Alexander the Great Page #6

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I am not sending you to Babylon.

Who, then, will the king hold

as hostage for your loyalty?

You'll go to Miletus with the rest of the

women and wait for news of Granicus.

- As you will.

- As I will.

I will many things.

I can't believe in what you're doing.

Nor do I think that you do.

- You have eyes and cannot see.

- I see that I have no choice.

- No choice but to lead Greeks to death?

- They're mercenaries. They fight for pay.

- And you?

- You ask me that now?

Shall I ask it of your body

when it's brought back?

- Would you have me play the traitor?

- What would you betray?

Half the night I've sat and listened to

your talk of Babylon, the king, his nobles.

Even in your troubled sleep, the words

you spoke drew a picture of twisted men

to whom wheat stands higher

than a man's life.

Who else opposes Alexander?

- Who else should?

- Every man who hates tyranny.

Which do you hate most,

tyranny or Alexander?

- Those words are strange.

- This empire for which you fight

is old and corrupt and begs destruction.

- The world we live in begs destruction.

- No. It needs a new force, a new idea.

And that idea has come to Asia,

as it came to Greece.

And like Greece, it's here.

You see it, but you don't understand it.

Alexander.

I am both Persian and Greek,

and I know both worlds.

Perhaps the Athens in which

we believe is old and corrupt, too,

but its ideas and glories

are worth keeping alive.

Whose glories? Athens' or Alexander's?

Both, if needs be. A Persian victory

will not do this. Alexander's will.

If you could not see it when he spoke

in Athens, you must see it now.

Did you, when you

went into exile with me?

- I wasn't sure.

- But you went.

- I am your wife.

- That's a word in your heart?

- You ask me that now?

- Yes, now.

For I believe he's never left

either your mind or your heart, has he?

- It's a bitter farewell.

- Memnon...

For you, Memnon, I plead for you.

At Troy, Achilles found

his Hector and killed him.

Who will be my Hector?

To the god of battles!

Charge!

(Cleitus) Alexander! Duck!

You treacherous,

murderous Persian dogs!

We ask for quarter.

Every Greek in the world was pledged by

sacred oath not to take arms against me.

- I gave no such oath.

- But you were bound by it, like your men.

We now stand on the field of battle -

you the victor, we the vanquished.

No. I as captain general of all Greece,

and you as traitor to your people.

Not for myself but for my men,

again I ask for quarter.

Ask it of the Persians, who deserted you.

How will you celebrate this victory?

At Chaeronea your father danced over the

bodies of Greeks who fought for freedom.

Freedom?

You fight for pay! Earn it!

Then let it be to the death.

Of all the Greeks who fought at Granicus,

no one escaped alive.

This, Alexander,

is the legend of the Gordian knot.

In many years past,

when we were sorely pressed,

it was said that a king

would arrive in a village cart

who would help us and become our ruler.

This came about.

And the king was Gordius,

who left his cart here, as it stands,

with this message:

That anyone who could unravel this knot

would become ruler of Asia.

Many have tried.

All have failed.

(man) Ephesus, Sardis, Helicarnassus.

He is cutting off the Persian fleet from

every port along the coast of Asia Minor.

Alexander's turning

the Aegean Sea into a Greek lake!

Alexander, your wound!

These Greeks to Macedonia,

to till the soil and work in the mines

to the end of their days.

The entire population

to be sold into slavery.

And you, Athenians,

you citizens of the capital of the world,

you representatives of its culture,

you dignitaries, emissaries, whom I find

in Persia still conspiring with Darius

as you did against my father,

you will be held with us

as hostages for Athens' fickle favours.

Do you think to win her favour by what

you did at Miletus or Zeleia or Granicus?

Do you think those at home

will ever forget such savagery?

And for those of us who might have come

over to you, we have had our warning.

Against you it must be to the death!

Yours the victory,

yours... the spoils.

You will be treated...

according to your rank.

- Barsine.

- Alexander, conqueror!

- Is he?

- That's for you to say.

- No, you.

- You sacked a city.

- Look at me.

- Burned it.

- Look at me!

- Looted, pillaged, taken a woman.

What do you expect to see?

- What I saw in your eyes when I awoke.

- Because you want it so?

- What I saw in your eyes in Athens.

- There I betrayed Memnon with my soul.

Here at Miletus, Alexander must be loved.

And where is Alexander's love? "You will

be treated according to your rank"!

- I did not mean...

- Those were your words!

My rank is hers.

I will share both her glory and her shame.

(whispers) Alexander!

What?

- I did not speak.

- Your lips formed words.

What do you now fear to say

that you did not fear to say last night?

What thoughts drive

through your storm-tossed brain?

Thoughts?

Storm-tossed?

You chose to go.

Go.

My head turns.

It swims.

And why must you

always choose to be alone?

Alexander... now look at me.

These were found on the battlefield.

From Demosthenes... to Darius.

We need wait for the Athenian fleet no

longer. Let's face it here, now, in Miletus.

Athens is not with us, neither is Greece.

We have been betrayed!

- Betrayed.

- It's over.

- Whose voice do you speak with?

- I speak for myself.

- The quarrel is not here.

- The issue is.

It has not been stated.

I see it in all your eyes...

and your thoughts:

"Turn back. Turn back."

There is nothing in my eyes, nor in

my thoughts, that is not on my tongue.

Nor ever will there be.

Command, and I'll follow.

That is not enough. You're Macedonians,

not Persian slaves. I want your hearts!

You propose to go on - without

the Athenian fleet, without support,

with a lifeline that stretches back more

than a thousand leagues into Macedonia.

This is what your father would have done.

He would have left a garrison here,

taken back the spoils to Macedonia

in what little fleet we have left,

forced Athens into supporting us, then

invaded with an army five times as strong.

This your father would have done!

My father! My father! My father!

I am Alexander, not my father!

The hand that plunged the dagger into my

father's body was the hand of my friend.

And I slew my friend.

Mine the sin, too.

The crown is mine

by right of birth, isn't it?

# Philip the Barbarian

Philip the Barbarian

And nothing can stand in the way

of Alexander's destiny, can it?

What's man's fate is man's fate,

both yours and mine.

Macedonians, I am disbanding our fleet

and sending it back

to Macedonian shores.

We came here to Asia to conquer,

to win... or to die.

Do you need further words from me?

You Greeks in chains,

who fought for Persian pay,

are free to go back to your homes

or to serve under me as you choose.

For it is your birthright as Greeks

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