Funeral Games
Page 61
That said, all the usual caveats apply. Many professional and amateur historians read these books and help me with criticism - thanks! But ultimately, the errors are mine. I read Greek - slowly and with a pile of books at my elbow - and I make my own decisions as to what Pausanias says, or Arrian. And ultimately, errors are my fault. If you find a historical error - please let me know!
One thing I have tried to avoid is altering history as we know it to suit a timetable or plotline. The history of the Wars of the Successors is difficult enough without my altering it . . .
In addition, as you write about a period you love (and I have fallen pretty hard for this one) you learn more. Once I learn more, words may change or change their usage. As an example, in Tyrant I used Xenophon’s Cavalry Commander as my guide to almost everything. Xenophon calls the ideal weapon a machaira. Subsequent study has revealed that Greeks were pretty lax about their sword nomenclature (actually, everyone is, except martial arts enthusiasts) and so Kineas’s Aegyptian machaira was probably called a kopis. So in the second book, I call it a kopis without apology. Other words may change - certainly, my notion of the internal mechanics of the hoplite phalanx have changed. The more you learn . . .
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’m always sorry to finish an historical novel, because writing them is the best job in the world and researching them is more fun than anything I can imagine. I approach every historical era with a basket full of questions - How did they eat? What did they wear? How does that weapon work? This time, my questions have driven me to start recreating the period. The world’s Classical re-enactors have been an enormous resource to me while writing, both with details of costume and armour and food, and as a fountain of inspiration. In that regard I’d like to thank Craig Sitch and Cheryl Fuhlbohm of Manning Imperial, who make some of the finest recreations of material culture from Classical antiquity in the world (www.manningimperial.com), as well as Joe Piela of Lonely Mountain Forge for helping recreate equipment on tight schedules. I’d also like to thank Paul McDonnell-Staff, Paul Bardunias, and Giannis Kadoglou for their depth of knowledge and constant willingness to answer questions - as well as the members of various ancient Greek re-enactment societies all over the world, from Spain to Australia. The Melbourne and Sydney Ancients have been especially forthcoming with permission to use their photos, and many re-enactors in Greece and the UK and elsewhere have been tireless in their support. Thanks most of all to the members of my own group, Hoplologia and the Taxeis Plataea, for being the guinea-pigs on a great deal of material culture and martial-arts experimentation. On to Marathon!
Speaking of re-enactors, my friend Steven Sandford draws the maps for these books, and he deserves a special word of thanks.
Speaking of friends, I owe a debt of gratitude to Christine Szego, who provides daily criticism and support from her store, Bakka Phoenix, in Toronto. Thanks, Christine!
Kineas and his world began with my desire to write a book that would allow me to discuss the serious issues of war and politics that are around all of us today. I was returning to school and returning to my first love - Classical history. I am also an unashamed fan of Patrick O’Brian, and I wanted to write a series with depth and length that would allow me to explore the whole period, with the relationships that define men, and women, in war - not just one snippet. The combination - Classical history, the philosophy of war, and the ethics of the world of arête - gave rise to the volume you hold in your hand.
Along the way, I met Prof. Wallace and Prof. Young, both very learned men with long association to the University of Toronto. Professor Wallace answered any question that I asked him, providing me with sources and sources and sources, introducing me to the labyrinthine wonders of Diodorus Siculus, and finally, to T. Cuyler Young. Cuyler was kind enough to start my education on the Persian Empire of Alexander’s day, and to discuss the possibility that Alexander was not infallible, or even close to it. I wish to give my profoundest thanks and gratitude to these two men for their help in re-creating the world of fourth century BC Greece, and the theory of Alexander’s campaigns that underpins this series of novels. Any brilliant scholarship is theirs, and any errors of scholarship are certainly mine. I will never forget the pleasure of sitting in Prof. Wallace’s office, nor in Cuyler’s living room, eating chocolate cake and debating the myth of Alexander’s invincibility. Both men have passed on now, since this book was written - but none of the Kineas books would have been the same without them. They were great men, and great academics - the kind of scholars who keep civilization alive.
I’d also like to thank the staff of the University of Toronto’s Classics department for their support, and for reviving my dormant interest in Classical Greek, as well as the staffs of the University of Toronto and the Toronto Metro Reference Library for their dedication and interest. Libraries matter!
I now have a website, the product of much work and creativity. For that I owe Rebecca Jordan - please visit it. The address is at the bottom of this.
I’d like to thank my old friends Matt Heppe and Robert Sulentic for their support in reading the novel, commenting on it, and helping me avoid anachronisms. Both men have encyclopedaeic knowledge of Classical and Hellenistic military history and, again, any errors are mine. I have added two new readers - Aurora Simmons and Jenny Carrier; both re-enactors, both well read, and both capable of telling me when I’ve got the whole thing wrong.
In addition, I owe eight years of thanks to Tim Waller, the world’s finest copy-editor. And a few pints!
I couldn’t have approached so many Greek texts without the Perseus Project. This online resource, sponsored by Tufts University, gives online access to almost all classical texts in Greek and in English. Without it I would still be working on the second line of Medea, never mind the Iliad or the Hymn to Demeter.
I owe a debt of thanks to my excellent editor, Bill Massey, at Orion, for giving these books constant attention and a great deal of much needed flattery, for his good humor in the face of authorial dicta, and for his support at every stage. I’d also like to thank Shelley Power, my agent, for her unflagging efforts on my behalf, and for many excellent dinners, the most recent of which, at the world’s only Ancient Greek restaurant, Archeon Gefsis in Athens, resulted in some hasty culinary re-writing. Thanks, Shelley!
Finally, I would like to thank the muses of the Luna Café, who serve both coffee and good humor, and without whom there would certainly not have been a book. And all my thanks - a lifetime of them - for my wife Sarah.
If you have any questions or you wish to see more or participate (want to be a hoplite at Marathon?) please come and visit www.hippeis.com.
Christian Cameron
Toronto, 2009
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christian Cameron is a writer and military historian. He is a veteran of the United States Navy, where he served as both an aviator and an intelligence officer. He lives in Toronto where he is currently writing the next novel in the TYRANT series while working on a Masters in Classics.
Visit the TYRANT website at www.hippeis.com