Marathon

by Christian Cameron

  pick a way through the scrub to our flank and struggling. But

  giving me heartburn nonetheless.

  I nodded to Idomeneus, and he blew the horn – two long,

  hard blasts, and the pause between them was thin enough for a

  hard blasts, and the pause between them was thin enough for a

  sword blade to fit and not much more.

  And then we were off.

  Ever run a foot race? Ever run the hoplitodromos? Ever run

  the hoplitodromos with fifty men? Imagine fifty men. Imagine a

  hundred – five hundred – three thousand men, al starting

  together at the sound of a horn.

  We were off, and by the wil of the gods, no one stumbled in

  al our line. One poor fool sprawling on his face might have been

  the difference between victory and defeat. But no man fel at the

  start.

  On my right, the Athenians moved as soon as I did, and the

  Persians and the Medes raised their bows and shot – too fast,

  and too far. Men in the rear ranks died, but not a shaft went into

  the front.

  It’s a tactic, honey bee. They halt at a given distance, a

  distance at which they practise, and pound the crap out of you –

  if you stand and take it. But if you move forward . . .

  Every step was a step towards victory. We were on the edge

  of a wheat field, tramped flat by psiloi over the last few days,

  and the hobnails on my Spartan shoes bit into the ground as I ran

  – ful strides, just like the hoplitodromos.

  That’s why I didn’t close our order, of course. Because men

  need room to run.

  I was neither first nor last – Idomeneus was ahead of me by a

  horse-length, just heartbeats after he blew the horn. My old

  wound kept me from being first. But I was not last. I looked

  over the rim of my shield. We were facing Persians, Medes and

  a handful of Sakai, and every man had a bow.

  Ten more paces and the Persians were loosing again – a

  rippling voley – and an arrow skipped off the gravel in front of

  me and ripped across my greave at my ankle and vanished into

  the ranks behind me. They’d shot low. This time, men fel – a

  few Plataeans, and more Athenians. And other men fel over the

  wounded. A man can break his jaw, faling with an aspis at a

  dead run, or break his colarbone or shield arm.

  Just opposite me, and a little to my left, Golden Helm was

  bringing his Persian nobles forward. I saw him raise his hand,

  saw him order them forward – saw his hesitation.

  We were charging them.

  The Persian polemarch had spear-fighters – dismounted

  nobles – for his front two ranks. But he had sent them to the rear

  for the archery phase – his archers would shoot better and flatter

  if they didn’t have to lift their shots clear of the front rank. The

  problem was, we weren’t waiting to be pounded with arrows.

  And now his best fighters – kilers, every one, like Cyrus and

  Pharnakes – were in the eleventh and twelfth rank.

  If he rotated them again now, his men would have to stop

  shooting.

  I read this at a glance, because there were no shields facing

  me, only round Persian hats and bright scale armour like mine.

  A third voley flew at us. It is a fearful thing when the arrows

  come straight at you – when the flicker of their motion seems to

  end in your eye, when the shafts darken the sky, when the sound

  end in your eye, when the shafts darken the sky, when the sound

  is like the first whisper of rain, growing swiftly into a storm.

  And then they hit, and my shield took the impacts, like a hail

  of stones thrown by strong boys or young men. Two hit my

  helmet, and there was pain.

  Then I was free of them and stil running. More men were

  down. And the rest were right with me.

  Golden Helm had made his decision.

  He ordered his cavalry to charge us, slanting across our front

  – horses take up three or four times the frontage of a man with a

  shield, unless they move very slowly. So suddenly the whole of

  the Plataean front was filed with Persian cavalry.

  I altered my stride and ran for Golden Helm. My Plataeans

  didn’t know any better, so they folowed me.

  The received wisdom of the ages is that infantry should not

  charge cavalry. In fact, it’s about the best thing the infantry can

  do. Charging keeps men from flinching. Cavalry is only

  dangerous to infantry who break. I wanted their unarmoured

  horses in among our rear ranks, where they’d be swarmed and

  kiled. I didn’t want to fight them later – in our flanks, or our

  rear.

  But to be honest, it was too late to change plan.

  I ran at Golden Helm, and he became my world. He saw me,

  too, and he rode at me. He had a long axe in his hand, and his

  beard was saffron and henna-streaked, briliant and barbarous.

  He was someone important. And the way he whirled the axe

  was . . . beautiful. Magnificent.

  I could say the battlefield hushed, but that would be pig shit.

  I could say the battlefield hushed, but that would be pig shit.

  But it did for me. These moments come once or twice in a

  lifetime, even when you are a hero. As far as I know, we were

  the first to clash on the field that day. I saw no one else in those

  last moments. I saw the fine ripples in the muscles of his horse,

  the way the sun glinted like a new-lit fire from the peak of his

  helmet. The way his axe curved up from his strap – reaching for

  my throat.

  I was perhaps five paces from him – one lunge of his horse,

  three strides of my legs – when I cast my spear.

  The point went into the breast of his mount and sank the

  length of my forearm, and the horse’s front legs went out from

  under it as if it had tripped.

  He cut at me anyway. But the gods put him on the ground at

  my feet, and my second spear rang on his helmet, snapping his

  head back. He tried to rise, and quick as a cat I stabbed twice

  more – eye slit and throat. The first rang on his helmet and the

  second sank slickly and came out red. And then I was past him,

  and the world seemed to burst into motion as the rest of his

  cavalry slammed into us or slackened their reins – confusion

  everywhere, but the Plataeans ran in among them.

  The Persians had balked, or most of them had. It happens to

  horses and to cavalry. Especialy men who are riding strange

  horses. Many of them were just Greek farm horses, and they

  balked at the line of shields and the eleu-eleu-eleu shrieks from

  every throat.

  And then they broke. They wanted a shooting contest, not a

  toe-to- toe brawl with men in better armour. The noble Persians

  toe-to- toe brawl with men in better armour. The noble Persians

  broke away from us, leaving their dead, having accomplished

  nothing.

  But we had. We were like gods now. We went after them, at

  their infantry, at the archers who had stopped shooting for fear of

  hitting their own.

  The gods were with us.

  I ran with a host of dead men – Eualcidas was there, I know,


  and Neoptolemus, and al the men who had died for nothing at

  Lade. I could feel their shades at my back, giving wings to my

  feet.

  But Persians are men, too. Those archers were not slaves,

  nor hirelings, nor raw levies. They were Darius’s veterans, and

  when we were ten short paces from their lines, they did not

  flinch. They raised their bows and aimed the barbed shafts

  straight at our faces, too close to miss.

  And then they loosed. I remember hearing the shout of the

  master archer, and the grunts of men as they let the heavy bows

  release – I was that close.

  I was in front. Men say that our front rank fel like wheat to a

  scythe. I know that the next day I saw men I loved with eight or

  nine arrows in them, men shot right through the faces of their

  aspides, through leather caps, or even bronze.

  But not a shaft touched me. Perhaps the shades kept them

  from me. Or Heracles, my ancestor.

  Nine paces from their line, I knew I would outrun their next

  voley.

  voley.

  Eight paces out, and men in the front rank were as plain as

  day – tanned faces. Handsome men, with long, black beards.

  Drawing swords.

  Six paces out, and they were flinching.

  This was not the fight at the pass. I didn’t need to risk hitting

  them at ful speed. I slowed, shortening stride, bringing my

  second spear up, gripping it short – just a little forward of

  halfway.

  Three paces out, and my prayers went to my ancestors.

  There is no Paean at the dead run, but to our right, the Athenians

  were singing, and I could hear it.

  I remember thinking – This is how I want to die.

  One pace out, the man in front of me wouldn’t meet my eye,

  and my spear took him while he cringed, but the man to his left

  was made of better stuff and he slammed his short sword into

  me. I blocked it on my aspis and then I put my shield into him.

  He had no shield, and I probably broke his jaw.

  My strong right leg pushed me through their front rank. Left

  foot planted, shield into the second-ranker and I knocked him

  back – Ares’ hand on my shoulder.

  The second-ranker was a veteran and he knew his business.

  He and the man to his right got their swords up, into my face,

  points leveled, and they pushed back at me together. Then a rain

  of blows fel on my aspis as they tried to force me out of their

  ranks. I took a blow to my helmet and I went back a step, and

  then Teucer – already at my shoulder by then – shot one, a clean

  kil. I pushed forward against the other man, chest to chest, and

  kil. I pushed forward against the other man, chest to chest, and

  he stood his ground, and our spears were too long to reach each

  other, close enough to embrace, to kiss, to smel the cardamom

  and onion on his breath. I thrust over his shoulder at the man

  behind him. He pushed me back – he was strong, and I

  remember my shock as he moved me back another ful pace, but

  he was so dedicated to pushing me by main strength that I had

  time to throw my light spear into another second-ranker. My

  sword floated into my hand and I cut – once, twice, three times

  – at his shield rim, no art, no science, just strength and terror and

  the last shreds of force from my desperate run, and he raised his

  cloak-wrapped arm and ducked his head, as men wil, and

  pushed. My fourth blow came as fast as the first three, stooped

  like a hawk on a rabbit, bit through his cloak and into the naked

  meat of his arm, so hard that it cut to the bone and my sword

  snapped as I wrenched it loose – faling, because even as I cut

  him, his push overcame my balance. I fel, and the melee closed

  over me.

  Imagine – I had kiled him, or wounded him so badly he

  couldn’t fight, yet stil he knocked me down. At my shoulder was

  Teucer, who had no shield. At my victim’s shoulder was a

  smaler man who hadn’t quite kept up – in a fight like that, a

  rear-ranker needs to be pressed tight to his front-ranker to help

  him at al, or his spear-thrusts are too far back. Teucer shot the

  next man, but the arrow skittered off his shield.

  Suddenly we were fighting their kilers, their front-rank men,

  who were pushing as hard as they could to get to their correct

  places. By al the gods, the Persians were brave. Even

  places. By al the gods, the Persians were brave. Even

  disordered, they fought, and their best men weren’t finished.

  I saw it al from where I’d falen backwards, my back against

  Teucer’s knees and my shield stil covering me.

  I had never gone down in a phalanx fight before, and I was

  terrified. Once you are down, you are meat for any man’s spear.

  In faling, my chin had caught on my shield rim and I’d bitten my

  tongue – it may sound like a sily wound to you, thugater, but my

  head was ful of the pain and I didn’t know if I’d taken a worse

  wound.

  ‘Arimnestos is down!’ Teucer caled. He meant to raly aid,

  but his words sucked the heart out of our phalanx. The whole

  line gave a step to the Persians and Medes.

  I couldn’t get an arm under me. My left arm, beneath my

  shield, was wrapped in my chlamys, and I couldn’t get the rim of

  the shield under me – my right arm slipped on the blood-soaked

  wheat stubble and one of the enemy thrust at me. I caught a flash

  of his spearhead and turned my head, and his blow landed hard.

  His point must have caught in the repoussé of my olive wreath,

  and I fel back again, this time on my elbows. My aspis bore two

  heavy blows, and my shoulder felt the impact as my left arm was

  rotated against my wil – I screamed at the pain.

  Then Belerophon and Styges saved my life. They passed

  over Teucer, their shields flowing around him in the movements

  we had taught in the Pyrrhiche. They stood over me, their spears

  flashing, the tal crests on their helmets nodding in time to their

  thrusts, and for a moment I could see straight up under their

  thrusts, and for a moment I could see straight up under their

  helmets – mouths set, chins down to cover the vulnerable throat

  – and then Styges pushed forward with his right leg and

  Belerophon roared his war cry and they were past me.

  I got a breath in me. Teucer stepped over me, close at their

  shoulders, and shot – and there were hands under my armpits,

  and I was dragged back. I breathed again, and again, and the

  pain was less, and then I was on my back and my shield was off

  my arm.

  ‘Let me up!’ I spat.

  They were al new men – the rear-rankers – and they

  scarcely knew me. On the other hand, they’d been bold enough

  to push into the scrum and get my body. I finaly got my feet

  under me and I rose, covered in blood and straw from being

  dragged.

  ‘You live!’ one of the new men said.

  ‘I live,’ I said. I puled my helmet back and one of them

  handed me a canteen. I looked at the front of the fighting – just a

  couple of horse
-lengths away. I could see Styges’ red plume and

  Belerophon’s white, side by side, and Idomeneus’s red and

  black just an arm’s length to the right of Styges. They were

  fighting wel. The line wasn’t moving, either way.

  I looked to the right. The Athenians under Leontus were into

  the Medes – but the fighting was heavy, and the Sakai in the rear

  ranks were lofting arrows high to drop on the phalanx, where

  they fel on unarmoured men, many of whom had no shields.

  To my left, the Persian cavalry were pressed hard against the

  front of our shields, stabbing down with their spears and

  front of our shields, stabbing down with their spears and

  screaming strange cries.

  A new man – little more than a boy – handed me a gourd.

  ‘More water, lord?’

  I drank greedily, pressed the gourd back into his hands and

  puled my helmet down. ‘Shield,’ I said, and two of them put it

  on my arm. My left arm muscles protested – something bad had

  happened in my shoulder. ‘Spear,’ I growled, and one of them

  gave up his spear – his only weapon.

  Behind me, the sound of battle changed tone.

  I had to turn around to look – once I had my helmet on, my

  field of vision was that limited.

  Beyond the Athenians fighting the Medes, something was

  already wrong. I could see the backs of Athenians – I could see

  men running. But they were two or three stades away – slightly

  downhil. It looked to me as if our centre was bulging back.

  Remember that we had been fighting for only two minutes –

  maybe less.

  I remember sucking in a deep breath and then plunging

  forward into the phalanx the way a man dives into deep water. I

  pushed past the rear-rankers easily – they were anxious to let me

  past. When I came to armoured men – our fifth or sixth rank, I

  suppose – I had to tap the men on the backplate.

  ‘Exchange!’ I caled.

  Rank by rank, I exchanged forward. This is something we

  practise in the Pyrrhiche over and over again. Men need to be

  able to move forward and back. I went forward – sixth to fifth,

  fifth to fourth, fourth to third. Finaly, after what seemed like an

  fifth to fourth, fourth to third. Finaly, after what seemed like an

  hour, I was behind Teucer, and I could see Idomeneus, locked

  in his fight with a Persian captain.

  They were wel matched. And both of them were failing –

  their blows slowing. I’ve said it before: men can only fight so