The egg is hatched, thought Antipatros, and I was right. “Alexander, you must be in danger here. Will you come up to the castle?”
“In good time. What are those men about?”
Outside, the second-in-command of the Royal Guard was trying to get them in hand, with the help of what junior officers he could find. But the soldiers had lost their heads entirely, and were listening to some of their number who cried out that they would all be accused of conspiracy in the murder. They turned with curses on the young men who had killed Pausanias; it would look as if they had needed to stop his mouth. The officers were trying vainly to shout them down.
Alexander stepped from the sharp blue shadow of the parodos into the cool brilliant early light. The sun had scarcely climbed since he had walked into the theater. He vaulted up on the low wall by the gateway. The noise changed, and died down.
“Alexander!” said Antipatros sharply. “Take care! Don’t expose yourself.”
“Guard—by the right—form phalanx!”
The scuffling mass grew quiet, like a scared horse calmed by its rider.
“I honor your grief. But don’t grieve like women. You did your duty; I know what your orders were. I myself heard them. Meleagros, an escort for the King’s body. Bring him to the castle. The small audience room.” Seeing the man look about for some makeshift litter, he said, “There is a bier behind the stage, with the things for tragedy.”
He stooped over the body, pulled out a fold from the cloak crumpled under it, and covered the face with its bitter eye. The men of the escort closed round their charge, hiding it from sight.
Stepping out before the silent ranks of the Guard, he said, “Fall out, the men who struck down the murderer.”
Between pride and dread, they stood forth uncertainly.
“We owe you a debt. Don’t fear it will be forgotten. Perdikkas.” His face smoothed with relief, the young man came forward. “I left Oxhead in the road outside. Will you see him safe for me? Take a guard of four.”
“Yes, Alexander.” He went off in a blaze of gratitude.
There was a felt silence; Antipatros was looking oddly under his brows.
“Alexander. The Queen your mother is in the theater. Had she not better have a guard?”
Alexander walked past him, and looked in through the parodos. He stood there in perfect stillness. There was a stir about the entry; the soldiers had found the tragic bier, ornately painted and draped with purple. They set it down by Philip’s body and heaved him onto it. The cloak fell from the face; the officer pulled down the eyelids and pressed them till they closed.
Alexander, motionless, stared on into the theater. The crowd had gone, thinking it no place to loiter in. The gods remained. In some surge of tumult, Aphrodite had been toppled from her base, and lay awkward and stiff beside it. Flung clear in her fall, young Eros leaned on her fallen throne. King Philip’s image sat stockily in its place, its painted eyes fixed on the empty tiers.
Alexander turned away. His color had changed, but his voice was even. “Yes; I see she is still there.”
“She must be in distress,” said Antipatros. He spoke without expression.
Alexander gazed at him thoughtfully. Presently, as if something had just chanced to catch his eye, he looked aside.
“You are right, Antipatros. She should be in the safest hands. So I shall be grateful if you, yourself, will escort her up to the citadel. Take what men you think sufficient.”
Antipatros’ mouth opened. Alexander waited, his head tilted slightly, his eyes unwavering. Antipatros said, “If you wish, Alexander,” and went upon his errand.
There was a moment’s lull. From his place in the crowd, Hephaistion came out a little, signaling no message, only offering his presence, as his omens prompted him. No message was returned; yet between one step and the next, he saw God thanked for him. His own destiny, too, was opening out before him, in unmeasured vistas of sun and smoke. He would not look back wherever it should take him; his heart accepted it with all its freight, the bright and the dark.
The officer of the bearer party gave an order. King Philip on his gilded bier jogged round the corner. From the sacred vineyard, borne on a hurdle and covered with his torn cloak, his blood dripping through the plaited withies, some troopers brought Pausanias. He too would have to be shown before the people. Alexander said, “Prepare a cross.”
The noises had died to a restless hum, mingled with the roar of the Aigai falls. Lifting above it his strong unearthly cry, a golden eagle swooped over. In its talons was a lashing snake, snatched from the rocks. Each head lunged for the other, seeking in vain the mortal stroke. Alexander, his ear caught by the sound, gazed up intently, to see the outcome of the fight. But, still in combat, the two antagonists spired up into the cloudless sky, above the peaks of the mountains; became a speck in the dazzle, and were lost to sight.
“All is done here,” he said, and gave orders to march up to the citadel.
As they reached the ramparts which overlooked the Pella plain, the new summer sun stretched out its glittering pathway across the eastern sea.
Author’s Note
ALL RECORDS OF ALEXANDER by his own contemporaries have perished. We depend on histories compiled three or four centuries later from this lost material, which sometimes give references, sometimes not. Arrian’s main source was the Ptolemy of this story, but Arrian’s work opens only at Alexander’s accession. Curtis’ early chapters have disappeared; Diodoros, who covers the right time and tells us much of Philip, says little of Alexander before his reign begins. For these first two decades, nearly two-thirds of his life, the only extant source is Plutarch, with a few retrospective allusions in the other histories. Plutarch does not cite Ptolemy for this section of the Life, though he would have been a first-hand witness; so he probably did not cover it.
Plutarch’s account has here been set against its historical background. I have used, with due skepticism, the speeches of Demosthenes and Aischines. Some anecdotes of Philip and Alexander have been taken from Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders; a few from Athenaeus.
I have inferred the age at which Alexander entertained the Persian envoys from their recorded surprise that his questions were not childish. On the character of Leonidas, and his searching the boy’s boxes for his mother’s home comforts, Plutarch quotes Alexander himself verbatim. Of the other teachers, who are described as numerous, only Lysimachos (Phoinix) is mentioned by name. Plutarch seems not to think much of him. Alexander’s estimate appeared later. During the great siege of Tyre, he went for a long hill-walk; Lysimachos, boasting that he was as good as Achilles’ Phoinix and no older, insisted on going too. “When Lysimachos grew faint and weary, though evening was coming on and the enemy were near at hand, Alexander refused to leave him; and encouraging and helping him along with a few companions, unexpectedly found himself cut off from the main body and obliged to spend the night in a wild spot in darkness and extreme cold.” Singlehanded, he raided an enemy watch-fire to snatch a burning brand; the enemy, thinking his troops were at hand, retreated; and Lysimachos had a fire to sleep by. Leonidas, left behind in Macedon, got only a load of expensive incense, with an ironic gift-tag saying that from now on he need not be stingy towards the gods.
Philip’s telling Alexander he should be ashamed to sing so well—presumably in public, since it was recorded—is from Plutarch, who says the boy never played again. The tribal skirmish after is invented; we do not know where or when Alexander first tasted war. It can only be back-dated from his regency. At sixteen, he was trusted by the first general in Greece with a command of vital strategic importance, in the full expectation that experienced troops would follow him. By then they must have known him well.