided it was what his

father didnt want him to do... It occurred to one of the leading anti-Greeks

that if Anabruzas son got involved in an attack on the colony, itd force his

father to stop opposing the war and thatd be the main obstacle out of the way.

So they talked the kid into coming with them and set off to do just enough

damage to start a war.

It was supposed to be a quick, safe job, but of course it didnt turn out like

that. Two of the raiders were killed, another badly injured, in an attack on a

small group of supposedly unarmed farmers walking out to the fields. The Greeks,

in other words, appeared to be every bit as dangerous a proposition as Anabruzas

and the old witch had said theyd be, and it was a matter of cold fact that we

outnumbered them at least four to one. Enthusiasm for the war melted away like a

candle on a bonfire, particularly when Anabruzas tore into the raiders in the

meeting that followed and set an awful example by handing over his son to us to

be killed.

So that was the situation the anti-Greek faction faced when the horse-stealing

affair came about, and the man I told you about whod been on the raid was

trying to rally support. Obviously, he needed to find something to change the

odds significantly in the villagers favour; and, because of the business with

the horse, he found it.

The difference was, of course, the rich man in the next village whod started

the horse-theft rumour. What he wanted most of all was to be able to fetch his

son home again. If the Scythians went to war with the colony, then his version

of what had happened would be accepted as the truth essentially by default, and

he wouldnt have to worry about accusations of horse-stealing. Since he was as

influential in his village as Anabruzas was in what Im going to call our

village, he didnt have much trouble in whipping up a nice anti-Greek froth on

the surface. But he knew that when it actually came time to do something about

it, it might well be a different story. His people had heard about how very

formidable these Greeks were by this time the facts were starting to grow ears

and whiskers, the way they always do; the number of raiders had grown, the

number of Greeks had diminished, the Greeks tore the dead raiders apart with

their bare hands, it was more like twenty dead rather than two, and so on;

furthermore, the King of the Greeks was under the direct protection of a

ghost-snake who accompanied him wherever he went in the form of a beautiful but

ferocious yellow-eyed woman (you know, except for the fact that Theanos eyes

were dark brown rather than yellow, Id say there was more than a germ of truth

in that part of it) and any attack on them was doomed to ignominious failure.

The rich man I wish I knew his name, but I dont; Im sorry didnt give up.

Instead, he thought it all through quite carefully and came to the conclusion

that what he needed was proof that these Greeks werent nearly as tough as

people now thought they were. Hed taken pains to find out what had actually

happened by talking to the man whod been on the raid, and when he analysed it

carefully he saw that the only reason thered been any casualties at all was

that the raid had been poorly planned and carelessly executed, as youd expect

from a spur-of-the moment escapade by a bunch of young hooligans.

Fortuitously, about that time, a party of Scythians from much further north

arrived in the area. Unlike our Scythians, they were true nomads whod had to

leave their tribe on account of one of the messy, complicated blood-feuds that

break out up there every now and again. These men were to all intents and

purposes professional soldiers; what with cattle-raids and counter-raids and

ambushes and hot pursuits, theyd gained an impressive amount of experience in

small-scale warfare, and were now at a loose end, badly in need of a job. The

rich man took them into his household and spent a long time with them, asking

their advice and listening to what they had to say.

But he still wasnt going to rush into anything. He knew that if something went

wrong, or if the exhibition turned out not to be sufficiently impressive, hed

only make things worse for himself and his ally in our village. What he really

needed, he decided (and his nomad friends were very much in agreement) was some

good, solid military intelligence. For example, some of the Greeks had their

bows with them wherever they went, others didnt. Some of them were trained

soldiers, others were apparently as soft as butter. What he needed was someone

who could give him reliable information,

sufficient to make intelligent plans. This was going to be awkward to achieve

now that there was active hostility between them and us; but there was still one

man in the colony who kept up apparently friendly relations with the Scythians,

namely my very good friend Tyrsenius. The rich man decided that he was the

likeliest prospect, and set out to find a way of establishing contact without

being too obvious about it.

When I finally climbed out of the dark hole the news from Athens had dropped me

into, almost the first thing I saw was an enormous soppy grin on the face of my

friend Tyrsenius. It made me wonder whether I hadnt been better off down the

dark hole.

Where the hell have you been? he barked at me, grabbing me by the elbow and

marching me from my front door towards the market square. Really, you ought to

have more consideration than to go wandering off when theres work to be done.

Still, here you are at last, so thats all right.

I should point out that the big soppy grin was quite unlike Tyrsenius usual

predatory, slightly leering grin, which was such a fixture on his face that it

always reminded me of the old story of Medusas head, which turned people into

stone. My favourite theory was that Tyrsenius had been unlucky enough to

encounter the Gorgons petrifying visage as a young boy while on the point of

eating a particularly lush, sticky honey-cake hed just stolen from a smaller,

less quick-witted child. Theano, on the other hand, held to the view that hed

had a nasty shock while relieving himself after a long and uncomfortable bout of

constipation. Her version was more arresting but I prefer my own, if only

because its more literary and cultured.

Whats going on? I asked.

You may well ask, Tyrsenius replied helpfully. Come on, you can see for

yourself.

I was intrigued, I must admit. It wasnt the level of animation that caught my

imagination; Tyrsenius was always hopping about, like a sparrow on ashes, until

you got dizzy and sick watching him. It was more the irresistible cheerfulness

that wafted from him, like the reek of a tanners yard. Only two things could

have had this effect on him; money and love. If it was money, it meant hed

struck some particularly juicy deal, and for some reason he rarely required my

official presence as oecist when he was cooking up his famous juicy deals

quite the reverse, in fact.That only left love. I groaned audibly, but he didnt

seem to notice.

Tyrsenius, I said, grabbing onto a doorpost to stop him swirling me away,

whats going on? Youre in love again, arent you?

He scowled at me. Rubbish, he said.

Dont mess with me, I sighed. I was there the last time, remember? And the

time before that. And the time before that. And...

Dont be ridiculous, he said. You make it sound like I fall in love every

other day.

I didnt say anything. The plain fact was that Eros had shot my friend Tyrsenius

so many times with his pernicious little arrows that it was a miracle he didnt

leak when he drank a cup of water. Over the last six months, for example, there

had been the niece of one of the deadlier Founders, Marsamleptes daughter,

Marsamleptes son, the night-soil boy, the Olbian dried-fish merchants wife,

the cute little Illyrian girl who cleaned the guts for her father the

sausage-maker, the girl with the gammy leg who was betrothed to one of

Tyrsenius business partners in Odessus, Agenor the stonemasons apprentice and

(I suspected, though I didnt have any proof) my wife Theano. It said a great

deal forTyrsenius invincible amiability that people didnt try to cut his

throat as he walked across the square, let alone continued to trade with him

and regard him as a friend. But that was Tyrsenius all over; ill-will simply

dripped off him, the way water refuses to adhere to the waxy belly-feathers of

ducks.

Not every other day, I conceded. Every other week.

He didnt dignify that cheap shot with a reply. Instead, he yanked me free of

the doorpost (he was deceptively strong for a man of his build) and carried on

marching me across the square.

There, he said magnificently, as if introducing me to Zeus.

Scythians, I thought; what joy.

A second look confirmed that the four wretched, grumpy-looking people huddled

together on the steps of the market hall were indeed Scythians of some kind,

though not any kind wed encountered before. For one thing, they were seriously

overdressed; it was a warm day, and they were swaddled up in the traditional

Scythian cold-weather gear; tall, conical felt hats with drooping earfiaps that

reached to the collar-bone, tight-fitting jackets and trousers of heavy

patterned cloth, deeply lined with felt. I could see the sweat glistening on

their foreheads. And it took only one glance at their nervous, hawklike faces to

tell that this was the first time theyd ever been inside a Greek city, possibly

even a permanent settlement of any kind.

Who are these people? I asked.

Theyre the Budini, Tyrsenius replied in a low whisper.

Remarkably, the name was familiar. Ive heard of them, I said. Or at least, I

think I read about them somewhere. Arent they the ones whore supposed to eat

fir-cones?

Tyrsenius looked blank. I dont know, he replied, youd have to ask them

that. The point is, theyre here to trade and get this to make an alliance

with us against the village people.

I stood still for a moment and thought about that. Where did you say they came

from? I asked.

I didnt, Tyrsenius said. You didnt ask. But as far as I can tell, they live

way up north in the frozen country, just under the lee of a big range of

mountains.

I nodded. And theyve come all the way from the frozen country on purpose to

pick a fight with the inhabitants of a small Olbian village. Yes, that makes a

lot of sense, I can see that quite clearly now youve explained it to me.

Not this particular village, Tyrsenius said wearily. Thatd be silly. What I

meant was, theyll help us if we help them. Its got to be the most wonderful

opportunity.

You mean for selling them things? I asked. I reckon they live so far north

that they wont have heard the warnings about you yet.

He looked worried for a moment until he realised I was joking. Very witty, he

said. Now come on, Euxenus. Even you should be able to appreciate

Then I happened to catch sight of one of them and everything fell into place.

The youngest member of the party was a girl; a pretty one at that, if you like

that slim, boyish, ambiguous look (whichTyrsenius notoriously did; Theano always

reckoned that what he liked was the uncertainty of not knowing for sure whether

it was a boy or a girl until hed actually got them home and unwrapped them, as

it were). I looked at her, then back at Tyrsenius. The poor fool definitely had

it bad this time.

Its a girl, I said. Trust me on this and save yourself a lot of time and

hassle.

For a moment I was afraid Id really upset him, but I neednt have worried. Just

as it was impossible to be angry withTyrsenius for more than a minute or so, he

never really seemed to take offence no matter what you said to him. I can see

that, he said. What I dont see is the relevance. Here we are on the brink of

what could be a turning-point in our history, and all you can do is babble about

girls.

I sighed and gave up. All right, I said. What do you want me to do?

At his insistence I invited these peculiar people into my home (Theano took one

startled look at them, grabbed our son and shot out of the house; cant say I

blame her) and spent the best part of the morning trying to communicate with

their leader, a granite-faced character called Bossus or something like that,

while Tyrsenius twittered round the girl like a wren trying to scare off an

elephant. Ill say this for the man; he never ever seemed to worry about the

language barrier I imagine thats a necessary trait for a trader. It was

patently obvious the girl didnt understand a word he said to her, but then

again, you didnt need to be Aristotle to work out what he was after. Whether or

not he was getting anywhere I neither knew nor cared. Bossus, on the other hand,

could just about make himself understood in Greek, something I should have found

suspicious if Id had my wits about me.

He said that his people lived Far Away (he pointed; apparently they came from

somewhere just left of the sun) and theyd been driven from home by Bad Cold and

they wanted to come and live down here, where it was warmer. The fact that the

region was already heavily settled didnt seem to bother him (we are Fighting

People; Fighting is Much Honour) and he seemed to regard our neighbours as

decadent and depraved because theyd abandoned the nomadic habits of their

ancestors and taken to staying in one place. Obviously this blanket condemnation

of the settled life didnt apply to us, because he seemed only too happy to

commit his entire nation to a war of aggression against all the non-nomadic

Scythians in Olbia, but declared that with us he only wanted to live in peace.

Fair enough, I thought, assuming this clown is for real. That, however, didnt

seem all that likely. For all his vagueness about where Far Away actually was, I

could see no obvious reason why he should have set his heart on this particular

piece of territory to the exclusion of other alternatives that might prove

easier to acquire. The clincher, as far as I was concerned, was that he was

prepared to sit still and natter away at me while not two yards away, a

degenerate Greek was doing his level best to debauch his daughter, and do

nothing about it. Even I knew that this wasnt the Scythian way, and as soon as

our honoured guests had been induced to shove off back to the guest quarters

Tyrsenius had requisitioned for them (in my name, which I thought was a bit

much), I raised this point.

Not the Budini, he replied. Theyre completely relaxed about that kind of

thing. They believe in open, non-exclusive communal relationships; you know,

like in Platos Republic.

Now, I knew for a fact that the only copy of Platos Republic that Tyrsenius was

likely ever to have looked at carefully would have been one wrapped round a

bundle of fish; however, I really couldnt be bothered to labour the point.

Indeed, the prospect of Tyrsenius being chased round the square by a party of

enraged Scythians with long, sharp knives was, at that moment, rather

attractive. I see, I said. Well, there you go. When youve finished with

these people, please make sure they leave. I dont mind them, but theres a lot

of people in town who get very nervous at the sight of Scythians these days.

He made a sad noise and proceeded to lecture me for several minutes about

openness, trust and the desirability of setting his new friends on the people of

the village like a pack of wild dogs. Eventually, when hed gone, I put my hat

back on, picked up my mattock and went out to do some work.

After the raid and the events that immediately followed it, there was an

understandable wave of paranoia. People took to going out to the fields in full

armour again, or at the very least with helmet, spear and shield; and although

that didnt last more than a few days before the sheer impracticality of trying

to fresh out ditches clad head to toe in shining bronze made people revise their

security arrangements, the attitude persisted.

Nearly all the Illyrians had bows and knew how to use them. Greeks, however,

dont really hold with bows and arrows, preferring to trust in heavy metal and

physical strength. Back home, where youre never out of sight of your

neighbours, it wouldnt have been nearly so bad. Here, where we all had so much

land, a man working in the fields was pretty much on his own, and that feeling

of isolation was bad enough at the best of times. With the constant threat of

attack present in everybodys minds, it began to have a serious effect on our

lives.

It was Agenor the stonemason who first suggested hiring the Budini to guard us,

and I must say Id have expected better from him. Once he made the suggestion,

it caught on like a brush-fire, and Tyrsenius (who had, incidentally, succeeded

with the girl in the face of all the odds) at once opened negotiations for

setting up a rent-a-guard agency, to be organised by himself, on an

almost-but-not-quite-non-profit basis. I tried to talk them all out of it, but

Id left it too late. Not long afterwards, bands of boiled-looking men in heavy

wool and felt started drifting into the city, to be marshalled by Tyrsenius and

allocated to a particular household. When not guarding, they lived in a huge

sprawl of tents outside the wall (we had stone walls now in place of the

stockade, and very proud of them we were). Nobody knew how many of them there

were, except presumably my friend Tyrsenius. Nobody cared much, either. It had

all the appearance of a logical and satisfactory arrangement that could carry

on indefinitely.

And after a while, I stopped worrying about it. Id been expecting to wake up

one night to the sound of rampaging Budini sacking the city and massacring

Greeks in their beds, but so far this hadnt happened, or if it had theyd been

very quiet and discreet about it. Even I, with my unique talent for looking in

the wrong direction whenever anything worthy of note happens right under my

nose, would have noticed something like that.

My personal guard (the Founders insisted that I had one, though I objected like

hell) was called Azus, though I didnt find this out until hed been following

me around for the best part of a year. The most striking thing about him was the

smell not unpleasant, just very, very noticeable; he smelt of a combination of

smoke, hemp and violets. Im no dwarf myself, but Azus towered over me like a

mountain looming over a valley, and until the novelty wore off Theano and I

amused ourselves no end exchanging tall-bastard jokes. He didnt speak Greek and

I didnt know more than a dozen words of the Budini dialect of Scythian which

I doubt whether youd be able to understand, Phryzeutzis; its full of bizarre

archaisms and peculiar dialect words, and the syntax is so complicated its a

miracle that young Budini manage to learn to talk before theyre forty. He used

to stand there all day while we were out in the fields, just watching me work;

big broad-bladed spear in one hand, heavily recurved horn-and-sinew composite

bow in the other, with an expression of total detachment on his face, as if it

was all a strange, incomprehensible dream. Finally one day, when Id been

wrestling with a huge log for half an hour without making any progress beyond

wrenching my back, I lost patience with him; I grabbed him by the arm, led him

across to the log and made frantic gestures, until he carefully laid down his

bow and spear and grabbed the other end of the log. Together we had no trouble

at all shifting it, and when wed done I smiled and nodded thank you. To my

amazement he smiled back.

The next day I borrowed the young son of one of my neighbours; hed been

learning Budini for some reason and could interpret for me. Thanks to him I

found out Azus name, and learned that hed been only too delighted to help; it

was horribly boring, he said, standing about all day with nothing to do, and

hed never been able to understand why these crazy Greeks never allowed them to

lend a hand, even when it was patently necessary.

We got on much better after that; the boy taught me how to say, Help, please,

and I did the rest in sign language. Gradually very gradually I picked up a

little of his language and he learned rather more Greek, until we were able to

hold a sort of conversation, though it was a major effort for both of us, and we

frequently talked for a long time without realising we were completely at cross

purposes. He told me that the reason Bossus had given for leaving the tribes

ancestral pastures wasnt quite the truth; the fact was that he and his small

contingent of followers had been thrown out after a blood-feud had got badly out

of hand, even by Budini standards, and that theyd ended up here not because of

any grand plan of carving out lebensraum for themselves among the effete

plains-dwellers, but because theyd had to come this far to get beyond the reach

of their enemies, who had friends and relations all over the place. Contrary to

what wed been told, there werent any more of them waiting for the call to come

sweeping down from the high pastures; it had taken all Bossus skill and

tenacity as a leader of men to keep them together this far.

Above all, Azus said, he wanted to make the point that compared with the

traditional life of the nomad, the life they had here was little short of the

earthly paradise, and in order to have this good a time back home, you had to be

virtuous and honourable all your life and then die. About the only thing wed

been told that was true, in fact, was what Tyrsenius had told me about the

Budini attitude to personal relationships; and that was because there were so

few adult male Budini (because of the blood-feuds) that more conventional

arrangements would have been pointless and led to the rapid extinction of the

race.

If youre thinking back to what I told you about the rich Scythians plot, and

wondering when the Budini are going to stop pretending to be our friends and

start butchering us in our sleep, Im afraid youve got the wrong end of the

stick. The truth is (though of course we didnt know this) was that the plan had

gone badly wrong. Sure, hed arranged for the displaced nomads to ingratiate

themselves with us, specifically using the girl as bait with Tyrsenius; but he

hadnt anticipated that theyd find their new life with us so entirely agreeable

that theyd forget all about the deal theyd made with him and come over to us.

Maybe I should have suspected something from the way Azus and some of the others

kept harping on about how treacherous and deceitful our settled-Scythian

neighbours were, and how we ought to be constantly on our guard in case of

further sneak attacks; but we all assumed that they were just playing up the

hazards so as to keep their jobs, and paid no great attention.

Meanwhile, to everybodys amazement, Tyrsenius married the Budini girl, shortly

after the birth of their second daughter. Once they were married he gave up

trying to pronounce her real name (theyd been together two years and hed never

managed to get it right) and announced that henceforth shed be answering to

Callixena (which means beautiful foreigner; for a man so entirely given to

flights of fancy, Tyrsenius had the imagination of a small rock). She didnt

seem to mind. In fact, she seemed genuinely fond of him in a mildly contemptuous

sort of way, while he calmed down to a remarkable extent and appeared to have

given up falling in love almost entirely; perhaps as a result of the Budini

custom whereby married women wore a razor-sharp two-edged dagger as part of

their everyday dress. Anyway; since I cant remember what she was really called,

I shall refer to her as Callixena, not that it really matters a damn after all

these years.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Oh, I almost forgot; a year or so after Chaeronea , Philip of Macedon was

murdered.

After the battle, it didnt take Philip long to break up what little resistance

remained. He awarded himself the title Captain of the Greeks, a delightfully

nebulous term which suggested that he was merely the temporary head of a

coalition of great and equal partners joined together to accomplish some mighty

purpose. Imagine everyones surprise, therefore, when it turned out that he

really did have a mighty purpose in mind.

And purposes dont come much mightier than the one Philip had selected. For

reasons that better men than I have speculated endlessly about, hed decided

that the vast and invincible Persian Empire, which extended eastwards from the

Hellespont to the very ends of the earth (to here, in fact), was decadent and

ripe for conquest; furthermore, that he was the man who could do the job.

And, as usual, he was right. By virtue of its very size and the diversity of the

nations that it comprised, the Empire was the next best thing to ungovernable at

the best of times. As soon as one rebellion was put down in one province,

another broke out the old joke has the Great King starting each day by asking

his chamberlain which provinces he still ruled and ever since the civil war in

which the celebrated Xenophon took part (you may remember I told you about it a

while back) the King had come to rely more and more on Greek mercenaries rather

than his own levies to do the day-to-day work of a standing army. The logic

behind this was impeccable; he couldnt trust his own people further than he

could sneeze them out of a blocked nose, but Greek mercenaries were legendary

for their loyalty so long as they got paid, and since they got paid as long as

they were winning, they tended to do a good, professional job.

The key word, of course, is professional. By rights, a Greek heavy infantry army

shouldnt stand a chance on Asian soil against Asian cavalry and archers. But

its a fact of life that a trained and determined army of professionals will

defeat unwilling amateurs every time, even if theyre outnumbered ten to one and

armed with sticks of celery, because theres always that moment when the two

sides face each other, and one side weighs the advantages of victory against the

perils of defeat, and realises that war, even if you win, is a mugs game and no

occupation for a sensible man.

Philip of Macedon (who hired me to teach his son military history) knew all

about this, which was why he spent his life perfecting the Macedonian

professional army. If you want to, you can interpret everything Philip did from

the moment he became King as leading up to the invasion of Persia , and all the

facts will fit that view. He united Greece , he trained and developed a

magnificent army; in his dealings with the Greek cities he conquered he went out

of his way to be nice so as not to alienate them and lose them from the grand

design. And, if hed lived, I believe hed have achieved a substantial part of

his objective, maybe even ending up after twenty years or so of war as ruler of

a quarter of Asia.

He never got the chance. Shortly before the expedition was due to set off, he

staged a magnificent wedding for his daughter Cleopatra, who was marrying the

King of Epirus. It turned out to be a long, hard wedding, with days of good

old-fashioned drinking lightly seasoned with mandatory cultural events befitting

the taste and discrimination of the Captain of the Greeks, some of which Philip

even attended. It was at one of these, an athletic contest held in the theatre

at Aegae, that a young guardsman called Pausanias stuck him through the ribcage

with a Celtic-pattern broadsword, rendering him as comprehensively dead as its

possible for a man to be in just one lifetime, before running away, tripping

over a trailing vine and falling smack on his nose in front of gods know how

many thousand utterly stunned people.

Pausanias didnt live very long after that. He certainly didnt survive long

enough to answer any questions, but that was all right because, apparently, it

was common knowledge that he had a personal grudge against the King lots of

suitably squalid stuff about a clandestine love-affair that resulted in a

gang-rape and all manner of prurient details; interestingly enough, the story

struck me as remarkably familiar the first time I heard it, and it didnt take

me long to work out why. It was basically the same as the hallowed tale of

Harmodius and Aristogiton, the two young heroes who killed the tyrant Hipparchus

and set Athens free a century or so back. For some reason, this made me think

quite hard about Aristotle, a man who knew a good story when he heard one and

had a very good idea of the sort of thing that catches the public imagination.

If Im right, the parallel between Philip and the lecherous monster Hipparchus

was a singularly deft touch, which would compel me to raise my estimation of

Aristotle by a significant factor.

Once the show was over (I assume they must have carried on with the wedding,

because Cleopatra did marry the King of Epirus) and everybody had finally

accepted that what theyd seen was for real, the speculation began. Favourite

for the role of First Murderer was Olympias the Queen, and theres no denying

that she had a pretty substantial motive, because not long before, Philip had

married a young and beautiful girl (also confusingly called Cleopatra),

apparently neglecting to divorce Olympias first but in all other respects

indicating that hed had enough of her and her bloody snakes and was proposing

to start over with someone a bit less exhausting to live with. This Cleopatra

lived longer than the man Pausanias but not by much, and there were all sorts of

rumours flying about that Olympias, far from denying her involvement, was

worried in case other people stole the credit for her great accomplishment.

Entirely possible; but I dont think so. The Olympias I knew could easily have

smashed Philips skull with a chair-leg in the heat of an argument. She might

even have poisoned his soup, if hed done something that really upset her (and I

dont see going through a form of marriage with some girl as being enough to do

that). But a public execution involving accomplices wasnt her style at all; she

was far too direct and self-reliant to bother with anything like that, and it

seems pretty obvious that the whole purpose behind killing Philip at that

particular time in that particular place was to stop Philip leading the army

into Persia and starting the war with the Great King.

Nor do I believe that the Persians had anything to do with it, though that too

would have been entirely possible; or the Athenians, come to that, though they

rather crassly voted that Pausanias should be awarded the posthumous rank of

Hero of Athenian Freedom, and Demosthenes showed up at Assembly in a flamboyant

new outfit designed to represent Great Joy, even though his daughter had died a

few days previously. Both the Persians and the Athenians would have realised

that killing Philip wouldnt solve anything as far as they were concerned unless

Alexander died with him; and Alexander didnt die. Oh no. Not one bit.

Alexander, in fact, became King; quite unexpectedly, while in the full flower of

his youth and brilliance, which would otherwise have been wasted as he served

his time as his fathers loyal lieutenant and second-in-command. If Philip had

lived to a reasonable age, Alexander wouldnt have succeeded to the throne much

before his fiftieth birthday by which time, quite possibly, all the best bits

of the mighty purpose would already have been accomplished, and Alexander

wouldve been stuck with the rotten job of consolidating and keeping in one

piece the mighty empire Philip had carved himself out m the East. A

fifty-year-old Achilles; I cant see it, somehow. And I dont believe that the

Alexander I knew ever had the slightest intention of living to be fifty, if

there was any way it could possibly be avoided.

Yapping Dog history, take it or leave it; none of it matters much now, in any

event. If youre ill-mannered enough to insist that I offer some token scrap of

evidence to back up my wild innuendoes, consider this. The man Pausanias was a

guardsman, one of the Companions. I dont remember him from my time at Mieza,

but Pausanias was a fairly common Macedonian name at that time, so who knows,

maybe the poor fool was a student of mine. One thing thats certain is that the

young Companions had been raised from birth to be unquestioningly loyal to

Prince Alexander, to do whatever he ordered them to do regardless of the

consequences to themselves. Of course, its possible that one of these carefully

prepared young noblemen could have been so obsessed with sexual jealousy over a

middle-aged one-eyed drunkard that he broke clear of everything hed been

brought up to revere to the extent of stabbing his lords father to death on his

daughters wedding day; anythings possible where human nature is concerned, as

witness my friend Tyrsenius and Callixena, or Anabruzas and his son. But I was

taught to yap like a dog when I was a boy, and Ive come to the conclusion that

its as good a way of looking at the world as any, and probably better than

most. So sue me.

In the twelfth year of the colony we finally got a decent growth of grapes, and

I was pleased and proud to announce, in my official capacity as cecist, that

henceforth, for the first time in its history, our city was going to be

self-sufficient in booze.

Naturally, we had to celebrate; but instead of letting us have a cheerful

spur-of-the-moment party, our noble Founders decided that it would be more

appropriate to combine our first vintage with a ceremony of thanksgiving to

commemorate our tenth anniversary. This was an eminently reasonable thing to do

in our twelfth year (by Founder logic, at any rate), and the highlight of the

affair would be the official dedication of the city, something wed

unaccountably forgotten to do twelve years back, preferring to fritter away our

time on building stockades and digging latrines.

The slight difficulty was that, in order to dedicate a city, you really do need

to have a name for it, and we still hadnt got round to thinking of one.

Instead, wed thought of several. The Nowheresville joke had worn thin by now,

and most of us simply referred to the place as Polis, the city. Our Greek

neighbours called us Nea Polis (the new city ) or Macedones (the

Macedonians), or just Houtoi (Oh, Them). After Philips death, the Founders

stopped calling it Philipsville-in-thebest-of-all-possible-worlds, for some

reason, and found ways of phrasing their remarks so as to avoid naming it at

all. What the Scythians called us we didnt know for sure, though we could

guess.

So, for a month or two before the planned vintage party, we talked about nothing

else but what we were going to call the city. It was a game that everybody could

play, and once the obligatory jokes were out of the way, we took it surprisingly

seriously. I guess it was a sign that wed finally stopped thinking of ourselves

as Macedonians or Athenians or Corinthians, or even as Illyrians or, come to

that, Budini; we no longer regarded stories of what was going on as news from

home, but rather as strange and rather irrelevant happenings in places we used

to know, in a part of our lives that was getting more and more distant and

improbable-seeming with every successive harvest and winter. We were, in other

words, all starting to think of ourselves as citizens of something, so its

logical, I suppose, that we should take an intelligent interest in what

something was going to be called.

Tyrsenius, in a fit of that nauseating sentimentality that was becoming an

increasingly dominant facet of his personality, proposed that we call the place

Callixene, after his wife. On another level, of course, it could be interpreted

as meaning beautiful foreign city, but that didnt do terribly much for the

rest of us, because of course it wasnt foreign any more, it was home. A Founder

called Menippus suggested Apoecia, which means both colony and home from

home; neat, but too slick for us. We wanted something plain but substantial.

Another Founder suggested Euxenopolis a triple meaning; city friendly to

strangers, city on the Black Sea and city founded by Euxenus, but I

persuaded him to withdraw the suggestion by offering to cut his throat for him

if he didnt. Nobody seemed to care much for my suggestion, Alexandria apOlbia.

Obviously, this was blatant patronage-seeking, just the sort of minor toadying

that Alexander would appreciate our balance of payments position wasnt

getting any worse, but it wasnt improving much, either, and rather too much of

the silver money we earned from selling our surplus grain to our

better-established neighbours (for resale to the old country) tended to stay

with them as interest on their original loans to us from a decade ago. For the

price of our self-respect, we might be able to coax Alexander into letting us

have some of the money his father had promised us and never sent, which would

make it possible to clear off some of the overhead and start building up a

little working capital of our own. When I tried to explain this idea, however,

the eyelids of my fellow citizens began to droop and the eyes beneath those lids

began to glaze, and I gave it up before I made myself unpopular.

In the end it came down to two contenders; Apollonia, because our temple was

nominally dedicated to Apollo (and the reason for that was that Agenor the

sculptor happened to have a statue of Apollo on his hands, as the result of a

cancelled order, and offered it to the temple wardens at next best thing to

cost); or Antolbia (Just across the way from Olbia), a suggestion which, for

all its manifold and obvious faults, at least had the virtue of being both

accurate and useful for traders who wanted to visit us but didnt know where to

look for us.

We settled on Antolbia it turned out there was another Apollonia near enough

to cause problems and moved on to the next phase of the job in hand, namely

getting ready for our vintage party.

Well, the first thing you need for a successful vintage party is wine; so we

made some of that, quite a lot of it, in fact. Needless to say we made our wine

Greek style, and since (if the muck in the cup in front of me as I write is

anything to go by) you people still have a lot to learn about this noble art, I

think Id better describe how we go about it. This isnt a hint or anything; but

the duty of a historian is to record things which may prove useful or inspiring

to future generations, so pay close attention.

Now then; its early autumn, Arcturus is rising and the grapes are the right

size and shape. Having secured the services of everybody in your community who

can walk but not move fast enough to get out of the way when you come round

recruiting, you hasten to the vineyard, taking with you an ample supply of large

wicker baskets, fine-meshed nets and the makings of your pressing-box. If

possible, induce the others to do the hot, back-breaking work of filling the

baskets with grapes. Youll be far better off assembling the pressing-box, which

consists of a block of timber about four feet square, with raised sides, four

legs (the front pair shorter than the back pair) and a spout at the front for

the grape-juice to drain through. Willing helpers then take the bunches of

grapes from the baskets and load them into a dirty great bag made out of light,

flexible wickerwork, which fits nicely inside the pressing-box. You then

scramble up into the box and start crushing the grapes through the bag, starting

off by using your knees, then standing up and squeezing out the remaining juice

with firm, even pressure from the soles of your feet. The juice drains off down

the spout into jars, which you later load onto your cart, take home and decant

into your large fermentation vessels, where it stays for at least six months,

until youve finished all your pruning and Arcturus starts rising at dusk; only

then do you tap it off into small jars, seal them with resin and either drink it

or sell it to the unwary. This method produces a light, sharp white wine that

you can drink all night in a half-and-half mix without dying or having to be

taken home in a wheelbarrow.

The other method we sometimes used, which is vastly inferior but still better

than yours, is to cart the grapes home and crush them in a huge baked-earth vat,

big enough to hold your entire crop of grapes and at least three people, and

fitted with a tap or spigot a foot or so above ground level. You leave the skins

and pips in with the juice, cover the vat over with dressed hides and go away

for six months or so, until its time to draw off the dark, murky result of your

endeavours into jars. This method gets you a heavy red wine that tastes of decay

and death, and which is best drunk neat, with plenty of honey and grated cheese,

by people who lead unhappy lives in some distant town.

Well, we made our wine by the first method, and settled down to wait for it to

perform its small miracle. We had plenty of work to be getting on with in the

meanwhile; ploughing and sowing, getting the beans in, followed by late

ploughing at solstice and breaking up the fallow to let the frost in. As the

summer faded, it became cool enough to sit out in the sun at midday , so we were

able to catch up on the backlog of lawsuits wed had to hold over during the hot

season. That year, I recall, we had the Attack Rainwater case, which has stuck

in my mind for no great reason other than the incredible ferocity with which it

was waged by the two fools involved in it.

The fundamental premise was reasonable enough. If your neighbours land lies

above yours on the hillside and its been an unusually hot summer (as this one

was) theres always a risk that if it rains heavily, the run-off will come

cascading down the slope in a flood and wash out anything youve planted that

happens to get in its way. The defendant in this case had anticipated this

contingency when he first moved in and took the place in hand twelve years

previously; hed dug a conduit to run the water across the side of the hill and

down to his barns, where it could be used for watering the animals and do some

good. But there hadnt been any flash floods for the next ten years, and in the

meanwhile his neighbour (the plaintiff) had been rather careless about letting

his goats wander, so the defendant built a stone wall on his downhill boundary

to keep the four-legged pirates out. In building this wall he blocked the (by

now forgotten) conduit; so when the rains came after our long, hot summer and

the water was pouring down the hill in sheets, instead of being led safely away

into docile captivity it dammed up at the foot of the wall, overflowed and

rampaged through the plaintiffs onion patch like a Spartan army.

There followed a sharp and forthright exchange of opinions between the parties,

followed in turn by a punch-up and litigation. It wouldnt have been so bad if

the defendant (an Illyrian) hadnt convincingly won the punch-up, thereby

changing the nature of the conflict from a dispute between neighbouring farmers

into a rematch in the eternal battle between good and evil.

If ever theres a vacancy among the Judges of the Dead, and Im co-opted to fill

it, the first thing Ill do is recommend that they punish people whove been

very wicked indeed in this life by making them members of a jury hearing a

dispute between two farmers. Its a fine irony that, whoever wins or loses the

case itself, the people who suffer most are the poor fools who have to sit still

for the best part of a day and find some way of staying awake while, for

example, a small, excitable Greek and a large, taciturn Illyrian share their

feelings for each other in a public place. The plaintiff, a man who seemed to

believe that the more often you say something the truer it gets, alienated me so

badly while presenting his side of the argument that Id have unhesitatingly

found for the defendant if the court had risen immediately after they turned

over the clock. Once the defendant started to speak, however, I quickly revised

my judgement. Where the plaintiff had told a simple tale at insufferable length,

the defendant tried to compress a bewilderingly complicated narrative into a few

incomplete sentences and a succession of inarticulate grunts. As far as I could

reconstruct what he was actually trying to say, his argument was that he

couldnt be charged with Blocking A Watercourse Recklessly Or With Intent (which

was what he was accused of in the statement of claim) because there had never

been enough rain in previous years to cause a sufficient overflow, and so water

had never actually coursed down the said conduit, which meant it had never been

a watercourse within the meaning of the statute; further or in the alternative,

hed been more or less forced to build his wall by the ferocious onslaughts of

his neighbours goats, which had frequently done more damage in an afternoon

than the water had wrought in the space of a month; furthermore, hed added,

what was I supposed to do with all that water anyhow? Drink it? This wasnt

really what youd call a convincing legal argument, but at least I could see the

point he was trying to make without having to twist my imagination at

right-angles to my brain.

Clearly the fair and equitable thing for me to do as a juror was to ignore the

evidence of both sides and go with the version of events as set out in the

pleadings, which reduced the whole thing to a straightforward question of law.

Now, its a sad but universal fact that when people are sitting under a tree on

a pleasantly warm afternoon dreaming up laws for their city, they tend to devote

most of their time and ingenuity to the exciting stuff, such as murder, rape and

assault. By the time they get around to considering civil suits, particularly

those likely to have a rural setting, its late and the wine ran out an hour or

so ago and the fun is wearing a bit thin; they tend to skimp and rush through,

and when these laws come to be put into practice, this weakness shows up with a

vengeance. Wed gone a stage further down the road to chaos and confusion by

basing our farm law on the models set out by Plato in one of his perfect-society

pamphlets, a decision we came to regret quite quickly. Stickler for annoying

detail though he was, Plato never went so far as actually to define a

watercourse; was it a ditch or trench through which water actually passed, or a

ditch or trench intended to be used for the transmission of water, whether or

not water actually ever came in contact with it? I agonised over this point

without reaching any decision until it was time for the jury to start voting, at

which point I asked myself the simple question, Which of these two imbeciles

would you least lihe to live next to? I went with my instincts, and gave

judgement for the defendant.

In fact the plaintiff won, though there were only four votes in it. There was a

much closer consensus on the amount of damages; we awarded him the value of his

ruined onions, less the value of the damage done by his goats, resulting in a

net award of the price of a medium-sized jar of dried figs. Personally Id have

gone further and included an additional award against both of them for wasting a

specified proportion of my life in a manner likely to cause aggravated pain and

suffering; but I dont suppose either of them could have afforded to pay such an

enormous sum.

Well now, Phryzeutzis, Im sure that by now youve tumbled to the fact that Ive

been trying, in my heavy-handed way, to give you some idea of what real life in

this perfect society of ours was like, twelve years into its history. Youll

have noticed that it was by no means perfect, and it didnt have much in common

with those high-minded and carefully crafted model constitutions we used to play

around with after dinner back in Athens . I dont know if that was a good thing

or a bad thing; we had no real government to speak of, just the Founders (whom

everybody ignored as a matter of course) and me, who tried his level best to

avoid doing any governing unless compelled to do so by force. We had no foreign

policy, because it never occurred to us that we were grown-up enough to need

one. As far as economic policy went, we had my friend Tyrsenius, the man who

sold overpriced ornamental armour and unserviceable weapons to our potential

enemies, and urged us to borrow money from our neighbours that we never had a

hope in hell of ever paying back. We had just enough law and order to discourage

us from cutting each others throats. As for politics; well, we had better

things to do with our time. And yes, we made a hash of quite a lot of things, we

drifted far enough away from our original intentions that not only the Illyrians

but some of the Budini were able to fit in and make themselves at home. We

produced no literature, art, science or philosophy. We had no time to spare for

the finer things in life. Whats more, we didnt care. It wasnt Athens (but in

Athens you could be put on trial for blasphemy, or slandering the City in front

of foreigners, or failing to farm your own land to an acceptable standard of

husbandry; you could be put to death for proposing a law to repeal another law,

if you went about it the wrong way; you could be executed for refusing to take

either side in a civil war; and every year we had a ballot to exile a certain

number of people, not because theyd done anything wrong but just because nobody

liked them very much); and it wasnt Macedon either. By a process of

elimination, we were forced to the conclusion that it was Antolbia; nothing

more, nothing less.

That, then, was the opinion most of us had of ourselves while we were planning

our monumental civic thrash in honour of a dozen years of nationhood; and by and

large, we liked what we saw in the mirror. Theres a part of me that wishes I

could have taken that young Prince Alexander I once helped to capture a hive of

bees on a leisurely tour round Antolbia instead of trying to teach him the art

of war and the knack of scanning elegaic couplets. There were things hed have

seen there that might just have answered some of the questions he tried to

resolve by leading the Macedonian army to the very edge of the world, and

possibly the answers hed have come across with me would have been a hairs

breadth closer to the truth. By the same token, if I was made of pottery and had

smaller ears, Id be a jar. Its hard enough writing history without trying to

rewrite it as well.

The Founders wanted to kick off with a procession lots of smiling children

with their faces washed and their hair combed carrying baskets of freshly

baked bread and seasonal fruits from the place where the first ship landed to

the temple. This would be followed by communal singing of the Homeric Hymn to

Apollo and selections from Pindar, after which we could relax with a recital of

flute and harp music and an athletics contest.

The rest of us felt that if that was the Founders idea of a big time, then good

luck to them. What we wanted to do was drink excessively and make a lot of

noise, and possibly even round the celebration off by smashing up a few

redundant statues (such as the one of me that had been plonked down, much

against my will, in an alcove round the side of the market hall. On many a dark

night Id tried to nerve myself to go and do mischief to it with a big hammer; I

just couldnt bear the thought of the look on the Founders faces if one of them

had caught me at it).

In the end, we compromised; procession, edited highlights of the Homeric Hymn,

and a big vat of booze in the middle of the square for everybody to dip a cup

in. My contribution to the success of this consensus was persuading Founder

Perdiccas to donate three sheep and three goats for sacrifice and subsequent

barbecue, a result I achieved by thanking him in public for his exceptionally

generous offer without asking him first. A highly effective ploy, that, and one

I recommend to you.

Early reports on the wine suggested it was going to turn out drinkable, though

of course thered be no way of knowing until we actually racked it off. There

was a degree of apprehension among the gloomier of the self-professed experts;

they held that the richer, deeper soil and milder temperature of Olbia might

tend to produce a more watery, fruity wine without the subtle malice of Greek

vintages. Up to a point, their concern proved to be justified when the first

jars were opened; the stuff tasted sweet and bland, prompting them to reduce the

water in the mix from a half to a third. The consequences of this experiment

were dramatic; you drank a pint or so of the stuff to no apparent effect, and a

quarter of an hour later you fell over. On balance, we decided that this was a

good thing, the stuff that truly heroic binges are made of.

Wake up, Theano said to me, just before dawn on the day of the festival.

I grunted. Why? I said. Is it that time already?

No, she replied. But I want to get the house straight before we go, and

youre making the room look untidy.

My son Eupolis was one of the basket-bearers in the procession. In essence, his

job was to walk from A to B without tripping over or dropping the basket, and

both Theano and I had grave reservations about whether hed manage it. However,

he seemed quite relaxed about it all when we finally managed to prise him out of

his bed and chivvy him into his clothes (specially made for the occasion and

almost a good fit) so we worried about me instead. As oecist I was not only

reciting some of the magic words during the formal part of the ceremony but also

reputedly making a keynote speech, after the Hymn but before the drinking

started. As you can imagine Id given this speech a great deal of thought. The

first draft was about twenty minutes long and packed with references to the

wisdom of the Founders, the unreliable protection of the gods and other lofty

themes. The final version was a loose paraphrase of Drinks on the house!,

which at least had the merit of giving the people what they wanted to hear.

Youre not proposing to go out looking like that, are you?Theano said.

Yes, I replied. Why not?

For one thing, she said, its too small. For another, theres a dirty great

patch just above the left shoulder, and it isnt even the same colour.

I frowned. I wore this same tunic on the day we made landfall, I said. I

thought itd be a nice touch if I wore it today, just to demonstrate

What a scruffy slob youve become. No thank you. People always blame the wife,

and its not fair. Go and change.

She also insisted that I take the jar you remember, the jar, the one that

didnt have a snake in it. Actually, I didnt object; it was Olympias belief

that there was a snake in it that had led to all of us being here, so it seemed

appropriate, in a twisted kind of way.

Against all expectations, I enjoyed the procession. Meaningless civic rituals

have never done very much for me, but just for once I was able to kid myself

that this one wasnt meaningless. And yes, dammit, I felt ever so slightly proud

when I saw my son toddling along at the front of the line, grimly clinging to

his basket, eyes determinedly forward, like the spearman at the apex of a wedge

formation going into battle. Sure, it was cheesy and sentimental; but the bread

in the basket and the basket itself had been made in Antolbia, and it was high

time we showed our gratitude to Apollo, on the off chance that he really did

exist. Youll gather that Im not a particularly religious man, but there are

certain times when the act of religion is far more important than whether or not

there really is an Apollo or a Zeus. Maybe its moments like that which create

gods. Who knows?

We shuffled up into line to sing the Hymn.

We left the gate open.

Well, it didnt seem important.

Theres a certain comic irony in the fact that the line we were singing at the

moment when it started was, I will remember and not be unmindful of Him who

shoots from afar, because we hadnt, of course. Wed clean forgotten. Like most

of the survivors Ive talked to, I can clearly remember what I was thinking the

instant before the first arrow struck; I was thinking that since the grapes we

grew in Olbia were fatter and pulpier than the average Greek grape, it stood to

reason that with a little care we ought to be able to make a genuinely sweet

white wine, like the stuff you occasionally get from Phoenicia. The image in my

mind was of a big, plump grape, its skin just starting to split under the

pressure of a mans knee in the pressing-box. I could see the first big teardrop

of juice oozing out of the split and running down the side of the grape, cutting

a channel in the dusting of yeast.

Then somebody screamed. We all looked up, wondering what was going on.

I was at a picnic once, out in the fields at Phyle. Wed gone out on the pretext

of making an offering at the shrine there I cant have been more than seven

years old and we children were playing running-about games when some fool

threw a stone and hit a hollow tree that happened to house a swarm of wild bees.

Out they came, like cavalry appearing unexpectedly on your unprotected flank;

and at once the picnic party broke up in wild, grotesque panic people running

backwards and forwards, their hands over their faces, crashing into each other,

knocking over the jugs and jars, breaking crockery, swearing, squealing. Id

never actually encountered wild bees before and I just stood there like an

idiot, trying not to get trodden on. Because I stayed put and didnt identify

myself as a target the bees left me alone, but the rest of the party got

thoroughly stung. At the time I thought the whole thing was rather amusing and

wonderful.

It took a while for us to realise that there were people behind us, shooting

arrows. We couldnt imagine whod be doing such a thing until we actually saw

them; genuine wild Scythians, tall men on rather undersized horses, performing

the hardest of all martial manoeuvres, shooting from the saddle. Amazing, the

skill of these people; they drop the reins completely and guide the horse with

nothing more than gentle pressure from their knees, while using both hands to

draw and aim their bows. I dont suppose Id ever have been able to learn the

trick; it must be something youre born to. Ive even seen them string the bow

at full gallop, one-handed.

I saw Melanthius, one of the Founders, stagger and drop to his knees. I never

liked Melanthius much. I saw Eurygye, the wife of a man whose name Ive

forgotten but who helped me build my first barn, trying to haul herself along

the ground on her elbows because an arrow had lodged in her spine. She was sixty

if she was a day, and so badly troubled with arthritis that she found it hard to

get about freely at the best of times. I saw Azus, my Budini bodyguard,

struggling to string his bow without even trying to pull out the arrow that was

lodged between his collar-bone and neck tendon. I saw Agenor, the stonemason,

pushing people down and shouting. I saw Perdiccas the Founder running at a

Scythian horseman with a meat-cleaver in his hand; but the Scythian saw him

first and sliced off the top of his bald head with his scimitar, like a fussy

man tackling a boiled egg. I saw Theano, sensible girl, ducked down behind an

overturned table, holding up a bronze meat-dish like a shield. I saw Bollus, an

Illyrian who once returned a stray goat of mine, shoot a Scythian from his

saddle at seventy-five yards. I was just standing there, quite still, clutching

my jar that didnt contain a snake, and nobody seemed very interested in me.

Ive said this before; whenever something happens, Im always on the sidelines,

though just for once I wasnt looking the other way. I saw Jason, the Illyrian

wheelwright who was such an expert on the diseases of sheep, pinned by an arrow

to a door, while his wife threw plates at the Scythian whod shot him; he was

coming back for her with his scimitar, but she hit him in the face with a plate,

it broke and drew ever such a lot of blood; he wiped it away and so was able to

see, and then she hit him again but he killed her before she could throw

again. I saw my friend Tyrsenius, with one arm hanging limp and useless at his

side while he hacked a fallen horseman to death with the captured scimitar he

held in his good hand. I saw my son Eupolis running towards our house, and I

watched the arrow that killed him all the way from the bow.

I didnt see Marsamleptes and Charicles the Founder lead the counter-attack that

finally drove them off; apparently they went for them with sticks and pots and

their bare hands (I saw a bee-keeper once capture a wild swarm with nothing but

an empty honey-jar; he judged the moment just right and swiped the whole swarm

out of the air and into the jar, and he didnt get stung). Nothing bad happened

to me while all this was going on. Afterwards, people said the snake protected

me, same as bloody always.

I suppose the attack lasted about the time it takes to bring a basin of water to

the boil; it seemed longer, while at the same time it was all over in a moment.

Someone shut and bolted the gate, while others manned the wall. People were

running or walking, calling out names, screaming, sobbing. Agenor, who didnt

know much about medicine but whod seen his fair share of nasty accidents while

he was working as a stonemason, was organising people to see to the wounded,

sorting out the dying from the merely damaged. The basic principles of looking

after badly injured people are calm and patience; I once watched Agenor piecing

together a shattered vase that Id simply have given up on and thrown away. Of

course, its that bit harder to throw away people, but the temptations there

all the same.

I went over and looked at the body of my son, who was every bit as dead as

Philip of Macedon (why did I think of that, I wonder, at such a moment? Sure, I

wasnt thinking straight; it was like the time I stood up sharply under a low

beam and gave my head the most almighty crack. For a long time, everything

seemed to be very slow and far away, and I remember wondering whether I was

still alive, and being pleasantly surprised to discover that I was).

They were using the wine to clean out scimitar-wounds. I saw two children

standing very still, looking down at a dead body. They were just as still as I

was; then one of them kicked the body, which was almost but not quite dead,

presumably because it was Scythian only it wasnt, it was Budini, and hed

died with his axe in his hand, trying to fight the enemies of his people. Made

no difference really, of course, a kick in the head from a child was neither

here nor there in his condition, but it was the total lack of expression on the

boys face that lodged in my mind, like the barbed sting of a bee.

Id never known Theano go all to pieces before. Hardly surprising, of course;

but like I said I wasnt thinking straight. I expected her to be cold and hard,

to lock her feelings out or shove past them, like a bad-mannered man in the fish

queue. But she didnt; she broke up into tears and rages, and Im ashamed to say

I left her to get on with it.

As for myself I was we have this expression for someone whos blind drunk,

feeling no pain; that was me. It was very much like being drunk, that aimless,

drifting, out-of-it feeling when youre using everything youve got just to keep

your balance and not fall over, nothing to spare for anything less immediate. In

a sense, youre never more intimately aware of being alive, because all the

things you usually do without thinking take so much conscious effort. Yes, that

was me. Feeling no pain. I was completely out of it. I guess the snakes

protected me.

Whenever you get really huge disasters, theres always so much work to be done

afterwards, so much clearing up and mending, digging graves and covering for the

people whove been injured and cant milk their own goats; so many strategy

meetings and heads-of-department meetings just when we could have used the

Founders, we had five dead and seven seriously wounded and who knows what

else. As an excuse for staying out of the house, they were just what the doctor

ordered. I really pulled my weight over the next few days.

Azus, my bodyguard, died on the fourth day after the attack, of blood poisoning.

I was with him when he died, and all he could talk about was how hed let me

down, how he hadnt done his job, how he should have saved my sons life. I told

him not to worry about it, but he didnt want to listen. He died with tears

running down his face, trying to think of the Greek word for honour. Oddly

enough, I couldnt remember it either.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kill the bastards, they told me. Kill all of them. Every one.

Believe me, Id like to, I replied. Nothing would please me more. Now, if

someone would just suggest a way of going about it that wont get all the rest

of us killed

Wrong answer. My friend Tyrsenius shook his head. If you say that, some

hotheads bound to stand up and say hes got a plan thatll bring em to their

knees by the end of the month, and everybodyll start cheering and waving their

arms; and either youll have to hand over command to him or take it yourself.

Either way, it spells disaster.

And what if it was one of the Illyrians, Prodromus the Founder added, and he

actually took command and he won? We might as well turn over the government of

the city to them now and be done with it. Thats exactly how Cleon grabbed power

in Athens during the Great War, when the Spartans were on Sphacteria.

That sounded like typical Founder talk to me, but I wasnt in the mood to play

political games. All right, then, I sighed. So what do you suggest I tell

them? Anybody?

Easy, said Tyrsenius, getting in ahead of the others by a comfortable margin;

years of practice in business negotiations. They say, Kill the bastards. You

say, We will. Were going to. Were working on it right now. Obviously its

going to be a while before were in a position to make our move, but you can

rest assured that as soon as the moments right were going to make them pay.

Something like that, he added. Theres absolutely nothing anybody can object

to there, and you havent committed yourself to anything.

I shook my head. Sounds to me like Ive just committed myself to military

action against the Scythians, I said. Theyre not fools, you know; that line

might get them off our backs for a week or so, but they arent going to forget

all about it as soon as theres something new to talk about. And the longer I

hang about, the weaker my positions going to get.

Tyrsenius thought for a moment. All right, he said, lets try this. Its an

old trick, but Ive never known it fail. You say, Yes, of course were going to

attack, were going to attack straight away, just as soon as the rest of the

alliance are ready, whichll be any day now. And whoevers asking the

questionll look bewildered and say, Alliance , what alliance? Ah, well, youll

reply, I wasnt planning on making an announcement on this until it was all

agreed a hundred per cent, but Ive been talking with our neighbours in Olbia

and Odessus; basically the only thing weve still got to agree on is the precise

number of ships theyre going to send. That way, you see, Tyrsenius added,

when time goes on and nothing happens, itll be their fault in Olbia and

Odessus, not ours. And then finally, when youve played it along as far as itll

go, you make an announcement that the alliance isnt actually going to happen,

because the other guys have pulled out at the very last moment; and by then, of

course, theyll be so used to the idea of the alliance that they wont want to

take the risk of just us going in alone. And the whole thingll blow over, which

is what we want.

Prodromus looked up sharply. No, it isnt, he said.

Dont be ridiculous, Tyrsenius snapped. We arent getting tangled up in any

war with the Scythians. Why the hell would we want to do a stupid thing like

that?

I closed my eyes for a moment. Tyrsenius, I said.

Oh, come on, he replied incredulously. Dont say youve actually been taking

this nonsense seriously.

The very same Tyrsenius whod demanded, a mere four days earlier, that when we

took the village (when, mark you, not if), we should burn down all the houses

and plough up the site, and distribute the land between our citizens. I knew

where he was coming from then; he was already looking ahead to buying up all

this extra land cheap, once everyone had realised itd be completely impractical

to try to farm a large additional holding a days ride from Antolbia, with a

view to selling it dear to the next wave of settlers he was already planning to

bring in once the Scythians had been dealt with. It was gold to bronze he had an

equally sound commercial reason for this latest change of heart, but I really

wasnt interested in hearing about it.

(The very same Tyrsenius who killed four Scythians during the raid, pulling them

down from their horses and hacking them to death with one of their own

scimitars; all this in spite of having been shot through the left bicep in the

first volley of arrows, losing so much blood that when it was all over he passed

out and nearly died in the night. I, of course, just stood there and did

nothing, while the sacred snake shielded me in its coils and flicked flying

arrows away from my head with its tongue.)

I cant believe Im hearing this, Prodromus was saying meanwhile. Euxenus,

for gods sakes, the whole future of the colonys at stake here. How the hell

can we be expected to get on with our lives with the threat of something like

this hanging over us every day till we die? Youve got to do something and itd

better be soon. Two more families are talking about getting on the next ship

out. Soon therell be nobody left here but the Illyrians.

He was making me lose my temper. Thats whats really bugging you, isnt it? I

said angrily. Youre afraid that unless we true-born Greeks take control of the

situation, the Illyrians are going to lose patience and go off on their own to

do something about it; and then you wont be a Founder any more, just some Greek

whos got to work for a living.

I resent that, Prodromus replied, predictably enough. I think youd better

take that back, before

Hey, I said. Thatll do. As it happens, I agree with you, not Tyrsenius. I

want to kill the bastards, every last one. Its them or us; theres no way we

can live peacefully together after whats happened, and I wouldnt want to if

there was. All Im saying is, unless we do it right theyre going to massacre

us.

Thats nonsense, Prodromus said. Isnt it?

The last part of his remark had been directed at Marsamleptes, whod been

sitting there still and quiet as a log, through all Prodromus comments about

the shifty and treacherous Illyrians, without once taking his eyes off the

sconce on the opposite wall. No, he said. Euxenus is right. If we attack, we

must do it properly.

If? Prodromus repeated. Dont you start. Its bad enough Tyrsenius here wants

to pretend nothings happened. For pitys sake, Euxenus, just for once take your

responsibilities seriously and tell him

I held up my hand for silence and, much to my surprise, I got it.

When we attack shut up, both of you, or you might miss something important

when we attack, were going to do it properly. Now, so far I havent heard any

suggestions as to how we should go about this that make any kind of sense at

all. Until I see a plan of action thats got a better than seventy-five per cent

chance of success, we arent going anywhere, because if you think things are bad

now, you wait and see what theyll be like if we attack and get well and truly

beaten. That really would be the end, and Ive come too far to take chances like

that just because you Founders want to be the first in line in the fish queue.

The homely image was intended to annoy him, and it did; nothing put Prodromus

back up more than the thought that he wasnt being taken seriously. That said,

he was one of the brighter Founders, and I much preferred dealing with him than,

say, Perdiccas (Whose brains Id seen on the steps of the market hall; four

days later, there was still a brown stain. When we buried him we tried to fit

the top of his skull back on, but the scalp had shrunk. We had to bind it on

with a strip of cloth in the end; he went into the ground looking like an old

woman with her shawl pulled up over her ears.)

All right, Prodromus said. Ill take that as a definite commitment to action,

and Ill tell the rest of them that Ive heard your proposals for action and Im

prepared to go along with them. But I warn you, if I find youre playing for

time and you dont really have any intention of carrying the war to the enemy, I

promise you therell be trouble.

I rubbed my eyes; four days with very little sleep. Ill take that as

agreement, I said. Not that Im all that fussed whether you agree or not. Now

then, Marsamleptes; how about some basic facts? What sort of army can we put

together?

He thought for a long time before answering. We are strong in heavy infantry,

he replied, speaking slowly as ever, very weak in everything else. My people

can mostly shoot well with the bow, but they will want to fight with the spear.

The Budini are fine archers, but there are so few of them. We have no cavalry.

If we mean to fight, we must lead to their strength and find a way of overcoming

it.

I see, I replied. And their strengths are?

Cavalry, he replied. Cavalry and archers. I cannot tell how a battle between

horse-archers and heavy infantry would be, because I have never seen one, but I

think the horse-archers would win if they were well led.

Not necessarily, Tyrsenius interrupted. Look at Leonidas at Thermopylae . Or

the Greeks at Plataea . Or Xenophon

I frowned. Of course, none of the examples hed quoted had involved

horse-archers fighting against heavy infantry. Marsamleptes, I said. If you

had to fight such a battle, how would you go about it?

Once again, long pause for thought. Tyrsenius talks about the battle at Plataea

, he said. When the Persians shot at the Greeks, the Greeks knelt down behind

their shields and made themselves small, and the Persians grew impatient and

attacked them with the spear. That was a mistake on their part. He looked up at

the roof. Maybe the Scythians would make a mistake too. I doubt it, having seen

them. It would be hard to attack them in this way, of course.

Im not so sure,, Tyrsenius chimed in. Think of the Carthaginians at Himera.

That reference was so obscure I didnt even bother considering it. You want to

make them attack us, I take it, I said.

Which they will not do, Marsamleptes went on, unless they make another

mistake. There are more of us. Why would they choose to attack a larger army?

I can see your point, I conceded. Youd better go away and think about it

some more. Prodromus, I want you to calm your people down as much as you can.

Tyrsenius idea about sending for help to Olbias a good one. Tyrsenius, I want

you to write to your friends in Olbia, just in case they might be prepared to

help us. I know, they havent got any quarrel with their neighbours, but you

might play up the idea that once theyve got rid of one Greek colony, they might

like the idea of getting rid of them all. And you might make enquiries about

mercenaries; light infantry, archers, maybe even some experienced Thracian

cavalry if theres any at a loose end.

Tyrsenius shook his head. I doubt it, he said. Anybody whos any good will

have gone with Alexander. You should see what hes paying.

Thats right, Id forgotten; Alexander had set out with his army to conquer the

world.

You know all about it, of course, Phryzeutzis, you were brought up on it. When

you were little, your daddy told you stories about the great warrior who founded

this city. Later on, you listened to the recital of the official history on

Founders Day, the day when all the children get given an apple and a

honey-cake, to bribe them to be good citizens when they grow up. Ill bet you

can name the great battles, in places youve never been to, in countries you

cant imagine; when you were a child, I expect you recreated them in places you

knew, so that the stream that runs down off the mountain became the Granicus,

and the brook through the town meadow became the Issus . You staged the siege of

Tyre here in the city; it must have been a tight fit, all those hundreds of

thousands of men crammed into our dusty little market square, with Alexanders

vast siege ramps and assault towers poking their noses over our low,

burned-brick wall. Where did you see Gaugamela , I wonder? Dont tell me; either

the temple lot, before we started the building work, or the patch of scrubby

orchard behind the water-tanks. Of course your Alexander will have been

dark-haired and black-eyed, with a tall felt cap on his head as he rode his

short-legged, round-nosed pony in the cavalry charge at Arbela was Arbela the

battle with the cavalry charge, or am I thinking of the Granicus? My Alexander,

you see, is getting fainter as the years go by, while our civic Alexander gets

bigger and bolder and more godlike as each year passes, as each year of children

meet him for the first time on Founders Day, with the cake sweating honey

through their hot little fingers. The day will come when I wont recognise our

Alexander at all, the way a senile father forgets his own children.

But were not there quite yet; so indulge me and put aside your personal

Alexander for a moment, or try to think of the man Im going to talk about as

someone else who coincidentally had the same name.

Before setting out on his great adventure, Alexander of Macedon cleared up all

his fathers outstanding business in Greece . He had four of his relatives

murdered; they were too close to the throne to be left behind, and they werent

wanted on the journey. They were the two brothers of the King of Lyncestis, a

bastard son of King Philips and the son of Philips elder brother, as whose

regent Philip had been crowned in the first place.

Alexander went to Corinth with an army to be officially installed as Captain of

the Greeks in his fathers place. While he was there, so they tell me, he paid a

visit to one Diogenes, known as the Yapping Dog, whod moved to Corinth from

Athens a few years earlier for the good of his health. Now, it may be that he

remembered some of the things his old tutor had told him about Diogenes, or

maybe the great philosopher (who I thought had been dead for years at this

point) was included on every sightseeing tour; in any case, Alexander summoned

Diogenes for an audience. Diogenes didnt turn up. So Alexander went to see

Diogenes.

Hello, he said. My name is Alexander.

Diogenes (or at any rate, my Diogenes) grunted and said nothing. He was sitting,

naked as the day he was born, on a flat stone half a

mile outside the city, staring up at the hills. As I picture him, he must have

looked pretty much like a thin brown lizard. Alexander studied him for a few

minutes, as if getting ready to write an essay for his next tutorial, while

behind him the soldiers of his bodyguard shuffled their feet and the Corinthian

civic dignitaries cringed with embarrassment and wondered how in hell they were

going to get out of this in one piece.

Are you all right, sitting there? Alexander asked eventually.

Mphm.

Is there anything I can do for you?

Silence.

Is there anything at all I can do for you? Anything you want? Just name it.

Then this long brown lizard of mine turned his head and opened one lidless

reptilian eye. Since you ask, he said, there is.

Alexanders lips curled in a small smile, an I-thought-there-might-be

expression. He might have remembered being taught when he was a boy that power,

like money, works rather like magic, because it can make people do things they

normally wouldnt, and can make possible things that normally arent. Name it,

he said, and youll get it. You have my word.

The lizard nodded. In that case, he said, move a bit to the left. Youre

getting in my light.

At which, so they tell me, this Alexander was bitterly offended, and it was only

his respect for the grand old man of Yapping Dog philosophy that kept him from

losing his temper and having the old fool punished. Thats no favour for a king

to grant, he said.

All right, Diogenes replied. If it makes you any happier, give me a thousand

talents in gold.

Alexander smiled; a very thin smile, probably. Thats no gift for a Yapping Dog

to receive, he said.

Diogenes nodded. Good answer, he replied. I can see the time I spent on you

hasnt been entirely wasted.

Alexander raised one perfect godlike eyebrow. I dont follow you, he said.

What? Diogenes sat up, resting on one elbow. Oh, sorry, for a moment there I

thought you were someone I used to know.

It was probably at this point that the Corinthian civic dignitaries suggested

that now would be a good time to go and look at the new aqueduct.

After that, Alexander took an army into Thrace and Illyria and beat hell out of

the natives there, for reasons that doubtless made a lot of sense at the time.

He pushed up as far as the Danube we heard about him from the Scythians (it

was before the trouble started), who seemed to blame us for all the disturbance

and bother their south-eastern cousins were having, though we assured them that

Alexander was no fault of ours. He very nearly died up there, as a result of

carelessness and overconfidence, but he pulled himself out again with some

brilliantly imaginative improvisation that wouldnt have been needed if hed

been paying attention when we did Brasidas northern campaigns...

But news of his supposed death reached the ancient and powerful city of Thebes ,

which for a while, in my fathers time, had been the most important power in

Greece . Immediately, the Theban government resolved to throw off the Macedonian

yoke and restore their city to its former glory a bit like the mice declaring

war on the gram-bin once theyve heard the cat is dead. At least one of their

politicians urged a degree of caution; wait a week or so, he suggested, just in

case. After all, he told them, if Alexanders dead today, then hell still be

dead tomorrow. Who knows, he may even still be dead the day after tomorrow; and

then we can declare war on Macedon.

But nobody listened; which was a pity, because when Alexander came back to life

again, he stormed Thebes, massacred the citizens and had the place levelled

except for the house where Pindar, the celebrated poet, was supposed to have

lived a hundred years or so ago; its nice to see that all those hot, dull

afternoons scanning iambic pentameters under the fig-tree in Mieza turned him

into a man of culture and refinement.

After that he went back to Macedon, where his mother had just murdered his

fathers second wife by roasting her alive over a charcoal brazier, to discover

that he had inherited from his father a balance of payments deficit of three

million drachmas, which, as I understand it, is roughly how much it would cost

to build the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

To say he was annoyed would be an understatement. Imagine how Achilles would

have felt if, having killed Hector under the Scaean Gate and stripped him of his

armour, hed had that same armour impounded by the bailiffs on account of unpaid

forage bills. As far as Alexander was concerned, his Alexander wasnt supposed

to have to bother with stuff like that, so he did the only honourable thing and

pretended he hadnt heard. Instead, he borrowed a further five million drachmas

(I have no idea who from) and marched into Asia with forty thousand men. His

first stop, they tell me, was Troy, where he broke open the vault of the temple

and helped himself to a shield that was supposed to have belonged to Achilles

Achilles was lucky, he told someone at the time. He had Homer to praise him.

What the other guy said is not, for some reason, recorded.

In spite of Tyrsenius dire warnings, we did manage to hire some mercenaries; a

hundred Budini horse-archers and fifty or so Thracian light cavalry. The Budini

were very much like the ones wed already met, but the Thracians were a

miserable bunch, mostly men whod been thrown out of their villages for

antisocial behaviour of one sort or another. Nobody liked them very much, but

they kept to themselves and only bothered those of us who hung around their camp

looking for trouble. Nevertheless; we were paying them by the day and they

werent cheap, which was a further incentive to us to make a move.

Even so, I persuaded my colleagues to restrain their enthusiasm for a little

longer, simply because the longer we left it, the better our chances would be of

taking them off-guard. We needed the element of surprise. With our deficiency in

cavalry, we couldnt mount the sort of lightning raid theyd hit us with, and

besides, we had something rather more permanent in mind than killing a few

people at random and torching a handful of buildings.

After endless meetings, discussions, debates, councils of war and other

exercises in communal futility, I made a decision. I wasnt the best person to

decide the matter, gods know, and Im not entirely sure to this day whether I

actually had the authority to be quite so unilateral about it, but what mattered

was that nobody else knew I didnt have the authority. If I hadnt forced the

issue, I console myself, wed probably still be arguing about it now; or at any

rate, our grandchildren would.

My idea was to send the Thracians on a make-believe cattle raid. If they were

sufficiently convincing (and I couldnt see any reason why they wouldnt be; in

their particular dialect ofThracian, the words for soldier, hero,

cattle-thief and unmitigated bastard are all the same) this would have the

effect of turning out the able-bodied and warlike inhabitants of the village en

masse, leaving the way clear for us to walk in through the front gate. When the

village warriors realised theyd been had, of course, theyd turn back and ride

like hell for home, knowing perfectly well what the diversion was in aid of; at

which point theyd be ambushed by the Budini and the infantry reserve, with the

Thracians coming in at the end to murder and rob the walking wounded. Finally,

the ambush contingent would join the main body of the army to help with the

demolition work.

Two days before we were scheduled to go, I was sitting in the back room of my

house polishing my armour. If you could have seen me then, youd have got a very

good idea of the priority that matters military had had in my general view of

things up to that point, because my helmet and breastplate were as green as the

lush grass of the Vale of Tempe, the clip in the left-hand greave had gone soft,

and the little patch that had been brazed over the hole in the backplate,

through which Death had come to visit the armours previous one careful owner,

had come away on two sides and was curling up like a dry leaf. That armour was

worth exactly what I paid for it, which is another way of saying it was junk.

Someone to see you, Theano said. She had an expression on her face that I just

couldnt place, though I could deduce enough to know it wasnt a happy one.

All right, I sighed, putting the breastplate down. Ill come through.

As I walked into the main room, I nearly fell over.

Well, youve got a nerve, I said, as soon as I felt able to speak. What the

hell are you doing here?

Anabruzas, my old acquaintance, stood up. As he did so, the three men

Marsamleptes had set to watch his every move started forward and grabbed their

daggers. I frowned and shook my head, and they backed off, looking disappointed.

Thank you for the welcome, Anabruzas said. Is there any point trying to talk

to you?

I took a deep breath, nodded and told him to sit down. Id always rather talk

than fight, I said. I suppose thats the difference between us. Now, whats on

your mind?

He looked at Marsemleptes men, then at me, and sat down, rather as if he

expected the chair to come alive and bite him. I told them not to do it, he

said. You know by now that I cant stop them doing something theyve set their

hearts on doing, but I did hope I could talk sense into them. I couldnt, so

there it is.

I see, I said. So youre telling me you have absolutely no authority to

negotiate any kind of settlement.

He rubbed his eyes, like a very tired man. What theyre saying, he replied,

is that theres no point trying to talk to you now because after what happened,

youre never going to listen. If I can go back to them and tell them otherwise,

I might be able to make them see sense.

I looked at him, then said, And if you do go back and tell them were ready to

talk, what makes you think theyll trust either of us?

He smiled sadly. They know me, he said. And theyve dealt with Greeks long

enough to know that they take this sort of thing seriously

you know, treaties and oaths and honour, the sort of thing you make laws and

write poems about. Oh, youll bend the law right back on itself if it gives you

an advantage, but youll stick to the letter of it. A wise man from one of the

other nations of my people once said that Greek laws are like our bows; theyre

designed to be bent almost indefinitely but never to be broken.

Thats neat, I said. I must use it myself some time. And if I try really

hard, I suppose I could interpret that as a compliment to our integrity. Now, do

you have anything specific to propose, or is this just an exercise in vague

hand-wringing?

He shook his head. I have a very specific proposal, he replied. I propose

that we pay blood-money for your people who were killed, as if this was a family

feud between us; then we join together to build a wall between your land and

ours, which we both undertake never to cross without the others leave. And,

since you have no particular reason to trust us without some sort of security,

well send you the second sons of each of our leading families as hostages;

hereafter, for every Greek whos killed by one of us, youll be entitled to

execute five of our children.

I nodded. Thats a very favourable ratio, I said. But personally Id rather

you simply gave up killing Greeks.

So would I, he replied angrily. I still have one son left

Which is more than can be said of me, I broke in. I felt guilty for saying it,

though Im not sure why. It was as if it was cheating to equate his son with

mine, because hed loved his son... The thought made me frown.

He looked at me. Im sorry, he said, and I knew he meant it. But you must try

to understand, we dont think the way you do, and Im trying to be realistic.

With the best will in the world I cant guarantee there wont be any more

killings. If I pretended otherwise, Id end up being proved a liar, and then

thered be no hope of peace after that. All I can do is try and arrange matters

so that, if there is any more violence, we know that well come out of it far

worse off than you. If theres anything else you think I can do, please tell

me.

I didnt say anything; I was thinking, what a remarkable man this was, a man

whod sent his own son to be ritually slaughtered by us the first time hed

tried to make peace; and here he was again, asking to be allowed to send us his

other son, fully expecting that thered be a time when we slaughtered him, too.

This man was no philosopher, he didnt profess to disregard the material world

as an unimportant illusion. There are philosophers and holy men who offer up

their lives and the lives of those they love for the good of others because they

put no value on life, and so they offer something they dont care much about.

Thats cheating, of course. And Ive heard that among some of the Scythian

tribes, when their king dies his wives and servants and companions are pleased

and honoured to have their legs and necks broken and be buried in the same mound

as their lord, because it means theyll go to the pastures in the land of the

dead that are specifically reserved for kings and great lords, instead of the

cold steppes where commoners go. Thats cheating; its haggling with death for a

better deal, getting a higher price for what youve got to trade than its

actually worth. And those men who die in battle, whose names are read out before

the people and whose sons are honoured on Remembrance Day with laurel crowns and

suits of armour provided at public expense; everyone dies eventually, but at

least theyve bought something with their death, obtained an advantage that they

havent necessarily deserved. But I couldnt see where Anabruzas was taking his

profit in this deal; he was paying out and there didnt seem to be anything in

it for him. A strange man, and one I couldnt help admiring, insofar as its

possible to admire a fool.

Ill tell you what Ill do, I said. Ill talk to my people. Ill try to make

them understand. Im making no promises; that way, I wont be made a liar

either. But please, bear this in mind. We dont want to have to fight you, or

anybody. We dont like fighting, we dont have the same notions of honour and

glory as you do; basically, we just want to know were going to be left alone.

If we have to defend ourselves, well do so as thoroughly and effectively as we

possibly can, but we look at this sort of thing as if we were keeping accounts.

Every dead Greek is a net loss, and we get no profit from killing any number of

your people.

He looked at me as if he expected me to say something else, as if what Id been

saying was obviously incomplete. Thats all, I said. Now you go away and do

your best, and Ill do what I can.You never know, we might get out of this mess

yet.

An hour or so after hed gone, Prodromus the Founder came bustling in with a

face like thunder.

I dont believe it, he said. After everything wed agreed.You gave your

word.

I had my hands full with a broken greave; I was trying to solder a new clip, but

the fire wasnt hot enough to make the solder run. What are you babbling about

now, Prodromus? I asked.

You made a deal with the Scythian, he said. One of the guards who was here

with you came and told me. Youre betraying the trust of the whole city, I hope

you know that.

I sighed. Balls, I said. Im doing no such thing.

He was speechless for a moment. Euxenus, you cant lie to me, Ive heard

everything that was said in this room. You told that man youd do everything you

could to promote a peaceful settlement.

I know, I said. I was lying.

What did you say?

I was lying, I repeated. I have absolutely no intention of trying to talk you

and the rest of them out of attacking the village; partly because I know it

wouldnt work, but mostly because I want to see that village burned to the

ground and the heads of the men who killed my son stuck on poles among the

ashes.

Prodromus looked at me as if I was talking Persian. I dont understand, he

said. You told that man...

Thats right. And hes gone back to his village, and right now I expect hes

telling all the people how the Greeks are willing to talk, and this is their

last, best hope for peace. With any luck, he may even convince them. Whichll

make our job that much easier the day after tomorrow.

I dont think Ive ever seen anybody look as shocked in all my life. Euxenus,

for the love of the gods, he said. You cant do that, its...

Clever, I said. Is that the word you were looking for?

Its inhuman, he shouted. Its disgusting. I refuse to have anything to do

with it.

I smiled. I cant remember asking you, I replied, so thats all right. Oh,

for pitys sake, Prodromus, weve all solemnly agreed that the day after

tomorrow were going to attack their village and kill the lot of them. Compared

with that, a little white lie is neither here nor there.

He stared at me as if Id grown an extra head. I cant believe Im hearing

this, he said. Not from an Athenian.

Ex-Athenian, I reminded him. Now please, unless youre any good at soldering,

shove off and stick your conscience where it won t get in the way. And if I were

you, Id keep my face well and truly shut or the next couple of days; thats

unless you want the Scythians to learn what weve got planned for them. I have a

feeling that our security isnt everything it should be, or how did they know

the gate was going to be left open?

He opened his mouth, then closed it again and went away without another word.

And, in case you were wondering, I got the solder to run perfectly well after

that. I suspect that before I hadnt been using enough flux.

The average Thracian, when you get to know him, is probably a decent enough

fellow. I expect they herd their sheep and goats the same way we do, plant their

barley and their beans, argue with their wives, spoil their children, fall out

with their relatives, grumble about the weather, grow old and die exactly the

same way as everybody else. By the same token, the average Thracian, like the

average Greek, is born, lives and dies in his native village and never goes more

than twenty miles from it in his whole life. It follows that the Thracians we

hired werent average Thracians, just as we werent average Greeks.

So I cant justify a statement along the lines of All Thracians are worthless,

treacherous bastards; I must reserve my hatred and abuse for the particular

bunch of Thracians I had dealings with, and thats all to the good; the fewer of

them, the more hatred there is to go around.

Worthless, treacherous, cowardly bastards; they took our money, we gave them a

relatively safe and perfectly simple job to do, and they cocked it up. I dont

subscribe to the theory, popular around the city of Antolbia shortly after the

events Im about to describe, that their actions were deliberate, if only

because they were far too stupid to have done what they did on purpose. If

theyd been trying to screw up the operation theyd have got it wrong, and

things wouldnt have turned out nearly so badly for us.

Youll remember the plan, Phryzeutzis; my plain, simple, logical plan whereby

the Thracians were to drive off the Scythians livestock, drawing the main

war-party out of the village and leaving it open to our main army; meanwhile,

once theyd realised theyd been tricked, the war-party would hurry back towards

home and run straight into the ambush wed set for them.

Well now. What could possibly go wrong?

On the day, Id chosen to go with the reserve, who had the job of ambushing the

war-party. Partly this was because that engagement was the only one that could

possibly go wrong (the attack on the undefended village would just be a

massacre, and you dont need to be an Alexander or a Brasidas to organise the

slaughter of women and children), mainly because I didnt really want to be

there when the non-combatants got killed. I know; hypocritical and pointlessly

squeamish, but what the hell.

The Thracians set off just before dawn, and we followed almost immediately,

since we had to get to the ambush site on foot. We arrived and were in position

when the war-party set out. We watched them galloping furiously up the nicely

conspicuous trail the Thracians had left, made a rough estimate of their

numbers, which tallied nicely with what we knew of the fighting strength of our

enemies, and did our best to keep calm and stay quiet while we waited for them

to come back.

We waited.

A long time.

Noon came and went. Noon is a very hot time when youre crouched behind a rock

in full armour, and as we hadnt anticipated being there for nearly that long,

we hadnt burdened ourselves with much drinking water. If we stayed put, not

only were we going to fry to death, we were also missing out on what was

happening elsewhere for all we knew, the Scythians had caught and obliterated

the Thracians and, flushed with success, were sweeping down on unguarded

Antolbia; if we moved, we ran the risk of being caught out in the open by the

war-party and severely handled.

It was at this point in my reasoning that I gave up. Either way, I could picture

myself facing an angry mob of Founders, all saying, How could you have been so

stupid? It was bad, but not nearly as bad as finding out youve been sitting

behind a rock all day while your friends and neighbours were being cut down

where they stood by barbarian horsemen.

Back to the city, I ordered, quick as you like. You (referring to the

hundred-odd Budini horse-archers) split up; fifty towards the city, fifty

towards the village. Find out whats going on, send me a message, and do

whatever you can to help if youre the ones who find the enemy. Got that?

The Budini captain nodded, and gave his orders while I sat down again and rubbed

my left calf in an attempt to disperse a savage attack of pins and needles. Not

long after that we set off for the city at the double.

Wed gone about half the distance when a rider from the Budini contingent Id

sent to the city came galloping up with the news that the city was safe and the

survivors of the attack had been coming in about the time he got there. I didnt

like the sound of that word survivors one little bit; but although the mans

Greek was first rate for a Budini nomad, I couldnt make any sense of his

attempts to clarify. In any event, whatever had happened appeared to have

happened; there was no need to break our necks scrambling over rocks in a

desperate rush to get home, We marched the rest of the way at normal speed.

Where the hell were you? they shouted at me as I led my men through the gate.

It wasnt so bad. Id been anticipating worse.

It was all the Thracians fault. Theyd dawdled, basically; theyd pottered

along with the livestock so slowly that the war-party had caught up with them

far earlier than expected, and came on them by surprise, taking them in flank

and rear. This sort of thing could only be construed as proper grown-up

fighting, which our expensive professional cavalry hadnt been expecting. They

promptly panicked and broke away; but instead of carrying on down the road they

swung north, in effect leading the war-party back towards the village. They

managed to outrun their pursuers (when it came to serious, no-holds-barred

running away, I have to concede that the Thracians did a spectacular job); but

so fast and far did they run before shaking the Scythians off that the war-party

arrived home at almost exactly the moment when our army appeared in front of the

main gate of the village, anticipating a jolly time among the weak and helpless

rather than a battle with an over-excited and extremely confident Scythian

cavalry detachment.

In the event, Marsamleptes and his men gave a good account of themselves. Theyd

been practising anti-cavalry drill ever since the first raid, and once theyd

recovered from the initial shock they did their drill-masters proud.

Furthermore, instead of holding off and shooting at them, the Scythians tried to

press home a charge with lance and scimitar, and they emerged from the resulting

scrimmage quite definitely in second place. I forget how many of them we claim

we killed; rather more to the point, we came out of it with none killed, four

seriously injured (one man lost his left hand, another lost an eye; the other

two recovered. The man who lost his hand was a young Greek by the name of

Chrysippus; hed recently been taken on as an apprentice by Agenor the

stonemason. Agenor himself was slashed across the face with a scimitar after his

helmet had fallen off; the cut healed, but the scar was spectacular and his

beard always grew funny afterwards).

This wasnt nearly the same sort of thing as chasing terrified Thracians, and

the war-party pulled back, regrouped and rode in a wide loop until they were

able to take up a position directly between our men and the village.

Marsamleptes, commanding our forces, decided that hed done enough for one day

and ordered a withdrawal in good order, which the Scythians let go without any

further bother. Finally, when the fifty Budini showed up some time later, the

war-party (who were still milling about in front of the gates at that point) saw

them off with a volley of arrows and a charge, but our men had the good sense to

get out of there quickly and in several directions at once, and so sustained no

casualties.

In short, it was a banjax, but a non-lethal one. It made me think of military

history lessons in Mieza; most battles are lost by the loser rather than won by

the victor, and this was no exception. In fact, we claimed it as a victory and

did the usual Greek thing of piling up a trophy of captured weapons (only we

hadnt captured any weapons, so we hunted around for souvenir bows and scimitars

and borrowed a few from the Budini; they sneaked out after dark and retrieved

them, and nobody commented, so I dont suppose they noticed). After all, wed

engaged the enemy and killed a substantial number of them (substantial:

military jargon meaning at least one) without loss to ourselves. In practice

wed proved that we were incompetent strategists but formidable fighting men,

and trying to charge our heavy infantry formation was a mugs game, so I suppose

we did more good than harm, at least in the short term.

Well, once the debriefing and the gripe session were over, wed posted a guard

on the wall and built that damn trophy, there was nothing left to do but go

home. In my case, this would have meant going back to my house, with Theano

sitting staring at the wall or pacing up and down or bolting herself in the

inner room and dissolving into floods of tears; not the most attractive prospect

for a man whos spent a long hot day crouching behind a rock. So when a couple

of the Illyrians came sidling up and asked me rather diffidently if Id like to

join their thanksgiving celebration, I thought, Why not? and agreed.

I was expecting something rather raucous and Illyrian, with lots of booze and

banging of fists on tables and throwing of bones. In fact, it was an eerie and

rather beautiful ceremony, most of it conducted in dead silence except for the

pattering of dancers feet on the baked earth of the dancing floor. Its an odd

phenomenon, the Illyrian tendency to dance without music, but quite effective

(and to be honest with you, the absence of what the Illyrians think of as music

is a blessing at all times), and the oddest part of all was watching these

rather stolid ex-mercenaries, quite a few of whom I now knew to talk to and some

of whom I thought of as actual friends, dancing their silent, intricate courses

in the pale moonlight. Merely by virtue of the light, the silence and the

tradition they followed, they stepped out of context and into a state of almost

instant grace, until the dance came to an end and they trooped back to their

places laughing and complaining about how sore their feet were.

The last dance, they told me, was something special; if I possibly could, I

should stay and see it. Well, I had nothing better to do, so I stayed.

It was, of course, a snake-dance; I might have guessed when they were at such

pains to invite me. A young Illyrian called Boizas danced the snake, while ten

or so of the older men danced the evil spirits the snake drives away. There was

music to go with this one, which spoilt it rather, but in spite of that I must

admit I was entranced.

First the snake came out of his lair and did a solo, a very still, quiet piece

that would have been plain dull if it wasnt for the exceptional degree of

intensity that young Boizas brought to it. When he moved, it was as if he was

laden down with some particularly heavy load, so that the slightest movement of

an arm or a foot was an achievement to be applauded. At the height of this part

of the dance, the evil spirits appeared and bore down on him, ringing him round

with their arms raised as if to strike, so that he was completely hidden behind

them. The spirits dance was fast and lively, they seemed to flicker and dart

like flames; then, when theyd completed the circle and were so closely packed

together that I thought they must be standing on poor Boizas, he jumped up,

somersaulted and landed with a foot on one shoulder of each of the two tallest

spirits. He then proceeded to perform a quite remarkable dance, hopping from

shoulder to shoulder, leaping, somersaulting in a manner Id never have thought

possible, until he jumped high in the air, landed neatly between the circle and

the spectators, and set about chasing the other dancers away in a rearing,

swooping set of movements that was just like every snake you ever saw in every

respect apart from actual motion, if you see what I mean; he managed to convey

everything there is to notice about a snake without once doing anything that

imitated how a real snake acts. It was bizarre and no end impressive; and he

concluded it by cartwheeling across the dancing-floor, vaulting to his feet

right in front of me, reaching down and pulling a large and bad-tempered looking

snake of indeterminate species apparently out of the fold of my gown. He held

this thing up for a moment in both hands you could see it was a real live one

by the way its tongue kept flicking in and out then let it curl round his arm

and slither up into his sleeve, at which point he pulled off his tunic and threw

it in the air, and no snake fell out. Indeed, when he brought the tunic to me

there was no sign of any snake, either inside the tunic or wrapped round Boizas

(and since he was wearing nothing but a very short kilt there was nowhere he

could have hidden it). Then he bowed and danced away, and as I raised my hands

to join in the applause, I found that same snake sitting in my lap, where Boizas

had found it in the first place.

Oh hell, I thought; then, extremely slowly and carefully, I grabbed the snake

firmly below the head, the way Id seen it done, lowered it into a large pottery

jug and slapped the lid on as fast as I could. I found out afterwards that it

was well, I cant remember what the Illyrians said its name was, but its so

deadly poisonous that even a tiny smear of the stuff on an open scratch or cut

would kill you before you can count to ten.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T alking of remarkable people, Phryzeutzis; I once knew a man who had this

amazing, astounding, reality-distorting ability to lose hats. He was bald as an

egg, which didnt help matters; he had to wear a hat, because otherwise thered

have been nothing between the fury of the Attic sun at noon and his poor,

squidgy brains except a thin layer of bone. But hats simply left him; theyd

blow away in sudden gusts of wind, or snag in the low branches of trees, or slip

noiselessly past his eyebrows when he was bending over to peer down a well. If

all else failed they subtly attached themselves to whoever he happened to be

with; youd be sitting chatting to him under a tree, and then youd look up at

the sun and see how late it was getting, scramble to your feet (reaching

instinctively for your hat as you did so) and hurry back to work before your

goats had a chance to stray into someone elses pasture. Later on, when it was

time to go home, youd notice something was strange; youd reach up to pat the

top of your head, and there a hat would be, though you knew for a certainty you

left the house that morning without one. Im not saying that hats hated this

unfortunate man, or feared him, or anything like that. In the short space of

time his hats spent with him, I seem to recall he treated them kindly. But after

a day or so, they all seem to have come to the conclusion that it was time to

move on, and they left him.

With him, hats; with me, women. Not, perhaps, to quite the same extent; I dont

drop them down wells or carelessly leave them behind when I visit other peoples

houses. But sooner or later there comes a time when I look round to say

something to them and there they arent. No doubt they have their reasons; and

if I could understand what those reasons were, I would understand women far

better than I do, and maybe they wouldnt leave.

What Im trying to say is that Theano left me. As a historian, I have a duty to

record all the facts; she became very friendly with a Syracusan cheese merchant,

a month or so after the failed attack on the Scythian village, and when he left,

so did she. Its a logical assumption that they left together, although I cant

put that down as a fact since I didnt witness it myself. He was tall and very

fat, this merchant; older than me, bald (like the hat-man) and with an unusually

curly beard. I get the impression, though, that what really attracted her to him

was the fact that he wasnt me.

Well, it wasnt quite the elopement of Helen of Troy, and Id be lying to you if

I pretended that I was terribly upset about it. But I was still feeling no pain

after the death of my son Eupolis; and besides, our marriage had been a mistake

from the very beginning. One aspect of the matter that does puzzle me even now

is the timing of it all; I mean, one moment she was sobbing herself to sleep

over the death of her only child, and the next she was swept up by an

overwhelming passion for a tubby, bald-headed cheese vendor with skin as pale

and flaky as the plaster rind of his wares. Tyrsenius reckoned that the role of

the cheese man in all this was simply as a provider of transport; since she

couldnt very well ask me for the price of a passage out of Olbia, she had to

make what arrangements she could and pay her fare with what she had at her

disposal. Maybe; I dont know, and Im not much bothered. All my life Ive found

it too much of an effort to take an interest in things I know I dont

understand.

The Thracians, very sensibly, never came back; but the Budini wed hired for the

attack stayed on, first as soldiers, then as settlers. They didnt ask for land,

of course; which was just as well, since the Founders would never have let them

have any. They didnt even admit that they intended to stay permanently. They

just stayed, and made their living as hired labourers, a commodity much in

demand. For all our noble professions that we had come to Olbia to work with our

own hands, we were getting a little bit jaded after twelve years of high-minded

nobility. It was nice to be able to watch someone else being uplifted by manual

labour for a change, especially from under a shady tree with a cup of wine in

ones hand.

I suppose about six months must have passed; six or seven, since the abortive

raid. I remember that we heard the news of the great battle between Alexander

and the Persian King at the river Granicus, where the Macedonian heavy infantry

with their absurdly long pikes and Alexanders heavy cavalry between them

humiliated the Persian army, and where Alexander, fighting always in the front

rank, twice breaking his spear, his horse shot dead under him, somehow failed to

get himself killed in spite of everything. He was Achilles that day for sure,

except for the happy ending; and when he raised his trophy of captured armour

and weapons, I doubt whether he had to borrow swords and lances from his own men

to get it to a respectable height.

Maybe it was hearing about the battle, I dont know; but there was a general

feeling among us all that we should finish what wed started with our

neighbours, before the first anniversary of our first vintage came round with

our dead still not yet made comfortable. The Illyrians in particular were all

for taking some strong action; so too, unaccountably, were the Budini, though it

may just have been a way of dealing with the fact that theyd been stuck in one

place for so long. Most curiously, our fire-breathing Founders werent nearly so

enthusiastic as they had been. Prodromus actually tried to talk me out of

organising an attack; he said that it would be much better to wait until wed

got the harvest in, because otherwise wed be vulnerable to reprisals when we

were out working in the fields. I told him hed missed the point; that if we did

a proper job this time, there wouldnt be anybody to make any such reprisals,

and so the consideration wasnt valid. He didnt like the sound of that very

much, and accused me of being bloodthirsty and blinded by my personal tragedies

to the moral implications of what I was proposing. I told him to go stuff his

head up something dark and wet, and on that note we parted.

Well, the cattle-raid stunt wouldnt work again, so we had to think of something

else. Marsamleptes pointed out that wed done best when the enemy had tried to

press home a charge against our heavy infantry; if we could provoke them into

making the same mistake twice, there was no reason why we shouldnt take them on

in the open field, rather than resorting to some over-elaborate stratagem.

My first inclination was to tell Marsamleptes to take a cold bath and think

again; but then I thought of Alexander and the Granicus battle. Once you pared

away all the Homeric stuff, what you were left with was a disputed

river-crossing. The Persian infantry took no part in the battle; it was their

cavalry who lined up on the other side of the river and tried to stop Alexander

from struggling through the ford. In other words, Alexander had kidded the

Persians into using their cavalry as infantry; and when it comes to infantry

fighting, a man sitting on a horse is at a significant disadvantage.

So, I thought; the greatest threat to us was the speed and manoeuvrability of

the war-band and their ability to shoot their bows from the saddle. Trick them

into standing still, and you deprived them of their advantage, while tilting the

balance in favour of our well-drilled, disciplined heavy infantry. All that was

needed, I realised, was a suitable river-crossing; and as luck would have it, I

knew the very place.

It was a hot day. You know what its like when youve had to wake up earlier

than youd have liked, and as soon as you open your eyes the brightness of the

sun makes you wince. I overslept, like a fool, and by the time I came to it was

well past dawn. Of course, nobody had thought to come and wake me up.

By the time Id struggled into my armour and stumbled out into the bright

sunshine, I had a blinding headache, which didnt go well with the upset stomach

Id failed to shake off by not eating anything the day before. Anything less

than a battle or harvest and Id have stayed in bed, but an

oecist-cum-commander-in-chief doesnt have that option, no matter how dodgy his

tummy might be.

By the look of it, I wasnt the only one who didnt really feel in the mood for

mortal combat that day. We marched slowly, coughing and grumbling as we breathed

in the dust we were kicking up into a towering cloud. In my capacity as general,

however, I didnt mind the dust-cloud. In fact, I was counting on it to attract

their attention and get them to come trotting out to meet us. Timing, of course,

was important. If we wanted to fight them in the place wed chosen, it was

fairly crucial that we got to the river first. If the enemy crossed over before

we arrived, wed be facing another kind of battle entirely, and one I didnt

really want to be involved in.

But somehow we reached the ford, and in reasonable order too.We didnt have to

wait very long before the enemy cavalry put in their appearance; and, just as

Id wanted them to, they spread out along their side of the river and waited to

see what we had in mind.

This was the point during the battle of the Granicus at which Alexander launched

his cavalry charge, to hold off the enemy while his heavy infantry waddled

across the ford. Characteristically of Alexanders military planning, it was a

bold, innovative and highly successful manoeuvre, and nobody could ever deny

that it worked like a charm

Which is why we were all at a loss to know why it didnt work nearly so well

for us. The situation, after all, was more or less identical

river, cavalry on one side, heavy infantry on the other; it was as if wed

taken the ingredients for honey-cakes, mixed them together in the prescribed

manner, and ended up with cheesecake.

I remember the stone in my boot, which I hadnt had a chance to get rid of all

the way from the city to the ford. I remember how the headache made it such an

effort to think at all, let alone try to revise my plan in mid-flow. I remember

thinking, right in the middle of the fighting, that unless I managed to control

my irregular bowel movements until the battle was over and I could snatch a few

moments behind a bush somewhere, it was all going to be terribly sordid and

embarrassing. I clearly recall the high curtain of water thrown up by the hooves

of the Budinis horses as they clattered into the ford at a brisk, jarring trot.

I have a whole library of pictures in my mind from that battle, dozens of little

scenes and observations, all as self-contained as the black and red pictures on

the sides of fancy pottery. Quite a few of them Id be delighted to get rid of,

such as the sight of the entire front rank of our cavalry charge sliding dead

off their horses into the water as the Scythians poured a volley of arrows into

our ranks from about fifteen yards away. Those horses; I can see them clearly,

trotting up the opposite bank of the river, as if they knew that without the

burden of men on their backs they were safe, they were welcome as being valuable

commodities, not just martial scrap to be heaped up on a trophy. Of course, Im

proud to recall how our line of spear-points hardly wavered as the infantry line

crossed the river, though that image isnt as sharp as the others. What I do

remember is how wet the water was when we knelt down in the river, taking

shelter behind our shields from the next volley of arrows. I can feel the claggy

wet cloth of my kilt against my skin, and the singularly disagreeable sensation

of water running down the inside of my legs as I stood up afterwards. I can

remember the colour of the water; briefly muddy with kicked-up silt and the

blood of the dead Budini.

These images are all so sharp and immediate, in fact, that it amazes me that

Ive never come across them or others like them in the great battle-scenes in

Homer, which are supposedly about men fighting each other. It makes me wonder;

did Alexander get wet and shivery as he crossed the Granicus; or did the water

somehow fail to soak into whatever he was wearing that day? Perhaps kings and

heroes have a special dispensation that lets them off getting wet when they

fight battles in the beds of shallow rivers. I dont know; and although over the

years Ive had plenty of opportunities to ask people who were in a position to

analyse what happened and what went wrong, Ive never quite been able to deal

with it.

Most curious of all is that when Ive talked about that battle to other people

who were there, they claim to have noticed an almost completely different set of

observations and impressions, as if theyd been at a different battle in the

same place on the same day. There cant have been another battle, can there? Im

sure Id have noticed, and so, I assume, would they, unless it started half an

hour after Id gone home. But they reckoned they saw me there, and most of them

were far too unimaginative to have made up something like that.

We were about halfway across the river when they fell back, pulling their

horses heads round and cantering off a hundred yards or so towards their

village. They were conceding the crossing to us. They werent meant to do that.

The whole idea was that they were meant to see that wed made a tactical error

trying to cross an awkward obstacle in the face of the enemy, its suicide, ask

any general and that they should immediately press home their advantage before

we had a chance to recover, let alone get across the damn river. This would mean

riding down onto the riverbed to fight us, or at least holding their bank

against us, which from our point of view would mean theyd lose all their

advantages as cavalry and accordingly succumb to our superior infantry, just the

way it had happened at the Granicus.

But they didnt. I can only assume they were too stupid to see the obvious

advantage, or too cowardly to dare to seize the moment. Instead, they waited

till wed pulled ourselves out of the water and started shooting at us again.

The fools.

Fortunately, we were ready for them, thanks to all those hours of foot drill. We

dropped down on one knee, lifted our shields, same as before; they scratched and

dented a lot of expensive metalwork, but they didnt kill anybody. After three

or so volleys they stopped, worried about running short of arrows. We got up and

started to advance. They let us come on seventy-five yards or so, then rode off

another hundred yards and started shooting again. We knelt, waited, got up,

advanced, a hundred or so yards at a time. It was slow and painful stuff, not to

mention embarrassing by rights, we should have killed them all by now, whereas

we hadnt got close enough to make out the colour of their eyes, let alone hit

anybody. At this rate, itd be a long, dangerous crawl to the village, provided

that their arrow supply held out.

It was at this point that someone quite unexpectedly did something intelligent.

Corus, the captain of the remaining Budini (he wasnt their regular leader; he

hadnt made it), suddenly led a frantic charge, apparently at right-angles to

everything that was going on. It was as if hed caught sight of that other

battle I was speculating about just now, the one that everybody else but I could

see, and had gone racing off to join it.The enemy lowered their bows and stared,

unable to fathom what the hell was going on; we were staring too, come to that.

If it hadnt been for the drawn scimitars and levelled lances, Id have sworn

they were running away. But they werent. After theyd galloped about a quarter

of a mile, they abruptly veered off to the right and swung back; theyd gone

just far enough to be behind the enemys line, provided they could reach it

before the enemy had a chance to get out of the way.

It was close; the war-party had to back and shuffle before they could turn round

to face the incoming attack, which was closing at a hell of a rate, and that was

when I saw it, the complicated manoeuvre in the face of the enemy the mistake.

I scrambled to my feet and yelled for an immediate attack; Marsamleptes was way

ahead of me, and he had the wit to give the order to the trumpeters, who blew

the charge. In the event, I did well to keep up and not get trampled on.

When they saw us coming, the enemy tried to turn back again, thereby getting

themselves hopelessly tangled up. It was more by luck than judgement, but both

charges, cavalry and infantry, went home at more or less the same time. We were

holding them like a piece of hot metal in a pair of tongs. They couldnt shoot

or run. It was just like the Granicus, only better.

Being rather slow off the mark, I ended up in the fourth row of the infantry

formation, where I couldnt see anything past the helmet of the man in front of

me, and couldnt contribute anything beyond my body-weight. As to what actually

happened, therefore, I have no idea; I didnt get to see any of the cut and

thrust of hand-to-hand combat, the lunging and feinting and parrying, the

footwork and shieldplay. My experience of the battle was something like being

caught in a big, over-excited queue, like when youre lining up to get into the

theatre or Assembly, and they open the doors and everybody surges forwards at

once, sweeping you along with them. I was scared, no question, but not of the

enemy; the immediate threat to me (and a very real one too) was from the

butt-spikes on the ends of other peoples spears, the terrifying risk of

slipping and getting trodden into the dirt, or being crushed like a bug between

two ranks of armour-clad bodies. In fact, I only have other peoples word for it

that we engaged the enemy at all. I didnt see any of them, certainly, unless

you count one or two dead bodies I trod on when something suddenly gave way and

for a few short, scary moments we were all stumbling forward out of control.

They must have been the enemy, those dead men, because they werent wearing

armour; but that was all I had time to notice about them.

Its not as if I gave a damn, anyway. Fighting and killing were the last things

on my mind just then.

From what other people told me, I gather that we sort of squeezed them into

nothing, as if you took on overripe pear in your hand and crushed it, till the

pulp squirted out between your fingers and you were left holding the core and

the pips. It was something like a hundred and seventy-odd killed, as many again

captured, while our losses were in single figures, apart from the Budini shot

down in the river (seventeen killed, twenty or so wounded). Anyway, people who

knew about this sort of thing reckoned that it was a good closing score and wed

done well, and there was plenty of stuff for a proper trophy this time. But the

rest of them got back inside the village and shut the gates, and after wed

caught our breath and sorted ourselves out, there was nothing else to do but go

home again. Complete waste of time, if you ask me.

We did well, Tyrsenius said, considering. Of course, he went on, well have

to be very careful from now on. Very careful indeed.

I yawned; it was late and I was very tired after all that frantic pushing and

shoving. What youre saying is, I replied, weve attacked them, provoked

them, killed nearly two hundred people, and sooner or later theyre going to

attack us again.

Thats a rather negative way of looking at it, dont you think? Tyrsenius

said. After all, weve just won a rather splendid victory.

Which achieved nothing, I said. If anything, weve made things worse. You

know what Id do if I were in charge in that village? Id send messages to every

Scythian community in reach, saying, Dire warning, unprovoked attack, we must

all band together now and get rid of these Greeks once and for all, or else we

dont stand a chance. After all, I added, isnt that what we did?

Prodromus the Founder looked at me. I thought you were the one who wanted this

war, he said.

I leaned back and let my head rest against the wall. I wanted to wipe out the

village, I said. No village, no more problem. It serves me right, I suppose,

for thinking you can do that sort of thing.

Sounds good to me, Tyrsenius said. I ignored him.

All right, Prodromus said. So now what are you saying? We should give up the

war? Try to negotiate peace?

I nodded. Weve made our point, at least, I said. And sure enough, weve

thinned out the war-party, got rid of a lot of the young braves who were

spoiling for a fight. Weve got the anger out of our system too, I hope. What

Id like to do is go back to the terms Anabruzas proposed that time, and see if

we can make anything out of those.

Marsamleptes stroked his beard with the ball of his thumb. Thats if those

terms are still open, he said. Maybe now its their turn to be angry.

I shrugged. Id have hoped weve killed too many of them to let them afford the

luxury of being angry, I replied. Even though we lost control of the battle

right at the outset, they still werent able to do us any real harm. Weve

proved theyre no match for us in a pitched battle.

Marsamleptes dipped his head a little. Maybe they arent figuring on having any

more pitched battles, he replied. Its not the way they do things, left to

themselves.

I saw his point. If we were going to thump them every time we met in the open

field, the sensible thing from their perspective would be not to go to the open

field any more. But they could still launch surprise attacks, ride down our

people as they walked home from work, and then dart back behind their gates

before we could do anything about it. Then wed have to follow suit, theyd step

up their attacks; and when, in the middle of all this, would any of us find the

time to do any farming? So whats your idea? I asked him.

Gather more men, he said. Hire more soldiers. Then we lay a siege and destroy

the village.

I sighed. Back where we started, only harder, I said. In fact, weve achieved

nothing.

Marsamleptes shook his head. Things have changed since we started, he said.

Back then, we could have come to an agreement. Now, we have to see it through.

Nobody said anything after that, and the meeting broke up. Marsamleptes went off

to organise guard duty; his work wouldnt be over much before dawn. We werent

supposed to be doing all this; it was summer now, but soon it would be autumn;

vintage, harvest, ploughing, sowing. In Greece , the campaigning season has

always been very rigidly defined, wars dont drag on into vintage and get in the

way of peoples work. But in Greece , everybody knows what wars mean, they

understand the meaning of a victory or a defeat. Its like judgement in a

lawsuit, and if the judgement goes against you, you dont complain or try to

wriggle out of it, you pay up and get on with your life. How would it be if

every dispute over who owned which side of a ditch or who was responsible for

breakages in a consignment of jars of honey had to be carried through until one

or other of the parties was dead? That was the lesson of military history: only

fight battles if youre prepared to abide by the result.

That didnt seem to work here, which made the point. We werent in Greece any

more. Wed left all that, moved on.

Pity.

I crawled out of my clothes, which had dried on me twice that day

once from the river-water, once from the sweat and slumped onto my bed. I

was used to being alone in the house now, it was remarkable how quickly Id

adapted to it. Everything had gone wrong, one way or another, and Id accepted

it without really noticing.

I woke up in the middle of the night and realised that Id decided to leave

Antolbia.

In a sense, there was nothing left to leave. My Antolbia was firmly based around

the notion of home, family, farm, the life I should have had if only my father

hadnt screwed everything up by having so many sons. Now my own son was dead, my

wife had fled to Sicily with a cheese magnate, I didnt dare go to my farm for

fear of getting shot; that didnt leave much. The ideal society had gone the way

of all such experiments it had lasted longer than some, and I had the

consolation of knowing that the forces tearing it apart were mostly external,

but it was still a fundamentally impossible project, as close to real life as

Homers version of battle. The truth was quite simple; wed tried to found a

Greek city that wasnt in Greece , in a place that was already somewhere else by

the time we got there. When Greeks founded Miletus and Syracuse and Cyrene and

Croton and Odessus, the world was still soft and plastic, like a ball of wet

clay that could be moulded and shaped. By the time we went to Olbia, it was

already too hard to work.

The only question was, when would I be free to go? Perversely, if everything had

been going well I could have walked away without a second thought (but if

everything had been going well, I wouldnt have wanted to). True, I had no

material ties worth bothering with, and thanks to Philip of Macedon and the

battle of Chaeronea, I was the rightful heir to substantial property in Attica

following the deaths of Eudorus and Euthyphron, half my fathers original

estate; Id have to fight hard in the courts to get it, of course, and on that

score the sooner I left Antolbia and started my campaign, the better. But

leaving at that particular moment, either the beginning or the middle of the

war, but most certainly not the end, was something I couldnt bring myself to

do. Dont get me wrong; it wasnt anything to do with obligation or

responsibility or honour. It was more a matter of wanting to be looking in the

right direction when the main event happened, just for once in my life My

fellow Antolbians, it is with a heavy heart...

And partly, of course, cowardice, because I didnt have the nerve to stand up

in front of them and make that speech. No, if I wanted to leave now, Id have to

sneak out of town on some pretext, like the man who tells his wife hes just

going up to the market to buy a quarter of whitebait, and is next heard of ten

years later, as a captain of mercenaries in libya.

After a sleepless night (more to do with rough wine and anchovies than mental

turmoil, I suspect) I decided on a compromise. When wed erased all traces of

the Scythian village, Id be free to go. Even while I was formulating the

proposal, I couldnt help wondering what had happened to me over the last dozen

years, to bring me to a state where I predicated my personal redemption on the

wholesale slaughter of innocents. But I explained that by saying that I was

merely reverting to type. What wed have called genocide in Olbia would have

been considered in Athens a sensible business precaution.

I went to see Marsamleptes.

Im not sure, he replied, in answer to my question. If we had the resources,

Id want catapults and battering-rams, plus at least three hundred specialist

archers.

Sorry, I said. I cant afford the money, or the time. What can we do with

what weve already got?

He thought for a while longer. Attack by night, he said eventually. In the

dark, they cant see to shoot. If we can force the gate before they realise what

were doing

I shook my head. Is that likely?

No, he admitted. Not really.

I chewed my lower lip for a moment. What if someone opened the gates for us? I

said. Would that be enough, do you think?

As always, he considered his answer carefully before replying. Yes, he said,

I think it would. Basically, wed have to use the village stockade like a net,

as if we were lamping for hares. Surround the stockade but leave the two

side-gates unblocked. Put in an assault party through the main gate, with

torches, setting fire to everything in reach and making it look like theres

more of them than there really are. Once they realise whats going on, theyll

try to bolt through the side gates. Thats where we catch them and kill them.

I looked doubtful. Isnt that over-elaborate? I asked. Judging by how things

went the last two times, wed better assume that anything that can go wrong,

will.

He looked at me with a very faint smile. Im a soldier, he said. I always

assume that. Unfortunately, it doesnt solve much. Just because you know a

things the weak link in the chain doesnt mean you can do anything at all about

it. No, well just have to make sure that we make as few mistakes as possible.

He looked at me steadily. Do you really think you can find someone wholl be

willing to open the gates? he said.

I nodded. I think so, I said.

He looked older than he had the last time I saw him. His broad shoulders were

starting to get bony, the muscles of his forearms were shrinking, so that he

wore the bones like an old man wears a tunic that fitted him like a glove twenty

years ago. His hands looked bigger, and they shook a little. But he still had

the scar Id given him all those years before, and the look in his eyes was

exactly the same as always.

Peace, he repeated. I dont think you people know the meaning of the word.

We dont, I replied. Thats why its got to be done this way. Look,

Anabruzas, Im being absolutely straight with you. If you dont open the gates

and let us occupy the village, calmly and peacefully while everyones asleep,

then well come along with catapults and battering-rams and break in during the

day; and I promise you, you wont like that.

Im sure, he said. And if I felt I could trust you, itd be a different

matter. But I dont. How can I, after what you did the last time?

I shrugged. If you dont co-operate, I said, well definitely storm the

stockade and kill you all. If you do what Im telling you, theres a chance I

might keep my word. Even half a chance is better than none at all.

Anabruzas gave me a look of pure contempt. I wondered what Id done to deserve

it.

If I do open the gates, he said, what will you do? Just how will you go about

it?

I smiled. Do I look like Im stupid? I said. Im not going to tell you that.

Listen, will you? Im talking about a chance to save lives; your peoples lives,

mine as well. Im trying to be practical, for all our sakes. Id have thought

that you, of all people...

He turned away, as if he couldnt bear the sight of me any more. For your

information, he said, my son my other son was killed in the battle. Im

too old and too tired to raise any more. Do you know the story of the woman who

was captured by the Persians?

I blinked. No, I replied. At least, I dont think so. Is this a time to be

telling stories?

He took no notice of that remark. Once, he said, the Persians attacked some

of my people and captured a village. A Persian officer saw a woman he liked the

look of. Since she wanted nothing to do with him, he rounded up her whole family

and told her he was going to kill them all, unless she did what he wanted her

to. If she cooperated, he went on, stressing the word, he promised hed spare

one of her family. Just one; itd be up to her to choose.

Interesting story, I said. Go on.

She accepted the offer, Anabruzas continued, and told the Persian that she

wanted him to spare her. brother. The Persian was as good as his word; later,

though, he told her that he was curious to know how shed arrived at her

decision.

It was a matter of logic, she told him. I didnt choose my husband, because

one day I might find myself another husband. I didnt choose my children,

because if I marry again I might bear more children. But my mother and father

are dead, so I can never have another brother, and thats why I chose him. He

sighed, and looked at me. I used to wonder, he went on, whether anybody could

ever reach the point where theyd be able to make a choice like that. I honestly

didnt think itd be possible; you simply couldnt bring yourself to figure

something like that out in such a cold, rational way. That, however, he went

on, was before you Greeks came.

I frowned. Are you going to do it, or arent you? I said. I really dont care

enough either way to be kept hanging about.

Oh, Ill do it, he replied. I cant see that Ive got any choice, logically.

Tell me; the people you capture. Dont you Greeks sell your prisoners as

slaves?

Sometimes, I said. But we dont believe in slavery in Antolbia. Id have

thought youd have noticed that.

He acknowledged what Id said with a slight bow. Thats true, he said. You

dont. We dont either. Other Scythian nations do; the

Budini and the Massagetae and the others whose names I dont know, who live at

the other end of the world. We never have, for some reason. Its not an idea

were comfortable with.

I shrugged. Owning slaves makes a society weak and decadent, I said. Where

you have rich men with armies of slaves, the ordinary farmers and craftsmen

cant make a living. Also, youve always got the problem of keeping them in

order; thats the sort of thing that can ultimately wreck a society, the way it

did for the Spartans. All through their history, everything they did was

motivated by the fear that their slaves might get loose some day and kill them

all, You cant live with something like that hanging over you.

Oh, he said. Different reasons. Do you promise that if I open the gates, you

won t put my people in chains and ship them off to remind me, where is it you

have your big slave market?

On the island of Delos , I replied.

He nodded. Isnt that where you have the big temple? he asked.

Thats right. We believe Delos is where the god Apollo was born.

I see, he said. You take a holy place and turn it into a slave market.

Clearly you Greeks are more complicated than I thought.

You have my word, I said. Once the village has been levelled, youll be free

to go.

He stood up, slowly and painfully, like a man with a bad back. Ill open the

gates, he said. And when youve done what you have to do, Ill never see you

again. Do you promise that as well?

I cant see any reason why we should ever meet again, I replied.

He smiled. Thats all right, then, he said. Its just that I had this

horrible premonition. I thought Id died, and travelled to the place in the far

north where we go when we die; and the first face I set eyes on when I got there

was yours. He walked towards the doorway, then stopped and turned back. One

last thing I wanted to ask you, he said. Is it true what they say, that you

keep a magic snake in a jar that brings you victory and tells you what people

are thinking?

No, I replied.

Oh. Oh, well, he said. I should have known it wouldnt be something that

simple.

Im not claiming to be some sort of mystic or visionary here, but theres one

point on which I feel confident that Im able to interpret the wishes of the

gods. As I see it, the setting of the sun and the shrouding of the world in

unspeakable darkness is intended as a hint to mortal men to stay home until

morning.

If you must insist on going out after dark, the one thing you should avoid doing

at all costs is taking part in any sort of military operation. The plain fact

is, at night, you cant see where the hell youre going. Now, thats bad enough

when the worst thing that can befall you is an unsuspected tree-root and a

skinned knee. When youre shuffling along in a packed wedge of bodies, with the

spear-points of the men behind and the butt-spikes of the men in front

threatening you at all times, it ceases to be a foolhardy adventure and becomes

sheer insanity.

I remember my father telling me the story his father told him about the

notorious night attack the Athenians made on the Syracusans during the Great

War. My grandfather took part in that debacle, and if it hadnt been for either

fools luck or the direct intervention of the god Dionysus, our family history

would have ended right there, Phryzeutzis, and you and I would never have met.

Perhaps because of this, antipathy for fighting battles at night runs in our

family. Unfortunately, on this occasion blind stupidity, which also runs in our

family, must have run a whole lot faster and got there first, because this

attack, my first and only experience of the technique, had been my own damn

stupid idea.

The men gathered in the market square at nightfall; apart from a very few with

legitimate excuses, the entire male citizen body of Antolbia, together with the

surviving Budini and a small band of Triballian javelin-and-buckler artists, the

only additional mercenaries we could get at such short notice not nearly as

useless as they looked, as it turned out. There was a curious feeling about the

assembly; extreme nervousness bordering on terror, which was quite right and

proper under the circumstances, mixed with an involuntary thrill of excitement

and, for want of a better word, fun. I guess it was something to do with

everybody being in the adventure together, with the additional spice of it being

at night after all, you cant help associating nocturnal gatherings with booze

and exuberance and socially acceptable acts of boorishness and vandalism.

The closest thing I can remember to that feeling was the big organised

boar-drive that I went on while I was at Mieza; a massive social occasion, with

the whole court there, all kitted out in big boots to ward off the thorns and

undergrowth as we plunged about in the forest trying to flush out the wild boar.

As it turned out, the whole thing was a complete waste of time; we found

nothing, got tired and scratched and bad-tempered, and trudged home again

feeling very sorry for ourselves. But the atmosphere as we set out was

extraordinary; we were off for a grand days sport, a wonderful chance for

relaxation and camaraderie, enormous fun, with a small but significant chance

of being ripped open from the groin to the chin by the most dangerous wild

animal in the whole of Greece.

Marsamleptes had divided our people into three groups. The first to leave was

the encircling party, whose job was to throw a cordon round the village, with

special reference to the two side gates. I went with the main party; we were the

ones who were going to walk in through the open gate. The remaining section,

made up mostly of the Budini, the Triballians and the best of the Illyrians,

were a mobile reserve, whod follow on closely behind the main body and stand

ready to reinforce the other two groups as and when necessary.

We were late setting off. Marsamleptes had sent two Budini to creep up on the

village and make sure everything was quiet; they didnt come back when they were

supposed to, and we immediately began to worry. If theyd been caught, there was

a fair chance the enemy would be ready for us, and theres nothing on earth

quite as vulnerable as an ambush party walking into an ambush, with the possible

exception of a baby hedgehog on its back. When at last they finally showed up,

the news they brought wasnt encouraging. Apparently theyd been pinned down by

groups of Scythians wandering about in the darkness, calling out to each other

and seemingly carrying out an organised search.

(What had actually happened was that a little girl had had a blazing row with

her parents and run off. There was no sign of her inside the village, so her

family turned out and started searching outside, afraid that she might meet up

with a bear or a wolf or ha! a band of marauding Greeks. Then she turned up

in somebodys hayloft, and they called off the search and went home. But we, of

course, didnt know that.)

In the end, Marsamleptes decided to send more scouts; and, by the time they came

back and reported that as far as they could see everything was quiet and there

were no signs of additional sentries, it was well past midnight; wed have to

get a move on if we werent to get caught out by the dawn.

The encircling party set off. They were doing their best to be as quiet as

possible, and theyd muffled their boots with hanks of felt and wrapped wool

round their sword-hilts so they wouldnt clank against their armour; but as they

marched into the darkness, I was convinced they were making enough noise to be

audible in Byzantium .

Once theyd gone, the jovial adventure atmosphere dissipated a bit, and the rest

of us stood about, leaning on our shields and trying not to fidget as we waited

for it to be time for us to follow on. It was while I was standing about that it

suddenly occurred to me you can tell I wasnt thinking straight, I should have

seen this hours before that because we were so far behind schedule, there was a

good chance that Anabruzas had either given up waiting and gone home, or hed

opened the gates anyway, the treachery had been discovered, and the enemy would

be waiting for us with arrows nocked on their bowstrings.

I pointed this out to Marsamleptes and demanded that we scrub the whole show. He

got angry and said that he already had a third of his army in position; was I

suggesting that we just leave them there till dawn, or were we going to try to

pull them out, which would inevitably lead to the alarm being raised? If the

gate wasnt open when we got there, he said, wed just have to bash it in with a

log or a big stone; compared with the difficulties involved in trying to abort

the operation at this late stage, the gate being shut was no big deal. If the

worst came to the worst, wed use an assault on the main gate as a diversion

while he put the mobile reserve in through the side gates and carried the

village that way.

There was no point in trying to argue with him; now that the operation was under

way, he was the man in charge and nobody was going to listen to me, even if I

had a witnessed deposition from the gods telling us we were all going to die.

Now that was a long march, Phryzeutzis, that night-march from the city to the

village. I kept going by fixing my eyes on the back of the head of the man in

front of me; I could just about differentiate between the shades of black,

though as far as seeing where I was going was concerned, I might as well have

had my eyes shut. As luck would have it, there was cloud over the moon and

stars, which meant that even after Id been walking for a long time I still

wasnt seeing any better than when we set off. How Marsamleptes found the way I

just dont know, and because Id lost all track of time I thought we must have

come too far and walked straight past the village. In fact, I was just screwing

up the courage to break ranks, find him and point out this obvious error when

the man in front of me stopped abruptly and I only just managed to avoid walking

my knee into the butt-spike of his spear.

I was in the third rank, so although I didnt see a thing, I heard the hinges of

the gate creak. Good old Anabruzas, I caught myself thinking, I knew he wouldnt

let us down; then I just had time to castigate myself for being a sick bastard

before we moved off again.

There was light inside the gate; only a couple of lamps, but after our journey

in the dark it was like noon . I took a very deep breath as

I walked into the light I felt stretched and squashed up, both at the same

time, and I couldnt keep my mouth from lolling open. We were in. I made a

solemn oath to take as small a part in the proceedings as

I possibly could.

What the hell kept you? a voice hissed to my left. I looked round; it was

Anabruzas, his eyes glowering at me from under the brim of an absurdly wide

Greek hat.

Sorry, I whispered back.

I thought hed go away, but instead he skipped along at my side; it reminded me

of something Id seen back in Athens one time, when a division of men were being

marched off to some war. One of the men apparently owed money to his neighbour,

because I watched the creditor scurrying along beside the column, trying to keep

up while he ranted and yelled at this poor man, calling him all the names under

the sun, while the soldier stayed rigidly eyes-front and in step, all the way

down the road where the Long Walls used to be and halfway to Piraeus.

Go away, I whispered.

Oh no, he replied. Im coming with you.

Once the whole unit was inside the gates, Marsamleptes gave the order and we

split up into platoons. Wed practised this bit several times so as to be sure

to get it right, but of course wed practised it on an open, uncluttered

drill-square, rather than a village street. Now, as we tried to carry out the

operations wed learned so carefully, we found to our horror that there were

houses and carts and a well in the way. We blundered about, knocking over jars

and making a hell of a racket.

Forget it, Marsamleptes shouted. Push down through, and try and keep in

line.

(Did I mention that habit of his? Marsamleptes was hopeless at giving

directions. He knew exactly what he meant, of course; but what hed say would be

something like, Ill go on down over, and you follow me up through and well

meet up on the other side. Gibberish; and totally misleading, if you made an

attempt to understand it.)

I could feel Anabruzas hand gripping my arm. What are you doing? he said.

Let go, I replied.

Tell me what youre doing, I want to know.

Not now, I said; honestly, we sounded like an old married couple. Get out of

my way.

Theyd lit torches off the lamps in the gateway, and thatch was beginning to

flare up, splashing wavering yellow light over everything. What are they

doing? Anabruzas said. Tell me, whats going to happen?

I lost my temper and shoved him away; he staggered back a step or two, then

slipped and fell over. I hoped hed stay out of the way, but he didnt; he

rushed up and tried to grab hold of the torch in a mans hand; he was just about

to set light to the eaves of a roof. The man didnt know who Anabruzas was; he

had his spear in his other hand, and stabbed him underhand, driving the blade in

under the ribs on the left-hand side. There was that sucking noise as the blade

came out again, and the whistling noise of a man breathing through a punctured

lung. That was the last I ever saw of him.

(I think of him, Phryzeutzis, even now. I find it disturbing to think that here

was a man, a good and very unlucky man, whose life was marked by disaster and

sorrow at every turn, and each and every one of those disasters and sorrows was

directly caused by me. I was the author of all his misfortunes, right from that

night in Athens when I bashed his face in and left him sprawling in his own

blood. I led my people into his homeland, I made him send one son to be

butchered, ordered the battle in which his other son died; I forced him to

betray his village in the name of saving it, and made him become the traitor on

whose hands the blood of all of them would lie. And yet Im not a bad man,

Phryzeutzis, Ive never been more than careless or insensitive, never evil or

malicious; and everything I did in Olbia I did for the best.)

Things were getting lively now. I didnt have a torch of my own, so I held my

shield over one of the men who did. There were people running in every

direction, bundling out of the houses as we set fire to them, bumping into us

and jostling us out of the way as they ran in terror from the flames, or

crashing into our shields as they blundered out, their arms full of their

precious possessions. Most of them acted as if we werent even there, as if they

had far too much on their plate already to be bothered with us; but there was

one old man, white-haired and stark naked, who jumped at me with a big wooden

spade and started smacking my shield with it, making a deep booming noise, like

a drum. After hed done this five or six times I tried to prod him off with the

butt of my spear; but he either stumbled or charged forward at just the wrong

time, and the butt-spike slid into his groin like a wooden spoon going into the

whey. He dropped down when I pulled the spear out, and I didnt hang around to

see what became of him.

The fire was doing our job for us, which was just as well, since wed got

completely out of line and were wandering aimlessly about, like visitors whove

come to Athens on a grain-boat and want to see the sights. There were no arrows,

no fighting; all we were doing was gently pushing people down the street towards

the side gate, like shepherds driving a flock down a wide road. I gather that

the encircling party took their duties rather more seriously than we were doing.

Quite soon the fire started to spread of its own accord, which made the village

a bad place to be. I heard Marsamleptes shouting to us to withdraw, but only

because he was standing quite close to me; you cant hear much at the best of

times when youve got a thick, well-padded helmet down over your ears, and there

was so much noise inside the village that I was lucky to have heard him at all.

The only casualties we suffered that night, in fact, were four men who didnt

hear and got caught too far inside the village when the fire got completely out

of hand.

Sorry, there were five. Right at the last moment, as he was ushering us out of

the main gate, counting under his breath to make sure we were all there,

Marsamleptes was hit in the face with an arrow, probably the only one shot that

night. Hed taken his helmet off so we could see who it was and hear his orders

better, and the arrow hit him on the lower rim of the eye-socket on the

left-hand side. He dropped down without a word or a movement.

When the encircling group heard from the mobile reserve that the enemy had

killed Marsamleptes, they got very angry. The Illyrians loved and trusted him

theyre quite an emotional people, when you get to know them and even the

Founders had come to respect him over the last dozen years. All in all, killing

him was the worst possible thing the villagers could have done just then, and

they paid the price of their ineptitude. When the killing stopped at dawn (I

dont know why it stopped then, but it did) both of the side gateways were

pretty well bunged up with bodies, and because of the blockage, a whole bunch of

people hadnt been able to get out of the way when the main granary went up,

right in close to the stockade. We didnt bother raking through the ashes so I

cant put a figure on it, but to judge from the noise they made there were quite

a few of them.

We didnt kill them all, of course; nothing like. We grabbed a few of the

survivors at random, and left the rest standing around staring at the carnage

and the mess. I was out of it by then; Id breathed in rather too much smoke,

and spent a long time while the action was at its most intense doubled up just

outside the main gate, coughing my lungs up; so yes, I suppose I was looking the

other way once more, as I always seem to be. Just for once, though, I wasnt

particularly sorry to have missed the main event.

I was free to go. Id done what Id undertaken to do, and there was nothing to

keep me in Antolbia. Just for once, Id managed to see something through to the

end, to a successful result. Maybe it would have been nicer if it had been

something a bit more positive than genocide, but losers cant be choosers, as we

philosophers say.

The news that I was going back to Athens spread quickly enough, and wasnt well

received. I suppose it was a bad time to make an announcement like that,

immediately after the death of Marsamleptes. Of the two of us, there was no

question who was the greater loss; hed been an efficient and competent soldier

and the effective spokesman of the Illyrian majority, in which capacity hed

shown a modest flair for diplomacy and what for the want of a better word I

think Im going to have to call statesmanship. Besides which, people liked him.

Id liked him. What was there not to like?

You arent liked and respected the way he was, obviously, Tyrsenius tried to

explain. People could I dont know, people reckoned he understood what they

were thinking and feeling, that he was one of them. Youve always been the

oecist, however much effort youve put into that man-of-the-people persona of

yours. But thats not the point. Youre the Founder. Youre the man who founded

the city, its your name on all the inscriptions and records, your name in all

the laws: Euxenus the oecist and the people decided that...

Youre like a statue in the market square, or the figurehead of a ship; people

need to see you there. And if you deliberately decide to leave just think how

that makes people feel.

Not for the first time, I wondered how Tyrsenius had ever managed to sell

anything to anybody. Its really sweet of you to say all these nice things

about me, I said, but my minds made up. I just dont want to live here any

more. Its different for you, for most of them in fact. All they expected from

the place was somewhere to live, some land to farm. It was always supposed to be

more for me.

The perfect society, Tyrsenius said. Quite. Actually, I dont see what the

problem is there. Look at us; weve got no faction fighting, no oligarchic

tendency slugging it out with the mob, no military dictator screwing everybody

for taxes. Weve got Greeks and Illyrians living quite happily side by side;

weve even got Budini. Isnt that your perfect society, Mister Philosopher?

I shook my head. Tyrsenius, the only reason we havent got those sorts of

problems is that were too small. Everybody knows everybody else, weve all got

roughly the same amount of land, weve just fought a war against a foreign

enemy; obviously were all united and filled with brotherly love now, youd

hardly expect anything else. And Im not leaving because the experiments

failed. Im leaving because its over. Do you understand?

He nodded. I think so, he said. I think you were never part of this community

to start with. You came here to study, to see what itd be like. Youve done

that, and now youre off to study something else. You know what? I think you

really are a philosopher after all. He frowned. And to think I reckoned you

were an honest charlatan, a genuine confidence man with a snake in a jar to

prove it.

Whats wrong with being a philosopher? I asked.

If you dont know, I dont think Im up to explaining it to you, he said.

Just take it from me, theres a place in decent society for snake-in-a-jar

operators. Philosophers; well...

I thought he was making a joke, but he wasnt. And when I thought about it, I

could see his point.

It turned out I wasnt the only one who was ready to leave. Agenor the

stonemason asked if he could share the journey home with me; hed always fancied

trying his luck in Athens , he said, where people really appreciated fine

sculpture and works of art.

Sure, I said. But whats the matter? I thought you were nicely settled here.

He looked at me as if Id said something offensive. You cant be serious, he

replied. You know what Ive been doing virtually since the moment I got off the

ship? Ive been building houses, and barns, and city walls, and wells, and gods

only know what else. As soon as Ive finished one building job, someone comes up

to me and more or less demands I come and build something for him. And I hate

building work, Euxenus; its hard, dirty, boring, degrading work and Ive had

enough of it.

But think what youve achieved, I said. We were standing in the market square;

I pointed, and swung round in a circle. You see all this? You did all that,

Agenor. What you didnt build with your own hands you designed or supervised; if

anybody deserves to be remembered as the Father of the City, its you. Dont you

feel good about that?

No, he said. Its crude, ugly, makeshift stuff. The materials are rubbish,

Im ashamed of some of the techniques I used, its a miracle most of its still

standing. Just look at that, he went on, pointing at our little temple. See

those proportions? All wrong. Heights all wrong for the length, which means the

pillars had to be too close together, and too thick. If I had my way, wed pull

the whole lot down and start over.

I was shocked. I didnt know you felt like this, Agenor, I said. And I cant

see anything wrong with it. I think its beautiful.

I know, he said. So does everyone else. Thats why Im finally leaving.

Twelve years of living with your own sloppy work is bad enough; knowing itll

probably never be put right is just too much. I want to go somewhere theyd pull

something like that down tomorrow.

I couldnt think of anything to say. After all, his complaint was more or less

the same as mine. All right, I said, but why now? If you hated it so much,

why did you stay so long?

He shrugged. Laziness, he said. Tried to kid myself into thinking that I was

doing a good job. You probably noticed, Ive always been the one whos tried to

help, got involved wherever I thought I could make myself useful; I tried,

Euxenus, I really did. But this war I didnt like that. Im not saying it was

wrong, he went on, before I could interrupt. On the contrary, it had to be

done or wed never have had a moments peace. But my apprentice; you remember,

he lost a hand in that raid? He was going to be a good builder, he had the

knack; hed have been able to do good work with this lousy crumbly stone and all

the little annoying things that I could never see how to get round. Now hes as

good as dead and I dont want to train anybody else. He breathed out and looked

around. I just dont like living here any more, he said. I suppose you could

say that if Ive got to live in an imperfect city, Id rather it was one that

someone else has cocked up, not me.

There was nothing more to say, so I walked home. The house was dark and quiet,

and every part of it seemed filled with me; I was sick and tired of having

nothing but my own personality around me all the time. Once Id had a wife and

son living here with me, only I hadnt appreciated them for what they were. Most

of the time I tried not to notice them, because who they were and what they

wanted didnt seem relevant to what I was trying to do. At that moment, I could

cheerfully have lit a torch and set fire to the place.

It comes to something when you can walk away from twelve years of your life with

nothing more than you can carry in a small goatskin bag. In fact, I was hard put

to it to fill the bag. Most of the weight was coined money; Id sold my armour

and my plough and the tools that were worth having, and some of the furniture

(though most of it wasnt fit to give away; Ive never been bothered about

things like that) and Tyrsenius had advanced me the value of my harvest and my

small flock of goats, as well as giving me free passage on his ship as far as

Athens. I had enough money to get home and to live on for a few weeks while I

got my lawsuit under way; I had more money deposited with a bank in Athens to

pay for the rest of the suit, left over from my relative affluence as a

respected teller of fortunes. I wasnt worried about what I was going to do when

I got home; if necessary I was sure I could go back to my old trade of cheating

gullible businessmen. In fact, I wasnt worried about anything, because in order

to worry you first have to care.

As well as the money, and of course my lucky snake-jar, I took a comb that had

belonged to Theano (after all, a man needs a comb), a set of knucklebone dice

Id made for my son (because a man can virtually make a living playing dice on

board a ship, provided he knows which way the dice are going to fall; and my

dice were utterly predictable, because Eupolis always got so upset if he lost),

a knife, a razor and a scraper, and a roll of mostly blank Egyptian paper, on

which Id started to write the history of Antolbia, back before it was ever

called that. Id intended it for Aristotle, as a contribution to his vast

database on matters political, and as a smug and offensive lesson in how a

perfect society is perfectly possible, if only youre prepared to get out there

and do, rather than just sitting on your backside and talking about it.

It was a very long, excruciatingly boring journey. The ship crawled along the

coast from city to city, converting figs into honey at one port of call, honey

into iron ore, iron ore into dried fish, dried fish into olive oil, olive oil

into figs (about thirty per cent more figs than wed started off with), figs

into hides, hides into grain... There was nothing to do but sit on deck, staring

at the coastline as we sailed by and trying not to get under the feet of the

sailors. At first, Agenor and I talked all the time about a whole range of

things philosophy, art, religion, history but I found that talk like that

irritated me now; we disagreed I lost my temper, where once Id have relished

the chance of a good debate. We decided it would be better if we didnt talk any

more, and for most of the journey home we sat at opposite ends of the ship, me

staring in one direction, he in another. In the end, he couldnt face any more

of the tedium and discomfort and left the ship at Scione; hed see if there was

any work going there, he said, and if not hed carry on to Athens as originally

planned. As and when he got there, he promised to come and look me up; after

all, in spite of the fact that wed fallen out on this long, boring sea journey,

wed still shared a dozen years of important experiences, and were really the

only friends either of us had now, outside Antolbia. As he walked down the

gangplank at Scione we waved to each other; I shouted out, See you in Athens ,

and he called back, Count on it.

Needless to say, I never saw or heard of him again.

As soon as we crawled into Piraeus I hurried thankfully up the road to the City

to treat myself to an indulgence Id been promising myself every day I had to

spend on that grotty, uncomfortable ship: a proper Athenian haircut and shave.

To my delight, my favourite barbers shop was still there, and it had hardly

changed at all since Id been away. The barber didnt recognise me after all

that time, but I recognised him; last time Id seen him hed been an

eleven-year-old boy, sweeping up and whetting the razors while his father saw to

the customers. Suddenly I felt overwhelming joy mixed with desperate sorrow;

Id been away far too long, but I was home.

While I was sitting in the chair, basking in the glory of just being there

again, I listened to the gossip. There was only one topic of conversation. News

had just arrived that the Macedonian colony of Antolbia on the Black Sea coast

had been overrun by the local savages and utterly destroyed. There were, it

seemed, no survivors.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I won my lawsuit. It took me a year and an infinity of patience and effort; I

had to learn the law, for one thing. Theres an awful lot of it, and

surprisingly nobody seems to know what it is; the more closely you study it, the

more aware you become of this, as each new aspect you address turns out to be

yet another grey area, which is lawyers talk for We havent a clue, and if

we did we wouldnt tell you. I ended up with the conclusion that about

sixty-four per cent of Athenian law is known by nobody at all; which is odd when

you consider that if you happen to break it, ignorance isnt an excuse.

While I was fighting the case, I earned my living the way all poor Athenians do,

by hanging round the law-courts and Assembly. Three obols a day for sitting on a

jury, the same for attending Assembly; its a living, but by the gods you meet

some unsalubrious people when youre a professional citizen. Traditionally,

juries are manned by deadbeat old men without families to care for them whore

too old or too crippled to go to work. Half of them are stone deaf, half of the

remainder are crazy or senile, so that they cant remember their own names, let

alone the points made in the previous speakers deposition. But if youre on

trial for your life, theyre the ones wholl be sitting in judgement over you,

and you can tell what sort of justice youre likely to get by looking at their

fingernails; you can always tell a professional juror by the thick clots of wax.

When the accused is found guilty, you see, the jury votes on the severity of his

punishment by scratching a line on a wax tablet the longer the line, the

harsher the penalty.

Its the same crew of dead and desiccated corpses who sit in Assembly when they

cant get on a jury (jury works better, because the hours are shorter; kinder

to an old mans bladder, though the experienced juror takes his chamber-pot with

him. Its disconcerting, to say the least, when youre winding up into your

closing speech and all you can hear is the steady trickle of piss on pottery)

and its a great comfort to think that these are the men who wield the sovereign

power in the Athenian democracy, the fairest and most perfect democracy the

world has ever seen.

I particularly remember one day in the law-courts; I was on the jury for a

complicated fraud trial, and the evidence was about as boring as its possible

to get. I must have been the youngest man on the jury by about twenty years.

Sitting behind me were a couple of regulars we called them the Living Skulls

because they were so old and shrivelled that you could clearly see the bone

under the skin of their faces whod been having the same conversation for the

last ten years. As soon as the proceedings started, they began to talk. When

court was dismissed for the day, they broke off in mid-sentence and went home.

The next day they picked up exactly where theyd left off. Nobody could figure

what it was this marathon conversation was actually about. It was something to

do with a quarrel between their sisters, long since dead, but since they kept

drifting off on side-issues, it was impossible to follow. The man next to me was

fast asleep; not the only one, by any means. On my other side was an old boy who

hummed softly under his breath all day; asking him to stop had no effect, and

neither did jabbing him sharply in the ribs with your elbow. Directly in front

of me was another old man who talked to himself, and beside him was yet another

celebrated jury personality, nicknamed Ocean because he never seemed to run dry

(but it was his habit of emptying his chamber-pot at random over the benches

below him that made him really famous).

It was early in my legal career and I was actually trying to make sense of what

was going on; but what with the snores and the tinkling and the humming and the

muttering and the earnest voices of the Skulls, not to mention the heat of the

sun and the hardness of the bench, I got hopelessly lost after the first

half-hour. When the time came for the vote, the usher went round prodding awake

the sleepers and chivvying us all off the benches towards the voting urns. A

white pebble for not guilty, black for guilty; except that we had to provide our

own pebbles, and white pebbles are harder to find; anyway, we voted and the

verdict was Guilty, so we were sent back to decide on the punishment. My

neighbours didnt take long about it; they dug their nails in hard and ripped,

like a cat laying open a dead mouse; straight lines across the tablet, the death

penalty. When this was announced, the lawyer whod been acting for the accused

got up and tried to explain that the death penalty didnt apply for this

particular offence; it was a fine, or at the worst, exile. No sooner had he sat

down than his opposite number bobbed up and asked us to convict his learned

friend for contempt of court, in that hed challenged the decision of a duly

constituted jury. So off we went to vote once again; and since it was the last

case of the day, wed all used up our last remaining pebbles on the previous

vote. But the usher saved the day; he found a man selling beans and confiscated

his stock, then issued them to us to use instead of pebbles. Now these beans

were a sort of dark brown colour, as near black as made no odds; so the lawyer

was found guilty, and the usher passed round the wax tablets. A few minutes

later, he announced that the jury had decided on the death penalty, which was a

valid punishment for contempt; what had happened was that there were no more

unmarked tablets, so they simply reissued the ones used for the last vote,

without explaining that what we were meant to do was turn them on their sides...

After the case was over, just out of interest, I stopped one old boy and asked

him innocently what scratching a full line across the tablet meant.

Means hes guilty, of course, the old man said.

Really? I thought we used the pebbles for that.

Oh. The old man thought for a moment. No, he said, youre wrong. Least, I

been coming to this court forty years and I always done it that way, and nobody

ever told me different.

Gradually, I found out what had happened at Antolbia.

There had been one survivor one. He was an Illyrian whod hidden in a

grain-pit. When they set fire to the barn, the roof fell down in such a way as

to create a pocket of air that lasted until the fire burned itself out, so he

was saved from the smoke; but he was down there for two weeks, pinned down by a

fallen beam and unable to move, until quite by chance some Odessans whod come

to see if they could salvage any grain happened to open up the barn and found

him. Hed survived by eating the raw grain and catching drips of water from a

mill-stream that had been diverted when a house fell into its course, sending it

down across the barn floor. Because the floor had been stamped hard, the water

ran off it instead of sinking in, and enough drips fell over the side of the pit

and into his mouth to keep him from dying of thirst. He was so firmly wedged in

by the beam that they had to cut off both his feet before they could get him out

of there.

When he was able to talk again, he told them what he could remember, which

wasnt much. Hed been out drinking the night before, and hadnt made it all the

way home; the furthest hed been able to stagger was a friends barn, so he

crawled in and collapsed on a pile of straw. When the attack began, hed been

woken up by the shouting and screaming; he guessed at once what was happening,

and all he could think of to do was to dive into the pit and hope for the best.

As it was he fell in head first and nearly drowned in the grain; it was like

swimming through mud, he said, and that far down he could scarcely breathe

through a mouth and nose filled with grain.

All in all, he said, he wasnt surprised at what had happened, bearing in mind

that the General had just been killed and the oecist had vanished a day or so

later, taking the citys lucky snakes with him. Obviously, he said, the snakes

had warned the oecist about what was going to happen and told him to get out

while he still could.

It took longer to find out the Scythian background. In fact, a year went by and

Id pretty well given up hope of ever knowing when quite by chance I met a

Scythian policeman (he arrested me for sleeping off one of my regular drinking

bouts in the market square). When he found out I could speak quite a lot of his

own language he was mightily impressed and let me go; then he asked me where Id

learned Scythian. I told him and he looked rather thoughtful.

The attackers, it turned out, were his people, the Sauromatae; to be precise, a

rogue war-party that was escaping after a defeat in some civil war or other and

had turned south, through the land of the Alizones and down into the settled

region. He hadnt been with that particular party, but a cousin of his had, and

hed heard the story from him.

It was then I found out about the rich man whose son stole the horse, and all

the rest of the story. When we burned the village, the rich man went around the

other villages stirring up trouble, promising that theyd be next. Everyone was

very worried, as you can imagine, but none of them wanted to be the ones to take

us on, since we were so very warlike and ruthless. Then, quite by chance, these

outlaw Sauromatae turned up, and were immediately approached to undertake the

task of attacking the colony. They replied that theyd fought their own people,

the Royal Scythians, the Alizones and the Persians; they certainly werent

afraid of a few Greeks. There were about seven thousand of them, I believe, all

with their own horses.

Before attacking, they sent infiltrators down into the city, pretending to be

mercenaries looking for someone to hire them. They were told to go away, since

with the General dead and the oecist gone, there wasnt anybody dealing with

security or defence right then; it was supposed to be the elders job (the

Founders, I suppose he meant) but they hadnt been able to decide between them

who was going to do it, and meanwhile there werent even any sentries on the

wall, because there wasnt anybody to organise a rota.

The attack, my policeman friend told me, was pretty much an anticlimax, much to

the disgust of these warlike Sauromatae. Theyd taken the job as much for the

pleasure of matching themselves against the invincible Greeks as for the pay

(which wasnt much, since the villages were at little better than subsistence

level at the best of times), but when they made the assault, at midday, they

found the gate left open and met with no resistance whatsoever. After theyd

killed and burned everything inside the city, they combed the surrounding

fields, rounded up the livestock and burned off the crops before reporting back.

After theyd gone, the villagers whod formed the alliance against Antolbia held

a meeting and decided that they couldnt stay where they were; there were bound

to be reprisals from other Greeks, and the Sauromatae had moved on and wouldnt

protect them. So they did what the Scythians have always done in the face of

concerted invasion; they destroyed all their permanent structures, burned their

crops, poisoned their wells, packed everything they owned into wagons, and set

off north, into nomad country.

A little after that, I learned that Olbia and Odessus had decided to take no

action; after all, the Scythians had gone, and the whole region was now empty.

But, since Antolbia had nominally been a Macedonian colony, they sent a

petition to Alexander asking him to avenge the massacre by sending a punitive

expedition. Alexander got the message and acknowledged it, but nothing was ever

done; Alexander was a long way away and had other things on his mind.

Well, I hope the rich man was able to get his son back in the end. Itd be truly

sad if he went to all that trouble and expense for nothing. I never did find out

his name, and as a historian I regret that. The duty of a historian is to ensure

that the momentous deeds of men whose actions shape the world are never

forgotten, and I guess that if anybody qualifies under those criteria, he did.

A month or so after the end of my lawsuit, when I was sure that my

ninth-cousin-fifty-times-removed had finally packed up and slung his hook, I

went back home to Pallene.

Its an old house; my father was always talking about pulling it down and

building something better, but he never got round to it, and while I was growing

up there it was still basically as it had been when my greatgreatgrandfather

built it. In the middle theres a courtyard, closed in on the southern and

western sides by plain mud-brick walls and on the other two sides by the two

flat-roofed blocks of the house which meet at right-angles at the north-eastern

corner, comprising the main room (facing north) and the inner room (facing

east). The gates in the east wall, with a verandah on the outside. The northern

half of the courtyard is shaded by the roof of the portico. Thats it,

basically.

As I walked down the bill, the first I saw of it was the flat roof of the inner

room; that was where we all used to sleep during the hottest part of the year,

when it was impossible to sleep indoors. A little further down the trail, and I

caught sight of the tower, a separate building a few yards behind the house

itself, masked from the path by a little curtain of apple trees. These trees had

grown a lot since Id been away nobody could be bothered to prune them, I

guess so it was only when I left the path and wound my way past the two big

rocks we called the Gateposts that I was able to see the house itself. Apart

from the overgrown trees it was exactly the same as I remembered it. Even the

half-dead old fig-tree wed pegged to the outside of the south wall when I was

just a kid was still there, still lolling off the pegs like a drunken man

leaning on the shoulder of a long-suffering friend. The fallen-down barn wed

kept promising ourselves wed restore was still standing, no more and no less

dilapidated than when Id last seen it. The old cartwheel my father had hung

from a branch for us to play on was still propped against the pear-tree, still

missing the same two spokes. Even the two beehives were exactly where theyd

been the last time I conjured the place up in my minds eye.

I was home. Fact.

I walked into the verandah, lifted the latch and gently pushed the door. It

opened a hands span or so, then stuck. I put my shoulder against it, forced it

open enough for me to squeeze through, and went into the main room.

There was nothing there, of course. My defeated rival had taken all the

furniture and movables with him when he left, and for the first time in my life

I could see all four corners of the room at once. It was much smaller than Id

remembered, the doorways were lower, the hearth narrower. It was darker, too.

I was about to turn round and go outside when I heard a faint scuffling noise

from the inner room. I tiptoed across and jerked the door open.

Whos there? I asked.

The inner room had been stripped bare too, of course, and it was even darker.

Under the shadow of the far wall I could see something that looked like a bundle

of old cloth.

You, I said. Who are you?

Euxenus?

I took a step closer. The voice wasnt familiar exactly, but I had an idea Id

heard it before. Who are you? I repeated.

Its me, the voice said. Dont you remember?

It was an old mans voice, quite quiet, with an accent of some sort. On your

feet, I said. This is my house now, and youre trespassing.

Euxenus? Its me, Syrus.

For a moment my mind was as blank as a fresh wax tablet; then I remembered.

Syrus? I said. I thought you were dead.

You remember the slave who hurt himself during the olive harvest, and thereby

indirectly caused the death of my father? That was Syrus. No, he replied, not

sos youd notice.

I moved closer, and he lifted his head. It was Syrus all right. Hed gone bald

and his beard was white and scraggy, he was painfully thin

hed been a stout, round-faced man when I last saw him and the folds of

empty skin around the sides of his eyes and chin made me think of sacks dumped

on the floor. Hed gone blind, I realised.

What the hell are you doing here? I asked.

He looked at me well, about a yard to my right, actually; it was rather

disconcerting. Nowhere else to go, he replied. You remember, in his will

your father set me free.

Thats right, I said. You were going to go into the rope-making business.

I did, he said, nodding. Worked for fifteen years in a ropewalk in Piraeus ,

till I saved up enough to start up on my own. I was doing all right, too.

I waited for a moment, then said, What happened?

There was a fire, he said. My wife, my boy, the two lads I had working with

me, the house, all the stock and materials its tricky stuff, rope. Actually,

its the tar we put on it to keep it from rotting. One spark and the next thing

you know He smiled; or at least his lips pressed together and widened, and his

body shook a little. They fished me out, but they shouldnt have bothered. Its

nothing but a waste of good food keeping me alive now.

Im sorry, I said. So why are you here?

He shrugged. Well, nobody was going to keep me back in Piraeus , Id have

starved. But I thought, the boys back at the farm, they might look after me for

old times sake. Of course, when I got here I heard, theyre all. . . Except

Master Eudemus, and hes no better off than I am really. He lost an eye, you

know, in the battle.

I know, I said. That reminds me; do you happen to know where he is?

Syrus turned his head towards me. Didnt you know? He Im sorry, Euxenus,

hes gone too. Some kind of illness, I never heard any more.

I sighed. Thats it, then, I said. It looks like its just me. And you, I

added. So you got here and you found they were all dead. What then?

Your cousin, Philocarpus; he let me sleep in the barn and eat with the hired

help. That was kind of him, he didnt need to do anything like that. But he only

laughed and said I went with the land, like some old tree-trunk its easier to

plough round than dig out.Then he came and told me he was having to move on back

to Priene, because youd won your case. He didnt make it sound like I could go

with him, so I stayed here.

I thought for a moment. Is there anything at all you can do? I asked.

He shrugged. Ill be straight with you, Euxenus, there isnt much. He lifted

his hands; I could see the scar tissue from the burns even in that poor light.

I can grind, and turn the olive-press, if someone else fills the hopper. Thats

about it.

I see. Fine inheritance you turned out to be. I opened the flap of my satchel

and pulled out a small, half-empty jar of rough wine that had been keeping me

company as I walked out from the City. Here, I said, help yourself. He found

the neck with his hands and drank deeply, spilling wine down his chin. Just you

and me, I repeated. And Ive come ever such a long way to get here.

He frowned. I dont follow, he said.

Dont worry about it, I replied. Look, you can carry on dossing down in the

barn, and Ill see you dont starve. What do you do all day?

Not a lot I can do, he said. I sit, mostly.

Sounds pretty boring.

It is, he said. But theres worse things than boring. Thank you, Euxenus.

Forget it, I replied. Doesnt sound like Im doing you any favours, at that.

He smiled again. Remains to be seen, doesnt it? he said.

And that my young friend, is how, after a lifetime of wandering and striving

after achievement, I finally attained what had always been my hearts desire,

the life and dignity of an Athenian gentleman. Curious; if Id known that all I

had to do was manage to reach the age of forty-one without dying, Id have

stayed at home and kept myself amused with pottering around the market square,

telling lies for money, rather than educating the sons of kings or founding

cities, and maybe an awful lot of people would still be alive today; Scythians,

Illyrians, Greeks... Not to mention a fair number of Persians, Medes, Bactrians,

Cappadocians, Armenians, Gedrosians, Drangianae, Fish-eating Ethiopians (so

called to distinguish them from the other Ethiopians, who live in Africa),

Arians, Massagetae, Egyptians and Indians whose deaths are probably partly my

fault as well. I remember hearing once about some savage king of somewhere or

other who had a road running the length of his empire paved with the skulls of

his enemies. I can go one better than that. I travelled from Pallene to Pallene

by way of Macedon and Olbia, walking a road paved with the dead bodies of my

family and friends.

Self-pity, Euxenus, youre muttering at me, Phryzeutzis, as you smile the

patronising smile of the tolerant young. Youre exaggerating for effect again.

Thats not the way to write history.

I wont argue with you; thirty years ago, now, and youd have had a real

dialectic fight on your hands, but these days the sound of my own voice raised

in debate simply makes me feel tired. So Ill concede the point, if it makes you

feel any better. Anyway, I dont need to use any philosophers tricks to make my

point. Picture me and Syrus, sitting opposite each other in the empty house in

Pallene; thatll be far more eloquent than I ever was, even when I was young and

fiery.

So we wont overplay the melodrama. During the day I didnt crouch in the ashes

like a heroine out of Euripides; I went out into the fields my fields and I

worked, bloody hard. For a while I was an inspiration to my neighbours. Up

before dawn, their wives would tell them, and off with the team or the

mattock, never comes home till dark, and hes got that place looking as good as

it was in his fathers day, all on his own. Why cant you be more like Euxenus?

And yet, in spite of that, they were still prepared to talk to me. They wanted

to hear all my fabulous tales of far away, about King Philips court and the

boyhood of Alexander (Is it true that when he was just a baby, he strangled two

snakes in his cot?), about desperate battles against the cannibal Scythians,

and of course my opinion about the latest news from the East. We heard

Alexanders reached Pasargadae , theyd say to me, wheres that? Whereupon

Id smile knowingly and reply that they didnt want to go believing everything

they heard (which is good advice at all times, though as a matter of fact

Alexander had indeed reached Pasargadae, wherever the hell that is, and had

turned northeast towards Ecbatana). That would impress them no end, though I

dont imagine they had a clue why they found it impressive, and maybe theyd

even buy me another drink.

In short, I became a prosperous and well-respected citizen; you might almost say

a model citizen, the sort of person youd want living in your perfect society. I

got the vineyards back into shape, put some heart into the soil by ploughing

five times a year and growing beans in the off year; I repaired my walls and

trellises, pruned back my trees, shored up my terraces, interplanted barley

between my rows of olive trees so that not a square yard of good soil went idle.

I saved up and bought a couple of slaves, good, strong middle-aged men who

worked long hours silently and never gave me any bother. I was as near as youll

ever get, in fact, to the Good Farmer, that enigmatic character you read about

in the books on good husbandry that people like Aristotle are so fond of

writing; the good farmer, they say, takes the trouble to sow vetch and lupins

on the fallow, both to put heart into the soil and provide winter fodder for his

livestock. When I was young I used to picture this paragon of virtue, trying to

imagine the expression on his face as he carefully lifts a crumb of soil to his

tongue on the tip of his little finger, to ascertain whether its too sour for

growing wheat, or his quiet smile of satisfaction as he inspects the flourishing

shoots hes grafted onto his vines to boost their productivity. But I never

quite managed to get a fix on him until one day I was looking something up in

one of those damned manuals, and realised, with rather mixed feelings, that he

was me.

Now, theyre all well and good, those books, but they never tell you enough.

They dont tell you what this good farmer does the rest of the time; at night,

when hes finished repairing broken tool-handles by wrapping them with saturated

rawhide or plaiting himself a useful rope out of the loose hairs hes saved off

the curry-comb; when its late and the house is empty, and he sits alone in the

dark instead of going to bed. On reflection, though, that situation wouldnt

arise for the good farmer, because he married a good wife in chapter three

(industrious, good at spinning and weaving, capable of helping with field work

in the busy season, not inclined to drink or gossiping with other women) and

their union was blessed in chapter five by the birth

of three strong, healthy sons (four is too many, placing too much strain on the

farms resources; two isnt enough, because one of them may die young and leave

the farm short of manpower), who will presumably inherit come chapter

twenty-nine, when the good farmer dies, surrounded by family and friends, with a

finger stuck in the book to mark the place in case he needs to refer to it for

instructions before the end finally comes. Maybe I wasnt the good farmer after

all; or maybe he never actually existed. You know, the more I read, the more

sceptical I get. I never met the man who farms like the good farmer, or the

soldier who fights like Achilles or the heroes in Homer, or the citizen who

participates in the ideal society, or even the great historical personage who

bore any resemblance to the description in a book of history; even, I hasten to

add, this book of history, as written by me.

We finally made a start on patching up that old barn. The incentive was a freak

rainstorm we get them every ten years or so which washed the last of the

thatch off the roof and nearly drowned old Syrus and my two slaves. Now, the

Good Farmer naturally takes care of his slaves; they are, after all, his most

valuable perishable asset, and if they die of pneumonia or even if they miss

work for a week or so because theyre ill, its a dead loss. Accordingly, he

makes sure that their quarters are dry and warm, and that theyre adequately fed

and clothed. Youll find specifications for the ideal slave rations in those

excellent books, the perfect balance of nutrition and economy; an ideal to

which, I confess, I never aspired. They knew where the grain-store was, and they

helped themselves. I suspect that if Id taken the trouble to follow the ideal,

Id have spent more on fancy padlocks and Molossian watchdogs to keep them from

pilfering than Id ever have saved on barley, cheese and figs.

The stones were mostly still where theyd fallen; wed used a few over the years

to patch up walls, but not many. All we had to do was figure out how they fitted

together and put them back. Simple.

In theory. Its a basic rule of nature that putting something back together is

always a hundred times harder than taking it apart; as witness that barn. It was

so easy to bring it down that the wind and weather managed it without human

assistance. If Id thought of it, I could have hired a Thessalian witch to catch

the wind in a bag and ask it if it remembered how the stones fitted. But I

didnt; I tried to figure it out for myself, and as a result arrived at Euxenus

Law of applied geometry, which states that just because things fitted together

once, it doesnt follow that theyll fit that way again. Its a good law, that,

and I think youll agree if youve been paying attention to this story that it

doesnt just apply to dry-stone walling.

After two frustrating days of skinned knuckles, wrenched backs and foul tempers,

we decided to adopt a more radical approach, involving cold chisels and big

hammers. I borrowed the necessary tools from my neighbours and we set to work,

trimming and shaping the stones to make them fit. Although I hadnt actually

done any masonry work myself, Id stood and watched Agenor a score of times over

the years, and he always made it look easy. Without scribing a line or taking

measurements hed simply tap-tap a couple of times with the chisel, then give

one sharp, hard tap and split off the irregular chunk of stone, leaving a

smooth, flat face that would lie nicely flush against its neighbour. The waste

material came away like rust flaking off an iron ploughshare; the desired shape

was already in the stone, and all he had to do was strike off the encumbrances.

He never swung the hammer in great double-handed sweeps; just those little

woodpecker taps up and down a convenient fault-line. Definitely the way to go;

nothing to it.

For some reason it didnt work that way when we tried it. Either we got nowhere,

scarcely even marking the stone, or else it exploded under the hammer into a

shower of razor-sharp fragments, like the results of the technique they use in

the quarries when they heat the rock with bellows and a brazier, then throw

vinegar on it to make it shatter. Unfortunately for all of us, this total lack

of progress annoyed me so much that I resolved to persevere and succeed at all

costs. Match the intransigence of stone, I said to myself, against the infinite

flexibility of the human mind, and eventually youll get a row of neatly dressed

masonry blocks, together with the immeasurable satisfaction of knowing youve

won. True, my philosophers brain had proved itself not to be entirely up to the

task of building the ideal city, but a simple thing like chipping out a few

blocks of stone, something that an unlettered and uneducated man like Agenor

could do so easily, ought to be well within my capabilities.

Keep at it, I commanded. And keep your mind on what youre doing.

They looked at me, wiped sweat ostentatiously from their foreheads, and renewed

their assault on the stone. They may possibly even have lost their tempers just

a little, or perhaps they were playing the game we all play when weve got a

tedious job to do that involves hitting or slashing, and imagined that the rock

was me; in any event, the chips started flying in all directions, and I, being a

prudent man as well as a philosopher, muttered something about measuring up and

retired to a safe distance.

I was fooling about with a measuring rod when I heard one of the slaves

Sclerus, his name was, or at least that was the name Id given him; he was a

Celt, from Galatia, and what they call themselves is nobodys business but their

own yelp loudly enough to make me drop my rod, and then started swearing in

Galatian.

Now what? I said.

Got something in my eye, he replied.

I looked round, and saw that he was crouched on the ground with his hands over

his face. Hed stopped swearing and started making a sort of whimpering noise,

which was most unlike him.

What happened? I asked.

A bit of that damned stone, replied his colleague, a Sicilian I called

Aeschrus. It flew up and hit him in the eye.

Let me see, I said; but Sclerus didnt want to take his hands away from his

face. I could see blood trickling down his cheek. Aeschrus, hold his hands, I

said. This is no time for melodrama.

Aeschrus was a big strong lad; Sclerus was tall but thin and bony. So Aeschrus

twisted his arms behind his back and I held his head still. I could see the

splinter easily enough; hed had his eye shut, but the splinter had gone right

through it, pinning it to the eyeball. That looks bad, I said. Get him into

the house.

I broke a thin piece of bronze off the rim of a wooden bowl and bent it double

to make a pair of tweezers, with which I was able, eventually, to pull the

splinter out. It wasnt easy; the splinter was an awkward shape and I couldnt

get a grip, and every time I tried Sclerus would roar with pain and thrash about

like a deer thats run into the nets during a forest drive. When eventually it

did come out, a lot of blood came with it, and the poor man fainted. While he

was out I washed the wound with hot water on a clean bit of rag until the

bleeding stopped; then I gave Aeschrus some money and told him to run to the

City and see if he could find a doctor.

He came back that evening with the money but no doctor. Hed tried four, he

said, but they were all either busy or not at home. I dont think a doctor could

have done any good, in any event. The wound stayed fresh, which was something;

gods only know what would have happened if it had turned septic. I tried to

treat it with a poultice, but whenever I went near him with the stuff Sclerus

would start to bellow and cower, so I gave up and left him to it. Aeschrus made

him an eyepatch out of very fine goatskin, because even though he couldnt see

through it, strong sunlight made it hurt terribly.

We gave up on the barn after that.

It occurs to me, looking back, that I should have known better. The project

contained all the elements of my previous disasters; trying to make life better

for other people, trying to restore a bit of the life Id left behind when my

father died, trying to build something, trying to make something that wanted to

be one shape into another. When I was a boy I heard the story of an enthusiastic

but entirely talentless boxer; when he died, they said, his family and

neighbours had a gravestone carved showing this man standing in the ring, his

hands bound up for fighting, his arms raised to strike; and underneath, the

inscription In memory of Polydamas, of whom it can truly be said, he never

harmed his fellow men. You know, I feel a bit like that Polydamas, only the

other way round. He tried to hurt people but never managed it. Ive tried to do

good, on and off, my whole life, and Ive left a trail of dead and mutilated

bodies behind me wherever Ive gone.

Now, in that excellent book, I expect it says that if one of the good farmers

slaves gets damaged in a way that affects his performance of his duties, the

only sensible course of action is to cut ones losses, sell him for what hell

fetch and buy a replacement, rather than compound the loss by feeding and

providing for a slave who does less work but eats the same amount. I didnt do

that, however, which meant that Syrus, Sclerus, Aeschrus and I had five good

eyes between the four of us, and people started calling us the Graeae, after the

three witches in the old stories who have one eye between them, which they pass

from hand to hand. (That, by the way, is the sort of thing that passes for wit

in rural Attica , along with tying burning twigs to the tails of dogs and

shoving drunks down wells.) So, with Syrus unable to do anything much and

Sclerus restricted to light duties only (when we finally managed to get hold of

a doctor, he warned that too much exertion could mean hed lose the other eye as

well), I ended up having to work longer and harder to put bread on the table for

my slaves than Id ever done before I bought them.

In the end I hired a couple of lads from a neighbouring farm to knock down what

was left of the old barn and build a new one. It took them three days. They made

it look easy.

You could have done that, they said to me as I paid them their money.

Probably, I replied. But you know how it is.

They looked at me. Come again? they said.

I grinned, thinking of Diogenes and the magic talisman that made people do

things for you, the silver coin. Why do a job yourself when you can get someone

to do it for you?

Right, they said. Like, you keep three men and do all your own ploughing. No

wonder you packed in being a philosopher.

I nodded. Get off my land, I said, before I set the snake on you.

Time passes at a different rate, depending on where you are. A week in some

strange place seems to last for ever, while you can lose a year at home as

easily as a forgetful man misplaces his hat. I cant say I was really aware of

time passing; someone would mention something that happened a while ago, and Id

say, Yes, that was the year the crows got in the laid patches in the barley.

And then Id think, when was that? Not last year, because the barley stood up

well right up till harvest. Not the year before, because I got Aristodemus boy

to stand guard with his sling and a bag of pebbles, and after a week he told me

hed killed thirty-seven of them. So it was either the year before that or the

year before that and suddenly Id taken note of the passing of four years,

which had sneaked by me like an adulterer creeping out of the window while his

girlfriend keeps the husband talking in the front room.

While I was drifting aimlessly between harvests at home, Alexander of Macedon

was marching from victory to victory, as unstoppable as a cart running down a

hill. I could give you a battle-by-battle account of the campaign, I suppose,

but itd only be a rehash of what Ive read in books; I wasnt there, remember,

I was in Antolbia, then Attica, where the glorious achievements of the son of

Philip were as remote and as irrelevant as the Trojan War. As far as we were

concerned in Athens , Alexander had marched off the edge of the world, and the

further he went away from us, the better we liked it. Sure, he wasnt hated and

feared the way his father was. Truth to tell, he left us pretty much alone, and

there were days you could go from dawn to dusk without anything reminding you of

the Macedonian presence in Greece, or the effects of the battle of Chaeronea. If

any of my neighbours knew Id been to Macedon, been the boys tutor, they were

too tactful to mention it. Just occasionally, though, something reminded us of

his existence; news of another glorious victory, rumours that he was dead

(Alexander dead? someone said on one such occasion. Dont you believe it. If

Alexander was dead, the stench would fill the earth) or had been captured by

the enemy, or had ascended bodily into the heavens to rejoin his real father

Zeus; there were rumours that hed listened to bad advice and marched his army

into a vast, waterless desert, where most of them had died of thirst. There were

rumours that hed finally gone mad, and was demanding that everybody worship him

as a god. Hed married the daughter of the King of Persia, there was to be peace

and Alexander was to succeed to the Great Kings throne; hed been shot in the

chest while storming a fortress, and was hanging onto life by a thread; hed

murdered his best friend in a fit of drunken rage and burned down the capital

city of the Empire in an excess of guilt-ridden insanity; hed decided to merge

the Greek and Persian races, and soon wed all be shipped off and forcibly

resettled in Asia, each of us being required to take at least one Persian wife,

and wear trousers, on pain of death. Oh, there were always rumours; and of

course we ignored them, or half-accepted them, not caring whether they were true

or not its like when you read books about faraway lands, and youre told that

beyond the great deserts of Africa there live people whose faces are in their

bellies, whose ears are so long that they trail on the ground as they walk. You

read, and you neither believe nor disbelieve, because even if you live to be a

thousand years old, theres no possible set of circumstances whereby things like

that could ever be relevant to you. If its all lies, then so what? Its a

pretty story. If its true, then your belief or your scepticism arent going to

alter anything; it doesnt matter. Whichever way it does, the fact that there

may or may not be people in Africa who have one enormous foot instead of two

normal-sized ones isnt going to make it easier or more difficult for you to cut

your late barley before the crows flatten it, so you dismiss such things from

your mind with a shake of your head and get on with your work. Similarly, the

fact that at least three-quarters of the rumours we heard about Alexander turned

out in the end to be true was neither here nor there. So what? Nothing, the gods

be praised, to do with us.

Indeed. Itd have been nice, I guess, if it had stayed that way.

They called for me a couple of hours before dawn, in the early autumn of the

eighth year after I came home. Id made a start on the pruning the day before; I

was tired out and fast asleep, so I didnt hear them ride up. The first I knew

about it, in fact, was when Aeschrus grabbed my shoulder and shook me awake.

Theres soldiers outside, he said, in a terrified whisper.

What are you talking about? I mumbled. Hed pulled me out of an

all-too-familiar dream, the one in which Id decided not to leave

Antolbia after all; curiously enough, he woke me at the point in the dream where

Theano usually shook me awake to tell me the Scythians were overrunning the

city.

Soldiers, he repeated. In armour, on horses. Cant you hear?

I listened. Someone was kicking the door. Get out of sight, I told him,

swinging my legs off the bed and discovering that I had pins and needles in both

of them well, I wouldnt be running far like that. No escape option; well, it

simplified matters. And get the other two under cover as well, I added, as he

scurried off. Ill keep them talking if I can.

I suppose I was scared; most of all, though, I was just plain sleepy and

bewildered. It was perfectly possible that I had enemies, considering

everything Id been responsible for over the years, but I couldnt think of any

who were in a position to send soldiers to get me.

I didnt have to wait long before I found out the answer. They were Macedonians;

to be precise, they were troopers from King Alexanders mobile reserve.

Are you Euxenus? one of them asked, as I opened the door a little wider.

No point in denying it, I thought. Thats right, I said. How can I help you?

Youre coming with us, the soldier said. If you want to pack some stuff, be

quick. We havent got time to hang about.

I stayed where I was. Where are we going? I asked.

The soldier grinned at me. India , he said. Are you taking anything with

you or not?

India ? I repeated.

You heard me.

Of course, I didnt have the slightest intention of going to India , or anywhere

else for that matter, in the company of these ferocious-looking men. They were a

sight to see, no question, standing there in their armour Macedonian-pattern

helmet, breastplate and greaves; if you looked closely you could see dozens of

small repairs, where a dent had been raised or a hole had been patched and

brazed. Their clothes told the same story here bleached by the sun or by being

soaked with water, there darned and patched, all neatly done (a soldier may be

reduced to wearing rags, but theyd better be neat rags if he doesnt want to

find himself pulling extra latrine-digging duty). I could well believe that

theyd just come from somewhere like India , and in a hurry too.

I tried to think of a plan of campaign, a way of getting away from them and

keeping away until either they gave up and left me alone or neighbours showed up

in force and rescued me. Unfortunately, both versions of a happy ending were no

end improbable. I had no way of calling for help, and these people didnt look

as if theyd just go home again if they didnt get what they wanted.

Who sent you? I asked. They didnt reply; instead they surged forward into the

house, pushing me gently but firmly out of the way. Could you at least tell me

what it is Im supposed to have done? I added.

The soldier looked at me oddly. You havent done anything, he said. At least,

not anything wrong. Alexander needs you for something, thats all I know. And

thats enough, too. He picked up a small terracotta statue of a man riding on

the back of a bird, examined it as if checking to make sure there wasnt a

company of archers hiding in it waiting to ambush him, then put it back. All

right, he said, times up. Your thingsll have to be sent on later. I expect

the Colonelll see to that for you.

One of the soldiers took hold of my shoulder. His grip didnt hurt, but it was

firm, like a well-trained dog retrieving a hare in its mouth. Colonel? I

hazarded.

The soldier nodded. Colonel Eudaemon, he said. Your brother. The one whos

going to be living here now youre going to India .

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The soldiers name was Colonel Timoleon, and as soldiers go, he wasnt so bad.

Once we were safely on board the ship and there wasnt any likelihood of my

getting him into trouble by escaping or wandering off, he relaxed a little.

Colonel Eudaemon, he said. We served together for years, off and on. Of

course, he was mostly in the rear of the line of march, being an engineer.

I looked out over the dark-blue sea, the same view Id got so thoroughly sick of

on the long journey back from Olbia. I havent seen him for oh, twenty years

at least. In fact, if youd asked me Id have told you he was probably dead. He

was just a kid when he left home.

Timoleon nodded. Its easy to lose touch with home when youre in the service,

he said. Me, Ive been away sixteen years, and I wasnt with the original army,

the first lot who crossed into Asia and fought at the Granicus. Most of them

have never been back the ones whore still alive, that is. Even losing as few

men as the King does, the casualties mount up over twenty-odd years. And thats

just the ones who get killed in the actual fighting, he added. Mostly they die

of disease, bad water, bad food, that kind of thing. He smiled bleakly. Truth

is, the enemys always the least of your problems.

I shrugged. I suppose so, I replied. Ive never been a regular soldier, so I

wouldnt really know.

Timoleon turned his head to watch a seagull flying low. I heard about what

happened in Antolbia, he said. Bad business. One of these days, hell sort

them out for what they did, you can count on that. After all, he added, its

one of the few parts of the world he hasnt been yet, so hes bound to go there

sooner or later.

The way he said that impressed me. Tell me, I said. Do you believe Alexander

will end up conquering the whole world? Every last bit of it, I mean?

He nodded. Dont worry about it, he said. You look at the rate hes been

going. In ten years hes taken in the whole of Asia ; and next year, once hes

finished tidying up in India , hell reach the far ocean, which is the end of

the world, you just cant go any further than that. Then hell head back

north-west, clean up those Scythians and bits and pieces up there; then itll be

Africa, and afterwards on to Italy and Spain; and everyone knows, theyll be

easy as squashing grapes compared with the East. I reckon hell have conquered

the whole world by the time hes forty. Just think of that, will you? The whole

world, one end to the other. He shook his head, then grinned. Then maybe we

can all go home, he said. Unless he goes ahead with this idea of settling us

all down in these new cities and creating this ideal society everyones always

banging on about. Cant see it ever happening myself. Still, I expect they said

the same about the idea of conquering Asia .

I looked away so that he couldnt see my face. I heard rumours about that

idea, I said. But we get so many rumours in Athens , its hard to know which

ones to believe. So thats really a serious proposition, then, planting Greek

colonies all over Asia ?

Too right, the Colonel replied. Only its more than that. He reckons that the

only way therell ever be peace and harmony between us and them is if there

isnt any more Greeks and Persians, just one big happy family. So were all

going to be given land and wives in Asia , and theyre going to ship most all of

the people out of Greece and settle them down all over the world. Greeks and

Persians, Greeks and Egyptians, Greeks and Italians when we get there, Greeks

and Indians, Greeks and Scythians

Been done, I interrupted. Didnt work too well.

He shook his head. Thats because it wasnt done right, he said. No

disrespect to you and your people, he added quickly. Dont get me wrong, I

dont really know enough about all this to have an opinion, Im just a soldier,

me. But youve got to admit, if it can be made to work, its got to be a bloody

good idea.

Ideal, I said. Wonder where he got the notion from?

Timoleon looked at me oddly. From you, of course, he said. Else, whys he

sent me all this way to fetch you?

Im sorry?

He raised a shaggy eyebrow. He wants you to lead his new colony, he said. In

Sogdiana. Its to thank you for how you inspired him, when he was just a kid,

gave him the burning ambition to create the perfect society.

Me, I said.

Yes, you. He grinned. You look surprised.

I am surprised, I replied. I dont remember ever mentioning it. And if he

thinks Im going to get involved in that bloody game again I shook my head.

Im sorry, I went on, really, it isnt your problem. But I think youve

probably had a wasted journey.

He looked at me for a long time before he spoke again. If he says youre going

to lead a colony in Sogdiana, he said, youre going to lead a colony in

Sogdiana. Bet on it.

Thanks, I said, but no. Bet on it, he repeated.

I thought for a moment. A drachma, I said. Athenian.

Done.

I owe Colonel Timoleon a drachma, Phryzeutzis. When I die and you clear out my

things, youll find it in the little cedarwood box beside my bed, along with

Theanos comb. Its the only genuine Athenian drachma Ive got left. Im sure I

can rely on you to travel all the way to Macedon, track down Timoleon or his

next of kin and hand it over. Be sure to get a receipt.

We made landfall at Ephesus , where I found a letter waiting for me. It was

written on best-quality Egyptian paper and was presented to me by the Macedonian

prefects first adjutant in person, as I staggered down the plank feeling like

death. I read it in a quiet corner of the public baths the next day, and Ive

still got the wretched thing somewhere, still in its dinky little bronze tube

embossed with prancing lions; but I know it by heart, so I wont bother looking

for it now. It went:

Alexander son of Philip to Euxenus son of Eutychides; greetings.

This message is twenty years overdue, my dear Euxenus; please forgive me, Ive

been busy. You left before I could say goodbye, and what with one thing and

another Ive never got around to writing.

Do you remember those bees? There are times when Im ready to believe the gods

sent them,just to mahe sure our paths crossed that day. The debt I owe you is

incalculable, and hardly a day goes by when I dont think about the things you

taught me. I cant believe its been so long since we sat together under the

trees at Mieza; it only seems like a week or so ago that you were handing out

our study assignments, or explaining to us about the battles of the Great War.

In a very real sense, anything I might have achieved so far in my life is

largely due to you. Without your teaching and, to an even greater extent, your

example, I dont suppose Id be where I am today. You opened my eyes, my dearest

friend and mentor; you showed me that life can have a purpose, that it can mean

something. What greater treasure could anybody possibly give, or receive?

Above all, it was the example of what you set out to do in Olbia that fired my

imagination all those years ago, Now, I expect youve long since despaired of

me; you think that all Im interested in is fame and glory, and extending my

kingdom from one end of the earth to the other. I can picture you shaking your

head sadly. Youre missing the point, I can hear you say. And if it were true,

if all I was interested in was making a name for myself, youd be right.

Everything Ive done would pale into insignificance compared with what you

nearly achieved atAntolbia. But its all right, I promise you. I hadnt

forgotten, though Ill admit Ive been dreadfully slow off the mark. But its

time now.

I have to tell you, I cant spare the men or the time to come with you back to

Antolbia, avenge the terrible loss you suffered, and rebuild the city. Im

sorry; itd be a far nobler deed than what Im doing here, but please

understand, I have to finish here before I can do anything else, otherwise

theres a terrible risk that everything here will just fall to pieces, with

nothing to show for all the lives its cost for me to get here.

So Im going to do what I hope is the next best thing; in fact, in some ways I

hope it might even be better, because this time its going to be that much

closer to your original dream. Im asking you to lead my new colony in Sogdiana.

This one isnt going to be anything like any of the other cities Ive founded,

or which have been founded in my name. This time, Euxenus, were going to put

into practice everything we talked about all those years ago, that day when I

sat spellbound at your feet listening to you telling us about your wonderful

ideas for the ideal society. Thats why Ive waited so long; I had to find the

right place, the right people. And Sogdiana, Euxenus I knew at once when I

first came here, this is the place weve been dreaming of, this is the perfect

mixture of people to make it work.

How did you put it? The perfect fusion of opposites; thats what weve got here.

These people here, theyre so different from us and so alike at the same time.

Heres where were going to find that perfect fusion; Greek and Scythian,

settled and nomadic, urban and rural, pure intelligence and raw energy, all the

elements you said wed need. You know, I really wish it could be me undertaking

this wonderful experiment. Ive said this so often over the years, Euxenus, but

never to you, the one person it matters that I say it to; if I couldnt have

been Alexander, Id have wanted to be Euxenus. Well, heres another perfect

fusion, my friend; you and me, fused together in a joint act of creation.

Well, thats enough of that. Im sure you remember howl always used to get

carried away brevity, Alexander, brevity; isnt that what you used to tell me

when it was my turn to say something in class? Theres nothing worth saying in

twenty words,you said, that cant be said better in ten. Come and join me,

Euxenus. Together, we can make your dream a reality at last. Anyway, there you

have it; better late than never, as we say back home.

If all goes well, you should arrive in Ephesus just as Eudaemons getting there.

Be warned; hes changed a lot since you used to know him. Hell explain the

background.

Goodbye, Euxenus. Heres one last promise: as soon as the foundations are laid,

Ill come and say hello properly, and we can sit together under a tree in the

sun and talk over old times and new dreams. Keep well, my friend, and may the

gods favour you.

And what all thats about, I confess I have no idea. Ive ransacked my memory

scores of times over the years, but however hard I try I simply cant recall any

of those cosy chats in the shade back in dear old Mieza that the letter refers

to. I dont know; maybe he was getting me confused with somebody else, or maybe

hed recreated me in his mind as the wise old mentor he felt he should have had.

And the tone of the thing; Ive asked around, at the time he was dictating that

lot (it was far too neat to be his own handwriting), he was issuing edicts to

his loyal fellow Macedonians requiring them to fall on their faces in his

presence and worship him as a god. Of course, theres a perfectly good

explanation for the god business; the Persians expect to be required to worship

their kings as gods, and if they saw the Macedonians treating him as an equal, a

mere mortal, hed lose their respect. Perfectly valid argument, by which Im not

in the least convinced.

I was tempted ye gods, I was tempted to write back telling him where he

could shove his colony and his perfect society and all the rest of it, but

fortunately I had more sense. I told myself that Id never have dared say

anything like that to Alexander even when he was just a kid; disobeying his

orders now that he was effectively the ruler of the world simply wasnt an

option. Now Im not so sure. There was always a side to Alexander that

positively invited the apparently humiliating rebuff from people who were

entirely in his mercy; as witness, for example, the way he allowed himself to be

insulted by Diogenes. On one level, it was shrewd public relations,

demonstrating his humanity and self-assurance; after all, Alexander is always

the hero of these stories, which make great play of his humility and sense of

humour (and Alexander had just enough of both of these qualities to fill a small

nutshell, provided the nut was left in place). Maybe if Id written back a

churlish, ill-mannered refusal hed have smiled indulgently, handed the letter

to a nearby hanger-on and let it go at that. On the other hand, maybe the last

thing Id ever have seen was the inside of the sack they put over my head as

they rowed me out to sea and tipped me over the side. Someone capable of writing

a letter like that would be capable of anything.

Well, then; I was going to Sogdiana, wherever the hell Sogdiana was and by

rights, Phryzeutzis, thats the end of the story, because here I am still. It

turned out, quite by chance, that Sogdiana is probably the nearest thing to a

home Ive ever had since my father died. At the time, though, I wasnt to know

that. I assumed I was being sent off to some crack in the mountains to live

among monosyllabic Macedonian veterans and cannibal natives. You can guess, I

wasnt very happy about it.

I left the baths, where Id gone to read the letter, and started to walk back to

the garrison barracks, where I was staying. It was a warmer than average

evening, and I had a hill to climb, so I was taking it slowly, my mind still

full of Alexander and his letter. Consequently I wasnt paying much attention to

the people around me and didnt notice the man in a military cloak and helmet

who came bustling up behind me until hed rammed me in the back like a warship

and sent me sprawling on the ground.

He went down too, and I distinctly heard a crack, the unmistakable

dry-branch-snapping noise of a human bone breaking. At once he started to curse

and groan. I untangled my feet from the hem of his cloak and got up.

Are you all right? I asked, rather foolishly.

No, Im bloody well not, he replied. You clown, youve broken my leg.

Im sorry, I replied. It wasnt the most intelligent thing I could have said,

I grant you, but I meant it for the best. He wasnt impressed, though.

Sorrys not damn well good enough, he gasped, and then let out another roar of

pain. Well, youre going to regret this, I promise you, because Im a colonel

in the Kings army, and nobody...

Eudaemon? I asked.

He jerked his head round and glowered at me. Do I know you? he said.

Eudaemon, its me. Euxenus.

What?

Euxenus, I repeated. Your brother.

Oh, for gods sakes.

Just then a couple of soldiers happened to pass by; they helped Eudaemon up off

the ground, prompting yet another leonine roar of agony, then told me I was

under arrest.

Dont be so damn stupid, Eudaemon wheezed. This idiots my brother,

apparently.

The soldiers werent quite sure what that had to do with anything; brother or

not, I was still a civilian whod apparently caused grievous bodily harm to a

serving Macedonian officer. Before they could hurl themselves at me and start

tearing up flesh, however, Eudaemon started giving them orders; you could almost

hear the click as they disengaged their brains, allowing their superior

officers voice to act directly on the muscles, nerves and tendons of their

bodies. They picked him up and carried him, his arms around their shoulders like

a drunk being taken home, in the direction of the barracks. I followed.

The surgeon wasnt in his quarters; he was out to dinner. Eudaemon sent someone

to find him, and we were left alone, in a courtyard outside the surgeons

office.

Hello, Eudaemon, I said. I thought you were dead.

He frowned. Really, he said.

I tried to think of something else to say. How are you keeping? I asked.

Not so hot, he replied. Some damn fool just pushed me over and broke my leg.

I looked at him. He was a little shorter than I remembered, but considerably

more massive; whatever hed been doing over the last twenty-odd years had

invested him with an enormous amount of muscle and flesh. His shoulders, arms

and chest were huge, and his belly sagged over his belt in a bulging fold. Even

his fingers were enormous; my hand would disappear into his, like a child

holding hands with its father. His cheeks were round, like an apple, and his

beard came up almost to the sockets of his eyes. Ive never seen such a thick

neck in all my life. Under all that beard it was hard to see anything of his

face, except that hed developed an exaggerated version of our fathers long,

flat nose. On the inside of his left forearm, almost exactly midway between his

wrist and his elbow there was a suitably large and spectacular scar, the residue

of a severe burn I saw something similar once on the shin of a blacksmith,

whod stumbled while holding a billet of white-hot bronze and ended up kneeling

on it for a brief, agonising moment.

What happened to your arm? I asked.

Cave-in, he replied, in a detached, almost bored voice. Seige operations at

Tyre . Wed dug a shaft under the wall, and we were burning out the gallery

props to collapse it and bring the wall down. Some fool had skimped on the job

and it came in too bloody early. I got buried, and six foot of burning beam

landed on my arm. Of course, I couldnt move, just had to lie there till someone

came back and hauled me out. No fun, he added, with a small, grim smile.

Anyway, how about yourself? I gather you moved back home. How is the old

place?

His tone of voice as he asked was one of forced interest, such as youd use when

asking after the health of a distant and rather disreputable relative.

Not so bad, I replied. It hasnt changed much since your day. Ive tidied it

up, put things in some sort of order.

Mended the hole in the scullery roof?

I nodded. But the store-room door still sticks, I added.

Really? I cant remember. He tried to shift a little, but the pain made him

wince. Really, Euxenus, youre a bloody menace. Havent seen you in twenty-six

years and the first thing you do is cripple me. You always were a clumsy

bugger.

I didnt do it on purpose, I replied, guilty-irritable.

I never said you did, he said. But you never did look where you were going. I

remember that time when we were kids and you dropped that ladder

Eudaemon, I interrupted, youre amazing. We havent seen each other in gods

know how long. I really thought you were dead. Dammit, I thought all our family

was dead. And then suddenly, out of the blue, you come to life again and all you

can say is, Euxenus, you always were a clumsy bugger. Really

Do me a favour, he said. Look, if youre telling me you really didnt know I

was still alive then Ill believe you, though I find that hard to credit. So all

right, youve lost touch with me. Not the same the other way round. Oh, no. Ive

been hearing about you so long youre lucky I dont break your foul neck.

Dammit, if it wasnt for you

I held up my hand. Hold on, I said, youve lost me.

The celebrated Euxenus, he went on. Euxenus the philosopher. Euxenus, the

wisest man I ever knew. Euxenus, without whom none of this would ever have been

possible. I tell you, brother, there were times when for two pins Id have

shaved my beard, changed my name and deserted just so I wouldnt have to hear

any more about wonderful, sun-shines-out-of-his-bum Euxenus. And to cap it all,

he added angrily, as if you havent done enough already, the first thing you do

when finally our paths cross is break my goddamn leg. Figures, he concluded

bitterly. On reflection, if the worst I end up with is a bust leg I reckon Ill

have got off light.

Slow down, will you? I said. Just what exactly am I supposed to have done?

He laughed unpleasantly. Thats bloody rich, that is. Euxenus the Great Sage,

teacher, mentor and living inspiration of the divine Alexander, son of Zeus,

stepson of Philip. For gods sakes, brother, youre one of the most famous men in

the Empire. And, he added with a shrug, Im your kid brother. Wonderful. He

let go a long, measured sigh. Well, he said, by the look of you it hasnt all

been wine and honey-cakes. You look pretty bloody awful, brother, no offence.

Thank you so much, I said.

Just then the surgeon bustled in. He was wearing a fancy dinner gown with red

wine spilt down the front, and as he walked through the door he masked a

cavernous yawn with the back of his hand. I dont know, there was something

about him that didnt inspire confidence.

What the hell was so urgent, he said, that I had to be dragged from my

dinner...?

Hed made a tactical mistake. Hed got just a little bit too close to the bench

my brother was lying on, and before he could finish his sentence, Eudaemon

reached out with his enormous left paw, grabbed the surgeons gown where the

folds hung round his neck, and dragged him to his knees. Sweetly done.

Youre drunk, he said.

The surgeon was too shocked to answer; so would you have been, I reckon, if you

suddenly found yourself kneeling at less than arms length from my brothers

savage, staring eyes. Eudaemon held him there for a count of five, then relaxed

his fingers and let him go. He stood up and backed away a couple of paces.

Are you drunk? I asked.

No, of course not, the surgeon replied.

Youve got booze all down your front, my brother said. If you cant even find

your face when youre sober, you must be a bloody rotten surgeon.

It was an accident, the surgeon said, rather desperately. Look, do you want

me to set your leg or not?

My brother made a soft, growling noise in the back of his throat. Im not

sure, he said. I used to think I was a pretty tough character; I mean, Ive

fought the Persians and the Bactrians and the Medes and the Indians and a whole

lot of other people whose names escape me right now, and they didnt bother me

too much. But Ive got to admit, this clown scares the shit out of me.

Thats enough, the surgeon said. Im going.

Stay where you are.

The unfortunate man froze in mid-step. Id have done the same. My brother had

the perfect parade-ground voice, not so much loud (though it was loud enough) as

densely packed with a lifetime of contempt, weariness and disgust.

Please, the surgeon said, make your mind up. Either you want me to treat you

or you dont.

My brother sighed. Get on with it, he said. And do a proper job, or youll

wish you were never born.

Now, Ive never had a broken bone, so I dont know from personal experience, but

people Ive met whove had bones set say its probably the most intense pain

there is, though women tell me childbirth is worse. Ill admit, the click as the

surgeon put the thing back where it belonged was enough to make me want to throw

up. But Eudaemon didnt make a sound, apart from a tiny grunt, the sort of noise

youd expect from a fieldmouse belching. As for the surgeon, he looked scared to

death. I had the feeling his evening wasnt going quite the way hed planned.

Well, Eudaemon said, after the surgeon had packed up his things and gone,

that wasnt nearly as bad as Id thought it would be.

You dont like doctors, do you? I said.

Whatever makes you say that? Eudaemon replied. True, half of

them are butchers and the other half are frauds, but by and large theyve never

done me any harm. Though Ive always done my best to stay well clear of them,

Ill be honest with you there. Anyway, youd better help me back to my quarters.

And this time, try not to break anything else. I really dont want to have to go

through all that again.

Luckily, Eudaemons quarters werent too far away. He had a place to himself,

smaller than a cowshed but much larger than a clothespress, say, or a beehive.

Inside it was sparse, to put it mildly. Stacked against the wall, his armour

expensive breastplate and helmet, lavishly decorated with enamel that had been

chipped and scraped into worthlessness, a small shield with a large letter A

painted on it, and a pair of battered silver-plated greaves and beside it a

goatskin pack with the hair still on, the strap frayed and repaired with rawhide

cord. There was a plain cord-mattress bed, the type common to all the quarters

in the place, and a folding three-legged stool with a patched rush seat. That

was it.

So this is home, I said, as I lowered him off my shoulders onto the bed.

Of course not, Eudaemon replied. Im not planning on staying here, or at

least I wasnt. Now I guess Ill be stuck here for however long it takes the

bone to knit. Thanks again.

I sat down on the stool and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. All right,

I said. Maybe now youll tell me whats going on. I got this crazy-sounding

letter, apparently from Alexander himself

No apparently about it, Eudaemon interrupted. I know all about your precious

letter, thank you very much. Seems like Ive got you to thank for being elbowed

out of the service.

I shook my head. Dont blame me, I said. First I knew of all this was when a

couple of soldiers turned up outside my house and told me I was going to Asia .

Eudaemon was silent for a moment. Figures, he said. It all sounds a bit like

Alexander arranging things for the best. You know, that mans a miracle. He can

do more damage with a good intention than twenty thousand of the Great Kings

crack guardsmen let loose in a crowded marketplace. He turned his head and

looked at me. From what I gather, youre pretty much the same, though on a

suitably low and primitive level. I dont know; maybe its one of the things

that marks you men of destiny out from the rest of us.

I let go a long, deep sigh and shifted the stool back a few yards. All right,

I said. Now you can start explaining whats behind that and all the other snide

little cracks youve been making ever since I laid eyes on you. And before you

start lashing out and trying to strangle me, youll please observe Ive had the

sense to move out of range.

Good thinking, he replied with mock approval. Obviously a certain rudimentary

tactical ability runs in our family. You really think Id hurt you, my own

brother?

I nodded.

Also, he added, an ability to judge character at a glance. He wriggled a

little, trying to get comfortable, and groaned. You know, youre not the same

man as the one Ive had cluttering up my memory all these years. At least, he

added with a sigh, I guess you were both one and the same person, but youve

sort of grown apart, like we have. Figures; my version of you has been all round

the world with me, seen things youll never see if you live to be a hundred and

twelve.

I nodded. Which of us do you prefer? I said.

He thought about that. Hard to say, he replied. I mean, my versions a right

bastard, done me no end of harm over the years. But he never went so far as to

bust my leg.

Tell me, I said, about this Euxenus of yours.

All right, he said. Draw up a seat, Ill tell you all about him.

Id actually shifted the stool an inch or two before I saw it. No thanks, I

said. What did you call it? Basic tactical ability?

Rudimentary was the word I used. Sounds better. Longer. He shrugged, then

regretted it as a spike of pain made him shudder. Please yourself, then, and

stay where you are. This Euxenus I know is an arrogant, thoughtless,

self-centred jerk who doesnt give a stuff about anybody except himself not

really bothered about himself, even, or at least not in the way most people are.

Doesnt really care about money or position or pleasure or even comfort. Hes

the sort of cold, dead bugger who cares about ideas, not people. Dangerous sort,

that; they tend to be horribly persuasive, people listen to them and get all

fired up with these ideas of theirs. They attract disciples, like honey attracts

wasps. Give one of these arseholes a disciple or two and he can burn down

cities.

Or found them, I added with a smile.

Same difference, he said. You need the same mentality for both. Now me, he

went on. Ive been a soldier all my adult life

Yes, I interrupted again. What about that? Last I knew, you were hanging

round that man what was his name? The one who made you read the book about the

bees.

Eudaemon looked at me, then burst out laughing. Bias, he said.

And the book was Aeneas the Tactician. Now there were two more

inspirers-of-disciples. If I had my way, the whole lot of youd be rounded up

like sheep and strangled with your own intestines.

Probably wise, I admitted. Go on. You were a sort of apprentice to the man

Bias.

Eudaemon sighed. We went to join the service of the King of Macedon, he said.

Or at least, I did. Id saved up a bit of money thirty drachmas, I think it

was to pay my passage and travelling expenses to get there and buy some extra

kit, and Bias told me hed make the necessary arrangements for us both, so I

gave him the money and I never saw him again; at least, not for years. But by

the time I twigged, of course, I was on board this ship going up the coast, and

without so much as a dud copper obol to pay for my fare. The master wasnt at

all pleased, as you can imagine.

How far had you got? I asked.

Bias told us both hed be joining the ship at Oropus why he said that and why

we believed him I have no idea. Anyway, there we were at Oropus, and no sign; so

that bastard of a ships captain slung me out, kept my sword and spear for

payment, which was a total rip-off, and sailed away. I had a breastplate, a

helmet, shield and a pair of greaves (all second-hand, and the greaves didnt

fit worth a toss) but no weapons and no money; so after a day or two of moping

about in Oropus getting laughed at when I went looking for work I did the

sensible thing, sold the rest of my gear for what I could get secondhand

armour was a real drug on the market back then, of course, because of all the

kit taken off dead people after battles; youd be amazed how cheap people let

their armour go for when theyre dead and then bummed around a bit more trying

to decide what to do.

Couldnt bring myself to slink back home; nobody wanted to hire me as a

mercenary soldier, or anything else much, at that. Finally I decided Id had

enough of sitting in the shade eating my capital, so I set off to walk to

Macedon. Turned out to be far less hassle than I thought itd be straight

roads all the way, not much bother. Didnt have much to eat, of course, or

anywhere to sleep, but theres always a wall or a tree when you want one, and it

toughened me up, got me used to long marches, short rations and sore feet.

Arrived at Pella , found Philip wasnt there, off beating the crap out of the

Illyrians or some such improbable race; but they were hiring men for General

Parmenio and the home guard, werent all that fussed about who they took. I

pretended I was a veteran of gods know how many campaigns made half of em up,

and nobody knew the difference so they took me on, issued me with some kit and

the mighty sarissa; now theres an evil device if ever there was one. Ill tell

you about it some time if I can be bothered. Anyway, thats how I came to be a

soldier; and I was chugging along quite nicely, worked my way up to junior

captain of auxiliary infantry, thought of myself as more of a Macedonian than

Id ever been an Athenian, when suddenly King Philip dies and King Alexander

takes over, and somehow gods know how word reaches him that Captain Eudaemon

is the brother of his old schoolmaster, Euxenus of Athens. At which point,

Eudaemon said, with a dreadful scowl, my life stopped being a slow but steady

progress towards self-improvement and became a steaming lake of shit. Thanks to

you, he added, with a nod.

Me?

You. He shook his head. Of course, youd buggered off by then, off to Olbia

with your happy band of idealists. And of course youd left behind this amazing

impression in the mind of young King Alexander. Gods know what it was you said

to him when you had that long, inspirational chat under the fig-tree at Mieza

I swear to you, I interrupted, I cant remember anything like that. He

mentioned it in his letter, but it was news to me, really. I think he was mixing

me up with someone else.

Balls, Eudaemon replied. Youve just forgotten, obviously. I know it

happened, because King Alexander told me so himself, and a man like me always

believes what his commanding officer tells him; so youre wrong and hes right.

In any case, he went on, I refuse to believe that anybody could ever get you

confused with a brilliant thinker or a silver-tongued orator. Itd be like

confusing a duck with an ox. So if it wasnt somebody else, it must have been

you. Thats what we call logic, he concluded cheerfully, in the army.

I shrugged. All right, I said, maybe I did say something that took root in

Alexanders mind, I dont know. Anythings possible. But that doesnt explain

how being my brother ruined your life.

Eudaemon yawned and stretched, until the movement jarred something and he

winced. Isnt there anything to drink in this rat-hole? he said querulously.

My throats dry as shield-leather.

I cant see anything, I replied.

Well, in that case, Eudaemon said, one of us is going to have to trot down to

the mess and get a jar of service-issue red. Which one of us is best suited to

the task, I ask myself?

*

Basically (Eudaemon told me, after Id come back with the jar and two cups) it

was gratitude, or respect; thats what screwed up my life. If youd never been

born, or youd died before you were weaned, or if youd managed to find yourself

a proper job when you were a kid instead of preying off the gullibility of the

feeble-minded and foreigners, everything would have been just fine. When

Alexander became King, hed have launched his expedition and Id have gone along

as Captain of Auxiliaries, done my bit for the cause, earned my pay and got my

share of the plunder, probably by now Id be a Colonel of Auxiliaries, maybe

even sub-prefect of a province, with a bunch of secretaries to do my work for me

and nothing to do all day but lie on my back boozing and making myself obnoxious

to the local women. All by my own unaided efforts, please note; not bad for a

man who walked into Macedon in a pair of raggety sandals and a third-hand tunic.

Instead, I had to be your brother. It wasnt my fault, it was something I had

absolutely no say in, but I got dumped on all the same. I hate things like that.

I was sitting outside the mess hall playing draughts, I remember, when they came

looking for me. Staff bastards, they were, gilded belt-buckles and cream-white

tunics, sprigs of your full-blood Macedonian nobility; anyway, they told me

Alexander wanted to see me immediately, so off I went, wondering what the hell

it was I was supposed to have done, and whether I was going to make it back to

my tent alive.

Needless to say, Id never actually met him before. Oh, seen him, yes;

everybodys seen him, at a parade or a march-past or a public occasion. Goes

without saying, of course, that the Alexander you see from a distance over some

other blokes head is quite different from the man you sit and talk to. Your

public Alexander; well, youd have to be a pretty bloody cold fish not to be in

love with him. The looks, the poise, the style, the speaking voice, the

instinctive air of command youd follow him to the ends of the earth, and a

hell of a lot of men have done. Fair play to them. That Alexanders a man who

merits following. Thats as close as nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a

thousand ever get, and thats as close as you want to get, because when a mans

as well-nigh perfect as your public Alexander is, anything further you find out

about him can only be a disappointment, a smudge across the illusion, and who

wants to serve a man he knows is less than perfect? I tell you, Euxenus, if you

hadnt made me meet Alexander Id be as happy as a mule in the bean-helm

believing he was perfect; you know, like worth fighting and dying for, worth

spending your whole life dragging up dusty mountain roads with a gut full of

dysentery for. But no; I have to meet the real Alexander, I have to get to know

what hes really like. Lucky me.

So; they keep me hanging about in this dismal little courtyard for most of the

evening, and Im just nodding off and trying to find some way to get comfortable

on a hard stone bench when some assistant deputy to the deputy assistant

secretary comes out and says, The King will see you now. So I go in, and there

he is, sitting on the step in front of the throne, yapping away while some old

bugger scribbles down everything he says. And part of mes saying, Whats wrong

with you, you fool? You havent done anything wrong, so whats there to be

afraid of? And the other parts saying, Well, actually, if you care to consult

the records youll find Ive done any one of a dozen things thatll get me

dismissed from the service according to regulations, and one or two that just

dont bear thinking about.. . I am not, in short, the happiest of men at that

particular moment. Looking back, of course, I realise its my soldiers highly

developed sense of the presence of mortal danger; and what the fucks the use of

a hair-trigger instinct if you dont listen to it?

So I stand there, to attention Im telling you, wild dogs could have eaten my

feet and I wouldnt have shifted without being told At ease until hes done

with the letter hes dictating and notices me, like as if a six-foot man in

armours difficult to spot in a room that size.

Captain Eudaemon, he says, at ease, please. Sit down.Thank you for coming.

You know another thing I hate? Its when a superior officer talks to you like

youre the lord mayor or the Persian ambassador or something. You dont know

what to do. If you carry on being all regulation and by-the-drill-manual, it

looks like youre being rude. But if you say, Thanks, dont mind if I do, and

flop down in a couch with your feet up on the table, you can bet the next thing

youll be hearing is the adjutant reading out the charges. Anyhow, I sit down,

as if on a big row of six-inch spikes, and wait for him to say something.

Which he proceeds to do. He says that of all the remarkable men hes been

privileged to meet (or some such crap) Euxenus of Athens had done more to shape

his thinking on the critical issues that really count than anyone else alive or

dead, and that he owes said Euxenus more than he can possibly ever repay. Im

sitting there thinking, Well, thatd be fine if I knew who this Euxenus is, when

it hits me like the roof caving in, hes talking about my brother Euxenus. Not

to put too fine a point on it, you. But this is so far-fetched, I have to

interrupt and check it out.

Excuse me, sir, I say, but may I just ask; you mean Euxenus son of

Eutychides? My brother?

Of course, he says, frowning a little as if he doesnt like my tone of voice.

Im not ashamed to say it, Captain, that mans been more than just a mentor to

me, hes been . . . And he stops, because mentors exactly the word he wants to

use, but he cant because hes used it already. When the history of these times

is written down, Alexander says, people will begin to realise just how

important a man he was, the kind of extraordinary things he achieved.

Sir, I say.

Which is why, he goes on, I want to honour what hes done for me by doing

something for you. You see, he says, I know the sort of man he is, he doesnt

care for money or position or rubbish like that

(He said that? I interrupted.

His exact words, my brother replied.

Hellfire, I said. All right, carry on.)

Rubbish like that, he says. How can you insult with money the sort of man who

thinks nothing of abandoning all his worldly wealth and ties just to accept the

position of a lowly tutor, and then rejects all suggestions of reward from his

patron in order to lead a colony to the ends of the earth? Id be ashamed, my

friend, to offer money to such a man. Itd be a betrayal.

Wisely, I didnt say anything to that; just carried on sitting there like I had

a twelve-foot lance up my arse. Actually I was thinking, maybe Euxenus was this

blokes tutor, thats how come he learned to be so incredibly goddamned pompous.

I mean to say, I could see him sitting there listening to himself. Not a pretty

sight, brother, I assure you.

So, he goes on, since I cant reward him in person, the least I can do is

extend my favour to his brother, dont you think? And Im keeping very still

and not saying that if he thought like that, then maybe itd have been a nice

gesture not to have wiped out most of our bloody family at Ghaeronea yes, I

heard about that; these things happen, you know? And he sort of smiles and says,

You know, Eudaemon, you and I are very much alike, I think.

Well, this one really gets past me. Sir, I say, and I think I was putting it

mildly.

Both of us, he goes on, have seen our path in life; our way is service, my

friend, service to something that goes beyond whats here and now. We arent men

of the moment, but of all time. Would you agree?

Sir, I say.

He nods, as if Ive just said something really clever. So I know, he goes on,

that the best reward I can give you is a chance to serve in the noblest, most

productive way you can; and that, of course, is where your brothers teaching

comes in yet again. Im sure youre familiar with his theoretical work on the

art of war, with particular references to siegecraft.

Sir, I say.

Brilliantly innovative, he goes on. Quite wonderful, how a man without a

conventional military background can have such insights.

(Youll remember, by the way, that all this stuffs being spouted at me by this

kid; hes what, just turned twenty years old? And your most deadly boring old

farts in Assembly were never as turgid as this. Credit where its due, brother,

clearly you taught him everything he knows about the effective use of words.)

When we march into Asia, he goes on, I intend to take with me a siege train

organised and equipped in line with Euxenus principles of static warfare,

incorporating all the advances hes developed in this aspect of military

science. And I want you, Eudaemon, to be part of this. After all, you must be

more familiar with his approach than anybody else in the service hes your

brother, after all, itd be the next best thing to having him there in person.

So Id like to make you a formal offer of the position of Colonel of Engineers,

with direct command of counter-insurgency operations.

Well now I thought, as I was marched out of there by some secretary; not so bad

after all, as the man said when he shot an arrow at a wolf, missed and hit his

wifes mother. Obviously young King Alexander is a very strange man indeed, but

Colonel of Engineers, at my age, and a job thats practically staff, whatever

way you slice it, that cant be anything but a piece of the good stuff. Of

course, I was really puzzled by all this talk of Euxenus of Athens and his

amazing contributions to the art of war (Me too, I pointed out.)

but being a practical sort (Eudaemon went on) I put all that out of my mind

and went on a colossal piss-up to celebrate, the way any rational man would.

Next morning, feeling a bit fragile and frayed round the edges, I handed over my

company to my replacement in the auxiliaries and reported to the Chief

Engineers office.

I knew as soon as I walked in the door that he wasnt pleased to see me. He had

that face on that shows you heres a bloke whos getting on with his job, doing

his best, when the bloody brass reach down from on high and dump some irrelevant

shit on him that hes got to pretend he likes while he works out how to stop it

getting in the way of the smooth running of his department.

So youre Eudaemon. he said.

Sir, I replied.

Right, he said. The bee man.

This time, I really did feel like Id been woken up in the middle of a

particularly crazy dream. Excuse me, sir, I said, but what did you just say?

Youre the man whos going to be in charge of the bees, he said, and then he

grinned at me. I didnt like that. Well, he went on, all I can say is, the

very best of luck. Just try to keep the horrible things from stinging anybody.

Well now, brother, I hope youre feeling really ashamed of yourself, because

your sins have finally bloody well found you out; and if you hadnt broken my

leg, Id be breaking your bastard neck right now, so maybe you werent such a

fool after all. When I reported to my duty assignment a few minutes later, I

realised exactly what youd done. Youd taken that stuff about the bees out of

Aeneas the Tactician, and youd passed it off as your own damn idea; and it had

so impressed that clown Alexander (Bees?

Chucking hives of bees down mineshafts to chase out enemy sappers. And to

think; it was me first told you about it

I swear to you, I broke in, on my sons grave, I never did anything of the

sort.

Alexander said you did. Well, he amended, you know what I mean. He said it

was your idea.

Oh, sure, I replied angrily. And he said I was his mentor and the wisest man

he ever met. On that basis, youre going to take his word over mine?

Eudaemon looked at me for a moment. Id like to believe you, he said, but I

know you too well. A man who earns his living with a tame snake in a wine-jar

isnt going to be fussy about attributing his sources. And if were going to get

along, I suggest you stop lying to me. It makes me angry, being lied to.)

Anyway (Eudaemon continued) theres your answer. You asked me what youd done to

screw up my life, and Ive told you. Because of you I went from being a

successful, competent professional soldier and in the twinkling of an eye I

became the bee man. And all I can say about that, dear brother, is thank you.

Thank you ever so fucking much.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A ll right, I said, I can see how youve got hold of this idea that your

getting this post in the engineers is somehow my responsibility. Thats still

quite a way from screwed up your life, though.

He scowled at me. You just dont know, he said. You really havent got a

clue. The question is, have I got the patience and energy to tell you?

I shrugged. Please yourself, I said. Obviously, Im dying to hear what youve

been up to all these years, but if youre holding some sort of irrational

grudge

Irrational grudge, he repeated, shifting his weight slightly to ease the

pain in his broken leg. You know, itd be easier if I had a walking-stick. A

bit of broken spear-shaft would do. Anything long enough to reach over to where

youre sitting so I could smash your stupid face. Listen, Euxenus, I havent got

an irrational grudge, as you so charmingly put it. Its an entirely rational

grudge, and the thought that by the time Im up and about again, youll be

safely away in Sog-bloody-diana, where I wont be able to get at you, is enough

to make me

I sighed. All right, I said. Tell me all about it. Maybe talking about itll

calm you down.

Wouldnt count on it, brother, he yawned, and I noticed that he was missing

two front teeth. Still, I suppose its only right and proper you know what

youve done. Then, if youve got even a tiny shred of decency left in you,

youll piss off and hang yourself, and save me a job.

Consider, dear brother (Eudaemon said) the life of the bee. Now, youre the

philosopher, and I wouldnt presume to teach you your trade, if you can call it

that; but havent you ever stopped to think that, apart from minor details like

size and flying ability, man and bee are as close as well, brothers? To judge

by that dumb look on your face, obviously you havent, so Ill explain it to

you.

Men build. So do bees. Men live in communities. So do bees. Ideally, men work

together to accomplish the common goal, the good of the many, the well-being of

the commonwealth. So do bees. Men sometimes make the ultimate sacrifice and give

their lives for their home and family. So do bees. Men have territories, and

like to beat the shit out of invaders and interlopers. So do bees. Human

societies have the workers at the bottom, the better sort of people in the

middle and the big boss at the top. So do bees. Truth is, for as long as theres

been cities, people have been trying to live as much like bees as they can

possibly manage; the order, the dedication, the diligence, the selflessness, not

to mention the annihilation of individual liberty and the blind intolerance of

every other living thing. So far at least, humans cant fly and their leaders

arent females; apart from that, all that separates man and bee is a trivial

matter of scale; and like they say, size isnt everything.

Basically, I dont like bees; never have, certainly never will. Partly its

because the buzzing sets my teeth on edge and I dont like getting stung, but

its not just that, by any means. What really gets to me, I think, is this

depressing resemblance between them and me. Its like what Dad used to say to us

when we were kids and he was dragging us off to be apprentices; work hard, study

carefully, observe, learn, one day you could be just like him. Well, I look at

Brother Bee, with his smart uniform and his chain of command and his manifest

destiny and his regulation spear jammed up his arse, and I see me. Then, if Im

quick enough, I tread on him.

My first day as Colonel of Bees, a sergeant took me over to an enclosure on the

far side of the camp, where nobody ever seemed to go, and introduced me to my

new command. There were something like ten million of them, divided into

twenty-five hives, each under the command of a queen who, presumably, reported

directly to me. The first thing they did was chase me three times round the

enclosure and sting me on the legs. It was then I discovered, rather to my

disgust, that Im allergic to bee-stings.

I should have known, of course. You may remember, when we were kids I think I

was about eight or nine at the time one summer I got stung by a bee just under

my chin, and the whole of my neck swelled up like a wineskin and for about a

week everybody was certain I was going to die. Seems Im one of those people who

can get really seriously ill from bee-venom, because by the start of my second

day as Colonel of Bees I was so badly crippled up I could only just crawl out of

bed far enough to fall on the floor and lie there on my face.

Well, for two pins Id have packed it in then and there, and so what if it meant

the end of my career with the Macedonian army? But before I was well enough to

crawl to His Majestys pavilion and turn in my command, my sergeant showed up

with a couple of Scythians in tow. Really evil-looking types they were well,

youd know all about them and I was just about to ask the sergeant what the

hell he thought he was doing filling my quarters with bloodthirsty cannibals

when he said that these Scythians were experts in everything to do with bees,

including how to deal with a bad reaction to getting stung.

To cut a long story short, these Scythians gave me a big jar of stuff to put on

the stings which drew the poison out before it could do me any real harm, and

another jar of a different kind of stuff to stop them coming anywhere near me in

the first place, and both of these worked fine, believe it or not, though the

smell was something else. Itd have been just fine if theyd left it at that,

but they didnt.

Oh, did I mention that apart from making me swell up like that, the bee-stings

were also quite amazingly painful? Well, they were. Every bit of me seemed to

hurt like I had bits of sharp gravel trapped inside my joints, and next day I

mentioned this to those two wise Scythians, who looked at each other and nodded.

We can help you there, they said.

I was so impressed with the other stuff theyd given me that Id have tried

anything they chose to recommend without a second thought. But Ill say this for

them, they did try to warn me.

These leaves, they said, are a great medicine among our people. When were

sad or unhappy, we throw a few handfuls of them onto the campfire, and a few

minutes later were all dancing and singing and laughing, as if we hadnt got a

care in the world. Its a bit like being very drunk, they went on, except that

weve noticed before now that from time to time a man will get so happy because

of the smoke that hell trip over as he dances round the fire and fall into it,

and unless his friends pull him out hell just stay there, lying quite happily

burning to death. The magic smoke, you see, makes you feel no pain; and thats

why were a bit wary of giving it to foreigners who arent used to it. Youd be

amazed, they went on, how effective it is. A man can lose his wife and see his

children die before his eyes, and still hell feel no pain, just sit there

grinning and muttering happily to himself. So be careful with it, thats all

were saying. A man who doesnt feel any pain at all can be a real danger to

himself and other people.

All right, I said. Point taken. Just so long as it takes away the pain of the

bee-stings, itll do me just fine. So they gave me a big jar of these leaves,

and as soon as theyd gone I pitched a handful on the fire and waited to see

what would happen.

Brother, it was amazing. After a few minutes, all the pain in my joints was

gone; in fact, I didnt seem to have a body at all. In fact it reminded me a lot

of Plato (You read Plato? I asked.

Eudaemon frowned. Yeah, well, he said. A bloke I served with had a copy once.

Sometimes it gets so boring on campaign youll read any bloody thing. And it

made a welcome change from Produce of Attica on the necks of wine-jars.)

That bit in Plato where he talks about the perfect or ideal state of being,

where weve purged ourselves of the body and all its worldly concerns and we

exist as creatures of pure thought, which I guess is what you philosophers

reckon is a good time. A load of crap, obviously, when you stop and think about

it; but after Id been breathing in that smoke for a bit, thats just how I

felt, and in a strange way I could see the attraction. Anyway, it sorted out the

bee-stings, and an hour or so later the effects wore off and I gradually came

back to normal. Of course the stings started hurting again after that, but not

so much, because the other stuff was doing its job; at least I could get about,

and I could walk from my quarters to the mess hall without bursting into tears.

Now that I had a way of at least surviving, I knuckled down and started learning

about bees. And believe me, theres a lot to learn. Luckily, I had those two

Scythians to teach me; I had a word with their commanding officer and got them

seconded to my command. They were happy enough; it got them out of serious

soldiering, and I upped their pay a bit, too; anything to keep them sweet and

take the load off me.

Anyway, they taught me how to make and repair beehives, either by sewing

together tree-bark or weaving osiers, and smearing clay in the cracks to keep

the little buggers nice and warm. Youve got to be particular about what kind of

bark you use, mind; some kinds of tree dont agree with them at all, like yew or

crab-apple. They taught me which kinds of leaves and plants you need to gather

and dump about the place to keep them sweet and make sure they keep coming back;

balsam, saffron and honeywort really draw them in, which only shows theres no

accounting for tastes. Even more important, they taught me how to sort them out

when they get all stroppy and start swarming all you do is, you scoop up a big

handful of dust and throw it over the swarm, and they calm down just like that.

Amazing, the first time you see it. And they showed me how you recognise the

queen by her size, and how you pull her wings off to stop her flying away and

leaving the hive; a dirty trick, if you ask me, but thats war for you.

They made me this smock thing, with a big hat and a veil to go with it, and that

helped keep the bastards from stinging me to death; but I still got stung in

spite of all the fancy dress, whereas they never got stung at all. So I asked

them about it and they said, No, the bees left them alone because they

understood each other. After a while, they said, you learn how to communicate

with bees, on a very basic level, of course. Its all to do with the way you

move, they said; if youre relaxed and calm and dont make sudden movements or

anything like that, they stop seeing you as a threat and quit stinging you. Of

course, I reckoned that was all a load of cock; but bugger me if it wasnt true,

and gradually it became second nature to me. They stopped bothering me, took no

notice of me at all, even when I was up to my wrists in them. I promise you,

itd make you swear off drink for life to watch me groping about inside a

seething mass of bees, with them crawling right up my arms and all over my face,

and never getting stung once.

So; thanks to extreme dedication and diligence on my part, Id gone from being

more or less completely ignorant about bees to the point where I could probably

keep a household in honey and beeswax. Pretty impressive, dont you think?

Except that that wasnt the point. King Alexander didnt want honey and beeswax;

he wanted a secret weapon thatd cut a swathe through the great walled cities of

Asia . On that score, my two Scythian friends werent any use to me. Nobody was.

Even if Aeneas the Tactician were still alive (he may be, for all I know, though

I hope for his sake that he isnt, just in case he runs into me some dark night)

he wouldnt have been able to help me, for the simple reason that neither he nor

anybody else had ever done anything of the sort before. If Alexander was to have

his secret weapon, I was the one who was going to have to figure out how to make

it work.

Youre mad, said Anacharsis, the elder and gabbier of the two Scythians, when

I broke the news to him. It cant be done.

Oh, I said. Why not?

He rolled his eyes. Theyre good at that, Scythians. Well, he said, for a

start, the King wants you to move the bees, yes?

More than just move them, I replied. Wherever the army goes, they go too.

Out of the question, Anacharsis said. If you load the hives onto a cart,

youll lose the bees. Theyll fly out, and when they return the hive wont be

there any more. They wont be able to find it.

I thought for a moment. All right, I said. Howd it be if we sealed the hives

up with wax or mud while theyre in transit?

He shook his head. Theyll die, he replied. Either theyll fight among

themselves and kill each other, or theyll just curl up and go to sleep. Forget

it.

I rubbed my cheeks with the palms of my hands. Helps me concentrate. All

right, I said, I take your point. But weve got to find a way round it,

somehow or other. Put that on one side for now; any other problems?

He nodded. Feeding them, he said. If you let them out to gather pollen,

theyll fly away. Now suppose you find some way of keeping them in the hive

without killing them; theyll just starve to death instead.

My head was beginning to hurt. Honey, I said. We buy up all the honey we can

lay our hands on and feed them on that. Moneys not a problem, remember.

He sighed. This is ridiculous, he said. Bees are meant to make honey, not

consume it. The whole ideas unnatural.

Agreed, I said. But were lumbered with it, so stop being so damned negative

and help me find a solution, unless you want to find yourself reassigned to a

suicide squad come the first battle.

Then his mate Bobas, who usually never said a word from one new moon to the

next, lifted his head off his chest and looked at us both. Siege towers, he

said.

We waited for him to enlarge on this oracular statement, but he didnt oblige. I

shook my head. How about Id started, when Anacharsis grabbed my arm.

Hes right, he said joyfully. Do you know, thats brilliant. Exactly what we

need.

I scratched the back of my head. Could one of you explain it to me? I said.

Im lost.

Anacharsis looked at me as if I were feeble-minded. Siege towers, he repeated.

You know, the portable scaffoldings with wheels they use to attack walls and

towers.

I know what a siege tower is, thank you very I broke off. Id seen the light.

Just like the man said, it was brilliant.

Now you, dear brother, have spent your life skulking about in well-fortified

cities or following a plough, so I dont imagine youre all that familiar with

siege towers and how theyre made. Basically its a platform perched right up

high on a scaffolding tower, all resting on a wagon-bed with two pairs of small,

very solid wheels sticking out of the corners. The idea is, the top of the

platforms level with the top of the battlements of the city you happen to be

picking a fight with at that particular moment. The assault party stands on the

platform and a whole bunch of other guys push this contraption tight up against

the wall.

Now then; obviously the things got to be made on site since no two city walls

are the same height and if youre too high or too low well, forget it. But some

of the components are interchangeable, one-size-fits-all sort of thing; for

example, the big wicker shields they hang on the front and sides to keep the

enemy arrows off the assault party. Actually, they arent worth a light when you

come down to it, but theres one very special thing about them I might not have

mentioned yet. Theyre made of either hard bark or thick osiers woven together

with a very fine weave, which makes them strong enough without being too heavy.

In practice, they make the weave so fine that nothing gets past or through,

except an arrow at point-blank range. Theyre certainly bee-proof. And theyre

big. Just what the doctor ordered. Cut em up and build whats effectively an

enormous hive, one with enough space for the little bastards to fly about inside

and keep from going nuts or dying of boredom. We made them the same length as

the bed of a great big long wagon, with a trapdoor in the side so we could get

in and out.

Simple idea. The bees stay in this hutch contrivance, which bounces along on a

wagon with the rest of the siege train. A couple of times a day, someone climbs

in to keep the feeders topped up with honey and change the leaves and foliage,

make sure theyre all right. And there you have it. Mobile beehives thatll go

wherever you can take a long wagon and a dirty great long train of mules.

Simple, yes?

Simple idea, hideously complicated to build in real life. We ended up tying the

parts together with fine-filament rope, the way they make the hulls of ships in

Egypt . It worked, is all I can say. It stayed in one piece and it kept the bees

happy, or at least not as mad as theyd have been cooped up in a closed hive. We

loaded it onto a wagon bed and took it for a twelve-mile hike just to test it,

and it survived and so did we, and so did the bees.

Crazy, Anacharsis said, as we brought it back into the camp.

Maybe, I replied. But it works.

So far, he answered gloomily. Were going to look real idiots if these things

fall apart somewhere in the mountains of Ecbatana and all the bees fly away.

True, I conceded. But at least well have lived that long. And besides,

remember what it is the Kings got in mind for us to do. Chances are well all

have been cut into rashers by the Persians long before we get to Ecbatana , so

nobodyll ever know.

Does that sound unduly pessimistic to you, brother? Well, youve got the

wonderful advantage of hindsight. You know that in spite of the odds and some

truly shameful acts of bad soldiering, King Alexander pretty well strolled

through Asia , with the Persians either running away or impaling themselves on

our spear-points like moths buzzing burning lamp-wicks. Now thats not how it

was either, but I dont suppose Ill ever convince you of that, because all you

know of the story is the outcome. You know we won, and we won easily, so as far

as youre concerned there cant have been anything to it.

But I tell you, brother, those weeks when we were getting ready to set off, the

only way we kept from going crazy with fear was by singlemindedly thinking

about something else. We knew that what we were about to try to do was utterly

impossible. We knew we were probably all going to be dead inside three months.

Believe me, if Id thought Id still be lugging around those idiotic bee-hutches

ten years later, Id never have dreamed of trying something so dumb; Id have

applied my mmd and thought of a better system. As it was, I didnt care all that

much. The hutch idea was, as they say, good enough for government work, so

thats what we did. And if ever I started worrying about it, I had those

excellent Scythian leaves to take the pain away. Wonderful medicine, that; cured

you of life, which at times is even more painful than bee-stings.

Now, according to King Alexander, dear brother, youre the worlds greatest

living authority on military history, so obviously you dont have to be told

about the Persian war by a mere eyewitness.You know it all already. In fact, you

ought to be telling me.

Actually, to be straight with you, I wouldnt recommend that you put a lot of

faith in my testimony even if you werent a mighty historian. Truth to tell, I

was out of it a lot of the time, in more senses than one. While the King and the

fighting army were off tanning the hides of the Persians, we were plodding along

with the siege train or standing about waiting while the engineers slowly and

painfully dismantled the wagons to get them through some narrow mountain pass or

other, then put them slowly and painfully back together again. We spent hours

like that, watching other people work, with the convoy of mules and wagons

stretched out behind us, nothing to do but listen to the soft chink of distant

hammers driving out axle pins. It was boring, and boredom is a very acute form

of pain, let me assure you. Fortunately, I had plenty of medicine; so it wont

come as too much of a surprise when I tell you that I havent a clue about a lot

of the places we went to, what they looked like, whether the houses were

flat-roofed or thatched, whether they kept sheep or goats, the names of the

rivers and the location of the fords, where the snow-line was, how many days it

took to get from one particular poxy little village to another. You can read all

about it in one of the books, you dont need me to tell you. So I wont. Now I

could tell you some pretty damn fascinating stories about some of the things I

did see and some of the people I spoke to, often for hours at a time, but you

see, they werent real, and therefore of only incidental interest to a dedicated

historian like yourself. In a way, of course, Im sorry I missed the show; but

thats me all over. I was always the kid who was so excited at the prospect of

going to the theatre that he lay awake all through the night before and then

fell asleep immediately the play started.

Yes, brother, thats soldiering for you; well, partly. Actually theres more to

it than that. Theres also the long days in the murderous heat, when youre

manhandling the baggage over trails where the wagons cant go, in your

breastplate and helmet (because theres a one-in-ten-thousand chance that there

might be renegade Hyrcanian infantry units hiding out in the hills, and you know

that the one time you dont wear your armour is the time theyll attack), with

the sweat trickling off your forehead into your eyes, no skin on your palms

because of hauling on dry papyrus cables with sweaty hands, your head pounding

from the cruel brightness of the sun and then, just when you reckon youre

about done, the load gets wedged fast between two rocks, or an axle pin shears

or a mule refuses to budge or some fool gets his leg trapped under a fallen

boulder or an A-frame pops its dowels or some other bloody thing goes wrong;

nobody else is going to fix it but you, and you arent going anywhere till it

gets fixed, so although youre so weary you cant stand straight, let alone

think, youve got to force yourself back into problem-solving mode, find that

last scrap of energy you were saving for taking your boots off, and deal with

it, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Soldiering is about climbing for two days up the only pass through the tallest

mountains youve ever seen in your life, only to find that youve reached a

defile so narrow you cant get the hutches through even if you turn them on

their side, so youve either got to unship the pickaxes and widen the bugger,

chip by bone-jarring chip, or trudge back down the way you came and go the extra

seventy miles south thatll take you round the mountains, even though it means

losing contact with the rest of the column. Soldiering is about breaking open

the five jars of flour that are going to have to last you the three days itll

take to get down the mountain, only to find theres been a cock-up somewhere in

Supply, and your five jars of flour are in fact three jars of lamp-oil and two

jars of shield-dubbin. Soldiering is getting to the top of the next lot of

mountains and looking down to where there should be a big, wide river where the

barges are waiting to carry you the next sixty miles; but not only are there no

barges, theres no damn river. Soldiering is furious arguments with some other

poor bastard just like you over who was supposed to have checked with

Intelligence that the barges were going to be there, and finding out that really

it was your fault, and the whole miserable mess is your responsibility, nobody

elses. Soldiering is dysentery, unexplained fevers that you simply havent got

time to indulge, wrenched muscles you ignore until youre so used to the pain

you dont notice it any more; its men under your command having their hands

torn off by badly secured loads shifting on the crane, or falling off narrow

tracks down steep gullies and breaking their backs, and you have to leave them

and keep going on, because if you stay and wait for them to die, the water or

the barley for the mules is going to run out, and everybodys going to be in

trouble.

Oddly enough, you historians tend to skip over most everything that makes

soldiering what it is, in favour of battles and plans of campaign and a whole

lot of other stuff that happens on the edges of soldiering its as if you

really believe that any one man, one general, is in control of the things that

happen to an army as it blunders and lurches along from one wretched,

inconvenient foul-up to the next, or that battles turn out the way they do

because two great men in red cloaks sit down to play a game of draughts with the

bodies and lives of a hundred thousand people. Obviously you dont believe

anything of the sort, because nobody that gullible ever learned to read, let

alone write a book; and yet you put it down in the scroll, and people whove

been soldiers and know what it was really like will listen to your book being

read and nod their heads, maybe muttering to the man sitting next to them,

Actually, I was on that campaign; Id forgotten all about that skirmish till he

mentioned it just now. You know, youre almost as bad as Homer and the poets

for not mentioning the painfully obvious. I suppose its some sort of literary

convention, like the way that throughout a hundred thousand verses of the Iliad,

with all the fighting and speechmaking and roaring about the place in chariots,

nobody ever needs to stop what theyre doing to go for a pee.

Sorry, brother, am I boring you?

Thats all right, then. I saw you yawn, and I thought you might be getting

bored. Just in case youre only being polite, Ill tell you about something

truly interesting, shall I?

Theres a city called Tyre youve heard of it? Oh, good. Im not surprised;

after all, its one of the biggest cities in the world, maybe the most important

seaport and trading centre in Asia . This would be what, two years after we

left Greece ? Something like that. King Alexander had resolved to capture

Phoenicia , to get hold of the Persian fleet and so secure his seaborne

supply-lines, or some such thoroughly intelligent plan. Anyway, it was winter

and in Syria , in winter, it rains. Believe me, it rains. Ive seen wonders all

right, on these travels of mine; staggering rock formations and vast rivers and

amazing animals and people, but for someone like me, coming from Attica where it

rains twice a year, just about enough to fill a small cup, that Syrian rain was

the most amazing sight of all. Have you ever been soaked to the skin by rain,

brother? Well, its an experience. It gets in your eyes and your mouth, it

trickles down between your neck and the rim of your breastplate, it turns the

dust to oily black mud that sticks to your boots and makes your feet so heavy

its unbearable to lift them. Well, while we were struggling through all that,

Alexander was picking a rather genteel fight with the city fathers of Tyre , in

the hope of making a pretext that would allow him to attack the city with

honour.

Basically, Alexander wanted to find a way of not attacking Tyre . It was far too

big and far too well defended to take by storm, and if we tried to lay siege to

it wed starve to death long before they did, with their ships unloading a

thousand tons of grain a day into the town granaries. So he was trying to do

what his father had done so well: scare them into giving up without a fight. All

he really needed was a token of submission, nothing much; merely entering the

city would do, at a pinch. So he wrote to the governing council to tell them he

was proposing to visit the temple of Melkarth , of which hed heard so much. The

Tyrians wrote back saying that in fact the city temple wasnt anything like it

was cracked up to be; if he wanted to see a real cracker of a temple, he should

do himself a favour and visit the one ten miles or so down the coast, where they

had some absolutely stunning bas-reliefs. Alexander replied that hed set his

heart on seeing the city temple, and hed take it as a personal favour if theyd

just confirm that such a visit would be in order. He got no reply to that, and

declared war at once.

Its obvious what hes up to, somebody said to me, as we huddled underneath

the bed of a wagon for shelter from the rain. Tyre s the home base of the

fleet the Persians would use if they were going to send help to anti-Macedonian

rebels in Greece . Now then; Sparta s openly at war with the Macedonian

presence in the Peloponnese , Athens is just waiting for someone to give the

lead, and theyll pile in too, and if Athens rebels, half of Greece will be up

in arms, provided they can get money and supplies from Persia . From the Persian

viewpoint, opening a second front back home in Greece is about the only thing

they can think of thatd get Alexander out of Asia . So; unless Alexander takes

Tyre , he could lose this war in a matter of days.

It sounded eminently sensible under a cart in the middle of a flash rainstorm;

Tyre s a problem, get rid of Tyre , problem solved. Unfortunately, the nearer

to Tyre we got, the harder it became. For one thing, Tyre isnt on the coast;

its on an island, or at least the old town is, and that was the part we needed

to capture. When I say island, I mean a proper island, not just some splinter of

rock; butTyre old town covered every part of it, and the sprawl of the new town

lay just across the straits on the mainland. Since the Tyrian navy controlled

the sea, we couldnt try an amphibious attack even if wed wanted to (not that

wed ever want any such thing). All in all, the expression hiding to nothing

took on a whole new dimension of complex and sinister undertones in this

context. The only logical course of action was to pack our things, send a polite

note to the King of Persia apologising for any inconvenience, and go home.

I cant remember, brother; when you were Alexanders tutor, was logic part of

the curriculum? If it was, you made a really poor job of it.

He took one look at the island, decided the sea had to go, and ordered us to

fill it in.

It was such an awesome piece of arrogance and folly that nobody had the heart to

object. That bit of seas in your way? Grab a spade and shovel dirt into it. So

we did. To be precise, we set about building a causeway to link Tyre island with

the mainland. To give you an idea of what was involved Eudaemon, I

interrupted, Im sure this is going to be absolutely fascinating, but its been

a long day and Ive got to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Do you think we

might possibly.

He gave me a look that would have turned milk into cheese instantly. Fuck you,

brother, he said. We havent seen each other for twenty-five years, after

tomorrow well probably never see each other again, Im explaining to you in

detail exactly how you buggered up my life, and all you can think about is

sneaking off to your pit. Well, the hell with you, brother. You can damn well

sit there and listen, and if you so much as nod, Ill take this jug and smash it

over your thick skull. Understood?

I shrugged. Since you put it like that, I said, go on, please. Though I still

dont see why its my fault that Alexander ordered you to build a causeway

across the straits of Tyre .

Eudaemon smiled sourly. Ah, he said, thats because you will insist on

talking rather than listening. Well, the less you interrupt, the sooner Ill be

done, so shut your face and pay attention.

Where was I? Oh, yes. To give you an idea of what was involved, think back to

that time when we were kids and that rich bastard now what was his name? The

old bloke with the young wife and that incredibly ugly thing on his nose, damned

if I can remember yes, thats it, Philochorus that rich bastard Philochorus

was terracing that parcel of mountain land hed inherited from his uncle. Well,

think back to when he was going round borrowing every slave and day labourer he

could find for the job of carting the rubble and spoil for the terraces up the

mountain. It all had to be lugged up there in baskets, remember, and so he was

scrounging baskets too, every last hamper and backpack and pannier in Pallene;

only there werent enough, so he had to go to the Market Square and buy every

blessed scrap of wickerwork he could find; and as soon as word got around that

Philochorus the Nose was desperate for baskets, the prices climbed so high they

were having to crane their necks to look down on Olympus.

And, dear gods, do you remember the performance when he actually got around to

starting work? All the organisation; the relay teams and who was going to be

foreman of which shift and who was going to report to who and the water-carriers

and the muleteers suddenly coming over all snotty when they found out the masons

were getting an obol a day more than they were and the masons talking back to

the foreman because they werent being given enough time to do the shoring-up

before the earth-moving crews started pouring in the dirt. Wasnt that the best

show wed ever seen in our lives? Well, picture that in your minds eye, and

then try to imagine what it was like doing a similar sort of job, only with a

hundred thousand workers instead of a hundred; then factor in the complications

of the sea and the constant hail of missiles and arrows from the ramparts

ofTyre, and maybe your imagination might just get a toe wedged in the door of

what it was like.

Not, of course, that I had any part in it. I was, as we say in the army,

standing by; which means I was sitting on my bum where Id been told to sit, all

poised and ready just in case I might be needed at some undefined future stage

in the proceedings. The first few days, of course, I really didnt mind at all.

Our family have always relished watching other people work, and the spectacle of

all those poor fools in full armour humping enormous baskets of rubble on their

backs while trying to dodge catapult bolts without falling into the sea was

fairly engrossing, I can tell you. The amazing, the utterly astonishing thing

about it was the rate of progress. You wouldnt have believed it possible that

ordinary men and women chucking one basketful of dirt at a time into the sea

could have achieved so much in such a short space of time. There was something

utterly inhuman about it all; it was like watching a tree grow. Maybe thats

what its like for the gods; when theyre feeling lazy after a good meal, do

they lie on their stomachs in the sun watching forests sprout or rivers dig

themselves valleys between the hills? No wonder the gods dont seem to care too

much about us. We must move so fast, they couldnt even see us if they tried.

After a few days, though, I was so twitchy and uptight I couldnt keep still any

longer. I broke the cardinal rule of military life, and volunteered. The staff

bastard in charge shook his head and told me I wasnt allowed to; I was

specialist technical crew and I had to carry on standing by, whether I liked it

or not. He added that if I volunteered again hed have me suspended from duty on

grounds of insanity, so I gave it up and went back to the tree-stump Id been

sitting on for the past three days.

As it turned out, hed done me a big favour, because by that point the Tyre

garrison had stopped gathering on the walls to laugh themselves silly at us,

and were getting pretty damn nervous. So they decided to stop us; they stepped

up the interference fire from the walls, they sent out war-galleys in continuous

shifts to stand off a hundred yards on either side of the causeway and shoot up

the work crews which meant, in effect, that our people were under fire on

three sides; they were dropping like olives off a tree, though that didnt

constitute a valid reason for not working, and besides, they were only local

civilians, so it didnt matter. It was only much later, when the rate of

progress had slowed by about a quarter, that Alexander realised he was going to

have to divert some manpower from the job to deal with these bastards; but that

was all right from my point of view, because finally I was allowed to do

something.

The idea was that wed unship and assemble two of the mobile siege towers that

we carried disassembled in kit form, and wheel them up to the top of the

causeway to provide cover. Well, we set to with a vengeance, and there really

was a lot to do.

They were a fairly new addition to our stores, those towers; it was only when we

reached Lebanon that we were able to find timber long and strong enough to build

these particular designs. That meant, of course, that wed never actually had to

unship and assemble the damned things before; we hadnt even worked out the

drill in theory, let alone smoothed out the wrinkles in practice. Im here to

tell you, it was a hell of a job to have to do on the fly. Those things were

enormous, they had to be in order to bear the weight of the full-size long-range

catapults that Alexander wanted installed at the top of each tower. First we had

to raise the uprights; of course, we found out at this point that half of the

tenons didnt quite fit the mortices, because the green timber had moved a bit

since it was cut, so we had to plane and shave and chisel out on site, up to our

ankles in dust and mud and shavings, while our people were being slaughtered by

the dozen a few hundred yards away. Helps you concentrate, something like that.

Anyway; we got the frames up, laid in the ties and braces, put in the flooring

and the rails, finished up by stretching any number of green raw hides over the

frames to stop the arrows and catapult shot, and handed them over to the teams

who had the job of deploying the things. Wed done well, no doubt about it; and

those things worked, too. They were tall enough that the guys inside them could

get clear shots at the enemy on the wall and in the ships, and robust enough not

to fall to bits no matter what got slung at them. Wed had the sense, you see,

to stretch those hides pretty slack, so that arrows and such just flopped off

them instead of going through.

To cut a long story short, things were going pretty much our way by this stage.

The towers were doing their job, and to increase the protection for the work

crews wed made up rawhide fences that ran the whole length of the causeway, so

not a lot was getting through one way or another. Just when we thought wed

cracked it, in fact, those bastards on the island turned round and showed us we

hadnt. Let me tell you about that, brother, if you can spare the time.

It was early one morning, and there was a good stiff westerly wind blowing; we

noticed two Tyrian warships cracking along at a hell of a lick, towing this

enormous fat old hulk of a horse-transport. It was so broad in the beam it was

practically round, and it was sitting up in the water like a dog begging. Oddest

thing about it was two thin masts right forward; they looked like thin, bare

saplings and they had round cauldrons hanging from the yard-arms, like apples on

the branches of a tree.

We were staring at this thing thinking What the hell? when the warships towing

it veered off on either side of the nose end of the causeway, cut cables and

buggered off at top speed, letting the hulk carry on under its own momentum so

that it crashed into the front end and actually rode up on the causeway

broadwalk, for all the world like an otter or a seal. Under the impact the two

flimsy masts bust, and those cauldrons went toppling down; turned out that they

were full of this mixture of pitch and naphtha thats a kind of lamp-oil they

draw off out of the rocks in those parts, and boy, does it burn well; doesnt

just catch fire like olive oil or lard tallow, it goes up whoosh! and the next

thing you know is, people are staring at you and saying, Sorry, didnt recognise

you without the beard along with this other secret ingredient theyve got that

actually catches alight when it comes in contact with water. Result, the mixture

slops all over the wooden planking and the props and struts, not to mention the

towers, the hide fences and quite a lot of people, then drains over the side

into the water and wham, flares up like hell, and suddenly everythings on

fire.

Meanwhile the two warships had come back, along with a whole load of other

boats, all of them with archers and catapult crews squeezed in right along the

rails; first they shot the guys jumping off the burning causeway into the water,

then the other guys who didnt dare jump for fear of getting shot, and the fire

took care of the rest. By the time the Tyrians had disembarked their assault

parties on the causeway, there wasnt anybody left alive to fight. So they

knuckled down to their job of breaking up the causeway, while the ships covered

them against our reinforcements. Between them and the fire, they did as thorough

a job as youd ever want to see, and before what was happening had really

started to sink in properly, down the causeway slid, its own weight letting it

simply melt down into the water.

Enough to make you spit, really. Everything wed worked at so hard for all that

time ended up at the bottom of the straits along with gods know how many dead

workers and the charred scrap of our two beautiful siege towers. It was one of

those moments of total and abject failure that takes it all out of you, all the

stuff inside your head and your heart that makes you keep going. For my part, I

cooked up a big hot fire of my own and started sprinkling my beautiful medicinal

leaves in big handfuls.

It was only the day after, though, that the full implications became obvious

enough that even I, with my head full of smoke and painlessness, could get the

drift of it. While wed been farting about trying to fill in the sea, the King

of Persia had been putting his army back together again in Armenia , and he was

coming to get us. The Tyrians had been deliberately playing us along, letting us

fritter away our time with our buckets and spades so as to give the Great King a

chance to get his act together. When word reached them that the Great King was

ready, they cleared up the mess wed made, like grown-ups putting away the toys.

Wed fallen for it, complete in every part. At last, finally, Alexander had made

a big mistake; a super-jumbo-sized, war-losing mistake that was going to get us

all killed.

And that, brother, is why if I wasnt stuck on this damned bed unable to move,

Id be up on my feet throttling you right now; because when the general staff

urged him to give it up and get out while there was still a slim chance of

getting away, he stared at them with those ice-cold blue eyes and said no,

certainly not, because that wasnt the way hed been taught the art of war, and

anybody who even suggested pulling out would pretty soon be reckoning that the

Great King was the least of his problems. So what if the enemy had pulled down

the causeway? Wed build another one; only bigger, and wider, with room for lots

more siege towers. True, thousands of our conscript workers were now dead and

at the bottom of the straits, leaving us with something of a labour shortage,

but that wasnt really a problem; plenty more where they came from, plus all the

specialist masons and carpenters and engineers hed had rounded up in Cyprus and

Phoenicia . History, he informed his open-mouthed heads of staff, would remember

Tyre as a shining example of Macedonian siegecraft (that is, he implied, if

History knew what was good for it).

At this point, a nervous young man called Hegelochus, who held a command in the

Horse Guards, cleared his throat pointedly and asked what, if anything, led

Alexander to believe that hed have any more luck the second time round than he

had the first. Now, I wasnt there, so this is all hearsay; but a man I used to

play knucklebones with had a cousin who was in the same cockflghting syndicate

as the younger brother of Callas, the commander of the Thracian heavy cavalry,

who was there; so what Im telling you now is as close to absolute Platonic

truth as youre likely to get in this sadly imperfect world, and Callas said

that Alexander didnt like the implications of that question, not one bit.

Somethings bothering you about this, Hegelochus, he said, in that level, calm

voice of his that sent people who knew him scurrying off in search of abandoned

well-shafts to hide down. Id like to know what it is.

That young fool Hegelochus cleared his throat again. With respect, the whole

thing bothers me, he said, because Ive got the strangest feeling Ive been

here before.

Alexander smiled. Is that so? Now thats strange, my friend, because weve

known each other since we were both six years old, and I dont ever remember you

going abroad even, let alone to Phoenicia. When was this?

When we studied together in the school at Mieza, Hegelochus replied. That

time when Professor Euxenus was telling us about that battle sorry, cant

remember the name of it now where the besieging army sat under the walls of

this impregnable city grinding themselves down to no effect until the relief

force came and scrunched them up.

Syracuse , Alexander said. Youre thinking of when the Athenians tried to

take Syracuse in the Great War. Euxenus told us his grandfather was in that

army.

Hegelochus nodded. Thats it, he said. He was one of the very few survivors,

wasnt he?

Alexander scowled at that; hed been made to play the straight man, something he

hated unless hed deliberately set it up himself. Sure, he said. And Im sure

you remember the moral of the story. Euxenus said that if hed been the Athenian

commander there, hed have kept pegging away till he found a way to take

Syracuse , because that was the only way the army was going to get out of there

in one piece. And then one of us wasnt that you, Cleitus? one of us asked

how hed have proposed going about that, since everything theyd tried had

failed. And Euxenus just smiled, that way he did, and said, Simple. Id have

waited for them to make a mistake.They always do, you know. All wars are lost by

the loser, not won by the victor. He paused for a moment and looked at

Cleitus, his head slightly on one side. You havent forgotten that, have you?

he went on. Or are you saying Euxenus was wrong?

(I dont remember saying that, I interrupted.

Eudaemon gave me a long, cold stare. Dont you indeed, he said. I thought for

a moment. Well, bits of it, I replied. That tag about wars being lost by the

loser that was a favourite line of mine, I admit. I thought it was pretty

neat, and it seemed to impress the kids, so I used it a lot to save myself the

trouble of thinking. But that actual conversation, about what Id have done at

Syracuse ; I dont remember that at all. Sorry.

Eudaemon shrugged. Maybe you dont, he said. After all, whod expect you to

be able to remember every damn thing you said to a bunch of kids when you were

teaching them? Maybe you never actually said it at all, in so many words, and

Alexander remembered it wrong. Doesnt matter. Alexanders Euxenus said it, and

it very nearly got us all killed. And Alexanders Euxenus was more real to him

and, as a result, to me than youll ever bloody be. In fact, he added,

glowering at me, of all the Euxenuses there are or were, Ill bet youre about

the most insignificant of the lot.)

So that was that. Hegelochus and Cleitus were in disgrace, we were staying, the

siege continued, with us trapped up against Tyre like a billet of red-hot bronze

between the hammer and the anvil. The Tyrians started building up their walls

with wooden towers so they could shoot fire-arrows directly down into the

working parties. We stumbled on there were people getting shot down or

squashed flat by rocks from the catapults every minute of every day, and we were

just supposed to ignore it and in the meantime Alexander got bored and

wandered off, with his boyhood chums and his pet light-infantry brigade, to go

hunting tribesmen in the hills. Of course, the bloody clown nearly got himself

killed; there was this old fool called Lysimachus, whod been a teacher at your

school (I know Lysimachus, I interrupted.

No doubt.)

And hed insisted on tagging along on this adventure. Seems they were playing

at being people in Homer, they were always doing it; Alexander was Achilles,

Lysimachus was the old tutor, Phoenix . Anyhow, Lysimachus strayed off and got

left behind. The tribesmen were all around, dogging the columns footsteps,

never coming to grips, just making sneak attacks, shooting arrows and throwing

javelins and then melting away; a lot of our people got killed, and there was

bugger all our Achilles and his Homeric knights could do about it; I guess the

tribesmen hadnt been to your classes, didnt know to conduct themselves in a

fitting manner. Well, everybody was terrified out of their minds; all except

Alexander, who was absolutely furious. They were spoiling his game, you see,

there wasnt anything in all of this for him.

Anyhow, when Phoenix went missing, Alexander freaked out and said they had to go

back and find him. None of the others wanted anything to do with that,

understandably enough; they were in enough shit as it was. But no, Alexander

insisted, hed caught a whiff of honour in the breeze and went off after it like

a bad dog after a hare. So there they were, completely lost, surrounded by these

tribesmen who were knocking them off like ducks on a pond; and night falls, and

everybody knows they arent going to see tomorrow, because the tribesmen have

started up their spirit dance, which means theyre going to attack and finish

the job, and theres thousands and thousands of them out there, according to a

friend of mine who was on this jolly. Our boys know theyve got no chance,

because they havent been able to get a fire going sudden downpour of rain,

all the kindling soaked through so they cant see spit, theyre completely at

the mercy of the enemy. At this point, when it really couldnt get any worse if

it tried, Alexander gets up without a word, takes his cloak with the hood and a

long dagger and walks away. Twenty minutes later, hes back; hes only snuck up

on the nearest enemy camp, scragged a couple of sentries, lit a torch in their

fire and come bouncing back with an absolutely enormous grin on his face, like

a boy whos just killed something. Think about it, brother; the king of the

known world, prancing about stalking sentries; everybody else was scared out of

their wits and he was off playing.

But hed got a torch, and they were able to light a fire and see to keep a

lookout, and what with one thing and another the enemy didnt attack; and the

next day, by the purest fluke, they stumbled across old Lysimachus, curled up in

a bush and whimpering with fear. Alexander didnt like that, completely out of

character for his role in the make-believe game, but hed got what he came for

and they headed back. Made it, too, though they left a lot of their own behind,

littered all over the trail like bits of crust and apple-cores a bunch of untidy

kids leave behind them as they go. And of course, Alexanders the great hero who

single-handedly saved everybodys life, and the fact that the whole trip was a

disastrous failure well, History knows better than to record that. But old

Lysimachus, whos desperate to get back in the lads good books after disgracing

himself, he stands up at the next council of war and starts going on about how

Alexanders really braver and better than Achilles ever was, and how even Homer

himself wouldnt have been able to find words to tell the story like it should

be told; and Alexanders face melts into this huge self-satisfied smirk.

Well, now hes back Alexander calls a council and says theres been a change of

plan. Forget the causeway, he says, its obviously not going to work, any fool

could have told you that. Nobody says a word; and Alexander goes on and says

that the only way to take Tyre is to fit out special warships with

battering-rams mounted on them and go smash in the seaward walls. So we do that,

and its an absolute disaster. The ships just cant get in close enough, the

waters too shallow, except in one place and the enemyve realised this and

dumped huge great rocks there to obstruct the shallows and keep ships from

coming in.

But Alexander wont be beaten. Hes really away with the wood-nymphs now;

sometimes, when he isnt thinking, hes calling the place Troy instead of Tyre,

every day hes sending heralds demanding single combat with the enemys champion

theyre just standing there in their watchtowers looking embarrassed and

when they tell him about the rocks he just frowns and says, Well, if theyre in

the way, youd better fish them out again. Bugger me, Euxenus, he was serious;

so we had to build ship-mounted cranes for hauling up these rocks under fire

all the time, remember, and the rawhide screens wed used on the first causeway

to keep the arrows off were useless, because these new towers the enemy had

built meant they could shoot right over the top. Also, the enemy sent out ships

and boats of their own, and soon they were fighting ship to ship; theyd sent in

these little ships that were all planked in to protect their men from our

archers, and theyd nip out, cut the anchor cables of the dredgers and scoot off

again before we could do anything about them, though eventually we swapped the

cables for chains, and that put a stop to it.

So Alexander called a council of war and said the ships werent working, time to

finish off the causeway, which was clearly their only hope of taking the city.

So we finished the causeway we were using the rocks the dredgers were pulling

up out of the shallows, and if that wasnt the dumbest thing; pulling trash out

of the sea at point A and slinging it back at point B and we set up battering

rams on it, but they dont do any bloody good, the walls made of huge blocks of

stone cemented together.

So Alexander called a council of war and said stuff the causeway, concentrate on

the ships. Finally, after wed nearly filled up the hole the dredgers had

excavated with the bodies of our dead, we managed to bash a hole in the seaward

side. Before we could get the ships with the portable drawbridges in, theyd

sealed it again a whole ship full of workers and engineers got caught out

then, and the lot of them were killed when the enemy set their ship alight. So

we tried again next day, the whole army (except me; I was standing by); and

somehow those crazy Macedonian infantry managed to get across the jerry-rigged

drawbridges and into Tyre . The whole of the first wave got themselves killed in

the breach; and Alexander saw this and went charging in there himself, waving

his sword and yelling like a lunatic. Shouldve been killed just like all the

others. Wasnt.

So we stormed Tyre . Killed eight thousand civilians, sold thirty thousand more

to the slave dealers, along with some of our surplus labour we needed the

money, we were hopelessly over budget after all this fooling about, the cost of

materials alone was enough to have bankrupted a city. But we won. I guess.

Oh, and that Persian army I was telling you about? They got held up. Pure fluke;

bad roads, rivers in spate, that sort of thing. Instead of sweeping down on us

when we were at our most vulnerable and butchering us where we stood, they were

backing up in narrow mountain passes that had got blocked by freak rockslides,

or frantically repairing bridges that had been swept away by flash floods. When

they realised they werent going to make it in time, the Great King sent

Alexander a message with a peace offer 10,000 talents cash and half the

empire, everything west of the Euphrates , provided hed piss off and leave

Persia alone. They had a council of war to discuss the offer. Id take it, if I

were you, said old general Parmenio. Sure, so would I, said Alexander, if I

were Parmenio. Then he told the embassy what they could do with their offer,

and told us we were going to conquer Egypt .

In all the excitement, of course, hed completely forgotten the reason hed

wanted to sack Tyre in the first place; the Persian fleet, which was all poised

and set to sweep down on Greece while our backs were turned. But that turned out

all right; the Byblians and the Sidonians fell out with the Persian admirals

over something or other and buggered off in a huff, the Cypriots joined them,

and a whole bunch of ships changed sides and came over to us, asking for a job.

And that was the end of the Persian fleet, our part in its downfall being

exactly nothing.

Oh, well, my mate Peitho said to me, when we heard about this. We neednt

have bothered with Tyre after all, then.

Apparently not, I agreed, and I chucked some more leaves in the fire.

How come you stayed out of the fighting? Peitho asked me. Hed been hit twice,

once during the dredging operation, once during the assault, and the second

arrow had put out his left eye.

I was standing by, I replied.

Fair enough, Peitho said, breathing in deeply through his nose. Grows on you,

this stuff, doesnt it?

Very good for bad backs and sprained ankles, I said.

Quite likely. Hey, I wonder if Alexander realises all that business with Tyre

was for nothing?

I thought for a moment. You tell him, I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T hats a really amazing story, I said, stifling a yawn. And now, ifits

all the same to you, I really must go and get some

Shut up, my brother said.

It was after the siege of Tyre , and because of the siege of Tyre , that my

friend Peitho and I realised that there was something we could do to make the

world a better place, yank the human race back from the brink of an abyss, and

win ourselves an honoured place in history at the same time.

We could kill Alexander.

Now then, brother, before you turn white and start screaming for the guards, I

ought to point out that when we reached this conclusion, Peitho and I had been

kippering ourselves in that wonderful Scythian smoke more or less non-stop for a

couple of weeks (Peitho had really bad toothache, the sort that gets to you so

completely that you cant think of anything else, and I felt it was my duty as a

fellow human being to do what I could to alleviate his misery), so we were both

as crazy as a jarful of polecats or wed never even have considered the idea

for a moment. After all, enough innocent, harmless men had their throats Cut

because of entirely mythical and nonexistent plots against Alexander to make a

sane man think very seriously indeed about embarking on a real one. But we,

medicated as we were from the soles of our feet to the tips of our ears, were

above such mundane considerations as fear or common sense. Really, brother, I

wish I had some of that stuff left, itd do you a world of good. Maybe even

loosen you up a little, if thats humanly possible.

Now, its all very well to say, I know, lets kill Alexander and then

everythingll be sweet; but getting close enough to him to stick a knife in his

back wasnt going to be easy. First off, he was surrounded day and night by his

lifelong companions, the young Macedonian nobles you prattled away to in dear

old Mieza; animals, the lot of them, whod cleave your skull without a moments

hesitation if they didnt like the way you wiped your nose. I put this point to

my fellow conspirator one evening, when wed pitched camp for the night and were

sharing a sociable lungful or two of medicine. He thought about it for a while,

while I shovelled another double handful of leaves on the fire.

All right, he said. Fair play to you, Eudaemon, youve got a point there. No

way we can get to him while the Companions are about. Theyd slice us up like

bacon.

You bet, I agreed, nodding. Our heads be rolling on the deck before we got

close enough to smell his sweat.

Peitho frowned. All right, he said, theres no need to get all negative

about it. Like the philosopher said, a problem is just a challenge in disguise.

Oh. I thought for a moment. Which philosopher was that, then?

My cousin Gelo, Peitho replied. He wasnt a professional philosopher, mind,

it was more like a hobby with him.

I see. I paused, filled my lungs with smoke, held my breath for a count of

five and breathed out again slowly. What about poison? I suggested. Dont

have to be anywhere near for that.

Peitho scratched his head. Doesnt he have all his food tasted before he eats

it? he asked.

Sure, I replied, but thats no problem. Use a slow poison. Something that

doesnt start working till the next day. Then, by the time the taster goes

bright purple and keels over, itll be too late to do anything about it.

Peitho yawned. All right, he said. So you know all about poisons, then, do

you?

No, I admitted. Havent a clue.

Me neither, Peitho said. Know anybody we could ask?

Not really, I replied. Besides, you go around asking people about poisons,

theyll want to know why. Maybe theres a book about it we could read.

Probably, Peitho said. Theres books about heaps of stuff. Who do we know

whos got a lot of books?

I sat back on my chair one of those three-legged folding efforts, as I recall

and tried to think. Wonderful insight those leaves give you, though your mind

does tend to go racing off on side-issues. How about Anaxarchus? I suggested.

Hes got a whole box of the things.

Anaxarchus was one of Alexanders tame philosophers; he had two of them with him

on the trip, Anaxander and Callisthenes (who was the nephew of Aristotle, who

was oh, of course, youve met him, havent you? All right, you know about

Aristotle). Id only met Anaxarchus a couple of times, barely spoken a dozen

words to him, but if ever there was a man who was likely to own a book about

different types of poison, itd be Anaxarchus. Not that hed have had any use

for it, in the same way that a daggerd be wasted on a shark.

All right, then, I said. First thing in the morning, you go round there and

ask him.

He looked up at me, eyes narrowed. Why me? he said.

Youre a Macedonian, I replied. Hell trust you.

Why? Hes isnt Macedonian.

I sighed and poured myself another drink. Actually, my Scythian friends had

advised me not to drink booze while using the medicine; the combination, they

claimed, could sometimes have the effect of making a man somewhat light-headed.

Never had that effect on me, though, or not that I was ever aware of.

Doesnt matter, I said. Hell trust you because you belong to the ruling

class. The elite.

No I dont, he objected. My dad works seventeen acres on the Paeonian border.

My mum isnt even a citizen.

I shook my head. Missing the point, I said. The Macedonians are the chosen

people, the beloved of the gods. They shall inherit the flicking earth. While a

poor bloody Athenian like me goes in some philosophers tent asking to borrow

his copy of Poisoning for Pleasure and Profit, next thing I know, my bodyll be

waving at my head and telling it not to be a stranger. Besides, I added, I

dont think he likes me.

Really? Why not?

Because my brother was Alexander s tutor.

Really?

I nodded. When he was a kid.

Your brother?

Alexander. When Alexander was a kid. Anaxarchus is jealous because hes only

come on the scene recently, hes got to sit there listening

to how Euxenus said this and Euxenus said that. Cramps his style. Wouldnt lend

me the wax out of his ears, let alone enough poison to wipe out half of bloody

Asia .

Peitho tipped his head up and down, like a man leaning to and fro in a chair.

All right, he said. Suppose Id better do it. What if he says no?

I raised an eyebrow. Whyd he do that?

Maybe he hasnt got a book about poisons, Peitho pointed out. No reason to

think he has, when you get right down to it.

I sighed. Well, I said. Only one way to find out. Ask the bastard. Just go in

there, look the bastard straight in the fucking eye, and ask him. Hell tell

you, I promise you.

All right.

Hows your tooth?

Much better, thanks.

Now, as a rule, going to bed and sleeping for a bit tended to dissipate the

effects of the medicine; but we were both of us so utterly fumigated with it

that it no longer seemed to wear off the way it had at first. Accordingly,

Peitho did go to see Anaxarchus, and afterwards he came to see me.

He hasnt got one, he told me.

Buggery, I replied. So thats that, then.

Peitho shook his head. Not necessarily, he said. He thinks he knows who might

have one.

Ali. Right. Who?

Callisthenes.

Oh.

Because, Peitho went on, Gallisthenes has got copies of all his precious

uncles books, and it so happens, or at least so Anaxarchus reckons, that

Aristotles done a poisons book.

Really?

Peitho nodded. Apparently. Well, its more your general book about plants, but

in it he seems to remember theres a lot of stuff about which plants are

poisonous and what the poisons do to you. Itd be a start, anyhow.

Better than a kick in the head, I agreed. All right, then, youd better go

and see Gallisthenes.

He didnt seem too happy about that. Why me? he asked. Why not you?

I had an answer ready for him. Because, I said, my brother Euxenus

The tutor.

Thats him. My brother Euxenus is Aristotles deadly enemy.They hate each

others guts. Id have no chance.

I see. Peitho thought for a moment. Is there anybody in this mans army your

brother Euxenus hasnt pissed off in some way?

Dont know, I replied. Its a big army, mind.

Callisthenes did have a copy of The Natural History of Plants, and when Peitho

spun him some yarn about wanting to look up some wildflowers hed recently

gathered beside the road, he lent it to him gladly. That evening, after wed

pitched camp and Id fed the bees, he brought it round to my tent and we went

through it together.

You sure theres stuff about poisons in here? I asked, after wed been at it

an hour. Mostly its garbage. Cant make head nor tail of it. Here, what do you

make of this? I screwed up my eyes it was a badly written copy, all

abbreviations and poncified lettering, with notes scrawled in all the margins

and over the tops of the lines. And it would be thought that a man is acting

more under compulsion and involuntarily when his object is to avoid violent pain

than when it is to avoid mild pain, and in general more when his object is the

avoidance of pain than when it is to gain enjoyment. For what rests with himself

means what his nature is able to bear; what his nature is not able to bear and

what is not a matter of his own natural appetition or calculation does not rest

with himself. I looked up and shrugged. What the hells that got to do with

the price of fish?

Peitho scowled thoughtfully, then leaned forward and craned his neck over so as

to look at the page. You clown, he said, youre reading the wrong book. The

plants books further on in the scroll. This is something about ethics.

Oh, I said. Well, fuck ethics. I rolled the scroll down a whole lot and

tried again. How about this? I said. Heres a bit all about lupins.

Lupins arent poisonous, are they?

No, but at least theyre plants, so were in the right book. Now then, lets

see what we can Ali, now thats more like it. The roots of the white

hellebore, it says here, produce a poison so deadly that death is practically

instantaneous

I thought we wanted a slow poison.

Oh bugger, so we do. Hey, this is turning out to be harder than I thought.

Peitho was starting to look thoughtful, like a duck trying to hatch out a stone.

You know, he said, maybe this wasnt such a good idea after all.

Itll be in here somewhere, Im sure. Just a case of reading it through

carefully

He shook his head. No, I mean this whole killing Alexander thing. Come on, its

a bit drastic, isnt it?

No, I replied. Look, hes got to go, we both agreed. Hes a bloody menace.

Peitho bit his lip. Well, he said, to judge by that performance when he

rescued old Lysimachus, chances are hell go on some dumb adventure and get

himself killed while were still trying to make sense of this goddamn book.

Shouldnt we just leave well alone and let the gods do it for us?

I looked him squarely in the eye. The gods, I said, help those who help

themselves. So if its all the same to you

Actually, he interrupted, youre wrong there. They dont. In fact, they come

down on them like a ton of bloody bricks. Look at Daedalus.

Fuck it, Peitho, its just an expression, doesnt mean anything.

Then if it doesnt mean anything, why the hell say it?

I closed my eyes for a moment. The point Im trying to make is, we cant just

sit tight and wait for things to happen, weve got to get up off our bums and

Or what about Prometheus? Or Theseus? Or Hercules, even? Or Paris ; he surely

helped himself, and look what happened to him.

Yes. Thank you. I put the book down. I say we cut his throat while hes

asleep. What do you think?

You know what I think.

To cut a long story short, we didnt kill Alexander that day; nor the day after.

And then we found ourselves at a place called Gaza, where there was another

fortress nowhere near as big or as grand as Tyre, but the governor, a man

called Batis, was the Persian Kings good and faithful servant, and all the time

wed been fooling about atTyre, hed been getting ready for us. Hed reinforced

the mud-brick walls, hired a mob of Arab mercenaries, built up a stash of food

and supplies that would last for well over a year; and when our engineers

surveyed the position, they reported back that the hill on which the fortress

stood was so steep, it was physically impossible for battering-rams to reach the

walls.

Alexander didnt want to hear that. The more impossible it is, the more Ill do

it, he snarled, as he gave us the pre-mission briefing. I always do the

impossible, remember; thats why they fear me.

Youre right, Peitho whispered to me as we stood in the ranks, listening. Got

to go.

Knew youd see it my way in the end, I replied.

And so, there we went again, building bloody great causeways to bring the siege

engines up to the walls; or, in my case, standing by. Mind you, for a week or so

I really thought I might actually be needed, when Alexander suddenly woke up in

the middle of the night convinced that the Gazans were digging mines under the

causeway to collapse it, and sent a team of our sappers to counter-mine them.

But there werent any enemy sappers, and all that happened was that our

countermine came up right under the weakest part of the causeway, which promptly

subsided down the hole, killing the miners and a few dozen workers on the

surface and wasting a weeks effort. But eventually it was completed; the

engines rolled into place and started pounding shit out of the walls. Batis and

his Arabs refused to surrender; although it was now pretty well a foregone

conclusion, they counter-attacked, set fire to some of the engines and actually

forced a company of Macedonian regular infantry to give ground down the hill.

Cue, needless to say, heroics; Achilles to the rescue. Alexander led the charge

in person, his sword flashing in the sun, his head bare so that everybody could

see it was him and then wham!, a bloody great big catapult-bolt from an engine

on the walls smashed through his shield and breastplate and knocked him clean

off his feet onto his bum. Just for once I was actually watching, I actually saw

it happen; it was like the hand of a god swatting a wasp. Fuch me, I thought,

hes dead, no bugger couldve survived that.

There was a moment when everything was still; everybody, even the men who were

hacking at each other with swords, stopped what they were doing and stared, as

if a herald had just announced the end of the world. I remember thinking, So now

what? But then Colonel Hephaestion and the bodyguards rushed forward and picked

him up; someone yelled out, Its all right, hes alive! Fuch, I thought; then

the battle started again, with the Arabs hurling themselves at us like madmen,

trying to cut off Hephaestions party and get to Alexander before we did. I

promise you, brother, I never saw human beings fight so savagely; they were

slashing at each other, not bothering to protect themselves with their shields,

so that they were trading slash for slash, the last one to die being the winner.

I saw a Macedonian and an Arab whittling each other to bits, they just didnt

give a damn; it was as if Alexanders life being in the balance had removed

every last Arab outside the walls, for what little good that did. There were

only a few of them, and once wed done that we were back where we were. Nothing

had changed. Some smartarse bastard of a doctor patched Alexander up somehow;

the day after next he was hobbling up and down the lines while everybody cheered

and shouted and whistled to show how clever they thought he was for still

managing to be alive. I was still alive too, but nobody seemed terribly

impressed by that.

So up came the big siege-engines wed used at Tyre , and down came the walls. We

had to make four sorties, mind, and even then those stupid bastard Arabs

wouldnt give up. We killed them all, except for some of the women and children.

Oh, Himself was back in action in time for the last assault, and once again he

got clobbered by a catapult shot; but this one only whacked him across the

shins, not even hard enough to break them, and by now it was painfully obvious

that nothing as mundane as artillery was going to be enough to kill Alexander.

In fact, it was a moot point whether anything could, which depressed Peitho and

me no end.

Poor Batis, the good and faithful servant, was taken alive alive on balance,

lets say; he didnt give up easily and frogmarched in front of Alexander, who

was just coming round after being hit by the engine. As a result he wasnt in a

good mood.

Anaxarchus was duty philosopher that day, and they were playing the Iliad game.

I cant remember who Anaxarchus was supposed to be Nestor or Phoenix, someone

like that; Alexander was being Achilles, of course, and little Batis he turned

out to be this short, fat, bald guy, this man whod held us up for two whole

months, made us look like clowns, nearly killed Alexander; I got a good look at

him and he reminded me of whats-his-name, Craterus, the funny little chap who

used to come round with a handcart mending broken crockery Batis was

immediately cast as Hector; type-casting, you might say. Now, if you recall your

Homer, youll remember that when Achilles killed Hector in front of the Scaean

Gate of Troy , he had his body dragged behind his chariot seven times round the

city walls.

Do it, Alexander commanded.

Just one thing, someone pointed out. He isnt dead.

Alexander looked at him. So? he said.

Well, if he wasnt dead at the start, he was at the finish. They cut slots

through his feet with a carpenters chisel for the ropes to go through, and

Alexander drove the chariot himself; since he couldnt stand, they had to sort

of tie him into it, to make sure he didnt fall out when cornering sharply. In

the event he did eight laps, one more than Achilles (well, naturally; anything

you can do, and so forth); and when they untied him, they found the restraints

theyd tied him in with had ripped all the skin off his knees and thighs. He

didnt seem to notice; enjoying himself too much, I expect. He stayed in

character right through. He was brilliant like that. If he hadnt been a

soldier, hed have made a wonderful actor.

After wed finished smashing up Gaza , he went through the spoils looking for

nice presents for his mum and his kid sister back home; really considerate, I

call that. He sent his mother a lovely ivory dressing-table set, all matching

(used to belong to Batis wife) and he chose some really pretty silk fabric for

his sister to make tapestries for the family dining-room at Pella . He even sent

old Leonidas five hundred talents weight of frankincense and a hundred talents

of myrrh, on the grounds that when he was a kid, Leonidas told him off for being

wasteful with expensive spices and teased him, saying hed have to wait until

hed conquered the Kingdom of Spices before he could afford to chuck the stuff

around like that.

(Hang on, I interrupted. Did you say Leonidas?

Yes. Are you deaf as well as clumsy?

That wasnt Leonidas, I said. That was me. I made that joke, the first time I

met him.

Eudaemon smiled. Be fair, he said, it was an exceptionally forgettable

joke.

Agreed, I replied. And absolutely typical of him that he remembered it.

And typical, Phryzeutzis, that he remembered it well enough to send his

extremely thoughtful and staggeringly generous gift to the wrong bloody tutor.

But that was Alexander for you: every bad thing he did came out right, and every

good thing he did was ever so slightly wrong.)

When we met up that evening (Eudaemon continued) Peitho was in an unusually

assertive mood. Definitely, he said. Got to go. No question.

I think we were the only two sober people in the whole camp; ironic, because

wed been as prodigal with the leaves as the boy

Alexander had apparently been with the frankincense. I shook my head doubtfully.

Not sure it can be done, I replied. How can you kill a bloke who survives

direct hits from heavy artillery?

Peitho scratched his head. I wasnt suggesting we bombard the bugger to death,

he said. I still think poisons the way to go, personally.

I made a rude noise. Aristotles book had proved to be a complete and utter

wash-out; not one slow poison from beginning to end. Yards and yards and miles

and miles of meaningless philosophical drivel (We could bore him to death,

easy, Peitho said gloomily, only wed never get him to sit still long

enough); but actual recipes a bloke could use? Bugger all.

Slit his throat, I said, its the only way. Unless the bastards some kind of

god, thatll kill him, you mark my words.The only question is, how?

Peitho frowned. I never heard it was difficult, he said. You just sort of get

a knife and

How do we get close enough to do it, I said, without some bugger catching us?

I mean, selfless heroisms one thing, but Im fucked if Im going to get myself

killed just to free the world of a pest.

Well, Peitho said, and poured himself another drink.

He had a point there, of course. The trouble was, Alexander was never alone. Not

ever. Apart from his faithful bodyguard-buddies, there were always people

trooping in to see him, make reports, get orders, explain themselves, pitch

ideas, beg favours; not to mention all the philosophers and poets and local

celebrities and general hangers-on that buzzed round him every hour of every day

in a sort of shimmering cloud, like those tiny midges that you get by the

thousand on cow-pats. Even when he was asleep there were ten or so blokes in the

tent with him, lying at his feet like big soppy dogs.

Got to be poison, then, I said after a while. No other way.

Theres fire, Peitho said. We could set fire to the tent.

Nah. I shook my head. Theyd rescue him quick as spit through a trumpet.

Poison. Put something in the pea soup. Kill the lot of em.

Peitho frowned. Im not sure we should do that, he said. Alexander, yes, but

poison the whole retinue

So what? I said. Theyre all Macedonians.

Im Macedonian, Peitho pointed out.

Yes, I replied. But not a real one, you said so yourself.

True. He stopped, then looked up with a big grin on his face. The honey, he

said. We could poison the honey.

I looked at him. You know, I said, I dont think Im going to let you share

my fire any more. The smokes doing things to your brain.

Oh, shut up, Eudaemon. No, listen. Its perfect. You know how when they sit

around in his tent after dinner with a big bowl of booze, and they always have a

jar of honey to sweeten it with? Poison the honey. What with the honey and the

booze, theyll never notice the taste; and everybodyll think it was the wine

that was poisoned, not the honey, or at least theyll never be able to prove

anything, since it all gets mixed up together anyhow. Itll work, I promise

you.

I leaned back and rubbed my chin thoughtfully. All right, I said. But that

still doesnt answer the question; what do we poison the buggers with? We still

havent got a clue.

Peitho shook his head. No, no, youre wrong. They taste the food but they never

taste the wine; no point, they all drink the wine and Alexander always assumes

that anybody whod want to kill him would be an upper-class Macedonian. Anybody

who poisoned the wine would have to drink it himself.

He had something there. So we wouldnt have to use a slow poison, I replied.

Not at all. Quicker the better, really; the first drinks always a toast to the

gods, they all drink simultaneously, so whats so damn funny?

Sorry, I said, as soon as Id managed to get a grip on myself and stop

laughing. Its just the picture that came into my mind just then, all those

fucking great long-haired Macedonians swilling down a toast and then hitting the

deck at precisely the same moment

Peitho sighed. Youre a sad bastard, Eudaemon, he said. Come on, lets think.

What was that poison you found in the book the other day?

White hellebore roots, I said. One dewdropll kill an elephant. Good stuff.

He nodded. Sounds just the ticket. Where do we get some from?

Search me, I said, shrugging my shoulders.

All right, we can dig some up. What does it look like? Where does it grow? Come

on, you read the book.

It didnt say, I said. Its a crummy book.

Obviously. Peitho slumped forward, his cheeks cupped in his palms. Why is

nothing ever bloody straightforward? he said.

We made no further progress that night, mainly because I fell asleep; next thing

I knew it was morning, and we were moving out. We talked a little more about it

over the next few days, but what with one thing and another we were getting

ready to invade Egypt, and everybody was suddenly busy, except me, of course

there wasnt really much time for sitting about.

Alexanders conquest of Egypt was the biggest non-event ever. The Persian

governor, a man called Mazaces, surrendered before we even asked him to; poor

bugger, he had no army, and the thought of what had happened to Batis obviously

troubled him. We crossed the desert between Syria and Egypt in a week and headed

straight for Memphis , the capital, where Alexander was officially crowned.

Its an odd thing with the Egyptians; they believe their kings are the eldest

sons of their chief god, or maybe the same eldest son born over and over again,

Im not sure no, that doesnt make sense, because then how could the reigning

king and his son and heir both be alive at the same time? Actually, I dont

think they worry about things like that. They dont think about these things in

the same way we do. In fact, Id go further and say theyre all as crazy as

fruit-bats, the lot of em. Anyway, it didnt bother them at all that one moment

Darius of Persia had been the only begotten son of god and Alexander the next. I

think the argument went something like, everything and everybody is god to some

degree or other, but some people and things are a bit more god than the rest,

which explains why some people have to work for a living and others dont.

Anyway, they were pretty confident that Alexander was a whole heap of god and

therefore not only qualified but eternally predestined to be King of Egypt;

which was convenient, bearing in mind that he had a large and ruthless army

standing by to kill anybody who said otherwise.

How do I look? hes supposed to have whispered to his buddy Hephaestion,

immediately after the coronation. Ive never been a god before.

Your nose is maybe a bit longer, Hephaestion replied. Apart from that, pretty

much the same.

So there we were in Egypt , the richest, oldest and weirdest country in the

entire world. Everything in Egypt is weird, brother, everything. We were in the

Kingdom of the Weird. It was, I think, where we all deserved to be.

I ask you; its a country thats mostly burned desert, but every year the river

floods and drowns out all the farms and villages, leaving them covered in thick

slimy mud and thats great, because if you spit a grape-pip into Egyptian mud,

ten minutes later youve got a mature vine. In Egypt , dead people live in huge

triangular palaces without windows, while the living dont even bother to build

proper houses, because wheres the point if theyre going to get buried in mud

anyhow? In Egypt , its compulsory to drink wine but illegal to make it; thats

why we Athenians have been selling them our rot-gut stuff for a thousand years.

In Egypt the King never dies, and god is every stray cat and white cow you see

as you walk down the street.

People just dont care, in Egypt ; they dont care about anything, because life

is just an illusion and you dont really start living till youre dead. They

dont grow wheat because its their living, they do it because its a religious

act, and its got to be done the right way, with priests supervising everything,

or it doesnt count. In Egypt they write everything down, but once its written

down nobody reads it because it doesnt matter (nothing matters). In Egypt ,

they dont run away when a crocodile slides up out of the water, because a

crocodile is god and has every right to eat anybody He chooses. In Egypt ,

theyll fight you to the last drop of blood one minute and let you walk all over

them the next. As far as I could tell, they didnt really seem to notice we were

there, like we were invisible or something. They did everything we told them to

do; but when we were talking to them they appeared to be listening to somebody

else we couldnt even see.

Personally, I liked Egypt . I could fancy living there.

Alexander decided to found a city. The pretext was that a replacement was

needed for Tyre ; it had been the commercial centre of the whole Near East and

now that it was nothing but a pile of rubble, people hadnt got anywhere to buy

and sell things. This wasnt actually true; the market was in the new town,

which we hadnt really touched. I think Alexander (who absolutely adored Egypt ,

for some reason) just wanted to found a city there. There was something

distinctly fishy about Alexander and founding cities. He founded cities every

bloody place he went, he left them behind him like a trail of broken wine-jars.

As is tolerably well known by now, Alexander had no sex-life whatsoever, and my

theory is that he got his fun doing to countries what normal people do to women,

cities being the tangible outcome. At least, thats part of it; the other part,

brother dear, is that you left him to found the perfect city, so obviously

founding perfect cities is what really great men do. And to think; I could have

strangled you when we were both kids, and I never knew it was going to be

important.

The name of this city was to be Alexandria ; hardly surprising, since all the

cities he founded were called Alexandria . Anyway, for a long time he was

utterly obsessed with the project and wouldnt tolerate anybody even mentioning

anything else (such as the war or the King of Persia; but that was all right,

because every time the Great King tried to rally his enormous army and come

after us, something went wrong; a general died or a province rebelled or plague

broke out or a river flooded or a supply-train was robbed by suddenly

materialising nomads or the omens were bad, so nothing ever got done.

Incompetence and rotten luck every step of the way; a one-legged dwarf could

probably have conquered Persia at that time).

The Egyptian priests advised Alexander to visit the holy shrine of Ammon.

Actually, not true; they told him hed already visited the holy shrine of Ammon,

in a sense, and unless he hurried up and actually went there in person, with his

physical body, it was going to upset a lot of things and throw the whole balance

of cosmic forces out of kilter. So off he went, with a packed lunch and an

entourage of hundreds of soldiers and thousands of Egyptian priests (who claimed

they knew exactly what had happened when he went there, but politely changed the

subject when he asked them to tell him).

The shrine of Ammon is at a place called the Oasis of Siva, in the middle of the

unspeakably awful Libyan desert . Needless to say, they got lost; the Egyptian

priests knew the way all right, but when Alexander set off in the wrong

direction they didnt say anything, assuming that since hed been there before

he knew the way too. When they were all about ready to drop dead of heat and

thirst, apparently they happened to bump into two enormous serpents blessed

with the power of human speech, who told them to turn left at the next big sand

dune and follow their noses; whereupon the heavens opened, it poured with rain

for two whole days and they all got soaking wet. It was either talking serpents

or a couple of camel-drovers; accounts differ. Youre the historian, you choose.

Well, they found the place eventually, and in he went, and out he came again.

Howd it go? they asked.

I heard what I wanted, he said, and that was all they got out of him on the

long trudge back to Alexandria . As a justification for a long and hazardous

journey, it doesnt amount to much; he could have done that just as easily if

hed stayed home, where a substantial number of the officers on his general

staff devoted their lives to making sure he only heard things hed be likely to

want to hear, Whats not in doubt, however, is that whatever it was he heard out

there in the desert had a significant effect on him. One school of thought

regards it as some kind of spiritual rebirth, while others hold that even if you

do have a magnificent head of long golden hair, if you insist on going several

days in the desert sun without a hat, you get whats coming to you.

At first, the changes were subtle, and could easily have been due to something

else; he was worried about something, or preoccupied with profound matters of

state and strategy, or just pissed off and in a foul mood. He didnt talk all

the time like he used to, there was less of the obvious delight hed always

taken in being leader of the pack. Most of all, he started wanting to be alone

occasionally, which hed never shown any sign of wanting before. People whod

been close to him, or reckoned they were, went around muttering about the bad

effect Egypt was having on morale generally, and how it was time to move on and

find someone new to kill, rather than moping about boozing and enjoying

ourselves.

But for once, Alexander wasnt the sole focus of attention, every hour of every

day. It was announced that a concert party was on its way from Athens to

entertain the troops, and for a day or so nobody could talk about anything else.

In retrospect theres nothing surprising about that; were Athenians, grandsons

of Eupolis, we grew up with it, but for provincials (Im being nice here,

calling them that) the thought of seeing genuine Athenian theatre was rather

more exciting than pyramids and crocodiles and the singing statue of Memnon, Son

of the Dawn. Indeed, people even started taking notice of me, what with the

family connection and all, and it was no use my saying I was completely out of

touch and Id never been all that keen to start with, they automatically assumed

I was a theatre buff, drama critic and boyhood chum of every Athenian actor

theyd ever heard of. They made me recite everything I could remember, from

Grandfathers stuff right back to the slabs of Aeschylus that Father made us

learn when we were kids, and when Id run out and told them I couldnt remember

any more they just got snotty and accused me of being stand-offish.

When the concert party finally arrived, I expected thered be a riot. Instead of

the flower of the Attic stage, wed been sent the trash, the dross, the

understudies understudies. You remember Telecritus, that doddering old ham we

saw a few times when we were kids? Id assumed hed died years ago, and the

performances he gave while he was there didnt do much to convince me otherwise;

but the Macedonians loved him. They thought he was marvellous, even when he

forgot his lines and started making them up, or patching in bits from other

plays. Honestly, I thought it was a rather clever skit and was laughing quietly

to myself, when some big hairy joker sitting next to me told me to shut my face

or hed push it out my neck for me.

Ill tell you who was in that company, though. I dont suppose youll remember

him, but I knew him quite well at one stage Sostratus, our neighbour Achias

eldest boy.

Hello, Sostratus, I said, having walked up quietly behind him. Whatre you

doing here?

He jumped about twice his own height into the air, then spun round. Sorry, he

said. Do I know you?

Eudaemon, I replied. Eutychides son. Our fathers shared a boundary in

Pallene, remember?

Oh, he said, and his face fell like a bucket down a well-shaft. You.

I grinned. Nice to see you too, Sostratus. Hows the nose these days?

He scowled. Still not right, he said.

After all these years, I replied, fancy. Thats a shame. Hows things at

home?

Awful, he replied. Thats why Im here. Anything to get out of the City for a

month or so.

In what way awful? I asked.

He made a vague, all-encompassing gesture; far better than anything hed done

on stage, where he acted with all the style and fluency of a ploughshare. Every

way you can possibly think of, he said. Harvests have been pathetic, prices

through the roof, goddamned Macedonians chucking their weight around, nothing in

the shops, everybody at each others throats in Assembly

Fine, I said. Good to see some things never change. So youre an actor now,

are you? Since when?

He sighed. Since I gave Orestes my share of the farm. No point both of us

starving to death, after all.

I see, I replied. And how is your brother? Did he ever marry that tart from

over the Mesogaia he was so crazy about? What was her name, now? Callipyge,

something like that.

Sostratus looked at me. No, he said, I did.

Oh. And hows she keeping?

She died last year.

Ah. Thats too bad.

Not really, Sostratus said, with another sigh. She was an evil bitch. He

studied me for a moment down the full length of his nose. So, he said, whats

it like, working for the Macedonians?

Not so bad, I replied. Its a living.

You were probably wise to clear out when you did, Sostratus said. Things have

been getting steadily worse all the time. Oh, by the way.

Yes?

You remember Megasthenes? He was in our gang when we were boys.

I smiled. Of course I remember him. Never been anybody who could imitate a dog

being sick like Megasthenes could. How is the old son of a?

Hes dead too, Sostratus said. Got stabbed to death by robbers on the way

home from the City. In broad daylight, too.

Youve no idea how much meeting Sostratus cheered me up. Ive always found other

peoples bad news has that effect on me; you listen to a catalogue of woes and

then think of your own troubles, and you come away all happy and grateful. What

really bucked me up, though, was the thought that if Id stayed in Athens and

taken my rightful share of the family property, I could well have ended up just

as miserable as Sostratus. In fact, he made me feel so good about myself that I

decided to do something for him.

Whatre these? he asked, as I pressed the gift into his hands.

Just dried leaves, I told him. You chuck them on the fire and they make the

room smell nice.

Oh.

All the way from Scythia , I pointed out.

Oh. Are they valuable?

I shrugged my shoulders. Depends, I said. If you mean valuable as in selling

them for money, probably not. On the other hand, how can you put a price on

happiness and a general sense of well-being?

He looked at the leaves for a moment as if he expected them to try to steal the

money out of his mouth. I could do with something like that, actually, he

said. That bastard Coenus has started a tannery right across the street from

our house, and you wouldnt believe the stench

Try the leaves, I said. Just the job.

He thought a little longer, then said, Thank you. I think he was almost as

surprised as I was to hear the words come out of his mouth. Well then, this

trip wont be a complete dead loss, then. Almost, he added, but not quite.

I frowned. Arent they paying you, then? I asked.

Oh sure. Not much, but something. Trouble is, I spent most of what Ive been

paid already on what I thought were genuine bona fide goods, and it turns out

theyre worthless. He grinned wretchedly. Just my luck, he added.

Sounds like it, I said. What happened?

Oh, I was in the market at Ephesus , we stopped there a day or so on our way

here, and I saw this stall selling jars of honey. Dirt cheap; of course, if Id

had the sense Id been born with Id have suspected something was wrong then and

there. Anyhow, I bought the stuff, twelve jars of it, and stowed it under my

bench back on the ship. Turned out later and of course I only found this out

after wed set sail, when it was too late to do anything about it this honey

was made by bees who fed off this special sort of shrub you only get in that

region; big bushy job with glossy leaves, purple flower in late spring. Cant

remember the name offhand. Anyhow, the point is, honey made with pollen from

that stuffs deadly poison. Eat so much as a fingers wipe of it and youre

dead, just like that. Talk about a narrow escape; I could have wiped out half of

Attica with that lot. Although, he added, the way things are there right now,

maybe Id have been doing them a favour, at that.

I waited for a moment before saying anything. This honey, I said. Where is it

now?

Still on the ship, he replied. When Ive got five minutes Ill dump it into

the sea and wash out the jars. Might get a few obols for them, you never know.

Thats all right, I said. Ill take them off your hands for you.

Why?

Sorry?

He scowled at me. What do you want with twelve jars of deadly poison?

Well, he had me there. Ill give you what you paid for them, I said.

Answer the question, dammit. What do you

Mice, I said. And wasps. They can be a real pest, out here in the desert.

I dont know, he muttered, looking away. What if someone ate some by mistake

and died? Wouldnt people say it was my fault?

Doubt it, I replied. And anyway, Ill take full responsibility. But nobodys

going to die, I promise you. Not any more.

What do you mean any more?

Do you want to get rid of the stuff or dont you?

Oh, all right. But youll promise me you wont

I promise.

Well, we hauled the stuff back on a cart. Then I gave Sostratus the slip and

went to look for Peitho.

Poisoned honey? he said. Thats right.

He bit his lip thoughtfully. How do you know it works? he said.

I frowned. Well, its not as if he was trying to sell it to me. Whyd he say it

was deadly poison if it wasnt?

Maybe he was just exaggerating, Peitho said. Maybe it just makes you ill,

gives you the runs or something.

I considered this for a moment. So what do you suggest? I said. You want to

test it on somebody first, is that it?

He looked at me all strange. No, of course not. Well, not on somebody.

Something.

I couldnt see any harm in that. Such as? I asked.

I dont know. Itd have to be something big, he went on. If we use a dog or a

sheep, that wouldnt prove anything.

I had a brainwave. I know, I said. What about a camel?

Thatd do, he replied. Where are we going to get a camel from?

I clicked my tongue impatiently. This is Egypt , I said. Everywhere you

look, theres bloody camels.

All right, he said. You find us a camel.

So I did. I marched straight down to the livestock pens, grabbed the smallest

and most hapless-looking Egyptian clerk I could find and started yelling at him,

hoping he wasnt one of those annoying cosmopolitan Egyptians who can speak

Greek. Fortunately he wasnt, so I was able to terrify him into letting me book

out a camel without actually stealing it. Works every time, that trick; if

youre annoyed and you outrank them and they cant understand a word youre

saying, all they really want to do is get out of your way. Understandably, of

course; the Macedonian reputation for unmitigated bastardry is entirely

merited.

The camel hit the deck like a windfall apple off a tree; Ill swear its stupid,

ugly mouth was still churning away when it went splat. Dont

think Ive ever seen anything taken dead that quickly since my first campaign in

Illyria , when the man next to me in the line had his head taken off by a

catapult bolt.

It works, then, Peitho said.

Looks like it, I replied.

He prodded the camels nose with his foot. What are we going to do with this?

he asked.

I hadnt really given the matter any thought. Under normal circumstances, Id

simply have called over the nearest couple of squaddies and told them to clear

up the mess; as it was, I didnt want to do that, just in case. Well, you never

know; people remember things, they put two and two together. And if that sounds

paranoid, fair enough. When you get into heavy stuff like regicide and treason,

paranoia s a useful survival tool.

Bury it? I suggested.

Peitho gave me a pained look. You bury the bloody thing, he grumbled. Look at

it, its huge.

I shook my head. Its not that big, I said. If you go steady, dont try and

rush it, wont take you more than a couple of hours.

Me? Why me?

Bad back, I said (which was true; bad experience dismantling and manhandling

carts the day before).

Get lost, Peitho said, looking around. Well drop it down a well.

I frowned. Cant do that, I said. Mortal sin, that is, in these parts; hardly

the way to stay inconspicuous. Go on, bury it like I told you. The sooner you

make a start...

The flies were starting to gather. I know, Peitho said, well send it to the

mess tent. Well say it got delivered here by mistake, nothing to do with us.

Theyll cut it up and stew it, problem solved. Besides, its wicked to waste

good food.

Youre crazy, I said. You saw the way it went down, the bloody things full

of poison. You could wipe out half the bloody camp.

Im not burying it, Peitho said firmly. For gods sakes, Im a Captain of

Engineers, Captains of Engineers dont bury camels. If anybody saw me, theyd

know at once I was up to something.

I scratched my head. All right, I said, well leave it here.

What?

Just leave it. Walk away. Theres nothing to connect us with it. Nobodys seen

us except that Egyptian clerk at the pound, and we all look alike to them.

Peitho looked worried. I dont know, he said. I dont like it.

A big fat fly settled on the camels naked eyeball and started to get busy.

Fine, I said. Ill bring you a spade.

Well leave it, Peitho said. Nothing to do with us.

Agreed. And if anybody did see us with it, well just tell the truth. We

checked it out of the pen, it suddenly keeled over dead, we left it there and

walked away. What does that make us guilty of? Untidiness. They dont chop heads

off for being untidy, even in this mans army.

Peitho rubbed his temples, in the manner of a man who has a bad headache coming.

I suppose that is the truth, he said, in a way. I mean, he went on, most of

it is actually true.

All of it, I said. Which is more than you can say of History.

I dont think anybody would deny that Alexanders rapid and well-documented

slide into weirdness began not long after the visit to the Ammon shrine at Siva.

The big question is, did he catch weirdness there, like some kind of nasty tummy

bug, or did it just bring out the weirdness that had always been in there

somewhere? Like most big questions, Im not sure it matters a damn, but for what

its worth Im inclined to go for the latter option.

Dont get me wrong; Im not saying his trip to Ammon had nothing to do with it.

But a man doesnt walk into a place believing hes a mortal and come out again

believing hes a god unless theres at least a slender core of weirdness in him

already.

Whats the matter, Euxenus? You look like youve just swallowed a wasp. Didnt

you know? Oh, for gods sakes, I thought everybody knew. One thing it was never

intended to be was a secret.

Yes, its perfectly true; and I dont mean History true, I mean true. During his

time in Egypt, shortly after his interview with whatever it is theyve got

tucked away in that shrine at Siva, Alexander let it be known that with effect

from such-and-such a date he was a god and that all diplomatic and

administrative protocols were to be amended to take account of this development.

The official explanation was that it was all for the benefit of the Egyptians,

who believe that all their kings are gods; if Alexander went round saying he

wasnt a god, he couldnt be King of Egypt, and wed suddenly find ourselves

with a horrendous rebellion on our hands. Perfectly valid point; the Egyptians

are like that. Go into the market, round up a hundred people at random and cut

off their heads, and nobodyd dream of making an issue out of it. Accidentally

run a cart over a sacred cat or a sacred dog and theyll come for you with

scythes and hayforks, and theyll keep coming till either you or they are wiped

out. Really, youve got to admire a people who take their faith that seriously

(actually no, you havent; people who take their faith that seriously are

dangerous nutters. Still, we as a race do tend to admire dangerous nutters, so I

dont see why we shouldnt admire the Egyptians. Theyre pretty much like us,

when you get right down to it, except that theyre completely different).

Well, that was the official explanation, and it was logical and comforting in a

look-at-these-funny-foreigners sort of a way; at first it was all a great big

joke, with Alexander joining in absolutely as much as he was able to, given that

he had the sense of humour of a sandal. In the mess-hall, theyre serving

dinner; everybody else gets their usual monster serving of bread and roast beef,

Alexander gets an empty plate. Wheres mine? he asks. Youre having prayers,

they reply. It starts tipping down with rain, everybodys getting soaked;

Hephaestion gives Alexander a filthy look. Pack it in, he says. Sorry,

Alexander replies, looking sheepish. Told you you shouldnt have had the

watercress, says Cleitus, shaking his head. Everybody laughs.

Except me, of course. Well, you understand why; but Peitho, poor bloody

Macedonian that he was, couldnt see why I was being so uptight about it.

Its an Athenian thing, I said. You wouldnt understand.

So explain, he said.

I shrugged, and stoked up the fire. Its how we Athenians honour the gods, I

said. We make fun of them. Its our sincerest expression of faith.

Peitho raised an eyebrow. Get away, he said.

Straight up. Thats how the comic plays started off, actually; the priests and

the congregation making fun of the god. Its our way of showing affection, which

is so much more important than faith.

Youre an odd lot, you Athenians, Peitho said.

A lot of people think so, I admitted. Blasphemy, they call it; to which we

quite rightly reply that the biggest blasphemy of all is saying that the gods

havent got a sense of humour. Which, I added, they quite patently do. You

look at the way human beings reproduce, or remove waste materials from their

bodies, and then try to tell me the gods havent got a sense of humour. Pretty

basic one, not to mention a bit sick; but nobodys perfect.

Peitho thought about it for a moment. All right, he said, I can see where

youre bothered, you being an Athenian. But Alexander isnt; hes Macedonian.

I nodded. But he was brought up Athenian, to all intents and purposes. Educated

Athenian. Made to learn Athenian plays. Dont think for a moment he isnt seeing

all this exactly the way I am. And that worries me. Its as bad as the Egyptians

falling flat on their faces whenever he looks at them. Worse. The Egyptians are

just funny foreigners; the people cracking the jokes are Greek.

Peitho breathed in, held his breath and blew out slowly. All right, he said,

I can see why youre worried. Doesnt change anything, does it? I mean, if we

were going to kill him when he was relatively sane, we ought to kill him even

more now hes gone potty. Well, he added, you know what I mean.

Sure, I said. But here we are talking about it, not doing anything.

Whats that supposed to mean?

Oh, come on, Peitho. What I mean is, whatre we waiting for? Weve got the

poison honey, theres never going to be a better time. Why dont we just do it?

He blinked several times, rapidly. What, right now?

I shrugged. Why not?

He rubbed his cheeks with the heels of his hands, as if he was sleepy and trying

to wake himself up. All right, he said.

Right now?

Right now.

Right. I felt a shiver go right through me. You dont think we should

What? Peitho looked at me. You just said we should do it now. You just said.

I shook my head. Thats not what I said, I replied. I said I couldnt see a

reason why we shouldnt do it now. Doesnt mean to say there isnt one.

Peitho frowned. Youve lost me, he said.

I stood up, took a few steps forward, then back, then sat down again. Lets

face it, I said, we arent very good at this. It was only the other day we

were wetting ourselves trying to think what to do with a dead camel. Now youre

saying we should murder the King of Macedon and half the court.

Youve changed your mind, Peitho said. Youre scared.

Im bloody not.

You bloody are.

Yes, of course Im scared, I said. If I wasnt scared, Id be crazier than he

is. Scared is a precious gift the gods gave us to stop us doing bloody stupid

things thatll get us killed.

Peitho nodded. Perfectly true, he said. But the whole point of

killing Alexander is to stop him getting us killed. What you might call a higher

plane of scaredness.

I slumped forward in my chair. Youre right, I said. I dont know. Maybe we

should either do this thing now or not do it at all.

Now youre talking, Peitho said cheerfully. After all, whats the worst thing

that could happen to us?

Are you serious? I said. We could be caught and horribly tortured to death.

All right, Peitho said. And if we dont do it, if we leave it and for some

reason it becomes impossible, like we move out or suddenly we cant get to him,

what then? We could be killed in a battle, or get wounded and die slowly and

painfully of blood poisoning, or catch some terrible disease; or the Persians

might get us and peg us out in the desert to die, or

Oh, shut up, for gods sakes, I said. Youre not helping.

Im just saying, Peitho replied. Theres no way of knowing whats going to

happen, so whats the point of worrying ourselves sick about it? Just makes it

harder on ourselves.

I thought about it for a moment. So what youre saying is, I said, we should

do it now. Rightnow.

Yes.

I sighed. All right, I said.

Youll do it?

Didnt I just say?

Sure. All right, lets do it.

Right.

We both stood up a little bit shakily, but that was the medicine, it catches

you sometimes if you move suddenly. The honey, I said. Whered you stow it?

In the supply tent, of course, he said. You dont think Id keep it here, do

you?

Why not?

I get caught with twelve jars of poisoned honey and they ask me what I want it

for, Im going to have a job explaining, he replied, reasonably enough. So I

stashed it in with the rest of the stores, at the back where it wont hurt.

Then, if anybody asks, its nothing to do with me.

I frowned. Small point here, I said. How the hell are we going to know which

jars are the poison? Dip a finger in and suck?

He looked annoyed. You think Im stupid, he said. I marked the jars so wed

know them again. Scratched a big P on the necks.

P, I said. For Poison, right?

Theyve all got batch numbers on, he replied. I checked. The last batch in

was Small 0, and the batch theyre drawing now is G, so theres no danger

theyll draw the poison stuff by mistake. You see, he went on, if you do

things carefully and methodically, you dont make mistakes.

So we went to the supply tent. It was late, dark as a foot up a bag, so there

was nobody about. Id brought an oil lamp with a little stubby wick.

Id have thought youd have known about the batch numbers, Peitho was saying.

Its your bloody clerks who do the drawing.

I shook my head. I just let em get on with it, I said. No good ever came of

telling a clerk how to do his job.

True, Peitho said. Right, heres where I left them, behind the corn bins,

under some old sacks.

I lifted the lamp. No you didnt, I said.

What do you mean?

Look, I said. Old sacks, yes. No jars.

He scowled. Bugger, he said. Someones moved them.

Some bastard of a clerk, I said. Theyre always tidying stuff, its a miracle

anything ever gets found.

He nodded, and lit another lamp from mine. Just as well I had the good sense to

mark the necks, isnt it? Otherwise, gods only know what might have happened.

Very true, I said. All right, you look on that side and Ill check these ones

here. I still say you shouldnt have put them in here in the first place.

Relax, he called back out of the darkness. This is the army. A place for

everything, and everything in its Right, here we are.

I breathed out; Id been more worried than Id realised. Silly, really; after

all, we were only planning to poison the entire general staff. Make sure you

count them, I said. Just in case.

Of course Im going to He stopped, didnt finish the sentence.

Whats the matter? I asked; though of course I knew.

He didnt say anything for a minute or so. Well, he said at last, I can find

ten.

Wonderful, I said. What about the other two?

Theyre here somewhere, he replied, a little shakily. Its just some buggers

put them in the wrong Make that eleven, he said. Are you looking your side?

Yes, I told him. Ive got A to M here. Check them all, he snapped.

I am doing, I replied irritably. And theyre all A to M, like I told you.

I watched the pale glow of his lamp coming towards me. Theres a jar missing,

he said. He looked awful.

I took a deep breath. The main thing, I said, is not to panic. Right, whats

the drill? Who checks them out? If I know clerks, therell be a register,

stock-book, something like that. You cant draw a breath in this mans army

without sealing for it.

Stock-book, he repeated. Youre right, theres got to be a stock-book. Where

do you think itll be?

I dont know, do I? Where do the clerks sit?

He pointed towards the door. Over there, he said, on those barrels.

I nodded. Then Ill bet you thats where youll find the stock-book. Logic, you

see.

Sure enough, next to the barrels the clerks sat on we found a stack of wax

tablets. They were covered in little rows and columns of tallies, crossed

through and double-crossed, each line and row marked with one or more letters.

Meaningless, of course, unless youre an army clerk.

I cant read this, I said.

Peitho shook his head. We need a clerk to explain it, he said.

Oh, fine. We go round and wake one up. Excuse me, we say, we seem to have

mislaid a jar of lethally poisonous honey, would you mind checking your records

so we can see who weve murdered? Thatd really finish us off, that would.

He glared at me. So what do you suggest? he said.

Walk away, I replied.

He looked shocked. You cant be serious.

Watch me. Its just like the bloody camel, I went on. Nothing to do with us.

Eudaemon, hundreds of people could die

All right, I said. I know. And its very sad. But life is like that,

particularly in war. Hundreds of thousands of people die in wars and nobody

seems too fussed about it most of the

Eudaemon, he said. Weve got to do something.

Yes, I said. Walk away, thats what weve got to do. After all, I went on,

its not like we actually put the poison in the honey ourselves. Its

naturally poisonous. Really, its just a tragic accident, this tainted stuff

getting in with the good stuff. Its like when the Thracian cavalry got the

shipment of tainted wheat. There was no way anybody could know just by looking

at it.

He grabbed my arm. We know, he said.

Nobody can prove that, I pointed out.

He stared at me. We know, he repeated.

I looked into his eyes until I had to look away. All right, I said. Look,

this cant be the only register, its just a stock list, tells em how much of

everything theyve got at any one time. Theres got to be another one somewhere

that says whos been issued with what. You know, the one we have to seal when we

draw stuff.

Peitho thought for a moment. Youre right, he said. Doesnt seem to be here,

though. Well, of course, he went on, they wouldnt keep it here, would they?

I dont know, I said.

Think about it. All that sort of things got to go through to the

Quartermasters office. Ill bet you what happens is that each set of stores

hands in their returns to the QMs clerks every night, so they can keep the

tally up to date. Thats where those tabletsll be, he went on, in the

Quartermasters office.

I sat down on a barrel. Fantastic, I said. Thats that, then.

He sat down beside me. Not necessarily, he said. Were looking at this the

wrong way, you know.

I looked up. We are?

Sure, he said, with a decisive nod. Were looking at it from the point of

view of two evil bastards whove managed to lose a jar of poison they were

planning to kill people with. Thats not how it is at all.

Explain.

How it is really, he said, is, we or rather you, youre the one who knows

all about fucking bees - you have reason to suspect, because of something youve

heard just now, you have reason to suspect that the latest batch of honey might

be tainted. Maybe even dangerous, so, being a responsible and conscientious

officer, youre going to dump the whole consignment, just to be on the safe

side.

Of course, I said. Well, its what anybody would do.

All right, then. Imagine your dismay when you find that one of these jars has

somehow already been issued

Issued out of turn, I pointed out. Against regulations.

Quite. Some clerks going to get his arse kicked for that, if theres any

justice.

Heads will roll, I agreed. A mistake like that could have cost hundred of

lives.

Peitho looked up. Still might, he said. Come on, youd better get yourself

over to the Quartermasters, quick as you can.

All right, I said. Why me? I added. Youre coming too.

He shook his head. Nothing to do with me, he replied. Youre the fucking bee

supremo. How would I have got involved?

I sighed. He had a point there. All right, I said. Ill meet you back at your

tent when Im done.

Better not, he said. Just in case. I mean to say, he explained, if

something has gone wrong and half the camps dead already, I think Id rather

not be associated with you just now. You do see, dont you?

Perfectly, I said.

Logic, he replied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A nd that, dear brother, is how I came to be a hero of the war, a man who saved

the lives of hundreds of his comrades. As someone pointed out to me, on a

strictly arithmetical basis, number of lives saved, I was among the top five

great and glorious heroes of the war, because most of the jokers who got awarded

the laurel crown and the desirable giftware for saving lives only saved one or

two, or at the most five or six, in some battle or other. True, they risked

their lives, got themselves carved up, whatever; but if you go by end result

rather than circumstances surrounding the act of heroism in question, they were

nowhere compared with me.

The reason why I was such a great and glorious hero was that if I hadnt raised

the alarm, that jar of deadly poison would have gone in the wine for drinking

the Queen Mothers health on her birthday, and the consequences of that wouldve

been drastic, to say the least. Hundreds, in fact, is quite definitely an

understatement. Make that thousands.

So great and glorious a hero was i, in fact, that it wasnt enough for me just

to get my laurel crown and desirable giftware from my superior officer (a man by

the name of Diades, Chief Engineer; nice enough man in his way); no, I was to

receive my rewards and honours from the hand of Alexander himself Perfect,

Peitho said, when I told him.

I frowned. Actually, I replied. Id rather there wasnt any fuss at all. In

fact, the sooner the whole things forgotten about

Im not talking about your stupid fucking laurel crown, Peitho said testily.

Im talking about killing Alexander. You do remember, dont you? Our plot to

assassinate the King of Macedon?

What are you talking about? I said.

Gods, are you dumb or what? Heres a golden opportunity, handed to us on a

plate by some god who loves us I was shocked. Youre not suggesting I kill him

while hes giving me my award? I said.

He looked puzzled. Why the hell not? he said.

Well... Unusually for me, I found I had trouble putting my thoughts into

words. It wouldnt be right, I said. Not when hes being so

Nice?

Well, for want of a better word, yes.

Peitho stared at me as if Id just sprouted wings out of my ears. I dont

believe it, he said. A bunch of dried leaves and a three-obol tripod, and you

go from being the man who was prepared to wipe out a whole generation of

Macedonian aristocracy in one hit to some sort of Ideal Soldier. Dear gods,

Eudaemon, if this wasnt so bloody serious Id wet myself laughing.

He was starting to annoy me. Its nothing to do with the damned crown, I said.

And yes, I still believe Alexanders got to go. Im really behind that, every

step of the way. I just cant see how Im going to murder him face to face like

that.

Why not? Afraid of hurting his feelings?

I kicked over a stool. All right, I said, you tell me. There I am in his

tent. When do I stick him with the knife? Before he hands me the laurel crown or

after? I know; its his mothers birthday, he might offer me a drink to toast

her health. I could slash his throat out while hes pouring me a cup of wine

with his own hands. Or should I wait till hes turned his back to pick up the

tripod hes going to give me?

Peitho shook his head. All right, he said, its a bit cold-blooded. Thats

how it goes. Im afraid there just isnt a polite way to murder someone.

I folded my arms and looked away. Besides, I said, if I killed him there and

then, Id never get out of there alive. What makes you think well be alone in

the tent, for one thing? Hes never alone. These days, when he goes for a crap

behind the mess tent, theres half a dozen ambassadors with him, not to mention

the duty philosopher.

All right, Peitho said, you may have to take out a bystander. Big deal.

Youre a soldier, thats what soldiers do. They kill people.

I shook my head. This is getting worse and worse, I said. And even if I do

succeed in killing Alexander, and six assorted staff officers, what then?

Standing over the bodies with a dirty great knife in my hand, its not the sort

of thing you can bluff your way out of.

Peitho thought for a moment. All right, he said. Youre in there, getting

your award for being a great hero. While youre there, some clerk or adjutant

goes berserk and kills the King. Youre too late to stop him, but at least you

manage to wrestle the knife out of his hand and cut him down before he manages

to escape. Who knows? Peitho added sourly, Maybe theyll give you another

laurel crown for that.

Nobodys going to believe it, I said. Id be committing suicide, and you know

it.

He glowered at me. Youre the one whos so desperate to be a hero, he said.

Why not be a real one instead of a bloody fraud?

I resent that, I said. And youre beginning to get on my nerves.

So?

I could see that things were getting out of hand. Look, I said, it isnt

helping matters us being at each others throats. At this rate well end up

killing each other before we so much as lay a finger on Alexander. Just accept

it, Im not going to kill him when I go to get my award.

Fine. A wonderful opportunity wasted.

Not necessarily, I said patiently. What I can do while Im talking to him is

to try and set up a real opportunity. One that wont get me killed.

Peitho heaved a long sigh. All right, he said, lets hear it.

Try this, I said, leaning forward. While hes giving me the crown I whisper

to him that Ive got to see him alone. Urgently.

You going to give any explanation? Or just rely on your silver tongue?

I marshalled my thoughts. Ill tell him I know all about a plot against his

life, I said. Thatll do the trick. Hes always ready to listen to stuff like

that. Imagines plots and conspiracies everywhere, he does.

What, like ours, you mean?

I ignored that. Then, I said, when weve got him on his own, with no guards

or adjutants or hangers-on, no witnesses Thats how you do these things, must

be. Careful planning. Thinking about it first. Not like that crazy bastard who

assassinated King Philip.

Peitho didnt say anything for a moment. All right, he admitted, eventually.

I can see the logic. Well, Ill leave you to it. Best of luck. Youll need it.

Ive always hated it when people say that.

I never could be doing with polishing armour; oil and sand and a little twist of

rag, round and round till your wrists ache. It all seems so pointless, somehow;

the plain fact is, bronze isnt meant to be all golden and shiny, its natural

state is that sort of dull, rich brown, like oxtail soup. The patina is natures

defence against verdigris and corrosion; scour it off and theres nothing

between the bare metal and the malice of nature.

Still, I polished up my armour, and the rest of my gear, till I looked like one

of those rich-kid soldiers who have five slaves employed full-time bulling kit.

Dont know why; perhaps I thought that Alexander would be more likely to trust a

well-turned-out soldier than a scruffy one, or maybe I just needed to keep

myself busy while I waited for my interview.

Wasnt the first time Id been in The Presence, face to face well, you know

that, because Ive told you. But I knew as soon as I put my head under the

tent-flap that something was drastically different.

For one thing, the tent was next best thing to empty. I remembered thinking, the

last time, how the great mans quarters were only just on the tidy side of

cluttered everywhere you looked there were things, bits and pieces hed

acquired in the course of his great adventure the Shield of Achilles hed

pinched from the priests at Troy, for example, the severed ends of the Gordian

Knot, the swords of mighty Persian warriors hed slain in hand-to-hand combat,

gifts of rare and precious tableware from kings and governors, relics (he was a

sucker for those; shinbones of giants, genuine dragons teeth in a little jar,

Hercules toothpick, Perseus left sandal, Theseus toenail-clippings, you name

it, some toerag had palmed it off on Alexander of Macedon). Now there was

nothing but a bed, a big wooden box the size of a coffin, and a single

service-issue folding stool.

And Himself, of course. He was sitting on the bed, staring blankly into space,

his mouth slightly open. He stayed that way for about as much time as itd take

to count to forty.

Eudaemon, he said, eventually, without turning his head. Euxenus brother.

Come in, sit down.

You know that feeling you get when you know somethings badly wrong? I had that

feeling. Hey, do you remember that old man who lived up near Acharnae, the one

whose house we went to when we were lost up that way one time? Yes, of course

you do; seemed quite normal, till he pulled out that trunk from under his bed

and in it was his dead wife. I expect you remember how he insisted on

introducing us, like she was still alive. Well, it was that kind of creepy,

I-want-to-get-out-of-here-now feeling. Cant say why I felt like that, exactly;

maybe it was just the sight of that big wooden box that brought back the old

memory. Gods only know what hed got in there. His clean clothes, probably.

Well, I sat down, perched on that folding stool like a pigeon on a thin branch,

and waited. He was still staring into space. Carried on doing that for a very

long time, until one of the men whod brought me in, cant remember who it was

but it was one of the inner circle, made a sort of coughing noise and said,

Alexander.

Yes, I know, he replied, still staring into thin air. All right, dismissed.

I could tell the man didnt want to go, but he couldnt very well disobey an

order. A moment later, there was just me and Alexander. Ill be straight with

you, Euxenus, I was scared. Well, you know Ive never liked creepy stuff.

They tell me youve done a very great thing, he said, saved the lives of your

fellow soldiers. Thats good.

I didnt say anything. Didnt seem like I was expected to say anything. I just

sat there.

Its a good feeling, he went on. I think Im supposed to give you something

now. He turned his head and looked me straight in the eye. Do you think he

knew? he asked.

Sir?

Oh, never mind. I expect he did. A man like him, hed have seen it. Doesnt

matter. Youre very fortunate, you know. Weve both been very fortunate, to have

known him. Still, youd have thought hed have mentioned it. Unless he was

supposed not to, of course. He smiled at me. Its been hard for me, you know,

coming to terms with it. If hed said something, just given me some sort of a

clue, maybe Id have been able to cope with it a little better. Anyway, he

said, thats enough of that, wheres that crown thing Ive got to give you? He

looked around. Doesnt seem to be here. Would you be terribly disappointed if

we forgot about that? After all, its the thought that counts, isnt it?

I nodded stiffly. I knew I had to do my bit now, the speech about the conspiracy

Id so carefully worked out; but all I wanted to do was get the hell out of

there. Alexander, I said, theres something I have to tell you. Its really

important.

He looked up at me. All right, he said. Go on.

I looked round, the way Id practised. I need to tell you when were alone.

We are alone, he pointed out. Fire away.

I remember one time when I was a kid and Id scrambled up into that old apple

tree in the top corner of the big field at Pallene. There was a big fat apple

all on its own right at the end of a long, thinnish branch, and Id set my heart

on that apple. I remember the feeling of utter disgust when suddenly I wasnt in

the tree any more, I was on the ground with a broken branch between my legs and

my head feeling like someoned just belted it with a big smiths hammer.

Go on, he said.

I looked round again. I suppose I was trying to create the impression that even

though we seemed to be alone, there were hidden listeners hiding everywhere.

Hiding behind what, gods know, since the place looked like it had just been

raided by the bailiffs.

Its a conspiracy, isnt it? he said.

It felt just like being punched very hard in the pit of the stomach; dizzy,

frightened, couldnt breathe, couldnt move. Just sat there.

Its all right, he went on. I know. I know all about it. And he smiled.

You do, I repeated.

Oh, yes. Ive known for some time. Really, Im sorry for them. Its so

pointless, isnt it?

Hed said them, not you. I looked at him. He broadened the smile, till you

could have dried fish in the warmth of it.

Poor Eudaemon, he said, you look so worried. But really, theres nothing to

worry about. They cant hurt me. Nobody can. Thats why I havent done anything.

At least, he went on, frowning slightly, not yet. Ive been wondering about

that, actually.

Oh, yes? I said.

He nodded. Its awkward, he said. Really, I should know the answer to this,

but I cant seem to clarify my thinking. Ever since Ive known, its been

well, disorientating, I suppose you could call it. I feel like a child whos

suddenly found himself inside a mans body, it takes some getting used to. No,

the thing I cant decide is, ought I to do anything about it? I mean, if their

silly plot cant possibly succeed and it cant, of course, we both know that

then ought I to punish them for it? Should you punish someone for trying to do

something thats wicked but actually physically impossible? He rubbed the tip

of his nose with the knuckle of his thumb dammit, brother, he picked that up

from you. I knew it was bugging me, where Id seen someone do that before.

I suppose Ive got to, he went on. I mean, my father does. He punishes

blasphemers and perjurers and people who desecrate His temples. If my father

does it, I suppose Ive got to do it too; for their sake, really, not mine,

otherwise if I dont, how can they possibly have any faith? I dont know, it

just seems so unnecessary, somehow. So petty, if you know what I mean.

I nodded. So you know whos in the plot, then? I asked.

Of course I know. Ive always known. He grinned. I guess its a bit like

people who get hit on the head and lose their memory, and then a while later it

slowly starts coming back. Yes, thats a good way of putting it; theres all

these things Ive always known, and slowly Im beginning to remember them.

Explains a lot, really; like how Ive always known exactly what to do in a

battle, without really knowing why. He frowned. Thats a point, actually.

Since Im well, what I am do you think theres any point in carrying on with

the war? I mean, it all seems so unfair. They cant possibly win, can they?

I realised that Id stopped breathing some time ago. Well, no, I said. Of

course not.

Maybe I should stop, then, he said. Except, I can distinctly remember a whole

lot more battles, ones we havent had yet. Theres going to be one quite soon,

in fact, once weve crossed the Tigris . I wouldnt remember if it wasnt going

to happen, it stands to reason. Theres all sorts of odd things I can remember,

you know. I can even remember dying, which is a really strange sensation, let me

tell you.

It must be, I said.

He sighed, and shook his head. Thats the trouble, he said, Im blundering

about, not really having the faintest idea what Im doing, and of course theres

nobody I can ask, which is whats really annoying. Youd have thought my father

would have told me by now, or sent somebody. But I assume thats all part of it,

working it out for yourself. Its very lonely, you know? Ive never been alone

before, Im not sure I like it. Theres so much I dont understand yet. Still,

thats my problem. Ive enjoyed talking to you, though. Its almost like

talking to your brother. We must do it again. Often.

Sir, I said.

He stood up, and I stood up too, just in case he was about to bite me. Ive

been thinking of sending for him, you know. I cant think of anybody else who

might possibly understand. But I dont think I should, really. Itd be unfair on

him, for one thing. And really, I do have to deal with this on my own, theres

no getting away from it. Hed say the same thing if he was here, I know.

Thank you, sir, I said. Am I dismissed?

He nodded; then, before I could get out of there, he went on, I think Id

better punish them after all. For one thing, its what I would have done you

know, before. And Ive decided that until Ive remembered a bit more and Ive

understood what Im supposed to be doing, itd probably be better if I carried

on as if nothing had happened. Otherwise it might upset people. What do you

think?

I dont know, I said. It seemed safest, somehow. And true, of course.

I think its best, he said, with a slight nod of his head. Until I really

know what Im doing and what Im about, Id better keep it to myself; otherwise

Im just going to make myself look ridiculous. Ill send for you when I want you

again.

Sir.

Thats all, then. Im sorry about the bees, by the way. It was an accident,

obviously. Well get some more in a week or so. They do say the African ones are

much fiercer, so in a way its all for the best.

I got out of there as quickly as I could, which wasnt nearly quick enough. As I

sneaked back across the camp, I felt as if someone had scratched the word IDIOT

across the back of my mirror-burnished breastplate in very big letters. My first

instinct was to head back to my tent, stoke up the fire but good with medicine,

and try to get away from it for as long as possible; but something prompted me

to go to look in on the bees first, so I did.

Wish I hadnt; because when I got there, I found my two Scythian friends

standing inside one of our specially adapted siege-tower frames, with the lid

flung open and a noticeable absence of angry, buzzing bees. The old boy was in

tears, and his sidekick not much better off.

Whats going on? I asked.

The old boy looked up at me, great fat teardrops rolling down his face. Theyre

all dead, he said.

I tried to look surprised. What do you mean, theyre all dead? I asked.

Dead, the old boy replied. I cant understand it. When I looked in on them a

few hours ago they were fine. When I came to give them their honey just now,

they were all

I walked over and looked in. He was standing up to his ankles in dead bees.

Damnedest sight you ever saw.

How did that happen? I asked.

The younger Scythian shrugged. No idea, he said. It wasnt cold or hunger or

smoke. They just died.

Dont be daft, I said. Bees dont just die, surely. Nothing just dies. They

die of something. Whatve you two been doing to them? And what the hell are we

going to tell Diades?

They didnt reply, either of them. Just then, they couldnt be bothered with me.

Reasonable enough, I suppose; the deaths of literally millions of living

things, even bees, is liable to scale things down a bit. Really, I was glad they

were preoccupied. Otherwise they might have noticed how calmly I took the news;

like Id been expecting it or something.

Get rid of them, I said. Ill put in for some more. We can buy locally. I do

hear the African varietys a whole lot more aggressive than the Greek strain,

anyway.

I walked away, but the picture went with me; all those dead bodies, heaped where

theyd fallen, like men surrounded by the enemy in some battle, hemmed in till

they couldnt move and cut down. Alexanders battles were often like that.

All right, then; lets say there were a million dead bees, at a very

conservative estimate. Now lets think how many people Alexander killed and

Im not talking about those he killed with his own hands, or who died in his

battles, Im thinking of every man, woman and child who died because Alexander

decided to invade Asia; killed in battle, died of disease along the line of

march, died of starvation and exposure after our army had marched through their

land, died in a wide variety of ways because of him. A million? Very

conservative estimate. Now then; imagine them piled up in one place, the way the

bees had been. Lay them out on the mountain and from a distance theyd look like

a forest or a city. Dump them in the sea, and people would think it was a new

island. Think of the bee-keeper standing over his ankles in dead bees, or the

god in dead men. Enough to put you off your porridge, it really is.

I asked myself as I walked back to my tent, How did the fucker know? And there

were only two answers; either he had them killed, or he really was

Peitho was waiting in my tent when I got there. Well? he demanded.

Bastard killed my bees, I replied.

What?

He killed my damn bees, I repeated. Whyd anybody do a thing like that?

Peitho half-rose from his stool, then sat down again. What the hell are you

talking about? he asked. Did you see him? Have you set up the meeting?

I shook my head. It didnt work out that way, I replied.

You did go, didnt you? You didnt lose your nerve and not turn up?

I shook my head. Of course I turned up. It didnt work, thats all. Well have

to think of something else.

Oh, for Peitho scowled and screwed up his eyes. It was the perfect

opportunity. What was it; wouldnt he go for the conspiracy thing?

Reckons he knows all about it already, I said. Hes gone mad, by the way.

Completely off his head. Here, look, you nearly let the fire go out.

Well, we got the fire going again, and we were just building up a nice head of

fog when the tent-flap was thrown open and in stalked a couple of guardsmen.

Startled the life out of me, as you can imagine.

Which one of yous Peitho? the officer said.

Peitho looked round. He was pretty far gone with the medicine, which was

unfortunate. Me, he said. Who wants to know?

Youve got to come with us.

I wanted to do something, but between fear and medication I was pretty well

paralysed. Peitho stood up, staggering slightly. The guards officer was coughing

and pulling faces, but he didnt say anything.

Where are we going? Peitho asked.

Am I coming too? I added. Gods know why.

The guards officer shook his head. Just him, he said. All right, move it

along. You, he added, looking at me, stay there.

So I stayed there, until my eyes grew heavy and I fell asleep. When I woke up,

there was light flooding in through the tent-flap and the smoke-hole, and some

bugger in armour shaking me by the arm.

What? I asked, noticing that my head was splitting.

Come on, the man said. He says he cant start the trial without you.

I stood up. Remembered something else, has he? I asked. What?

Forget it, I said.

Twice in so many days; most soldiersd give their right arms to be commended by

the King himself for two separate and distinct acts of conspicuous merit on two

successive days. But for me, he said, this terrible plot might have succeeded.

But for me, the army, the kingdom, the empire would now be an orphan child

cruelly bereft of its father, a ship without its rudder, a people wandering in

the dark. But for me.

Of the six poor buggers standing up in front of the tribunal, three Id never

seen before in my life; the other three were Callisthenes, the philosopher

nephew of Aristotle whod lent us the book; my junior Scythian bee-keeper; and

Peitho, my friend.

It was a chilling tale, right enough. The three staff officers, companions of

Alexander since childhood, brought up as his brothers, educated with him under

the shade of the same tree at Mieza, had conspired to kill Alexander and divide

the empire between them. To this end theyd suborned the other three;

Callisthenes, who did the research in his extensive library of books about

poison and murder, the bee-keeper, who acquired the poisoned honey, and Peitho,

who co-ordinated the whole operation. Mercifully, they made the fatal mistake of

confiding their terrible scheme to a loyal, honourable man who, in spite of his

friendship with all three of them, never hesitated to put his duty before his

personal feelings, and revealed the whole sordid business to the King.

Brother, everybodys scared of dying; but as I stood there in front of the

tribunal hearing all this, I could think of worse things. There was a part of me

that wanted Peitho to turn round and say It was him, it was all his idea

honestly, if he had, Id probably have admitted it then and there. As it was, I

was too shit-scared and ashamed to move at all. Peitho didnt even look at me.

The Scythian called out to me Eudaemon, tell them its not true, tell them I

never even saw the poison honey but I pretended he wasnt there. Callisthenes

just included me in his general bewildered stare. They were found guilty, of

course. Then everybody went very quiet, as Alexander stood up to announce the

sentence.

Well, there werent any surprises; death by hemlock for all six, sentence to be

carried out forthwith. The Scythian and one of the Macedonians started shrieking

and kicking; the guards bashed them

on the head and dragged them out by their feet. The other four just walked away,

and that was the last I ever saw of them. Alive, at any rate; dead, it was

rather hard not to see them, since their heads were put up on poles and planted

at the corners of the drill-square, in the usual manner. As soon as it was safe

to go, I walked away fast; but someone ran up behind me. It was another of those

damned guardsmen.

Here we go, I thought; but instead the man pushed a wreath of leaves and a small

brass tripod into my hands. Alexander says you forgot to take these, he said.

You left them behind, remember?

I thanked him, took them and went back to my tent. Someone had been in there and

taken away the rest of the leaves, which was a blow, but there was still plenty

of wine left, at least when I started on it. Not so much later on. I chucked the

laurel crown on the fire, but its leaves turned out to have no perceptible

medicinal value.

Afterwards, we marched for a long time and fought a battle. We won. I say we;

I spent the battle standing by.

They never got me any more bees. Apparently there were difficulties in Supply;

the purchasing clerks didnt get the necessary docket, or they got the docket

but it was sealed at the beginning instead of the end. Something like that. It

didnt matter, anyway; as a reward for my part in unmasking the evil plot I was

promoted to acting adjutant to the Chief of Countermines (there was no Chief of

Countermines) and issued with a garish red sash for standing by in. Since by

this stage the Department of Bees consisted of me and the old Scythian, who

quite sensibly deserted the day after they killed his friend, the Department was

consolidated with Livestock and Stores and never heard of again. I had

absolutely nothing to do now except ride a horse while the army marched and hang

around in my tent all evening on the off-chance of being summoned to a staff

meeting. I asked for a transfer back to the auxiliary infantry, but the

Macedonian in charge of establishments and personnel told me that my request

couldnt go through unless it was sanctioned by my immediate superior. When I

explained that I didnt actually have one, since there was no Chief of

Countermines, I was told, no superior officer, no sanction; no sanction, no

transfer. I tried to explain that this meant I was drawing pay and eating up

rations and not doing a hands turn in exchange. Arent you the lucky one? he

replied, and ordered me to go away.

So please, dont ask me what it was like in the front line at Gaugamela, or the

charge of the wedge at Arbela, or the day Alexander rode into Babylon, or the

tight corner in the defile among the Uxians, or the bypassing of the Persian

Gates; I wasnt there, or I cant remember. Dont look for me in the

wall-paintings and marble bas-reliefs; I wont be there, unless the patron of

the arts whos commissioned them is so thorough that hes even had his

store-room and outside privy done, to depict the long, straggling baggage-train

limping along a day or so behind the interesting bits of the army. I was at

Persepolis when Alexander set fire to the royal palace of the Persian Kings with

his own hands, after a long, hard night with the local wine, but the part of

town I was billeted in was so far away that I didnt even see the glow in the

sky. I was around when General Parmenio s son Philotas was accused of treason,

and father and son were put to death as blithely as wed wring the neck of a

goose for the table, but I only heard about it a day or so afterwards. I marched

to India all right, but mostly what I had to look at was the ruts in the road

left by our carts and the arse of the horse in front. I wasnt important enough

(thank gods) to be one of the officers at the staff meeting where Alexander

announced out of the blue that from now on, the Macedonians as well as the

Persians and the other conquered peoples were expected to fall on their faces

and worship him as a god. All this stuff, this history, passed me by. Which is

probably just as well.

The plain truth is, by this stage I wasnt feeling quite myself, if you see what

I mean. It was something to do with the medicine Id been taking. Id assumed,

no more bees, no more medicine, but it didnt quite work like that in practice.

I found that not taking the medicine left me feeling much worse than the

bee-stings ever did; I was dizzy, muddle-headed, irritable, nervous, shaky and

sometimes quite horribly depressed, and I couldnt begin to imagine why, since

there wasnt anything wrong with me. So I asked around until I found some

Scythian auxiliaries they were full-time horse-breakers, attached to Livestock

and asked them if they knew how I could get some more medicine. But they just

looked sad and said they knew exactly how I felt; the bush or tree the leaves

came from simply didnt grow in Persia , and that was all there was to it.

However, they went on, theyd been making their own enquiries and theyd found

out about a local Persian medicine that was probably almost as good, and as soon

as they got hold of some theyd let me know so I could give it a try.

They were as good as their word. It was completely different stuff; for a start

it was some kind of root rather than leaves, and you chewed it rather than

burning it, and if anything it was a good deal stronger than the leaves had

been. Anyway, it certainly did the job as far as getting rid of the dizziness

and the shakes and all, so I got them to make me up a big, big batch of the

stuff.

At first I was as happy as a lamb; happier, in fact, since lambs dont go around

smiling all the time or occasionally bursting out laughing for no apparent

reason (which Im told I did, frequently). But then I started getting the

weirdest dreams; first when I was asleep and then, annoyingly, when I wasnt.

The dreams were always different, but they generally started off with me asleep;

but I wasnt at the war, sleeping in a tent, I was back home in Attica, and the

bed was an old one that had been in our family for generations, and I was the

head of the family, which wasnt even our family, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, Id wake up and remember that I was a prosperous Athenian farmer with a

beautiful young wife and three fine sons; and then Id roll over and see on the

pillow next to me a dead body, shrivelled away into a skull, with the dried skin

shrunk tight to the bone and a fine, full head of snow-white hair. This always

scared the shit out of me, even though I knew it was coming. Anyway, Id get up

and go into the next room, and there on the floor under a blanket would be three

more skin-and-bone corpses of very old men. By this time Id have worked out

that the one in my bed was my wife and the other three were my sons, and that

Id somehow been turned into a god during the night. Well, a good nights sleep

for a god is longer than a mortal lifespan; while Id been asleep my wife and

sons had slept with me, and in that long sleep theyd grown very old and died.

In fact, so had everybody, except me. As the dream went on, so Id remembered

more and more; before I was a god I was a soldier, part of the army that

conquered the world with Alexander. So Id go and see if there was anybody I

knew there; but when I found them they were all dead too, all shrivelled up in

their beds and cots and hammocks. Then Id remember that Alexander had been a

god, just like me, so Id go to look for him; and Id find him, dead in his

sleep and dried up like strips of fish in the sun, until his skin was as hard

and brittle as the bark of a dead tree and his hair snapped off if you touched

it. Id search the whole world, in fact, but theyd all be the same. Id

outlived them all, in one night, every living thing in the world. The only other

person I ever found in these dreams was Peitho, who was every bit as dead as

they were, but not dried up or shrivelled, so somehow he could talk to me and

move about.

Hello, Peitho, Id say.

Hello, hed reply, and salute; or sometimes hed do the full Persian obeisance

routine that Alexander had such trouble getting the Macedonians to do. And Id

know as soon as I looked into his eyes that he was plotting to kill me, because

Id become a god; and that wouldnt do, since its bad for morale if junior

officers start murdering gods all over the shop. So every time he tried to

poison me, Id have him executed, and the next day there hed be again, until

eventually hed be there all the time, just like he is now. Of course, he was

younger then; now hes grown old and shrivelled just like the rest of them. The

only one who hasnt changed is me.

Of course, I know he isnt there really, hes some kind of nasty side-effect of

the medicine, just like that damn buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees, that I

hear nearly all the time now. Interesting, the bees. You see, I dont know if

you know this but bees are immortal, too; not individually, of course, but as a

group, a bit like a city. Its that old thing about the component and the whole;

the small parts die and perish but the thing they make up endures for ever; like

some city founded by a mighty hero to perpetuate his name, for instance, or even

an empire such as the empire of the Kings of Persia orAlexander of Macedon.

Components die; components dont matter, they arent worth spit. Only the whole,

the unity, the thing made up out of the parts, really exists. Not the man, only

the god he becomes. The Egyptians told Alexander that everybody is part of the

god; then that he was the god that they made up. Now, I cant say I quite follow

that line of reasoning, though it does sort of tie in with what Ive noticed

over the years, about the difference between who people are and who they become

through the eyes of other people; like you became this great wise philosopher

whod taught Alexander the meaning of everything. Well, quite. I rest my case.

Sometimes, in fact, Peitho is the bees and the bees are Peitho; I look at him

closely and he sort of melts down into the swarm, so closely packed together

(dead but not really dead, because the swarm cant die) that from a distance

they look like a single man. Oh, its all right, he isnt like that now, hes

just ordinary, dead old Peitho. Best friend I ever had, till he started trying

to kill me.

And, of course, all this is imaginary, the side-effects of the medicine, which

the Scythians told me Ill have to keep taking for the

rest of my life if I ever want to be really cured. Ive got a big jar of it.

They gave me exactly enough, they said; when I come to the end of it, thatll be

the time for me to die. I find it reassuring to know Ill never run out of the

stuff; by now, I guess, without it Id be seriously ill. But it gets to you

after a while, knowing deep down that however they appear on the surface,

everybody you meet or talk to is actually dead, that all Im seeing right now is

my memory of you, and that were not having this conversation, Im simply

remembering history, a conversation we had years and years ago, before you

died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

N ext morning, we went our separate ways; Eudaemon back to Attica , to the

family farm Id been keeping warm for him, with his jar of medicine and his

invisible companion; me on into Asia , heading East towards Sogdiana, with my

empty jar and my invisible snake. The last I saw of him was the back of his head

as he slept; with his broken leg he couldnt come down to the post halt, and to

be honest with you I wasnt too sorry. It would have been awkward saying

goodbye to him now that I knew hed gone completely crazy. Im afraid I get

terribly embarrassed around people with disturbed or damaged minds.

The Persian system of post roads is, sorry, was little short of miraculous. In

King Darius time, before the Greeks let it go to rack and ruin, the royal

messenger service maintained a straight, well-surfaced road all the way across

the Empire, with inns at regular intervals, fresh horses standing by, cavalry

escorts to get you across dangerous or debatable territory, everything a

traveller in a hurry could possibly want. For all I know, I could have been one

of the last people to use it to go right across the Empire and so get the full

benefit of it. Now, of course, with what was the Empire split up into several

rival kingdoms and parts of it effectively outside anybodys control, the

messenger service has gone and the roads in a sorry state. A pity, but there it

is.

Since it was fairly obvious from pretty early on that my horsemanship simply

wasnt up to the standard needed to make proper use of the road, the couriers

who went with me organised a carriage well, more of a cart, really, except that

it was drawn by horses rather than oxen or mules, and it had a sort of vestigial

leather hood to keep

off the worst of the sun and the weather. Nevertheless, the feeling of being a

consignment of olives on their way to market was depressingly strong. The

motion of the cart made me very drowsy, and I slept on and off for most of the

journey; even when I was awake during the day, I kept well in the shade of the

canopy and out of the blinding sun. As a result, I missed the scenery and the

points of interest and the remarkable sights, as usual.

Instead of sightseeing and taking an intelligent interest in my surroundings,

as a good historian should (think of Herodotus, with his magpie mind and his

tape measure and his incessant questions), I spent a lot of time thinking with

my eyes shut; a proceeding which greatly puzzled the couriers, until the

Macedonian courier explained to the two Persians that in the small, plain jar in

my luggage was a magic, fortune-telling serpent, and I was communing with it.

After that, they left me well alone, except for a few tentative enquiries about

romantic encounters and gambling strategies.

I thought a lot about jars, as it happens, and the contents thereof; jars of

bees hurled into mineshafts to flush out the enemy; jars of wine and grain being

meticulously counted by the keepers of the Athenian census, to ascertain which

property class a man belonged to; jars of various sorts of produce stacked up in

the hold of my friend Tyrsenius ship; jars of arrows bumping along in a supply

train on their way to the war; empty wine-jars littering the floor of the house

of a man whos given up bothering; jars of poison for the body and the mind;

jars of wisdom and prophecy. Most everything that moves about from one place to

another in this world travels in a jar its the handiest, most convenient

container of all, waterproof, of a fixed and easily regulated volume, easy to

stack, easy to keep track of if you simply scratch a few letters on its neck.

According to legend, the greatest of all the heroes, Hercules, escaped from the

murderous Cercopes by hiding in a jar. Seal the neck with wax or pitch and the

contents will stay fresh indefinitely, like the words of a historian in a book.

If youre so minded, you can hire a painter to embellish the outside of your jar

with unreal images of legendary and long-dead people, drawing out of his

imagination the way they ought to have looked (which is not necessarily what

they were actually like; but whos to say which is the more valid image, the way

a man was or the way he ought to have been, or the way he seemed to be to those

around him, those influenced by him?). Oh, your humble jar has a fair claim to

being Mans best friend, if you discount the first ever jar, the one the gods

gave to Pandora, with all the troubles and evils of the world packed inside; but

she didnt know that and clawed away the wax that stopped the neck, releasing

all the evils and the troubles into the air, like a swarm of buzzing bees, and

leaving behind only one, the most pernicious of all blind Hope, the queen bee,

who has lived at the bottom of jars ever since.

And so, after a long and uneventful journey (I got sunstroke once and dysentery

twice; a wheel came off the cart at the Gaspian Gates, fortunately before we

struck out across the desert; between Bactra and Nautaca one of the post inns

had burned down, so we had to sleep in the cart and eat field rations; otherwise

nothing to speak of), I arrived here, where the Scythian mountains run down to

the Iaxartes river, wherever the hell that is in relation to anywhere else. As I

perceived it, a day came when the cart stopped early, a courier woke me up and

said, Were here, and, having no reason not to believe him, I got out and

unloaded my luggage. I suppose its possible that he played some kind of

practical joke on me and this is in fact Italy , or southern Libya , or the

country north of the Danube . Of course thatd mean you were in on the joke too,

Phryzeutzis; but youd tell me, wouldnt you?

Dont answer that.

Assuming that this is Sogdiana, its the furthest north-easterly point where the

wilderness of the Scythian nomads (thats you, my young friend) impinges upon

the settled, mundane world of farmers and city-dwellers. Is it just me, or do

you Scythians lie at the edges of everything, as the Ocean is reckoned to

encompass all the dry land? Go north off the edge of the map (Aristagoras

engraved bronze map, that bamboozled the Athenians into the First Persian War..

. Maps have a lot to answer for) and it seems to me that wherever you go, from

northern Greece to India, youll find yourself among Scythians; an unlikely race

to have had such a significant effect on the lives of my brother and myself, but

a pretty pervasive influence all the same. Maybe you Scythians (sorry, we

Scythians, I keep forgetting) surround the other nations of the earth the way

darkness surrounds the light of a flickering lamp; or maybe Scythia is the rule

and the bit in the middle is the exception; the small exception, maybe does

anybody know how big Scythia actually is? For all I know it could be so huge

that all the countries of Darius and Alexanders Empire put together are tiny

in comparison, like a single fallen leaf in the market square of a busy town.

*

The walls were already up when I arrived here; the streets were laid out, the

public buildings more or less complete, the water supply connected up.

Apparently, because of Alexanders habit of founding cities like a dog pissing

against trees, the engineers had made it a rule always to have the basic

components of a city to hand, all neatly stored in jars, numbered, ready to slot

together at a moments notice modular unit Ideal Societies, where the temple

roof from Alexandria-in-Arachosia would fit the temple in

Alexandria-on-the-Caucasus should they ever happen to need a spare. Theyd got

putting the bits together down to a fine art, they could put up a city almost as

quickly as their colleagues in the siege and assault department could tear one

down. My old friend Agenor the stonemason would have hated that.

So there was precious little for me to do, apart from stand by, as my brother

would say (but all my life Ive been a bystander, though never, gods know, an

innocent one). I had to dedicate the temple, where the statue of the god (god,

unspecified, marble, service issue, one) bore an uncanny resemblance to

Alexander of Macedon, until a thrice-blessed workman contrived to chip off half

of its nose while installing the head on the shoulders. Now our god stands there

in an inspiringly martial pose, one head outstretched to aid and succour, the

other upraised to strike, looking like one of those professional boxers we used

to get at country fairs whos lost one too many fights for the good of his

health. They were supposed to send us a new head, all the way from the main

factory at Abydos in Egypt, but it got sent to the wrong Alexandria, and since

they had a perfectly good head already, they spirited it away and stuck it in

the nearest lime-kiln; so now its helping the crops grow, just like a good god

should. The factorys closed down now, of course. King Ptolemy (General Ptolemy,

as was) had it turned into a plant for making catapult-balls. I gather theyre

very good, too.

A day or so after Id dedicated the temple, I was standing by in a hammock in

the courtyard of the really rather fine house Id been allocated as governor

when the major-domo waddled in and announced that there was a deputation waiting

to see me. I wasnt expecting visitors, let alone any deputations, but there was

always the off-chance that it was something important, so I told the man to

bring them in.

Wed like you to dedicate the shrine, their spokesman said.

Already done that, I replied.

The man shook his head. Not the temple, he said, the shrine.

We built it specially as soon as we knew you were coming.

I frowned. I didnt like the sound of that. Sorry, I said, this is the first

Ive heard about any shrine. Whose shrine is it, specifically?

The man looked confused. For the sacred serpent, he said. You know, the one

you carry about with you in the jar. Weve built a permanent home for it, just

past the corn exchange as you go up the hill. Its very nice.

I was silent for a very long time. Let me just make sure Ive got this right,

I said. You want me to give you my snake.

He looked worried. It may seem like that at first sight, he said nervously,

but it isnt, really. We just thought the serpent might be happier if it had

some kind of permanent home.

I shook my head. Hes a nomad, my snake, I said. Just like your cousins to

the north. Just like me, I guess, I added; it hadnt occurred to me before but

yes, in my time Ive been every bit as nomadic as your average full-blooded

Scythian. He doesnt want a permanent home. He likes the freedom, you see.

The freedom, the spokesman replied. In a jar.

A jar thats been all over the world, I pointed out. Just because hes stayed

inside the jar doesnt mean he hasnt been to all those exotic places. Im sure

hed have paid proper attention to them if hed ever stuck his head up above the

rim.

But it obviously meant a lot to them. So, in spite of my serious reservations

about the whole idea, I said Id do it. This left me with a problem, of course;

inside the jar no snake. Well, I couldnt very well buy one, in case people

put two and two together and got upset. Nor could I find one, however hard I

looked (and usually the trick is not finding one, as you walk the fields in your

bare feet). So; no buy, no find; all that was left was to try making one. That

may sound daft to you, but when I was a kid we used to find cast-off snakeskins

in the fields, stuff them with wool and use them to frighten the life out of

people by leaving them lying about (in the clothes-press, for instance, or

buried in someones clothes while he was swimming in the sea). With a little

practice, we were able to get them looking ever so lifelike, and they had the

tremendous advantage over the real thing of not being able to bite and kill you.

Well, of course, I didnt have a snakeskin either; but I had an idea where there

might be one. You may remember that when I was in Macedon, Alexander put a snake

in my jar; it popped out at an embarrassing moment, if you recall. Id noticed

recently when Id been moving the jar around that there was something small and

light rattling around in there; my guess was that Alexanders snake had taken

advantage of the quiet and privacy of my jar to slough its skin. Anyhow, it

wouldnt cost me anything to turn the jar out and have a look.

So I stood on a stool and reached up to lift it down from the hook in the

rafters where Id hung it; but it was a very old, tired stool. I heard a sharp

crack, just as Id lifted the ear of the jar off the hook, and the next thing I

knew was that I was sitting uncomfortably on the floor, one leg folded

underneath me at a very unusual angle, feeling extremely sorry for myself.

Strangely enough, it was my right leg I broke, whereas my brother broke his

left.

I was too preoccupied with screaming and sobbing with pain to pay too much

attention at first to what had become of the jar; but after Id yelled myself

hoarse and nobody came (major-domo and cook down at the market, shopping;

housemaid and gardener off together somewhere), I calmed down a bit and saw that

the jar had smashed, That shook me, Ill admit. The jar had been with me a long

time, it had been my living and a tremendous influence on the lives of myself

and others think; if I hadnt had the jar, Queen Olympias would never have

wanted me to tutor her son; if I hadnt tutored Alexander ... Well. And now it

was broken; and there among the small, sharp potsherds I saw the dried-up

remains of a dead snake, curled up tightly like a coil of coarse rope, as

perfectly preserved as an Egyptian king.

Well, they do say that snakes are immortal too; instead of dying as we do, they

simply slough off their old bodies and slither away. I wonder; as they break out

of death like a chick out of an egg, do they remember the life ahead of them, or

do they have to wait for it to come back piecemeal, like us ordinary gods? I

have no idea; I never knew the answer to that one, or else its slipped my mind.

Im getting terribly forgetful these days, Phryzeutzis; I cant remember

anything unless I write it down somewhere.

The broken leg was a perfect excuse for not dedicating the shrine; and one day

while I was laid up waiting for it to mend, the gardener came rushing by with a

basket in one hand and a long stick in the other. I asked him what the fuss was

about.

Theres a snake got into the storeroom, he said. Thrassas doing her block,

so Im going to get rid of it.

I propped myself up on one elbow. Do me a favour, I said. When youve caught

it, dont kill it; sling it in a jar and stuff the neck with straw. Ive got a

use for a live snake.

He looked at me as if I was crazy; then again, he always looked at me as if I

was crazy. All right, he said. Where do you want it put?

Oh, anywhere, I said. Just see that nobody disturbs it.

So the shrine got its snake, a little wriggly green bugger that slid away out of

sight as soon as I pulled the straw out. The assembled local worthies were no

end impressed, and took care to stand back as I passed so my shadow wouldnt

fall on them. For two pins, I think, theyd have started worshipping me as a

god.

The Macedonians have a law, or at any rate a tradition, that you dont start a

war during the month Daisios (thats roughly the Athenian Thargelion; gods know

what you people call it. At any rate, its between the rise of the Pleiades and

solstice, about threshing time, and if you havent finished digging over the

vineyards, youre way behind). In the middle of Daisios in the thirteenth year

of his reign, when he was thirty-two years old, Alexander was in Babylon , all

ready to set off and conquer Arabia , a huge and worthless desert away to the

south. On previous occasions, hed taken the trouble to sidestep the tradition

by having his astronomers repeat the previous month, Artemisios; this time,

however, he couldnt be bothered. Besides, he argued winningly, the intercalated

second Artemisios had clearly been spurious, which meant that in the eyes of his

fellow gods hed gone to war in Daisios before and got away with it, so there

was no reason why he shouldnt do the same thing again.

A day or so before the scheduled departure date, Alexander went to a party given

by a man called Medius. It must have been a good party, because he woke up

feeling awful, so he ordered the domestic staff to shift his quarters from the

palace to a house in a park on the posh side of the river, where it was quiet

and peaceful and a man could recover after a long night with a jar. There was a

swimming pool at this house, and he decided to sleep beside it, under the stars;

apparently Babylon s like an oven at that time of year, and its nice and cool

by the water.

Next day he was a little feverish, so he had a bath and spent the rest of the

day at home with Medius, some other friends and a hair or two of the dog, since

he wanted to be sure to be fighting fit when the army moved out in a couple of

days time. He didnt sleep well that night, and the next day the fever was a

little worse. The general staff started making plans for postponing the

expedition, but he wouldnt hear of if, even though the next day, which was when

the fleet should have sailed, he was no better. But the day after that he was

almost fully recovered, and put in a full days work catching up on what hed

missed while hed been ill. Maybe he overdid it; he was so bad the next day that

he had to be taken back to the palace.

He lived for another four days. Most of the time he was too weak to say

anything, and when he wasnt he was wandering in his mind, calling out all sorts

of strange, delusional gibberish, the way people do when theyre out of their

heads with fever. He did have a lucid spell near the end, but when his chief

officers and ministers of state tried to talk to him about the succession he

didnt appear to remember who they were. When he was dying, he kept shouting

that there were snakes on his pillow, but it was all right; hed strangled them,

because he was the infant Hercules and just about to be born. Then he said that

Aristotle had had him poisoned, because Aristotle didnt believe in gods and

thought there shouldnt be any; hed got the recipe for the poison out of his

nephew Gallisthenes book, the one Eudaemon had told him about, and the poison

had been served to him in a cup made out of the hoof of a mule, because

half-breed gods cant have children. He gave orders for Babylon to be burned to

the ground, followed by the whole of the earth, because he remembered that last

time hed wiped out the human race with a great flood and it didnt do to repeat

ones effects. Then he sat upright and asked for someone to read to him out of

Euxenus book about the war, since he wanted to know what had happened in the

end. They told him Euxenus hadnt written any books, and asked him which of the

generals he wanted to have the empire after he was gone. How should I know? he

answered angrily, I havent got to that bit yet, whereupon the generals had

the room cleared.

Some people say he died screaming, or in tears; that he went to bed just before

he died; that in the last moment of his life a mighty eagle swooped in through

the window and carried his soul away to Olympus . Other people will tell you

that he didnt die at all, that the embalmed, imperishable corpse that lies

buried in Alexandria in Egypt (perfectly preserved, like a dried snake in a jar)

is somebody quite other, a body he sloughed off when it started to fray, and

Alexander is still alive somewhere, waiting for some unspecified event which

means its time for him to return and continue where he left off. Some people

would have you believe that he will never die, that he lives on in the group

mind of the swarm of Macedonians and Greeks that are buzzing all through Europe

and Asia these days, gathering nectar and nesting in every crack and corner of

the world, even as far out as the eastern border of Scythia.

Personally, I think hes dead, and bloody good riddance.

If history were to end there, with the death of Alexander and the collapse of

his empire, itd be a poor show; a great deal of work would have been wasted

with nothing to show for it, and generations yet unborn would make pilgrimages

to piss on our graves. I dont intend it to be that way. I may be old, but Im

not so old that I cant still dream about the ideal society, or at any rate the

perfect city.

It started a year or so ago, when that Lydian merchant showed up with his little

cart full of plunder from some battle or other. Odd creatures, your Lydians;

theyre about as Greek as the river Ganges, but theyve had Greeks living next

to them for so long that the colours have run, so to speak, and to listen to

some of them talk, youd almost believe they were as Greek as I am. This Lydian

was like that; he called himself Theocles or some such Greek name, and if you

believed his sales pitch everything in his cart that wasnt made in Athens was

made in Corinth or Megara orThebes. Anyway, in among the bloodstained boots and

the slightly war-damaged armour (one careful but unfortunate owner) there was,

he told me, something he knew Id want to buy. In fact, he said, once I knew

what it was Id be so desperate to buy it Id undoubtedly offer him far more

money than I could possibly afford, so as a favour to me and a token of respect

for the memory of the divine Alexander hed offer it to me for a mere ten

staters, sight unseen.

Needless to say, I told him to go forth and multiply, whereupon he gave me a

very sad look, the sort of look Lydian faces were expressly designed for, and

said that the price was now twelve staters. This intrigued me; so I said that if

he told me what this thing was, Id give him half a stater, local coin. His face

lengthened a little more, his hand turned palm upwards, and he told me it was a

book.

A book? I said.

A book. A Greek book, he added.

He was right; I was interested. What sort of book? I asked.

About so long, he replied, so much round, in its own brass tube. Tubes

extra, he added quickly, but not quickly enough.

Fine, I said. But whats it about? Whos it by?

He shrugged; a complicated, multi-dimensional folding of the shoulders, as if he

was about to take his arms off and put them neatly away. Does it matter? he

said. Its a book. In Greek.

I thought about it for a moment. I might be interested, I said. For three

staters.

Honestly, I thought he was about to burst into tears. Im sorry, he said; then

he fished about under his tunic and produced this book-tube, with the very

dog-eared edges of a book poking out. He pulled it from the tube, unwound about

a hands span, tore it off and ate it. Fifteen staters, he said.

I wanted to see how this was going to turn out. Seven, I said.

He unrolled and ate another span. Seventeen, he said.

Done.

You wont be sorry, he said, spitting out a wadge of half-chewed Egyptian

paper. And three for the tube.

You know what you can do with the tube, I told him.

As Id feared, the book turned out to be the goddamned bloody Iliad, messily

copied by an illiterate scribe somewhere in Egypt , at a guess. Still, a books

a book, so that afternoon, when it was too hot to do anything else, I sat down

under a tree and started idly scrolling through, more interested in the

footnotes and the little comments scrawled by previous owners in the margins

than Homers actual immortal words. When I reached the end, I saw there was

something else after it; the scribe, having cramped his writing up really small,

had been left with blank space at the end and had to fill it up with something

else. The text hed chosen was new to me; it was On Death, by someone called

Pherecrates of Cnidus. Quite by chance Id stumbled across a treasure richer

than gold: a book Id never read by a man Id never heard of. My lucky day.

That afternoon, I got to know Pherecrates of Gnidus pretty well. He wasnt a

difficult man to understand; a gentleman farmer like myself, who made use of the

idle parts of the year by renting space on his rich neighbours ship, loading up

his surplus produce and a few bits and pieces hed bought in specially, and

cruising up and down the coast between Rhodes and the Hellespont. Men like

Pherecrates dont usually tend to trouble history, and Pherecrates himself would

never have been an exception to this rule if he hadnt come ashore one day at a

something-and-nothing little town on the island of Chios, whose name he couldnt

even remember. He did reasonable business there in the morning, trading figs for

cheese and cheap silver hairpins for cheap bone combs, but in the afternoon

nobody much was about, and he was thinking of packing up and heading back to the

ship when a man came up to him offering to sell him a pair of shoes.

They were, according to Pherecrates, very old shoes, shoes that could well have

walked to Spain and back, and Pherecrates said he didnt want them. The man said

fair enough, but showed no signs of wanting to go away, and for lack of anything

better to do Pherecrates started chatting to him.

How the subject came up, Pherecrates couldnt quite remember; it was something

to do with some historical figure, and the man happened to comment that hed

seen this man once, years ago.

You cant have, Pherecrates objected. He died sixty years ago.

Oh, I saw him all right, the man replied. Why, are you calling me a liar or

something?

Pherecrates shook his head. No offence, he said, but you simply couldnt have

seen him. Like I said, he died sixty years ago, and youre obviously not a day

over fifty-five.

The man grinned at him, revealing a perfect set of teeth. Im eighty-seven, he

replied.

Well, that made Pherecrates very curious, not to mention sceptical. And whats

more, the man added, Ill prove it to you. Stay there.

Im not going anywhere, Pherecrates said; and a little while later, the man

came back with two other men, who both looked like slightly younger copies of

him.

This is my son, the man said, hes sixty-six; and this is my grandson, whos

just turned fifty. Isnt that right, boys?

They offered to go and fetch the rest of the family; great-grandson and

great-great-grandson, but Pherecrates assured them there was no need. He

believed them. Thats remarkable, he said.

The son smiled patronisingly. No it isnt, he said. Just sensible, clean

living.

Oh, yes? Pherecrates said, expecting to be sold something if he wasnt

careful.

Thats right, the old man said. Ive always lived clean, and my boys here

have always lived clean, and look at us. Never had a days illness in our

lives.

Pherecrates frowned (or I imagine he did; he doesnt say so in his book, but

itd be human nature to frown at this point). When you say live clean, he

said, what exactly do you mean by it?

Then the old man explained. Ever since he was a boy, he said, hed had a phobia

about dirt; couldnt abide it, he said, made him go all queasy. So, when he

built his own house, he went out of his way to make sure everything was always

clean. He moved the privy away from the house, downstream on the little brook

rather than upstream;

he made sure the house was swept clean once a day and that any food that had

gone off was thrown out or given to poor travellers, rather than left to moulder

in the store-room; he insisted that all the familys clothes and bedding were

changed and washed regularly; he banished the animals from the house and built a

special stall for them instead, well away from the house and the water supply.

If anybody cut himself or got dirt in an existing cut, they had to wash it out

immediately and put on a clean bandage. In short, he was utterly obsessive about

it. And nobody in his house ever seemed to get ill.

Well, Pherecrates thought no more about it at the time. But, as the years went

by, what the old man had told him snagged in his mind, like a hook in a fishs

throat, and he started to think, and use his eyes. When he went abroad, to the

towns and cities where he bought and sold, he looked about him and made

connections an epidemic in Priene, where the nightsoil from one quarter soaks

away into another quarters water supply; a man in Ephesus who died of a

poisoned fleabite; old mens stones of their fathers experiences in the Great

Plague at Athens; deaths here, deaths there, deaths everywhere until he came

to the conclusion that shocked him like nothing had ever done before.

Half the people who die, he now firmly believed, die of diseases caused or

aggravated by dirt. Incredible numbers of people troop down to the Styx ferry

and stump up their two obols to the ferryman simply because they dont, as the

old man he met on Chios put it, live clean. According to Pherecrates, from the

people who wouldnt die if you cleaned up the water in Greece , you could raise

an army large enough to conquer the world, found colonies in every province, and

still have enough left over to have hunger riots. If only half of the wise men,

philosophers, scientists, poets, statesmen who die of infections, blood

poisoning and other dirty deaths were to be spared, mankind would soon be so

wise and so powerful that the gods wouldnt stand a chance. We could exile them

to the Arabian desert or the frozen wastes out back of Scythia and run the world

ourselves. All it would take to make the difference would be a few aqueducts,

drains and cesspits and a weekly wash-and-brush-up around the home, and wed

have stolen a prize so valuable as to make Prometheus stealing fire from Heaven

seem trivial. According to Pherecrates.

Now, he was sceptical at first, just as I was and you are. For instance; how can

bodily waste be so dangerous and poisonous when it comes out of our own bodies?

It didnt kill us while it was still inside us, so why should it be so

desperately lethal after its left us and seeped into the village well? And

dirt, honest dust and mud; dirt and mud are what we grow our food in, and once

weve grown it, we eat it. If dirt and mud are so deadly that a little getting

into a cut or a scratch can kill you, how come food isnt deadlier than my

brothers poison honey? Isnt it far more logical to assume that diseases and

deaths are what weve always believed they are, supernatural entities that roam

and buzz unseen among us, looking for unlucky or doomed people to pick on,

rather than perverted products of the good earth and our own bodies?

Pherecrates couldnt answer that; all he could do was set out his evidence and

suggest that the conclusions he drew from them were worthy of serious

consideration. At which point the book ended, and Pherecrates stepped out of my

life back into the darkness hed so miraculously appeared from.

Yes, I know. It sounds like the demented ravings of a man with an obsession,

like those people you try to avoid in the market square who do their best to

convince you that the King of Indias sent assassins to murder them, or that the

stars are eating their brains. But what if hes right? What if theres even a

tiny scrap of truth in his notion? The only way to know for certain, I suggest,

is to try it and see; build a city with all his fussy ideas put into practice

and count how many people drop down dead and how many dont. As great

experiments go, its no daffier than Alexanders pet project of forcing a

thousand selected flowers of Macedonian manhood to marry a thousand hand-picked

Persian girls, with a view to breeding a master-race he could use to repopulate

Asia . Of the two great leaps of faith, why not choose the one that causes least

inconvenience to the subjects of the experiment and has the most potential for

good, in the unlikely event that its successful?

So here I am, Phryzeutzis; in my old age, an old fool who should know better,

once again trying to play god and create an ideal city. Maybe its a disease of

the elderly and underoccupied; certainly its the sort of thing I could imagine

the Founders at Antolbia coming up with (and Id have told them, politely, but

firmly, to go and stick the idea where the sun never shines, because people with

work to do in the real world simply dont have time to get involved in wild

idealistic schemes or if they do it turns out an utter disaster, like Platos

bad experiences in Sicily when he went out there to found the philosopher

kingdom). So what? In theory, under the charter Alexander gave this place when

he set it up, as proxy oecist I have absolute power here, so I probably ought to

use it once in a while, if

only to show the people here how lucky they are to have me, rather than someone

who rushes about doing things all the time.

This city wont last, of course. How can it? Greek city, founded on a whim by a

great king who was briefly a god but whos now dead, populated by savages and

ruled by a crazy old man. I remember a city so very much like it that these days

I have trouble telling them apart. There are times, Phryzeutzis, when I think

youre really my friend Tyresenius, or my Budini bodyguard, and that this is

Antolbia, and that any moment now Theanoll come out of the house with a big jug

of wine with honey and cinnamon; or that any minute, the other savages will come

bursting through the gate with arrows on their bowstrings and kill us all. I sit

here sometimes, Tyrsenius, and I seem to be remembering some specific small

incident that happened at the old city, rather than watching it happen again

here in the new one. History, of course, is the setting down in writing of the

deeds of great men and the happening of great events, so that they shall never

be forgotten, and so that the manifold and grievous errors of the past can be

recognised and avoided by those that come after us; so, by writing history, Im

pinning this time down, so that well know its not the time before or the time

after. Its a trick to stop myself going crazy, I guess. If I can look it up in

a book, I can know for certain that this is something thats happening, not

something Im remembering.

And, like most tricks, it doesnt work.

Lately Ive been getting this pain in my right hand, where the joints are

chalking up; and that very nice woman from the vegetable market who thinks that

if she mothers me and looks after me Ill leave her money when I die, that very

nice woman gave me something to take away the pain. What she gave me was a

little box of dried leaves; you sprinkle them on a fire and breathe in, and next

thing you know the pain doesnt hurt any more. Well, shes absolutely right, I

feel no pain now; but whenever I sit by the fire with a cloth over my head,

breathing deeply, I seem to see someone sitting next to me, also breathing in

and enjoying the smoke. I have no idea who he is; I cant see his face clearly

through the smoke, and his voice is fuzzy and indistinct, like the hum of

distant insects. Sometimes I think its my father, or Diogenes; at other times

its Alexander or Aristotle, or Tyrsenius or Agenor the stonemason, or Theano,

or one of my brothers, or my grandfather Eupolis, or Pherecrates the drainage

enthusiast, or Eudaemons friend Peitho (who of course I never met). Sometimes,

when Im drowsy and not thinking straight, I think its you, and that youre

reading my book, and Im the book sitting there being read.

I suppose I ought to be worried. But its too late for that. These days, Id

gladly trade a blurred edge to my sanity for something thatll take away the

pain. Sanitys a wonderful thing, but it isnt a patch on a good nights sleep,

or being able to take a piss without feeling like someones hammering a tent-peg

into your kidneys. All my life Ive felt no pain, as Ive bounced happily along

with death and destruction at my heels like happy dogs being taken for a walk,

eating up everybody around me and, in general, leaving me alone. Its a small

price to pay, the company of some indistinct figure who vaguely resembles the

way I think some long-dead person I can barely remember ought to have looked, in

order that he fits the character Ive drawn for him in my book of history. As

the man said after hed been in solitary confinement for fifty years, its a

pain having to share this cell with the devil, but its better than being alone.