Throne of Darius: A Captain of Thebes
The fight against Alexander the Great: Book I
Mark G. McLaughlin
Copyright © 2019 by Mark McLaughlin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Author’s Preface
I. Thebes
1. Thebes
2. Pelion
3. Thebes
4. The Enclosure of Iolaos
5. The Enclosure of Iolaos
6. The House of Pindar
7. Alexander's Camp
8. The Palisade
9. Thebes
10. Pindar's House
II. Athens
11. The House of Demades
12. The Port of Piraeus
13. The Port of Piraeus
14. Piraeus
III. Ephesos
15. Ephesos
16. Ephesos
17. Miletos
18. Dascylion
19. The Meander River
20. The Hellespont
21. The River Granicos
22. The River Granicos
23. The River Granicos
24. The Long Hill
25. Behind the Macedonian Line
26. The Hill
27. Slavery
28. Alexander Moves South
29. The Slave March
30. Sardis
31. The Hellespont
32. Ephesos
33. Ephesos
IV. Miletos
34. Miletos
35. Miletos
36. Miletos
37. Miletos
38. The Island of Lades
39. Miletos Harbor
40. Miletos Harbor
41. The Necropolis
42. Old Citadel Hill
43. Miletos Acropolis
44. Miletos
45. Memnon's Claw
46. Miletos
47. Miletos
48. Miletos
49. Mycale
50. Miletos
51. Miletos
52. Miletos
53. Miletos
54. Miletos
55. Miletos
56. Miletos
57. Miletos
58. Miletos
59. Myndos
V. Halicarnassos
60. Halicarnassos
61. Alinda
62. East of Myndos
63. Halicarnassos
64. Into the Interior
65. Halicarnassos
66. Outside Mylasa
67. Outside Halicarnassos
68. East of Mylasa
69. Halicarnassos
70. In the Interior
71. In the Interior
72. Bogdan
73. Bogdan
74. Halicarnassos
75. Bogdan
76. Diospolis
77. Halicarnassos
78. Diospolis
79. Halicarnassos
80. Outside Laodikea
81. North of Myndos
82. Diospolis
83. Halicarnassos
84. On the Coast near Halicarnassos
85. Halicarnassos
86. The Island with a View
87. Outside The Tripylon Gate
88. The Long Island off Halicarnassos
89. Halicarnassos
90. The Long Island
91. Halicarnassos
92. The Long Island
93. Halicarnassos
94. Halicarnassos
95. The Royal Citadel
96. The Island of Cos
Epilogue: Cos
97. The Island of Cos
A Note from the Author…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Preface
Throne of Darius is not just another pikeman in that massive phalanx of novels glorifying Alexander of Macedonia, known to history as “the Great.” It is, instead, a tale dedicated to those who fought against him. Of Greeks, who, as the Theban lyric poet Pindar wrote of other heroes, “have taken strife as their bride, and are faithful until death.”
As Alexander marched on with his Macedonians, not all Greeks followed. Many stood up for their honor, their cities, their families, their faiths, and their freedom. History is of course written by the victors, but the vanquished, too, have their stories to tell. This is one of them.
It IS Greek to Me…
Many wonderful and talented authors writing tales of Alexander’s times sprinkle or even flood their stories with Greek or Persian words for military units, weapons, buildings, and titles that are, for lack of a better term, “foreign” to most contemporary readers. Some of these are so obscure or ungainly that even those of us who drink deep from the cup of history have to pause to ponder their meaning or go look them up on our bookshelves or online.
Rest assured, dear reader, that this author knows his sarissa from his taxeis (the one a very, very long spear, the other a body of men carrying them), but feels no compulsion to give constant proof of such knowledge. Instead, this author has sought to limit the use of such language and to write in such a way as to allow the reader to move ahead without the need to slow down for such verbal speed bumps. So, too, will there more often be yards, miles, and pounds instead of pygons, parasangs, and minae.
I have “but little Latin and less Greek” (at one time a thoroughly damning insult, especially among the previous generation of those who, like me, were fortunate enough to receive a classical education). Thus have I chosen to write in American English and not Greek-inflected, -affected or -afflicted English, for the first is my mother tongue, as I suspect it is of most of those who will open the cover and turn the pages of Throne of Darius.
I might add that the Greek terms, names and locations have been verified with my editor, for whom Greek is her mother tongue. As per her recommendation, however, for ease of reading, Alexander remains Alexander instead of the more correct Alexandros, and the Persian king of kings remains Darius rather than the more proper Darios, as most readers are more familiar with them by those versions of their names. Otherwise, all names and locations are left in Greek.
Part I
Thebes
Central Greece
Year Two of the Reign of Alexander of Macedonia
1
Thebes
Near the Cadmea – the fortress on the Theban acropolis
“Alexander is dead! Alexander is dead!” howled the boy, his voice part joyful scream, part clarion call to bloody murder. “Rise up, Thebans! Rise up! The day of delivery is here!”
To punctuate his cry of rebellion, the scruffy, excited lad drew a small, notched blade from inside the folds of his short, tattered and dirty tunic and jabbed it into the neck of the first Macedonian soldier he spied. Not much older than the boy and possessing little true Greek, the guard did not fully comprehend what the youth was saying – at least not until he felt the jagged blade plunge into his throat.
By then, it was too late for the soldier, the spear he had been lazily leaning on clattering to the stones as he clutched his bleeding neck with both hands. It was his last conscious act on earth. Other carving knives, drawn from other dirty tunics, came slashing down behind the armored greaves on his legs. Still more blades found the open spots between breastplate and underarms, cutting at and into every vulnerable part of his once lean and now horribly mutilated form.
The young soldier died, as did scores of his comrades throughout the occupied city. Only the lucky few went quickly. Most died ho
rribly and all were put down violently – taken by surprise, alone or in small groups, on the streets, in the market, and even in their beds.
Some few, some very, very few, managed to form a semblance of a phalanx – that bristling shield wall for which first Greece and later her Macedonian overlords were famed. Secure in their thorny armored shell, the soldiers cut their way through the ever-thickening mob back to the citadel, that mighty stone fortress called Cadmea – only to find its massive doors shut tight.
Trapped at the foot of the long steps leading up to the fortress, the spearmen braced themselves against the rough granite. Hundreds of frenzied citizens pushed, and pressed, and hurled themselves like waves pounding the beach, only to crash and break upon the Macedonian shields. Nearly overborne by numbers, the Macedonian spearmen never faltered, never tried to flee. Each to fall went to his death as a soldier – stabbing, thrusting, and slashing with spear, sword, and knife into the howling mob. Brave as they were, their numbers continued to shrink. Slowly, step by blood-spattered, slippery-stone step, they gave ground, making the Thebans pay a toll in blood for each stair the soldiers gave up in their retreat toward the citadel.
Theban flesh met Macedonian iron and bled, but it, too, did not yield. Forward the men of Thebes not so much charged but raced, and raced headlong to hurl themselves at the hated occupiers. Women threw stones, clay pots, dishes, and even food in an overhead barrage, forcing many of the soldiers in the second rank to raise their shields high. At their feet, other soldiers were busy fending off the little boys who were squirming beneath the hedgehog of spears to prick, and cut, and even bite at their ankles. The Thebans came on as a people drunk; intoxicated on a heady mix of blood, liberty, and revenge; a concoction made more potent yet by remembered visions of their city’s ancient glory.
Although the city was swept by this human maelstrom, a few of the Macedonian patrols escaped back to the steps of the citadel, the phalanx opening ever so slightly to let them in. Their lives were bought with those of their comrades in the ever contracting, slowly retreating but never collapsing phalanx.
As these soldiers fell back to the citadel, their comrades within, too, were beset.
Just before dawn, a handful of assassins slipped into the sleeping chambers of the fortress commander. The battle cry of ’Alexander is dead’ then but a whisper on their lips, the raiders seized general Amyntas and the leader of the Macedonian collaborators, Timolaos. They murdered them, and in a manner so vile only those who strike in the name of vengeful patriotism can rationalize.
The first, a Macedonian war hero, much beloved by his men who nicknamed him “Abrutes” (or eyebrows), they hung on a hook like a pig and sliced his throat as if butchering a hog. His killers cheered as the general's life's blood drained away. Amyntas' second in command, Alexiades, tried to save his general, but to no avail. The Theban assassins bound up Alexiades hand and foot and threw him from the wall by the city's Ismenian Gate. His bones broken, unable to move, the Macedonian captain was left for the wild dogs and wolves to dine on at night.
As for Timolaos, a Theban who had sold out to the Macedonians, his death was even more unpleasant. To the killers, whose homes and property Timolaos had seized and whose relatives and friends he had driven into exile, the Theban politician was no mere foreign occupier but a native-born traitor to his people and to his city. Viewed as a man who had chosen Macedonian barbarians over Theban Greeks, Timolaos died a traitor's death, given over to the women of the families he had betrayed, robbed, imprisoned and humiliated.
These deaths were but the clarion call, the prelude to the mass uprising, but old soldiers do not die easily. Veterans all, the Macedonians rose from their beds, grabbed swords and shields before even donning their tunics, and, fighting naked, regained control of the Cadmea from the invaders. Enraged by the cowardly murders of their general and their captain, the soldiers took some slight solace in knowing that their officers did not go to Hades alone, as many of their killers soon followed.
Once they had scoured the Cadmea clean, the garrison put on their armors, broiled out of their barracks, and went about the grim and bloody business for which they were trained. Set-jawed, steel-eyed Macedonian soldiers methodically cleansed the citadel’s interior of the Thebans - all Thebans. With jabbing spears and slashing swords, they mowed down not just the armed intruders but also workmen, cooks, shopkeepers, slaves, casual interlopers, whores, and camp followers, sparing neither women nor children in their cold rage.
Murdering their way from the barracks through the courtyard to the citadel gate, the Macedonian garrison regained control of the entry way to their fortress from the inside. Only then could they unbar the massive doors and start to bring in what few survivors remained of the city patrols. As the gates swung open, a mighty rush of Thebans came on again, the promise of death in their fiery eyes, only to be skewered on the spears and pikes of the now reinforced and doubly ferocious phalanx.
Back and forth the mass of flesh and wall of shields contended. On one side, grim soldiers in bronze armor; on the other, a great wave of humanity intent on spending itself upon the unyielding barrier. The press of bodies pushed the phalanx back, step by slow step, forcing the Macedonians ever backward, one booted foot at a time until they filled the gateway. There the phalanx paused, its spear points the teeth of the aping maw of a blood-splattered monster.
One by one, men in the back ranks found safety within the Cadmea, their home since placed there by the Macedonian tyrant Philip a few scant three years ago.
For many hours, the Thebans repeatedly launched themselves at the shrinking phalanx. The mob eventually fell back, only to give way to athletic young men with slings, and bows, and javelins. These youths rained a heavy barrage upon the Macedonians. Few missiles found a lethal mark, yet under this steady nuisance the soldiers could not lower their shields or fall back to close the gate again, lest the boiling crowd pounce and overcome them.
While the young men kept the Macedonians pinned, a one-armed man climbed into the bed of a cart, stood and addressed the crowd, many of whom were looking for a way to quietly escape from the scene of the battle.
“Friends, fellow citizens of Thebes! You know me! I am Coroneos! One of the very, very few survivors of the Sacred Band. I left my right arm on the field of Chaeronea, and had-I not fainted from loss of blood and been carried off, the rest of me would be out there still, beneath that mound of earth that covers my brothers.”
Cheers and salutes from several in the mob encouraged the wounded veteran. Emboldened and heartened by their reaction, the old soldier spoke on.
“Today you have given me a chance to avenge my brothers, and to once again fight for our freedom! Not just freedom for Thebes, but freedom for all of Greece! Let all who love freedom come with me now! Up those steps, where we shall strike the first blow to destroy the tyranny of Macedon's kings over Greek democracy! Screw your courage to the sticking point, my fellow citizens, and follow me up those steps – to freedom!”
Swapping men in and out of the shield wall, the watch commander had kept the citadel doorway open to those few soldiers who managed to straggle back to the fortress, yet still blocked to the mob. With each wounded man he pulled back, he prayed to Zeus for night - and with it for a respite from missile fire so he could recover the last of his men and close that bloody gate.
With his prayers still floating up to Olympus, he heard the one-armed man exhorting the crowd to action. That wild man in the lead, on came the Thebans once again. Despite their frenzy, they were still but a mob and could not break his shield wall. Once again, like the tide going back out, the crowd fell back, dragging their wounded with them.
The respite the Macedonians earned did not last long, as once again they heard cheers and shouts in the square. The next attack came moments later. But it was not the mob this time, nor the young slingers and bowmen and javelin-throwers either. It was the hoplites: the citizen soldiers of the city, heads fully encased in plumed helmets, steely eyes p
eering through narrow slits. Their strong, muscular breasts protected by cuirasses of bronze, their powerful legs girded with greaves, they bore great, heavy, full-body shields strapped to their necks and shoulders, leaving hands free for their long, sharp spears. Sons and grandsons of fighting men, these were descendants of the army that had won fame half a century earlier for beating that once most unbeatable of all Greek armies – the Spartans.
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