The Persian Boy

The Persian Boy , German title … to conquer a world empire , is a historical novel by Mary Renault (1905–1983). This story is the second part of the Alexander the Great trilogy and covers the period from the beginning of the Persian campaign (334 BC) to the death of Alexander (323 BC).

The first part of this novel trilogy, Fire from Heaven (Eng. "Fire from Olympus") describes Alexander's youth, the third part, Funeral Games (Eng. "Deadly Dance"), the Diadoch fights , the dispute between Alexander's generals over his empire .

content

short version

The first-person narrator of the novel, Bagoas , son of a murdered Persian nobleman, is enslaved and cut into a eunuch . He comes to the court of Great King Darius III as a pleasure boy . and after his murder to Alexander the Great. Bagoas becomes Alexander's lover and accompanies him on his campaigns to conquer the Persian Empire. He experienced forced marches, battles, treason, assassinations, Alexander's marriage to Roxane , the train to India, the death march back to Persia and finally Alexander's death in Babylon . Bagoas spends his old age at the court of the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy I - a circumstance that he refers to several times in the text of the novel, as if by the way.

Long version

Childhood and disaster

Bagoas, the ten-year-old son of the Persian nobleman Artembaren, a Pasargadai from the family of the great king Cyrus II , lives with his parents and three sisters in his father's castle in the west of Susa . Artembaren is a partisan of Arses , the opponent of the powerful Chiliarch (first court minister) Bagoas , who happens to have the same name as the son of Artembaren. When Minister Bagoas succeeds in poisoning Arses, he also wants to destroy his friends. The castle of Artembaras is conquered by betrayal, the lord of the castle mutilated and beheaded, his wife commits suicide, Bagoas' sisters are raped and kidnapped, he himself is the spoils of a captain who sells him to a slave trader. Bagoas had heard his father shouting at him as he was dying that Orxines had betrayed them all.

The dealer has Bagoas neutered so that he can be sold at a high price as a eunuch.

It is said that women forget the pain of childbirth; of course, they are in the hands of nature. No hand took away my agony. My body was one pain in a world of darkness. Only when I'm dead will I no longer feel it.

It was bought by a jeweler who soon hired it out to its customers as a pleasure boy. At that time, Darius III. Persian great king and this forces the minister Bagoas to empty the poison cup intended for the king himself. The palace eunuch Oromedon buys Bagoas and trains him to be a royal playmate - at the same time as Alexander destroys the Persian army at Issus and the great king's harem falls into his hands, which he treats with great respect, contrary to the custom of the time. Soon the young eunuch comes to the court and soon into Dareios' bedroom. He very quickly learns to master the complicated court ceremonies just as perfectly as the love games he demands.

Lustboy of Dareios

Because Bagoas learns to dance and sing wonderfully, he becomes the great king's favorite. Since he was a friend of the murdered Artembare, he treats his son very kindly, giving him nice clothes, an apartment, a slave and his own horse. After a long siege, Alexander had conquered Tire and moved to Egypt. Now he returns, penetrates the media and Persia and Dareios approaches him with his troops, with whom the court - with Bagoas - is. At Gaugamela there is a battle, Alexander wins and Darius fled to Ekbatana , while Alexander first marched into Babylon and Susa, finally conquered Persepolis and set fire to it. When the Persian troops learn that the Macedonians are following them over the mountains, they mutinate and the princes, with Nabarzanes and Bessus at their head, depose Darius. Bessos is proclaimed the new great king and Dareios is murdered soon after. Bagoas flees into the woods, is picked up by Nabarzanes, who has meanwhile left Bessos, and declares himself ready to serve as a gift from this prince to Alexander. Alexander forgives Nabarzanes, sends him back to his lands and keeps Bagoas as a servant.

Alexander's lover

Bagoas is initially amazed at the lack of ceremonial and the frankness of the Macedonians towards their king. He soon realizes that Hephaestion is Alexander's favorite and gets to know Alexander's favorite horse , Bucephalus , which was stolen from the Mardier tribe and brought back after Alexander's campaign against them. As he witnesses the king tending to the wounded, he begins to understand the soldiers' love for him. Darius' brother Oxathres is now one of Alexander's "companions" because he wants to avenge the cruel death of his brother on the main culprit Bessus. When Bagoas is saved by Alexander from the violence of the royal squires who despise him, he knows:

I thought there goes my lord that I was born to follow. I found a king. And, I said to myself as I looked after him as he walked away, I have to have him for life and death.

A few days after the invasion of Zadrakarta , Alexander gives Bagoas to understand that he sees more in him than a servant, whereupon Bagoas seduces him and since then has often shared the bed with the king. In doing so, he realizes that despite being castrated, he can both give pleasure and feel. Hephaestion notices what is happening and there is therefore constant tension between him and Bagoas. Bagoas instinctively feels that Hephaestion is and will always be something very special to Alexander, which is why he again discards thoughts of murder.

Conquests and crises

In a competition he wins against the best dancers and is decorated with the crown of victory by Alexander to the applause of the army. Alexander is interested in the Persian court ceremony and is taught in it by Bagoas. Soon afterwards the marches through the not yet subjugated provinces of the Persian Empire begin. In Bactria , on the hunt for Bessus, Alexander learns of a murder plot against him, about which General Philotas had been informed but had kept it secret. For this reason, Alexander from the assembly of Macedonian soldiers has both him and his father Parmenion sentenced to death because of the danger of a revolt by his troops. Bessos escapes over the Oxus to Sogdiana and is extradited by local tribal chiefs who hope to be spared. Alexander nevertheless conquered the country up to Jaxartes , he was badly wounded while storming a fortress. After his recovery he attacks the Scythians and falls ill with dysentery . At the trial against Bessus - he is executed the Persian way - Alexander wears the great king's miter for the first time. When he tried to introduce the footfall ( Proskynesis ), he made a number of bitter enemies among the Macedonians, above all the historian Callisthenes . In a dispute about this, the military leader Kleitos the black insults the king, who murders him in blind fury with a spear.

Alexander is deeply desperate, but his soldiers stand by him and Bagoas, together with his rival Hephaistion, manages to cheer him up again. After many marches and battles, Alexander conquers the Sogdian Rock , the castle of King Oxyartes of Sogdiana , which is considered invincible . At the peace celebration he sees Roxane, Oxyartes' daughter, and marries her despite the protests of his Macedonians. Roxane quickly recognizes the opponent for Alexander's favor in Bagoas and tries to poison him. When Alexander found out, he beats her - and thereby increased her respect.

“She thinks all the more of me now. I didn't consider that. "

So that's why he stayed away so long! I put on a serious expression in time. "My lord, strength is very important to the ladies of Sogdiana."

Train to India

Bagoas learned to read and write Greek from the philosopher Philostratus, Callisthenes' competitor - according to his own admission, he did not master the Persian script until the end of his life. Callisthenes incites the royal squires to murder Alexander. The Macedonian Assembly condemns those involved to death by stoning , Callisthenes is imprisoned and later dies of a fever in India. The dog Peritas, which the squires had drugged to get to Alexander, dies of the consequences - Alexander names the newly founded city Perita (?) On a Persian-Indian passport after him.

The army is made up of the same peoples that served under Darius, but better armed and trained. For Alexander the Indus and above all the Ganges are the next destination on the way to the end of the world. He had the baggage wagons burned with the spoils of war and marched to the Indian King Omphis , whom he offered an alliance against King Porus . The army moves over the Khyber Pass to the Indus, Bagoas convinces the king that he will withstand the campaign.

"Just because we have women's voices doesn't mean we're weak like women."

The mountain fortresses of the locals are conquered, Alexander is wounded twice and nursed back to health by Bagoas. When Bucephalus dies - the city of Bucephala is named after him - Bagoas overcomes himself and brings Hephaestion to comfort the king. After crossing the Hydaspes , Alexander defeats King Porus and makes peace with him. Alexander's plan to go to the borders of the world in the east causes the Macedonian soldiers to mutiny, a sacrificial oracle is negative and he renounces it. Now the army is marching to the southwest alongside the Hydaspes and Indus rivers, accompanied by a fleet. When the Maller storms a city , Alexander is badly wounded and is dying, but Bagoas manages to nurse him back to health. In the Indus Delta, Alexander divides his army: the train retreats over the Khyber Pass, the fleet under Admiral Niarchos sails along the coast, Alexander himself - and Bagoas in his company - marches with the best soldiers through the death desert of Gedrosia back to Persia.

Return and death of Alexander

Since the Gedrosian Desert is almost devoid of vegetation and water sources, many soldiers die during the march. The warriors slaughter the horses in order to have something to eat, so Bagoas stole his horse Oryx. When he lost touch with the rearguard out of exhaustion while marching on foot, Hephaistion saved him at the risk of his own life. When they return to inhabited land after severe hardship, they meet the fleet there. At a celebration, Bagoas dances for the king and the king kisses him deeply at the calls of the soldiers. They visit the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae , find it plundered and Alexander orders it to be restored.

The corrupt satrap of Persis , guilty of desecrating the grave, is Orxines, whose name Bagoas remembers, his father once yelled at him in his agony: "Orxines has betrayed us!" and Alexander gives him permission to hang the old enemy by hand. When Bagoas first met Queen Sisygambis , the mother of Darius, she made him understand that she had long since considered Alexander to be her true son. He marries Dareios' daughter Stateira , her sister Drypetis becomes Hephaestion's wife. Another revolt by the Macedonians when the veterans were released back home ended with the soldiers asking for forgiveness. Alexander moves to Ekbatana, where Hephaistion suddenly dies of stomach cramps. His funeral preparations are so extensive that everyone has to stay in the cold Ekabatana during the winter and only come to the climatically unfavorable Babylon with the summer heat. Alexander is attacked by mala fever and receives all of his old Macedonian soldiers for the last time for an audience before he dies after a few days. His officers' quarrels about the inheritance begin on his deathbed.

They had started fighting and were throwing javelins. I stood to cover the body and one of the spears cut my arm. To this day I have the scar, the only wound I ever received for Alexander.

Notes from the author

References:

“The best source is Arrianus ' Anabasis Alexander , who mainly used the lost memories of Ptolemy and Aristobulus and writes with a high sense of responsibility. Plutarch ( Vitae Parallelae) writes very colorfully, but makes little effort to evaluate his material critically; his report should therefore not be accepted without reservation. "

Proper names:

“Of course, it is not very plausible for a Persian to use Persian names in their Greek form; but since the Persian originals would probably hardly be recognized or understood (Dareios, for example, actually means Darajawahush), I kept the usual spelling. "

Historical sources

The Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus confirms the existence of the Bagoas as an "exceptionally beautiful eunuch, in the prime of his boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander was later also intimate." Curtius cites the reason for the enmity between Bagoas and Orxines that the latter refused to give the eunuch bribes, which is why Bagoas blackened him for plundering the tomb of Cyrus at Alexander's.

In Plutarch you can read that after the dance of the Bagoas, Alexander's troops "clap their hands and scream until Alexander puts his arms around him and kisses him."

Receptions

The British writer David Sweetman (* 1943, † 2002) wrote a bibliography by Mary Renault in which he made the following historical note about The Persian Boy :

The publication of The Persian Boy came five years after the Sexual Offences Bill decriminalized many homosexual practices in Britain, and three years after the Stonewall Inn Riots in New York marked the beginning of Gay Liberation in the United States…

(“The publication of The Persian Boy came five years after the Sexual Offences Bill decriminalized many homosexual practices in Britain, and three years after the Stonewall Inn Riots in New York, which marked the beginning of gay liberalization in the United States ... ")

The historian Jeanne Reames writes about this book:

That Alexander may have been attracted to a eunuch is possible enough, and there is certainly testimony that he kept Bagoas with him at least some of the time. But there is no evidence that Bagoas was as important to, much less as influential over, Alexander as Renault paints. She gives to Bagoas a role which history suggests was filled by Hephaistion. [1] However, she points out, quite correctly, that the historical sources name Bagoas, not Hephaistion, as the eromenos ("beloved") of Alexander.

("Alexander may well be attracted to a eunuch, and there is firm evidence that this was Bagoas for at least some time. But there is no evidence that Bagoas was as important, had as great an influence on Alexander as Renault paints it. The role that she ascribes to Bagoas has historically been filled by Hephaistion. However, she correctly points out that the historical sources name Bagoas, not Hephaistion, the eromenos ("beloved") of Alexander. ")

Sarah Chayes (* 1962), Afghanistan reporter for National Public Radio , writes in The punishment of Virtue :

The most famous chase of a defeated local leader across Central Asia is one I have reveiled in since adolescence, when I discovered a riveting historical novel by Mary Renault called 'The Persian Boy'.

("The most famous chase for a defeated local ruler across Central Asia that I found since my youth was when I discovered a captivating historical novel by Mary Renault, The Persian Boy. ")

The book

• Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. Heinenann & Zsolnay Ltd., London 1972; German by Wolfgang Schepelmann (translator): … to conquer a world empire. Paul Zsolnay Verlag GmbH, Vienna / Hamburg 1974.

Web links

• Julie Abraham: Are Girls Necessary ?: Lesbian Writing and Modern Histories . Psychology Press, New York, London 1996, ISBN 0-415-91457-4 , pp. 72 ff . (English, 213 p., limited preview in the Google book search).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. P. 14.
2. ^ Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. P. 166.
3. ^ Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. P. 312.
4. ^ Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. P. 342.
5. ^ Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. P. 515 f.
6. ^ ^{A b} Mary Renault: The Persian Boy. P. 525.
7. ↑ Article David Sweetman in the English language Wikipedia.
8. ^ David Sweetman: Mary Renault: A Biography. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994, ISBN 978-0-15-600060-4 .
9. ↑ Jeanne Reames: Hephaistion Amyntoros: Eminence Grise at the Court of Alexander the Great. Ph.D. diss., The Pennsylvania State Univ., 1998.
10. ↑ Article Sarah Chayes in the English language Wikipedia.
11. ^ Sarah Chayes: The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban. Univ. of Queensland Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-7022-3588-7 , p. 247. online at books.google.at (accessed July 7, 2012)