Travels with Herodotus Page 18
When there’s a lull, I make arrangements with Negusi to go out into the field. One cannot venture too far, because out there in the vastness it is easy to get stuck for days on end, weeks even. I have in mind a distance of one hundred or two hundred kilometers, before the great mountains begin. Furthermore, Christmas is approaching, and all of Africa, even the Muslim part, is growing noticeably quieter, to say nothing of Ethiopia, which has been Christian for sixteen centuries. “Go to Arba Minch!” advise those in the know, and they say it with such conviction that the name begins to acquire a magical resonance for me.
Indeed, it turns out to be a truly extraordinary place. On a flat and empty plain, on a low isthmus between the lakes of Abaya and Chamo, stands a wooden, white-painted barracks—the Berkele Mole Hotel. Each room gives onto an open verandah which extends right to the edge of a lake—one can jump from the deck straight into the emerald water (which, depending on the angle of the sun’s rays, can turn azure blue, green, almost purple, and, in the evenings, navy blue and black).
In the morning, a peasant woman in a white robe sets up on the verandah a wooden armchair, as well as a massive sculpted wooden table. Silence, water, several acacia trees, and in the far distance, in the background, the gigantic, dark green Amaro mountains. One feels like the king of the world here.
• • •
I’ve brought with me a bundle of periodicals with articles about Africa, but from time to time I also reach for the tome from which I am inseparable, which has become my accustomed refuge, a retreat from the tensions of the world and the nervous pursuit of novelty into a peaceful realm of sunshine and quiet that emanates from events that have already occurred, people now gone and sometimes who were never there, having been only contrivances of the imagination, fictions, shadows. But this time my hopes for escape come to naught. I can see that serious and dangerous things are happening in my Greek’s world, I sense a historic storm brewing, a sinister hurricane approaching.
Until now I had wandered far and wide with Herodotus, to the edges of his universe—to the Egyptians and the Massagetae, to the Scythians and the Ethiopians. But it is time to cease these farflung peregrinations, for events are now shifting from these distant borderlands to the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, to where Persia and Greece, or more generally speaking, Asia and Europe, meet—in short, to the very omphalos of the world.
It is as if in the first part of his oeuvre Herodotus constructed a massive open-air amphitheater in which he placed dozens, even hundreds of nations and tribes from Asia, Europe, and Africa—from all of humanity as he knew it—and said to them: Now observe carefully, because here before your very eyes will unfold the world’s greatest drama! He wants everyone to watch carefully. And the action on the stage does indeed take an abrupt dramatic turn.
Old Darius, king of the Persians, is preparing a great war against Greece to avenge his defeats in Sardis and at Marathon (one of Herodotus’s laws: Do not humiliate people, because they will thereafter subsist on dreams of revenge). He conscripts his entire empire, all of Asia, into the preparations. But in the midst of all this, in 485 B.C.E. (the presumed year, incidentally, of Herodotus’s birth), he dies, having ruled for thirty-six years. After various struggles and intrigues, his young son Xerxes assumes the throne—the beloved child of Darius’s wife, now widow, Atossa, whom Herodotus credits with having exercised great influence in the empire.
Xerxes inherits his father’s project—preparing for war against the Greeks—but he is of a mind to strike against Egypt first: the Egyptians have mutinied against the Persian occupation of their land and want independence. Xerxes believes that quelling the Egyptian uprising is a more pressing matter, and that the expedition against the Greeks can wait. But his older and very influential cousin, Mardonius, son of deceased Darius’s sister, is of another opinion. Who cares about the Egyptians? he says. We must move against the Greeks! (Herodotus suspects Mardonius of being in a hurry to attain power probably as eventual satrap of a conquered Greece): “Master, it’s wrong for the Athenians to go unpunished for all the harm they’ve done Persia.”
Herodotus tells us that with time Mardonius does indeed convince Xerxes of the necessity of the Greek war. The Persian king nonetheless sets off first against Egypt, suppresses the rebellion, subjugates the country once again, and only then turns his attention to the Greeks. Still he is quite cognizant of the seriousness of the action at hand, which is why he summoned the pick of the leading Persians to a meeting, because he wanted to hear what they had to say. He shares with them his plans for world conquest: “There would be no point in recounting all the victories Cyrus, Cambyses, and my father Darius won, and all the peoples they annexed, because you are already well aware of their achievements. But what about me? When I became the king of Persia, I began to wonder how to avoid being left behind by those who preceded me in this position of honour, and how I might increase the Persian empire just as much as they did …. The reason I have convened this meeting, then, is to tell you my plans.
I intend to bridge the Hellespont and march an army through Europe and against Greece, so that I can make the Athenians pay for all that they have done to Persia and to my father …. I will not rest until I have captured Athens and put it to the torch.
“… If we conquer them and their neighbours … we will make Persian territory end only at the sky, the domain of Zeus, so that the sun will not shine on any land beyond our borders …. If my information is accurate, once we have eliminated those I have mentioned, there will be nobody left—no town or people—capable of offering us armed resistance. And so the innocent will bear the yoke of slavery along with those who have wronged us.”
Next to speak is Mardonius. To win over Xerxes, he begins with flattery: “Master, you are the greatest Persian there has ever been, nor will there ever be anyone to equal you in the future either.” After this ritualistic introduction, he tries to assure Xerxes that there will be no difficulties in conquering the Greeks. ‘No problem!” the excited Mardonius seems to be saying. He then claims that “the Greeks usually wage war in an extremely stupid fashion, because they’re ignorant and incompetent …. So, my lord, who is going to oppose you? Who is going to threaten you with war when you come from Asia at the head of a massive army and with your whole fleet? I am sure that the Greeks are not so foolhardy.”
Silence falls among the assembled Persians: No one else had anything to say—certainly, no one dared to voice an opinion contrary to the one before them ….
It is quite understandable. Imagine the situation: We are in Susa, the capital of the Persian empire. In an airy, shadow-filled hall in the royal palace, young Xerxes sits on a throne, and all around on stone benches sits the pick of the leading Persians. The council is deliberating the world’s ultimate battle: if victory is achieved, the whole world will belong to the king of the Persians.
Furthermore, the prospective field of battle is far away from Susa—agile messengers need more than three months to cross the distance between the Persian capital and Athens. There is something unreal about an operation taking place at such a remove. But that is not why the summoned Persians dare not express contrary views. Despite being important and influential, despite constituting the elite of the elites, they nevertheless know that they live in an authoritarian and despotic state, and that it takes only a nod from Xerxes for any one of them to lose his head. So there they sit, frightened, mopping their foreheads. They dare not speak. The atmosphere must have resembled that of the Politburo under Stalin: at stake in both instances not just one’s career, but life itself.
There is someone, however, who can speak up without fear. It is old Artabanus, Darius’s brother and Xerxes’ uncle. Even so, he begins cautiously, making certain to offer justification for daring to voice his opinions: “My lord, unless opposing views are heard, it is impossible to pick and choose between various plans and decide which one is best.” He also reminds Xerxes that he cautioned his father, and his own brother, Darius, not to
undertake the expedition against the Scythians, because that one too, he had felt, would end badly. And so it did. And now the Greeks?! “This campaign you’re planning, my lord, is against men who are vastly superior to the Scythians; they have the highest reputation for bravery on both land and sea.”
He counsels prudence and long reflection. He attacks Mardonius for encouraging the king to go to war, and proposes to him: “Let each of us gamble the lives of our children on the outcome. If matters turn out as you say they will for the king, let my children be put to death, and I will join them; but if things turn out as I am predicting, let your children suffer that fate, and you too, if you make it back home. If you aren’t prepared to run the risk, but are still determined to take the army overseas to Greece, I can tell you what news of Mardonius will reach the ears of those who stay behind here: they will be told that Mardonius was the cause of a great disaster for Persia, and that you were then torn apart by dogs and birds somewhere in Athenian territory …”
Tensions rise as everyone reflects on the wager proposed. Xerxes becomes angry, calls Artabanus a coward, and as punishment forbids him to go with him to war. He explains: “It is impossible for either side to withdraw now, the only question at stake is whether or not we actively take the initiative. And in the end either all Persia will be in Greek hands, or all Greece will be in Persian hands; there is no middle ground in this war.”
And he dissolves the council. Later, during the night, Xerxes was still worried by the view Artabanus had expressed. He thought it over during the night and he became quite convinced that it was not in his best interests for him to march on Greece. After this change of heart, he fell asleep, and during the night he had the following dream, or so the Persians say. Xerxes dreamt that a tall, handsome man stood over him and said, “Are you changing your mind, Persian? Are you deciding against taking an expedition to Greece …?… No, keep the course of action you decided on during the daytime.” In Xerxes’ dream, after delivering this speech, the man flew away.
Come daylight, Xerxes once again convenes a council. Ignoring the dream, he announces that he has changed his mind and that there will be no war. The Persians were delighted with what Xerxes said, and prostrated themselves before him.
That night, however, when Xerxes was asleep, the same figure appeared to him again in a dream and said, “… if you do not go out on this campaign immediately, this is what will happen. You have risen rapidly to a position of prominence and importance, but you will be laid low again just as swiftly.”
Terrified by this apparition, Xerxes jumps out of bed and sends a messenger for Artabanus. He confesses to him the nightmares that have plagued him from the moment he decided to recall the expedition against the Greeks: “… ever since I’ve backed down and changed my mind, I’ve been haunted by a dream figure who does not approve of what I’m doing at all. In fact he threatened me just now, and then disappeared. If this dream is being sent by a god and he will be satisfied only when the campaign against Greece takes place, the same dream should wing its way to you as well, and give you the same instructions as it did me.”
Artabanus tries to calm Xerxes: “In actual fact, … dreams don’t come from the gods, my son …. The visions that occur to us in dreams are, more often than not, the things we have been concerned about during the day. And, you see, we have been extremely occupied with this expedition for some days now.”
But Xerxes cannot calm down: the phantom continues to visit him, exhorting him to go to war. He proposes that since Artabanus does not believe him, he should put on the royal robes, sit on the royal throne, and then, at night, lie down on the royal bed. Artabanus does this and while he was asleep the same dream figure came to him as had appeared to Xerxes. The figure stood over Artabanus and said, “So you’re the one who has been trying to discourage Xerxes from attacking Greece, are you? … Well, you will not escape punishment, either now or in the future, for trying to deflect the inevitable.”…
Artabanus dreamt that as well as making these threats the phantom was about to burn his eyes out with red-hot skewers. He uttered a loud cry, jumped out of bed, and sat himself down next to Xerxes. First he described what he had seen in his dream, and then he said, … “Since your impetuousness is god-given, and since the destruction overtaking the Greeks is apparently heavensent, it is my turn to back down and change my mind.”…
Later, with Xerxes all intent on his campaign, he had a third dream one night, in which he saw himself wearing a garland made out of sprigs of an olive-tree whose branches overshadowed the whole world, but then the garland disappeared from his head. He described the dream to the Magi and they interpreted its reference to the whole world as meaning that he would gain dominion over the whole human race.
“Negusi,” I said in the morning and started to pack, “we’re going back to Addis Ababa.”
“No problem!” he answered cheerfully and smiled, showing his fantastically white teeth.
XERXES
The end is not apparent
From the very outset.
—Herodotus
Much like the phantom from Herodotus’s account, this scene continued to haunt me long after our return to Addis Ababa. Its message is pessimistic, fatalistic: man has no free will. He carries his fate within him like his genetic code—he must go where, and do what, destiny has ordained. Predestination is the Supreme Being, an omnipresent and all-encompassing Cosmic Causal Force. No one is above it—not the King of Kings, not even the gods themselves. Which is why the apparition that visits Xerxes does not have the shape of a god. One could negotiate with a god, one could disobey and even try to fool him; with destiny, that is impossible. It is anonymous and amorphous, lacking a name or distinct features, and all it does is warn, command, or threaten. When does it do this?
With his fate immutably inscribed, man has but to read the script and enact it faithfully, point by point. If he interprets it erroneously, or else attempts to alter it, then the phantom of fate will appear, at first to shake its finger at him, and failing that to bring misfortune and punishment down upon the braggart’s head.
The condition for survival, therefore, is humility vis-à-vis one’s destiny. Xerxes at first accepts his mission, which is to exact vengeance on the Greeks for their having insulted the Persians generally and his father in particular. He declares war against them and vows not to rest until he conquers Athens and sets it on fire. Later, however, listening to the voices of reason, he changes his mind. He suppresses thoughts of war, sets aside the invasion plans, pulls back. It is then that the phantom appears in his dreams: “Madman,” it seems to be saying, “do not hesitate! It is your destiny to strike against the Greeks!”
Initially, Xerxes tries to ignore the nighttime visitant, to treat it as an illusion, to rise above it somehow. But by doing so he only further irritates and angers the phantom, which appears once more by his throne and bedside, this time seriously offended, menacing. Xerxes looks around for succor, wondering if perhaps the weight of his responsibility has not driven him mad—he must make a decision, after all, that will determine the fate of the world, and as will eventually become clear, determine it for the next thousand years. He summons his uncle, Artabanus. “Help!” he pleads. The latter at first counsels Xerxes to ignore the dream: we dream about what has preoccupied us during the day, that is all. The dream, Artabanus says, is but a chimera.
The king is not convinced, because the phantom does not relent; it becomes more importunate and implacable than ever. Finally even Artabanus—a sensible and a wise man, a rationalist and a skeptic—bows to the ghostly presence, not only abandoning his earlier position, but changing from doubter into ardent believer, an executor of the phantom-fate’s decree: “Move against the Greek? Let’s go—at once!” Man is in thrall to both the earthly and the spiritual world, and in this episode we can see that the power of spirits is greater than the power of material reality.
Hearing about these nightmares of Xerxes, the average Persian or Greek mig
ht murmur, “Gods, if such a mighty person, the King of Kings, the ruler of the world, is but a pawn in the hands of destiny, then what about me, an ordinary man, a nothing, a mote of dust!” There is cause for comfort in this thought, relief—even optimism.
Xerxes is an odd figure. Although he ruled the world quite some time (almost the entire known world, in fact, with the exception of two cities, Athens and Sparta, to his unremitting torment), we know little about him. He assumed the throne at age thirty-two. He was consumed by desire for absolute power—power over everything and everyone. I am reminded of the title of a newspaper story I once noticed, whose author I unfortunately do not recall: “Mother, will we have everything someday?” That is precisely what animated Xerxes: he wanted to have everything. No one opposed him, because one would have had to pay with one’s head for doing so. But in such an atmosphere of acquiescence, it takes only one dissenting voice for the ruler to feel anxiety, to hesitate. It was thus with Artabanus’s objection. Xerxes lost his nerve, grew so uncertain having heard his uncle that he decided to abandon his plans of conquest. But these are human impulses, conflicts, and doubts; a Higher Power, the Deciding One, now steps onto the earthly stage. And from here on all will follow its decree. Fate must be fulfilled; you cannot alter or avoid it, even if it leads into an abyss.
Therefore Xerxes, in accordance with the Voice of Destiny’s commands, goes to war. He recognizes his greatest strength, the East’s strength, Asia’s strength—numbers, the immeasurable human mass, and trusts that its weight and momentum will crush and pulverize the enemy. (Scenes from World War I come to mind: In Poland’s lake district of Mazury, Russian generals storming German positions sent forth entire regiments in which only a portion of the soldiers had rifles—and those lacking ammunition.)