Laugh at me, will you?
It was that night, though, that Philip called all the officers together and told us he was going to attack. He didn’t make a speech – we’d lived it. We knew that we’d done our bit, and that if Athens and Thebes held us here until winter, we’d have to go home and start the whole thing again next summer, storm the Gates of Fire or some other damned pass – on and on.
So he outlined his battle plan, which was simple – that his foot would defeat the Athenian foot, and force the Thebans to open their ranks, and then the Macedonian cavalry would ride them down. And Alexander would command the cavalry.
All the younger men were silent after he announced his plan. Philip was the best general of the day – but we were going uphill into a larger army, an army with the Sacred Band, the most feared taxeis of soldiers in the world; a regiment of pairs of lovers, each bound to the other by ties stronger than steel. You know the Plato—Phaedrus speaks in the Symposiumand says:
And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?
The Thebans built their regiment just that way. And they were unbeatable.
And behind or alongside them were the deeply ranked professional Theban hoplites who had beaten the Spartans, and the Athenian hoplites who, whatever their failings, were reputed as the most tenacious in the Greek world. It has become fashionable to view the Athenians as second-class soldiers. Don’t ever confuse your own propaganda with the truth. And the younger men had grown to manhood on tales of Athens’ greatness.
It didn’t sound like a great plan to us.
And the older men didn’t like it any better, because Alexander, not Parmenio, had the cavalry. Parmenio wasn’t there – he was busy holding the Chersonese and keeping the Thracians at bay – but even Antipater got a subordinate command. Alexander had all the cavalry – all the Thessalians, all the Thracians, all the scouts and skirmishers and, of course, all the companions.
Philip left his horse and went to serve on foot, leading his precious hypaspists. Demosthenes said that Philip had fucked every man in the hypaspists, and Philip retorted that Demosthenes had an extra arse instead of a face.
We moved our camp forward, and Alexander pitched his tent under an ancient oak, and we camped around him, street by street. It was a clear declaration that we were coming to fight – we knew it, they knew it and a hundred thousand men, more or less, had bad dreams, sharpened things, polished things and were afraid.
The allies tried to outflank us to the south, by the citadel, where the rising ground gave them a natural advantage. That’s where the fight started, in the first light of dawn, and I was still drinking hot wine and trying not to throw up my porridge. Luckily, I had other people to worry about – an excellent way of remaining brave.
Besides, Nike was watching me. She was right there – not a distant rumour of womanhood back in Macedon, but the living embodiment of feminine opinion, and she did a great deal to make us what we were. Young men will compete for a woman’s good opinion, if she is worthy.
Besides, as far as we knew, there was nothing of which she was afraid.
When Polystratus brought my charger, Nike held the bridle, gave me a stirrup cup, said the prayer of Aphrodite over me and poured wine on my sword – and on Nearchus’s and Philip’s, too.
She kissed me – not a long, lust-filled kiss, but a plain kiss on the lips. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said. And grinned. ‘So either way, you’re covered.’
She meant that if I lived, I had a child to raise, and if I died, an heir.
Not sure if that’s what every man wants to hear as he rides to battle, but for me, it was perfect. Something dropped away, and I rode to the prince with a light heart.
To our right, in the first true light of day, the phalanx was forming. In the best tradition of all Greek warfare, our best troops were on the right – the hypaspists and then the foot companions and then the phalanx, but all formed shield to shield in one long line sixteen deep and six stades long, covering the whole of the open ground from the rocks and scrubby ground at the base of the citadel hill, to the banks of the Cephissus river. Across the fields, just a few stades that a fit man could run before breakfast, the Thebans and Athenians formed, too. They had the Sacred Band on their right, so it was facing our rawest levies – not really all that raw.
I need to speak about phalanx warfare. Foreigners think that there’s something to be gained by experience – by spending more time in the storm of bronze and iron. If you are a cavalryman, there’s a great deal of truth to that assertion. Man and horse grow better every encounter – and when wounded, can ride away. It is a different form of war, on a horse’s back.
But down in the dust on a summer’s day in Boeotia, the advantage is often with the most fit, with the highest hearts. Older men who have seen battle may stay alive longer – but they also know the fear of the spear that slips past your guard unseen. Of the chance arrow. The fears of all the details that they survived the other times, when friends died beside them.
Sometimes, the bravest men are those who do notknow what lies in store for them.
The Athenians were an army of veterans – most of their hoplites had made campaigns in the Chersonese, or as marines – against us, or policing their empire. The Thebans – they hadn’t seen much action since they carved up the Spartans. No one really wanted to take them on. And opposite me, up that hill, they’d formed twenty-five deep. That did not look good.
But our farm boys looked surprisingly tough, when facing two of the most famous armies in the world. They had a touch of swagger to them that made me nod in respect. Some of our men had been to Asia – most had fought in mountains and plains, in the dark, in storms . . .
They trusted Philip.
I sat my Poseidon by Alexander, and we watched them form.
‘He’s insane,’ Alexander said quietly.
That snapped me back to reality. ‘Who is, lord?’ I asked.
‘My father – Philip. He thinks that his hypaspists can go uphill into those Athenians and break them?’ He shook his head.
I was caught between loyalties. I was absolutely loyal to Alexander – but Philip was Philip. A force of nature. He could not be wrong.
‘If he throws it all away, here, we’ll never get to storm Asia, Ptolemy. We’ll be lucky to hold Macedon. We’ll be some kind of historical side-note, like Alexander I and the battle of the Nine Roads.’ His eyes were darting around – here, there, everywhere.
Hephaestion was mounted by now. He rode over to Alexander and they embraced.
A rider came from the king and ordered Alexander to send two troops around the army to watch the Athenian skirmishers on our right. Laodon got the nod, and I went with him. Troops cheered us as we passed behind them. They looked calm, as if on parade. I felt like I had a belly full of bees.
Laodon didn’t seem too concerned.
‘I don’t want to miss the main action because I’m chasing slaves,’ was all he’d say about being sent to the right.
When we arrived, we saw why we were needed – there was a stade-wide gap between the hypaspists and the edge of the bad ground, the product of a slight widening of the valley and just possibly a mistake on Philip’s part.