God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

by Christian Cameron

  We were shutting the enemy cavalry in a box and dominating the countryside. The Athenian Hippeis had done well against Macedonians in the past – we’d got our fingers nipped by Phokion a few times. It was heady to be better than they in every skirmish. And the Theban cavalry were a sorry lot, and we bullied them. The Athenians never got bullied.

  After one encounter, where we chased the Thebans twenty stades and captured a Boeotarch, Philip allowed that, in his son, he might have discovered a second Macedonian general after Parmenio.

  Now that’s flattery. And Alexander loved him for it, gave him a leg-up when he went for a ride, held his horse when he dismounted, waited on him with a cup in his hand, and was the dutiful son that he secretly longed to be.

  Both of them were better men when they were successful, together.

  And all the plots fell to pieces. No one at court was going to plot against rampant success. Philip, the best general in Greek history, had a son who bid fair to be his equal. We were headed for glory. Attalus took a fraction of the army and marched off to reduce Naupactus, just to keep Athens at the bargaining table, and after he left, the camp was like paradise.

  Sophists and priests like to tell people that war is a terrible thing, and indeed, it can be – dead babes, children starving, horses screaming for a man to come and put them down. Horrible. But war in the summer in Boeotia, between Greeks, men of education, courage and principle, was merely the greatest sport man could invent, or the gods. Those who died, died in the flower of youth and vigour, and we feasted every shade. And those that lived were better for having eaten at danger’s table and survived. And that is the other face of war – the contest of the worthy.

  It went on for months, and while we faced the allies across the dance floor of Ares, we skirmished with their cavalry every day, we rode in races, we wrestled, we ate well and every night Nike took me in her arms. And Alexander ate with our mess once a week, when he wasn’t in the field. And Nike began to organise the camp girls – not that she was one of them, but neither did she put on airs.

  Good times. I never tired of her. I captured a beauty one day – captured is too strong, but my patrol snapped up a dozen boys and a girl headed into the enemy camp, and the girl was my share. Hair like honey, big tits and a tiny waist – I sent her home. I had what I wanted. And I did it as a sacrifice to Aphrodite.

  The wheat was ripening in the fields and the barley was golden when it became plain that no matter what we offered, Athens intended to fight. The last straw was Naupactus, a vital Athenian naval base. Attalus took it – he was a good soldier, despite being a total shit of a man – and at that point, Athens should have wanted peace. Instead, they marched their ephebes over the mountains, brought up four hundred more Hippeis, and the cavalry war heated up.

  The new Athenian cavalry were better – the best we’d faced, with excellent horses and better discipline. Of course, they were the real aristocrats, most of whom were politically in favour of Philip – members of Phokion’s party to a man. Whatever their ethics, they had superb horses and they were crafty devils.

  That’s the first time I saw your pater, sprig. He was a troop leader, like me, and we tangled twice in a row, honours even. His troop was excellent – not as rock hard as my boys, but better mounted. He caught me flat-footed at the edge of the hills over towards the Kerata Pass, and I caught him the next day, his troop tired and too strung out on the road – but while the men were tired, the mounts were fine, and I got one prisoner, a scruffy peasant boy named Niceas – he was allowed as he was a hyperetes, which with us is a servant, and I slapped his arse and told him to stay out of the fighting. More fool I. Among Athenians, that made him an under-officer, the troop leaders’ right hand.

  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 Symposium and 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 not know 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.

  We slotted into our place in time to watch some of our Psiloi get driven off the ground by allied skirmishers. It wasn’t a hot fight, but the enemy had cavalry mixed in with their Psiloi, and they were killing our lads in short rushes.

  Laodon shook his head, pointing at the ground. ‘I’m not taking my knights into that,’ he said. ‘We’ll kill more horses then men.’

  I had to agree – he was older, and I thought he was right.

  But the Athenian cavalry was in there, and they were having a field day against our javelin men. Finally the whole pack of our light armed gave it up and fled. They ran right through us, and rallied behind us.

  Then we got to endure arrows and javelins. We pulled back, found a better piece of ground and the Athenian cavalry formed to face us and just sat there. We hooted at them, they hooted at us – our numbers were even, and neither of us had anything to gain from a charge.

  Our light armed were ready to go forward again, and their leader was talking to Laodon, when a man came galloping towards us from the Athenian ranks. He halted a few horse lengths from our line.

  ‘I am Kineas, son of Eumenes,’ he called out. He declared his whole lineage – how he was descended from Herakles via the heroes of Plataea. He had beautiful armour, and a pair of white plumes in his helmet.

  He was challenging us to fight man to man.

  Laodon spat. Looked away. Young enough to be embarrassed – too professional to accept.

  Not me. I took my good spear from Polystratus. I gave Kineas of Athens a proper salute, and we went at it. We charged each other from about half a stade – a long ride, when you’ve nothing to do but contemplate mortality.

  He got me. I won’t spin it out, you must have heard the story from your uncles – turned my spear, got his spear up and swept me off Poseidon’s back. The Athenian infantry at the top of the hill roared, and I was unconscious.

  I knew he was the same man I’d faced twice in two days. So I got my sorry carcass mounted again as soon as I was able to think and see straight – he’d creased the top of my helmet so badly that I couldn’t get it on my head properly and had to discard it, and I had a lump like an egg.

  I got back on Poseidon with Cleomenes holding his head, and that was just in time to see Laodon’s troop of companions crash into the nearest troop of Athenians – head to head, no manoeuvre. And their second troop was lining up, and there was no time to worry. My head hurt, but not enough to stop me doing my job.

  The boys were quite kind, all things considered. I got some back slaps and some ‘get the bastard next time’ comments, and then I was in my spot at the head of the wedge. The Athenians were formed in a rhomboid, and they had some slope behind them.

  And then we were off.

  Troop to troop, same weight of horseflesh, same ground, not much to tell in skill – it might have been a bloodbath. It wasn’t. We smashed into them, and I never got sword to sword with Kineas – we struck a few horse lengths from each other, and I was into the Athenian ranks before I had time to think about it, cutting to either side, taking blows on my armour and a heavy cut to my bridle arm – see the scar? But I kept my seat and burst out the other side of their formation and found that old Philip had started his infantry forward.

  There was a third troop of horse – Thessalians under Erygius – and they smashed into the flank of the melee, bowling Athenian Hippeis right over with their long lances, and suddenly the whole pack of them was in flight, and the hypaspists cheered us.

  I could see Philip, just a few horse lengths away. I saluted with my sword, and he waved. A handsome boy came running from his side.

  Up close, I could see it was Attalus’s pretty cousin, Diomedes. To me, he looked more like Ganymede.

  ‘The king thanks you and orders you back to the left,’ he said.

  I saluted, and my trumpeter started blowing the recall.

  It was all going according to plan, until the hypaspists slammed into the Athenians and the Athenians rolled them right back down the hill.

  My lads were just behind them, crossing back from our right to our left by the shortest route, and we felt it when the hypaspists went into the Athenians. Not for them the sarissa – they had the hoplite spear, the dory and the bigger, heavier hoplite aspis. But they were not all individual athletes like the Athenians, and nor did they have a front rank in leg armour, sometimes arm, face and hand armour – a rich Athenian can look like a bronze automaton.

  I heard all the excuses that night – there was a line of animal holes, men fell, the Athenians had du
g pits in front – for whatever reason, our front rank stumbled and the Athenians gave a great shout and pushed, and our best were stumbling back.

  We companions had to hotfoot along to get clear before they slammed into us and all order was lost. Laodon turned back at this point – against orders, I’ll add – and manoeuvred to cover the flank of the hypaspists, in case the enemy light troops got brave. It was a smart move.

  Whether Philip had intended it or not, his extreme right – his hypaspists – had engaged first, so that the entire army was echeloned from right to left, with the best troops leading the way and the worst following well behind. I’ve done this on purpose, but on that morning, I still think it was the result of the king being on the far right when he gave the signal to advance, so that the rightmost files stepped off first and started a sort of marching cascade.

  It scarcely matters why – except that the whole army saw the king and the hypaspists recoil. And the Athenians raised a great cheer, sang the paean, and their whole line moved forward.

  I couldn’t rein in and watch – bad for discipline. But it didn’t look good.

  I kept turning my head and looking back as we rode – and the hypaspists were driven down and down the ridge, even as our rawest troops were marching forward into the Thebans.

  When I reached Alexander, he was alone except for Hephaestion, well in front of all the cavalry.

  ‘What in Tartarus is happening?’ he demanded.

  What exactly do you say? ‘The hypaspists seem hard pressed, lord,’ I said.

  Alexander nodded sharply, eyes everywhere.

  With a pots-and-pans sound audible even from a stade away, the centres met. The allies had the smaller town contingents and some dubious mercenaries in the centre. We had foot companions. Ours were better, and almost instantly they started to push the allies back.

  Why?