Alexander: Child of a Dream (13 page)

 
father-in-law is Lord of Assus; should Demosthenes start negotiating with the Persians then he may come to hear of it.’
‘I will write to him,’ Aristotle promised. ‘But remember, if you are determined to continue this way then sooner or later you will find yourself having to face Demosthenes’ coalition. Or something very similar.’
The King was very quiet. He stood up and the philosopher could not help noticing the fresh scars on his body while the women dried him with towels and dressed him in clean clothes.
‘How is my boy doing?’ asked Philip suddenly.
‘He is truly one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met in my life. But with the passing of each day it becomes more and more difficult to keep him under control. He keeps track of your endeavours and is champing at the bit. He wants some glory to bask in now, to show his worth. He is afraid that when his turn comes there will be nothing left to conquer.’
Philip shook his head and smiled. ‘As if these were real problems … I’ll speak to him. But for the moment I want him to remain here. He must complete his education.’
‘Have you seen Lysippus’ portrait of your son?’
‘Not yet, but I’ve heard it’s wonderful.’
‘It is. Alexander has decided that in the future only Lysippus will be allowed to make his likeness. It really has had a remarkable effect on him.’
‘I have already ordered that copies should be made for all the cities allied with us, for public display. I want the Greeks to see that my son has grown up in the foothills of the mountain of the gods.’
Aristotle accompanied him into the dining chamber, but it would perhaps be better to call it a refectory. Indeed, the philosopher had abolished the dining beds and the low tables and had had tables and chairs introduced, just as in poor people’s homes or under military tents. This arrangement seemed to him to be more appropriate for the atmosphere of study and containment that he strove to maintain at Mieza.
‘Have you noticed whether he has any relations with girls? It’s about time he started,’ observed the King as he walked along a corridor.
‘His is a very reserved temperament, almost shy. But there is that girl, I think her name is Leptine.’
A frown spread over Philip’s forehead. ‘Continue.’
‘There’s not much to tell. She is devoted to him, as if he were a god. And she is certainly the only female to have complete access to him at any hour of the day and night. I know nothing more.’
Philip scratched his chin through his bristly beard. ‘I wouldn’t like him to produce a bastard with that servant. Perhaps it’s best if I send him a “companion” who knows the trade. That way there won’t be any complications and she’ll be able to teach him a few interesting things.’
By now they had reached the entrance to the dining room and Aristotle stopped walking. ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you.’
‘But she wouldn’t bother your work at all. I’m talking about a person with a first-rate education and excellent experience.’
“That’s not the point,’ said the philosopher. ‘Alexander has already let you choose his tutor and his portraitist because he loves you and because he is very mature, for his age. But I don’t believe he would allow you to go beyond this, to violate his private life.’
Philip mumbled something incomprehensible and then said, ‘I’m hungry. Is there nothing to eat in this place?’
They all ate together happily and Peritas sat under the table gnawing at the roebuck bones they threw to the floor for him.
Alexander wanted to hear all the details of the Thracian campaign. What were the enemy’s weapons like and how did they fight? How were their villages and cities fortified? And he wanted to know how the two enemy kings -Cersobleptes
and Theres had
fought.
Then, while the servants were clearing up, Philip addressed all those present: ‘Now, allow me to give you permission to take

 
your leave and to wish you all goodnight. I would like to spend some time alone with my son.’
Everyone stood up, said goodnight in turn and retired. Philip and Alexander were left alone in the lamplight, in the large empty hall, sitting opposite each other. All that could be heard, from under the table, was the sound of bones being chewed and broken. Peritas was fully grown now and had teeth as strong as a lion.
‘Is it true that you are leaving immediately?’ asked Alexander. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
“I had hoped you would stay for a few days.’
‘I hoped so too, my son.’
There then followed a long silence. Philip never justified his decisions.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I am going to occupy the Athenian settlements on the Chersonese Peninsula. I am building the biggest assault machines ever. I want our fleet in the Straits.’
‘Athens’ grain passes through the Straits.’
‘Exactly.’
‘That will mean war.’
‘Not necessarily. I want them to respect me. If there is to be a pan-Hellenic League it must be understood that I and I alone can be its chief.’
‘Take me with you, Father.’
Philip stared into his son’s eyes. ‘The time is not right, my son. You have to complete your studies, your education, your training.’
‘But I…’
‘Listen. You have had some limited experience of a military campaign, you have displayed courage and ability in hunting and I know that you are extremely skilful with your weapons, but believe me when I say that the things you will have to face one day will be a thousand times more demanding. I have seen my men dying of cold and exhaustion, I have seen them suffer atrocious ordeals, with their bodies torn apart. I have seen others plummet from great heights while climbing city walls and then I listened to them cry out in unbearable pain … I listened until silence came.
‘And look at me, look at my arms: they look like the branches of a tree that a bear has sharpened his claws on. I have been wounded eleven times crippled
and half-blinded. Alexander, Alexander, you see the glory, but war is above all else horror. It is blood, sweat, excrement; it is dust and mud; it is thirst and hunger, unbearable frost and unbearable heat. Let me face all this for you, for as long as I am able. Stay here at Mieza, Alexander. For one more year.’
The young man said nothing. He knew that those words admitted of no reply. But his father’s wounded, drawn gaze pleaded with him to understand and not to hate him for this decision.
Outside, from far away, there came the rumble of thunder and yellow flashes of lightning suddenly lit up the edges of the great storm clouds gathering over the dark peaks of Mount Bermion.
‘How is Mother?’ asked Alexander all of a sudden.
Philip lowered his eyes.
‘I hear you have taken a new wife. The daughter of a barbarian king.’
‘A Scythian chief. I had to do it. And you will do the same when it is your turn.’
‘I know. But how is Mother?’
‘Well. Under the circumstances.’
‘I’ll be off then. Goodnight, Father.’ He stood up and walked towards the exit, followed by his dog. And Philip envied the animal that would keep his son company, that would hear the rise and fall of his breathing all through the night.
It began to rain a
few large, heavy drops that grew quickly in number. The King, alone now in the empty room, got to his

 
feet. He went out under the portico just as a blinding flash of lightning illuminated the wide courtyard and was immediately followed by a deafening thunderclap. He leaned against a column and stood there motionless watching the rain fall in sheets.

17
things worked out exactly as Aristotle had predicted: driven into a corner, Perinthus and Byzantium declared their support for Athens and Philip replied by besieging Perinthus, a city on the northern coast of the Hellespont, built on a rocky promontory and linked to the mainland by an isthmus.

 

He had made his camp on a plain from which he was able to dominate the entire situation and every evening he called his generals to a meeting: Antipater, Parmenion and Cleitus, known as ‘the Black’ because of his black hair, black eyes and dark complexion. He was also almost always in a black mood, but he was an excellent officer.

 

‘Have they decided to negotiate a surrender yes

 

or no?’ asked the King as he entered, even before sitting down.

 

‘No,’ said Parmenion, ‘and in my opinion they are not even entertaining the possibility. The city is cut off by land thanks to our trenches, but they continue to receive supplies by sea from the Byzantine fleet.’

 

‘And there’s nothing we can do about it,’ added the Black. ‘We do not have control of the sea.’

 

Philip beat his fist on the table. “I couldn’t care less about control of the sea!’ he shouted. ‘In a few days’ time my assault towers will be ready and I will destroy their walls. I want to see just how courageous they’ll be then!’

 

The Black shook his head.

 

‘What’s the problem with that?’

 

‘Nothing. It’s simply that I do not believe it will be so easy.’

 

‘So you don’t, eh? Well just listen to this: I want those

 

 
damned machines ready to move within two days at the most, otherwise I’ll be kicking backsides from the chief engineer all the way down to the lowliest joiner. Have you all understood?’
‘We understand perfectly, Sire,’ replied Antipater with his usual patience.
Philip’s anger managed to work miracles in certain situations. In three days the machines began their march towards the walls, groaning and creaking: they were self-standing towers higher than the fortifications of Perinthus, functioning by means of a system of counterweights, and each one could carry hundreds of soldiers with their catapults and battering rams.
The besieged citizens understood what was coming, and the memory of what had happened at Olynthus, the city reduced to ashes by the King of Macedon’s fury, intensified their energies. They dug pits and burned the machines with night raids. Philip had them rebuilt and dug counter-pits to weaken the foundations of the walls while the battering rams were at work non-stop, day and night, with the entire city resounding to the deafening blows.
Finally the walls gave way, but the Macedonian generals were greeted by a bitter surprise. Antipater, the eldest and most respected of them all, was given the job of breaking the bad news to the King.
‘Sire, the walls have collapsed, but I advise you not to send the foot soldiers in.’
‘No? And why ever not?’ ‘Come with me and see for yourself.’
They went to one of the towers, climbed up to the very top, and Philip was left speechless by the sight beyond the walls. The citizens of Perinthus had joined together all the buildings in the row of houses on the first terrace of the city, effectively creating a second wall. And because Perinthus was completely terraced, it was obvious that this technique would be repeated to infinity. ‘Damnation,’ growled the King as he came down the tower, back to earth.
He went off to his tent and stayed there for days, sulking and racking his brains as he tried to think up a way out of the blind alley he’d ended up in. But there was more bad news to come and all his chiefs of staff came together to communicate it.
‘Sire,’ announced Parmenion, ‘the Athenians have signed up ten thousand mercenaries using money provided by the Persian governors of Asia Minor and they have already been brought ashore at Perinthus.’
Philip lowered his head. Unfortunately the eventuality so feared by Aristotle had come to pass Persia
was now aligned directly against Macedon.
‘This really is trouble,’ commented the Black, as if the atmosphere weren’t already gloomy enough.
‘But that’s not all,’ added Antipater.
‘What else is there?’ shouted Philip. ‘Am I expected to pull the words out of your mouths with pincers?’
‘It’s quite simple,’ continued Parmenion. ‘Our fleet is blocked in the Black Sea.’
‘What?’ shouted the King even more loudly. ‘And what exactly was our navy doing in the Black Sea?’
‘They were trying to cut off a convoy of grain for Perinthus, but the Athenians realized what was happening and in a surprise move, under cover of night, they blocked the Bosphorus with their fleet.’
Philip collapsed onto a chair and held his head in his hands. ‘One hundred and thirty ships and three thousand men,’ he murmured. ‘I cannot possibly do without them!’ he shouted as he suddenly stood up and started pacing the tent with his long strides.
Meanwhile, on board their ships in the Bosphorus, the Athenian crews were singing victory songs and every evening, as darkness fell, they would light fires in braziers and reflect the glow off their polished shields so that the Macedonian ships could not attempt to make use of the darkness in trying to run the blockade. But they did not know that when Philip was trapped and unable to make use of brute strength, he turned to his cunning, which made him doubly dangerous.

 
One night the captain of an Athenian trireme which was patrolling the western coast of the Straits saw a small Macedonian boat coming downstream, trying to keep as close as possible to the shore in order to remain unseen.
The skipper ordered the light from the brazier to be directed towards the shore and the sloop was immediately visible, fully illuminated by the bright rays reflected off the shield.
‘Stop where you are,’ ordered the officer, ‘or I’ll have you sunk!’ And he asked the helmsman to turn to starboard and to aim the big bronze ram of the trireme against the side of the small vessel.
The men in the boat were frightened and stopped rowing and when the Athenian captain told them to come closer they did so and climbed on board.
There was something strange about the way they behaved, and in their appearance, but when they opened their mouths to speak the Athenian officer had no doubts they
were certainly Macedonian and not Thracian fishermen, as they had claimed to be.
He had them searched and hanging round the neck of one he found a leather cylinder with a message inside. This was definitely his lucky night! He asked one of his men to bring a lamp while he read:
Philip, King of the Macedonians, to Antipater.
Hail, my General Lieutenant!
We find ourselves now with an opportunity to inflict a crushing defeat on the Athenian fleet in the Bosphorus. Send one hundred ships on ahead from Thasos and block the southern exit from the Hellespont. I will send my fleet down from the south and we will have them in a pincer move. There will be no escape for them. You must be at the mouth of the Straits on the first night of the new moon.
Take good care.
‘Gods above!’ exclaimed the captain as soon as he had finished reading. ‘There’s no time to lose.’
He immediately ordered the helmsman and the oarsmen to turn back and row at full strength towards the middle of the Straits where the flagship was floating at anchor. He went aboard and asked to speak to the Navarch, the admiral, an elderly officer of great experience by the name of Phokion, and he gave him the message that had been intercepted. The officer read it quickly and then passed it to his scribe, a competent man who had worked for years as secretary to the Athenian assembly.
‘I have seen other letters from Philip in our archive and this is certainly from his hand. And the seal is his too,’ he added after having examined the document carefully.
Shortly afterwards, from the prow of the flagship, the Navarch had a shield flash the signal for all the ships of the fleet to withdraw.
They arrived off Thasos some three days later only to discover that there was no sign of Antipater’s fleet, which was not really so surprising because Antipater had never actually had a fleet. But in the meantime the Macedonian royal ships had been able to travel down the Bosphorus and the Hellespont peacefully and find shelter in a safe port.
In one of his speeches against Philip, Demosthenes had named him ‘the Fox’; when he heard what had happened he realized that never had such a name been more deserved.
The Macedonian King abandoned the siege of Perinthus as autumn began and marched north to punish the Scythian tribes who had refused to send him reinforcements. He defeated and killed their king, Atas, a man who went into battle in person even though he was more than ninety years old.
On the return journey, however, in the midst of winter now, Philip’s army was attacked by the fiercest of the Thracian tribes, the Triballians. The Macedonians suffered terrible losses and had to abandon all their loot. The King himself was wounded and was barely able to lead his soldiers back to the homeland, fighting to open up the road all the way.
He returned to the palace at Pella sorely tested by his labours