Speech

[AntiochusIII]

~;p

"The desert is ours. It is my home. Invaders come here, but they do not leave. They do not understand the desert. They do not understand how it gives life, or how it kills. So they die, and we grow stronger.

The dead, now, the dead, cannot pass on their newfound wisdom. So invaders keep coming, keep trying to take our lands and our wealth. But then wealth flows through this land.

And if our people have one fame, it is the love of wealth. It is sweeter than water. It is more powerful than the sword. For any sword can be turned aside with a gold coin. Gold will by a thousand warriors.

And a thousand warriors - why, they are the start of an Empire!"

-By The Trio Man-Killing Arsaces, Runner Arsaces, and Arrogant Arsaces, descendant of Achilles

::::The Desert is Ours::::

Prince Antiochus of the Seleucid Kingdom had been marching across the desolate landscape of Central Iran for many months now. He had been trying to catch the Parthian army, which had led the Iranians in rebellion against their rightful masters, the glorious Seleucid dynasty. Rebellious Parthians, they proclaimed themselves heirs of the evil Achaemenid Persians! They had betrayed the Great King of Antioch and raided his lands, robbed his realms of wealth and raped the women of his citizens. His son, the Prince, decided months ago to march forth to deal with them, and deal it decisively. He wished to crush the Parthians once and for all with the very flower and pride of the Seleucid armies: Argyraspides, Kataphractoi, and the Companions. He had no doubt of the skills of these mighty men of war: they could -- and did -- crush countless foes which might've stopped Alexander himself dead on his tracks. He had nothing to fear from the lowly nomads in a pitched battle.

Unfortunately, to crush the Parthians, he must first catch the Parthians. And that required some extraordinary luck and desert skills. It was indeed unfortunate that the Prince Antiochus possessed neither. He had foolishly prepared himself for a glorious pitched battle, where great men of great bravery could come together and decide the fate of the world, his romanticized views of war based on the legends of Chaeronae, Gaugamela, and Ipsus. These Parthian cowards, he concluded, including their king, simply left the occupied cities and forts and marched into the vast deserts of this deserted wasteland the moment Antiochus seemed to close.

He had to hunt them into the desert, or else they would come back again and never to return. So he marched forth, daring the wills of Fate and the mastery of the desert.

But Antiochus was a fool. He had led his army into the lands which they did not belong. The desert was never theirs, and they had been left impoverished of water and food for at least three days of the beating sun and freezing nights!

The men were dying, suffering. Antiochus was enraged and frustated at the same time. How could the Parthians survive with no water? Did they not need the nourishment of it at all? Antiochus was about to turn back through the beaten path when he noticed something on the horizon.

And look! Was that a sandstorm that was approaching? Prince Antiochus looked on with despair; he had endured at least four sandstorms since he entered this cursed sea of sands. One more sandstorm and he swore to personally slay every single Parthian he captured for proper vengeance that they had to lead him into Tartarus!

However, when the sandstorm came in, it appeared that these were no ordinary storms, it was a storm of dirt, stirred up by the galloping horses and the men above them. The Parthians! They had shown themselves at last!

Prince Antiochus pulled out his sword, prepared to deal a worthy blow to finish off the arrogant raiders. Feeling his blood rising, he tried to shout the orders for the battle line to fight, but his mouth, he found, especially his tongue, was too dry to even open up. And when he tried to take a proper look at his army, his blurred gaze shown not the mighty forces that had marched with him from Seleucia, but a horde of desperate souls struggling to find a way to survive in the face of death. The Parthians were coming!

And death did come. The storm was close, and the horsemen began to surround them. Volleys upon volleys of arrows blackened the sky, raining a waterless rain of death upon the doomed army. Prince Antiochus looked around in panic. He was too exhausted to do anything; it must be the same for his men, as well, for his phalanxes did not form the phalanx, and his cataphracts did not raise their spears to fight. One after another, they fell to the hail of arrows, too tired to even raise their shields or take cover to protect their precious lives. And the Parthians were coming!

All that the young Seleucid Prince's exhausted mind knew was that the Parthian horsemen were coming, slaughtering and annihilating his army. He could not do anything. He could only watch, barely, until a Parthian horseman, dressed elegantly with a crown on his head, reached him.

The horseman pulled up his sword, glistening under the harsh sun, smiled a bloody smile, and said: "I am the king you seek. Send this warning to your king when he goes to visit you in your cold hell: The Desert is Ours."

Antiochus did not feel anything at all after that, except one small glitch of a feeling that he learned something new about this desert, and that it was far too late to know.

[AntiochusIII]

::::It is my Home::::

He was worried. He could not feel anything else but worried. This was an unbelievable news indeed! The Creator had given him something that was indeed unbelievable!

He had ridden with his comrades and kinsmen here in this land since the first day of his memory, and that was before he could even talk. He rode across the hills and valleys of sands and rock. The world was the bleak red of the rocks as it had always been since it was created; of course, to prepare men for the afterlife, the land was built to be harsh. He had faced many troubles, many battles. He had fought against the oppressors' armies, rode into the worst sandstorms, and even endured a week in the empty land with no food nor water to survive on. But no! There had never been a news more worrisome yet exciting as the one that he had come to receive today.

His son was born.

He rode across the empty lands, returning from faraway adventures to go back to the warmth of his house's hearth. It was evening and the sun was going down. The sands and rocks around him glittered like blood beneath the red sky. He and his mighty horse passed through the barren sands, taking them by the storm of the horse's gallop. He rode as quickly as possible. And it was a long ride. He had ridden from the first light of the day until the sunset before the night. The sky was already dark blue when he reached his destination.

There, in front of him, was a group of roughly built mud houses cluttering around a small Oasis, as blue and dark as the night itself. The vegetations around the blue pond were the only green that could be found for many miles around, and could be noticed even from afar. In this dark night, the skies seemed empty, and everything was covered in the curtain of dark blue. Everything except...

He quickly rode into the Oasis village, feeling extremely anxious as he went around the mud houses in speed. There, in one of the houses, was the house he seek; his house. He went to the front of it, jumped down from his trusty steed, quickly opened the half-broken wooden door quickly, and bursted in.

The lamp still shone with fire lit brightly; the light was bright and yellow-blue. He himself did not even notice that, however. He was completely captivated in the simple scene that he saw in front of him, paralyzing the man of the desert completely with inexplicable emotions.

His son was sleeping in his cradles.

He looked at him for a moment, teary-eyed with pride and relief. His son was born, happy and full. He looked at him so long that wife managed to grab his notice at last:

"Welcome.. back."

"Yes, dear. I came here as fast as I could."

"Oh, I thought-- I thought--" she began crying, for some reason, "I could've lost you to that battle."

"It was just a skirmish, dear. We do not die so easily. I am here, safe and sound, secure to see our son with my full body intact."

"Yes, you're here--"

"He is such a lovely creature."

"He looks so much like his father. Everybody said that, and I agree, Oh, I really thought I would lose you! Don't leave this village again! I wouldn't be able to bear it if I really lose you now, not with our son living."

"Perhaps," he sighed, "but I have to defend my home as much as I want to enjoy it. This son shall grow into a mightier man than his father; bigger, faster, smarter, more beautiful like his mother, greater, and he shall serve his due to the land through valour on the battlefields, like I do. This is his home; this is our home; it is my home."

[AntiochusIII]

::::Invaders Come Here, But They Do Not Leave::::

Young Demicles of Tarsus was a soldier in the army of the Seleucids. He was an insignificant pikeman who served under the Seleucid captain: Epamos. He was marching with the great army of Antiochus, prince of the Seleucids. The prince came here with an important mission to carry out.

The Parthian people had rebelled against the rightful - and just - leadership of the Great King, Seleucus. He came here to bring order and justice to the rebellious people; he came with the might of a Great King. When he marched into their capital, Arsakia, he discovered that their king had left into the desert. So he marched on, seeking the coward, and brought him to justice.

But it would not be so. The prince made a grave mistake by entering the desert. For the land was hot and dry, forsaken by Demeter and Poseidon alike. He, his men, and Demicles had not touched any water for more than a day already when the battle the prince sought came to him.

Demicles, though came to the place as a hunter, knew that he was now the hunted. Fifty thousand exhausted men were no match for...possibly less than ten thousand eager warriors. Like eagles the Parthians came; like eagles in the sandstorm.

Demicles did his best to protect himself, he tried to lift up his shield, but failed. He looked around him, and saw the destruction all around. He saw his brethren fell under the wrath of Parthian arrow; he saw his captain, Epamos, killed by a charging Parthian horseman; he then saw, to his own horror, the end of prince Antiochus. A Parthian, possibly the king, rode to him and cut the prince's head from his body. And then he saw the charge of the fearful Parthian cataphracts, bringing final doom to the Seleucid army. In that moment, he faded, fell into the ground out of exhaustion and shock. His last moments were filled with his home. Oh, his green home! The white town and the blue sky; the green grasses and thick forests; the blue sea and purple mountains; oh, Cilicia! Oh, Tarsus! He would never see them again.

And indeed he never saw Cilicia again, but he lived on.

Ten years later...

Demicles of Tarsus rode with a group of native men across the empty desert. It was close to evening, and they sought an oasis to rest and recuperate. Demicles spotted it first, an island of green in the middle of the sea of red. He did not look for the scene of water; those were just mirages. He looked for a real green, where instinct told him there was water. He was right, as the men quickly rode to the spot.

There was a large pond where lush trees were nurtured to grow in the desert. Demicles smiled with satisfaction; an oasis was a paradise for the desert men. He then smiled grimly when he realized where he was. It was less than a mile from the battle site. There was a small distance between victory and defeat. If the prince found the oasis...

'No, no more! He was no longer an invader of this land. He would not care about the past! It was gone, good as gone!' Demicles thought grimly. His past was gone; there was no use trying to return to it.

But then again, he was still an invader. He still lived, he was a Greek. He was a Seleucid soldier no matter what.

Invaders come here but they do not leave. He did not.

[AntiochusIII]

:::They Do Not Understand The Desert:::

"What the hell is wrong with this heat in this damned Persian desert?" a young man - a graverobber from Greece - complained to his companion loudly.

"I know its horrible, Hippias, but...imagine the riches we will get from this! The tomb of Xerxes, man. Xerxes! We will have the Persian gold horde as our own, ALONE!" his companion, a young Armenian thug by the name of Arxaar, responded.

"Alone?" Hippias questioned, instinctively became suspicious at this remark. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Er..." his friend's face suddenly turned red, even though it was well hidden beneath the clothes, "I mean alone-together. You know, like - we're partners, right? Partners are like two combined to one, right?"

"Right." Hippias pretended to agree, and twisted his mouth upward, hoping to look innocent. Though, in his mind, he thought otherwise. 'I'll get rid of you the first opportunity I've got when we reach the tomb. Ha! You think I'm going to fall for your trap? Think again, smart man!'

And they travelled forward through the sun-scourged desert, through the ancient royal road. It did not come into their minds that they were using the very same track as Alexander the Great did some hundred years ago, even though they came with the same purpose: for the treasures of Persia.

Suddenly, Hippias raised his head up, and questioned his friend: "Hey. Are you sure we'll find the treasures there, Arxaar? I mean, didn't Alexander of Macedon took all the gold already?"

His friend smirked, then slowly shook his head. "What treasure could Alexander take if it is hidden from his hand? Look, Alexander actually couldn't find the hidden hall in the tomb of Xerxes. That's the place where most of the sleeping Great King's treasure was kept!"

Hippias was half-convinced, but still very suspicious.

After a while, they reached the ruins of Persepolis.

It was a run-down ruins of burned buildings and sand-filled streets. Indeed, all that the two thugs saw was an almost endless expanse of blackened ruins: a sad monument to the lost glories of the Achaemenid monarchs. Nonetheless, they were too filled with desires of wealth to let such a sight hold them back. It was a fatal mistake.

For the ruins of Persepolis were filled with a sort of a dark curse, or so the legends told. The legends said of Xerxes' last curse after he knew he was poisoned by an assassin: "My treasures will never be claimed by anyone except an immortal or a demi-god! Unless he was the man of my blood - my kin, he would die beneath the sands! This I swear to Ahriman..." Since then, it was widely believed that anyone who'd enter to claim the treasures of Xerxes would never left Persepolis alive. Of course, that did not apply to an immortal, or a son of god, like Alexander. But for the mortals...

They did not understand the desert.

Soon enough, they passed through the rubbles that were once the magnificent golden gate of Persepolis. As they walked through the sandy streets, the blackness of the carnage crept into their hearts. 'Why is the wind so strong and what is that sound of wailing I've heard from the winds?' They thought. Very soon indeed, both Armenian and Greek began to waver even as they crept closer and closer to the only building standing in the entire city: the tomb of Xerxes.

But the hunger of wealth would not back down.

Indeed, even when the sandstorm began to flow into the city, and the sky darkened with some strange black cloud - they did not notice. Why - they kept walking and walking towards the tomb of Xerxes until they realized that the whole returning route was blocked by the sands. When they looked back, panic took over, and each man ran towards two opposite directions, seeking escape.

Their fate was never discovered.