to each other. Great Kings and their heirs do not make friends as easily as they make enemies. Consequently, those friends made in youth are friends for life if the prince be not mad and the friend not covetous.
As the years passed, Hystaspes was more often at court than in Bac tria. He was always a good influence on Darius. In fact, had he lived a few years longer, I am sure that he would have neutralized the Greek faction at court, sparing us those tedious and expensive wars.
In my twentieth year Hystaspes made me commander of his personal military staff at Susa. Since he had no military forces outside his satrapy, this position was entirely honorary. Hystaspes wanted me near him so that I could help him follow the way of Truth as opposed to that of the Lie. I felt an impostor. I was not religious. In all matters that concerned the Zoroastrian order, I deferred to my uncle who was now settled in a Susan palace where, regularly, he would light the secret fire for Darius himself. Now that my uncle is dead, I can say that he had the soul of a merchant. But he was the eldest son of Zoroaster, and that was all that mattered.
Despite Hystaspes' constant pressure upon me to develop my spiri tual and prophetic gifts, my life had been so entirely shaped by the Great King's court that I could think of nothing but soldiering and intrigue, of travel to far-off places.
In the twenty-first year of Darius' reign, at about the time of the win ter solstice, Hystaspes summoned me to his quarters in the palace at Susa.
"We are going hunting," he said. "Is this the season, Lord?"
"Each season has its game." The old man looked somber. I asked no more questions.
Although Hystaspes was well into his seventies and invariably ail ing- the two conditions are the same -he refused to be carried in a lit ter even on the coldest winter days. As we drove out of Susa he stood very straight beside his charioteer. The slow-falling snowflakes that adhered to the long white beard made him glitter in the white winter
9 6 / C R E A T I 0 N
light. I rode horseback. Except for me, Hystaspes had no escort of any kind. This was unusual. When I commented on the fact, he said, "The fewer people that know, the better." Then he gave the order to his driver. "We take the road for Pasargada."
But we did not go to Pasargada. Shortly before midday we came to a hunting lodge, set in a heavily wooded valley. This lodge had been built by the last Median king and then rebuilt by Cyrus. Darius liked to think that when he was at the lodge, no one knew where he was. But, of course, the harem always knew exactly where the Great King was at any given minute of any day, and with whom. Every day except this day.
In absolute secrecy, the Great King had arrived at the lodge the pre vious night. It was plain that he had given the household no warning. The main hall was chilly. The charcoal braziers had just been lit. The rugs on which the Great King walks - his feet must never touch the earth or a plain floor-had been scattered about so hastily that I took it on myself to straighten them.
On a dais was the Persian throne: a high golden chair with a foot stool. In front of the dais, six stools had been set in a row. This was unusual. At court, only the Great King sits. But I had heard of certain secret councils where important figures do sit in the Great King's pres ence. Needless to say, I was much excited at the thought of seeing the Great King in his secret and truest role, the warrior chieftain of the high land clan that had conquered the world.
We were greeted by Hystaspes' son Artaphrenes, the satrap of Lydia. Although this powerful figure kept royal state at Sardis, the capital of the wealthy and ancient kingdom of Lydia which Cyrus had taken from Croesus, he was a mere servant here, slave to his younger brother the Great King. As Artaphrenes embraced his father, the old man asked, "Is
he
here?"At court we can tell by the way the word "he" is said whether or not it means the Great King. This "he" was plainly someone else.
"Yes, Lord Father. He's with the other Greeks."
Even then, I knew that secret meetings with Greeks meant trouble. "You know what I think." Old Hystaspes fondled his useless arm. "I know, Lord Father. But we must listen to them. Things are chang ing in the west."
"When do they not?" Hystaspes was sour.
I think that Artaphrenes had hoped to have his father to himself for a moment, but before I could excuse myself we were interrupted by the chamberlain, who bowed low to the two satraps and said, "Will your lordships receive the guests of the Great King?"
T h e G reek Wars B e g i n I 9 7
Hystaspes nodded, and the least important guest entered first. This was my old friend the physician Democedes. He always acted as trans lator whenever Darius received important Greeks. Next came Thessalus of Athens. Then Histiaeus, who needed no translator; he was as fluent in the Persian language as he was resourceful at Persian intrigue.
The last Greek to enter the room was a lean, gray-haired man. He moved slowly, gravely, hieratically. He had that sublime ease with others that one finds only in those who have been born to rule. Xerxes had this quality. Darius did not.
The chamberlain announced: "Hippias, son of Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, by the people's will." Slowly Hystaspes crossed the room to the tyrant and embraced him. In an instant Democedes was beside them, rapidly translating back and forth the ceremonial phrases. Hystaspes always treated Hippias with true respect. Hippias was the only Greek sovereign that the old man could bear.
At the lodge, the comings and goings of the Great King are always silent. There are no drums, cymbals, flutes. And so, before we knew it, Darius was in his chair, with Xerxes standing to his right and the com manding general Oatis to his left.
Although Darius was only in his fifties, he was beginning to show signs of age. He often complained of chest pains. He had trouble breath ing. Since Democedes said nothing to anyone about his patient, no one ever knew the exact state of Darius' health. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side -as well as observing an ancient Median custom - Darius had already ordered a tomb to be built for himself near Persepolis, some twenty miles west of holy Pasargada.
That day Darius was swathed in heavy winter clothes. Except for the blue-and-white fillet, there was no mark of royalty. He fiddled constantly with the dagger at his belt. He could never be entirely still - another sign that unlike Xerxes or Hippias, he had not been born a sovereign.
"I have already welcomed the tyrant of Athens," he said. "As the rest of you are always close to me, you need no welcome in my house." Dar ius was impatient of ceremony when the work to be done was not the ceremony itself.
"Now I begin. This is a council of war. Sit." Darius' face was flushed, as if he had a fever. He was prone to fevers in cold weather.
Everyone sat except Xerxes, Oatis and me.
"Hippias has just come from Sparta." This was a shock to us all, as Darius intended. Had it not been for the help of the Spartan army, the landowners and merchants would never have been able to drive out the popular Hippias.
98 I C R E A T I 0 N
Darius pulled the silver curved dagger half out of its scarlet sheath. I can still see the bright blade in that part of my memory where things are visible.
"Speak, Tyrant of Athens."
Considering the fact that the tyrant was obliged to pause every minute or two so that Democedes could translate what he had just said, Hippias was not only impressive but eloquent.
"Great King, I am grateful for all that you have done for the house of Pisistratus. You have allowed us to retain our family's land at Sigeum. You have been the best of overlords. And if heaven obliges us to be the guests of any earthly power, we are happy to be yours."
As Hippias spoke, Histiaeus gazed at Darius with all the intensity of one of those Indian snakes that first immobilize with a glassy stare some frightened rabbit; then strike. But Darius was no frightened rabbit. Despite a decade at court, Histiaeus never understood the Great King. If he had, he would have known that Darius' face told you nothing, ever. In council, the Great King resembled a stone monument to himself.
"But, Great King, we now wish to go home to the city from which, seven years ago, we were exiled by a handful of Athenian aristocrats who had been able to enlist the aid of the Spartan army. Happily, the alliance between our enemies and Sparta is now broken. When King Cleomenes consulted the oracle on the Acropolis at Athens, he was told that it had been a grievous mistake for Sparta to join the enemies of our family."
The Greeks put great faith in their confusing and, sometimes, cor rupt oracles. It is possible that the Spartan king was really persuaded by an oracle that had always favored the family of Pisistratus. But I think it more likely that he found uncongenial the landowner faction at Athens, led at that time by one of the accursed Alcmeonids, a man called Cleis thenes, whose enthusiasm for democracy was not apt to delight a highly conventional Spartan king. In any case, Cleomenes called for a con gress of representatives of all the Greek states. The congress met at Sparta. Cleomenes made the case against Cleisthenes. Incidentally, I have been told that Cleomenes would have settled for the aristocrat Isagoras as tyrant-for anyone, in fact, but Cleisthenes.
Hippias made an eloquent case for himself at Sparta. But the other Greeks were not persuaded, and refused to form a league against Athens on the sensible ground that since they themselves feared the Spartan army, they did not want a pro-Spartan government at Athens. It was as simple as that. But Greeks are seldom direct. The representative from Corinth was particularly subtle. In front of Hippias he denounced
all
T h e G reek Wars B e g i n I 9 9
tyrants, good and bad. Outvoted, the Spartans were obliged t o swear that they would not revolutionize Athens.
"At that point, Great King, I told the congress that as a lifelong stu dent of oracles, I felt it my duty to warn the Corinthians that, in due course, their city will be crushed by that very same faction at Athens which they now support."
Hippias' prophecy came to pass. But then, anyone who knows the mercurial Greek character can assume that, sooner or later, two neigh boring cities will fall out and that the stronger will crush the weaker and if not divert a river over the remains, as Croton did to Sybaris, so darken the reputation of the defeated city that the truth of the war will never be known. Quite spontaneously, Greeks follow the Lie. It is their nature.
"Great King, should you support the restoration of our house, you will be aided by Sparta. They will forswear their oath. They will follow King Cleomenes. And the usurpers -who are
your
enemies too - will be driven from the city that their unholiness has polluted."Hippias stopped. Darius nodded. Hippias sat down. Darius motioned to Oatis. The commanding generd was well prepared. He spoke rapidly, and as he spoke, Democedes made for Hippias a swift translation of Datris' Median-accented Persian.
"Tyrant," said Oatis, "under Spartan law there are always two kings. They are of equal rank. One of Sparta's kings favors your restoration. The other does not. Before a military campaign, the kings draw lots to see which one will lead the army. What would happen if the Spartan command in a war against Athens were to be given not to your ally King Cleomenes but to your enemy King Demaratus?"
Hippias' answer had been equally well prepared. 'There are, Gen eral, as you say, two kings in Sparta. One supports me. The other does not. The one who does not support me will soon cease to be king. The oracle at Delphi has said so."
Hippias looked at the floor while this was translated. Darius main tained his stonelike expression. Like the rest of us, he was not much impressed by Greek oracles. He had bought more than a few in his time. Hippias became practical. "Demaratus will be deposed as king of Sparta because he is illegitimate. Cleomenes himself has told me that he has the proof."
When Darius heard the translation, he smiled for the first time. "I shall be interested," he said mildly, "to learn how legitimacy is proved or disproved thirty years after conception."
Democedes' translation was somewhat less blunt than Darius' joke. But, curiously enough, Hippias turned out to be absolutely right.
I 00 / C R E A T I 0 N
Demaratus
was
proved to be illegitimate, and deposed. He then came straight up to Susa, where he served most loyally the Great King- and Lais. Not long after, Cleomenes died raving mad. Unable to stop biting himself, he bled to death. Demaratus always delighted in describing his rival's peculiar end.Darius clapped his hands, and the cupbearer brought him a silver flagon containing boiled water from the river that flows past Susa. No matter where the Great King is, he drinks water from the Choaspes River which he never offers to anyone else. He also drinks only Helbon wine, eats only Assis wheat, and uses salt only from the Ammon oasis in Egypt. I don't know how these customs started. They are probably an inheritance from the Median kings, whom the Achaemenids imitate in so many things.
As Darius drank, I noticed that Democedes was studying his patient carefully: constant thirst is a sign of skin fevers. Darius always drank large quantities of water, and he was often feverish. Yet he was a hearty man, and able to withstand all sorts of hardship in the field. Neverthe less, at any court anywhere on earth, there is always one constant, yet never-voiced question: How much longer will the monarch live? That winter day in the hunting lodge on the road to Pasargada, Darius had thirteen more years of life, and we need not have been particularly attentive to the quantities of water that he drank.
Darius dried his beard with the back of one thick, square, much scarred hand. "Tyrant of Athens," he began. Then he stopped. Demo cedes started to translate. Then he stopped too. Darius had spoken Greek.
Darius looked up at the cedar beams that held up the ill-chinked ceiling. Cold winds whistled through the lodge. Although highland Per sian nobles are not supposed to notice extremes of weather, everyone in that hall was shivering with cold except the much-swathed Darius.
The Great King began to improvise -something that I had never heard him do, since I had never attended him except on those ceremo nial occasions when questions and responses are as ritualized as my grandfather's sacred antiphonies.
"The north comes first," he said. "That is where the danger is. That is where my ancestor Cyrus died, fighting the tribes. That is why I went to the Danube River. That is why I went to the Volga River. That is why I slaughtered every Scythian that I could find. But not even the Great King can find them all. They are still there. The hordes are always wait ing. Waiting to move south. One day they will. If it is in my time, I shall slaughter them once again, but-" Darius stopped; his eyes were half shut, as if he were surveying a field of battle. Perhaps he was reliving his
T h e G reek Wa rs B e g i n I 1 0 1
defeat- at this date one may use the precise word - in the Scythian forests. If Histiaeus had not kept the Ionian Greeks from burning the bridge between Europe and Asia, the Persian army would have per ished. Darius never ceased to be grateful to Histiaeus. He also never ceased to distrust him. That is why he thought that if Histiaeus was the Great King's guest, he would be less dangerous than at home in Miletus. This proved to be a mistake.
I could see that Histiaeus was eager to remind us all of his crucial role in the Scythian war, but he dared not speak until given leave - unlike the Great King's brother Artaphrenes, who had the right to speak when ever he chose in council.
I found all of this, by the way, most illuminating. For one thing, I realized that although I had been brought up at court, I knew nothing about the way in which Persia was actually governed. When Xerxes spoke to me of his father, he said only conventional things. Hystaspes sometimes grumbled about his son; but said nothing more.
It was not until the meeting at the lodge that I began to understand just who and what Darius was, and even in his old age - l am now old enough to have been his father that day! - I was able to glimpse some thing of the fiery ingenious youth who overthrew the so-called Magian usurper and made himself master of the world while retaining the loy alty of the six nobles who had helped him to the throne.
Darius motioned for the cupbearer to withdraw. Then he turned to Artaphrenes. The brothers looked not at all alike. Artaphrenes was a somewhat coarser version of their father Hystaspes.
"Great King and brother." Artaphrenes bowed his head. Darius blinked; no more. When the chiefs of the Persian clans are together, it is often what is
not
said in words that is the true substance of the meet ing. Years later Xerxes told me that Darius had a wide range of gestures with which he communicated his will. Unfortunately I was never in attendance on him long enough to learn the all-important code.Artaphrenes began: "I believe that Hippias is our friend, as was his father, whom we allowed the lordship at Sigeum. I believe that it is in