by H A CULLEY
It was six weeks before Iphitos was fit enough to return to command the artillery. In all that time the stout gates of Pherae had withstood the bombardment and Philip was beginning to suspect that, as had been the case at Potidaea, the defenders had built a wall behind the gates. Iphitos was just discussing the possibility of using a battering ram when the news came that Philip had been dreading. The Phocians had raised an army strong enough to engage the Macedonians and they were advancing to the relief of Pherae.
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Philip was astounded when he learned that the relief force, commanded by the Phocian strategos’ brother, Phallyos , only numbered seven thousand against Philip’s nine thousand. However, they were all battle-hardened mercenaries and most of them were hoplites. The other advantage that Phallyos had was that Philip had to guard against an attack in the rear by the garrison of Pherae, which numbered some three thousand. He therefore detached a cavalry epihipparchia to act as a rear-guard and to keep watch for any move by the men in Pherae.
The Macedonians arrayed their men with the five chiliarcia of hoplites in the centre and the light infantry and the peltasts on the flanks. For the moment the cavalry remained in the rear.
Iphitos and Chronos had been busily occupied in the days leading up to the battle. Not only had the lithoboloi been dismantled and re-erected at the rear of the phalanxes of hoplites, but the engineers had designed and constructed covered pits and traps with sharpened stakes to cripple and disrupt the attackers immediately in front of the army’s position.
As expected, the unimaginative Phallyos had advanced to within two hundred yards of the Macedonians before his peltasts ran forward. As soon as they had taken up their position, Iphitos gave the order to fire. The lithoboloi hadn’t been loaded with rocks this time, but with urns of olive oil sealed with a stopper. These flew through the air and smashed amongst the surprised peltasts.
For a moment they laughed at being pelted with oil, but then the archers let fly with fire arrows. When these landed amongst the oil soaked peltasts and thudded into the earth where some of the jars had burst, the oil ignited with a whoosh that sucked the air across the plain like a wind. The peltasts who had caught alight ran hither and thither like headless chickens, spreading panic and disrupting the formation as men tried to get out of their way.
Then the second load of jars arced up into the sky and fell in the area already blazing merrily. More peltasts were coated in oil and they ran before the flames could ignite them. Some were lucky, others not. But by this time the peltasts had had enough and they fled. Many forcing their way through the phalanxes of hoplites, disrupting them and spreading panic.
When the flames had died down Philip’s own peltasts opened fire on the enemy centre from the flanks. Enfilade fire was not something the mercenaries were used to but they stood and took it, using their shields to protect them as much as they could.
Next the Macedonian hoplites advanced. Their Phocian counterparts were armed with the normal twelve foot spears and the longer sarissas outreached them by some four feet. However, many fell into the pits or were immobilised by the spiked traps before they even came to grips with their foes. Those in the Phocian front ranks who did get through died on the points of the sarissas, whilst the casualties on the Macedonian side were minimal. It didn’t take long before Phallyos knew he was defeated and he ordered a general withdrawal.
Parmenion signalled Antipater and two thousand cavalry trotted around the flanks of their army before breaking into a gallop once they were clear of the line of pits and traps. They started harrying Phallyos ’ rear guard until they broke and then it was every man for himself. Two thousand Macedonian cavalry pursued twice that number of men on foot and killed or captured nearly all of them. However, Phallyos himself and his cavalry, having a head start, managed to outdistance the pursuing Macedonians.
Meanwhile Phallyos ’ brother, the Phocian strategos Onomarcos was completing his conquest of two Thessalian provinces – Locris and Doris – when his brother reached him. Resisting the temptation to kill his brother for losing him the best part of seven thousand expensive mercenaries, he headed for Pherae with twenty thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry. Although Philip outnumbered him in horsemen by six to one, the Phocians had four infantrymen for every one of Philip’s. This was going to be interesting.
Accompanied by Emyntor , Antipater and Kleandros, Parmenion rode up to where Philip was surveying the enemy host. Onomarcos had drawn his men up at the top of a rise so it was impossible to see the whole extent of his army. His peltasts occupied the skyline with the hoplites behind them. There was no sign of either light infantry or cavalry.
The Macedonians marched out onto the plain below the small ridge at Noon and waited. As the sun sat in the sky directly above them the day got hotter and hotter.
‘Our men will be exhausted soon if they stand out in this heat, even with water boys running to and fro to refresh them,’ Parmenion warned.
‘I’m well aware of that, thank you strategos,’ Philip replied, his curtness betraying his uncertainty about what to do.
He had brought his artillery with him but the distance between the two sides was too great and he wouldn’t have the opportunity to use it if the enemy didn’t attack. By late afternoon his patience was exhausted and he gave the order to advance. The Macedonian peltasts ran forward and engaged the enemy peltasts. The contest was evenly matched until five hundred Phocian horsemen appeared over the ridge to the right and charged towards the peltasts, who immediately fled downhill.
Several were overtaken and killed before the Macedonian cavalry entered the fray and drove the Phocians off with heavy losses. As Philip had three thousand cavalrymen against the five hundred from Phocis, the outcome wasn’t altogether surprising.
Next Philip sent his hoplites forward and the disadvantage of the heavy sarissas became apparent. As the soldiers climbed up the slope they had difficulty in keeping their sarissas steady in the upright position and when the first four ranks lowered them to engage the enemy the points wavered all over the place in the hands of the nearly exhausted men. Some allowed their points to droop so they stuck in the ground, breaking up the line, and others had difficulty at aiming at the weak points in the ranks facing them.
Suddenly the advancing hoplites heard the ominous sound of missiles flying through the air. Arrows and javelins struck them at high trajectory and then rocks smashed into the closely packed ranks, killing several hoplites at once. This time it the Phocians who were using lithoboloi. The advance came to a halt before their officers urged them to carry on up the slope. They surged forward again but once more the rocks, arrows and javelins rained down on them.
When they were static peltasts could do little damage as the hoplites sheltered behind their shields but, out in the open on the move, they were much more vulnerable. The experience of being crushed to death was a new one and it was demoralising to see half a dozen men at a time reduced to a red mass of broken bones and pulverised flesh.
Then the ranks of the phalanx parted and men moved forward each armed with a weapon that the Macedonians hadn’t seen before. It was called a gastraphetes, a large hand-held crossbow which fired an iron bolt. The first volley crashed into the front rank of the Macedonians, smashing through shields as if they weren’t there. The men reloaded and fired again before melting back into the ranks of Phocian hoplites.
At last the depleted ranks of the Macedonians reached the enemy and the sarissas began to wreak havoc because of their greater reach. However, they were severely outnumbered and, when the Phocians started to advance down the hill, the weight of numbers forced them back.
Parmenion could see the large number of casualties that his infantry was suffering and, after a hurried consultation with Philip, he ordered the recall. The Macedonians slowly withdrew in good order and in contact with the enemy, who followed them down the hill. The infantry were still in serious trouble when their cavalry hit the Phocian phalanx on both flanks. Suddenl
y the tide turned and now the Phocians started to suffer serious losses as the cavalry charged the flanks time and time again.
As the sun started to set, both sides broke off the battle and retired. The Macedonians kept the campfires burning but by dawn it was obvious that they had withdrawn as soon as darkness had fallen. For the first time since Philip had ruled Macedon and Parmenion had become a strategos they had lost a battle.
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Iphitos hadn’t played any part in the fight, but he had watched and had been intrigued by the gastraphetes. From what he had been able to see at a distance, the iron bolt was launched in a slider, driven forward by the torsion in the string, rather like a conventional bow. Obviously the bow had been reloaded by pressing the end of the slider into the ground until the string was caught by a hook. It was fired by releasing this hook. The big advantage over a normal wooden arrow was the penetrative power of the bolt. The disadvantage was the time it took to reload.
Having slipped away, the Macedonians had a six hour start on the pursuit by the Phocians. With the cavalry to protect their rear, Philip wasn’t too worried about being caught but the baggage train and the lithoboloi, disassembled and carried on carts, slowed them down. He therefore ordered them to continue at night with a small escort. Men took it in turns to drive the carts so everyone got some sleep but the oxen who pulled them soon became exhausted so on the third night Demetrius called a halt.
They had scarcely started off again the next day when the vanguard of the pursuing army caught them up. Demetrius sent a messenger to Philip to say that the Phocians were harassing the rear-guard and so Philip had little option but to return and face them. He chose the bank of a small river to make his stand. The limestone outcrop he had chosen lay in a bend in the river with marshy ground on either side. The approach to his position was firm underfoot, but narrow. It meant that the Phocians couldn’t use their greater numbers to outflank him. The river was shallow and easily forded beyond the marshy area but Iphitos and his engineers, aided by the light infantrymen, drove pointed stakes into the river bed under water. He assembled his lithoboloi along the river bank and then waited. The baggage train continued on its way with the remains of the rear-guard.
When Onomarcos studied the Macedonians formation he immediately noticed that their cavalry wasn’t present. He was nervous about that as he didn’t think that Philip would have allowed them to make good their escape leaving the rest of the army exposed. He had no more than a hundred horsemen left himself so he sent them out as scouts to cross the river upstream and downstream of the marshes to see if he could attack Philip in his rear.
Both troops of fifty Phocian horsemen discovered the pointed stakes at roughly the same time and hastily withdrew to the home bank. When they did they were hit by half of the Macedonian cavalry and quickly eliminated in full view of the rest of their army. Onomarcos quickly sent a chiliarchy back to reinforce the one he had left with the baggage train but he was too late. The rest of the Macedonian cavalry had attacked it as soon as it had stopped a mile behind the army, slaughtered the disorganised guards and the carters and then did the same to the reinforcements. Onomarcos ground his teeth in fury when he saw the black smoke lazily curling upwards into the cloudless blue sky as his supplies were burnt.
He knew that, even if he won this battle and caught up with the Macedonians’ baggage train, he would be short of supplies as his army was so much larger. However, first he had to defeat Philip and Parmenion, this time decisively.
The battle opened in the conventional manner with peltasts attacking each other. However, this time it was the Macedonian artillery that smashed groups of the enemy into pulp. His own artillery having been lost with the baggage train, there was little that Onomarcos could do but send in his hoplites.
As they advanced towards the tongue of land on which the Macedonians awaited them, the Macedonian cavalry swept in across the firm ground behind the marshy river banks and attacked both flanks of the phalanx. The latter halted and faced outwards to defend themselves against the cavalry. Then both peltasts and artillery hit the static target.
This continued until the Phocian flanks were at last protected by the marshy ground. It was then that they discovered just how effective the sarissa was in the hands of experienced, stationary hoplites. The dead and wounded began to pile up in front of the Macedonian phalanx as the men in the first five ranks rotated with those behind. The demoralised mercenaries knew that their shorter spears couldn’t reach the enemy unless they threw them, which many did, leaving them with just their swords which, in this type of battle, were worse than useless.
Eventually the Phocians withdrew leaving behind nearly two thousand casualties in heaps in front of the Macedonians. As they did the cavalry launched more pinprick attacks until the Phocians had the sense to form up in a square facing outwards.
It was a stalemate and eventually both sides sent a delegation forward to negotiate. By the end of the day the Phocians were withdrawing towards Pherae and Philip led his army wearily back towards the border and Macedon. He had achieved nothing, except to lose two thousand trained and experienced troops. The fact that the Phocians had lost many times that number of mercenaries was little consolation. You don’t have to pay dead mercenaries and you can use the money saved to hire more.
Even worse, Philip had been beaten, even if not catastrophically so, and been forced to run back to Macedon to lick his wounds. His reputation, and that of Parmenion, for always being victorious had been severely dented.
Chapter Seven – The Crocus Field
352 BC
Iphitos examined the gastraphetes that one of Philip’s agents had bought in Syracuse. It had a double handle at the rear to make it easier to push the slider back to reload. Even so it took a strong man to exert enough force to do so and the ground had to be really hard or it would just sink into the earth. It was Chronos who suggested a block of wood or a flat stone to press against.
His aide had tried to re-cock it but had failed dismally, much to Iphitos’ amusement. However, his grin faded when he too failed to load it. He was now seventeen and quite well built. If he couldn’t manage it, he would need men with above average strength to use the new weapon. Whilst he set about finding a hundred men who were strong enough he started the carpenters, smiths and bow makers producing the weapons from his prototype.
He was also busy designing a lighter type of lithobolos to use on the battlefield. The type used in sieges were too large and cumbersome. Two boys gave him the idea for a machine that could propel a much larger bolt than a gastraphetes was capable of. Two ten-year olds were using a discarded length of stone guttering to shoot a stick along. They had made a simple hammer using a stone lashed to a stick and hit the end of the stick. It then shot along the channel and flew out of the far end. They had drawn a target on a wall with a piece of chalk stone and every time one hit the target he’d shriek with delight. Iphitos smiled at their innocent fun and tried to remember if he’d enjoyed such a simple pleasure at that age; he didn’t think so.
He started to draw out possible designs which he then discussed with Lysis and Chronos. The channel idea was what was used in a lithobolos. The difference was that the channel needed to be narrow enough to guide a long metal arrow in a straight line and the whole contraption, being much heavier than a gastraphetes, would need to be mounted on two wheels at the front for manoeuvrability.
Ideas were tossed backwards and forwards until a possible design emerged. The bow was mounted in a hollow rectangular frame with grooves to allow the arms of the bow to move freely. This was then mounted on a horizontal frame to which the channel was also affixed. A double windlass at the rear wound the bowstring back until it could be caught by the hook and the whole contraption was mounted on a frame to which wheels on an axle were fitted at the front. The rear end would be lowered or raised by means of a wooden leg with holes drilled in it and a peg to secure the leg at the right height.
When the machine was loaded, the
hook was released so that the bow snapped straight and the bolt sped up the channel. The one in the first prototype travelled over a hundred yards. Gradually improvements were made and the size increased but it took three months to come up with a design that could propel a missile far and hard enough to kill a hoplite through his shield at two hundred yards.
When Iphitos was ready to show off his new mobile catapult, which he called a katapeltikon, he laid on a demonstration using the body of a slave who had died of natural causes. A shield was tied to its front and the corpse was dressed in a bronze cuirass. The metal bolt hit the body at chest height from two hundred yards and pierced the shield, cuirass and body before the point emerged through the back plate.
Philip was impressed but felt that the katapeltikon had too short a range and wasn’t powerful enough. He wasn’t in the best of moods in any case. Olympias had just presented him with another daughter who they had named Thessalonica and he was disappointed. She had given birth to another girl, Cleopatra, two years previously and he wanted more sons.
However, the four year old Alexander was just old enough to realise that his position as his father’s heir could well be threatened by a younger brother. He wasn’t the eldest, but his half-brother was soft in the head and no real threat. His mother drummed into him that he was the natural choice and the young boy was anxious for it to stay that way.
