Review: The Hittite by Ben Bova

The Hittite capital of Hattusa was a smoldering ruin by the time Lukka and his squad of Hatti soldiers arrived  to rescue their families.  Lukka found his dying father in the ruins of his ancestral home but could not find his wife or two young sons.  His father gasps that Lukka's wife has taken his sons and fled the city and makes Lukka promise him that he will find his  grandsons so they will not end their days as slaves.

Lukka learns that the king has been killed and civil war has broken out between the two heirs to the throne and the empire that has dominated Asia Minor since the 18th century BCE is in its last death throes.  He gathers his men, pointing out to them that they stand a better chance of survival if they stay together, then strikes out on the trail of his wife and sons.

Image via Wikipedia

THE LION GATE AT HATTUSA, TURKEY. 

Lukka discovers, however, that his family has been captured by slavers who seem to be headed toward the great city of Troy, near the fabled Hellespont.  So, he and his men press on until they find themselves standing on the plain before Troy and discover that it is beseiged by a rather disorganized rabble of Greeks still armed with soft bronze weapons while  Lukka's Hatti soldiers have the latest iron swords, helmets and studded armor.

The Hatti are also skilled in fighting in disciplined formations and soon draw the attention of both King Agamemnon and the legendary Odysseus when they bravely face down a chariot charge by Hector himself. Lukka and his men are invited to join the household of Odysseus and soon Lukka learns that his wife and sons are indeed in the Greek camp but have been sold to King Agamemnon.  Odysseus tells Lukka that Agamemnon won't give up his slaves willingly and relates the latest dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles.  He advises Lukka to be patient and Odysseus will help him secure the return of his family when the opportunity presents itself.

Image via Wikipedia

TROJANS AND GREEKS FROM THE VERGILIUS ROMANUS

He then asks Lukka if he will serve as an envoy to the Trojans to carry the latest peace offering from the Greeks.  Lukka agrees and is taken into the city of Troy where he meets King Priam, Prince Hector, Prince Paris and, of course, the beautiful Helen.  He presents the Greek's offer to withdraw if Helen is returned to Menelaus and the Trojans are surprised that the Greeks are no longer demanding the return of Helen's dowry that she brought with her from Sparta.

Lukka is asked to remain in a guest room while the new offer is considered by the council and while there he is summoned into a private audience chamber where he finds Helen alone except for her servant, her nurse since early childhood.  Helen is impressed with his forthright integrity and questions him about the Greeks' true motivations.  Lukka fights to control his attraction to her and discovers she is both thoughtful and practiced in
statecraft herself.

Ultimately, the Trojans reject the peace treaty, though, and Lukka returns to the Greek encampment.  The events of the Iliad unfold before Lukka's eyes - the death of Patroclus, the death of Hector and finally the death of Achilles, though a suicide and not because of any mythical vulnerability near his heel.
Lukka meets with Odysseus and explains that his men are skilled in the construction of siege towers that they have used many times in sieges prosecuted by the Hatti.  So Odysseus convinces Agamemnon to authorize the construction of one of the Hatti siege towers that they will cover with wet horsehides to protect the men inside from flaming missiles.

An early seige tower used by King Sennacherib against
the walls of Lachish.  Image courtesy of Archaeology of the Bible.  

Using the siege tower, Lukka and his men scale the walls of Troy and open the gates to let in Odysseus' waiting men and the rest, as they say, is history (or myth?).

But when Lukka returns he learns that the high king has ordered a celebratory sacrifice of not only prisoners but slaves that have served the Greeks but are no longer needed now that the Greeks are readying their ships to return home.  Lukka races to find Odysseus to ask him to plead for the return of Lukka's family before it's too late.

Author Ben Bova recounts the hellish scene as prisoners and slaves are lashed towards a waiting cadre of priests, bloodied up to their elbows before gore-covered altar stones.

Will Lukka rescue his family?  And what of Helen's fate?

Award winning science fiction writer, Ben Bova has written more than 120 science fiction and non fiction texts over the course of a career than spans six decades.  I was unaware of his background in science fiction when I ordered The Hittite on Audible.com, which was listed under historical fiction.

So, as an historical fiction enthusiast who enjoys learning about ancient cultures through characters in a fictional narrative, were my expectations met?  Surprisingly, I found Bova's novel as pragmatic as any other historical drama I have read.  I found it carefully researched, unfolding without any fantasy elements, despite the fact that it was a retelling of Homer's Iliad through the eyes of a Hittite officer.

Greeks and Trojans alike referred to their beliefs in gods and goddesses but no dieties actually made any physical appearances in human or even non-human form, much like Peterson's film version, "Troy".

I also learned more about the Hittite civilization, my original purpose for selecting this book.
Although I have studied the battle of Kadesh between the Hittites and the Egyptians and have listened to Professor Kenneth Harl's course, Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor some years ago , I knew relatively little about the Hatti (the real name of these people) except that they were fierce warriors from Asia Minor and the northern Levant who used heavily armored chariots in battle.

The Hittites with their iron weapons and swift chariots were a lethal
combination in the late Bronze Age.  Image courtesy of
World History to 1500 Blog

I was surprised to learn in Bova's book that, although the time period was technically the end of the Bronze Age, the Hatti had already developed iron weapons even though the Greeks and Trojans were still fighting with bronze weapons.  Their use of iron as early as the 14th century BCE was discovered after royal archives containing cuneiform tablets were recovered and later translated during the 19th century.

Image via Wikipedia

Relief depicting the last known king of Hatti, Suppiluliuma II 

"The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a "People of Hattusas" discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo and Hamath in Northern Syria. In 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Two of the letters from a "kingdom of Kheta" -- apparently located in the same
general region as the Mesopotamian references to "land of Hatti" -- were written in standard Akkadian cuneiform script, but in an unknown language; although scholars could read it, no one could understand it. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the "kingdom of Kheta" mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others such as Max Müller agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, but proposed connecting it with Biblical Kittim, rather than with the 'Children of Heth'." - Wikipedia 

The Hittite capital of Hattusa was destroyed about 1178 BCE and this would have placed its destruction in the period scholars place the Trojan War, just as put forward in Bova's book, The empire's collapse was brought about by a civil war with Hittite vassals, the Kaskas, a mountain people from the Pontic region of Anatolia, and the Bryges, predecessors to the Phrygians who lived in western Anatolia.   Simultaneously, the fabled "Sea Peoples" attacked Hittite holdings in Cyprus requiring the last Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II,  to engage in one of the earliest naval battles recorded in history off the coast of Cyprus.  Then the Assyrians took advantage of this distraction by further encroaching Hittite lands in the east.  This period of history was obviously a dangerous and brutal environment as the "Dark Age" began to descend over the Mediterranean basin and I could easily envision marauding bands of former soldiers, slavers and thieves ravaging the countryside as depicted in the novel.

Cast of a relief depicting the Sea Peoples at the British Museum
Photographed by Ferrell Jenkins

The stark difference in military discipline and strategies known to the Hittites but unknown to the Greeks is also confirmed in the historical record.

"The Hittites perfected chariot warfare in what one might call the Golden Age of Chariotry. The chariot of the Late Bronze Age was a very lightweight vehicle pulled by two small horses, useful for it's rapid mobility as an archery, javelin, and spear platform. They fought in large formations, leaving to the archers and infantry masses the tasks of assaulting city walls and occupying territory once it was captured." - Introduction to the Hittites by Steve Thurston. 2001.  

A Hittite officer like Lukka would have been appalled to see the Greek chariots dashing haphazardly around the battlefield as Greek nobleman sought individual glory rather than overall victory in the engagement.

I also appreciated Bova's obvious research into the historical fortifications of Troy. Archaeologists who have examined the remains of Troy VIIa , thought to be the Homeric level of occupation at the site of Hisarlik, observe,

" In the area of the east gate (VI S) between Sections 2 and 3, a southern extension added to Section 2 made the approach to this gate more difficult for attackers. The masonry of this addition, much less regular than that characteristic of the fortifications of Troy VI, utilized many of the fallen blocks from the walls of Troy VI. Repair of the main south gate (VI T) involved paving the entrance passage here and installing a drain under the paving. Extensive repairs to the south and southeast portion of the wall (Sections 3-4) were also undertaken." - Troy VII and the historicity of the Trojan War

Bova's Hittite protagonist observes these Trojan efforts to reinforce the south and east defensive walls and recommends that the Greeks use a siege tower to surmount the west wall, a natural barrier, which is lower and has not been artificially reinforced .

Image via Wikipedia

THE FALL OF TROY, DETAIL. SIDE A FROM AN
ATTIC RED-FIGURE KYLIX, CA. 490 BCE

Bova's description of the sack of Troy also reflected the brutality often endured by conquered cities in t
he ancient world although some readers may take issue with the scenes in the novel describing wholesale human sacrifice by the so-called "noble" Greeks after the victory, even though the sacrifice of captives and dogs at the funeral of Patroclus was related by Homer in the Iliad (23.173-6).

Archaeological excavations of Mycenean chamber tombs have yielded human remains mixed with animal bones, including dogs, at a number of sites although archaeologists of the period, particularly those working in the late 19th and early 20th century have been reluctant to attribute these findings to the practice of human sacrifice.



"In 1887 and 1888 [Christos] Tsountas excavated fifty-two chamber tombs in the vicinity of Mycenae and reported that human bones were often found in the dromoi.  In the dromos of Tomb 15 Tsountas found six skeletons buried one over the other, at different depths, in the stone fill before the triangle above the door.  With the skeletons were some undecorated potsherds and some animal bones." - Human sacrifice in ancient Greece by Dennis D. Hughes.  Routledge.  1991

Although researchers have attempted to attribute these findings to displacement by tomb robbers or subsequent multiple burials, evidence on Cyprus, including the discovery of bound skeletal victims, points directly to the introduction of ritual killing by Greek-speaking colonists in the mid-eleventh century BCE.

Hector's Body depicted on Roman Sarcophagus made in Greece 180-220 CE.  Photographed
at the Getty Villa by Mary Harrsch.

One such example was found in tomb 422 of the Necropolis of Kastros, Lapithos.

"The uppermost skeleton was covered with two stone slabs, with a third smaller slab placed over its neck.  Of this uppermost skeleton 'the shoulder-blades were on top of the ribs, the processes of the spinal column were turned up, the hands were tied to each other and the feet were crossed'.  It was concluded that the body had been laid face down, bound hand and foot, in the dromos.  Beneath it were the skull and scattered bones of a second skeleton ('from the position of the bones it seems that the body had been placed there in a mutilated condition'), and on the bottom a damaged skeleton lay in outstretched position with the head towards the entrace of the dromos (and in a direction opposite to that of the topmost skeleton).  Next to the lowermost burial were an amphora and a jug.  Also found in the dromos were two rectangular blocks of poros stone, each with a rectangular hole cut in its middle.  Cuttings in the rock edge of the dromos suggest that the larger of the blocks had originally lain across the dromos.  Gjerstad, who discussed only the larger block, interpreted it as a sacrificial table upon which the three persons whose remains were found in the dromos were immolated, whereupon 'their blood poured down in the hole to satisfy the spirit of the deceased, buried in the tomb'."  - Human sacrifice in ancient Greece by Dennis D. Hughes.  Routledge.  1991

This description is chillingly similar to the horrific scene Bova describes in the hours following the fall of Troy.

So, I think Ben Bova should be welcomed into the genre of historical fiction with open arms and hope he will continue the story of Lukka and his unlikely troupe, especially since The Hittite was written with a conclusion portending a sequel.

Related articles

• Ben Bova predicted Sputnik in 1949, but no publisher would touch his novel [Political Science (fiction)] (io9.com)

         

Review: King of Kings: Warrior of Rome Book 2 by Harry Sidebottom

Marcus Claudius Ballista, a warrior of Rome despite his origins in the wilds of Germania, returns to the court of the Emperor Valerian after a valiant but futile defense of the (fictional) Syrian stronghold of Arete in the second installment of Harry Sidebottom's Warrior of Rome series, "King of Kings'.  Unfortunately, the fragile old emperor Valerian, who knowingly sent Ballista on what amounted to a suicide mission, is neither grateful for Ballista's courageous stand or even appreciative that he returned alive.  The feeble emperor has fallen under the sway of an unscrupulous courtier who has his eyes on the purple and is plotting to use a war with the Sassanid Persians to eliminate the old man and seize the throne for his two sons. 

But Ballista, with his battle experience and knowledge of eastern customs and battle strategies represents a threat to the conspiracy.  So, the wily Macrianus the Lame engineers another near suicide mission to save another besieged town. But, when Ballista manages to best the Sassanids once again, Macrianus sidelines Ballista to an administrative post in Ephesus where he has been given a mandate to persecute the new religious sect known as Christians.  Since Christians betrayed Ballista at the siege of Arete, he has no qualms, initially, to oversee the trials of arrested believers.  But as the brutality of the persecution promoted by a zealous local magistrate becomes painfully clear, Ballista devises a plan to use the law itself to halt the distasteful purge. 

But Macrianus had intended for Ballista to fail and uses the opportunity to replace Ballista with Macrianus' own ruthless son, Quietus, to gain even more favor with Valerian.  Once again Ballista finds himself back in Antioch and more out-of-favor than ever.  Treated as a pariah by most of the powerful at the imperial court, Ballista whiles away his time hunting with one of his few friends, the future emperor Aurelian.  Finally, Ballista is asked to serve as a lowly baggage train officer in the army the emperor has assembled to confront Shapur I, the King of Kings.  This fateful battle, that eventually results in the capture of Valerian, takes place near

Image via Wikipedia

Rock relief at Naqsh-e Rostam showing the Roman
Emperor Valerian kneeling before Persian King Shapur I

Edessa.

Macrianus has conveniently been left safely in Samosata with the imperial treasury while Quietus continues to pour honey in the ear of the old emperor convincing him to rely on the services of a turncoat, despite the fact that it is apparent to everyone else, particularly Ballista, that the army is being led into a trap.  At the last moment, the guide disappears and Quietus convinces Valerian to send Quietus back to Samosata for help (and safely out of harm's way), leaving Ballista to face the tightening Persian encirclement.  

Image via Wikipedia

The Humiliation of Emperor Valerian by Shapur,
King of Persia by Hans Holbein the Younger.

When I wrote my review of "Fire In the East: Warrior of Rome Book 1", I didn't realize Ballista was a real Roman commander of the period.  I had searched in vain for a real city named Arete that underwent a siege at about the time period covered by the novel and when I didn't find one, I assumed that the entire book was fictional (except for references to the emperor Valerian and the Persian king Shapur I.  Now, researching my review for Book 2, "King of Kings", I found references to a praetorian prefectus named Ballista who served in various capacities under Valerian. 

He was a notable man, skilled in administering the commonwealth, vehement in counsel, winning fame in campaigns, without an equal in providing for rations, and so highly esteemed by Valerian that in a certain letter he honoured him with the following testimony:

 "From Valerian to Ragonius Clarus, prefect of Illyricum and the provinces of Gaul. If you are a man of good judgement, my kinsman Clarus, as I know that you are, you will carry out the arrangements of Ballista. Model your government on them. Do you see how he refrains from burdening the provincials, how he keeps the horses in places where there is fodder and exacts the rations for his soldiers in places where there is grain, how he never compels the provincials or the land-holders to furnish grain where they have no supply, or horses where they have no pasture? There is no arrangement better than to exact in each place what is there produced, so that the commonwealth may not be burdened by transport or other expenses. Galatia is rich in grain, Thrace is well stocked, and Illyricum is filled with it; so let the foot-soldiers be quartered in these regions, although in Thrace cavalry, too, can winter without damage to the provincials, since plenty of hay can be had from the fields. As for wine and bacon and other forms of food, let them be handed out in those places in which they abound in plenty. All this is the policy of Ballista, who gave orders that any province should furnish only one form of food, namely that in which it abounded, and that from it the soldiers should be kept away. This, in fact, has been officially decreed." - Historia Augusta, Vol III p. 111-113

The villains of the story, Macrianus the Lame and his two sons Macrianus the Younger and Quietus, are also real persons. The ancient sources during this tumultuous period are fragmentary at best but most sources refer to The Macriani as usurpers although I could not find any outright accusations of treachery against Valerian as portrayed in the novel.

"Being now engaged in the war with the Persians, Conscript Fathers, I have entrusted all public affairs, and even those which concern the war, to Macrianus. He is faithful to you, loyal to me, and both beloved and feared by the soldiers. He with his army will act as the case shall demand. And in this, Conscript Fathers, there is nothing new or unexpected by us. For while a boy in Italy, while a youth in Gaul, while a mature man in Africa, and, finally, while well advanced in years in Illyricum and Dalmatia, his valour has been well proved, for in divers battles he has done brave deeds which may serve as a pattern to others." - Valerian, Historia Augusta, Vol. III p. 100. 

However, despite Valerian's implicit trust in Macrianus, like Sidebottom, I find it curious that somehow Macrianus managed to separate himself from Valerian's ill-fated expedition and safely ensconce himself in Samosata with the imperial treasure. It also seems conveniently fortuitous that neither of Macrianus' sons, so lauded by Valerian for their bravery, were captured by the Persians on the expedition in which Valerian himself was seized. 

Some scholars speculate that Ballista was actually a supporter of the Macriani even though in Sidebottom's novel, the Macriani are Ballista's worst enemies. The first mention of Ballista in the Historia Augusta is rather vague about the relationship between these two men.

"So then, when Gallienus and Volusianus were consuls, Macrianus and Ballista met together, called in the remains of the army, and, since the Roman power in the East was tottering, sought someone to appoint as emperor. For Gallienus was showing himself so careless of public affairs that his name was not even mentioned to the soldiers.  It was then finally decided to choose Macrianus and his sons as emperors and to undertake the defence of the state. And so the imperial power was offered to Macrianus.  Now the reasons why Macrianus and his sons should be chosen to rule were these: First of all, no one of the generals of that time was held to be wiser, and none more suited to govern the state; in the second place, he was the richest, and could by his private fortune make good the public losses.  In addition to this, his sons, most valiant young men, rushed with all spirit into the war, ready to serve as an example to the legions in all the duties of soldiers. - Historia Augusta Vol. III p. 19-20

Although Ballista did apparently meet with Macrianus after Valerian was captured, this passage of the Augusta Historia does not say Ballista supported Macrianus as the new emperor.  It sounds to me like Macrianus, as possessor of the imperial treasury, merely used gold to secure the position.

A later section of the Augusta Historia claims Ballista actively supported Macrianus and his sons but this passage was supposedly related by one Maeonius Astyanax, considered a "bogus authority" by such modern scholars as Ronald Syme in his work "Ammianus and the Historia Augusta". 

Enmity between Ballista and Macrianus and/or his sons, however, would certainly explain a later passage relating that Ballista instigated the murder of Macrianus' son, Quietus.

But those who were with Macrianus' son — whose name was Quietus — taking sides with Odaenathus, by the instigation of Ballista, Macrianus' prefect, killed the young man, and, casting his body over the wall, they all in large numbers surrendered to Odaenathus.  And so Odaenathus was made emperor over almost the whole East, while Aureolus held Illyricum and Gallienus Rome. This same Ballista murdered, in addition to Quietus and the guardian of his treasures, many of the people of Emesa, to whom Macrianus' soldiers had fled, with the result that this city was nearly destroyed. - Historia Augusta Vol. III, pp 19-23

If Ballista had supported the Macriani, why would he switch his support to Odenathus and murder Quietus?  There are no reports anywhere else in the Historia Augusta that Ballista was a man with imperial aspirations or of a duplicitous nature. So Sidebottom's scenario seems much more plausible than the conflicting information provided by the rather exasperating "historical" source of the Historia Augusta that repeatedly contradicts itself .

The Roman Emperor Aurelian

So, the real Ballista's role in the imperial succession after the capture of Valerian seems to be somewhat unclear but he is recorded as later defeating Shapur I in Asia Minor at the battle of Corycus.  These events apparently form the foundation of Sidebottom's third installment in the series, Lion of the Sun.  As I am now totally intrigued with Ballista, I look forward to reading the next book in the series.  I see on Sidebottom's website that he is presently working on a fourth novel entitled "The Caspian Gates".  I'm hoping Sidebottom ignores spurious  reports about Ballista meeting his end prematurely and will provide us with even more adventures in which Ballista serves with his friend Aurelian.  I find Aurelian fascinating and would love to learn more about his reconquest of the empire and reasons for his betrayal.

Related articles

• Bread and Circuses: Emperors of Rome Podcasts (rogueclassicism.com)

           

Review: The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon

"...it is possible to feel fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally to be affected pleasantly and painfully, either too much or too little, in either case wrongly; but to be thus affected at the right times, and on the right occasions, and towards the right persons, and with the right object, and in the right fashion, is the mean course and the best course, and these are characteristics of virtue." - Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

In her first novel, Annabel Lyon, has tackled the formidable task of imagining the life of one of the world's foremost philosophers, Aristotle. I have to admit, I knew very little about Aristotle's personal life other than the fact that he was asked by Phillip II of Macedon to tutor his young son, Alexander the Great. So a number of questions arose in my mind as I read Lyon's tale.

We meet Aristotle on his way to Macedon and find Lyon's philosopher is a rather strange man, who seems content to observe life from the shadows, but not enthusiastically embrace it. He ponders the actions of his wife as if he were musing about the behavior of a neighbor or perhaps a precocious niece, not an object of his own love (although I came to suspect Aristotle did not have the capacity for love). The couple travel with his "nephew" Callisthenes, that we learn is not really his nephew but referred to in that way to avoid unnecessary social speculation. It is obvious from comments exchanged between the older Aristotle and the young Callisthenes that some physical relationship had preceded their current situation but Aristotle makes it clear that the young man is now expected to establish his own household and take up a new life.

Image via Wikipedia

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy
after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos
from 330 BC

Callisthenes was actually Aristotle's great nephew by way of Aristotle's sister Arimneste. Whether or not the two shared more than ancestors, is not specifically recorded in the ancient sources although the Byzantine encyclopedia known as the Suda states that Palaephatus of Abydos, an historian credited with the titles of Cypriaca, Deliaca, Attica, Arabica was said to be the beloved (eromenos) of Aristotle so like other Greek aristocrats of the period, same-sex relationships were not unknown to him.

As Aristotle reminisces about his youth we learn his father, Nicomachus, was a physician and Aristotle, ever the dutiful son, trailed around after his father, carrying his kit and acting as his assistant when surgery was required.  Aristotle gets his first glimpses of internal human anatomy over the shoulder of his father who performs what we would call a Caesarean section on a young woman whose unborn child is lodged in the breech position.  Although Aristotle's father stitches the young woman up he explains to his son matter-of-factly that of course the woman will die in a day or two but the child was saved and that is a good day's work.  Although Aristotle does not shrink from the experiences encountered with his father, he decides he really does not want to become a physician.

Phillip II of Macedon, ivory. 
Courtesy of Livius.org

The reputation of his father reaches the ears of King Amyntas of Macedon, Phillip II's father, who asks him to become his personal physician.  Aristotle's family moves to the Macedonian capital where Aristotle meets Phillip, a boysterous youth with intellect and natural athleticism.  I did not know that Aristotle and Phillip knew each other as children.  I just thought Phillip asked Aristotle to be Alexander's tutor because of Aristotle's reputation. It isn't directly mentioned in the sources I checked, but it's certainly plausible since Aristotle's father spent so much time at court.  I wouldn't exactly call them friends however.

"Ours was an odd friendship, with respect and contempt barely distinguishable.  I was smart and he was hard: that was what the world saw and what we saw and liked and disliked in each other.  I was not his first friend by any stretch, but he was interested enough in me that I became known around the palace... - Anabel Lyon, The Golden Mean

Phillip apparently spent most of his time with his noble companions training to be the consummate warrior while Aristotle, having expressed a desire to learn to write tragedies, is sent to a tutor, a drunken philosopher from the school at Athens who had retreated from the world and now spent his days eternally rewriting a play in a dingy hovel in the poorer neighborhood of the city.  The lecherous old geezer uses Aristotle to procure sexual companions for the old man but does manage to impart some of the knowledge he once acquired in the academy as a classmate of Plato.

One day Aristotle returns home to find his father ill and he recognizes the symptoms of plague, a constant risk to men in his father's profession.  Aristotle and his siblings are sent away to avoid the contagion but it carries away his parents.  Aristotle, who had been invited to study at the academy in Athens, then embarks on his first adventure, to learn at the feet of the famous Plato.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Portrait Head of Alexander
Roman 1st half of the 3rd
century CE Bronze.  Santa
Barbara (CA) Museum of Art

Back in the present, Aristotle meets a curious boy of about 13 "with a ruddy face and eyes as big as a calf".  This child will become the greatest conqueror in history.  But, Lyon's Alexander is a curious boy with a savage edge to him.  When Aristotle dissects a chameleon then removes its heart and hands it to Alexander for inspection, the boy pops the bloody organ into his mouth.  When the leader of a theater troop apologizes to Aristotle and Alexander for a poorly made fake head that is to be used as a prop in a play to be presented at court, Alexander offers to produce a better one and (spoiler alert) pays a woman to poison another sick actor and hacks his head off.  (Aristotle noticed that the actors certainly sounded much more sincere when Alexander tossed them that head during the performance!)

Aristotle is frustrated by Alexander's repeated tardiness and unwillingness to ask questions in class, eventually confronting him and accusing him of a  lack of curiosity and intelligence.  But Aristotle discovers that Alexander is painfully aware, even at his very young age, of his role as future king and the need to project omniscience to his young companions that will eventually form his officer corps.  So, Aristotle arranges private lessons outside of the classroom setting.

Aristotle, as portrayed in this novel, seems to have difficulty deciphering human behavior, perhaps as a side-effect of his introverted personality.  He purchases a Scythian slave for his wife and when he asks about her past she relates to him that she was trained as a mid-wife but was forced to try to heal a previous master's sick wife.  When she failed and the woman died, the mid-wife was blamed for the death, badly mistreated and eventually sold to a disreputable slave trader.  Aristotle assures her that in his household, slaves are considered part of the family and family members are not sold.  Later, when Aristotle's wife Pythias becomes seriously ill and he orders the slave to care for her, the slave refuses, pointing out she is only a mid-wife.  Aristotle cannot seem to relate her refusal to care for his wife to her previous experience and even though he had told the woman when he brought her into the household that slaves were part of the family and never sold, he drags the woman back to the slave market.  He explains to his wife that the woman obviously was never cut out to be a slave and it was ethically wrong to retain her in that position.  At the same time he could not free her either because then she would have no place in the world.  It was if Aristotle was trapped by his own circular logic and unfortunately, the poor pathetic slave would pay the price for it. 

This lack of compassion and inability to understand even his own motivations eventually comes between Aristotle and Alexander as well.  Aristotle, though hired to tutor Alexander, encounters Alexander's brain-damaged brother Arrhidaeus and begins to teach him to care for himself and ride a horse.  There is no evidence this really occurred but it was a good plot twist to expose the nature of Aristotle and Alexander's intellectual competition.  Alexander accuses Aristotle of using Arrhidaeus as one of his projects, not helping his brother out of compassion.  It's as if Alexander, even at this young age, has already realized his understanding of human motivations surpasses that of his teacher.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Alexander the Great and his Beloved Companion
Hephaistion Side By Side As They Stood in Life at the
Getty Villa in Malibu, CA.

In later years, Alexander would send Aristotle specimens of plants and animals that his forces encountered during their conquest of Persia but the former student and old mentor apparently did not engage in friendly correspondence.  Perhaps intellectual rivalry prevented the formation of a closer relationship.  Of course it did not help that Aristotle harbored a virulent ethnocentric view of the world, either.

Aristotle advised the young conqueror to be, "...a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants'. - Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon

This did not prevent Aristotle from developing a close relationship with Hephaistion, though, and correspondence between Aristotle and Hephaistion was maintained throughout Hephaistion's life.  Surprisingly, Lyon did not include any aspect of this relationship in her novel.  In fact, Hephaistion played only a very small part in the novel's narrative despite his importance to Alexander and, historically, to Aristotle as well.


A plot development that Lyon did introduce and that I found highly unlikely was Alexander's development of "soldier's heart" after his first major military engagement.  Aristotle is called to treat a severe gash on Hephaistion's arm after Alexander apparently suffered a Hollywood-esque flash back and struck out at his closest friend, mistaking him for one of the recently defeated enemy.  This definitely heightened the drama of the story but was a literary device that would not have served the character well if the novel had encompassed Alexander's later conquests.

The term soldier's heart is a poetic sounding euphemism for what we today would call post traumatic stress syndrome, sometimes referred to as Da Costa's syndrome.  The term is thought to have been coined by physicians during the American Civil War to describe the physical manifestations of stress caused by exposure to combat including left-sided chest pains, heart palpitations, breathlessness, and fatigue in response to exertion.

I personally find it hard to believe that Alexander could have been suffering from what technically would be called acute stress disorder (as it apparently first occurred during or immediately following combat), at least this early in his military career.  I don't think Alexander would have been able to astutely assess enemy battle formations and fluidly alter his own offensive strategy to capitalize on his enemies weaknesses in major battles time after time as he historically demonstrated if he had suffered from the disorder.   Not only would a condition like "soldier's heart" impair his command decisions, but being in such a trance-like state as Lyon describes, unaware of his real surroundings, would most certainly have proved eventually fatal to not only himself but those under his command as well.

Some scholars believe Alexander and many of his men exhibited the classic symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome after the battle of Hydaspes, mostly based on the reports of high alcohol consumption which varied significantly between the accounts of Curtius Rufus and Lucius Flavius Arrianus.  (Rufus, who reported extremely heavy drinking, is considered the most suspect source as he was a student of Aristotle's school in Athens and was unfavorably disposed towards Alexander because of the rift that had developed between Aristotle and Alexander over the integration of Persian culture).  Classicist William Woodthrope Tarn also pointed to the particularly brutal conquest of southern India that followed the defeat of Porus as possible evidence Alexander and his men suffered from high levels of frustration and exhaustion.

In the ancient world, though, it was not unusual for commanders to allow their troops to violently sack cities after particularly difficult battles or sieges.  This practice not only served to generate part of the soldier's payment from the loot that could be collected, it also gave exhausted and traumatized soldiers the opportunity to exact "pay-back" and relieve their psychological stress from the brutality of combat, especially the up close and personal variety of ancient hand-to-hand warfare.  Whether Alexander recognized the need for this in India as "treatment" for his troops following their refusal to proceed any farther east after Hydaspes or Alexander simply had become so demoralized by his previously unquestioning troops' unprecedented opposition to his plans that he simply allowed it to occur, we don't really know.

An interesting study entitled "Post-Traumatic Stress Reactions before the Advent of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Potential Effects on the Lives and Legacies of Alexander the Great, Captain James Cook, Emily Dickinson, and Florence Nightingale" was published in the December 2008 issue of Military Medicine.


In it, researchers asked experts on the lives of these historic individuals to complete questions included on a typical diagnostic survey administered to patients to determine a clinical diagnoses of PTSD.  

Of Alexander, they observe, "Although until that time [his conquest of western India] he had been a peerless leader, brave, adventurous, adaptable, ingenious, and considerate of those who served under him, Alexander began to exhibit disturbing changes in his character during the return from India. First, he drove his exhausted army through the Gadrosian Desert, where two-thirds perished from dehydration, starvation, and hyperthermia hyperthermia /hy·per·ther·mia/ (-ther´me-ah) hyperpyrexia; greatly increased body temperature.hyperther´malhyperther´mic

---

malignant hyperthermia
..... Click the link for more information.. Then, he began executing the lieutenants and satraps who had served him as middle managers of the empire during his conquests to the east. By the time he reached Babylon, he was drinking heavily and had become so pathologically suspicious and easily alarmed that he regarded the "least unusual or extraordinary thing as a prodigy or a presage."

The researchers do admit Alexander's behavior could be attributed to other causes, "Diagnosing PTSD in historical figures is considerably more challenging than diagnosing PTSD in living subjects, because the instruments currently used to establish the diagnosis cannot be administered in traditional fashion.

Consequently, only the most florid historical cases of the disorder are likely to be diagnosed. Although in the present investigation we tried to circumvent this problem by having questionnaires completed by proxy for each of our subjects, the validity of data obtained in this manner, even from recognized experts, is uncertain. Moreover, historical records are only moderately helpful in establishing the diagnosis posthumously, because they rarely reveal subjects' inner feelings. For these reasons, standard criteria used to define PTSD "caseness" in contemporary patients are difficult to apply to historical figures. Nevertheless, all four of these famous subjects exhibited many of the cardinal features of PTSD in the aftermath of repeated PTEs, such that, even in the absence of responses to standardized PTSD instruments reported by the subjects themselves, the findings point to PTSD as a likely cause of the striking changes in behavior. Other diagnoses are also possible, however, and must be considered, either as alternatives to PTSD or as possible comorbidities.

For all four subjects, depression was a prominent feature of their post-traumatic psychological states and might well have been their principal disorder. In Alexander's case, because of his nearly constant inebriation for at least 7 months before he died, alcohol dependence rather than PTSD has to be considered as the principal diagnosis. It is also possible that, after more than a decade of fighting, scheming, and murdering in pursuit of absolute power, Alexander changed because he came to realize that absolute power demanded eternal vigilance.

The researchers conclude:

"The diverse premorbid personalities and backgrounds of these four patients emphasize the breadth of the susceptible population, given exposure to PTEs of sufficient intensity and duration, as well as the influence of the sociocultural environment in which the disorder arises on its clinical expression. Alexander was a warrior king whose psychological reaction to an accumulation of PTEs was dictated and then judged by the warrior society over which he presided as supreme ruler. Of these four individuals, he was endowed with perhaps the greatest resilience, which for a time seemed to inure To result; to take effect; to be of use, benefit, or advantage to an individual.

For example, when a will makes the provision that all Personal Property is to inure to the benefit of a certain individual, such an individual is given the right to receive all the personal
..... Click the link for more information. him to the adverse psychological effects of the PTEs of conquest. Eventually, however, even for him, there was a limit to the intensity and duration of PTEs that could be tolerated before he was broken psychologically.

But, The Golden Mean is, after all, a novel, so we can certainly allow the author various divergences to heighten the level of dramatic tension.

The author herself points out in her author's notes that Aristotle, in fact, did not accompany Alexander to Chaeronea as he did in the book and although historical references acknowledge that Aristotle did dissect animals, he was not known to have dissected any human beings, as he does on the battlefield of Chaeronea  in the book, since violation of the dead was considered a severe breech of piety at that time.

Lyon has also rearranged events a bit.  In the book, Pythias, Aristotle's wife, falls ill shortly after giving birth to their only daughter and it is apparent to Aristotle before he leaves for Chaeronea that Pythias is dying.  The author must have intentionally wanted to draw attention, once more, to Aristotle's strange lack of compassion by juxtaposing the imaginary junket to Chaeronea with his wife's pending death, that did not actually take place until years later in Athens.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

A rather whimsical Aquamanile depicting
Airstotle's girlfriend Herpyllis riding him around
the garden after Aristotle warned Alexander
the Great about women Copper Alloy
South Lowlands 14th century CE

I was particularly struck by the author's description of the death bed scene upon Aristotle's return from Chaeronea.  Pythias is drifting in and out of consciousness as Aristotle sits by her bedside.  Then Pythias begins rasping in the final death throes and Aristotle coldly leaves the room to go to the kitchen for a drink of water.  When he returns to the room, his wife is dead.  He seems relieved it is over and can now get back to work.  Throughout the book, Lyon's Aristotle expresses little emotion over the death of friends or family members.  He shows no grief over the death of his parents from the plague, the loss of his wife or the murder of his childhood "friend" Phillip II.  When Phillip is assassinated, Aristotle retreats, along with his "nephew" Callisthenes to the library to avoid being a victim of any out-of-control retributions.  It's as if his psyche is missing a limb.

But Aristotle himself would not view this emotional remoteness as a shortcoming, but an asset that allowed him to endure life's natural course of events and still focus on theoretical contemplation - an activity that he held up as the highest form of eudaimonia - happiness or well being (Nicomachean Ethics X.7).  He would have viewed his display of unfeeling behavior as a virtuous choice between the extremes of excess and deficiency - the ever elusive "Golden Mean".
 
In the course of the narrative, Aristotle attempts to describe the concept of the "Golden Mean' to Alexander and the boy immediately makes the connection to the reason behind Aristotle's appointment as his tutor.  Alexander's father, Phillip is the consummate warrior.  What better choice to balance his education thereby achieving the "Golden Mean" than to appoint Aristotle, the consummate philosopher?

So, as the novel ends with Alexander leaving to begin his conquest of Asia and Aristotle seeking a sterile cocoon of contemplation in his hometown of Stagira, we must ask ourselves, did Aristotle succeed in shaping Alexander into "The Golden Mean", a philosophical warrior king, balanced between conqueror and contemplative statesman?

Other resources:

Introduction to Aristotle by S. Marc Cohen, Department of Philosophy, University of Washington
Collateral Damage: How Can the Army Best Serve a Soldier With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Colonel Richard B. O’Connor, USA, Deputy Chief, Distribution Division, J-4 (Logistics), Joint Staff, the Pentagon.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review of From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival by Lawrence A. Tritle

Related articles

• When Aristotle taught Alexander (boston.com)
• Comparing Plato and Aristotle: Which Philosophy Provides a Better Foundation for Living Life to The Fullest (socyberty.com)