Alexander: Child of a Dream (22 page)

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philip’s gesture and the presence of Lysippus at court for a while helped clear the clouds that had cast their shadow on relations between father and son, but Alexander soon realized for himself just how strong was the bond between his father and young Eurydice.

 

Nevertheless, pressing political commitments distracted both the King and the Prince from private court affairs.

 

The response from Arses, King of Persia, had been even more contemptuous than Philip’s letter. Eumenes read it to the King as soon as it arrived with the messenger:

 

Arses, King of the Persians, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans and Lord of the Four Corners of the Earth, to Philip of Macedon.

 

The actions of my father, Artaxerxes, third of this name, were good and true and rather it is you who should pay us tribute -as did your predecessors for

 

you are our vassals.

 

The King immediately called Alexander and let him read the message as he said, ‘Exactly as I imagined. My plan is taking shape in all its detail. The Persian refuses to pay compensation for the damage caused by his father and this is more than sufficient excuse for declaring war on him. My dream becomes reality. I will unite all the Greeks of the homeland and the eastern colonies, I will save Hellenic culture and spread it throughout the world. Demosthenes has not understood my plan and he fought me as a tyrant, but just look around you!

 

The Greeks are free and I have installed a Macedonian garrison only on the acropolis of the Theban traitors. I have protected the Arcadians and the Messenians and more than once I have been the champion of the sanctuary at Delphi.’

 

‘Do you really want to move into Asia?’ Alexander asked, having been struck by this affirmation alone in the midst of his father’s bragging.

 

Philip looked into his eyes.

 

‘Yes. And I will announce this enterprise to our allies at Corinth. I will ask all of them to provide men and warships for the undertaking that no Greek has ever managed to complete.’

 

‘And do you think they will follow you?’

 

‘I have no doubt,’ replied Philip. ‘I will explain to them that the aim of the expedition is to free the Greek cities of Asia from barbarian domination. They won’t be able to decline.’

 

‘But is this really the aim of the expedition?’

 

‘We have the strongest army in the world, Asia is enormous, and there is no limit to the glory that a man may conquer, my son,’ said the King.

 

A few days later another guest arrived at Pella the

 

painter Apelles, who was considered by many people at that time to be the best in the world. Philip had summoned him to have his portrait painted alongside the Queen, naturally with the required corrections and embellishment. It was an official painting to be hung in the sanctuary in Delphi, but Olympias refused to pose next to her husband and for his preparatory sketches Apelles had to spy on her at a distance.

 

Philip was in any case very pleased with the final result and he asked the painter to depict Alexander as well, but the Prince refused.

 

‘I’d rather you painted a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘Nude.’

 

‘Nude?’ Apelles asked.

 

‘Yes. I miss her beauty when I am far away. You’ll have to paint a picture that isn’t too big so

 

that I can carry it with me but

 

it must be a good likeness.’

 

And so it was that Pancaspe, said to be the most beautiful

 

 
woman in the Greek world, posed nude in all her splendour for the greatest of all painters
Alexander was impatient to see the result of this extraordinary confluence of talent and every day he stopped by to see the progress being made on the work, but he was soon aware of the fact that there was no progress at all, or almost none Apelles was simply drawing and redrawing his sketches
‘But this painting is like Penelope’s shroud, it’s never ending,’ the young man commented ‘What’s the problem?’
‘The fact is, Sire the fact is that I simply cannot bear the thought of ever having to part from such splendid beauty ‘
Alexander took a good look at Pancaspe and the artist and he realized that in those long sittings they had been busying themselves with something more than just pictorial artistry.
‘I see,’ he said At that moment he thought of Leptine, whose eyes were always red from crying, and he considered that there would be no shortage of equally beautiful women in the future as and when and how he wanted them He was also painfully aware of the fact that Pancaspe was becoming more and more petulant and demanding every day He moved closer to the painter and whispered in his ear ‘I have a proposal to make You leave me the painting and I’ll leave you the girl That is, of course, if she agrees ‘
‘Oh, Sire.’ the great artist started stammering with emotion ‘How can I possibly thank you.’
The young Prince clapped Apelles on the back. ‘The important thing is that you are both happy and that the painting is a good one.’ Then he opened the door and left
Philip and Alexander went down to Corinth towards the end of the summer and they were both hosted at the city’s expense The choice of venue was not a chance one it was at Corinth some one hundred and fifty years previously that the Greeks had sworn to resist the Persian invaders and it was from there that a new pledge was to be made now, uniting all the Greeks on the continent and the islands into one big mission to invade Asia This was an undertaking that would make the glories of the Trojan War, as sung by Homer, pale into insignificance
In a passionate speech to the delegates, Philip recounted the various phases of the history of the conflict between Europe and Asia, even those episodes to be found only in mythology He recalled the dead of Marathon and Thermopylae, the burning of the acropolis and the temples of Athens And although these were all remote events from several generations back, they were still very much alive in popular culture, partly because Persia had never stopped interfering in the Greek states’ internal affairs
But more important than these faded memories of the Persian invasions was Philip’s determination to convince them of the necessity of his plan, to make them realize that there was no alternative to his will and that his political method included war as an instrument The sad fate of Thebes and its allies was still there for everyone to see
At the end of the assembly the King of Macedon was officially granted his role as pan Hellenic leader of a great expedition to invade Persia, but many delegates thought it was simply a sort of propaganda stunt They were wrong
Alexander was able to see something of Corinth, a city he had never visited before, during the days spent there He went up with Calhsthenes to the acropolis, almost impregnable, and admired the ancient temples of Apollo and Poseidon, the sea god and protector of the city
The thing that most impressed him was the ‘naval tow’, the slipway along which ships were hauled so that they could pass from the Saromc to the Corinthian gulfs across the isthmus separating them, thus avoiding the circumnavigation of the Peloponnese with its many rocky headlands and deadly shallows
The tow was a wooden slide to which ox grease was applied continually as it climbed to the high point of the isthmus and then descended on the other side to the Gulf of Corinth The ship was dragged by oxen to the top and waited there until another ship arrived below and was then attached to it The ship

 
at the top was pushed down on the other side so that as it descended it helped pull the second ship up, which in its turn functioned as a brake to the descent of the first. The second ship, having reached the top, then had a third ship attached to it, while the first was able to set sail, and so on.
‘Has no one ever thought of digging a canal to connect the two gulfs?’ Alexander asked his Corinthian hosts.
‘If the gods had wanted there to be sea where there is land, they would have made the Peloponnese an island, don’t you think?’ the guide replied. ‘One is reminded of what happened to the Great King of the Persians at the time of his invasion of Greece. He built a bridge over the sea so that his troops could cross the Straits and he cut the peninsula of Mount Athos with a canal so that his navy could sail through, but then he suffered heavy defeats, punishment for his hubris.’
‘It is true,’ admitted Alexander. ‘My father once took me to see that enormous canal and he told me all about the Great King’s achievements. That was exactly why I thought of a canal.’
His hosts also told him that nearby there lived Diogenes, the celebrated cynical philosopher who inspired all sorts of incredible stories.
‘Oh yes, I know,’ replied Alexander. ‘Aristotle explained the theories of the cynics to me. Diogenes maintains that only by depriving oneself of everything that is superfluous can one hope to free oneself of all desire and therefore of all unhappiness.’
‘A bizarre theory,’ Callisthenes said. ‘Depriving oneself of everything not to achieve happiness, but simple imperturbability would seem to me to be a rather dull exercise, not to mention a waste. It’s like burning wood just to sell its ash, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Alexander. ‘And yet I would like to meet him. Is it true that he lives inside an oil churn?’
‘Yes, indeed. During the last war, at the height of your father’s siege, all the citizens were rushing about strengthening the walls and busying themselves in all sorts of preparations.
Suddenly Diogenes started pushing his churn up a hill and then he let it roll back down again before pushing it once more. “But why are you doing this?” they asked him. And he replied, “For no reason at all. But everyone else seems so busy I didn’t want to be seen as a shirker.” That just about sums the man up. Imagine his
only household utensil was a little bowl for taking drinking water from the fountain, but one day he saw a boy drinking with his hands cupped together and he threw away his bowl. Are you sure you’d like to meet him?’
‘Yes please,’ replied Alexander.
‘If you really want to,’ Callisthenes sighed impatiently. ‘I assure you it won’t be such an edifying spectacle. You know why Diogenes and his followers are called “cynics”, don’t you? It’s because according to their theories nothing that is natural can be judged obscene and so they do everything in public, just like dogs.’
‘Exactly,’ their guide confirmed. ‘Come, he doesn’t live if
we can call it living very
far from here. He’s on the edge of the road, where it’s easy to receive alms from passersby.’
They walked for a while along the road that led from the naval tow to the Sanctuary of Poseidon. Alexander was the first to spot Diogenes from far off.
He was an old man of about seventy, completely naked, and he was sitting with his back against a big terracotta urn in which Alexander could just make out a bed of straw and a tattered blanket. Peritas’ kennel, he thought, is certainly more comfortable. Sitting nearby was a little puppy, a small mongrel that probably ate the same food as the philosopher and shared his sleeping quarters.
Diogenes was sitting with his arms resting on his knees, his head leaning back on his wretched home, while the last rays of summer warmed his skinny limbs. He was almost completely bald, but the hair at the back of his neck had grown to reach virtually halfway down his back. His face was thin, furrowed by thick and deep wrinkles, framed by a thin, straggling beard,

 
while his cheekbones stood out and above them his eyes were sunken under his large forehead, which in some way seemed luminous.
His eyes were closed and he sat there completely motionless.
Alexander stopped right there and contemplated the man in silence. The philosopher showed no sign of having noticed the arrival of his visitors and did not open his eyes at all.
The young Prince wondered what thoughts could possibly be passing through that forehead, that ponderous head sitting on that very slender neck, on that thin, fragile body. What had led him, after a life dedicated to research into the human spirit, to lie naked and destitute at the edge of the road, object of derision and pity for passersby?
He felt moved by this pride in poverty, by this total simplicity, by this body which in the presence of death sought to rid itself of everything, to be as unencumbered as man is at the moment of birth.
He wished Aristotle were with him; he wished he could have witnessed those two minds duelling under the sun like champions with spear and sword. He wished he could say how much he admired him. Instead he came out with a rather unfortunate offer:
‘Hail, Diogenes! He who stands before you is Alexander of Macedon. Ask of me what you will and I will be glad to give it to you.’
The old man opened his toothless mouth: ‘Anything?’ he asked in a high-pitched voice, without even opening his eyes.
‘Anything at all,’ Alexander repeated.
‘Well … move over a bit because you’re blocking the sun just there.’
Alexander moved immediately and sat down to one side, at Diogenes’ feet, like a postulant asking for indulgence from a higher order. He turned to Callisthenes:
‘Please leave us alone. I do not know if he will say anything to me, but if he does they will be words that cannot be written, my friend.’
Callisthenes saw that Alexander’s eyes were moist.
‘Perhaps you’re right, perhaps all of this is a waste burning
wood to sell its ash but
I would give anything to know what goes on behind those closed eyelids. And believe me, if I weren’t what I am, if I weren’t Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes.’

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No one ever discovered what was said in their conversation but Alexander certainly never forgot the meeting, and perhaps Diogenes never did either.

 

Two days later, Philip and his entourage set off again on a northern road towards Macedon and the Prince went with the

 

When they reached Pella the King concentrated on preparations for the great expedition to the Orient. Almost every day there was a war council with the participation of the generals Attalus, Cleitus the Black, Antipater and Parmenion, and they worked at organizing the levy of soldiers, their equipment, their supplies. The good relations with Athens now guaranteed them safety at sea and between

 

the Macedonian navy and the allies’ ships a

 

feasible means of transport to carry the massed army to Asia.