Alfred John Church

“ It is true that there is no one in the whole kingdom of Persia whom Alexander is more anxious to secure than the widow of Memnon the Rhodian. Nor could you have given her better advice than that she should surrender herself to me of her own free will. And you, my young friend,” he went on, turning to Charidemus, “you I thank most heartily for the praises that you have bestowed on my clemency. The gods grant that I may always be not less worthy of them than I hope I am this day. ”

“ It is not the wealth of the enemy, it is your own wealth that you are giving up to plunder; it is your own subjects—for enemies who have submitted themselves to the conquerors are subjects—whom you are about to slaughter.”
“Your advice, Parmenio,” retorted the king, “becomes you, but it does not become me. I do not make war as a huckster, to make profit of my [282] victories, nor even as King of Macedon, but as the avenger of Greece. Two hundred years of wrong from the day when the Persians enslaved our brethren in Asia cry for vengeance. ”

“ This was Memnon’s son, another Mentor. His tutor, the Nicon, whose acquaintance we have already made, followed him, and the party was now complete.
It was Clearista’s first voyage, and her wonder [85] and delight were beyond expression. The sea, calm as a mirror, and blue as a sapphire, under a cloudless sky; the rhythmic dash of the oars as they rose and fell in time to the monotonous music of the fugleman standing high upon the stern; the skimming flight of the sea-birds as they followed the galley in the hope of some morsels of food ”

“ I don’t doubt indeed that your Alexander will overrun Asia from one end to the other. Philip was a great soldier, and his son is a greater, while your Macedonians are the stuff out of which armies rightly so called are made. Persia, on the other hand, is thoroughly rotten, and will fall almost at a touch. But this is not the same thing as Greece conquering Persia. No; Persia will conquer Greece; we shall be overwhelmed with a flood of eastern vices and servilities. True Greece will perish, just as surely as she would have perished had the bow triumphed over the spear at Marathon or Platæa. ”

“ If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us out from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods. How splendid! If not—I can understand a man walking up to what looks like certain death, if he feels quite sure that Apollo, or Poseidon, or Aphrodité, is going to carry him off in a cloud; and I can understand—for of course we see it every day—a man taking his life in his hand, from duty, or for a prize, or, it may be, from sheer liking for danger ”

“ There could scarcely be a greater insult than to say to any one who claimed to be a Greek that he was a barbarian. Greeks, according to a creed that no one thought of questioning, were the born rulers and masters of the world, for whom everything had been made, and to whom everything belonged; barbarians were inferior creatures, without human rights, who might be permitted to exist if they were content to minister to the well-being of their masters, but otherwise were to be dealt with as so many noxious beasts.
An angry flush mounted to the young runner’s face. ”

“ As for wasting the country and burning the houses, the idea is monstrous. The king has given it into my sole keeping, and there it shall be. Not a field shall be touched, not a house shall be burnt in my province. As for dividing the army, and sending half of it into Europe, it is madness. What good did Darius and Xerxes get by sending armies thither? No—the man has chosen to dare us on our ground, and we will give him a lesson which he and his people will never forget.’ I urged my views again, and then the fellow insulted me. ”

“ The soldiers saw with dismay the brilliant moon, for whose help in arranging their bivouac they had been so thankful, swallowed up, as it seemed, by an advancing darkness, and they drew the gloomiest omens from the sight. But Alexander was equal to the occasion. A disciple of Aristotle, the greatest natural philosopher of the ancient world, he knew the cause of the phenomenon, but as a practical man, whose business it was to understand the natures with which he had to deal, he knew also that a scientific explanation of that cause would be useless. ”

“ So I went to Arsites, who was satrap of Phrygia, and in chief command, and said to him, ‘Don’t fight; we shall most infallibly be beaten. There is nothing in Asia that can stand against the army which we have allowed Alexander to bring over. Fall back before him; waste the country as you go, burn the houses; burn even the towns, if you do not like to detach men enough to hold them. Don’t let the enemy find a morsel to eat that he has not brought himself, or a roof to shelter him that he does not himself put up. And then attack him at home. He has brought all the best of his army with him. ”

“ The friendly attendant came forward to meet the new-comers. The prince caught him by the arm. “Swear,” he said, “by Melkarth, to help us, and don’t utter another sound, or you die this instant.” The man stammered out the oath.
“That is well,” said the prince, “we knew that we could trust you. You shall have wealth and honour. When Alexander is master of Tyre, you shall be priest of the temple. Now listen to what we want. We must have this Greek prisoner who is to be sacrificed to the god at the feast of the new moon. He is dear to our king, and must not die.” ”

“ All I can say is that I have found the Great King an excellent master, a generous man who can listen to the truth, and take good advice, which is more, by the way, than I can say for some of his lieutenants. And then his subjects are tolerably well off; I don’t think that they improve their condition by coming under the rule of Spartan warriors or Athenian generals, so far as I have had an opportunity of seeing anything of these gentlemen. What your Alexander may do for them, if he gets the chance, is more than I can say. ”

“ Barsiné made no answer, but paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. At last she addressed the Macedonian.
“You know him; you do not speak by hearsay, or as courtiers who flatter a king?”
“Madam,” replied Charidemus, “I have seen him at times when men show their real selves—at the banquet and in the battle-field.”
“And he is merciful and generous? Strong he is and valiant, I know. My Memnon used to say that he had not his match in the world, and he had seen him fight. But he is one, you say, who can have compassion also, who can pity the suppliant?” ”

“ The prospect of a booty such as passed all the dreams of avarice, the hope of ransacking the treasuries into which all Asia had poured its wealth for generations, had drawn adventurers from all points of the compass. The only difficulty that the recruiting officers had was in choosing. The king was determined that the strength of his army should be his own Macedonians. A sturdy race, untouched by the luxury which had corrupted the vigour of more civilized Greece, they supplied a material of the most solid value. ”

“ And besides, Philip had spent the best years of life in preparing for it, and was scarcely young enough. But now the time has come and the man. You must see our glorious Alexander, best of soldiers, best of generals. Before a year is over, he will be well on his way to the Persians’ capital. Come with me, and help him to do the work for which Hellas has been waiting so long. Your true country is not here, among these petty states worn out with incessant strifes, but in the new empire which this darling of the gods will establish in the East. ”

“ For yourselves, I see nothing but light in the future; but for one who is greater than you, there is darkness in the sky. But be silent. It is dangerous to prophecy evil to the mighty. Yet, if the occasion should come, say to your master, ‘Beware of the city whose fortifications were built by the potters.’” [68]
“Was this worth our ten darics, think you?” said the Theban, as they walked to their own quarters, through streets filled with the bustle of preparation, for the army was getting ready to march. “Surely one might get good luck told to one, and good advice given for less. ”

“ Two small squadrons, one of the Companion Cavalry, the other of Macedonian light horse—the Thessalians had gone home from Ecbatana—and a company of infantry, selected for their strength and endurance, formed the van of the pursuing force. Alexander, of course, took the command himself. Charidemus, who was beginning to have a reputation for good luck, a gift scarcely less highly esteemed even by the wise than prudence and courage, received orders to accompany him. No man carried anything beyond his arms and provisions for two days, the king himself being as slenderly equipped as his companions. ”

“ I never saw a place which it would be more absolutely hopeless to attack. The garrison was ample; they were provisioned, as we have afterwards discovered, for two years, and there was a never-failing spring within the walls. Yet the king had a message the very next day after he occupied the town, offering to surrender the place if within sixty days no succour should come from Darius. And surrendered it was. Here was one of the strongest positions in Asia, and it did not cost us a single arrow, much less a single life. The fact is these people have no country to fight for. ”

“ Indeed, I did all that I could to help the king against him. We Jews have a good deal to say to the making of war, even when we don’t carry swords ourselves; gold and silver, you may easily understand, are often far more powerful than steel. Well; I was present at the battle, and though I did not wish well to your countrymen’s purpose, I could not help seeing how very near they came to accomplishing it. I saw the pick of the Persian army fly absolutely without striking a blow when the Greek phalanx charged it. ”

“ HALICARNASSUS
It is no part of my purpose to tell again in detail what has been so often told before, the story of the campaigns of Alexander. The victory of the Granīcus had far-reaching results. It is scarcely too much to say that it gave all Lesser Asia to the conqueror. The details of the battle had been of a singularly impressive kind. It was a veritable hero, men said, a manifest favourite of heaven, who had come to overthrow the kingdom of Cyrus. He was incomparably skilful in counsel; he was irresistible in fight. ”

“ Alexander’s most pressing care was now the capture of Darius himself. As long as the Great King was at liberty he might become the centre of a dangerous opposition. If he was once taken Persia was practically conquered. He had fled to Ecbatana, the ancient capital of the Medes, from the field of Arbela; and now he had left Ecbatana to find refuge in the wilds of Bactria, the most rugged and inaccessible of all the provinces of the empire. ”

“ The Sidonian—he was the son of the newly-appointed king of that city—looked very grave. “I know something of these Tyrians and of their ways, which indeed are not very different from ours. They mean to sacrifice these prisoners to the gods.”
Charidemus uttered an exclamation of horror.
“Yes,” said the Sidonian, “it is shocking, but it is not so very long, as I have read, since you Greeks did the same. But let that pass; you are thinking what is to be done. Stop,” he went on, for Charidemus started up from his seat, “you can’t take Tyre single-handed. And I think I might help you. ”

“ Shall we exhibit them as a nine-days’ wonder to Greece? True it is our country; but wretches such as we are have no country, and no hope but in being forgotten. Our friends will pity us, I doubt not; but nothing dries sooner than a tear. Our wives—will they welcome in these mangled carcases the bridegrooms of their youth; our children—will they reverence such parents? We have wives and children here, who have been the sole solace of our unhappy lot. ”

“ Well; he sold me as a slave to the villain whose meat you have been eating to-night.”
“Do you call him villain?” said Charidemus in surprise. “He seemed kind and hospitable enough.”
“Aye, he seems,” replied the man, “that is part of his craft. But for all his amiable looks, he is a robber and a murderer. He makes it his business to do away with guests whom he entertains as he has entertained you. Commonly he plies them with his accursed palm-wine till they fall into a drunken sleep. When that fails, they are stabbed or strangled. ”

“ A garrison of Argive soldiers was left to hold the place. Alexander, who, like all generals of the very first ability, possessed a gift for remembering everything, had not forgotten that Charidemus had many friends and connections in Argos, and offered the young man the post of second in command, but was not at all displeased when he refused it. “You are right,” he said, “though I thought it well to give you the choice. But a young man like you is fit for something better than garrison duty. You wish to follow me then? to see Susa and Babylon, and Tyre and Jerusalem, and Egypt, perhaps India.” ”

“ So excited were the soldiers that there was no knowing what they might not do. Were a fatal result to follow, the guard itself would hardly be able to protect the unfortunate man. Charondas obtained, as he had expected, admission for himself and his companion by the mention of his name. The first sight of the physician was curiously reassuring. He was perfectly calm and confident. “What about the king?” was the question eagerly put to him. “Do not fear,” was the quiet reply, “he will recover.” Just as he spoke a slave entered the room with a communication from the attendants of the king. ”

“ The Great King, from the days of Cyrus himself, has always paid it, as will you also, we doubt not, who claim to be his successor. If you refuse, we shut our pass against you, as we would have shut it against him.”
A flush of rage at this unceremonious address rose to the face of the king, but he mastered himself. “It is strange,” said he, after a moment, “to be thus addressed. There is no one, from the Western [275] Sea to this spot, who has been able to stay my advance. On what strength of your arms, or on what favour of the gods do you depend, that you talk so boldly? ”