Babylon, p.3
Babylon, page 3
‘Father!’ Demetrios shouted, following. ‘That’s enough!’
But Antigonos was in no mood to be restrained. ‘I’ll say when it’s enough. You stay there.’ Once inside the chamber he threw Peucestas down onto a couch. ‘Did you honestly think that display would impress me?’
Peucestas looked up with hate in his eyes, the shock of the assault now turning to burning resentment. ‘My dignity, Antigonos, has been severely compromised.’
‘Your dignity dissolved when you pulled on your first pair of trousers. Your dignity was absent when you betrayed Eumenes to me so you could keep Persis. What do you think your men made of you ordering them from the field in Paraetacene? Yes, I was pleased we could have made the arrangement but it gave me no pleasure to deal with such a grasping little traitor, and any respect I may have had for you for old time’s sake evaporated as I saw you as you really are. If you had any dignity left, your guards would have come to your aid, but no, what did they do? They stood there and did nothing. Why? Because they knew that I was right; because they, like me, can see what you are. So either give us an enjoyable performance of The Persians, by Aeschylus, seeing as you seem to be dressed up as Xerxes, or go and get out of that ridiculous costume and into something more civilised before you host me to, what I imagine will be, an unnecessarily exotic feast.’ He did not wait for a reply.
‘Feeling better?’ Demetrios asked as Antigonos emerged back onto the terrace.
‘No.’
‘Then why put the man through all that humiliation?’
‘Because in making a fool of himself he makes a fool of me if I am seen to condone it.’
‘And by condoning it, you mean not slapping him around in public?’
‘He’s lucky that I only knocked his tiara off. I knew it was bad when I saw his beard after Paraetacene, but at least he was in a Macedonian uniform, albeit with trousers underneath; but what I saw just now was unacceptable in any Macedonian, let alone a satrap, and a satrap who I have reconfirmed in his post. If I wanted a Persian here I would have appointed one. The idea of blending east with west was Alexander’s big mistake: it weakens Macedonian blood; but the idea of Macedonians voluntarily taking on the aspects of the east is degrading and will lose us respect.’
‘I think you’re wrong, Father. If we are to keep the east and take advantage of the wealth that it brings, we must be seen to rule in partnership and not just be their overlords.’
‘We do rule in partnership; why else do you think I appointed the Persian, Orobantes, to be the new satrap of Parthia? Why did I confirm all those other easterners in the posts? I’m not stupid. My point is that we need to keep ourselves separate; there are far more easterners than Macedonians, they would easily absorb us out here if Peucestas sets a precedent. I’ve just let it be known what I, “the Bear of Macedon”,’ he paused to snort at the ludicrousness of the name, ‘what I think of people going native. No, if we allow that to happen then the Macedonian empire won’t last; instead it will become a hybrid culture. Take Seleukos, for example: he’s kept his Persian wife and has now had three half-breed children with her; it’s already starting and it mustn’t be allowed to go any further.’ He looked around the terrace. ‘Now, I assume that someone here knows where we are to be quartered. I’ll see you at the feast later on.’ He stomped off, leaving his son looking after him, deep in thought.
The banquet was as Antigonos had suspected it would be: a prissy affair with the rigid manners of the Persian elite precluding any of the raucous behaviour that should, in his opinion, go with good food and copious drink. Instruments droned on, unseen, in some corner of the banqueting hall, sounding to him like the last lamentation of a wounded beast in dire need of being put out of its misery. Conversation was stilted, with Peucestas, now dressed in Macedonian fashion, being keen to impress his guest but nervous of what his Persian nobles would think of a descent into old-school Macedonian drinking and boasting. And thus, with Peucestas’ obvious unease with his own kind, preferring instead to pander to the sensibilities of a conquered race, Antigonos had come to a decision about his future, a decision enforced by the fussiness of the food, picky little plates with nothing substantial to get your teeth into. ‘And what am I supposed to make of this?’ Antigonos asked, lifting up a tiny spatchcocked gamebird, covered with a deep red spice.
‘That is a quail grilled in a coat of sumaqqa,’ Peucestas answered, wiping the tips of his fingers with a moist sea-sponge; he might have forgone eastern dress but not eastern manners – or, for that matter, his eastern beard. ‘You pull the flesh from the bones and eat it.’
‘It hardly seems to be worth the while,’ Antigonos muttered, tossing the offending item over his shoulder and looking around the array of dishes on the table before him for something that looked able to satisfy a hearty appetite. ‘What’s that?’ He pointed to a long sausage-like creation covered in small pale seeds.
‘That is a loin of pork cooked in honey and rolled in sesame; it’s most delicious, especially if you eat it in conjunction with the rice with rosewater, almonds and dried apricots.’
Antigonos grunted and picked up the loin whole, took a bite off one end and began to chew with gusto. Teutamus and Pythan, reclining on couches next to him, laughed at the ill-manners and grabbed at hunks of meat themselves.
Persian nobles, reclining nearby, averted their eyes and whispered to one another.
‘Hmm, not bad,’ Antigonos said, lobbing the meat to Demetrios across the table from him. ‘Give it a go.’
Demetrios caught it in one hand, placed it on his plate and set to it with a knife, causing some murmurs of approval from many of the Persians. They still refrained from looking at Antigonos, however, who was now sucking the honey from one finger at a time, making popping sounds as he finished each one.
‘How about something substantial, like a whole roast deer or boar?’ Antigonos said, raising his voice so that all two hundred diners in the room could hear. ‘I’ve had enough of theses fripperies.’
‘These fripperies, as you call them,’ a Persian on the next table said, standing up, ‘are some of the finest cuisine known to man. That you fail to appreciate them says more about you than it does about the food.’
The room went silent as the Persian stood, staring at Antigonos.
Antigonos smiled; it was not a pleasant sight. ‘My, my, an easterner with spunk. Demetrios, make a note of the date and place; they will never believe us back home. What’s your name?’
The Persian was not to be cowed. ‘Thespius; my family are originally Greek from Lydia but have lived here in Persepolis for generations. You may have come here to deliberately insult us and our culture but we know that there are some Macedonians with a sense of propriety who manage to show respect for our ways. Peucestas here is one of them and we are grateful to have him as our satrap.’
‘Well, then I’m afraid that I’m going to have to disappoint you: I’ve decided that Peucestas is not a suitable satrap and so I will relieve him of his position and appoint someone with a little more authority.’
Peucestas’ eyes widened in horror. ‘But you promised!’
‘I know; but I’ve changed my mind.’
‘It would be hard for us to support any other satrap,’ the Persian said, coming to Peucestas’ side.
‘Would it now, Thespius?’ Antigonos raised his hand. ‘Guards!’ From the double doors of the chamber, where they had been stationed, came half a dozen men. Antigonos pointed to the Persian. ‘Teutamus, take this man and execute him.’
Thespius stared in horror at Antigonos as Teutamus shrugged and got up from his couch. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘Why not? You just said that you did not think you could support another satrap, which means that you must be a traitor and, as “the Bear of Macedon”, I have to keep order here.’ Antigonos got to his feet and looked around at the many diners. ‘Is there any other man here who feels that they can’t support my new choice of satrap, whoever that might be, and would rather join Thespius?’
There was no rush to join the hapless Thespius now being manhandled away by Teutamus and the guards.
‘Good; that’s settled then.’
Peucestas still stared beseechingly at Antigonos, oblivious to his loyal supporter’s fate. ‘Antigonos, you promised me when I agreed to take my men from the field at Paraetacene that the reward would be reconfirming my position here in Persis.’
Antigonos reclined back down on his couch, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Surely you must be a canny enough politician to realise that a man who betrays his friends as easily as you did cannot be trusted and therefore any promises made to him are null and void? No? You’re not that canny? Never mind; I’ll find something for you that will fit with your limited intellect and pumped-up vanity. How about I make you general in command of Asia in place of the little Greek? That sounds important, don’t you think?’
‘Antigonos, you promised me Persis!’
‘General commanding Asia is far more important.’
‘I thought that I was to be given that role, Antigonos,’ a voice said from the door.
Antigonos turned to see Peithon walking into the room. Ah, good! I am enjoying myself this evening. ‘Peithon! Well, well; the guards are going to be busy this evening. I shall be heading west to settle with Seleukos sooner than I thought.’
SELEUKOS.
THE BULL-ELEPHANT.
AND WEST WAS where Seleukos was headed; west as far as Babylon. And as he saw the distant outer city wall, shimmering golden in the morning sun away across the plain, his relief at arriving unmolested was palpable; for he had travelled the hundred leagues from Susa with his wife, six hundred talents in gold and silver and an escort of just five hundred men, through a land ravaged by Eumenes’ advance from the north through to the east of the satrapy just a year previously.
Dire had been the consequences of the sly little Greek dividing his army into three columns so as best to plunder the wealth of Babylonia; villages and towns had been abandoned for lack of food and those inhabitants who had stayed had not yet managed to bring in the first harvest due in a couple of months at midsummer. Gangs of dispossessed and despairing people of all ages roamed the land, malnourished, feral and heeding only the instinct to survive; there had not been a night on the journey when the camp had not been attacked in some form by the ragged column shadowing it, if only to kill a sentry for the contents of his purse. On one night a great troop of the desperate, nearly two hundred in total, attempted to storm the horse-lines to grab as many of the beasts as possible for their cooking fires; many had died in the attempt and no horses had been lost, but it had served as a stark lesson to Seleukos of the damage that war had done to the eastern and northern regions of his satrapy.
Once he had crossed the Tigris the agricultural situation was much improved, for it had been untouched by Eumenes that far south; but this presented its own problems in that the scavengers from the eastern bank would raid their more prosperous western bank neighbours causing resentment and blood feuds.
To regain control he would prioritise some of the money he had taken from the Susa treasury for purchasing grain to distribute throughout the ravaged areas in order to ease the suffering. If he wished to secure his position even more in Babylonia, importing food was as important as importing mercenaries.
There was no welcome as the column clattered through the east gate in the outer city wall, a plain affair of cut stone compared to the brilliance of the blue-tiled inner wall. Through the gardens that thrived between the two defences they progressed, crossing the bridge over the canal before coming to the Marduk Gate decorated still with the figures and beasts of Babylon’s past days of glory of Nebuchadnezzar, when it ruled an empire, subject to no man. Passing through the gates into the city’s grid-like system of streets, the size of the population became apparent for there was humanity everywhere; buying, selling, discussing, arguing, copulating up side-streets or just sitting, displaying whatever gross deformity that might induce another to drop a small bronze coin in a bowl.
‘But at least they seem to be reasonably well fed,’ Seleukos said to Apama as the escort cleared the way along the main thoroughfare in the Kullab district, with as much restraint as possible on Seleukos’ orders; he did not want the people resenting his return.
Along they went at a slow pace before turning left at the Eridu district onto the Processional Way that led past the Southern Citadel in the Kardingira district to the Ishtar Gate and then on to the Main Citadel beyond which housed the treasury.
‘So, Temenos, how much of this year’s taxes have you managed to collect?’ Seleukos asked the commander of the Babylon garrison, once the six hundred talents had been secured in the treasury.
Temenos, in his mid-thirties with the refined dress and jewellery of one with a taste for eastern luxury, sucked the air through his teeth.
Seleukos did not need him to say more. ‘Well down?’
‘Yes, lord; because of the famine in the north and east of the satrapy.’
That comes as no surprise. ‘How much, would you say?’
‘We’ve collected just over half of what we would normally expect in a good year; this is the lowest I’ve ever known it since Alexander appointed me commander of the garrison.’
‘So the six hundred talents should just about cover the shortfall?’
‘Yes, just about.’
‘Start buying grain from anyone who has it; I need to stabilise the situation.’
‘I will, lord. As a matter of fact, Babrak the Pathak merchant recently arrived here with a proposition along those lines. He has been waiting to see you.’
‘Then find him and send him to me.’
‘You do me too much honour, great lord, in granting me a private interview.’ Leather-skinned, hook-nosed and with sunken dark eyes twinkling out from beneath a white headdress, Babrak bowed, touching his right hand to his forehead.
Seleukos waved the compliment away and sat back in his chair. ‘Babrak, we both know that I would be foolish not to see you in private, so don’t pretend that this is an unusual occurrence. But first to business.’
Babrak grinned, his red-stained teeth appearing ghoulish in the lamplight of Seleukos’ private study in the Main Citadel. Seleukos indicated to the chair at the table opposite him and nodded.
‘You rush to business with no preamble, my lord,’ Babrak said, seating himself, ‘like a travel-weary merchant would to a favoured boy after long absence.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that myself; but yes, I’m keen to know what you can offer me.’
‘What I do is for you and not for personal gain, great lord; I am only pleased to be able to be of service to you.’
‘Yes, yes; get on with it, Babrak. What have you got?’
‘Grain, lord; five transport ships full of it, moored under heavy guard, you must understand, expensively heavy guard, fifty leagues upstream at the port of Is. I heard about the disgraceful way that the traitor Eumenes abused your satrapy by stripping it bare with three advancing columns and so I decided that I must do what I can to aid you.’
‘Very altruistic of you, I’m sure.’
Babrak inclined his head. ‘You are too kind, lord.’
‘So, how much grain is there?’
‘Four hundred talents in three of the ships and five hundred in the other two.’
‘Two thousand two hundred talents in all; how much do you want for it?’
Babrak spread his hands, hunching his shoulders. ‘Great lord, how can I answer that question? It is like asking a brothel keeper the price of a boy in general without inspecting the wares or ascertaining what each one can do.’
Does everyone have as much difficulty as I do in understanding what he is going on about? ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning how much do you want, where do you want it and how soon?’
‘What has that got to do with brothel keepers and their boys?’ Seleukos put his hand up as Babrak opened his mouth to answer the question. ‘Never mind, Babrak. I’m sure it was an apposite simile. I want it all, I want it here and I want it now. How much?’
Babrak heaved a deep breath as if the weight of the question was crushing him. ‘My lord asks a great deal.’
‘Babrak! Don’t play your games with me. I’ll give you above the going rate: one silver drachma to the mina of grain.’
‘That is sixty drachmae to the talent, which makes…’ Babrak did a series of calculations counting knuckles and finger joints and then tallying with his thumbs. ‘One hundred and thirty-two thousand drachmae or two hundred and twenty talents of silver, or twenty-two in gold.’
Seleukos’ arithmetic was not so advanced. ‘I’ll have someone check it.’
‘That is not much more than what I paid for the grain, lord, and then there is the hire of the shipping and the guards.’
‘Which are your responsibilities as without them you wouldn’t have got the goods here so as you could make a profit on them by selling them to me.’ Seleukos pointed a finger at the Pathak. ‘And, by the way, I’m well aware that you are intending to blackmail me by threatening to walk away with something that you know I desperately need, so I say this to you: two hundred and fifty in silver or I’ll impound your ships for entering Babylonia without my permission.’
‘But I don’t need your permission so long as I pay the tax.’
‘Times change, Babrak, time’s change.’
‘Two hundred and sixty in—’
‘Babrak!’
‘In silver would be too much, great lord; two hundred and fifty it is.’
He spat on his hand and proffered it.
Seleukos took it and clinched the deal. That will buy me time and it’s pleasant to reflect upon the fact that Antigonos is paying for it. He clapped his hands; slaves appeared with wine, sherbet, and honey and pistachio pastries. ‘So, Babrak, help yourself and tell me the news; we have heard nothing of the west since the autumn equinox last year. What of Kassandros?’ He unhooked a bulky purse from his belt and casually placed it on the table between them.
