Ivan Yefremov - Thais of Athens

“At the beginning of the campaign, when they marched through woods and plains at the edge of the Sea of Birds rich in game, Alexander hunted lions, tigers and bears, and encouraged his comrades to go up against the mighty animals with nothing but short spears. Ptolemy was the only one who did not participate in the savage sport, calmly ignoring the mockery from Alexander himself. However, when Crateros was bitten by a bear, Alexander stopped the hunt …”

Thais was tired of writing. She called Roykos and ordered her servants to prepare the horses: Boanergos for herself and Salmaakh for Eris. She had to bring Eris because the black priestess refused to let her mistress go riding without her protection.

“We will have to part at some point,” Thais had reproached her. “We cannot die at the same moment.”

“Yes we can,” Eris replied calmly. “I shall follow you.” She touched the knot of hair at the back of her head.

“And what if you die first?” the Athenian asked.

“I shall wait for you on the shore of the River of Death. We shall descend into the kingdom of Hades hand in hand. I have already asked the Great Mother to let me wait for you in the fields of asphodels.”

Thais gazed upon this strange woman, this slave, this goddess who had descended to the mortal world to protect her. Her smooth, firm face did not wear the expression of blood thirst or a deadly threat to the enemies, as Thais had imagined in the past. It was filled with faith in something unknown to the free-thinking Athenian, the victory over fear and pain, akin to the virginal priestesses of Artemis in Ethes, who set forth the legend of the Amazons. But they plunged into sacred rage of the maenadae, fighting with the fierceness of wild cats. Eris’ typical expression was such that it should have been adopted by Athenian sculptors for the statue of Leanna, instead of portraying the symbolic lioness with her tongue cut off. Eris’ restrained behavior was merely a reflection of her inner focus and seriousness, captured in the direct gaze of her clear blue eyes, the slight tension in her eyebrows, and the even, slightly metallic sound of her voice. Only the darkness of her skin, hair and lips reminded one of the fact that she was a daughter of the Night, possessing of knowledge of Gaea-Kibela.

Helenians have always admired those Olympic champions who overcame their opponents using a quality rare in mere mortals: divine calm, the virtue of gods. A poet once said that “they spent their lives keeping delicious calm, the first of their great achievements. There is nothing beyond this virtue, enhancing every passing day …”

Olympic calm was Eris’ distinctive feature as well, and it gave a peculiar depth to her every gesture and word. Even now, Thais watched with pleasure as Eris sat firmly on the prancing, temperamental Salmaakh. The Syrian slave girl handed over Leontiscus as if he were a fragile Miletan vase, while he wiggled and squealed with delight. Both women rode down paved streets, choosing short and steep descents and ignoring the admiring gazes of pedestrians. Thais and Eris had long since become used to them. Just as Thais and Egesikhora in the past, this pair could not help but draw attention. Young men in particular were left breathless as they gazed after the beautiful riders.

After a wild dash around a racing field, deserted and abandoned after the Persian carriage races were forgotten, Thais came home pacified. Once she had washed off the dust and put her tired son to bed, she returned to her letter in a different mood.

“Alexander,” she wrote, “continues to distance himself from his soldiers and even his military advisers, philosophers, geographers and mechanics.

“The great Macedonian carried out a deed that surpasses those of mythical heroes Hercules, Theseus and Dionysus. Hellas was always closer to the east than to the dark and savage west. It was as if it reached out to the ancient arts and great knowledge accumulated in vanished kingdoms across the Ionia that sat at the edge of Asia, and across the legendary Crete. Alexander opened the gates to the east wide open. A flood of enterprising Helenians poured over the lands that were now either free or emptied by war: craftsmen, merchants, artists and teachers.

“The Macedonians, with their war spoils of money and slaves, received large estates and settled in places with warmer climate and better soil than their mountainous homeland. New cities required food, lumber and stone for new construction. The soldiers lived well and quickly became wealthy. The conquered lands turned out to be so vast that Hellas started feeling a lack of people, similar to how Sparta had felt after its men had hired themselves out as mercenaries. That was what caused their country to decline completely in its final effort to fight Alexander. The entire land of Hellas could become deserted, as its people rush to Asia and become scattered among the masses of its native population and the limitless valleys and mountains. If things go that way, what sort of Hellas will we come back to?”

Thais pondered, tickling her chin with her stylus as she did so.

“Alexander and all the Macedonians became coarse through the difficult war,” the Athenian continued. “The mutual relationships between the subordinates and their superiors are now more strained than ever. The overly humble obedience of the new associates made the army leader even more susceptible. The old dream of homonoya, the intellectual equality of all people, was forgotten.

“The divinity of the great Macedonian was now established by methods more appropriate for a leader of a savage tribe than for the ruler of the world. With the prompting of his Persian advisers, Alexander decided to introduce the ritual requiring people to throw themselves on the ground before him, but ran into strong opposition from his old comrades. At first, when the captains and soldiers from Alexander’s inner circle saw their leader seated on a golden throne, wearing a long Persian garment and a tall tiara, they laughed. They asked Alexander what sort of a masquerade or game he was playing at.

“Athenian philosopher Callisthenes believed in Alexander’s divinity at first and even started writing Anabasis, a history of his glorious campaigns. Now he became the first to state that deification had never taken place during a hero’s life, even if he were the son of a god. Not with Hercules and his great heroics; not with Dionysus, who carried out the first march into India. Both were only deified after they died. In his earthly life Dionysus was a Theban, and Hercules was an Argevan. Deification of a living man, even a son of the gods, was against the spirit of Hellenism and was no more than barbarism.

“’Alexander is not a god,’ the philosopher stated publicly. ‘He is not a son of Zeus from a mortal woman. He is the most courageous of the men of courage, he is the most intelligent of the most talented army leaders. But only his deeds, divine in their meaning, can make him a glorious hero and elevate him to a demigod.’

“Alexander bore a grudge against Callisthenes. The philosopher was supported by the Macedonian veterans, but had no influential friends. In the end, he and a few young men from the king’s guards were convicted for a conspiracy to murder Alexander as well as for some other crimes. The young men were stoned by Alexander’s captains. Callisthenes was chained, put into a cage and, according to the latest rumors, hung in Bactriana.

“Alexander did, however, get rid of the humiliating ritual. Before the army retreated from the River of Sands to Marakanda, Alexander drank a lot, trying to alleviate his suffering from the headache caused by the head wound from a stone. In a fit of rage he killed Black Cleitus, the brother of Lanisa, Alexander’s nurse in Pella. Black Cleitus, the faithful, if slightly dim, giant who had saved his life twice.