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priority ought to be to get Alexander s soldiers and engineers to rebuild the irrigation system . . .
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Abdikadir said, You know, it s impossible to believe this is Iraq that we re only a hundred kilometers
or so southwest of Baghdad. The agricultural wealth of this place fueled empires for millennia.
But where is everybody?
Abdi said, Can you blame these farmers for hiding? Their rich farmland is sliced in half and replaced by
semidesert. Their canals fail. A stinging rain withers their crops. And then, what looms over the horizon?
Only the greatest army the ancient world ever saw . . . Ah, he said. There. He stopped and pointed.
On the western horizon she saw buildings, a complicated wall, a thing like a stepped pyramid, all made
gray and misty by distance.
Babylon, Abdikadir whispered.
Josh said, Andthatis the Tower of Babel.
Holy crap, said Casey.
The army and its baggage train caught up with its head, and spread out into a camp over the mudflats
near the banks of the Euphrates.
Alexander chose to wait a day before entering the city itself. He wanted to see if the dignitaries of the
city would come out to greet him. Nobody came. He sent out scouts to survey the city walls and its
surroundings. They returned safe but, Bisesa thought, they looked shocked.
Time slices or not, Alexander was going to enter the ancient city in the grand style. So, early in the
morning, wearing his gold-embroidered cloak and his royal diadem on his head, he rode ahead toward
the city walls, with Hephaistion walking at his side, and a phalanx of a hundred Shield Bearers around
him, a rectangle of ferocious muscle and iron. The King showed no sign of the pain the effort to ride must
be causing him; once again Bisesa was astounded by his strength of will.
Eumenes and other close companions walked in a loose formation behind the King. Among this party
were Captain Grove and his senior officers, a number of British troops, and Bisesa and the Birdcrew.
Bisesa felt oddly self-conscious in the middle of this grand procession, for she and the other moderns
towered over the Macedonians, despite the finery of their dress uniforms.
The city s walls were impressive enough in themselves, a triple circuit of baked brick and rubble that
must have stretched twenty kilometers around, all surrounded by a moat. But there were no signs of
life no smoke from fires, no soldiers watching vigilantly from the towers and the great gates hung
open.
Eumenes muttered, It was different last time, on Alexander s first entry to the city. The satrap rode out
to meet us. The road was strewn with flowers, and soldiers came out with tame lions and leopards in
cages, and priests and prophets danced to the sound of harps. It was magnificent! It was fitting! Butthis.
. .
This, conceded Bisesa, was scary.
Alexander, per his reputation, led by example. Without hesitating he walked his horse over the wooden
bridge that spanned the moat, and approached the grandest of the gates. This was a high-arched passage
set between two heavy square towers.
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The procession followed. Even to reach the gate they had to walk up a ramp to a platform perhaps
fifteen meters above ground level. As Bisesa walked through it, the gate itself towered twenty meters or
more above her head. Every square centimeter of its walls was covered in glazed brickwork, a haunting
royal blue surface across which dragons and bulls danced.
Ruddy walked with his head tilted back, his mouth gaping open. Still a little seedy from his illness, he
walked uncertainly, and Josh kindly took his arm to lead him. Can this be the Ishtar Gate? Who would
have thought who would have thought . . .
The city was laid out in a rough rectangle, its plan spanning the Euphrates. Alexander s party had
entered from the north, on the east side of the river. Inside the gate, the procession moved down a broad
avenue that ran south, passing magnificent, baffling buildings, perhaps temples and palaces. Bisesa
glimpsed statues, fountains, and every wall surface was decorated with dazzling glazed bricks and
molded with lions and rosettes. There was so much opulence and detail she couldn t take it all in.
The phone, peeking out of her pocket, tried to help. The complex to your right is probably the Palace
of Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon s greatest ruler, who
Shut up, phone.
Casey was hobbling along. If this is Babylon, where are the Hanging Gardens?
In Nineveh, said the phone dryly.
No people, said Josh uncertainly. I see some damage signs of fires, looting, perhaps even
earthquake destruction but stillno people. It s getting eerie.
Yeah, growled Casey. All the lights on but nobody at home.
Have you noticed, said Abdikadir quietly, that the Macedonians seem overwhelmed too? And yet
they were here so recently . . .
It was true. Even wily Eumenes peered around at the city s immense buildings with awe.
It s possible this isn t their Babylon either, said Bisesa.
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