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and at sunset on the following day they brought him before the Great King.
    Darius was at council with his generals, dressed like an ordinary soldier with rough linen trousers and an antelope-skin jacket. The only sign of his regal status was the rigid tiara and the solid gold dagger, the shining akinake that hung from his side.
    The eunuch threw himself to the ground with his forehead in the dust and through his sobbing recounted what had happened at Tyre – the Queen’s long, painful labour, her death, the funeral. He even put in Alexander’s tears.
    Darius was shocked by the news and ordered the eunuch to follow him into the interior section of the royal tent.
    ‘Forgive me, Great King, for having brought you such sad news, forgive me . . .’ the eunuch continued to say through his own tears.
    ‘Do not cry,’ said Darius, seeking to console him. ‘You have done your duty and I am grateful to you for this. Did my wife suffer much?’
    ‘She suffered a great deal, Your Majesty, but with a dignity and strength befitting a Persian queen.’
    Darius looked at him without saying anything. It was clear from the deep furrows on his forehead and from the failing light in his bewildered gaze that his heart and mind were full of contrasting sentiments.
    ‘Are you sure,’ he asked after a moment’s silence, ‘that Alexander actually cried?’
    Yes, my King. I was close enough to see the tears run down his cheeks.’
    Darius sighed and sat down heavily on a chest, ‘But then this means . . . this means there was something going on between them; tears come when a person dear to us dies.’
    Your Majesty, I do not believe that—’
    ‘Perhaps the child was his—’
    ‘No, no!’ protested the eunuch.
    ‘Silence!’ shouted Darius. ‘Or perhaps you dare contradict me?’
    The eunuch fell to his knees, trembling and crying once more. ‘Your Majesty, I beg you, let me speak!’ he said.
    ‘You have already said too much. What else is there to add now?’
    ‘That Alexander never touched your wife. Indeed, he paid her every respect and concern; he never visited her without asking permission and always in the presence of her maids. He displayed the same regard, if not even more so, for your mother.’
    ‘And you are not lying to me?’
    ‘I would never lie to you, Great King. Everything I have told you is the truth. I swear it in the name of Ahura Mazda.’
    ‘Ahura Mazda . . .’ murmured Darius. He stood up, moved the curtain door of his tent to one side and lifted his gaze towards the sky. The celestial vault over the desert was teeming with stars and the Milky Way stretched out from one horizon to the other with its diaphanous light. The camp was dotted with thousands and thousands of campfires. ‘Ahura Mazda, Lord of the Celestial Flame, our god,’ he prayed, ‘make me victorious, let me save my ancestors’ empire. I promise that should I win, I will treat my opponent with clemency and with respect because if war had not placed us in this position I would have liked in all sincerity to have asked for his friendship and his affection.’
    The eunuch made to go, leaving the King alone with his thoughts, but as he did so he heard a certain fuss coming from one of the entrances to the camp and he stopped. A group of Assyrian horsemen were approaching, escorting a most handsome young man who as he passed looked at him as if he recognized him. The eunuch followed behind the group for a few steps, almost not believing what he was seeing. The small procession in the meantime had reached the royal tent and when the light of the torches burning there before the entrance illuminated the boy’s face, he was certain. It was Eteocles, son of Memnon of Rhodes and Barsine!

 
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    T HESSALUS ’ S PERFORMANCE IN Oedipus Rex was impeccable and when he came to the scene in which the hero puts out his own eyes with the pin of his buckle, the spectators saw two streams of blood run down the actor’s mask; a long ‘oooooh’