DAMASCUS
Whether Charidemus would have reached his destination in safety in the
company of his Persian guardians may well be doubted. Artabazus himself
seemed well disposed to him. The young noble had spent some time in
Greece, having been attached to more than one embassy sent to that
country, spoke the language with ease and fluency, and had at least
some outside polish of Hellenic culture. But the troopers were genuine
barbarians, exasperated to the last degree by their recent defeat, who
would have had little scruple in wreaking their vengeance on unprotected
Greeks. Happily for Charidemus, he was not long exposed to the dangers of
the journey. Alexander, with his usual energy, had already taken measures
to secure Damascus. Parmenio was instructed to push forward to that city,
where it was well known that an immense spoil awaited the conquerors.
The treasure captured in the Persian camp had not been very large[44];
the bulk had been left in Syria, and it was important to get hold of it
without delay.
Parmenio lost no time in executing his commission. His main body would
require two or three days’ preparation before it could march; but some
light horse was sent on at once to cut off any fugitives who might be
making their way from the field of Issus to the Syrian capital. It was
at one of the fords of the Upper Orontes that this detachment came in
sight of Artabazus and his companions. The river had been swollen by a
heavy fall of rain among the hills, and was rolling down in a turbid and
dangerous-looking stream. The troopers, catching sight of the Macedonian
cavalry, as it came in sight over the brow of a neighbouring hill,
rushed helter-skelter into the ford, without giving a thought either to
their chief or their prisoner. The leader’s horse, a young untrained
animal, refused to enter the water. Twice, thrice was he brought to the
brink, but he could not be induced to go in. Meanwhile the pursuers had
come within a stone’s-throw of the water. Artabazus saw that escape was
hopeless, and he disdained to surrender. He turned his horse from the
stream, drew his scymetar from its gilded sheath, and threw himself
furiously upon the nearest horseman. The man raised his shield to ward
off the blow, but the good Damascus blade sheared off three or four
inches of the tough bull’s hide, and inflicted a deadly wound on the spot
so often fatal, where the lappet of the helmet joined the coat-of-mail.
The next moment the Persian’s horse was brought to the ground by the
thrust of a lance, and the rider, as he lay entangled in its trappings,
received a mortal wound from a second blow of the same weapon.
Charidemus, who had been sitting on his horse, a passive spectator of the
scene just described, now came forward to report himself to the officer
in command. There was no need, he found, to explain who he was, for the
officer happened to be an old acquaintance, and warmly congratulated
him on his escape. “Many thanks,” said Charidemus, “but see whether you
cannot save your prisoner there alive. He is of one of the Seven Houses,
and should be worth a ransom almost royal.”
The officer leapt from his horse, and examined the prostrate man. “He
is past all help,” was the verdict, after a brief examination, “Not
Æsculapius himself could heal him. But he seems to want to speak to you;
I thought I heard him whisper your name.”
In a moment Charidemus was on his knees by the dying man’s side, and put
his ear to his lips. The words that he caught were these: “Damascus—the
street of the coppersmiths—Manasseh the Jew.” With that his utterance
failed; there were a few convulsive gasps for breath, a faint shiver, and
then all was over.
It was not a time for much funeral ceremony. A shallow grave was scooped
in the sand by the river side, and the body, stripped of armour and
weapons, but allowed to retain cloak, tunic, and sandals, was hastily
covered over. All the valuables that were found upon the dead were
considered to be the booty of the troop; but Charidemus purchased a
bracelet, a chain, and a ring. He could not help thinking that the dying
man had wished to entrust some commission to him. These articles might at
least help to identify him.
After crossing the Orontes, the party halted for the night, and by the
bivouac-fire Charidemus told his story, and heard, in his turn, many
particulars of the great fight which it had been his strange fortune to
see from the side of the vanquished. “We gave you up for lost,” said his
new companion, who, by the way, was no less distinguished a person than
Philotas, son of Parmenio. “A few poor wretches found their way back into
the camp; but those brute-like barbarians had shorn off noses, ears, and
hands. Many died of loss of blood on the way, and some only just lived
long enough to get within the lines. The survivors told us that all the
officers had been killed. But you seem a special favourite of the gods.
They must surely be keeping you for something great. And your Theban
friend—what of him? I hope that Pylades escaped as well as Orestes.”
“Yes, by good luck,” said Charidemus, “a Theban exile who was with
Darius recognized him, and saved his life. He is, I take it, at Damascus
by this time.”
“Where we shall soon find him, I hope,” returned Philotas. “That is the
place we are bound for; and if the stories that the deserters tell us are
only half true, we shall have rare sport then. My father is in command of
the main body; but we will take care to keep well ahead of the old man,
and have the first sight of the good things.”
The party had yet more than two hundred miles to ride before reaching
their journey’s end. Weak as they were—for they did not number in all
more than two hundred men—they pushed on in supreme indifference to any
possible danger. Danger indeed there was none. The country was stripped
of troops, for every available soldier had been swept off by the levies
to swell the host that had been gathered only to be scattered to the
winds at Issus. A few indeed had found their way back, but these were
glad to bury their weapons, and to forget that they had ever wielded them
for so unlucky a cause. As for raising them again against these wonderful
warriors from the west, before whom the armies of the Great King had
melted as snow melts in the sun, that would be madness indeed. Philotas’s
party met with no opposition; indeed, as far as the Syrian population
showed any feeling at all, the new-comers seemed to be welcomed. The
Persians had not made themselves beloved, and a change of masters might,
it was felt, be a change for the better.
It was about a fortnight after crossing the Orontes that the detachment
came in sight of Damascus. They were gazing with delight, as so many
travellers have gazed, at the City of Gardens, when a Syrian lad came up
to the party, and contrived with some difficulty to make them understand
that he had a message to deliver to their chief. Accordingly he was
conducted into the presence of Philotas, and put into his hands a small
roll of paper. It proved to be a communication from the Persian governor
of Damascus. The lad, when further questioned by the help of a peasant
who acted as interpreter, said that he had been sent with orders to
deliver the letter into the hands of the first Macedonian officer whom he
might be able to find. It was thus:—
“_Oxathres, Governor of Damascus, to the Lieutenant of the Great and
Victorious Alexander, into whose hands this may fall. Seeing that the
Gods have so manifestly declared that they adjudge the kingdom of
Asia to the great Alexander, it becomes the duty of all their dutiful
servants and worshippers to respect their decree. Know, therefore, that
great treasures of King Darius, lately deposited by him in this city
of Damascus, are now about to be conveyed away by certain disloyal and
ill-disposed persons by way of Tadmor._”
“We shall have plenty of time to cut them off,” remarked Philotas
on reading the communication, “for they have the longer distance to
travel, and must move slowly. How will they travel, Philip?” he went on,
addressing a sub-officer, who had been in the country before.
“If they go by way of Tadmor,” replied the man, “they must cross the
desert, and will use camels; we had best be beforehand with them, before
they get far on the way.”
Philotas accordingly gave orders to his troop to start immediately. They
took an eastward direction, and by sunset had reached a point on the road
which would necessarily have to be passed by a caravan journeying from
Damascus. The keeper of the inn, one of the shelters for travellers which
the Persian Government had provided along the principal roads, informed
them that nothing of the kind described had as yet passed.
[Illustration: THE TREASURE CARAVAN.]
It was about sunset next day before the caravan appeared. It was
accompanied by a small escort of Persian soldiers, who, however, made no
attempt to defend their charge. Indeed, they showed so little surprise
or alarm at the appearance of the Macedonian troops that Philotas could
hardly help suspecting that the whole business had been contrived,
the removal of the treasure being only a feint, by means of which the
governor of the city hoped to get some credit with his new masters.
The packages with which the animals were loaded bore the royal seal.
These Philotas thought it best not to disturb. The Persian soldiers were
disarmed, and, as it would cause the party inconvenient delay were they
to be encumbered with prisoners, dismissed. They gave a promise not to
serve again, and as they were all of the unwarlike Syrian race, were very
likely to keep it. The caravan was then turned back by the way on which
it had come, and Damascus was reached without any further incident.
Philotas had been right when he anticipated that the city would be a prey
of extraordinary richness. The camp which had fallen into the hands of
the conquerors at Issus had seemed to these simple and frugal soldiers
the _ne plus ultra_ of luxury, while Darius and his nobles probably
fancied that they had limited what they had brought with them to the very
narrowest and most necessary requirements in furniture and followers.
It was at Damascus that the invaders discovered in what sort of state
the Great King travelled when he was not actually in the face of the
enemy. There was a vast amount of gold,[45] though this was small in
comparison with what afterwards fell into Alexander’s hands; but it was
the extraordinary number of ministers to the pleasures of the court that
struck the new-comers with astonishment. Parmenio, giving a catalogue of
his captures to the king, enumerates the following:
329 Singing-girls.
46 Male chaplet-makers.
77 Cooks.
29 Kitchen-helpers, perhaps turnspits (“pot-boilers” is the word
in the original).
13 Makers of milk puddings.
17 Strainers of wine.
40 Perfume makers.
And these belonged to the royal establishment alone! The great nobles had
establishments, not, indeed, on so large a scale, but still incredibly
magnificent and costly. The booty in treasure and slaves that was at the
disposal of the conquerors was simply beyond all reckoning.
After an interview with the governor, whom he thanked with perfect
gravity for his timely communication, Philotas thought it better to
encamp his men outside the city, and there await the arrival of the main
body under his father. Some disaster might happen if he allowed his
frugal campaigners free access to a place so full of temptations.
Charidemus, who indeed was not strictly under his command, was not
prevented from visiting the city. His first inquiries were for Charondas,
whom he found in the company of his compatriot, and whose release
from the nominal custody in which he had been kept he obtained without
difficulty.
He had not, we may be sure, forgotten Barsiné, and, still less, the young
Clearista; and he had good reason for believing that they were both in
Damascus. Memnon, he remembered, had spoken of sending his wife and his
niece to Susa, nominally as hostages, really to remove them as far as
possible from the scene of war. Doubtless this had been done. But Darius,
he heard, had carried the hostages with him in his train, and when he
had resolved to risk a battle, had sent them to Damascus. The difficulty
was in finding them. Not only was the city so crowded with the harems
of the great Persian nobles that the search would in any case have been
difficult, but it was impossible to ask questions. The Persians shut up
their wives and daughters with a jealous care, and the Greeks about the
Court had adopted their customs. Even intimate friends never spoke to
each other about the women of their families. For two young soldiers to
go about making inquiries about certain high-born ladies was a thing not
to be thought of. If they were so rash as to do it, they certainly would
get no answer. The idea of meeting them in public only suggested itself
to be put aside. At any time it would have been most unlikely. Ladies of
high rank never went out but in carriages, and then they were closely
veiled. As things were then, with an invading army in possession of the
town, it was extremely unlikely that they would go out at all.
[Illustration: THE SWING.]
Once, indeed, our hero fancied that chance had given him a clue. The
two friends had wandered down a lane shaded on either side by the
trees that overhung it from two high-walled gardens, and leading down
to one of the streams that make Damascus a mass of greenery. A flash
of something bright moving amidst the foliage of the trees caught the
eye of Charidemus. It disappeared, and then again became visible, to
disappear once more as quickly. It was a minute or two before the young
man realized that what he saw shining so brightly in the sunshine was
the hair of a girl who was swinging between two trees. More he could
not see from where he stood, or from any part of the lane, so thick,
except in one small spot, was the foliage. Even to climb the wall would
not have served him. But the glimpse was enough. Charondas was both
incredulous and amused when his friend asserted that this particular tint
of auburn was to be found on no head throughout Persia and Greece save
on Clearista’s alone. They were arguing the point when a huge negro,
carrying some gardening tools, issued from a door in the wall of the
opposite garden. He made a clumsy salutation to the two young soldiers,
but eyed them with an expression of suspicion and dislike. The next time,
and that was not later than the following day, that the friends sought
to make their way to the same spot, they found the entrance to the lane
barred by a quite impracticable gate. That flash of auburn hair in the
sunshine might have been a clue; but if so, the clue seemed to have been
lost.