Glaucus now began examining the abdomen and found it to be swollen and tense. ‘I think he has eaten something that’s had a bad effect on him. I’ll prescribe a purge and then he’ll have to fast for at least three days, drinking only water.’
‘Are you sure this is the right cure?’
‘I think Philip would tell you the same thing. If we weren’t so far away, I would send a messenger for a consultation, but I really don’t think it’s necessary. An illness of this kind should clear up in less time that it would take the messenger to reach Susa.’
‘That’s fine, but make sure you keep an eye on him. Hephaestion is my dear friend. We have been close ever since we were children.’ As he spoke Alexander’s gaze fell on the golden pendant Hephaestion wore on his neck with a small tooth mounted on it – the King’s own milk tooth. Around his own neck was Hephaestion’s tooth – the first token of eternal friendship they had exchanged.
‘Have no fear, Sire,’ replied the physician. ‘We’ll have Hephaestion back on his feet in no time.’
Alexander left and the doctor immediately had his patient swallow the purge and left instructions for his diet.
‘In three days’ time, if everything is going well, you’ll be able to take some chicken broth.’
Indeed, three days later Hephaestion was better – the swelling in his abdomen had receded, and the fever had relented, although towards evening his temperature always rose slightly. That particular day the schedule for the games included the four-horse chariot race and Glaucus, who was particularly keen on horse racing, stopped by to examine his patient. On finding Hephaestion much improved, the physician asked if he might take a few hours off. ‘General, there is an exciting chariot race taking place today. If you do not object, I would like to see it.’
‘Of course I have no objections,’ replied Hephaestion. ‘Go and enjoy yourself
And I can go without worrying? You will look after yourself?’
‘Of course, Iatré. After everything I have been through in ten years of this military campaign, I’m certainly not afraid of a fever.’
‘In any case, I will be back before nightfall.’
Glaucus left and Hephaestion, tired of fasting and the purges, called a servant and ordered him to roast up a couple of chickens and serve them with chilled wine.
‘But, my Lord . . .’ the man started to object.
‘Are you going to obey me or do I have to have you whipped?’ Hephaestion reprimanded him.
The servant found himself left with not much of a choice and he did what he had been ordered to do; he roasted the chickens and went to prepare the wine kept in pressed snow in the cellar.
*
The sun was setting and Glaucus was in excellent spirits as he entered his patient’s bedchamber. ‘How is our valiant warrior?’ he asked, but his gaze fell immediately on the remains of two chickens and an empty amphora that had rolled into a corner. All the colour left his face. He turned slowly towards the bed – Hephaestion had not even managed to reach it. Alexander’s friend lay on the floor where he had collapsed. Dead.
64
ALEXANDER WAS GIVEN the news immediately and he rushed to his friend’s house with the hope that there had been some misunderstanding. When he arrived Eumenes, Ptolemy, Seleucus and Perdiccas were already there and, from the looks on their faces, from their eyes, he realized there was no hope at all.
His friend had been placed on the bed now, combed, shaved and dressed in clean clothes. Alexander threw himself on the body, shouting and crying in desperation. Then, having given vent to the sharpest grief, he sat in a corner with his head in his hands, crying silently, and he remained in that position all night and all the next day. The friends who were waiting outside the door heard him moan every now and then, his breath a dull rattle, or bursting out more than once into inconsolable sobbing.
At sunset on the following day, they decided to enter.
‘Come,’ said Ptolemy. ‘Come away from here. All we can do for him now is prepare his funeral.’
‘No, leave me be, I cannot abandon my poor friend!’ shouted the King in his despair, but his companions forced him to stand up, almost bodily, and dragged him out to make way for the Egyptian embalmers who were waiting to prepare the body.
‘It’s my fault, it’s all my fault,’ moaned Alexander. ‘If I hadn’t left Philip in Susa he would have saved him and he would be alive now.’
‘Unfortunately it was simply a momentary distraction,’ said Seleucus. ‘The physician left him alone while he went to the races and—’
‘What did you say?’ asked Alexander with an expression of utter horror on his face.
‘That’s what happened, unfortunately. Perhaps he thought there was no danger, but as soon as he found himself alone Hephaestion ate and drank too much – meat and chilled wine and—’
‘Find him!’ shouted Alexander. ‘Find that rat and bring him here to me immediately!’
The poor doctor was rooted out by the guards who found him hidden away in the cellar, and they brought him before the King, white as a sheet, trembling all over. He sought to stutter some excuse, but Alexander shouted, ‘Silence, you wretch!’ And he hit Glaucus full in the face with his fist, so hard he sent him rolling in the dirt with his lip split.
‘Have him executed straight away,’ he ordered and the guards carried him away as he cried and begged for clemency. They led him down into the courtyard and propped him up against a wall where he continued to cry and beg. The officer shouted, ‘Now!’ and the archers all let fly at the same instant.
All the arrows hit their mark and Glaucus collapsed into a pool of blood and urine without uttering a sound.
Alexander was in total despair for days. Then, all of a sudden, he found himself in the grip of a strange, frenetic desire to honour his dearest friend with the most impressive funeral that had ever been celebrated in the entire world. He sent a delegation to the Oracle of Ammon at Siwa to ask the god if it was admissible for him to offer sacrifices to Hephaestion as one would to a hero, then he gave orders to the army to set off towards Babylon and to take with them the embalmed body of his friend to celebrate the funeral rites there.
Not all of his Companions understood this extravagant manifestation of grief, even though they had all loved Hephaestion. Leonnatus failed to see the point in Alexander’s having sent the request to the Oracle at Siwa.
‘Alexander is creating the religion of his new world,’ Ptolemy explained, ‘with his gods and his heroes. Hephaestion is dead, but he wants him to be among the very first of these heroes, so that he might live on as a myth. He has already started to carry us into the realm of legend. Do you understand?’
Leonnatus shook his head. He died of indigestion; I don’t see anything heroic in that.’
‘It is for this reason that he is preparing such an elaborate funeral ceremony for him. In the end this is what will remain in the people’s memory: Alexander’s grief for the death of Hephaestion is like Achilles’ grief for the death of Patroclus. It doesn’t matter how Hephaestion died, what is important is how he lived – as a great warrior, a great friend, a young man struck down by fate before his time.’
Leonnatus nodded, even though he was not at all certain he had understood exactly what Ptolemy was trying to say, but instinctively he thought that Thanatos had worked his way into Alexander’s troop, carrying off the first of the seven of them, and he wondered now who would be next.
During the march to Babylon, some Chaldaean seers came to warn Alexander not to enter the city – if he entered through its gates then he would never leave. He then consulted Aristander and asked him, ‘What do you think?’
‘Is there anything that might prevent you from doing the things you have decided to do?’
‘No,’ replied the King.
‘Go then – our destiny is in any case in the hands of the gods.’
They entered the city at the beginning of spring. Alexander took up residence in the royal palace and began giving orders to p
repare the pyre – a tower some one hundred and forty cubits high, resting on an artificial platform measuring half a stadium on each side.
The plan and the construction work were overseen by Alexander’s chief engineer, Diades of Larissa, and by an army of carpenters, painters and sculptors. The magnificent structure rose up to five storeys in height and was adorned with statues representing elephants, lions and all sorts of mythological creatures, with great sculpted panels carrying scenes of gigantomachy and centauromachy. Enormous torches of pure gold laminate protruded from the corners and at the very top life-size statues of sirens supported the catafalque.
When the enormous pyre was completed, the embalmed body of Hephaestion was transported on the shoulders of the hetairoi of his battalion, followed by Alexander and the Companions, to the base of the tower. From there it was hoisted up using machines designed specifically for the job and was placed on the catafalque. Then, as soon as the sun disappeared below the horizon, the priests set fire to the structure. The flames took hold immediately, enveloping everything in their roar as they devoured the statues, the sculpted panels, the ornaments, the rich votive offerings.
Alexander watched the terrible, barbaric spectacle without shedding any tears, aware of the stupor he was creating in all the onlookers, among the people, awestruck by this unheard-of manifestation of power, at this most exaggerated of events. Suddenly, while his eyes travelled upwards to look at the top of the tower that was just beginning to collapse with the accompaniment of sinister creaking noises, devoured by the fire, he had a vision of himself as a child once more in the courtyard of the palace at Pella, exchanging a token of eternal friendship with a small friend he had only just met. ‘Until death?’ Hephaestion had asked. ‘Until death,’ he had replied.
His hand moved instinctively to his throat and he searched for the token in its gold mount – the milk tooth. He tore the chain from his neck and threw it into the flames and as he did so he was overcome by an infinite melancholy, by the most profound and harrowing sadness. The first and the dearest of them, of the seven friends united by the same promise and the same dream, had gone for ever. Death had taken him away and his ashes were now being borne off on the wind.
*
Spring came to an end and Alexander once again began pursuing his plans and his dreams of universal domination, while Roxane’s belly grew as the pregnancy progressed. He had a gigantic harbour dug out of the banks of the Euphrates, capable of holding more than five hundred vessels, and together with Nearchus he planned the construction of a new fleet that would take them off to explore Arabia and the coastline of the Persian Gulf. The Phoenicians transported forty disassembled ships as far as the ford at Thapsacus in upper Syria and then they re-assembled them and launched them on the river. They went downstream with the flow as far as the capital, complete with crews from Sidon, Arados and Byblos, all of them ready to participate in this adventure that would take them to the far regions of mysterious Arabia. An entire fleet of two quinqueremes, two quadriremes, twenty triremes and thirty penteconters were transported in two months from the Mediterranean to the southern Ocean – nothing seemed out of the question for the young, indomitable sovereign.
Delegations from all over the world came to him – from Libya and Italy, from Iberia and Pontus, from Armenia and India – to pay homage, to bring him gifts and to ask to be allowed to enter into alliances, and he welcomed them all in his grand palace, among the marvels of Babylon that was readying itself to become the capital of the known world.
One day, towards the beginning of summer, while the Euphrates was in full flood, Alexander decided to sail down the river and to enter the Pallacopas, a canal that was used to drain off the waters so that they did not flood the crops.
The King himself was at the rudder alongside Nearchus and he looked on in wonder at the huge lagoons that opened up here and there along the course of the canal, and out of which emerged, half hidden beneath the surface, the tombs of the ancient Chaldaean kings. Suddenly a gust of wind blew his wide-brimmed hat off, the hat he used to shield himself from the sun and around which a ribbon of gold had been tied, the diadem that symbolised his majesty.
The hat sank, but the ribbon became stuck in a tuft of canes.
A sailor dived into the water straight away, and managed to grab the diadem, but he was worried that he might ruin it by holding it in his hand while swimming towards the ship, so he put it on his head. When he was hauled on board, everyone was struck by this inauspicious event, and the Chaldaean seers who had followed the King suggested the sailor ought to be rewarded for having saved the royal diadem and immediately afterwards put to death in order to discourage any further ill fortune.
The King replied that a good whipping would be enough for the sacrilegious gesture and he arranged the diadem around his head once more.
Nearchus sought to distract him by talking of the great expedition to Arabia, but he saw that there was a shadow across Alexander’s gaze, similar to the expression he had worn during the cremation of Kalanos.
A few days later Alexander was sitting on his throne, watching over the manoeuvres of his cavalry beyond the city walls. At a certain point he stood up to talk with the commanders and suddenly, while they were all distracted by the horsemen and their activity, a stranger passed through the chamberlains and sat himself down on the King’s throne, laughing wildly. The Persian guards killed him instantly, but the Chaldaean priests beat their chests and scratched their faces, this being the worst of all possible omens.
And yet, despite all of these bad signs, his love for Roxane and the desire to see his child let him chase away his most melancholic thoughts.
‘I wonder if he will look more like you or like me,’ he said. ‘My teacher, Aristotle, maintains that woman is only a vessel for the male seed, but in my opinion not even he really believes this – it is obvious that some individuals more resemble their mother than their father. I myself, for example.’
‘Why, what is your mother like?’
‘You will soon know – I will have her come here when my son is born. She was beautiful, but ten years have gone by . . . ten very difficult years for her.’
Rumours of all the bad omens had spread among his friends and they all vied with one another to invite him for meals to keep his spirits up. He accepted them all, never saying no to anyone and spending his days and nights eating and drinking without restraint. One evening, on returning from such an invitation, he felt unwell – his head was heavy, his ears were buzzing, but he paid no heed. He took a bath and went to bed alongside Roxane who was already asleep with the lamp burning in the room.
He had a fever the following day, but he got to his feet nevertheless, despite the Queen’s insistence that he should remain in bed. At midday he went to eat with a Greek friend of his who had joined him in Babylon some time previously, a certain Medius. As evening approached, while he was still at the table, he felt a sudden, sharp pain in his right side, so strong it made him cry out. The servants lifted him up, stretched him out on a bed and the pain seemed to calm down gradually.
A physician was called quickly to examine him, but he did not dare touch the area where the King had felt the knife-like pain. His fever was very high now and he felt mortally tired.
‘I will have you transported to the palace, Sire.’
‘No,’ replied Alexander. ‘I will stay here tonight. I am sure I will feel better in the morning.’
So he stayed at Medius’s home that night, but in the morning his temperature, far from having fallen, was even higher.
On the third day he continued to deteriorate, but he did not seem to be particularly concerned. He called his chiefs of staff and, although Nearchus and his companions realized he was ill, they continued to discuss details of the expedition and the date of their departure.
‘Why don’t we put everything off for the moment?’ suggested Ptolemy. ‘You ought to rest for a while, have yourself looked after, try to get back on your feet. Perhaps you sh
ould move away from here – the heat is unbearable, it’s difficult to sleep. Have you never wondered why King Darius spent his summers at Ecbatana, up in the mountains?’
‘I don’t have enough time to go up into the mountains,’ replied Alexander, ‘and I don’t have enough time to wait for my fever to drop. When it decides to relent, it will relent. For the moment I simply want to continue forward. Nearchus, what do you know of Arabia and its extent?’
‘Some say it is as large as India, but I find that hard to believe.’
We will soon know, in any case,’ replied Alexander. ‘Just think about it, friends, the land of spices – incense, aloe, myrrh.’
The Companions feigned enthusiasm, but within themselves these words resounded like some grim portent – the King had just named a series of perfumes that were commonly used in embalming bodies.
Roxane sent for Philip who at that time was in a battalion of the army to the north of the city, taking care of an epidemic of dysentery, but when the Queen’s orderly arrived in the camp he had already set off northwards without leaving precise indications of how he might be found.
For another three days Alexander continued to carry out his duties and attend his engagements, officiating at sacrifices to the gods and meeting with his Companions to organize the expedition into Arabia, but it was apparent to everyone that his condition was still deteriorating.
When Philip was finally found, it seemed there had been some improvement – the fever had dropped and Alexander exchanged a few words with his physician. ‘I knew you would come, iatre,’ he said. ‘Now I know that I will get better.’
‘Of course you will get better,’ replied Philip. ‘Do you remember that time when you were half dead after going for a swim in that frozen river?’
‘It’s as though it happened yesterday.’
And the note poor Parmenion sent to you?’
‘Yes. The one that said you were poisoning me.’
‘It was true,’ Philip joked and laughed. ‘I was administering a poison that would have killed an elephant, but it had no effect on you! You actually became fitter than you’d ever been, and so what do you think a bit of fever is going to do to you?’