The question was debated, we are told, with some heat.
“Such sorrows as ours,” said the spokesman of one party, “are best borne where they are borne unseen. Shall we exhibit them as a nine-days’ wonder to Greece? True it is our country; but wretches such as we are have no country, and no hope but in being forgotten. Our friends will pity us, I doubt not; but nothing dries sooner than a tear. Our wives—will they welcome in these mangled carcases the bridegrooms of their youth; our children—will they reverence such parents? We have wives and children here, who have been the sole solace of our unhappy lot. Shall we leave them for the uncertain affection of those who may well wish, when the first emotion of pity is spent, that we had never returned?”
It was an Athenian who represented the opposite views. “Such thoughts as you have heard,” he said, “are an insult to humanity. Only a hardhearted man can believe that other men’s hearts are so hard. The gods are offering us to-day what we never could have ventured to ask—our country, our wives, our children, all that is worth living or dying for. To refuse it were baseness indeed; only the slaves who have learnt to hug their chains can do it.”
The counsels of the first speaker prevailed; and indeed many of the exiles were old and feeble and could hardly hope to survive the fatigues of the homeward journey. A deputation waited on Alexander to announce their decision. He seems to have expected another result, promising all that they wanted for their journey and a comfortable subsistence at home. The offer was heard in silence, and then the king learnt the truth. It touched him inexpressibly that men could be so wretched that they were unwilling to return to their country. His first thought was to secure the exiles a liberal provision in the place where they had elected to stay. Each man had a handsome present in money,[72] and suitable clothing, besides a well-stocked farm, the rent of which he would receive from some native cultivator. The second thought was to carry into execution a resolve which the sight of these victims of Persian cruelty had suggested. He would visit these brutal barbarians with a vengeance that should make the world ring again.
A council of generals was hastily called, and Alexander announced his intentions.
“We have come,” he said, “to the mother-city of the Persian race. It is from this that these barbarians, the most pitiless and savage that the world has ever seen, came forth to ravage the lands of the Greek. Up till to-day we have abstained from vengeance; and indeed it would have been unjust to punish the subjects for the wickedness of their masters. But now we have the home of these masters in our power, and the day of our revenge is come. When the royal treasure has been removed I shall give over Persepolis to fire and sword.”
Only one of the assembly ventured to oppose this decision, though there were many, doubtless, who questioned its wisdom.
“You will do ill, sire, in my opinion,” said Parmenio, the oldest of his generals, “to carry out this resolve. It is not the wealth of the enemy, it is your own wealth that you are giving up to plunder; it is your own subjects—for enemies who have submitted themselves to the conquerors are subjects—whom you are about to slaughter.”
“Your advice, Parmenio,” retorted the king, “becomes you, but it does not become me. I do not make war as a huckster, to make profit of my victories, nor even as King of Macedon, but as the avenger of Greece. Two hundred years of wrong from the day when the Persians enslaved our brethren in Asia cry for vengeance. The gods have called me to the task, and this, I feel, is the hour.”