I have been as immersed in rumors of what will find there as I have been in this fetid air, and I must say they are just as unhealthy! So if you want to know what you will find at the Ganges, don’t ask your tent mate-ask me! Go ahead, ask!”
There was a pause before the officers took his invitation. “What will we find, O King?” they cried.
“Death,” Alexander said. “And victory. Exactly what you found everywhere else. For have we not learned that the butt of a sword feels the same in every land? Or its edge, for that matter? Whence this morbid curiosity, my friends? Have we not found the same reward everywhere-death to some, victory for the rest, and another river to cross? Comrades deserve the truth from comrades. From me you should expect no fairy tales, no rosy scenarios. To civilize the world is hard work.
“But here’s another dose of honesty, boys: I won’t go on without you. I’ve got more treasure than Croesus, and I could hire ten times your number in mercenaries, but I won’t. We’ve come this far together, and on the strength of your loyalty this campaign will live or die. I want to go east; some of you want to go home, the job only half-done. Some of you say ‘leave something of the world for our sons to conquer.’ I say leave our sons a world at peace, under the rule of a king who knows how much you bled to win it.
“You all have misgivings, I know. You have questions I haven’t begun to answer. Where does Asia end? Are the elephants in India twice as large as those of Porus? Will we all stray so far from home that we will return more barbarian than Greek? Of these matters, I can only tell you I don’t know yet. But I want us to find the answers together. I await your reply.”
As you recall, the response came from Coenus son of Polemocrates. This man was a competent infantry commander-his role in defeating Spitamenes and pressing the Indians at the Hydaspes were decisive-but as an orator his talents were decidedly modest. I was there when delivered his rambling argument for withdrawal, and it is a wonder how it has been built up into the tearjerker it has been by Ptolemy and his followers. But the reason is simple enough: given that Alexander’s professed wish to go on was defied, only a brilliant oration would motivate the retreat without diminishing the King.
Coming forward, Coenus said, “I address you reluctantly, as the humble must naturally be in the face of the Lord of Asia. For who would dispute that you already bear that title, now ruling lands greater in extent than the Great King himself? My king, hear the words of a man who has been with you since before the Granicus. Hear one who was there before the Hellespont, the Danube, or Thebes. Hear one who first rode during the first campaign against the Triballians, and yes, who shed his share of tears at the funeral of your father.
“For eight years, you have lead and we have followed. We have been privileged to do so, for it is ever a blessing to serve in the company of greatness. Let none of us here forget who we were but a generation ago, when we fled to the hills at the mere sight of Illyrians and Thracians, and were the butt of jokes from fancy city-dwellers from the south. Now the primitives fear us, and the cities compete to flatter us. You have shown us what men are capable of when their honor is awakened. For that, for your wisdom and leadership, we are ever in your debt.
“Today we count on that wisdom again. You see us standing before you, and you must know that there are no gods here. Men stand here broken, their every step made agony by wounds that won’t heal in this infernal heat. They stand here naked, or in the garb of barbarians, for they have gone beyond the limits of resupply from home. And they stand here disspirited, for all of them have wives they can barely recall, and children they scarcely know.
“O King, remember your beloved Bucephalus, who rests now among those hills behind us! Even he, your most faithful companion, was allowed to find his stall at last. All of us witnessed the tenderness with which you handled him in his final months. And yet, do not your men deserve the compassion you displayed to your horse? Like him, there are limits to how far and how hard an army may be ridden. On this, I don’t pretend to tell you what you must already know.
“Our plea is not made in contempt of your ambitions. Not at all! We advance your plan, because the conquest of India is a job we leave to the next generation. Your next army already awaits you, at home. It tends flocks on the plains of Emathia; it waters its cattle in the swift, sweet Axios. With wooden swords it drills in earnest, fondly imagining the celebration that will attend the return of divine Alexander, so long absent from the land of his countrymen! And that youthful army yearns to give you India, Africa, Europe. We who have shared some modest part of your glory beg you not to deprive our sons of this privilege.
“Please know that I say nothing of hubris, or pride, or any of the sins whispered by those who take a darker view. Personally, I don’t believe such talk. I know that a mind so keen on the timing of things, when to encamp, march, or attack, can also know when it is time to stop. Wisdom knows when to push away from the table, to retire for the night. In truth, even the gods must take account of Fortune, and the bitter way she may turn on even the most successful. So much more so, then, mere mortals like us. And that is all I have to say.”
As it was, many were surprised that Alexander perceived his case so devastated by Coenus’ arguments. What really happened, I suspect, was that after the King pretended to have been defeated in the debate, weeping and rending his clothes, he went back to his tent and enjoyed a three-day bender. Then he came out and made the “concession” he intended all along: the army would turn south, to the sea, and after that march for home.
Coenus was as desperate in his sincerity as Alexander was not. Believing himself to have defied a god, his anguish drove him to illness. Immediately after the King left he could not breathe; within a day he was bedridden, unable to eat or sleep. Some suspected he had been poisoned for opposing Alexander, but as I have said, Alexander only pretended to oppose withdrawal. Coenus was only thirty-six when they put him on the pyre.
Indeed, Ptolemy, Perdiccas and Craterus had better grounds than Alexander for wishing Coenus had kept his mouth shut. Though they never communicated their preferences to me-not in any overt way-it would have better served their purposes for the King to have found a gallant death in battle. Afterward they could lead the beleaguered Macedonians on an epic retreat, like Chirisophus leading the Ten Thousand, dispose of the ailing Arridaeus, and divide the empire between them. Of course, I can offer no evidence that my story should be preferred over Aeschines’. No evidence at all-except the minor facts that I spent more than a decade observing the characters of these men, and Aeschines was not there at all.
I will not hide my own preference from you on this question: I supported an Indian campaign. For as I watched the King change over the months and years, I came to believe that if he survived to see his old domains again he would not rule them the same enlightened way. For the sake of his life, I helped convince him of his divinity, but at the cost of making him half-mad with godly demands. He now expected not only his subordinates to grovel before him, but kings and chiefs. How much more a tyrant would he have become if emissaries from all the Greek cities came to him with all manner of gross flatteries? Would the free men of Athens be obliged the prostrate themselves at the feet of the universal conqueror? The thought revolted me. If I indict myself with this admission, so be it. One way or another, Alexander was bound to be assassinated like every other Macedonian king in his line. Better that he find his reward in far India, fighting in the manner that he loved, than have his reign collapse on our heads here.
XVIII.
That Aeschines accuses me of plotting against Alexander is not surprising. What is unexpected is that he indicts me for my association with Rohjane, when in fact this was one of the great services I did for the King! There was a desperate need to civilize the girl, and the oafs and thugs who surrounded Alexander were useless for this work. That I was a Greek and an Athenian seemed further to recommend me for the job. The Macedonians, after all, prided themselves on knowing more about horses than women, and what was a “Greekling” to them, anyway, but a particularly useless kind of woman?
After the breaking of bread with Oxyartes the honeymoon lasted just a few days. Divine Alexander’s side of what happened has gone with him to Olympus, but for Rohjane’s part it was a peculiar induction into the ways of men and women. She came to him, of course, as a maiden. For those unfamiliar with the customs of royalty, her virginity meant she had experience only with her handmaids, and that restricted to what may be indulged away from spying eyes. Her curiosity about men was therefore strong, and she could be excused for expecting that the Lord of All Asia would be unequivocally a man. She found herself instead cast in a much more complex role than simple receptacle for the royal seed. Unprepared, confused, she plied me with questions that gave more information than they got.
