SEVERUSMAX
Benevolent Master
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2004
- Posts
- 28,995
Susa, Persia, the Macedonian Empire, 323 BC:
Aristarchus, a soldier in the Macedonian cavalry...a recently promoted officer, in fact. Everything seemed like a blur to him of late, ever since the wounds incurred in the Hindu Kush had sent him back to Susa for recovery. Along with new orders: marry Persian girls. The orders had come down to everyone in Alexander's army, of course. They were all to take Persian wives, and since Macedonian men often practiced polygamy, he didn't even have the excuse of his Babylonian wife or his Ionian one, in fact. He must take a third wife, a Persian one, in fact....part of the planned intermarriage of Alexander's soldiers with their Persian subjects.
So, whom to approach, anyway? Who in Susa wouldn't mind a grizzled old cavalry officer, already rather used-up at 38? Who would give their daughter to the likes of him? Would he even know enough of Persian ways to be a good husband to her/them?
Not to mention that he was still grieving the death of his catamite, Didymos, who had been a great lover for him.....poor Didymos, carried off by heatstroke in the Hindu Kush....
Aristarchus, a soldier in the Macedonian cavalry...a recently promoted officer, in fact. Everything seemed like a blur to him of late, ever since the wounds incurred in the Hindu Kush had sent him back to Susa for recovery. Along with new orders: marry Persian girls. The orders had come down to everyone in Alexander's army, of course. They were all to take Persian wives, and since Macedonian men often practiced polygamy, he didn't even have the excuse of his Babylonian wife or his Ionian one, in fact. He must take a third wife, a Persian one, in fact....part of the planned intermarriage of Alexander's soldiers with their Persian subjects.
So, whom to approach, anyway? Who in Susa wouldn't mind a grizzled old cavalry officer, already rather used-up at 38? Who would give their daughter to the likes of him? Would he even know enough of Persian ways to be a good husband to her/them?
Not to mention that he was still grieving the death of his catamite, Didymos, who had been a great lover for him.....poor Didymos, carried off by heatstroke in the Hindu Kush....
