THE DOOM OF THEBES
The plain where once the sons of Niobe lay weltering had borne its last
harvest of slaughter. On every side Leonidas and Clearchus noted the
ghastly evidences of battle. Darkness fell before Ptolemy's troop
reached the shattered gates of Thebes. Men with torches in their hands
wandered through the streets strewn with corpses, seeking plunder among
the dead or searching for the bodies of friends. Neither sex nor age
had been spared when Perdiccas hewed his way into the city. The very
altars of the Gods were crimsoned with the vengeance taken by the
Phocians, the Platæans, and the B[oe]otians for the centuries of cruel
oppression that they had suffered from the rapacious brood of the
Dragon.
Mothers lay dabbled in blood, with their infants beside them, struck
down in flight. The market-place was heaped with bodies, showing how
desperate had been the final stand of the Theban soldiers. The streets
were littered with household gear that had been dragged in wantonness
from despoiled homes.
The plundering was not yet finished. Bands of soldiers were still
searching for booty in the remoter quarters of the city, where their
progress could be traced by the sound of their drunken laughter,
mingled with the screams of their victims.
Macedonian guards paced the walls and cut off all hope of escape. The
wretched inhabitants, driven into the highways, sought concealment in
dark angles and narrow lanes, cowering in silence.
Here and there a woman, rendered desperate by her anguish, walked with
dishevelled hair, heedless of insult, seeking her children among the
slain in the hope that she might find them still alive.
Clearchus felt his heart grow faint at the thought that Artemisia might
be exposed to the frightful chances of such a sack. Ph[oe]bus himself,
he thought, might be unable to protect her, since here the temples of
the Gods had been profaned. An old man in priestly robes stood out
before them with trembling hands upraised.
"Vengeance, O Zeus!" he cried aloud. "Vengeance upon those who have
violated the sanctuary of Dionysus, thy son! May they--"
"Silence, Graybeard!" growled a soldier, striking him across the mouth
with his fist.
The old man reeled from the blow and shrank away into the shadow.
"You'll choke if you ever try to drink wine again, Glaucis!" a comrade
cried, laughing.
"Dionysus will forgive me soon enough for a sacrifice," Glaucis
returned. "Never fear!"
Ptolemy learned that Alexander had gone to the Cadmea and thither he
led Clearchus and Leonidas after he had dismissed his men, eager to
take their share in the pillage. They found the young king in a large,
bare room in the lower part of the citadel. He had not yet laid aside
his armor, which was dented and scratched by use.
When they entered, he was giving orders to his captains, who stood
grouped about him. Clearchus looked at him with eager interest. He
saw a well-proportioned, athletic figure, no taller than his own. The
handsome beardless face glowed with the warm blood of youth and a smile
parted the full red lips. There was no trace of fatigue in the young
king's attitude, despite the labors of the day, and his movements were
alert and decisive. He looked even more youthful than his twenty-one
years as he stood among his leaders, some of whom were veterans of
Philip's campaigns, grizzled with service. But in spite of his youth,
there was a confidence in his bearing that left no doubt of who was
master.
Clearchus felt himself strangely drawn to the young man whom all
Hellas, with the exception of Sparta, acknowledged as its champion, and
who was about to assail that great power beyond the Hellespont, whose
limits were unknown and before whom Greece had stood in dread since the
days of Great Cyrus. The Athenian found the "boy king" very different
from the arrogant, mean-spirited upstart that the orators of his city
had painted him.
"Stop the plundering," Alexander said to his captains. "Even the
B[oe]otians must be satisfied by this time. Let the men go back to the
camp, and see that order is maintained. The Ætolians and the Elæans
are on the march and reënforcements are coming from Athens. There may
be more work to do to-morrow."
As the officers left him to execute his commands, Alexander turned to
Ptolemy with hands outstretched.
"I am glad to see you safe!" he said. "You charged bravely before the
gate, and I feared that something might have happened that would
deprive me of your aid when we march into Persia."
Ptolemy's bronzed face reddened with pleasure as he heard the praise of
the young king.
"I went in pursuit of the enemy's cavalry," he said.
"Is it likely that any of those who escaped will be able to rally?"
Alexander asked.
"They are scattered in every direction and think only of flight,"
Ptolemy replied.
"That is well," Alexander said. "We shall be the better able to deal
with the others when they come. Who are these that you have brought to
me?"
He turned toward the two young men, who had been standing at a little
distance, and looked them frankly in the eyes.
"This is Clearchus, an Athenian, and this, Leonidas of Sparta," Ptolemy
replied, presenting them in turn.
Alexander's face clouded at the names of the two most powerful of the
states that opposed him in Greece, and Ptolemy hastened to add: "They
saved my life when my horse stumbled in the pursuit, and they have a
request to make of you."
"You have done me a great service," Alexander said kindly. "What is it
that you desire?"
"We ask clemency for the family of Jason, on behalf of Chares, his son,
whom we left behind in Athens," Clearchus replied.
"And why is he not in Thebes?" Alexander asked quickly.
"Because he did not know that you were coming," Clearchus said. "Had
he been aware of the danger, he would not have been absent. We heard
of your arrival while we were in Delphi, and we made all haste to
remind you that Jason was a guest-friend of your father, Philip."
"Orders have been given that the guest-friends of Macedon shall be
spared, both in their lives and their property," Alexander replied.
"What did you in Delphi?"
Clearchus told him briefly how Artemisia had been stolen and of the
response of the oracle.
"Love must be a strong passion," the young king said thoughtfully.
"I would give all that I possess to recover Artemisia," Clearchus
replied. "Nor would I be willing to exchange my hope of finding her
for the wisdom of Aristotle or even for the hopes of Alexander."
"So you know Aristotle," Alexander said. "He is a wonderful man. Were
I not Alexander, I would envy him." He looked curiously at Clearchus as
he spoke, as though he were considering something that he did not
understand. "So that is what they call love," he continued, "and I and
my army are the Whirlwind of which the God spoke." He beckoned to an
attendant. "Call Aristander!" he said.
He made Clearchus repeat his story to the famous soothsayer.
Aristander listened attentively, stroking his chin with the tips of his
fingers as his custom was.
"What do you think of it?" Alexander asked, when Clearchus had
finished. Everybody knew the confidence that he placed in the words of
the prophet and that he never took an important step against his advice.
"Full credit must be given to the oracle," Aristander said, turning his
blue eyes upon the young king, "and I think that the priests of the
temple were right in their interpretation, since the message brought
and the title given could have had no other meaning. As the maid was
carried away by sea, she was probably taken to some island or to one of
the cities on the coast of Asia. The Whirlwind's track must needs lead
thither, and since the maid is to be set free, it is clear that the
Whirlwind shall prevail."
"Then the oracle is propitious!" Alexander exclaimed. "What is your
plan?" he added to Clearchus.
"I shall obey the oracle and follow in thy track," the Athenian
replied. "If thou wilt permit me, I myself will become a part of the
Whirlwind."
Alexander looked at him with the unquenchable fire of enthusiasm in his
eyes.
"Thou art welcome!" he said. "And you, my friend of stubborn Sparta?"
he continued to Leonidas.
"I go with Clearchus," the Spartan responded briefly.
"You shall be of my Companions," Alexander cried, placing his hand upon
a shoulder of each. "The world grows old and we have been wasting our
strength in foolish quarrels with each other while the tiger has been
lying there across the water, waiting to devour us. We shall show him
that the spirit of Hellas still lives, although Troy has fallen, and we
will do deeds that shall be sung by some new Homer as worthy too of a
place beside those of Achilles and Ajax and Agamemnon. Yes, and we
will bring back a fleece more precious than that which the Argonauts
sought. I promise you that the Whirlwind's track shall be long enough
and broad enough to lead you to your heart's desire, whatever it may
be. Ptolemy, I count these men among my friends and I give them into
your charge."
Clearchus and Leonidas felt their hearts swell at the young king's
words and his lofty generosity, but before they could thank him, they
were interrupted by a commotion at the door.
"Out of the way! I will see him! I care not how late it is," an angry
voice exclaimed.
"It is Chares, son of Jason," Clearchus said. "How comes he here?"
Alexander quietly signed to the guard, and the Theban strode into the
room, clad in armor that clashed noisily as he walked. He looked
neither to the right nor left, but went straight to Alexander.
"I am come to remind the King of Macedon of the ties of hospitality,"
he said boldly, in a voice more fitted to a demand than a petition.
Alexander measured his great stature with admiration in his glance,
noting that the armor, gold-inlaid, was crusted with mud and grime like
his own.
"Thy name might be Hector," he said.
The Theban, ignorant of the young king's train of thought and of what
had gone before, imagined that he saw mockery in this remark. His face
flushed darkly.
"My name is Chares!" he said haughtily. "Jason, my father, was the
friend of Epaminondas, who furnished thy father with the weapons that
thou hast used against us this day. I come not to thee on my own
behalf, but on that of my mother and sisters, who were shut in here
when the attack came."
"You are too late!" the young king said composedly.
Chares staggered and his face blanched. "Too late!" he exclaimed
hoarsely. "Does Alexander, then, make war upon women?"
"I say you came too late," Alexander replied, "and doubly so; for your
friends, here, were more prompt than you, and yet even they were tardy."
"My friends!" Chares cried in bewilderment, seeing Leonidas and
Clearchus for the first time.
"Alexander speaks the truth," Clearchus said quickly. "We are all too
late, because he had already given orders for the safety of your
family."
"I ask your forgiveness; I spoke without understanding," Chares said,
turning to the king.
"Thou hast courage," Alexander said with a smile, "but I would not
choose thee as my envoy on a delicate mission. Thou wert not here to
defend thy home?"
"Because I knew not that there was need," Chares admitted. "I am
sorry."
"And I am glad," the young king rejoined, "for hadst thou been inside
the walls, I fear I might have lost men whom I cannot spare. Didst
thou come from Athens?"
"I left Athens with the army," Chares answered, "but it halted on the
frontier when news arrived that Thebes had fallen."
"Then there will be no more fighting!" Alexander exclaimed, turning to
Ptolemy. "I am glad of it. Greet thy mother for me, Chares, and tell
her to fear nothing. Ptolemy will conduct you."
Escorted by the Macedonian captain, the three friends descended from
the citadel. Order had been restored in the city as though by magic.
Only the military patrols and the bodies of the dead remained in the
streets. The living had been driven into their houses, taking the
wounded with them. The plunderers had retired to the camp outside the
walls.
Chares strode eagerly in advance, asking many questions regarding the
experiences of his friends in Delphi. The house of Jason, a mansion
built near the northern end of the city, had been saved by its location
from the desperate fighting that had taken place about the southern
gate and in the market-place. They found a guard stationed at the door.
"You see that the king is as good as his word," Ptolemy said. "You
will find nothing disturbed here."
"How could he have remembered his friends in the heat of the attack?"
Chares asked.
"He forgets nothing," the captain replied, "neither friend nor enemy."
Chares urged the Macedonian to enter, but Ptolemy declined on the
ground of fatigue and left them. The slave at the gate went wild with
joy when he caught sight of his young master. He had been waiting in
momentary expectation of being summoned forth to the death that he was
convinced awaited everybody in the city.
Chares hastened to the women's court, where he found his mother and
sisters robed in white and surrounded by their maids, who were trying
to spin, although their fingers trembled so that they could hardly hold
the distaff. The widow of Jason, a woman with silvery hair and a face
that was still beautiful, sat calmly in the midst of the group,
awaiting with quiet courage what might befall. She rose with composure
to greet her son and his companions.
"You are safe, mother!" Chares exclaimed, clasping her in his arms.
"Alexander has given his word that you shall be unharmed!"
"You have seen him?" she returned. "That is well. You may go to your
rest. Nothing shall harm you," she added, dismissing her maidens.