Killer of Men lw-1

by Christian Cameron

  Just barely.

  Plataea was never the same. No one cheered.

  I've been on a hundred fields, honey. I've won against the odds and seen black defeat, but that's the only time I've seen men so shattered by victory that they couldn't cheer. Nor did they pursue. The men of Plataea shifted and recovered their ranks, because they were good men, and then they stood, silent, awed by their own success. Then some of the fallen began to stand up – Myron got to his feet, bleeding from a thigh, the red coming in little spurts where something big had been cut.

  Let me tell you how it is in the line, honey. When you go down – and you can fall just because you lose your balance – why, then you won't ever get up in that fight. Against honourable men, if you stay down and pull your shield over your body, no one will kill you just for sport. Maybe they will strip your armour if they win, but no one will kill you. You hope.

  Anyway, Myron stood and began to sing. He sang the 'Ravens of Apollo' from the Daidala and all the voices of Plataea took it up, boys and men. We all knew it. It was an odd song for a battlefield – the song men sing while they wait for the ravens to pick us a tree to make the statue of the fake bride. Who knows why Myron chose that song?

  Across the field, the Athenians were slowing. They'd never reached the Peloponnesians, and now, ranks untouched, they were coming to a halt and heads were turning to look at us.

  Just two stades away, the Spartans halted in perfect order, covering their camp.

  The Plataeans kept singing.

  Then Cleomenes made a mistake. He didn't trust the Thebans, and his Peleponnesian allies were running all the way back to their homes. And the Plataean farmers were singing as if they could stop the Spartans every day, for ever. That song had more effect on the battle than Pater's stand, honey. That song was defiance of a different sort. Whether it was true or not, the 'Ravens of Apollo' told Cleomenes that there were men opposing him who would not flinch if he came on again. And if we held him for a hundred heartbeats, then all the hoplites in Attica would be in his flank.

  Cleomenes sent a herald. He requested a truce to collect his dead.

  By our law of war, this ended the battle and allowed the defeated free passage home. And it meant that, whatever the Thebans might do, the Spartans were done.

  What changed our world was that Cleomones sent the herald to us rather than to the Athenians. That was respect. They knew they were the better men, and men who are better are never petty. They respect accomplishment, and they respected that we tried.

  So their herald came and he walked towards Pater. Pater looked around, but the archon was dead and Myron, who had started the song, was down again – sitting on a rock, supported by his sons. Pater had two wounds on his sword arm; I had his helmet under my arm and he was pouring his canteen over his head.

  'Hey!' Bion called. 'Hey – look sharp, Technes! The herald is coming.'

  Pater looked up, and there was the Spartan, resplendent in his scarlet cloak, with a heavy bronze staff to show his status. He bowed.

  Pater returned his bow, head dripping water. I remember how the water from his canteen mixed with the blood on his hands and arms.

  'Cleomenes, King of Sparta, requests your permission to retrieve and bury his dead,' the herald intoned.

  Pater didn't smile. I did – I was wearing a smile as big a wolf's. Hermogenes had his father's aspis on his own arm and he was grinning like a fool. Bion was grinning too. But Pater simply nodded.

  'Our archon is dead, and our polemarch is badly wounded.' Pater turned to the Plataeans. 'Am I in command?' he asked.

  Again there was no cheer – just a soft grumble. But every man in the first two ranks nodded. So Pater turned back to the herald.

  'The Plataeans grant the truce,' he said. No mention of himself or his own name. Oh, he made me proud.

  And with those words, the Battle of Oinoe came to an end. The Athenians killed a hundred Peloponnesians, more or less – the slow ones, I assume, since the Peloponnesian allies didn't linger to fight. They put up a magnificent trophy on the Acropolis, a chariot and a set of slave fetters, to celebrate their victory over the Spartans. The Medes later pulled it down and took the bronze, but the base is still there with eight lines of verse. They don't mention us. But on the day, they treated us like heroes come to earth. Miltiades ran up, his plume nodding, and embraced Pater and then every man he could find. His investment had paid off.

  Men began to trickle off the ground. We had our dead to bury, and the Spartan helots were coming for their own.

  We had forty-five dead. Seven of them died in the week after the battle, so on that morning, we had thirty-eight bodies. And one of them was my brother. He lay with his face to the enemy, a Spartan spear in his right side under his sword arm. He fell clutching the spear, and the other fifth- and sixth-rankers brought the Spartan down and killed him because my brother held that spear point with his dying hands.

  I wept. Pater wept. Bion and Hermogenes wept, and Myron and Dionysius wept. We all cried.

  The Spartans had nine dead. Two more died later – so we lost forty-five to their eleven. If you want to understand the heart of phalanx fighting, honey – and I can see you don't – you need to see that Pater killed three of those Spartans and that our whole thousand lived or died by the actions of a few valiant men. Myron didn't give a foot of ground. Bion followed Pater into the hole Pater made. Epictetus and his son gave ground, but then they locked their shields with men in the second rank and held the rush, and Dionysius killed a Spartan in the fifth rank when they broke through. Take away any of those actions and the result is different.

  Karpos, our best potter, died, and Theron, son of Xenon, who made all the harnesses and wineskins and much of the armor the men wore. Pater said he was the first to die, a Spartan spear in his throat at the first contact, and he didn't live to see Cleomenes come to us for truce – after refusing our embassy.

  We buried the dead – the boys and the slaves did the work. The men sat and drank. They had endured the storm of bronze for the time it takes a man to run the stadion, and they were exhausted.

  That night it rained. We were wet and cold, but Pater came and wrapped his arms and his heavy Thracian cloak around me. He was still crying, but he held me tightly, and after a while I slept. The rain stopped, and I was cooking eggs – I'd purchased a Boeotian hatful from a shy girl who had crept into our camp with the dawn. I used Pater's money, and his flash of a not-quite-smile told me I'd done right. I had a fine bronze patera with the figure of Apollo as the handle. It wasn't Pater's work – it was his father's work, and the planishing on the pan was like a reminder of greater days. If we'd lost, it would have been loot for a Spartan.

  Miltiades came to Pater with a wagon. He had a dozen Athenians with him, important men with Tyrian purple in their cloaks. Pater was eating a bowl of eggs with a scrap of stale bread.

  'Technes of Plataea, all Athens mourns your losses.' Miltiades bowed.

  He had a priestess of Athena with him, and she was dressed, even at that hour, in the whitest chiton I'd ever seen, with gold thread in the hems. Bumpkin that I was, I couldn't take my eyes off her.

  Pater had a mouth full of egg. He swallowed. His eyes were red from weeping, and he wore a damp chitoniskos of linen that had once been off white and neatly pleated, and was now grey with age and shapeless. There were slaves in our force who dressed better than Pater.

  He rose to his feet. 'I was not chosen in the assembly to lead the men of Plataea,' he said formally. 'But until the assembly chooses another, I accept your words on behalf of all the men of our city.'

  Miltiades spread his arms wide. It was interesting to watch him be a public man – I had only seen him at close range. He was about twenty-five then. Just coming into his powers.

  'Plataea brought one eighth of the force we had to face the Peloponnesians,' Miltiades said. 'We offer Plataea one quarter of all that we took with our spears, and we call you the bravest of the allies.'

  The wind
ruffled their cloaks. Pater said nothing, but the men of Plataea behind him were gathering, and they began to shout – approval, almost a cheer. Then the priestess stepped forward and she chanted a prayer to the Lady, and all the men present joined her. Then she purified us, for killing. She was good – her voice was gentle and firm, and every man felt better for her words, and the spirit of the goddess that we call the Lady and Athenians call Athena was on all of us.

  Miltiades invited Pater and Myron to attend him at a meeting of the commanders. I found Pater my best chlamys, and I put it on him with a gold pin from the loot. Pater was above such things, but Myron gave me a nod of approval. No one wanted Pater to look like a ragman in front of the Athenians.

  The two of them came back before the sun was high, and their faces were strained, and Pater had black marks in the corners of his eyes. Pater ignored my questions, and sent me and Hermogenes and every other boy we could find to assemble all the Plataeans.

  There were only a thousand hoplites and another thousand boys and slaves. We assembled before the birds stopped singing. We were on the hilltop by the old fort, and Pater and Myron carried spears, as if they, jointly, were Speakers. Pater nodded at Myron, and Myron held up his spear.

  'Men of Plataea!' he said. He was leather-pale. He'd lost quite a bit of blood, and he walked carefully where the Athenian doctor had burned the wound near his groin. He might have been a walking dead man, if the deadly archer willed it. But Myron had the courage that allows a man to go about his business, even with a wound. 'The archon died serving the city. We have no new archon and we have no strategos.'

  'Who cares?' someone called. 'Let's go home. We can debate in the assembly!'

  'Men of Plataea,' Myron said. His voice was quiet, but men were silent to listen to him. 'The army of Thebes is a day's march away, and the men of Athens call on us to stay and fight.'

  That was greeted with a wave of grumbles and muttering.

  Pater stood forth. He held up his own spear. 'Don't be fools!' he shouted. 'We fight them tomorrow with Athens by our side, or we face them in a month at home, alone.' That shut them up. Then Pater nodded. 'We stopped Sparta!' he said. 'What has Thebes got?'

  Now they cheered. Everyone hated Thebes. Sparta was a noble and scary monster from travellers' tales, but Thebes was the familiar enemy.

  Myron pointed at Pater. 'I move that Technes of the Corvaxae be strategos.'

  They didn't roar. Pater had none of the magnetism that can make men love you. But every hand went in the air.

  Myron nodded to Pater. Pater pointed his spear at Myron. 'I move that Myron of the house of Heracles be archon of the Plataeans until we stand in the assembly.'

  And so it was done.

  Before the day was another hour older, the shield-bearers were packing. We had donkeys now – dozens, as part of the spoils of the Peloponnesian camp. I was trying to figure out a foreign pack frame on a stubborn beast when Pater's hand fell on my shoulder.

  'Take your brother's armour,' he said. 'And take Hermogenes as your shield-bearer. You will stand with the men tomorrow. No more playing with the boys.'

  And just like that, I was a hoplite.

  5

  We marched east, across Attica, and the Thebans retired before us, confused by this turn of events. I sweated in my brother's armour, and Pater adjusted it at an Attic forge, borrowing tools to change the waist of my brother's bell corslet and the pinch of his greaves. His helmet fitted me very well.

  Pater wept while he worked.

  By the third day, we thought that the Thebans would melt away, and then we had word that there was yet another army coming – from Euboea. The Euboeans hated Athens. Truth to tell, Athens is arrogant and most cities hate her.

  Then Miltiades' father showed why he was a strategos to be reckoned with. He woke us four hours before dawn, and we left our fires burning and the slaves and boys to watch them, and we marched east and then north. Men who travelled said we were somewhere near Tanagra. I only knew that the weight of my dead brother's arms, his panoply, was the same as the weight of a five-year-old girl, and I was carrying it over a mountain.

  Miltiades the Elder had a good plan – to march around the Thebans and catch them napping, and force them to fight, cut off from the Euboeans. But the Thebans were no fools. They had spies and scouts, and their slaves probably traded food with our slaves. They knew we were coming, and they marched in the dark, too, determined to ambush us on the flanks of Mount Parnes. And as with most battles, neither plan bore the least resemblance to the mess that followed.

  Plataeans were the left of the army, and this meant that we were the rearguard – the last men to march. Crossing the flank of Mount Parnes on goat tracks, we marched in double file – two wide. It took hours to go a few stades, and where I trudged, we seemed to stop more than we walked.

  By the luck of tribe and farm, I walked next to Simon. No one had mentioned that he had run from the Spartans. I didn't even know that he had run – only two or three men had broken, and while I was pretty sure he was one, he wore a plain old helmet with no crest and he had no blazon on the leather face of his shield – like most of our men. Now he walked beside me, and we did not talk.

  He was much taller and broader than me. Indeed, I was thirteen, and too young to stand the storm of bronze, but I think that Pater felt that we needed to make up the holes in our phalanx. Who knows what he thought? He never discussed such stuff with me. At any rate, Simon was a head taller and much heavier with muscle. And in the dark, on the flanks of Parnes, I learned what he really was.

  His spear-butt flashed in the moon and I ducked. And then he used his hip and almost pushed me off the trail – and off the mountain.

  Calchas, dead Calchas, saved my life. Rough-housing with a bigger, stronger man had taught me many tricks. I swayed, armour and all, and got my feet planted. Simon kept right on walking, and the man in the file behind me cursed.

  That was the first of three times he tried to trip me, and once I think he meant to put his spear-butt through my eye. But I was wary, and after the third time, someone in the file – we were all neighbours, and Myron's Dionysius was right ahead of me – someone said something to our phylarch, old Epictetus, and he trotted back and asked Simon what he was doing.

  Simon flashed me a smile. 'I'm just clumsy,' he said. 'And this boy can't really carry the weight of his panoply.'

  Epictetus peered at me. I had my helmet up on my head and I was sweating like a deer bleeding out. I tried to grin.

  'Too heavy for you?' he asked.

  'No,' I said. 'Simon's a bastard.'

  Epictetus shot him a glare. 'Yep,' he said. Most of our file laughed. 'Watch yourself, Simon. I'm watching you.'

  That's when I think Simon decided to kill us. Right there on the mountain. Up until then, I think he just hated us quietly. But I called him a bastard, and old Epictetus agreed, and everyone laughed, and the fates spun. We were the last. Miltiades and his tribe were the first. And the Thebans were waiting in ambush. It should have been a disaster. There's no better position for a phalanx than catching your opponent strung out over a goat track.

  But the Thebans moved late, and they were late straggling into their ambush site. Hoplites don't usually ambush each other. Maybe they felt unmanly. Who knows what a Theban thinks? At any rate, they fucked it all up.

  The result was that their men blundered into Miltiades in the dark. Instead of an ambush, we had a mob fight in the first light.

  The first I knew was that the files started to move faster, and then they stopped, and then we could hear it – fighting. One battle made me an expert. But this didn't sound like the fight with the Spartans. This sounded like Chaos come to earth, and it was.

  Neither side ever got a phalanx formed. That's what everyone remembers about the Battle of Parnes. Our files and theirs poured into each other in the scrubby, broken ground on the northern shoulder of the mountain, and the push of men behind kept adding fighters. It was so dark that, with your face
inside your helmet, you couldn't be sure of the man on your right or left unless you tapped their shield with your own. Twice, Epictetus stopped us without orders and formed our files up close. He was doing what he knew how to do – forming the block that would keep us safe. But both times the path soon narrowed to nothing again and we had to file off.

  An hour after we first heard the fighting – exhausted with the fear of waiting and the fatigue of marching – we rounded a bend and saw the fight. The sun was a red ball on the horizon to the east, and we caught glimpses of the sea to the north as the trail climbed and dipped, and then the fight was right there, a spear's throw away.

  I could see Pater's double plume. He was standing still, shield against his knees, arms crossed.

  The valley was full of men locked in combat, and it was a swirl of death. Because the armies had never formed, no man had a front or a back, and there was no safety and no shield wall.

  The Athenians were begging us to come on, COME ON! And still Pater looked out over the valley. I, for one, was in no hurry to plunge into that maelstrom.

  And then Pater made his decision. I could see it in the set of his shoulders and the movement of his back. He made his decision and we were moving – not down into the battle, but across the hillside to the north. Pater began to run, and the files ran after him.

  It might seem a simple thing, to lead a thousand men around a battle that is only two stades or so wide. One man can run the stade in the time another man sings a song, but a thousand men take a hundred times longer, or so it seems when the fate of your city rests on the outcome. And we were scared, honey. We'd been promised a stratagem and an easy fight, and this was chaos and death.

  Pater ran north and the files followed him. Just over the brow of the low hill where you first see the polis at Tanagra in the distance, he turned west, halted and ordered the files to form. That was easy. He'd picked a piece of flat ground, and each file ran up, directed by their phylarch and Pater's spear, and they halted to the left of the file before them, so that in the time it took the sun to rise a finger's breadth, the phalanx was formed, minus the cowards and the men who couldn't make the run.