And the silvered fish did swirl and bite
The tender flesh of newly-dead Lycaon.
You Trojans will die to a man as I fight
To far Ilium’s hallowed towers.
Run you might, my swift blade will try your backs.
No escape for those who cower
Beneath the whirling surge of Scamander!
No sacrifice, no blooded bull on cobbled bank
Or fair-maned horse cast in the river
Will save them now, dressed in pain
Until the price in blood is settled
For Patroclus and the Greeks slain
Beside the beaked ships
While I was away…
The Greeks’ response to this was, at first, nothing. The words were familiar enough to them, of course, but only as part of a story. Alexander would use the words to write his own epic, studying them at night from the school copy of the Iliad he always kept under his pillow. He deployed Homer’s lines like files of soldiers, crying: “As Achilles fought the wide Scamander, may we churn this stream with our greaves!”
And with that, they say, he was gone, charging down the near bank-
IV.
Several hours later, and with the exhaustion of Swallow’s entire supply of cheese, Aeschines at last seemed to be winding down his presentation.
With Alexander’s passage the world paused. They say that a shadow passed over Babylon that day, and with it the sound of great wings rustling. Far to the west, over Siwah, the unprecedented sight of an eagle was seen wheeling over the Ammon temple. The very same hour, the priests attest, another eagle flew into the Zeus sanctuary at Dodona, coming to rest in the great oak of the Oracle there. The bird stayed there for some time-calling plaintively, as if for a lost brother-until it took wing again into the mountains. Finally, and again on the same day, the keepers of the Zeus altar at Dion saw a great eagle come out of the east. Swooping down to the altar, it dropped a laurel wreath from its talons, circled seven times, then ascended home to the aerie of divine Olympus. For it was on that spring day, during the archonship of Hegesais in Athens, just shy of the thirty-third year of his age, that the great Alexander died.
Aeschines paused, but not to wet his throat. He just stood there for several moments, his head bowed, shoulders slumped. Just as the jury became restless he resumed speaking again, in a voice that was very small, yet somehow carried to the very back of the courtroom.
That the King died of poison I take as granted. After his second and third marriage, his first wife Rohjane had reason to want him dead, and ample opportunity to make him so. You recall that the Babylonians had a taster sample the water she brought in to him. While it is true that this man did not die after he drank, he did suffer later from acute pains of the abdomen. Whatever caused these pains might not have been fatal to a healthy man, but could easily have been deadly to someone who was already weak with sickness. For as we all know, wise poisoners do not strike out of the blue, but wait for some natural illness to cover their handiwork.
You may judge this woman’s motives and character by what happened the very day Alexander died: Rohjane forged a letter in the King’s name to Barsine, ordering her to attend him in Babylon. This letter reached Susa before news of his death was known there. When Barsine trustingly submitted to the royal escort, which was really a gang of thugs in Rohjane’s employ, she was murdered. Like Rohjane, she was carrying a child of Alexander’s. Please understand that I do not mean to play the partisan in the current dispute over the succession. With regard to her motives, and Machon’s, it need only be said that Rohjane has since delivered a boy, and that the child now figures in this matter in a way he never would had Barsine lived.
Of Alexander himself I will say no more. I have eulogized him enough for the purposes of this prosecution. Suffice it to say that the world will never again see his like, and that he was too soon taken from us. Jealous men say he was flawed, and in that they are surely right, for whatever was divine in him, as in us all, was inevitably mixed with that which makes us mortal. I never said he was perfect-I only said he was a god.
Machon will surely attempt some sophistic assault on the charges we make against him. He will argue that it is impossible for a mortal man like himself to corrupt a divine being. For the record, I will say that I believe Machon to be a devious weakling who could not, by himself, have destroyed Alexander. My claim, rather, is that he was a corrupting influence who consistently worked to undermine that which was good in the man, and encourage that which was destructive. I remind you that Machon does not stand charged with killing Alexander. Rather, the good people of Athens accuse him of impiety before a god, and of violating his orders to support Alexander in a manner that would bring honor to this city. Athenians, tell me: having heard his story, do you feel yourselves covered with honor?
With all that I have placed in evidence, it is perhaps worth recounting the many ways Machon betrayed your trust. At Sardis, he lied about his association with Demosthenes, who was a known enemy of Macedon. At Gordion, he encouraged Alexander’s ambition to untie the celebrated Knot, provoking him to take a risk that only the King’s subtlety overcame. After Issus, he encouraged Alexander to abuse his captive, Stateira. Before the siege of Tyre, he was defeatist. In Egypt, we know by his own words that he plotted against Alexander’s ‘defect.’ At the Susian Gates, he baited the King into what he believed was a foolish mistake, only to be confounded when Alexander succeeded in forcing the Gates anyway. At Marakanda, he goaded the King into killing his friend Cleitus, and boasted that he encouraged Alexander to believe that any offense would be considered just in the eyes of heaven. In that same letter to Demosthenes, he further rejoices at Alexander’s breakdown. We know, based on a letter that Machon wrote from Sogdia, that he intended to use Rohjane to further his designs. We also have material evidence that he received money from the thief, Harpalus, payable in Persian currency. Lastly, and most fatefully, we know that he actively encouraged Rohjane to fear Alexander’s intentions. In this, he as good as encouraged her to act against him.
Aeschines struck up a rhythm that became almost a dance, shifting from one foot to the other as he ran through these points. Swallow and the rest of the jury rocked with him, very entertained, until he brought them up short with a final, dramatic indictment.
In the life of our democracy, so much of our time seems consumed by trivialities. And it might seem that our dispute with Machon is over little more than minor matters-words said at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or left unsaid; the petty boasts of a small man, temporarily enlarged by circumstances he neither deserved nor comprehended. Of Alexander’s vices and virtues, you may believe what you wish, as he is not on trial here. It is this man, Machon, we gather to judge, in the light of the responsibilities he solemnly accepted as an agent of this city. And I say that in the discharge of such responsibilities none of us here-magistrate, juror, prosecutor, or defendant-is entitled to judge which are the important charges to keep, and which are trivialities. Our forefathers have made those decisions for us. I would expect the same standard to be applied to myself, if I were in Machon’s position.
You will shortly hear from the defendant himself. Though he plays the laconic soldier, don’t be fooled: he is as subtle as any con-artist in the stoa, as skilled with words as he is useless with the tools of war. He has his work cut out for him, however. Considering that Alexander is untimely dead, and Machon was sworn to serve Athens by serving Alexander, it seems he has but two choices: he must either admit his malice, or plead utter incompetence. In neither case does he escape his guilt. I therefore beg that you hear his plea and judge it with the wisdom that is worthy of our legacy as Athenians. That done, I cannot doubt that justice, which is our only purpose today, will be served.