Christopher Kyle

Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.

Look at those we've conquered. They leave their dead unburied, they smash their enemies skulls and drink them as dust, they mate in public! How can they think, or sing, or write when none can read? But as Alexander's army they could go where they never thought possible. They can soldier, or work in the cities. From the Alexandrias, from Egypt to the outer ocean. We could connect these lands, Hephaistion. And the people.

But we've freed them, Hephaistion, from the Persias, where everyone lived as slaves! To free the people of the world! Such would be beyond the glory of Achilles. Beyond Heracles! A feat to rival Prometheus, who was always a friend to man.

We all suffer. Your father, mine. They all came to the end of their time and in the end, when it's over, all that matters is what you've done.

Who knows these things? When I was a child my mother thought me divine; my father, weak. Which am I, Hephaistion? Weak or divine? All I know is I trust only you in this world. I've missed you. I need you. It is you I love, Hephaistion. No other.

n the end, when it's over, all that matters is what you've done.

The greatest honor a man can ever achieve is to live with great courage, and to die with his countrymen, in battle for his home.

Yes, I have Babylon. But each land, each boundary I cross lets drip away another illusion. I sense, death will be the last. Yet still I push harder and harder to reach this... home.

Where has our eagle gone? We must go on, Ptolemy... until we find an end.

These are not honors, Parmenion, they're bribes! Which the Greeks have accepted too long! You forget, Parmenion, that the man who murdered my father lies across the valley floor.

I would, if I were Parmenion. But I am Alexander. And no more than earth has two suns will Asia bear two kings. These are my terms. And if Darius isn't a coward who hides behind his men then he'll come to me tomorrow. And *when* he bows down to Greece, Alexander will be merciful.

A thousand ships we'll launch from here, Hephaistion! We'll round Arabia, and sail up the gulf to Egypt. From there, we'll build a channel through the desert, out to the middle sea. And then we'll move on Carthage, and that great island Cecily; they'll pay large tribute. After that the Romans - good fighters, but we'll beat them. And then explore the northern forests, and add the pillars of Heracles to the western ocean. And then one day, populations will mix and travel freely. Asia and Europe will come together. And we'll grow old, Hephaistion, looking out our balcony at this new world.

But you dream Crateros... Your simplicity long ended, when you took Persian mistresses and children, and you thickened your holdings with plunder and jewels... Because you have fallen in love with all the things in life that destroy men... do you not see... and you, as well as I, know, that as the year decline and the memories stale and all your great victories fade it will always be remembered, you left your king in Asia

May all those who come here after us know, when they see this altar, that titans were once here.

Isn't it a lovely thing to live with great courage and to die leaving an everlasting fame? Come, Macedonians, why do you retreat? Do you want to live forever? In the name of Zeus, attack!

If only you were not a pale reflection of my mother's heart.

While in your mind and body are stretched to breaking you have no thought beyond the next. And you look back then and there it was, happiness. In the doing, never the thinking.

Who is this great king, Darius, who enslaves his own men to fight? Who is this king but a king of air? They fight because this king tells them they must. And when they fight, they will melt away like the air because they know no loyalty to a king of slaves. But we are not here today as slaves! We are here today as Macedonian free men!

You lie and lie and lie! So many lies you've spun like a sorceress, confusing me!

As the years decline and the memories stale, and all your great victories fade, it will always be remembered that you left your king in Asia!

You and I together, one last time Bucephalus.

If only thirst could quench sorrow, Ptolemy.

Stay with me tonight, Hephaistion.

The truth is never simple and yet it is. The truth is we did kill him. By silence we consented... because we couldn't go on. But by Ares, what did we have to look forward to but to be discarded in the end like Cleitus? After all this time, to give away our wealth to Asian sycophants we despised? Mixing the races? Harmony? Oh, he talked of these things. I never believe in his dream. None of us did. That's the truth of his life. The dreamers exhaust us. They must die before they kill us with their blasted dreams.

On the tenth of June, a month short of his 33rd year, Alexander's great heart finally gave out. And, as he vowed, he joined Hephaistion. But in his short life he achieved, without doubt, the mythic glory of his ancestor; Achilles. And more.

I've lived... I've lived long life, Cadmos, but the glory and the memory of men will always belong to the ones who follow their great visions. The greatest of these is the one they now call Megas Alexandros. The greatest of them all.

Within hours we were fighting like Jackals for his corpse. The wars of the world had begun. Forty years, off and on, they endured, until we divided his empire in four parts. I think Alexander would have been disappointed in us.

It was said later that Alexander was never defeated in his lifetime, except by Hephaistion's thighs.

Alexander used to say that we are most alone when we are with the myths.

How can I tell you what it was like to be young; to dream big dreams? And to believe when Alexander looked you in the eye you could do anything. In his presence, by the light of Apollo, we were better than ourselves.

All greatness comes from loss.

Our world is gone now. Smashed by the wars. Now I am the keeper of his body, embalmed here in the Egyptian ways. I followed him as Pharaoh, and have now ruled 40 years. I am the victor. But what does it all mean when there is not one left to remember - the great cavalry charge at Gaugamela, or the mountains of the Hindu Kush when we crossed a 100,000-man army into India? He was a god, Cadmos. Or as close as anything I've ever seen.

Who Roxane really was, I doubt any of us ever saw further than the pools of those black eyes.

I've known many great men in my life, but only one colossus. And only now in old do I understand who this force of nature really was. Or do I?

We all felt there was more here than sexual bickery. Alexander wanted the truth, and Philotas' answers were lacking merit. Alexander put him, silently and quickly, to trial by his peers. And whether plotter or opportunist, Philotas was found guilty of treason. None of us defended Philotas, but then again, none of us ever liked him.

In the end, I believe, Babylon was a far easier mistress to enter than to leave.

His failure towered over other men's successes.

It was mad. Forty thousand of us against hundreds of thousands of barbarian races unknown to us, gathered under Darius himself. East and West had now come together to decide the fate of the known world. It was the day Alexander had waited for all his life.

It was the bloodiest of his battles. Pure butchery, the end of all reason... we'd never be men again.

The surveyors told us we were now on the boarders of where Europe and Asia meet. In fact, we were totally lost.

I've paid my price, in blood. And in broken dreams.

My poor child. You're like Achilles; cursed by your greatness. You must never confuse your feelings with your duties, Alexander. A king must make public gestures for the common people. You will be nineteen this summer, and the girls already say you don't like them, you like Hephastion more. I understand, it's natural for a young man. But if you go to Asia without leaving a successor you risk all.

Yes. And you would be forty. Old, and wise. Like Parmenion. And Philip's young son would be twenty. Like you, now. But raised by him. His blood. He will never give you the throne now, Alexander, never.

Three months you have been in Babylon, and leave me at the mercy of your enemies, of which you have many. Antipater: accustomed now to the power that you have given him. I must watch him grow stronger. I am certain that he communicates secretly with Parmenion, who is dangerous. But beware most of all of those closest to you. They are like snakes, and can be turned. Cassander is Antipater's son. Even Cleitus, your father's favorite. And Ptolmey. Your friend, yes, but beware of men who think too much. They blind themselves. Only Hephastion do I leave out. But all of them you make rich, while your mother and yourself you leave in generous poverty. Why won't you ever believe me? It is only a dark mind like mine that can know these secrets of the heart. For they are dark, Alexander. So dark. But in you, the son of Zeus, lies the light of the world. Your companions will be shadows in the underworld when you are a name living forever in history as the most glorious, shining light of youth. Forever young, forever inspiring. Never will there be an Alexander like you, Alexander the Great.

You are everything Phillip was not. He was coarse, you are refined. He was a general, you are a king. He could not rule himself. And you shall rule the world.

Pregnant, so soon? The little whore. He will marry her in the spring, during Dionysus' festival. And when her first son is born, her sweet Uncle Attalus will convince Phillip to name the boy his successor. And you will be sent on some impossible mission against some barbarous northern tribe, to be mutilated in one more meaningless battle. And I, no longer Queen, will be put to death with your sister and the remaining members of our family.

The only way is to strike. Announce your marriage to a Macedonian, now! Beget a child of pure blood. He would be one of them, not mine. And he would have no choice but to make you king. Eurydice was perfect! If your father, that pig, had not ravaged her first...

You're right. Forgive me. A mother loves too much.

They are like people. You can love them for years. Feed them, nurture them, but still, they can turn on you.

The world is yours. Take it!

In my womb I carried my avenger!

My little Achilles.

Making himself a thirteenth god! He's drunk so much wine, my poor Phillip, he's lost his mind.

Why won't you ever believe me? Philip did not want you! You had a condition of the breathing and he wanted to leave you in the mountains for the birds to peck out your eyes!

I was never a barbarian as Phillip said. We are of Achilles' royal blood.

So many wanted it. Greeks, Persians, men, women, I would be shocked if there were not a god or two he had profaned.

If you hesitate, she will strike.

Women are the only ones who know Dionysus.