Armed messengers went out straightaway, before the news of Philotas’s death could reach Parmenion by other means. Alexander had written a dispatch to divert the old general’s attention; he was killed as he bent under a lamp to read it.
Parmenion’s execution shook the Greek camp. He had, after all, served both Philip and Alexander faithfully for many years. Among other critical tasks, it was he who had overseen the passage of the army across the Hellespont, and anchored the Macedonian left wing at Issus and Gaugamela. His sad end sent reverberations all the way back to Macedon, where old Antipater must have wondered if he was due similar recompense for his long service.
Even Callisthenes was shaken by it. I sincerely believe that he did serve an inspirational role for the pages, though it is a lie to claim that I instigated the charge against him. And what a feat of mendacity to insinuate that I sought to remove a rival by condemning him! Callisthenes’s history, after all, is already for sale all over the world, while as Aeschines has so clearly said, I have so far published nothing. So in what way have I benefitted from his death?
The prime instigator of Callisthenes’s fall was Callisthenes himself. The story went that Hermolaus, before he hatched his plot against the King, came to Callisthenes with a question: which were the heroes esteemed most by the Athenians?
“That would be the Tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton.”
“And why are the Tyrannicides honored most?” the boy asked.
Callisthenes replied, “Because they freed the people from the state of their oppression.”
“And would similar men be welcomed by the Athenians today, and given refuge in their city?”
“They would be given refuge in any city where Greeks dwell,” answered Callisthenes, “but most gladly in Athens. For she has always opposed tyranny, from the end of Eurystheus’ domination of Greece, when he pursued the children of Heracles into Attica and was defeated there, until recent times.”
“Until…today?”
“Recent times,” said Callisthenes, smiling and saying nothing more.
More serious than the substance of this exchange, Callisthenes had failed to report Hermolaus’s sudden interest in tyrant-killers to anyone. On this basis alone, Alexander was prepared to accept his guilt, for the King defined loyalty as much in terms of what was omitted as what was said. Callisthenes’s record of public statements against prostration, against Alexander’s divinity, also came back to haunt him, for these insults did not dispose anyone to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Upon his arrest, Callisthenes was brought before the King. Echoing his question to Bessus, Alexander asked, “Why have you betrayed me?”
To which Callisthenes charged “Why are you betraying history? Do you believe the boasts of Olympias will assure your fame, Alexander? It is only because of the writings of Callisthenes that the world will know about you!”
After this, the historian disappeared. Some say he was hanged right away, some say stabbed. Still others swear he was clapped in irons and died much later, of despair. But no one is sure.
The weight of endless campaigning, massacre, and deceit began to have its effect on the morale of the men. Those who shared Alexander’s symposium likewise faced narrowing options. As the King’s wife, Rohjane could not substitute for the unabashed Thais, who was by then more or less a fixture in Ptolemy’s tent. The army was by then approaching the Indus-too far for most entertainers to come out from Corinth or Athens. Alexander’s pretensions to divinity would not allow him to condescend to the usual subjects of conversation, namely prostitutes, wine, and buggery delivered or received. Instead, his purview shrank to arcana having to do with battlefield equipment, and feats of horsemanship. In other words, he became a bore. Nor was Callisthenes around to elevate the topics. Matters became so desperate, at last, that the Macedonians were reduced to louche drinking games, such as flinging the dregs of their wine at targets on the floor. The party was desperately ready for something new.
The solution came from the prisoner’s stockade. He was an old priest of Zoroaster with an unpronounceable name that we took to sound like ‘Gobares.’ He was not a Persian or a Mede, but came from the Hycanian region south of the Caspian Sea. The guards had been surprised to see him proselytize among the enemy prisoners, having wrongly believed that since Darius was Zoroastrian, all the Persians must already have been so. Great crowds formed around him as he disputed with his doctrinal adversaries, with the debates becoming so impassioned that the Macedonians took notice, though few of them spoke Persian, Aramaic, or any of Gobares’ other languages. Upon his interrogation and punishment for this trouble-making, it was learned that he had been active in Ionia in years past, and could also speak Greek. This earned him an interview with Alexander, who was curious about the beliefs of the lands he conquered.
He came to the symposium in a simple white cloak with a rude rope tied around his waist. This rope, we learned, was only removed during the act of worship, when it was loosed and tied again to symbolize the conquest of order over chaos. Of these practices Gobares was eager to speak, as if he expected to convert some general or even the King himself.
“Our prophet was Zarathustra son of Pourushaspa, or ‘Zoroaster’ to you Greeks. No one knows exactly when he lived, or where, except that it was at a time before men worked metals, and in the east. As a young man he was a priest of the cult of his people. One day, after he had reached his maturity, he was collecting haoma-water from the center of a pure running stream. As he turned to go back to dry ground, he saw a messenger of Ahuramazda waiting for him there. This messenger, whom we call Vohu Manah the-well-intended, had the appearance of a mortal man, except that a pure light like the dawn through a keyhole emanated from his eyes and mouth. The messenger led Zarathustra to the Creator, who told him that because he was a man of arsa, he was chosen to bring the truth of Ahuramazda to all men. And Ahuramazda also informed him of the proper way to honor Him with prayer, about the ways men of faith may remain pure, and about the observances the Creator desired men to make throughout the year, so that they may help Him in his great struggle…”
Though we never asked him to, Gobares then went into the details of his ritual. The proper observance, he said, is made five times a day, at midnight, sunrise, noon, afternoon, and sunset. Most commonly, it is made by standing before the flame and reciting a short prayer handed down from the prophet himself. The prayer is an affirmation of the Creator’s power that, Gobares said, will aid Him in his struggle with the Hostile Spirit, Angra Mainyu-May-His-Name-Be-Forever-Accursed. It is not recited out of any vain desire to satisfy the worshipper’s needs, but to do the work of driving evil from Creation, until the day when the work of the Hostile Spirit has been expunged utterly, and what he called the ‘Third Time’ begins. As Gobares explained this, he pretended to untie his rope, and as he spoke of the Hostile Spirit, he snapped the ends of it, as if he was lashing Angra Mainyu.
His people had many other strange beliefs. They attributed to that single god, Ahuramazda, the creation of both the spiritual and physical world. They held that men would be judged for the rightness of their actions after death by a great weighing of all they had said, done, and thought. That is because, according to the Zoroastrians, good words, deeds, and thoughts are not the mere private business of individuals, but all have influence on the universal struggle against disorder. If the good side of the scale was heavier the deceased proceeded to a kind of Persian garden, or pairi-daeza in the old tongue of their prophet. If the bad side prevailed, the dead was cast into a chasm that was like Hades, only worse, where Angra Mainyu ruled.