God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

by Christian Cameron

  As one, forty thousand men rose to their feet and screamed their approval.

  And then we marched.

  It was daring, to manoeuvre in a column of regiments in the face of the enemy. Even more daring, Alexander made the first of several changes to his battle plan before the army had marched off from camp. He rode past me to Parmenio and told him something, and Parmenio immediately marched off in a parallel column led off by Craterus. And then Alexander rode to Cleitus, with the mercenaries, and he began to form a third column.

  Columns are deceptive. The problem is that, like a xiphos, their deception is double-edged, because they can deceive their own strategos as effectively as they deceive the enemy.

  The enemy really only sees the head of the column. Part of this is the problem of battlefield visibility. With cavalry raising dust, on a flat plain with no ridges or handy hills, the enemy strategos has a hard time seeing past the front five or six ranks. And unless he’s a magical combination of oracular wizard and mathematician, he cannot imagine how much space your column will eat when it turns into a line.

  There’s the double-edged part. An inexperienced strategos can misjudge the width of his own line, which makes forming his line a disaster, as one end or the other collides with a river, a hill, rocky ground or some other obstacle and the whole line is disordered.

  Multiple columns that have to fit together?

  I’d never even seen it tried before.

  Alexander rode back to me, his leopard skin already covered in dust. ‘You understand?’ he asked.

  It’s good to be good at your job. ‘I understand that I’m now the linchpin in linking up with Craterus,’ I said. ‘We’ll form front by advancing obliquely?’

  He gave me a curt nod – in terms of his present plan, what I asked must have seemed obvious and even impertinent.

  ‘I built a cairn on the plain to mark the point to which I should march,’ I said.

  He turned and looked at me. Nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well thought of. Leave the column the moment you see it and march on it, and the rest of the wing will conform to you.’

  I mention this, because details such as this decide battles as surely as the sword arms of heroes.

  We had twelve stades to march to the cairn, and they flew by. Time – I have heard a hundred philosophers say that time flows the same for all men. I saw Callisthenes, a year later, put a stick in the ground and mark off the quarters of the day, and time – the chariot of the sun – could be seen to pass in an orderly manner, from left to right, every quarter of the day the same length as every other.

  That’s all very well, but the morning of the Battle of Gaugamela proved the opposite. Time crept by during the speeches and the sacrifices, and then we began to march, and I thought twelve stades would never pass, and then, five stades out, we could see the entire length of Darius’s line, and the army almost stopped marching. At five stades, the Persians were like a thick rope across the plain, a rope that lived and moved.

  Most of us had never seen an elephant before. Darius had a dozen. Scythed chariots sparkled in the front rank of his centre. He had more cavalry over there than we had men in our entire army.

  It took our breath away.

  No one had ever seen such an army.

  And despite the rate that a marching man may seem to accomplish on a normal day, that morning we seemed to hurtle at Darius’s line like a thunderbolt – a small, weak thunderbolt.

  I managed to work up a good set of nerves about finding my cairn, and I left the column and rode out in the dust, alone. The Paeonians had already covered the ground and raised enough dust to mask our advance, and it took me some heart-pounding minutes to find the cursed rock pile with its gaudy spear.

  Polystratus laughed at me.

  I left him to watch the rocks and galloped back to the column. From two stades away, the column was nothing but a thin line of bronze and a haze of steel spear-tips in a dust cloud.

  I rode back to my taxeis. ‘At my word, we will incline together to the left!’ I called out. I rode up and down my files until every man had heard me. Awkward sods on the left files began to incline and had to be swatted back into their spots with cries of, ‘Wait for it, you dickless fuck!’

  I trotted back to the head of my part of the column. ‘Taxeis of Outer Macedon! To the left! INCLINE!’

  I left Leosthenes in charge and rode back to the front until I could see Polystratus. Then I halted. Leosthenes knew his job – he guided the right front phylarch – another Philip – to moderate his incline step until he matched perfectly with my line and Polystratus and the cairn, after which he ordered them to face front and march forward.

  Then I galloped. I put my head down and raced for the head of the right flank column. I found Hephaestion – Alexander was gone on another errand.

  I pointed well behind him and to his left. ‘See my lads? They are on line.’

  Hephaestion nodded. ‘Column! Halt and form front to the left! Look for Ptolemy’s taxeis to dress on!’

  My men were marching forward all this time, so that they were already halfway from the rear of the right column to the front, a stade or more to our left. They were easily visible in their magnificent armour.

  Hephaestion held out his hand. ‘This is it,’ he said.

  I clasped his hand. ‘He’ll do it,’ I said.

  Hephaestion nodded.

  And then time sped up again.

  I was back with my taxeis, and I sent my Poseidon to the rear and my view dwindled – the height of a horse makes an enormous difference on a flat, dusty plain. And then – then we were so close to them that I could see individual men, horses, helmets.

  We were opposite the Persian Royal Guard. Again.

  And the last time, they’d held us.

  Well, the last time they’d had a man-high riverbank to help them.

  Polystratus rode up and handed me my greaves, which I snapped on my shins while walking. I’m sure I looked like a clown, trying to get them on while walking, bouncing on one foot and then another, but only a fool goes into hand-to-hand combat without greaves.

  Then I ran, and sprinted across my own front. We were, just in that moment, the very point of Alexander’s arrow. We were the lead element, and our right flank echeloned away to the right, so that the hypaspitoi were a little behind us but perfectly formed on our flank, and the Aegema – the household companions and then all the rest of the Hetaeroi – were formed on them, each squadron a horse length to the rear of the one before, and then, far out in the dust, I could see more horses, each squadron back from the last – less like an arrowhead than a bent bow, but from where I was I could see the men, the horses, or their dust.

  We were two stades from the enemy, and Darius was getting his first look at our formation.

  By Herakles, it was beautiful.

  Of course, had some unit cocked it up, we’d have had a hole in our own lines.

  I got a few yards in front. ‘Friends!’ I roared. ‘In a few moments, we will have the pleasure of ripping the guts out of Darius’s Royal Guard. The same bastards we saw at Issus. NEED I SAY MORE?’

  And then Darius let loose his scythed chariots.

  I’ve heard stories about those chariots. So here’s what I saw.

  They were useless.

  The speed of our approach caused somebody – probably Darius himself – to misjudge the moment of their release. Horses take time to get to a gallop, and horses won’t gallop at a solid wall of spears. They would have had to start while we were farther out in the plain – but then, of course, we weren’t a solid wall, we were in parallel columns, and there was nothing for the chariots to hit.

  Moreover, our echelon allowed us to form gaps – quickly, and without fuss – in any direction, because each unit was ahead of or behind the next, so that we could all move to the flank. That scarcely mattered, because all the chariots on our front – the moment their drivers bailed out, and many jumped before their chariots were even moving –
headed for the gaps that already existed, between the taxeis.

  Craterus took the worst of it, because his taxeis was echeloned well back, giving the horses time to reach their gallop, and because bad manoeuvring by the taxeis on either flank left him with no place to go. Even there, however, he dropped four files to the rear – a brilliant manoeuvre – and another pair of files lay down with their aspides over their heads, as we had fighting the Thracians. Some men had arms broken. Two men died.

  Two. Not to belittle their sacrifice, but Darius unleashed a storm of war horses and flashing bronze, and we lost two dead and about forty injured.

  And most important, we paused, took the stroke and marched on.

  We were picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off – remember, I couldn’t see what happened to Craterus’s phalanx, I had to wait for word. The dust was as thick as smoke in a burning house.

  Alexander came out of the dust, with his staff behind him.

  ‘Darius has a gap between his centre and his left,’ Alexander said, as if we’d been together all afternoon.

  Never mind how he knew. The Paeonians must have reported it.

  I wanted to say something like, ‘Hello to you too’, but he was too intent on the battle.

  ‘I am about to charge it,’ Alexander said. ‘The hypaspitoi will follow. You must hold the ground they give up. Cover our front. And press forward, or, at worst, give no ground.’ He glanced at me. I was not Ptolemy, his boyhood friend. Merely the commander of the Taxeis of Outer Macedon. Truly, I don’t think he could have told anyone my name at that moment.

  I wanted to protest that my men would have to double their frontage. That we would be at most six deep, to fight Darius’s finest infantry.

  But I was sure that my men could do it. And so was he. So there was no point in complaining.

  ‘Halt!’ I roared. ‘Right division – half files to the right! Turn! March!’

  I tucked half my taxeis in behind the hypaspitoi. Now my men were six deep – four deep, in one place. I had expanded my front by one third.

  While my phylarchs readjusted their files to balance the numbers and close up, so that we were as ready as we could be in this shallow formation, the Persians stood close enough that we could see the silver apples on their spears. But they didn’t loose an arrow.

  And they didn’t charge us.

  Listen, I could tell you what happened on the rest of the field. But I wasn’t there. On our left, Bessus, of whom more anon, led his Easterners in a well-timed attempt to turn our flank left. He sent his Sakje to raid our camp, which they did with ruthless joy.

  On our right, Persian and Mede noble cavalrymen, backed by Bactrians and led by Scythians, tried to turn Alexander’s flank; racing to the edge of the unlevelled ground and then curving out and around our Paeonians and our veteran mercenaries under Menidas, they closed in. But they didn’t charge home – they came in as a skirmisher cloud, shooting their bows.

  Menidas charged them, because he had no other choice. He kept his ranks closed up, took serious casualties in men and horses and dusted them back into the bad ground, and then the Paeonians pursued them.

  In time, the reckless pursuit of the Paeonians was punished by the Scythians and the Persians, but it took time.

  On the left, Bessus and Mazaeus were more determined and more reckless, and Parmenio was a little too cautious. But when the Albanians and the Armenians were in the rear of the second line and threatening to turn Craterus, who had had to halt to prevent his flanks from being penetrated, Kineas and the allied horse under Coeranus countercharged. Their triumph was short-lived. But it bought Craterus time, and it bought Parmenio time.

  Of course, I knew none of this, but a god, watching from above with a magic helmet that allowed him to see through dust, might have noticed that the king’s battle plan was still intact. Our army would have looked like an embattled crab – with Persians almost all the way around us.

  That’s what was happening elsewhere.

  Here’s what happened where I was.

  Alexander charged. But there was nothing simple about it, and while the troopers no doubt thought that it was all hard fighting, I could watch it unfold, and to me, it was all about precise manoeuvre.

  As at Issus, he had formed two thousand Hetaeroi into a single wedge with himself at the head, sixty ranks deep at the centre, sixty files wide at the rear base of the triangle. The most manoeuvrable formation that you can achieve with cavalrymen.

  Then he danced with it. The gap was off to his right, and Alexander faced his wedge to the right and trotted there, faster than the Persians could respond – possibly before anyone had noticed that the charge of the Persian left flank, intended to envelop our right, had opened this gap.

  To genius, Alexander added patience and craftsmanship. He didn’t race to the gap and charge. He trotted past the gap and wheeled his wedge back, so that it formed an arrowhead pointing through the gap and back towards Darius. Alexander wasn’t just going to break the line. Alexander intended to kill the King of Kings. Himself. Just as he had told us.

  I had time to watch it all. And I had time to watch the hypaspitoi under Nicanor wheel off by divisions to the right and reform.

  My rear files then closed to the front on my line.

  The hypaspitoi charged first. It is remarkable that every account – even the Military Journal – suggests that Alexander led the first, last and only important charge. I think it is a comment on what a bunch of subservient flunkies we became after Gaugamela that every man within a stade knew that Nicanor led the charge and Nicanor had his orders from the king.

  Nicanor slammed into the Greek mercenaries – the best infantry Darius had, except possibly his Immortal Guards. His attack was executed faultlessly, at the double – the most difficult speed for formed troops, but devastating if delivered perfectly, and the hypaspitoi were the essence of perfection that day. They struck the Greeks, who were waiting at a stand, crumpled their front ranks and shoved their entire phalanx back ten horse lengths.

  The Greeks held. But only just, and as soon as the pushing started, they were at a disadvantage – literally, rocked back on their heels.

  Now every man in the Persian ranks opposite my taxeis was looking to his left, watching. Because suddenly the Persian Immortals were naked – their own left flank now hanging in the air.

  I stepped forward. The Immortals were lofting arrows, but from a stade’s distance, they were more an irritation than a threat. And it told me that the Immortals were shaken.

  ‘Ready!’ I bellowed like a bull.

  Sixteen hundred voices roared.

  ‘Spears! Down!’ I ordered. Two hundred and fifty files, covering more than a stade – only four or six deep. But the spears came down from the high carry to the attack.

  I tucked myself back into my place. Latched my cheek-flaps. Now my view of the battle was cut again – from the panorama of the dusty line to the tunnel that led from me to the sun disc standard of the Immortals. Under their standards, they stood in perfect rows – sons of noblemen, in fine scale armour, with heavy spears and beautiful recurved bows; their alien trousers tucked into boots made of the finest leather; every man had on him enough gold to pay a file of Macedonian phalangites for a year. The officers had long beards like old-fashioned Greeks, and a few had them hennaed bright red.

  ‘Front! March!’ I called.

  Opposite me, orders were being roared in Persian.

  To my left, Coenus was matching his front rank to mine. He was eight deep, and would be more fearsome. His men overlapped the Persian guards and were facing more Greek mercenaries.

  A few arrows came in, and then a volley, all loosed together – someone had fucked that up, as we were still well out.

  ‘At the double! March, march!’ I roared. I had not, until that moment, intended to duplicate the prowess of the hypaspitoi and charge at the double. But the early, sloppy volley of arrows gave me a slight edge. If we hurried. Perhaps Apis inspired me, o
r Herakles, my ancestor.

  Had even one sarissa-man in the front rank tripped over a rock, or taken an arrow in the throat, it might have unravelled our front rank.

  Ten horse lengths out. You can see men’s faces under their helmets.

  Five, and all you feel is the gravel under your feet. There are no more thoughts, no more observations. You are no longer hot or cold, nervous, terrified, or even calm.

  You are the spear. And the moment.

  Men tell wonderful tales of combat. I do myself. Most of it is lies and impressions gathered up by the mind after the fact, with the lies of others added in for good measure. But I remember two parts of that fight.

  Our line was well formed when we hit. That, by itself, was a miracle. So I was neither ahead of nor behind the rest of the rank when I struck, and because we slightly overlapped the end of the Immortals’ line where the Greeks had been shoved away from them, I passed the end of their line, ran a few paces and watched my men crash into the Immortals like a mighty wave on a calm beach which heralds the coming of a storm. Five or six files were with me, and we wheeled – an orderly not-quite-mob – into their left flank. A man’s left flank is his shielded flank, and ordinarily, this flank is not particularly productive to strike – especially as we were so few, just thirty men, and we couldn’t strike deep.

  But the Immortals had kept their bows in their hands too long, and were still getting them back in their cases, and someone had ordered the rear ranks to keep shooting.

  I had my best new spear in my hand, overhand as on the old vases, and I was killing men before I reached their line – shieldless men with too little armour. The overhand spear thrust comes down from above, into the throat, into the top of the thigh, into the breastbone, into the helmet. Without a shield, a man is all but helpless before it.

  We were just thirty men, but we must have put twice that number on the ground in the time it took Perdiccas’s men to give our charge and Coenus’s three cheers. The Immortals were already jumpy – the Greek mercenaries had recoiled again – and they flinched from our attack into their flanks, and the front didn’t stand its ground.