Nor have I criticized him for the edict that raised the most protest in all the years he lived. I’m talking about his decree to all the cities of the Corinth League that they must take back their exiles. That this measure was a selfish one on Alexander’s part is beyond question: Asia was full of banished citizens from all the Greek cities, many all too eager to hire themselves out as mercenaries. Darius employed many; Agis of Sparta got his hands on no less than 8,000 of them for his revolt in the Peloponnese. For the stability of his empire, this festering pool had to be dried up.
His reasoning has done nothing to make the homecomings popular among the landed classes here. Naturally, many of us have become comfortable on the estates of our exiled rivals. But I am here to defend myself, not the interests of the five-hundred-bushel men of Attica or the Samian colonies. If you have lost your farm to a returnee, or been forced to tolerate the presence of a political opponent, or of the man who killed your ox or diverted the water from your stream, perhaps you will find sympathy with me. But I count on nothing.
It is my own fault that I did not leave time enough to complete my account of Alexander’s death. As it was, I did not see him when he was most ill, so there’s not much for me to add to that sad succession of bad omens and sickness. I did have access to Rohjane, though, and offer the following incident, if only to show that I have told you all that I know.
It was on the third night of Alexander’s illness that Rohjane, who had become an insomniac since her pregnancy, heard someone walking through the royal apartments. She rose and seeing that it was the King, followed him on a circuitous route through the building. At last he came to a back door of the palace. Puzzled, she called to her husband.
“My King, can that be you? May we celebrate your recovery?”
The sound of her voice startled him. Drawing up his exhausted self, he replied in a voice so dry it testified to every mouthful of dust of every desert he had ever crossed.
“You would do better not to interfere.”
“Interfere in what?” she asked.
“Barbarians and sycophants! How can you understand?”
“My lord, let me help you-”
“You may help me by allowing me the end my Father expects of me! Instead you delay me at the last minute with your foolishness.”
“If I delay you, I do so only for the sake of your people, and your son who you would never meet.”
“My son would thank me for my disappearance!”
By this time their conversation had roused the servants, who gathered around them in collective incomprehension. The King, knowing he had missed his chance to escape, allowed himself to be carried to bed.
If this story is true-and I see no profit for Rohjane in fabricating it-then it suggests Alexander accepted that his end was near. Instead of making a spectacle of his mortal end, he planned simply to vanish into the desert. No doubt such a disappearance would have served his legend well, like that of a god on loan to mankind, making his return to Heaven.
I cannot believe, though, that it was the exit he most wanted. He preferred the taste of metal on his tongue-the fatal fall from a speeding horse on a rutted field. Any death in action would have been better than some second-rate apotheosis, this stealing away in the dead of night from a bed of stinking nightclothes. Taking a knife from a skulking assassin, like his father, would not have been much better. At last, with the help of Hermolaus, he found a better way.
We all went to him as he fell. The wound in his throat did not penetrate his voicebox, but it was still painful for him to speak. Asked to whom he left his throne, he breathed, “To the strongest.” We swooned in disbelief as he faded. This was, after all, Alexander, encased moreover in the armor of matchless Achilles. It seemed impossible that he could die so splendidly armed-until I remembered Hector’s death. He was also wearing the armor of Achilles, having stripped it from the dead body of Patroclus.
Most of you will probably not accept my story without further evidence. This was exactly the thinking of Perdiccas and Ptolemy when they sought to cover up the manner of the King’s death. Hermolaus, of course, was executed straightaway. The two witnesses on the top of the wall were likewise ordered down and killed. I would have joined them, except that I still had a use as recorder of Alexander’s greatness, and would not be believed anyway if I tried to spread the baseless story that he died in a duel with a minor prisoner!
The story went out that he died of sickness. His troops mourned him out of genuine respect, yet also embraced each other out of relief that he was finally gone, as if they had collectively survived some great storm. The Persians grieved too. In their case it was less in their esteem for him than because they were about to exchange the known sins of Alexander for those of someone unknown. Their uncertainty has not ended-as it also hangs over all of us.
Aeschines asks how I know the characters of men like Perdiccas and Ptolemy. I must say I find his case laughable, for as he questions the experience I report after years in their company, he bases his whole prosecution on the written hearsay of absent witnesses! Aeschines, don’t insult these gentlemen by overstating your case! Fine turns of phrase cannot hide your ignorance: if you had been there, for instance, you would know that the head injury Arridaeus received at the Hydaspes has done him some positive good-that he talks more, has taken up the wearing of clothes, and all in all seems ready to reign in his brother’s place. It only serves the purpose of Perdiccas, that fine fellow, to keep Arridaeus from ruling outright.
From the sound of the water it seems I have a little more time, so I will help you to understand the man you have come to judge today. Aeschines says I lack zeal for the Greek cause. He is wrong-I have fought for that cause all my life, in ways and to extremes far beyond mere talk. I was not only at Chaeronea, but carried a spear against Philip on the island of Euboea, and Acarnanian Argos, and Cardia in the Chersonese and in Thrace. This was while our friend Aeschines took his sinecure on sunny Rhodes. And when I was sent to Alexander to fight for him, and the Fates abruptly decreed that the nature of my help must change, I did my best, though I knew little of diplomacy or of educating barbarous females. Never once have I said that if the Athenians wanted the skills of a diplomat or tutor, they should not have sent a soldier. I wonder if Aeschines had been there he would have done better. Certainly his skills have served the Macedonians well in the past. But I don’t think his golden throat would have done him much good against the Mallian raiders that morning on the Hydaspes!
It is in your hands to determine whether I will take part in the coming fight with Antipater. For my part, I hope never to pick up a weapon again. A man can see enough war to understand that it is an exceptional opportunity for the triumph of mediocrities. Mediocre men-who ordinarily stand tongue-tied on the bema, who fight half-heartedly for their city, who make affordable sacrifices to the gods instead of genuine ones-can, with the benefit of arms, snuff brilliant minds, rape graceful women, destroy the greatest art, murder children. Mediocrity always triumphs, no matter how lofty the ideal by which we begin, no matter how great the leader. Neither great evil nor great virtue can be around all the time, can see everything. Yet mediocrity flies on horseback all over the battlefield, shouting “On to Pella, boys!”; it is living it up right now on native labor, on the estates owned by Greek barons in Sogdia and Bactria. Foundations crumble, fame fades. All hail the middling, so ubiquitous, and eternal!
The defendant took his seat with water still running through the clock. Polycleitus let it flow for a few awkward moments as the courtroom absorbed Machon’s strange outburst. To Swallow, this incoherence was the inevitable result of an unschooled speaker forced beyond his skill to defend himself. After all, this was no Demosthenes who had shared the floor with Aeschines all day; where Machon had begun his trial with a face of polished calm, he finished with his manner perturbed, his voice trembling. Whether the jury read his attitude as presumptuous, or as the outrage of a man unjustly accused, might yet figure in the verdict.