Thebes 338 B.C.E.

By Edward Mallon

This historical novel is set in ancient Greece during a crucial two year period from 338 – 336 B.C.E. The young poet Aristides, outside the city of Thebes, narrates his life from age 14 to 16 and near his death at 70 in Egypt as he looks back upon his life’s journey. It is the time of King Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander, (18-20) soon to be the Great. The intrigue, struggle for love and power in the royal court of kings, is the background as Aristides comes of age.

After a fierce battle on the fields of Chaeronea, King Philip’s military genius defeats the combined armies of Athens, Thebes, and their many allies. He now becomes the master of all the Greek City-States except Sparta. Aristides, the poet and creator of stories, is captured and tasked to write the King’s exploits in verse so that Philip can become immortal like Achilles in Homer’s great poem The Iliad.

In such an environment, Aristides grows from a naive boy into a young man searching for the answers to life’s many challenges. Will he find love, fulfillment, purpose? This is the story of Thebes 338 B.C.E. as the poet searches for the meaning of his life.

Near his life’s end in the city of Alexandra under the rule of Ptolemy, the first Greek Pharaoh of Egypt, Aristides is struck, like a bolt of lightning, with enlightenment in the arms of his most beloved. This divine knowledge is his gift to us as he writes the story of his life. He lived under three great kings, Philip, Alexander, and Ptolemy, when the world was ablaze with wonder and excitement. It was a time when the ancient gods were feared, honored, and appeased. It was a time when the world was young. It is a time of rebirth for us where we all can be young again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781977253217

Edward Mallon

Edward Mallon was born in Queens, a borough of New York City. Most of his Italian ancestors arrived in the 1880’s, the Irish in the early 1900’s, and the eastern European Jewish family members after WW II from Hungary and Czechoslovakia. This mix of cultures, food, and religions is why Mr. Mallon identifies as an American. After graduation from City University of New York with a BA and MA in English / Creative Writing, he embarked on his world travels. He has lived in Europe, Asia, and the Middle-East. He now lives in Rockaway, NY in a small shore community on the edge of the Atlantic where he founded and runs a writer’s workshop. – Rock Away Pens.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

What you are about to read is based on a true story. The events, circumstances, and characters have come to us from an archaeological treasure chest that spans the entire globe. On the first day of spring in 1965, Professor Patrick Mallon of Trinity College, Dublin and Dr. Gina Elizabetta Orsini of Rome’s Musie Vaticani met at an antiquities conference in Cairo, Egypt. During the morning of the meeting, the hotel’s crowded conference room was somewhat uncomfortable, so, hoping for a cool breeze, some of the guests had lunch at a palm-shaded cafe overlooking the Nile.

While at lunch, Patrick took a paper from his backpack that he was scheduled to deliver that afternoon. He had pieced together scroll segments carbon dated to the time of Alexander the Great. The edges were burnt, but the text was still clear. Together, the pieces formed various papyrus segments of a history with the beginning of the author’s name at the end. The glass of iced tea in Gina’s hand fell to the stone floor. She knew where other matching segments lay.

During the second week of spring at the Vatican Museum, the segments were joined, revealing, after more than twenty-three hundred years, the author’s full name. As one discovery often leads to another, this find led to others, a thirty-year search. What you are about to read is that ancient author’s life story. I have made only a slight attempt to capture the beauty of his lines. So much was experimental and composed from diverse cultural elements that it is impossible to recreate it out of the work’s full context or out of its ancient Greek meter. I can only sketch the artist’s work from what we have – the ruins of a Parthenon.

This story might have been a more inclusive account of his life as a writer and poet, if only there were more extant fragments from the original works or secondary sources. Today we have eight medium-sized cartons filled with segments of poems, letters, histories, inscriptions, fables, and part of a drama. So much has been lost to time, ignorance, indifference, and abuse. But rather than mourn for what is lost, I cherish what exists by weaving together the various elements of his work to tell his amazing story. Now, slowly, after long hours of research, translation, conjecture, inspiration, and the exhaustion from years of trying to understand and reconstruct fragments, I have, with much help from my parents and their many friends, utilized the stone blocks of scholarship and ventured to build over the remnants of a life, a pyramid to the immortality of the human spirit. May the ancient gods be pleased.

Although the early Greeks referred to themselves as Hellenes in the lands of Hellas, for clarity I have used the later words of Greek and Greece to describe them. In their creation myth, the first man was Hellen born of the Titan Prometheus’ son Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. Thus, the ancient Greeks saw themselves as sons of Hellen. This was the age of tribes and clans with three main groups called Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians. Eventually they evolved into what we know as the Greeks.

I thank the Fates for that chance meeting alongside the Nile. I thank my parents, Patrick and Gina Elizabetta, for spending the next thirty years of their lives in a collaborative effort to find other segments of this man’s story. He traveled the ancient world when it was alive with mystery and wonder. He lived in palaces and huts, fought wars, drank, made love, procreated, and wrote in a time that still touched upon the Classical Greek Age even though Greece had moved on to world conquest. Over two thousand years later, today I wonder if it is still possible to live a life of such profound artistic brilliance. From my mouth to God’s ear.

1

A glowing cinder has been stolen from the altar. A fire has been lit. The night looms about me like a silent hungry beast. Get away, I shout. I have chanted incantations passed down to us from the gods. I have sworn an oath of dedication. My body is wounded with age and yet I kneel. Olive oil and warm bread have been offered. Spring wine has been poured. It perfumes the air tempting dreams. Yet here, tonight, while there is still a breath stirring, I pray thee, Brilliant Apollo, Relax my throat that I may sing.

I was born in Greece, but I live in Egypt. Greek Thebes was my city. On nights when I cannot sleep, I prowl the dark corridors of the Pharaoh’s palace poking the snoring guards awake, but to no avail. I cannot escape my thoughts. Across a violent sea, I see my city lying in ruin. She is but a broken skeleton under the blaze of an unforgiving sun.

The King is dead, Alexander. He has been dead for many years. His empire from Pella to Athens to Persia to the ever-flowing Nile has been ripped into four bloody segments. Each remnant, like the corpse of a slaughtered lamb, has its own scavenger king gorging on the remains. I have known them all, the broken dissimilar lands, in their glory and ruination. Today, many years later, I live in Alexandria with Ptolemy, My Lord Ptolemy, Alexander’s boyhood friend, his fierce general. It is he who now sits on the Pharaoh’s throne. Greek Ptolemy is the Egyptian King and I am pleased to be his houseguest or so he reminds me with the sharp edge of a sword. After the evening meal he sends me red haired boys with strong wine and little girls bearing honey cakes. I am afforded every privilege in this strange land where people kneel to stone birds and bow to crocodiles.

Fierce animal gods and the ever-flowing waters of the Nile, this is my Egypt. On cool mornings when I roam the construction-cluttered streets of this new city, Alexandria, dragging my lame foot, I have an escort of soldiers clattering behind me into every single shop and alleyway. I think of their clamor as my music, but the trades-people, when they hear my din, lower their eyes, look away or suddenly become busy beating non-existent dust out of newly woven rugs. I pay them no mind. They are simple people who may not understand my language. I have no need to talk, I mumble, I can write what I know.

Then once again I hear her, the sea, calling to me on the wind in soft tones, Aristides. I walk out to the sand dunes looking for the vision with glistening eyes, the goddess with the body firm and full, ample breasts, the muse who for a few kind offerings will grant you safe passage, but all I find is my imprint in the sand like a reptile with a heavy tail, like a ghost with a clattering bell.

After the sun falls, long before dawn at darkest night, alone out of the quiet corridors on my balcony, where I consider the brightness of stars, I begin to yearn for my youth, my city, Thebes. Sometimes if the gods are kind, she comes to me on a pillowed dream.

Not far from my village the Asopus River branched off into a stream of clear water. It flowed through a valley filled with morning glories rich in nectar. At the edge of a meadow the water splashed down over boulders into a large pond that reflected the lapis lazuli of a summer sky. On hot afternoons our grandparents sat under the shade of fig trees snacking on the fruit, while we dove and splashed and tried to grab little yellow-orange fish. We would hold our breath, kick our feet, and push our naked bodies deeper towards the bottom until one, not always the hardiest, was able to grab a fish. Rising up with the bubbles, the child would burst back into the air holding the prize high above his head. Sometimes it was the youngest that won, but always the champion was greeted with loud cheers.

On other nights when the air is heavy with moisture from the swamp and it is difficult to breathe in this stone tomb of a palace, I weigh life, my life, and am astounded by the strength and audacity of youth. Thebes, I remember that last day outside your gates when I first set my eyes on Philip and his son Alexander. It is as vibrant as a wall painting. I was a fledgling out of the nest on untried wings. I fluttered above a lion’s cub about to test his paw. When Alexander spotted me, my life changed forever.

A dawn’s light flooded the horizon when Uncle Thamyris rode into our village. He was on a black steed shouting that Philip’s army had changed direction. The Macedonian troops were closing in on the fields of Chaeronea, a day’s march from our village, two from Thebes. Mother rushed into the house and pulled clay jars, wine strainers, and dried mulberries off the shelves. Father yelled, Leave everything. We have more in Thebes. Mother turned and flung him a look as if it were an iron pot. After they steal our crops, burn our house, and rape my daughters, they will be hungry and thirsty. Not out of my bowls.

By noon all our people were packed and on the road to Thebes. I was with my two sisters, Malea and Thais, at the back of the crowd pulling our donkey, Euripides. He had six bags strapped to his back. The contents rattled with every step. Father was at the front with the other men. He had his sword strapped to his waist. Mother was behind them with our two servants, Adila and Fadwa, helping some of the older women walk. Gela, my father’s favorite slave, was with my uncle riding on his horse. I could hear her crying about the blisters on her feet. It was a day hot with bronze out of a furnace. The donkey smelled like dirty wool. Soon, looking back at our village, Elaeus, twenty-five country houses and a small marble temple to the goddess Hera, I saw the village shrink from the size of a bolder, to a rock, to a pebble, then it was gone. In the far distance I could see the mountains that surrounded our land, Boeotia, and protected us from the land-grabbing Athenians in the south, the hated Spartans in the west, and the wild Macedonian tribes of the north. Ahead was our city, Thebes, born in myth, renowned in legend, and protected by its high walls.

Walking on the road was difficult. It had not rained in weeks. The dust was everywhere, in my face, up my nose. My youngest sister, Thais, was coughing so I picked her up and put her on the donkey. Euripides immediately sat down in the road. Uncle Thamyris rode over and told us to hold some grapes in front of the donkey. Hurry, the city gates will close before sundown. Father walked over and pulled Gela off uncle’s horse. He told her to stay with the women. I fed the donkey a grape, another. He got up. After one more, he started to walk. Thais held on tight. My older sister Malea grabbed the bunch of grapes and put some into her mouth.

Why should the animal get them all?

Father pulled them out of Malea’s hand. Are you a wild beast, he asked? Father was usually a quiet man who spoke with his face: a smile, a frown, challenging eyes, sometimes a word. He had a jagged front tooth surrounded by a heavy black beard. When speaking to strangers, he covered his broken tooth with a hand.

So why do we not stay, I said, we could sell the soldiers wine.

Father grunted and pushed Gela toward the women.

Philip is after fat Athens, Father. We could sell his men wagon loads of wine.

Uncle got off his horse. Ari, Aristides, he knelt down on one knee, put his hands around my shoulders and pulled me close, we can sell wine. Storehouses of wine! But Philip is mad. I know. I was at Delphi when the Phocians sacked the sacred shrine. Who could imagine such a blasphemy? Uncle’s face was square with heavy bones and gentle amber eyes. His hair was long and silky black pulled back into a braid.

But Uncle, Philip drove the invading Phocians and then the Amphisseans out, off of the sacred ground.

Yes, Ari, he did. After the sanctuary’s treasury was grabbed, Philip charged down from the mountains with his army, smashed the invader’s fortifications, and chased the rodents deep into the forest. The Oracle of Delphi praised him before all the others and placed a gold diadem on his head. Philip returned the crown, but accepted the Oracle’s pledge of support for his army. Afterwards, instead of pushing the captives off a cliff, Philip just ransomed them and sent them home.

Is that so terrible, Uncle?

Do you not understand? He used the incident to show off his army. He duped the Oracle and exploited the sacrilege for his own gain. Now his army is at the throat of Thebes and within striking distance of Athens. And for what? We run from men with no respect, even for the gods.

What about an Achilles? I asked.

Father yanked on the donkey and made it stop. There was a clear stream on the side of the road. Father grabbed my ear and pulled me to the water.

Look into the water and tell me what you see.

I told him I saw my reflection.

No, describe it.

A man with hair the color of wheat and sea-blue eyes.

A man. Are you sure? What else?

Trees, clouds.

Trees!

Three oak flushed with leaves.

Do you see an Achilles?

I see my image and you hovering over my shoulder.

I will tell you what I see. I see a dreaming twelve-year-old boy pulled from his mother’s arms. I see callused hands all over that child’s body. Rope burns around his neck as he is dragged like a stubborn pet from one master to another. Chains on his ankles. Here boy, warm my bed, fetch my food, wash my smelly ass. More wine! And when the boy moves slowly, a long day, exhaustion, an angry word may slip out of his mouth only to be returned clutched in a soldier’s heavy fist, my father’s body was shaking, that breaks teeth. Then, when he thinks the sun has set the boy is forced to get on his belly. Yelps echo off the moon, but no gods come to stop the violation. Pain, bruised bones, and blood, always blood. He stood there silently as if he had been turned to stone. No more questions were asked, that day. Father’s broken tooth had said enough.

Later on my friend Phraxos came by with a hand full of dried apricots. My mother, he said, gave them to me for us. He was about my height, but broad with black curly hair and dark eyes. I told him I was not hungry so he gave them to Thais. Then he pulled on my tunic and challenged me to a foot race. I told him he could have a head start. He said he did not need it. We ran to the head of the villagers and back. I returned first and sat on a fallen tree.

Good try, Phraxos, I yelled.

He fell on me pushing my shoulders down. We rolled off the side of the road to a stream. The frogs were bellowing that we should not disturb their afternoon nap. We took off our tunics and dove into the water. It was from the mountains, cold but refreshing. He splashed me. I splashed back. I flipped him. He flipped me. We held our breath and tried to grab some fish. Soon we were blue and wrinkled like two old men. We waded out, climbed onto a flat boulder, chased the buzzing flies away and lay in the warmth of summer like two croaking bullfrogs.

Without saying a word, Phraxos jumped to the shore, broke a twig off an overhanging branch, drew a wide circle on the ground then took a defensive pose. He knew that no Greek would refuse a challenge. The games are in our blood. I could feel my strength rising, but I knew I had to be cautious. I was an antelope and he a water buffalo. Once inside the circle his weight could easily force me to the ground. I had to be as fast as a deer and plan all my moves. As long as he was set on his wide feet, I had no hope. I had to get him moving. I would enter and stay back like a shy rabbit. When he took his first half-a-step, I would spring to his weaker side. He would not lunge, he was too smart. When he turned and reached to grab, I would fall under him, stand up with the strength of my legs and back, flip him over then drop my hip, boom, right onto his chest forcing out his breath and pinning him to the earth.

As fast as a lion seizes its prey, he pinned me. He lunged when I thought he would play safe. I could run, throw the javelin, jump, but he was the champion with brawn. Together we could win all the prizes in our village. As we lay there trying to catch our breath, he on top of me, he asked if we would always be friends.

Friends, Phraxos, you are my brother.

At night, we reached the river crossing. It was wider then an athlete could throw a spear. The water looked dark and choppy. Local soldiers were camped by the riverbank guarding a boat. An old man with a knotted beard told us to turn back. The city gates were closed and would remain barred until Philip’s troops left our land. Father said Philip would respect our city’s pledge of neutrality. Uncle disagreed arguing that Philip would never forget the shame of his childhood. Father said that Philip was never a hostage in Thebes.

He was an honored guest.

No, said Uncle, he was a token, a hostage of peace between Macedon and Thebes. Honored guest, never, he was a boy forced to leave his home by our army.

Mother wanted to wade across downstream. Father said it was too swift and deep, besides, he reminded us, the gates were closed. Malea said she would bang on the gates until they opened. Uncle excused himself and went over to the soldiers. He wanted to do some trading before the boat was set on fire. Adila and Fadwa, our two servants, spread a blanket in a field where families from other villages were camped. After placing some smoking charcoal on the ground, Adila fanned it with leaves, then Fadwa added dry twigs.

Mother, what if I became a soldier? I could join the Sacred Band?

My sisters started laughing while mixing oats with milk and raisins. The girls looked just like my mother, tall with long black hair.

You a soldier, Aristides, cried Malea, I might as well be Hera’s daughter. Her hair reflected the moon’s light.

Be quiet, I ordered. What do you know?

Thais handed me a piece of bread. How fragile she looked.

My brother would make the best soldier. Better than Philip’s son.

Mother cracked Thais over the head with a wooden spoon.

Do not joke about that one. Mother’s eyes were a gray rock.

I wanted to know what she was thinking, but I did not ask. She was holding the spoon like a club.

No son of mine will be a soldier and die on the battlefield with his head bashed in. I give you my oath!

All of a sudden my mother was speaking in riddles and looking like a sphinx. No son of mine. How dare she determine my life? Not stand up and fight? Am I not a man? Who is she, this woman, this mother? Not mine! Who are they? She and her husband, the camp slave and his wife? What does she know? No son of mine. What does she hide, the sphinx? After she has something to eat, she will sit by the fire; perhaps with a little more wine Mother may reveal her childhood scars.

The night, it is cold, the fire hot. A soggy log placed on top sizzles, steams, smokes, and pops. Dank clouds lift up leaving behind odor from the moldy wood. A dead bird’s body collapses on the maggots that consume it. Flames shoot up and begin to devour the log. Wood into flame, flame into smoke, smoke rising up perfuming the sky, the god’s smile. Prometheus’ gift of fire brought to the earth for man’s benefit. An ancient thought whispered by an elder into my ear sets my mind ablaze. I do not want to be here. All my life I have heard stories of war, poems of war. War is, I have been told, what makes the child a man and what makes the man wise. War is out truth. It is our legacy. It is our art. I know most of Homer’s Iliad and some of his Odyssey. What I need are my own poems. Every male relative I have has been in battle, even my mother. Each of them has their own stories. Soon I will be fourteen. If I am to be alive, I must act not cower behind city walls. By now, tomorrow, soon, my village will be a pile of charred timbers and ash. I am sitting in front of a fire watching a log cinder fall in upon itself. Movement without man. A wind, power, magic, fire? The gods? Before dawn the red-orange flame will fall into a nest of embers. A thousand brilliant sparks will explode seeking dry grass. As green shoots sprout after burned crops have been rained on, behold, newly emerged, from this ashen tomb comes the Phoenix about to take flight.

Aristides. Stay with us.

I am, Father.

Where are your feet?

On the ground.

Good. A poet needs to feel the earth rumble.

Out of the city across a field of barley past some granite hills before you come to the mountains is a plateau where a man on horse galloping from early dawn to midday may arrive at its midpoint. Continuing to whip the horse till night, he may reach, if the animal does not give out, the far rim. On this acropolis of stone waiting for Philip to lift his hand, stand thirty thousand warriors, column by column, eight deep by sixteen wide, one hundred squads across, other squads behind. Brass helmets cover their heads exposing agate eyes. Body armor fitted from waist to shoulder follows the curvature of the upper torso. Round shields protecting jaw to hip are secured by the left arm’s grip. Metal greaves hug each leg from knee to ankle and laced up leather boots protect every Macedonian foot. Sticking out from this battle machine the short thrusting spear has been replaced by Philip’s longer pike, three times the size of the spear and weighted on the back end to give it drive and balance. The additional length moves the moment of impact three paces closer to the opponent. The sharpened iron pike heads from the second and third rows now reach out beyond the front line increasing the density of impact. In back of this mighty temple of war brigades of archers and stone-slingers stand ready to hurl volleys of shot and let fly iron tipped arrows. Around them all augmented by Thessalian horsemen, their bodies tattooed blue, a thousand men grasping war axes sit mounted ready to charge. Near them a thousand Macedonians with swords and short spears sit on horses waiting for a command. With the amassed army watching, while the light of a dying moon falls below the horizon, a priest with wine jug and a pheale cup pours the ritual libation of farewell. Three white doves of the sky, three sea snakes, and three black rams are sacrificed to Ares, the god of war. The soldiers let out their animal roar. It echoes back. About Philip cluster his priests, his generals, and his Companions. In the midst of this circle holding the brilliant lion’s helmet like a young Achilles is Alexander, the fair-haired son of their king. In front of him the virgin meadows of Chaeronea, my Thebes, lies with open arms unaware of what is to come.

2

After the evening meal, I sat next to Mother at our campfire and put my arm over her shoulders. Her neck felt brittle like dry clay so I kneaded it, pressing the warmth and moisture of my hands into her flesh, and kissed it until the muscles softened. She began to sigh and move her head in a slow motion from side to side. In my mind, I counted the number of houses in our village a few times before I spoke.

Mother, why were you so angry?

She pulled a warm cloak over our shoulders. I sat there holding her. Her sun for the day had set. There was nothing I could do, but wait for her dawn. Father came over and sat down across from us. He looked like a bundle of sticks held together by muscles tight as tree knots. His tunic was discolored from sweat, but his black beard, hair, and face were washed of the dust from the road. The girls, also clean and in fresh tunics, snuggled into his blanket. In his bony hands were sweet plums. He offered one to each of us.

Where is Thamyris, he asked? Why has he not returned? Must he always trade?

I thought about father’s warning by the stream and wondered about mother’s spoon held up. What does she know of the Macedonians? Although father was trembling when he lectured me, I had no fear of broken teeth. I wanted to know more. Much more. More, it was becoming a hunger.

In my youth when Thebes was a vibrant city, I