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18 - Rise of the Macedonian Empire by Arthur M. Curteis · Rise of the Macedonian Empire

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  Speaker 1: Section eighteen of the Rise of the Macedonian Empire by
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  Speaker 1: Arthur M. Curtis. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Pamelinagami Chapter thirteen, The Death of Darius, Reduction
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  Speaker 1: of Parthia, Execution of Pholodus, and Parmenion Part two. Speaking generally,
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  Speaker 1: these provinces are the southern slopes of a huge mountain bastion,
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  Speaker 1: thrown out from the towering perapanisas towards the lower level
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  Speaker 1: of the Aryan Plateau. From time immemorial, and in spite
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  Speaker 1: of the perpetual barbarism of the population, this country has
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  Speaker 1: been of first rate importance as the easiest approach to
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  Speaker 1: India from the west. The climate is fine, though severe.
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  Speaker 1: Snow falls heavily throughout the mountain district in winter and
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  Speaker 1: is even seen in the plains and in summer. The
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  Speaker 1: heat in the lower lands, though oppressive in parts, is
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  Speaker 1: less intense than in India. The irrigation, which alone turns
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  Speaker 1: the parched country into a garden, diminishes the volume of
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  Speaker 1: the rivers, which are rarely full except after the melting
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  Speaker 1: of the winter snows. In Afghanistan, there are four cities
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  Speaker 1: which boast of Alexander, if not as their founder, at
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  Speaker 1: least as the originator of their greatness. Kandahar Alexandria even
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  Speaker 1: tries to trace its name to the great Iskander Alexander.
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  Speaker 1: That Alexander passed through both Kabul or Tospana and Kandahar
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  Speaker 1: is certain, as also that he spent some time at
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  Speaker 1: Fura Prophasia. It is far from improbable that he actually
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  Speaker 1: founded the now important city of Herat Alexandria in Arius,
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  Speaker 1: which for ages has been the center of commercial intercourse
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  Speaker 1: between India, Persia, and Tartary. The mere sight of this
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  Speaker 1: gate of Central Asia marks it out as an object
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  Speaker 1: of contention to its neighbors, a prize for which Persians
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  Speaker 1: and Afghan's fight and which Russia desires to have. It
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  Speaker 1: lies in an immense plain on the northeastern edge of
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  Speaker 1: the desert, destitute indeed of trees, but fertile and beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: There are numerous canals and scattered villages, watered and fertilized
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  Speaker 1: by the heady rood Arius, and on all sides are
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  Speaker 1: ruins attesting former greatness. To the traveler, fresh from the
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  Speaker 1: steps of the north and the desert of the west,
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  Speaker 1: the plain of Herat is as the Eastern province says,
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  Speaker 1: like Paradise, its climate is one of the most delightful
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  Speaker 1: in Asia, and its products are plentiful as they are various.
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  Speaker 1: It would not be strange, therefore, that a man of
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  Speaker 1: keen and rapid judgment like Alexander should have fixed upon
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  Speaker 1: Herat as a link in his long chain of fortress
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  Speaker 1: Coline to reach from Babylon to the Indus, or that
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  Speaker 1: he who stands there as a victorious invader from the
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  Speaker 1: north or west, should be said to hold the key
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  Speaker 1: of India in his hand. From herot Alexandra marched southward
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  Speaker 1: to Prophthasia Fura, a place of sinister influence on his
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  Speaker 1: good name and character, for it was there that the
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  Speaker 1: terrible tragedy was enacted, which ended in the deaths of
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  Speaker 1: Pelotus and his father Parmenion, the first cloud that casts
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  Speaker 1: a shadow over Alexander's heroic character, the first calamity that
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  Speaker 1: embittered his hitherto uninterrupted prosperity. It is difficult to ascertain
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  Speaker 1: exactly the precise share of guilt attaching to each actor
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  Speaker 1: in this tragedy. When the most trustworthy of our authorities,
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  Speaker 1: Arian gives only a brief and guarded account, and the
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  Speaker 1: fuller details are added by men like the Roman Curtius
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  Speaker 1: or the gossip Plutarch. Yet granting this, it is certain
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  Speaker 1: that of all who were concerned in it, not one,
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  Speaker 1: save perhaps the aged Parmenian himself, was wholly guiltless, while
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  Speaker 1: the conduct of some of the Macedonian generals was atrocious.
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  Speaker 1: The inherent difficulties of the king's position have already been
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  Speaker 1: briefly noticed. His great officers were strongly averse to his
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  Speaker 1: adoption of Persian customs, and Philotus, no less than others,
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  Speaker 1: was apt to ridicule in private his growing vanity. They
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  Speaker 1: were also more spoiled than he by their marvelous successes,
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  Speaker 1: and were furiously jealous of each other and of Craterus
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  Speaker 1: or Perdecus, were envious of the influence and wealth of
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  Speaker 1: Parmenion and his family. Pholotus himself was unguarded in his
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  Speaker 1: language and insatiable in his claims. If we would understand
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  Speaker 1: by what kind of men Alexander was surrounded, and how
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  Speaker 1: baleful an influence they might possibly exert on his susceptible mind,
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  Speaker 1: we have only to look forward a few short years,
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  Speaker 1: and observe, how when his strong hand was removed, his
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  Speaker 1: generals fought for the power which they were neither worthy
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  Speaker 1: to gain nor able to retain. Filotus was the commander
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  Speaker 1: of the Companion cavalry, and therefore in daily, almost hourly
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  Speaker 1: communication with Alexander himself. He was the sole survivor of
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  Speaker 1: three brothers, sons of that Parmenion, of whom Philip once
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  Speaker 1: said that the Athenians were lucky, indeed to find ten
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  Speaker 1: generals every year, for he, in the course of many years,
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  Speaker 1: had never found but one, next to the king himself.
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  Speaker 1: The father and son were perhaps the most important men
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  Speaker 1: in the empire, but they were not popular nor even
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  Speaker 1: wholly trusted. Parmenion, it is true, was left in chief
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  Speaker 1: command of Agbatana, but he was getting old and was
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  Speaker 1: thought to have shown a want of energy and resource
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  Speaker 1: at the Battle of Gaugamela. Phelotus also was in bad
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  Speaker 1: odor with both officers and men, with the former for
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  Speaker 1: his arrogance and bluntness and his very success, with the
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  Speaker 1: latter for a supercilious selfishness which showed itself in disregard
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  Speaker 1: for their comfort as compared with his own, and a
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  Speaker 1: studied contempt of their wishes and prejudices. Even with the
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  Speaker 1: king himself. For the past eighteen months, his relations had
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  Speaker 1: been less cordial than before, owing to some disparagement of Alexander,
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  Speaker 1: which he had let fall in conversation with his mistress,
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  Speaker 1: and which had been betrayed by her to Craterus, and
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  Speaker 1: by Craterus only too willingly to the king. In so
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  Speaker 1: perilous a position, caution was needed, and caution was the
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  Speaker 1: virtue of which Felodus was incapable. Now. It happened at
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  Speaker 1: this time that a certain officer named Dimnas was accused
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  Speaker 1: by one of his bosom friends of a design against
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  Speaker 1: Alexander's life. This friend had imparted the secret to his
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  Speaker 1: own brother, and the brother in turn disclosed the plot
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  Speaker 1: to Felotus as to one who would certainly provide against
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  Speaker 1: the danger. The attempt was to be made on the
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  Speaker 1: next day, but one on that day and on the next,
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  Speaker 1: Felotus had long interviews with the king, and on each
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  Speaker 1: occasion omitted to mention what he had heard. On the
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  Speaker 1: third day, his informant, finding that nothing had been done,
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  Speaker 1: resolved to take the matter boldly into his own hands.
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  Speaker 1: He demanded admission to the King's presence at once, even
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  Speaker 1: though he was in the bath, and told him all
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  Speaker 1: he knew. Orders were immediately issued for the arrest of Dimnas, who, however,
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  Speaker 1: either slew himself or was slain in resisting, and thus
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  Speaker 1: the most important witness in the matter was removed by
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  Speaker 1: an act that appeared to prove his guilt. It presently
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  Speaker 1: came out that Felodus also had been aware of the
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  Speaker 1: plot two days before, and had said nothing in so
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  Speaker 1: grave a matter. Silence would in any man seem strange.
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  Speaker 1: In Felodus, not unnaturally, it was taken to prove complicity,
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  Speaker 1: while his defense that the story seemed to rest on
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  Speaker 1: insufficient authority was looked upon as an afterthought. The suspicions
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  Speaker 1: aroused in Alexander's mind were artfully inflamed by Kratorus and
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  Speaker 1: other enemies of Felotus. A council of officers was held,
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  Speaker 1: and they insisted that the only means of arriving at
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  Speaker 1: the truth was to arrest and question Felotus. It needs
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  Speaker 1: but little imagination to see how it all happened. Alexander hurt, angry, suspicious,
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  Speaker 1: the general one here and another there, hinting arguing or
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  Speaker 1: openly accusing, the very absence of Pelotus, who was not
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  Speaker 1: present at the council, perhaps being turned against him. That night,
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  Speaker 1: the accused man was arrested, and on the next day,
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  Speaker 1: according to the national custom, he was brought before an
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  Speaker 1: assembly of the Macedonian troops, where the king himself stated
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  Speaker 1: the charge against him, though he retired before the trial began.
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  Speaker 1: But there was little hope of an impartial hearing, where
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  Speaker 1: the accuser was the idol of the generals who envied
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  Speaker 1: the accused and of the soldiers who hated him. He
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  Speaker 1: was found guilty of the charge of being privy to
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  Speaker 1: the act, but this was not enough. If the son
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  Speaker 1: were condemned on evidence so slight, what view would the
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  Speaker 1: father take of the whole affair, And if he chose
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  Speaker 1: to resent it or took up arms in self defense,
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  Speaker 1: the revolt of so famous a man, master of all
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  Speaker 1: the vast treasures stored at Agbatana, would be formidable even
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  Speaker 1: to Alexander. Parmenion therefore must be involved in the fate
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  Speaker 1: of Felotus. Evidence must be gained against the father as well,
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  Speaker 1: and that evidence must come from the lips of the
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  Speaker 1: sun to us both the end and the means taken
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  Speaker 1: to achieve the end are Equaliodius Felotus was tortured, But
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  Speaker 1: we must not forget, if we wish to be just,
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  Speaker 1: that the false notion of torture being the surest means
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  Speaker 1: of eliciting truth, has been common in nearly every age
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  Speaker 1: and nation, and was neither more or less disgraceful in
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  Speaker 1: Macedonian officers than in Roman slave masters or Christian inquisitors.
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  Speaker 1: However wicked the object may have been, we may be
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  Speaker 1: sure that the means used for its attainment seemed natural
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  Speaker 1: and suitable. Felotus was tortured and can confessed what was desired,
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  Speaker 1: that both his father and himself were guilty of a
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  Speaker 1: design against the king's life, and that he himself had
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  Speaker 1: purposely precipitated measures lest death should remove his father, who
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  Speaker 1: was now seventy, from the command of the treasures which
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  Speaker 1: were necessary to success. A confession, the truth of which
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  Speaker 1: was said to be confirmed by the contents of a
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  Speaker 1: letter from Parmenion seized among the papers of Felotus. On
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  Speaker 1: the next day, this confession was read before the troops,
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  Speaker 1: and Pelotus and others his accomplices were executed, while a
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  Speaker 1: hurried messenger was sent off to Agbitana eleven days march
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  Speaker 1: across the desert, with orders to Clayander, the second in command,
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  Speaker 1: to put Parmenian instantly to death. The command was obeyed,
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  Speaker 1: and the old man was killed while reading a forged
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  Speaker 1: letter purporting to come from his son. An impartial consideration
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  Speaker 1: of the story just narrated leads us to the conclusion
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  Speaker 1: that of all all the persons concerned, Craters and his
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  Speaker 1: friends were the most guilty. Whether we assume that Felotus
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  Speaker 1: was really privy to the plot, or without being privy
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  Speaker 1: to it, would not have been ill pleased to see
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  Speaker 1: it succeed, or was simply imprudent and forgot to speak,
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  Speaker 1: and either of these assumptions as possible, it is clear
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  Speaker 1: that there was prima facia ground for suspicion, and that
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  Speaker 1: the generals used it to ruin Felotus. They might have
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  Speaker 1: used their influence to pacify Alexander, they did, in fact
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  Speaker 1: exasperate him against their enemy. It is hardly strange that
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  Speaker 1: the king himself should have suspected Felotus when he knew
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  Speaker 1: that for two days he had been aware of a
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  Speaker 1: plot against his life and had said nothing about it.
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  Speaker 1: While the very first man implicated had preferred death to
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  Speaker 1: facing investigation. Appearances were against Felotus. It is equally clear
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  Speaker 1: that the charge was not proven, and that if the
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  Speaker 1: accused had had friends at court, there was much to
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  Speaker 1: be said in his defense, while the actual way in
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  Speaker 1: which he was treated showed a passion, a suspiciousness, and
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  Speaker 1: a want of generous forbearance, not unnatural perhaps in a
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  Speaker 1: son of Olympias, but hitherto unexampled an Alexander. If we conclude, however,
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  Speaker 1: that it remains an open question whether Felotus was innocent
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  Speaker 1: or guilty, the same cannot be said of the fate
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  Speaker 1: of Parmenion. That the death of the son should have
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  Speaker 1: made the father's death an apparent necessity both for Alexander
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  Speaker 1: and his generals may be granted, but that is only
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  Speaker 1: saying that one false step necessitates another. No man who
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  Speaker 1: admires the genius or respects the noble qualities of Alexander
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  Speaker 1: the Great can fail to deplore the odious crime which
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  Speaker 1: he allowed himself to commit in assenting to the assassination
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  Speaker 1: of his oldest and ablest general or to you condemn
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  Speaker 1: the wickedness of those who urged such a barbarous judicial murder.
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  Speaker 1: Felotus may have been guilty, Parmenion was almost certainly innocent,
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  Speaker 1: and of Section eighteen