He gave me a hard smile, and then Miltiades came across the
circle of strategoi and stepped up on his aspis. ‘Of course,’ he
said, ‘the polemarch is also a strategos. He must have the
deciding vote.’
Miltiades’ comment brought new silence.
Calimachus muttered one word. I heard him say it. He said
‘Bastard’ quite clearly.
Calimachus looked around the circle, and the silence of the
Calimachus looked around the circle, and the silence of the
army was thick enough to make cloth. ‘Should I ask for another
vote?’ he asked the strategoi. Al of them shook their heads.
Miltiades opened his mouth to speak, but Calimachus glared
him into silence.
Calimachus had a pebble in his hand. He tossed it back and
forth, for as long as it takes a man to eat a slice of bread. ‘We
do not just stand here for Athens,’ he said, looking around, and
men in the front rows repeated what he said. He spoke slowly,
like the orator he was. ‘Nor do we stand only for Athens and
Plataea,’ he added, with a nod to me. ‘What we say here, what
we do here, win or lose, is for al the Helenes. If we return to
Athens and submit earth and water to the Great King . . .’ He
looked around again. The silence after his words were repeated
was absolute.
He tossed the pebble at Miltiades’ feet. ‘Fight,’ he said.
The hoplites erupted in cheers, like men watching a race at a
games. The cheers were audible everywhere – even in the
barbarian camp.
Immediately after the vote, the dissenters gathered around
Miltiades, and Leontus took his hand. ‘We’l be there in the line,’
he said. ‘We want to win.’
‘Not the way we wanted it,’ said another, Euphones of
Oinoe. ‘But we’l stand our ground.’
Then the dissenters walked off. I think they were wrong, but
by the gods, they did their part on the day, and that’s how a vote
is supposed to work. That’s what made Athens great – not just
is supposed to work. That’s what made Athens great – not just
the men who voted for the fight, but those who voted against and
fought anyway.
Then al the men who had backed him gathered around, and
you would think they’d just voted a new festival – they were
beaming with happiness, and hundreds of men came from the
surrounding dark to pump their hands and clap their backs.
‘So,’ Aristides said, when the mass of wel-wishers had gone
to their rest. ‘Fight tomorrow?’
‘Too many front-rankers fought today,’ Miltiades said.
‘Or ran,’ I said, with a wink, and the other strategoi laughed.
Miltiades agreed. ‘Took exercise, at any rate,’ he quipped. I
thought he looked a foot taler. ‘Tomorrow, Themistocles, I want
the little men back in the fields, sniping at the barbarians. But
tomorrow, I’l have five hundred Athenians – fifty men of every
tribe – at the base of the hil, formed close. To give the psiloi
cover if they have to run.’
‘To show we’re stil warriors, more like,’ I added.
That got me a look.
Aristides nodded. ‘Tomorrow’s my command day. You have
a plan? You should be in command.’
Themistocles agreed. ‘I have the next day,’ he said.
‘And I the next,’ the polemarch added. ‘You may have my
day, as wel.’
Miltiades grunted. ‘Watch yourselves,’ he said. ‘Too many
days and I could be addicted, like a drunkard to wine or a lotus-
eater.’ He looked out over the darkening plain. ‘But I wil fight
on my own day, so men may not say that I acted from hubris.
on my own day, so men may not say that I acted from hubris.
Let the barbarians stew.’
‘They may march,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘If they march, we fight, whatever day it is,’ he
said. ‘But the more I look at this – now that my eyes are opened
– the better it appears for us. Look – they have a fine camp, and
good protection from wind and weather. But where can they go
from Marathon? Al roads go through us. If our little men bleed
them every day – and I speak frankly, gentlemen – what care we
if we lose psiloi? But every dead Mede is one less for the day.’
No one disagreed. It was true.
The next day, the psiloi went down the hil in a wave. They
were better organized than on the first day, and Themistocles
played a role in that. And he led the hoplites out on to the plain –
more than five hundred, or so I thought.
The barbarians countered with oarsmen, turned hastily into
light-armed men of their own, but it was a poor decision, as
every dead man was that much less motive power for their ships.
The second day, our light-armed were tired. Only a few went
out, and the enemy cavalry kiled some of them. The balance
was returning, and men shouted for Miltiades to lead us to battle.
Muttering began that the army had voted for battle and now
Miltiades was hesitating.
‘Men are childish fools,’ Miltiades muttered as he watched
the beaten psiloi trudge up the hil. ‘Don’t they see? We’ve won!
Al we have to do is sit here and fil the plain with psiloi! And
watch them eat – their horses wil be out of forage in a day.’
But the hoplites didn’t see, and the pressure to fight mounted.
But the hoplites didn’t see, and the pressure to fight mounted.
The third day, the light-armed men went out together, and the
barbarians stayed in their camp – they had to be feeling the same
fatigue as our men by then. But in our camp, the hoplites boiled
over. Sophanes – Aristides’ friend, and mine – led the protest.
He came up to Miltiades with fifty spearmen behind him and
demanded that Miltiades lead us to the plain – there and then.
‘Are we cowards, that we are letting our servants do the
fighting?’ Sophanes asked. ‘What kind of city wil we have, if my
shield-bearer can tel me that he – not I – drove the Medes from
Holy Attica?’
He had a point, as you al can see. If we are honest with
ourselves, we hold citizen rights from our cities because we fight.
True, eh? So if we – the armoured men, the heroes – were in
camp, and the little men were fighting, then who was a citizen,
realy?
But Miltiades also knew he had a winning strategy. Men like
Aristides worried about the consequences, but Miltiades was a
fighter. And as we had put him in charge, his only concern was
winning.
He took Sophanes aside, talked to him the way a man talks
to his son and sent him back to his friends. He’d convinced the
young men to give him another day or two.
Not that it mattered. The barbarians had had enough.
On the evening of the third day, the barbarians came out of
their camp – and their army was unbelievably big. It was
carefuly planned, and they flowed out of their camp like water
carefuly planned, and they flowed out of their camp like water
from a pot – and every contingent had its place.
And then,
having filed the plain from flank to flank, they came forward at a
fast walk.
The psiloi ran for their lives. What else could they do? More
than a few of them died, caught in the plain by the cavalry on the
flanks or the bows of the Sakai and the Medes and the Persians
in the centre.
Aristides had the hoplites on the plain that day, and he held
his ground until the last of the little men ran past, and then, in
good order, his hoplites walked back up the hil to us. But the
barbarians didn’t pursue. They turned about and walked back
across the plain, fifteen stades back to their camp. The whole
attack had taken less than the time it took for a speaker in a law
case to give his argument.
I was getting into my corslet by that time, afraid that we were
about to be attacked right up the hil, my eyes glued to the
manoeuvres of the enemy. Miltiades came up next to me,
jumped up on the wal and watched them as they retreated. He
had Phrynichus with him, I remember, and Phrynichus had a
stylus and a wax tablet.
‘Persians on the right – cavalry and then infantry – their best.
Just like us. Mounted Sakai on the left; then East Greeks. They
look like the marines of al the ships – some Phoenicians there.
And then the dismounted Sakai. Persians again in the centre –
dismounted. Maybe Medes. More Medes on the right.’ He
watched them carefuly. ‘They fil the plain, Arimnestos.’
Phrynichus wrote the Persian battle order carefuly. I was
Phrynichus wrote the Persian battle order carefuly. I was
looking at the fact that the Persian right would have al their best
troops. It would be opposite our left. That would be the
Plataeans. Like the day my father faced the Spartans at Oinoe,
we would bear the brunt of their best men.
Of course I was afraid, young man. We were not the
invincible hoplites of Greece. We were men who had lost every
battle we’d tried with the damned Persians. But I swalowed my
fears, like a man should. I nodded, and my voice barely caught
when I spoke.
‘About twelve thousand, give or take. Not as deep as we
fight.’
‘Deep enough, though.’ Miltiades gave half a grin. ‘We need
to fil the plain, too.’
‘Hah!’ I said. I could see it – if our hoplites brushed against
the hils and the sea, the cavalry had no way to slip around us –
and no hoplite feared a horseman in front of him.
Actualy, that’s bravado. Al men on foot fear cavalry – but a
mass of spearmen who keep their nerve are not realy at risk,
however loud the thunder of hooves.
‘Plataeans on the left, then the tribes in order or precedence,’
Miltiades said. ‘That puts your men on the far left and mine on
the far right. You ready for five hundred new citizens?’
‘What, tonight?’ I quipped. But in my heart, I was afraid. My
Plataeans, against the Persians. It was not just a matter of
whether we could win. It was that I was taking my friends, my
brother-in-law; by the gods, I was taking my city into action with
the most dreaded foe in al the bowl of earth.
the most dreaded foe in al the bowl of earth.
‘I’m about to free every slave in the camp,’ Miltiades said,
and his eyes sparkled. ‘Then I’l send them to you. The free men
and the psiloi – I’l arm them and fil the back of my tribes with
them.
‘Half of them won’t have spears,’ I pointed out.
‘They’l take up space,’ he said. ‘They can get up in the
rough ground on your flank if you have to spread out – or help
thicken your charge if you need. And if the cavalry gets around
you,’ he shrugged, ‘wel, they’l buy you time while they die.’
I nodded. ‘Are we going to run at the barbarians? Or walk?’
Miltiades chewed on his moustache. ‘I thought we might tel
off the picked men to go at a run – starting at long bowshot. The
way Eualcidas did it.’
I shrugged. ‘Why don’t we al run at them?’ I said. ‘I’m not
saying anyone wil shirk – but if we’re al charging forward it’s
hard for anyone to take a step back.’
‘We’d end up with holes in the shield wal,’ he said.
‘We’d scare the shit out of them,’ I countered.
He sighed. ‘This is a big risk, and you want to do something
new,’ he said. He nodded. ‘I’l think on it. I’m going to free the
slaves.’
‘I’l get a feast together,’ I said, and grinned.
The sun was stil up when a crowd of poor men – recently freed
slaves – appeared in our camp. Themistocles led them.
‘Plataeans!’ Themistocles said. ‘Athens has freed these men,
and asks your aid in enfranchising them.’
and asks your aid in enfranchising them.’
I had Myron right there. I had warned him, and he rose to it
like – wel, like the archon of Plataea.
‘Freedmen!’ he said, and they were quiet – probably stil
delighted to hear that they were freed. ‘Many of you are, in your
hearts, men of Athens. Perhaps you wil always feel that way.
But Plataea is honoured to have you – and if you wil let us, we
wil make you feel honoured to be Plataeans. Welcome! Come
to our fires, and let us feed you your first meal as free men and
citizens.’
We had bread and olives, pork and wine al prepared, and
we fed the poor bastards a feast. Our own men joined in. I went
over to Gelon and tapped him. ‘You’re free, too,’ I said.
He grinned. ‘You’re al right,’ he said, and went to stand with
the freedmen.
They ate the way starving men eat, and drank like men who
never saw enough wine. Our citizens joined them, and moved
among them – speaking to one, learning the name of another.
And serving them, like slaves.
Makes me weep – sorry, honey bee. I need a moment.
When they were done with libations, and being blessed by our
priests, and eating, I stood on my aspis.
‘I was once a slave,’ I said.
That shut them up.
‘I was once a slave, and war made me free. Now I am the
polemarch of Plataea. I know how wel a freed slave fights. So I
won’t give you a long speech.’ I pointed out of the firelight,
won’t give you a long speech.’ I pointed out of the firelight,
towards the barbarians. ‘Right now, not one of you has the value
of a medimnos of grain. But over there, in that camp, are your
farms and your ploughs and your oxen – your house and your
barns – for some of you, your brides. Every Sakai wears the
value of a Plataean farm on his back – some Persians are worth
three or four.’ I pointed at the men who had marched here with
me. ‘Tomorrow night, we wil pool everything we take – every
item we win with our spears, and men who fight wil each take
away a share. Everyone wil share. Now,’ I said, and I hopped
off my aspis to stride among them, ‘who has a spear? Stand over
here. A helmet? Anyone?’
It took for ever
– the sun slipped below the western rim and I
was stil trying to build my phalanx. My Plataeans were generous
– men who’d picked up a good helmet offered their old one to
the new men, and men with a spare leather hat traded it round,
and so on. It went on and on. Men with two spears shared one.
Men gave slaves a pair of sandals. A chlamys. Anything that
would help the poor bastards to live a minute longer.
I received four hundred new citizens, give or take a few, and
we managed to arm almost two hundred of them as spearmen, if
not hoplites. Most had to rol up a cloak and use it as a shield.
Many had neither helmet nor hat, and behind them stood men
with a bag of rocks or a pair of javelins or a sling.
But when I had them al placed, and as wel armed as I could,
I sent them to bed. ‘Sleep wel,’ I said. ‘Dream of a rich farm in
Plataea.’ I hoped that they would, because I knew that it was as
Plataea.’ I hoped that they would, because I knew that it was as
close as most of them would ever get.
18
I slept badly. I hope you won’t think the worse of me if I admit
that the night before Marathon, despite my head teling me that
we had the men and the wil to win, I lay awake and worried.
Not about death. I never worry about death. It was failure that
troubled me, and I lay on my bearskin with the sound of snoring
around me, and nervous whispers, and probably the occasional
fart – and wondered what I could do better.
The night raid haunted me. I’d been lost, and I hadn’t told my
men what I needed, and I’d made a dozen other errors. So I lay
awake, thinking through my actions in the morning.
When you’re in command, you worry about the damnedest
things.
I worried about getting my armour on and needing to take a
shit. I worried about what I should say – a polemarch is
expected to give a speech. I worried about sleeping too late,
expected to give a speech. I worried about sleeping too late,
about what my armour looked like. Gelon was free now and my
helmet hadn’t been polished since I left Plataea. A hero should
look the part.
I worried about how to deal with the rough ground that
would be on my left al day, and I worried about the effect of
four hundred untrained men at the back of my phalanx.
Hades, friends. I can’t even remember al the things I worried
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