No two contingents would form together, except the hereditary enemies from Athens and Euboea. The rest of them were in little regiments, and their lines weren't even level. Aristagoras had put his Milesians slightly in front, to show us all how brave they were, and every time another contingent tried to match shields with them, he'd shuffle a few paces forward.
Aristides put us up on our little hill. He placed Eualcidas and his men on our right. They had a talk, and then Aristides came over and pointed behind us. 'If the army breaks,' he said, 'we go north. We can go all night and reach the estuary in the morning, and let the Medes catch the locals.' He shrugged.
Heraklides pointed at the Lydian cavalry who were coming up on Artaphernes' left – so they'd come at us. 'Why don't we just leave now?' he asked.
Aristides shook his head. 'Because no man will say that the Athenians ran first.'
Behind me, Cleon spat. 'I'll die knowing that I gave my life so that my city had a good reputation with the fucking Ionians,' he said. 'They already hate us. Let them do the dying.'
These sentiments were widely echoed, but Aristides ignored them, and we stood our ground while the Carians came and formed against us.
They glittered. Not for nothing did the Medes call them the men of bronze. They had more armour than any men I'd ever seen, and every man in the front rank had a bronze corslet and greaves, and most had thigh pieces and armlets and some had cuffs of bronze and even bronze foot armour that covered their sandals. Their shields were faced in bronze, and they were big men. I've always hated fighting men who were bigger than me.
Artaphernes rode up and down his line, and they cheered him, even though he was the foreign overlord. He had more Ionian Greeks in his army than we had in ours, I'd wager.
Aristagoras didn't give a speech. We stood around all morning and then, just before midday, the Milesians sang their Paean and went forward.
The rest of the rebels went forward, too, but they did it by fits and starts, and the left hung back. Aristides didn't seem in a hurry to leave our hill.
The Lydian cavalry rode forward at a brisk trot, determined to flank our phalanx and rip us apart. I watched the cavalry and I feared them. Greeks don't have much cavalry, and we aren't always good at standing against it.
But Aristides had done his job, and over on the flank of our hill there were orchards and vineyards – small, but walled – and all our slaves and skeuophoroi were inside those walls. They ripped into the flanks of the cavalry with slings and javelins, and the Lydians didn't stay to fight. They turned and rode off. I've always thought that the fatal flaw with cavalry is the ease with which they ride away.
Then the Carians came forward. From my ripe old age, I now suspect they had intended to hit us while the cavalry chewed our flanks to ruin, but as with most plans that require men to cooperate on a battlefield, they screwed it up, so that the men of Caria came forward alone.
Aristides came and said a few things. They sounded good, and we cheered him, but all I could see was that wall of bronze coming at us, and how big the Carians were. I didn't feel like a hero at all – I kept waiting for that wonderful feeling to come, and it wouldn't come.
'When they reach the foot of the slope,' Aristides said, finally, 'we will sing, and go forward into them.'
I could see that this surprised the men around me, and that meant it would surprise the Carians. We had a nice secure hilltop, and they had to climb to us in the sun.
'Fuck,' Cleon said behind me. 'Look at that.'
We all stopped watching Aristides and looked south instead. We had a superb view of the battlefield, so we were able to watch as the Milesians broke and ran.
They had never even reached the Persian lines.
Aristides stared at them with disgust.
The Carians would have done better to give us a few minutes. We'd have marched away. The battle was over. Our strategos was already running.
Instead, they did as they'd been ordered and came forward.
'We beat them, and then we get out of here,' Aristides said. Then he gave orders for something we'd practised but never actually done in combat. 'Rear-half files!' he cried. 'Close to the front! March!'
We formed a dense wall – what Spartans call the synaspismos, where we put shield on shield. But we were only half as deep – only four men instead of eight.
As soon as we formed close, we raised our voices and sang, and we moved down the hill.
In many ways, this was my first fight in a phalanx. Oh, I know – it was my fourth or fifth, but in all the others I'd been at the back, and the fighting had broken up quickly, or I'd been alone, as in the fight at the pass.
This time, both sides fought like lions.
When you are in the front rank, there's an instant just before the lines close when a skilful man can hurt his opponent with a spear thrust. Once the lines come together, there's no fine spear-fighting – you just thrust as fast and hard as you can until the shaft breaks, and then you draw your sword.
I had two spears – most of us had a pair, balanced for throwing, with long leather thongs. When we were five paces apart, I stepped forward with my left foot in time to the Paean and threw my first spear. Most of us did, and two hundred heavy spears crashed into the Carians as their spears came right back at us. If the pounding of the Medes' arrows had been like the fall of hail on my shield, the jar of a Carian spear was like being hit with a log.
I had my second spear in my hand in the last three paces. I remember being pleased at how well I threw and changed hands, and I stepped forward, planted my foot and thrust overhand, diagonally right.
We crashed into their front and they stopped us dead. And we stopped them.
My spear went in under the Carian's helmet and he went down.
I let the spear go. I was locked up against a big man and his spear was over my right shoulder, trying to kill Cleon. Ares, that press was close! We were doubled up, and we had the hill behind us. They had armour and size.
No one gave a foot.
I got my sword from under my arm and I thrust under my shield, because the crush was too close for a cut. The point glanced off his thigh armour and I thrust again and again, and finally – gods, it seemed to take for ever – I got the blade around his out-thrust leg and cut his sinews and he went down.
I raised my sword up over my head in the single breath before his file-mate slammed his shield into mine. I cut at his helmet and scored, shearing off part of his crest and slamming the helmet against his cheek. He stumbled and I pushed into his shield – and he fell, tripping over his mate, and quicker than thought my sword went left and right at waist level or a little below. I cut at their buttocks and the backs of their legs – back-cut, fore-cut – and then the third-ranker got past the tangle into me, and I hammered my sword into his helmet. He had no crest and his helmet rang and I hit him again. He dropped his spear to get at his sword and Cleon put his spear right into the tau of his faceplate – a magnificent thrust.
I knew my job – and now I felt the power. I roared and pushed past the dying man, slammed the fourth-ranker with my shield and back-cut at the third-ranker without even looking at him, so that my sword broke on his helmet, but he went down, probably unconscious.
Cleon thrust over my shoulder and I took his spear. He let go and I started fighting with it, and he must have got another from the men behind him, because when that spear broke he gave me another.