THE LYCEUM STOOD IN a pleasant suburb of Athens, near the plane-shaded Ilissos stream beloved by Sokrates. It was a new and handsome building. The humbler one, where Aristotle had set up his strolling university, was a mere annex now. A long elegant stoa with painted Corinthian columns now sheltered the Principal and his students when they paced discoursing. Within, it smelled benignly of old vellum, ink and writing-wax.
It was all the gift of Kassandros, presented through his cultured Athenian governor. The Principal, Theophrastos, had long been eager to entertain their benefactor, and the auspicious day had arrived.
The distinguished guest had been shown the new library, many of its shelves consecrated to Theophrastos’ works; he was a derivative but prolific author. Now they had returned to the Principal’s rooms to take refreshment.
“I am glad,” said Kassandros, “that you study history, and delighted that you compile it. It is for the scholars of each generation to purge it of its errors, before they infect the next.”
“Aristotle’s philosophy of history …” began Theophrastos eagerly. Kassandros, who had had an hour of learned garrulity, lifted a courteous hand.
“I myself sat at his feet, in my youth when he was in Macedon.” Hateful days, tasting of gall, seeing the charmed circle always from outside, exiled from the bright warmth by the centrifuge of his own envy. He said meaningly, “If only the chief of his students had put his privilege to better use.”
Cautiously, the Principal murmured something about the corruption of barbarian ways and the temptations of power.
“You suffered a grievous loss when Kallisthenes met his end. A brilliant scholar, I believe.”
“Ah, yes. Aristotle feared, indeed predicted it. Some unwise letters …”
“I am persuaded that he was falsely accused of inspiring his students to plot the death of the King. The voice of philosophy had become unwelcome.”
“I fear so … We have no one here who accompanied Alexander, and our records suffer.”
“You have at least,” said Kassandros smiling, “a guest who visited the court at Babylon in its last weeks. If you would like to call a scribe, I can give you some account of what I found.”
The scribe came, well furnished with tablets. Kassandros dictated at a smooth, measured pace. “… But long before this he had given way to arrogance and wantonness, preferring the godlike hauteur of a Persian Great King to the wholesome restraints of the homeland.” The scribe would have no polishing to do; he had prepared it all in advance. Theophrastos, whose own career had been wholly scholastic, hung fascinated on this voice from the theater of great events.
“He made his victorious generals fall down to the ground before his throne. Three hundred and sixty-five concubines, the same in number as Darius had, filled his palace. Not to speak of a troop of effeminate eunuchs, used to prostitution. As for his nightly carouses …” He continued for some time, noting with satisfaction that every word was going down on the wax. At length the scribe was thanked, and dismissed to begin the work of copying.
“Naturally,” Kassandros said, “his former companions will give such accounts of him as they hope will tend to their own glory.” The Principal nodded sagely, the careful scholar warned of a dubious source.
Kassandros, whose throat was dry, sipped gratefully at his wine. He, like the Principal, had looked forward to this meeting. He had never managed to humble his living enemy; but at least, now, he had begun to damp down the fame he had set such store by, for which he had burned out his life.
“I trust,” said Theophrastos civilly at parting, “that your wife enjoys good health.”
“Thessalonike is as well as her condition allows at present. She has her father King Philip’s good constitution.”
“And the young King? He must be eight years old, and beginning his education.”
“Yes. To keep him from inclining to his father’s faults, I am giving him a more modest upbringing. Granted that the custom was an old one, still it did Alexander no good that all through his boyhood he had his Companions to dominate—a troop of lords’ sons who competed to flatter him. The young King and his mother are installed in the castle of Amphipolis, where they are protected from treachery and intrigue; he is being reared like any private citizen of good berth.”
“Most salutary,” the Principal agreed. “I shall venture, sir, to present you with a little treatise of my own, On the Education of Kings. When he is older, should you think of appointing him a tutor …”
“That time,” said the Regent of Macedon, “will certainly be in my thoughts.”
310 B.C.
THE CASTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS crowned a high bluff above a sweeping curve of the Strymon, just before it reached the sea. In old days it had been fortified by Athens and by Sparta, strengthened and enlarged by Macedon, each of its conquerors adding a bastion or a tower. The watchmen on its ashlar walls could see wide prospects on every side. They would point out to Alexander, when the air was clear, distant landmarks in Thrace, or the crest of Athos; and he would try to tell them of places he himself had seen before he came here, when he was a little boy; but the years are long between seven and thirteen, and it was growing dim to him.
He remembered confusedly his mother’s wagon, the women and eunuchs in her tent, the palace at Pella, his grandmother’s house in Dodona; he remembered Pydna too well; he remembered how his mother would not tell him what had happened to Grandmother, though of course the servants had said; he remembered his aunt Thessalonike crying terribly although she was going to be married; and his mother crying too on the journey here, though she was settled now. Only one thing had been constant all his life: the presence of soldiers round him. Since Kebes had been sent away, they were his only friends.
He seemed never to meet other boys; but he was allowed out riding so long as soldiers went with him. It always seemed that as soon as he got to know them, to joke and race with them and get their stories out of them, they would be assigned somewhere else and he had a different pair. But in five years a good many turns had come round again, and one could pick up the threads.
Some of them were dour and no fun to ride with; but in five years he had learned policy. When Glaukias, the Commandant, came to see him, which happened every few days, he would say that these soldiers were most interesting people, who were telling him all about the wars in Asia; and soon after they would be transferred. When his friends were mentioned he looked glum, and they stayed on for some time.
Thus he had learned that Antigonos, the Commander-in-Chief in Asia, was making war on his account, wishing to get him out of Amphipolis and be his guardian. He had been two years old when Antigonos had come his way, and remembered only a huge one-eyed monster whose approach had made him scream with fright. He knew better now, but had still no wish to be his ward. His present guardian was no trouble because he never came.
He wished his guardian had been Ptolemy; not that he remembered him, but the soldiers said he was the best-liked of all Alexander’s friends, and behaved in war almost as handsomely, which was rare these days. But Ptolemy was far off in Egypt, and there was no way of getting word to him.
Lately, however, it seemed the war was over. Kassandros and Antigonos and the other generals had made a peace, and agreed that Kassandros should be his guardian till he came of age.
“When shall I come of age?” he had asked his friends. For some reason this question had alarmed them both; they had enjoined him, with more than their usual emphasis, not to go chattering about what they’d said, or that would be the last he’d ever see of them.
There had always been two of them, until yesterday, when Peiros’ horse had gone lame in the first mile, and he had begged Xanthos for one canter before they had to go home. So they had one while Peiros waited; and when they paused to breathe the horses, Xanthos had said, “Never a word. But there’s a lot of talk about you, outside of here.”