Above the emaciated faces and wounded bodies of my troops I saw my standards floating in the wind. To the death, soldiers! Or to all the gold in the East! Life is so short; tomorrow, rubies and sapphires, velvet sheets and beautiful slave girls, will be ours! Let us take the spices and palaces and sumptuous feasts of conquerors! The arrows strike only cowards and spare the brave! The blood we lose makes us stronger; a severed arm, a gouged eye, only makes us all the more courageous! To battle, my men! If you die, you shall go home to rest; if you live, you shall sleep in Babylon!
From the top of the hill I watched the two armies throw themselves at each other like two great waves. My two look-alikes, each escorted by a commander's standard-bearer, fled in opposite directions. The Persian troops immediately followed them in the hopes of looting weapons, helmets, and saddles. Then, disguised as a lowly soldier, I rode down the hill with a cavalry detachment in light armor and sped to the rear of the Persian army, where Darius had his headquarters.
I confronted the showers of arrows with my eyes open. In our galloping frenzy, I grew taller, and death receded. Stupefied by the extraordinary phenomenon of a warrior who would not die, the barbarians believed I was the manifestation of a god. They threw down their arms and began to flee. Darius, the master of the Persian universe who had grown up in the suave luxury of oriental palaces surrounded by women and eunuchs, Darius, the demigod who had never wielded a weapon, was terrified by the war cries drawing closer to him. He lost any desire to fight and fled with his personal guard.
With that flight began his downfall.
The regent in Babylon, an ambitious eunuch, exploited the Great King's defeat, proclaiming himself master of the city and taking the royal children hostage. On hearing this, Darius decided not to return home and fled toward the mountains. Confusion reigned over his lands. Many towns surrendered, and many regiments capitulated without a fight. I learned that Darius was a weak man and had been manipulated by his eunuchs, who could think only of bickering for power and increasing their own wealth. Constantly traveling between the splendors and marvels of Babylon, Suse, and Persepolis, he had known nothing of the famines and epidemics in the provinces. As if deaf and blind, he had slowly released his authority at the expense of his governors, and so, thanks to him, the decadence that had ravaged the West reached the East.
Poor peasants, undernourished soldiers, and local dignitaries who had never been respected at court rushed after me and showered me with gifts. I was hailed everywhere as a liberator, as the one who had conquered the tyrant, I was encouraged to march on Babylon and drive out the usurper.
The regent tried to negotiate for peace by sending me finery, caravans filled with Darius's treasure. He promised me other fabulous riches if I continued to pursue Darius without stopping at the gates of his city. I sent him a herald with my reply: if he recognized Alexander as his master, he would be under my protection, shielded from challenges and insurrections.
Three days' march from Babylon I was greeted by a procession of royal dignitaries with incense and music. We signed a secret treaty: the regent would proclaim me master of Babylon, and I would entrust the running of the city to him.
On the horizon I could see the bronze gates piercing the very skies and stopping birds in flight. They opened before Alexander with the servile enthusiasm of a great courtesan spreading her legs for her richest client. Dressed as a lowly soldier, I watched with satisfaction as one of my look-alikes stepped into that ancient city crowned with golden laurels and dressed in my gold armor with scarlet straps. He was hoisted onto a cart and drawn triumphantly down the widest avenue in the world, waving proudly and indulgently to the prostrations of the Chaldeans and Persians.
The wind blew, and the hanging gardens scattered a shower of petals.
The tower of Babel had disappeared; Babylon had become that Tower of Babel, carrying off its inhabitants, its palaces and gardens, its streets and canals, in a giant spiral toward the heavens. Wide avenues wound round networks of sinuous little streets. To make the streets more passable the Babylonians uprooted trees and bushes, replanting them on roofs and terraces high up on pillars. But still carts, traps, camels, and horses jostled for space. The streets became blocked and then cleared for no apparent reason. Shops, restaurants, smoke houses, taverns, and baths kept their doors open day and night. The crowds drifted in and out; they went up steps into high-perched houses decorated with balustrades, or down underground where snatches of incantatory music wafted from dark rooms lined with cushions and lit by lanterns. The rustle of clothing and clacking of shoes mingled with clinking glasses, the clip-clop of horses' hooves, the hubbub of conversation, and the bustle of waking households. The high, painted city walls resonated with the echoes of all this never-ending life, emitting a muffled buzz that grew louder with every new dawn.
Temples dedicated to the gods occupied street corners: people from all over the world, dressed in every kind of costume, went there to pray in every language. Each wore the perfume of his or her country. Every variety of incense from every land blended with every smell of every different style of cooking. Newborns were greeted according to a thousand different customs, and the dead were left naked or shrouded, burned or mummified, buried or left to scavengers. Each individual went to heaven or to the shades on horseback or by boat, in chains or on beating wings.
The roar and bustle of the greatest metropolis on earth stopped at the foot of the City of the King. This town within a town was crammed with administrators' palaces and ministers' residences. Built with blocks of beaten earth and painted inside and out, they shamelessly displayed their splendor. As the sun set, an entire population of plants and animals came to life as if trying to break away from those facades: monkeys squabbled along the walls; parrots called from the rooftops; dogs ran alongside leopards; bees plundered roses and carnations. A bird with the head of a vulture and a long shining tail had pride of place on the pediments. I learned that it was called the phoenix. Every hundred thousand years it died in flames and was reborn from the ashes.
What secret shame I felt as I cast my eye over the conquerors and the conquered! On the one side, Macedonians and Greeks, their heads bare, their linen tunics leaving their arms, shoulders and legs for all to see, their leather sandals revealing hairy feet and filthy black toenails. On the other, Persian administrators in turbans, wearing rich brocade all the way down to their shoes which were embroidered with gold. They each held a different flower in their hands as a symbol of their responsibilities. They were followed by eunuchs, imperial slaves with shaven heads, who wore vests over their short tunics and ballooning pants threaded with gold. An evolved civilization clothes its people; it covers their flesh, ties their hair, and decks out their limbs with precious stones to distinguish them from animals. I who had conquered
Darius must have looked to the Persians like the leader of a band of savages set loose in the Orient.
In Pella life had only five colors: green like the fields, yellow like wood, white like houses, blue like the sea, and black like the earth. When the regent opened the gates to the citadel of pleasure, I was accosted by a profusion of unfamiliar colors carried on a blend of subtle perfumes.