by Jamila Gavin
Many of these fighters belonged to tribes from beyond the Balkans, whose origins are mysterious: the Scythians, who had roamed the steppes of Siberia, and had spread across the pasture lands of Europe and Central Asia; and the descendants from the tribes of Hunor and Magyar, who spread down to the plains of Hungary from the Carpathian mountains of Romania, to the banks of the Danube and the coasts of Dalmatia. The Scythians were famed and dreaded as the most amazing horse-riding archers, later fighting with both Alexander and Darius of Persia. All these tribes carried their own extraordinary stories – told again and again – about dense forests and mountains, lakes and pastures, reminding them of home.
Gathered round their flickering campfires at night, shivering at the sound of the wolf packs howling in the forests, Alexander’s men listened in awe.
Pull your fur cloaks tighter round your bodies; come closer, and hear about the story of The White Stag.
THE WHITE STAG
Somewhere among the Carpathian hills of eastern Europe, as the great red sun was setting in a blank waterless sky, Nimrod, the old leader of the tribe, stood alone and mourned. His sorrow was born out of the despair he felt for the survival of his people. A terrible scourge had struck their lands; it had dried up the soil so that nothing grew, it had drained the rivers and streams, so there were no fish, and there were no more animals to hunt in the shrivelled forests.
Nimrod had been having dreams and visions. They spoke to him of a Promised Land, but never told him where this land might be. Could it be far and beyond the snow-capped mountains which gleamed over in the west?
He gazed pityingly upon his two noble sons, Hunor and Magyar. With their intelligence, warrior skills and horsemanship, they were the best of all the tribe, and no one, no one, could read the signs of the sun, moon, fire and water as they could. But at that moment, all his dreams of passing on his leadership to them seemed as arid as the land. Was it all to be wasted?
His people lay listlessly around their fire waiting to suck at some roots and leaves simmering in the pot. Only Hunor and Magyar paced up and down, urgently discussing their plan to set off and look for some other place where they could find food. But which direction should they take?
Someone gasped, “Look!”
All eyes turned in the direction of the pointing finger. There, outlined against the setting sun, stood a giant stag – bigger than any they had ever seen. His body gleamed as white as the snow, and the sun, streaming through his antlers, seemed to turn them to gold.
Men leapt to their feet, grabbing their bows. This was the first animal they had seen for days and days, and they longed to catch it, so that, at last, they could all eat again. But Hunor and Magyar were the quickest. They jumped onto their horses and, as the White Stag leapt away, they set off in hot pursuit.
How hard they rode, all through the night, on and on through valley and forest, but every time they caught him in their sights and fitted an arrow, the stag sprang away like some enchanted spirit. Sometimes, he seemed close enough to touch, yet still they couldn’t catch him. But they didn’t give up. “Follow him!” whispered Magyar, and all the branches seemed to sway and murmur, “Follow him,” and the streams and the wind seemed to echo his words, “Follow him!”
So they followed him across plains and rivers, up into mountains and down into deep valleys. It was dawn when, with their horses stumbling with exhaustion, they reached the edge of a blue lake, coiling with mist.
“Look, brother, look!” exclaimed Hunor.
The White Stag was there, at the water’s edge, drinking deeply.
Silently they fitted arrows to their bows, but were too awestruck to let them fly.
The White Stag raised its head, pawed the shore three times, shook its antlers, and stepped into the white mist enveloping the lake. By the time Hunor and Magyar had come to their senses, the White Stag had disappeared.
Cursing their hesitation, they scoured the edge of the lake, looking for any trace of the stag so that they could resume the hunt, but as they searched, they became aware that the lake was full of fish, flowers perfumed the air and all the trees around were laden with fruit.
With great joy, the brothers realized that they had found a rich and luscious land which could save their starving people.
They immediately wheeled round their horses and set off for home, but, strange to say, though the White Stag had led them to the land of plenty in just one night, it took the two brothers seven moons to return to their tribe.
Just when Nimrod and his people had despaired of ever seeing Hunor and Magyar again, two riders appeared on the horizon: the sons of Nimrod! Their saddlebags were bulging with provisions and slung with game. Excitedly, they told how they had found a land of plenty – a paradise – which could sustain them all.
Old Nimrod embraced his sons with gratitude. They had fulfilled his visions and found the Promised Land. But he knew that his eyes were dimming, and that by the next sunset he would be dead.
He spoke to his people. “You have seen the sun setting on a day that will be remembered forever – even after we are all nothing but dust. Before this day is out and my life is done, pledge allegiance to my sons, Hunor and Magyar, respect and obey them, and let them lead you to this Promised Land.” Then, like a giant tree which had been felled, Nimrod crashed to the ground.
With sadness, they built a huge mound over his body, and the next day they gathered together all their belongings. In a long line, the people followed their new leaders, Hunor and Magyar, along the trail of the White Stag, until they reached the blue lake and the Land of Plenty. Here they settled, and prospered greatly.
THEBES
After quelling these northern tribes, and incorporating their warriors into his army, Alexander swiftly turned back again to Greece, hearing that the troublesome city of Thebes was in revolt.
Thebes, the birthplace of Heracles, with a bloody warlike history, had always been a thorn in King Philip’s side, ever since he had conquered it in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. Taking advantage of Philip’s death, Thebes was trying to throw off Macedonian rule, perhaps thinking they could ignore such a young emperor as Alexander.
In an incredible fourteen days, Alexander marched his troops from Illyria to Thebes. At first he tried all he could to reason and bargain with the Thebans and even offered them a pardon, but when they stubbornly refused to surrender, Alexander mobilized his army with devastating results. Surrounding the city, he burst through and slaughtered more than 6,000 Thebans, the loss to Alexander being only 500 men. 30,000 were taken into slavery. As further punishment for Theban intransigence, he then allowed his Thracian soldiers to raze the city to the ground, killing, raping and pillaging at will. It was a shocking assault, which terrified his enemies. But Alexander knew the power of fear and, in the city of Thebes, he demonstrated extreme harshness with his enemies. This must be an example to all Greece.
THE LADY OF TIMOCLEA
And then came the Lady of Timoclea.
She was a noble Theban lady from the House of Timoclea, who had a reputation for high moral virtue. When she was attacked and raped by Thracian tribesmen fighting with Alexander, there was outrage. The leader of the tribesmen demanded that she show him where she had hidden the family wealth. She took him to a well, and when he bent over to look, she pushed him in and stoned him to death before being dragged away by the soldiers.
Bound in chains, the Thracians led her and her children before Alexander. Expecting that she would receive severe punishment, she stood before him, proud and upright.
Alexander asked, “Who are you?”
She replied, “I am the sister of Theogenes, a commander-in-chief who fought against your father, King Philip, for the freedom of Greece, and who died on the field of battle at Chaeronea.”
Admiring her quiet dignity and courage, Alexander ordered that she and her children be set free.
CHAPTER THREE
THE CONQUEST BEGINS
334 BC. The horizon glows from
end to end; wild animals wonder if it is the dawn. But it is the glow from thousands of fires; funeral fires, campfires and blazing torches which light up thousands of campsites and tents. They will burn night and day. In time, the glow moves on, as it has moved all the way from Macedonia. Thousands of men, women, children, eunuchs and concubines, servants and slaves, historians, poets, actors, musicians, philosophers, engineers, seers, astrologers and storytellers are on the move.
They follow an army. It is the army of King Alexander.
The army consisted of his own personal aristocratic Companion Cavalry, an elite made up of 1,500 men – many of them his old trusted school friends: his foster brother Cleitus, known as “Black” Cleitus; Philotas, son of his father’s general, Parmenion, who also rode with Alexander; Ptolemy and Callisthenes, the historian who had been taught by Aristotle; and his own personal prophet and seer, Aristander, who he consulted day by day. But especially, there was his best friend, the love of his life, Hephaistion, who was never far from his side. Like Achilles, who had loved Patroclus, Alexander loved Hephaistion. The noble Hephaistion had been the greatest love of his life right from school days, and was at his side until death parted them. Their helmets and breastplates gleamed, and their flowing red cloaks billowed as they rode. The Companion Cavalry didn’t carry shields, as their strength was in moving lightly and swiftly, but wielded short dogwood spears for stabbing enemy horsemen. Their shields were carried by the Companion foot soldiers.
The iron in the soul of the army was the infantry, made up of 40,000 Macedonian peasants. Each foot soldier carried a sarissa – a long eighteen-foot spear made of cornel wood and tipped with metal – and when they were all clustered together on the field of battle, they moved in the wedge and phalanx formations as devised by Philip, and were virtually impenetrable. Also, drawn from all over the Greek territories, were Thracians, Odrysians, Triballians, Illyrians, Paeonians and Athenians. They were foot soldiers, javelin throwers, archers, slingers and horse warriors.
By day, Alexander’s army travelled from one battle scene to the next. By night, they lit the funeral pyres for the dead, and celebrated victories with dance, music, poetry and games. As they met new peoples, religions and alien tribes, they asked, “What gods do you worship? How powerful are your demons and fairies?” The stories flowed like streams. The storytellers told old stories and learned new ones. They re-wove them to take in new events, and embroidered new events with old legends.
Every evening, after a day’s battle, or the hard work of foraging for food in alien countries, they gathered round the campfires and listened to stories.
Every evening, Alexander and his generals consulted the seers, and asked Aristander to interpret the omens. What was the meaning of the swallow which fluttered round Alexander’s head, or the eagle which perched on the yoke of a plough, or the thunder and lightning in the night?
They struggled down the precipitous icy mountains of Macedonia and Thrace. Savage tribes lurked, ready to attack. When these wild people rolled wagons down the mountainside to crush the Macedonians, Alexander made his men lock shields in formation and lie down on the ground with their shields on top of them so that when the wagons rolled over them they were saved from being crushed.
They tramped through the tangled forests as dark as night, menaced by lions and wild boar. Horses and men stumbled down the steep canyons into deep rocky gorges and rushing rivers, quelling many uprisings on the way.
Riding ahead was Alexander on his trusty war horse, Bucephalus. He never hid from his enemies, never lurked at the back in safety, but was always defiantly visible and identifiable by his helmet, with its distinctive, white, fluttering egret feathers.
“Macedonia is too small for you,” Alexander’s father Philip had once commented. Alexander probably thought so too – and not just Macedonia, but all his territories, including Greece.
Now that his father’s empire was back in firm hands, Alexander turned his attention to a larger empire in Asia. What greater challenge could there be than to engage with the old enemy of the Greeks – the Persians?
There were ancient scores to settle. Greece and Persia had been rivals and enemies for hundreds of years. Alexander’s aim was to reclaim territory which had once been Greek, and overthrow the Persian Empire.
Now ruled by Darius III, the Persian Empire was the greatest power on earth. They had conquered all the land from west to east from Egypt to the River Indus, and north to south from the Jaxartes River to the Persian Gulf. The mighty Royal Road, the Achaemenid Highway, ran all the way from Mesopotamia to the Upper Euphrates, Babylonia and Susa. Other highways and routes linked it to Egypt and even to as far away as India. All were travelled by Darius’ armies, and protected by his sentinels. They ruled much of Asia Minor, land which had been part of the Greek Empire, and once the Persians had even got as far as Athens. Ah, Alexander! The humiliation still burned in the inherited memory.
So he began to plan his campaign, beginning with Troy. Troy; the Troy of Homer and Helen of Troy, which Achilles and the Greeks had fought for and won a thousand years earlier, was in the hands of the Persians.
Troy was the symbol; Troy was embedded in the Greek mind; it was a land where heroes – Greek and Trojan – had fought and died. It was the city sung about by Homer in the Odyssey and the Iliad and in the stories of Aeneas and the Wooden Horse. The city for ever linked with Helen, wife of Agamemnon, with Hector, Prince of Troy and, most importantly, with Alexander’s idol, Achilles.
The army advanced down to the coastal plains of Thrace. There before them was the ocean and the glittering waters of the Hellespont, all that divided them from Asia and the ancient city of Troy.
The next day, Alexander would see Troy for the first time.
THE STORY OF ACHILLES
It was prophesied that Achilles, son of the goddess Thetis and a mortal, the great warrior Peleus, would be an even greater warrior than his father, but that he was doomed to die in battle.
Thetis loved her son so dearly, she couldn’t bear to think of the prophecy. Risking her own life, she carried him to the banks of the River Styx, the river which divides the living from the dead. Anyone who was submerged in these waters would live for ever. Holding her infant by one heel, she dipped his body into the waters and rejoiced.
She thought he was safe. But he wasn’t. With what lamentation did Thetis learn that it had all been for nothing, and that Achilles was fated to die beneath the walls of Troy after he had killed his enemy, Prince Hector.
How could this be? Thetis realized it was because, when she had submerged her baby son in the waters of the Styx, she had held him by his heel. It was the only part of him that did not get wet, the only part of him that was unprotected. Achilles’ heel would be his fatal weakness.
Thetis vowed that she would not leave her son to his fate. She sent him to the great Educator, the Centaur Chiron – half man, half horse – who had taught the finest warriors and heroes. Chiron taught Achilles all the arts of war, as well as wrestling, music, poetry and song – and by the time his studies were finished, Achilles was everything a Greek hero should be.
Alas, the day came which Thetis had dreaded. War broke out between Greece and Troy, because the Trojan prince, Paris, had stolen away the beautiful Helen, wife of King Agamemnon. Achilles was called upon to join Agamemnon’s fleet which was about to set sail and fight the Trojans for the return of Helen.
Thetis was grief-stricken. Her son was still so young. She did everything in her power to prevent Achilles joining the Greek fleet. She even disguised him as a girl and sent him away to the court of Lycomedes.
On the eve of going to war, the Greeks consulted the Oracle to find out whether their expedition was destined to succeed. The Oracle replied that it couldn’t succeed without Achilles. But where was he? Messenger after messenger was sent, but no one could find him. At last, King Agamemnon ordered the mighty Odysseus to search for him.
Odysseus suspected that Achilles was in the court of L
ycomedes, so he disguised himself as a pedlar and went there with a basket of enticing wares to sell to the ladies of the court. One by one, they came out and chose necklaces and bracelets, amulets and rings. But among all the trinkets, Odysseus had also placed a dagger. One closely veiled lady took up the weapon, and handled it with such skill, that Odysseus knew he had found Achilles.
Odysseus told Achilles how much they needed him. He begged him to fight with them against Troy, and very soon, Achilles, who was such a warrior at heart, and yearned for the excitement of battle, agreed to accompany Odysseus back to the fleet at Aulis.
CHAPTER FOUR
TROY
This Troy which Achilles and the Greeks had conquered a thousand years ago, was now in Persian hands. Alexander was determined to get it back. Not just to reclaim a symbol – Alexander’s ambition went beyond symbols. With Troy conquered, the rest of the continent of Asia would spread before him all the way to India where, Aristotle had told him, he would reach the edge of the world.
Breathless with ambition and awe, Alexander and his men stared across the waters of the Hellespont separating Europe from Asia. This was the same strip of water which Achilles too had crossed on his way to fight the Trojan War.
CROSSING THE HELLESPONT
It is the spring of 334 BC. Sixty ships wait to escort Alexander across the Hellespont. He himself takes the helm of the royal trireme, just as King Agamemnon had done in 1200BC. Never forgetting his religious duties, Alexander prays each day. He knows the importance of keeping the gods on his side. In mid-crossing, he orders a bull to be slaughtered and, like the ancient Greeks, sacrifices to the god of the ocean, Poseidon, by taking up the Cup of Heroes, and pouring sacred liquid into the waves to placate the Nereids – the sea nymphs. Voices, bells, reed pipes and piercing trumpets mingle with the slap of waves against the ship and the screech of gulls accompanies them on their way.
