(2)
The officer assigned to accompany me, held me. Beyond this point, I would enter war zone. I asked Luxorus if he still had to tell something. He looked at me, sweating, heavily breathing, and with his head dark red from the effort of carrying the heavy crossbeam. Not with difficulty, and a nervous voice, he replied :
“Not a lot! Maybe nature will be merciful for a man of my age, and keep my agony short! Oh yes, just one more thing : remember what I said : the Earth is not flat!”
I wished him courage, and then, he was driven, with two other condemned, into the forest of death. Under the demeaning shouts of guards, they had to run, with their heavy load, to their assigned pole. Luxorus lagged behind soon, and I prayed for a moment that the gods would single him out for a quick death. But today, the gods were clearly not in their mercy-modus.
From a rock, I kept watching. There was no particular in Luxorus’ behaviour. Like all the condemned, he resisted fiercely when the moment had come, he was tied down to the patibulum. Like all the condemned, he was overwhelmed by fear, and I saw him squirm and cry out of pain, when the executioners nailed him to his cross – the sounds of it were drowned in the overall noise of the hellish scene. Soon, his cross stood up, and I saw he was still alive, and, like the other crucified, constantly moving and writhing.
Left and right of me, more unfortunate people were hurried on the beach. Next to my spotting point, two men, of the age of Luxorus, waited their turn.
“Was that Luxorus, the mathematician!?” one of them asked me.
“He was!” I replied.
“Told you, it was him!” the man said to his companion.
“I had expected he would be spared for his fame and go work for that tyrant king of Macedonia!”
“He was asked, but he spat Alexander in his face!” I replied.
“Well done from him!” the condemned said with approval. “Maybe he can teach us some mathematics to kill the time over there!”
An executioner neared and shouted to the men :
“Hey! You! Where do you think you are!? In a tavern!? Enough chit-chat! Move your ass and run! You, you, you and you! Move it! Never let a hungry cross wait for its meat!”
Under the threat of whips, four were rushed to their fate. New crux meat arrived.
It was strange, to observe how all these people had themselves brought to their doom. No resistance, no hysteria. Accepting, almost obedient to follow the orders of Alexander’s henchmen. Was it the fatigue of months of siege, facing death, shortage of food, martial law, anticipation of the worst?
I still could see crucified Luxorus. He was slowly moving now, like his neighbours, and as far as I could judge, they seemed to exchange brief words with them. The crosses were planted so close to each other, that the patibula almost touched each other, and the space between the rows was as minimal as possible for the hardly four to five feet high crosses. They were so low, the condemned had their knees bent open, while their toes almost touched the beach sands. I tried to imagine how it would be, being the victim of such a cruel execution. But I knew that any imagination would fall short compared to reality.
Curious, the most famous mathematician of our time was executed the same demeaning way as, and together with people of which most of them were illiterate. Alexander had made his selection : those with combat experience would be killed, the able bodied inhabitants would mostly be enslaved. The beach was a mixture of men and women of all ages, many deemed unfit to serve. Plus some of the city’s administrators who had not been granted refuge in the Temple of Melqart. Among the latter, the men who had just stood talking next to me!
Would they know, or still care that, when defeat became inevitable, King Azemilcus had ordered a few, among which Luxorus, to make up a longlist of those people – mostly nobles and elite – that would be allowed to take refuge in the Temple of Melqart, and enjoy the protection, king Alexander had promised? The list of people, that would enjoy the privilege to survive, while the rest of the population would suffer death, slavery, or worse, the cross. Of course, Luxorus had added himself to the list too, and he had remained on it when King Azemilcus had shortlisted it according to his own preferences.
So, Luxorus could have walked out and taken profit of his reputation. Why had he reverted his fortunate fate and chosen to share the ranks of the most deplorable citizens of the captured town? Had he remorse, afterwards, when he saw the cruelty inflicted to those who had not been chosen to survive? Was it anger and disappointment, because he had expected that King Alexander would have been merciful towards all the inhabitants of Tyre, instead of ordering a massacre? Or was it because, being a stubborn and know-it-all scholar, Luxorus had refused to lend his knowledge to a king, whose geopolitical project was based on the assumption that the Earth was flat?
During the siege, Luxorus had told me once, that the accuracy of the Macedonian artillery was so terrible, because they assumed that the Earth was flat, and hence they thought their projectiles followed a circular trajectory. While he knew better, he said, the Earth is a sphere and the trajectory follows a … the word escapes me.. something with ‘para’! That gave much better results. Sadly, Luxorus had it wrong about the dam building capabilities of the Macedonians. He often had reassured King Azemilcus, that the causeway project would never succeed, since currents would flush it away before the connection could be finished. The narrower the passage for the currents would become between the causeway and the city, the stronger the currents would be. Hence, no countermeasures were undertaken, until it was too late. Was it that costly error of scientific judgement, that sealed the fate of the city and his inhabitants, that Luxorus wanted himself pay for in the most cruel way?
Or was spitting in Alexander’s face simply the last act of arrogance from a city, doomed to undergo the new world order?
I wished I had asked him. Now it was too late.
Anyway, confronted with all the cruelty committed here, someone had to do the unpleasant job to spit Alexander in his face (and bear the consequences)! That’s the least the butcher deserves!
Another officer had arrived and addressed me.
“The King will arrange documents for your safe passage, and a galley to bring your delegation back to Carthage!”
“Thank you!”
“Time to go back, Sir!” my accompanying officer ordered.
For a last time I looked back at the beach. But Luxorus had already vanished within the wood of writhing naked bodies.”
THE END
