Virtues of War (24 page)

I am the living soul of the army. As blood flows from the lion's heart to its limbs, so courage flows from me to my countrymen.

A million men stand in arms against us. I will rout them by my will alone.

T
wenty-
F
our

CAMEL
'
S HUMP

I
RIDE CORONA AS WE DESCEND
from the range of hills called the Crescent. Bucephalus trails, led by my groom Evagoras. Bucephalus's headstall and frontlet are in place, and the light combat saddle, but Evagoras packs his leg guards and breastplate on his own back. My horse is seventeen years old. I will mount him only for the final advance.

The shoulder wings of my composite corselet remain unbattened, sticking up alongside my ears. I will not dog them down till we come onto final line. I want the army to see this. It tells them to breathe easy. Their king is so confident, he's not even dressed yet.

The slope down to the plain is a mile. We descend in order of battle. Our front is twenty-seven hundred yards. The foe's, when we measure after the fight, is forty-seven fifty. He overlaps us more than a mile.

The date is 26 Boedromion, late summer, in the archonship of Aristophanes at Athens. Here, from captured documents of that day, is the order of battle of the army of the empire of Persia:

On the foe's left wing, preceding his main line: two thousand cavalry of Scythia, savage tribesmen of the Sacae and Massagetae, armed with the lance, the Scythian bow, and the
tumak
—a type of spiked mace; one thousand special cavalry of Bactria, on mailed cataphracts, armed with the javelin and the two-handed lance; one hundred scythed chariots under Darius's son Megadates. These are the companies before the front. Behind, in double line of squadrons: four thousand Royal Indian
ksatriyas
, foot bowmen from the country west of the Indus; four thousand mounted archers of Areia under their satrap Satibarzanes; one thousand Royal Arachosian cavalry under Darius's kinsman Barsaentes. Left of these, sixteen thousand Bactrian and Daan cavalry under Darius's cousin, Bessus, who stands in overall command of the left wing; two thousand mounted bowmen of India; Persian Royal Horse mixed with infantry, five thousand, commanded by Tigranes, who fought with such valor at Issus; then Susian cavalry, one thousand; Cadusian cavalry and infantry, two thousand. Next, comprising the wing of Darius's Royal Guard, ten thousand Greek mercenary infantry under the Phocian captain Patron; one thousand Kinsman Cavalry under Darius's brother Oxathres; five thousand “Apple Bearers,” the elite Persian foot guard, so named because they carry lances with a golden apple instead of a butt spike. Before these stand fifty scythed chariots and fifteen Indian war elephants with their mahouts and armored turrets and six hundred Royal Indian cavalry, their mounts trained to fight alongside elephants; these are supported by the so-called deported Carians, one thousand heavy infantry; and five hundred Mardian archers. Behind: Darius himself, shielded on the right by another thousand Persian Honor Regiment cavalry, another five thousand Apple Bearers, and five thousand more Greek mercenary infantry under Mentor's son Thymondas. This is the center of the line. To its right, extending another mile and a half: Carian infantry and cavalry, more Royal Indian Horse, more Greek mercenaries; Albanians; Sittacenians, mixed cavalry and infantry; Tapurian and Hyrcanian cavalry from south of the Caspian; mounted archers of Scythia under Mauaces; Phrataphernes' Parthian and Arachosian cavalry; Atropates' Royal Median Horse; Mazaeus's Syrian and Mesopotamian cavalry. Mazaeus commands the Persian right. Fronting this wing are fifty more scythed chariots; Ariaces' crack Cappadocian cavalry; Orontes' and Mithraustes' Armenian cavalry. Then the rear multitude of provincial levy: Oxathres' Uxians; Bupares' Babylonians; Orontobates' Red Sea conscripts; Orxines' Sittacenians, and others in numbers uncountable.

Descending to the plain, we see clearly the three fairways, groomed by Darius's engineers for his scythed chariots. Stakes mark their margins, with pennants snapping in the blow at eye height for a man on horseback. So the charioteers can see them over the dust.

To our right, as we enter the flat, a thousand yards have been strewn with iron crow's feet. Darius wants to steer us into his cutters' path. The Persian front is twenty-one hundred yards away. A mile and a third. His scouts transit our front, past bowshot, on racing stock worth a lifetime's wages. Our fast lancers chase them. I call a halt.

Squires scurry with wine sacks. We pause to rig what's broken: soles unstrung; sarissa lanyards snapped; torn shield straps and loose keepers on grommets. “Dress the line!” “Piss where you stand!”

Brigade commanders assemble on my colors: Parmenio, Hephaestion, Craterus, Nicanor, Perdiccas, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Philotas, Black Cleitus, two dozen others. Nothing to go over that we haven't rehearsed a hundred times already.

Advance on line. Come to the oblique at my command. All ranks maintain silence until the moment of assault. Accept, obey, and pass on all orders swiftly and accurately.

Commanders scatter to their units. I sign to Evagoras. He spurs onto the flat, trailing Bucephalus. My First Page takes the bridle.

Cheers roar from the throats of fifty thousand.

I scissor from Corona's back to Bucephalus's. My lance. Helmet. A second clamor, and a third. Spear shafts clash against shields. I canter to the fore, flanked by the Royal Guard, Hephaestion, Black Cleitus, Telamon.

Dust scours the flat. Ensigns snap in a south-to-north shear. Squall lines rake the pan, kicking up dusters. The plumes on my helmet tug. I tear them off and loose them on the wind.

“Zeus, our Guide and Savior!”

Here we go.

T
wenty-
F
ive

DIAMONDS ON THE WING

A
T ELEVEN HUNDRED YARDS
we
see the stakes set by the Persians laying out the lanes for their scythed chariots. They are poles of cane, eight feet tall, with scarlet pennants snapping atop. Our fore riders trample them, to the cheers of the corps.

We advance now onto ground prepared for our slaughter. The pan has been curried smooth; three fairways have been groomed for Darius's cutters. Two are five hundred yards wide, the other a thousand. We are still too distant to make out the chariots themselves. We think we see sun-flash off their scythes, but it may be overimagination.

Hephaestion rides at my left shoulder, commanding the
agema
of the Royal Guardsmen. If I fall, he will assume command of the right wing. Black Cleitus advances on my right; he commands the Royal Squadron of Companions. Telamon rides left of Hephaestion, with Ptolemy and Peucestas; Love Locks is at Cleitus's shoulder. They are here for their fighting skills and because I can send any one of them anywhere on the field and he will die before failing me.

Darius's engineers have sown the margins of the field with iron crow's feet to contain our cavalry's advance within the killing zone of the scythed chariots. But the foe cannot strew these spikes across the entire space between our front and his; he must leave hundreds of yards clear; otherwise his own cavalry, when they charge, will run onto the spikes themselves. My scheme is to advance within the confined corridor only until our foremost ranks reach the open space. Then our front will decline sharply to the right, getting off the killing zone as quickly as possible.

I have also, before the battle, had a pronouncement cried throughout our camp to all the civilian followers of the army: that whosoever wishes, at his own hazard, to sprint out before the corps's advance and gather up the crow's feet may keep every one he takes and sell the iron for profit. And now the men in ranks behold a spectacle marvelous indeed, as great swarms of enterprising youths—our sutler's boys and laundry urchins, teamsters' brats, muleteers' lads, not to mention cooks and merchants, even some of the trollops from the whores' camp—burst forth before the army, many barefoot, all unarmed and unarmored, to brave the volleys of the archers stationed by the foe on the flanks and even among the field of spikes to throw back just such an incursion. The bolder and more industrious of our scavengers hold their ground long enough, even, to scoop up the spent arrows of the enemy, which are of no small value in their own right. The result is the field is swept clean, or halfway so, with astonishing celerity.

The enemy's front comes visible now. Its length is twice ours; it seems to extend from horizon to horizon. The deeper we advance, the more of our flanks we expose to the Persian wings.

We progress at a walk. To my left move the eight squadrons of Companion Cavalry. Their formation is half-squadron wedges. Dragon's Teeth. I transit their front at a trot and pass down the line, leftward, monitoring the advance, calling out to men by name, letting my face and colors be seen. Couriers and aides-de-camp shuttle with reports of the foe, the wings, the closing distance.

We too have staked the plain. Fore riders post as human pennants, demarking the advance. At a thousand yards, where the unsown ground begins, I signal the trumpeters: “Corps, decline half-right!”

Color bearers pivot at forty-five degrees. Behind them captains and master sergeants center on the point and deflect as well; the brigades follow. Missile troops out front chase off the foe's skirmishers. Our track is like a man wading across a river. We aim upstream on the diagonal, and our tread is angled upstream too. We slide right . . . right . . . right.

Darius can't see this yet. A thousand yards is too far. But his scout riders see. Telamon indicates a pair on thoroughbreds, spurring back to their king. We see two more, and a fifth, all galloping away with the same report.

We incline to the right across ground incompletely cleared of iron caltrops. Our objects are two: to get off this killing ground, and to make Darius jump.

How long will the foe let us deflect?

Will he permit our right wing to outflank his left?

As our main body declines right, I transit left, across our front for most of a mile, as far as Parmenio, who commands this wing. At nearly seventy years, the general still rides like a buck lancer. We review our scheme one last time. Philotas overhauls us at a hard canter, having crossed after me a thousand yards from the right.

“You're making my bung pucker, Alexander!”

He means he wants me back on the right before serious action starts. He saws the bit on his seventeen-hand black, Adamantine.

“Don't do that—you're hurting him.”

He laughs. “He can't feel a thing, and neither can I!”

“Indeed,” Parmenio calls to his son, “but he's not as drunk as you are!”

I'll give Philotas this: He's a born swashbuckler. Besides, we've all downed a snootful. It burns off like air.

I acknowledge Philotas's admonition: I'll return, right behind him. “Get Balacrus's darters out front.”

“Go on,” says Parmenio.

My party and I canter back across the front. Balacrus is a Macedonian officer commanding a mixed corps of five hundred Agrianian javelineers and an equal number of archers and darters recruited from the mountaineers of Thrace. These have come out for gold, and they have earned it. They dash forward now, on foot, on the right, through the intervals between the squadrons of Companion Cavalry, and assume their station out front of the advance. The Thracians are tattooed, bare-legged, in fox-skin caps; the Agrianes scurry in father-son teams, with their bear hounds, great shaggy beasts, who will die shielding them if they fall.

Balacrus's job is to stop the scythed chariots. His missile troops must break the machines' rush before they rip into the squadrons of Companion Cavalry.

Here is the order of the army of Macedon, right to left, as we advance:

Preceding the right: Balacrus's archers and darters, one thousand. On the wing: mercenary cavalry under Menidas, seven hundred; Royal Lancers under Aretes, eight hundred; Paeonian Light Horse, two-fifty, under Ariston; the other half of the Agrianian darters, five hundred, under Attalus. Brison's five hundred Macedonian archers are next; then the “vet mercs” of Cleander, sixty-seven hundred, infantry armed with the long lance to work against cavalry. These units comprise the right-flank guard. Their job is to hold off whatever Darius throws at us from the flank.

Left of these advance the eight squadrons of Companion Cavalry under Philotas, overstrength at two thousand one hundred forty. Next, Hephaestion with the
agema
of the Royal Guard, three hundred; then the three Guards Brigades under Nicanor, also heavy at thirty-five hundred. Next the sarissa phalanx in six brigades of fifteen hundred each—Coenus's, Perdiccas's, Meleager's, Polyperchon's, Simmias Andromenes' (replacing his brother Amyntas, who is in Macedon recruiting), and Craterus's. Adjacent to these foot troops advance half the allied Greek horse under Erigyius, and all eight squadrons of Thessalian cavalry—the finest in the world after my own Companions—under Philip, son of Menelaus. Round Parmenio, in command of the left wing, ride the horsemen of the Pharsalian squadron, by far the bravest and most brilliant of the Thessalians.

Behind these, at an interval of five hundred paces, I have deployed a second phalanx of infantry composed of the allied Greeks; the mercenaries of Arcadia and Achaea; Illyrian, Triballian, and Odrysian light infantry; the archers and slingers of Syria, Pamphylia, Pisidia; with five hundred Peloponnesian mercenaries under the Spartan Pausanias, who has come over from Darius's service—a total of just under sixteen thousand. These I have instructed to stand ready to face about in the event of being enveloped; wing units to close up with flank guards to form a “hedgehog,” a defensive rectangle bristling with spear points, if we must. In between the fore and rear phalanxes are the battle squires with the spare arms and the grooms with the remounts.

The flank guard of the left is disposed like the right in a modified diamond: four hundred allied Greek cavalry under Coeranus; fifty-nine hundred Thracian light infantry under their native commander Sitalces; three hundred fifty Odrysian plainsman cavalry under Agathon; and Cretan archers, five hundred, under Amyntas. These units, like their counterparts of the opposite flank, must endure whatever assault is thrown at them by Darius's right wing, with its crack Cappadocian, Armenian, and Syrian cavalry under Mazaeus. In front, to break the foe's rush, I have posted nine hundred mercenary horse under Andromachus, a unit of reckless dash. Parmenio commands the left overall, Craterus the infantry of that wing. The right is my own.

We continue our advance in the oblique. Already our rightmost units are off the scythed chariots' fairways. Soon the leading squadrons of Companions will have passed clear too. Darius tracks with us. He has shifted the entire left of his front, keeping pace with our deflection. He can't do this forever. He must take some action to contain our lateral advance.

“There they go.”

Telamon points to the Persian wing. At seven hundred yards, Darius sends his leftmost squadrons. We can see their dust and movement as they shift to contain our right.

“More dust. From the center.” Love Locks indicates the companies around Darius. Units are pulling out of the middle of the Persian line.

“How many, do you think?”

“Enough to thin out their belly.”

This is the gamble I have taken. It is the reason for our rightward deflection. The more squadrons we can draw off from Darius's center, the fewer we'll have to fight through to reach him.

Kill the King.

It is a dangerous game, however, drawing the enemy upon you. Everything hangs on timing. If our flank holds long enough to let my Companions charge, the empire of Persia will fall. If it breaks, not a man of Macedon will leave this field alive.

I sign to Hephaestion; I must see to the flank. He acknowledges. He commands the advance now. If I don't come back, the army is his and Parmenio's.

Do you recall, Itanes, the scheme I sketched before?

This is the wing I now cross to. I want to check their order and be sure they are ready to receive an attack. We reach Aretes' Lancers first. His horses are high. Their tails are up; froth slings from their muzzles. They are starting to bunch. A hundred yards left (to the front, in relation to the Persians) I see the rear ranks of Menidas's mercenary cavalry; the same distance to the fore trot our Paeonian Light Horse under Ariston. I spur forward to them. Their mounts are as balky as Aretes'. I think: If either of these units bolts, Menidas's mercenary cavalry will go with them; the men won't be able to hold their horses.

Ariston is the Light Horse's commander. He should be at the point of the first wedge, but when we get there, I can't find him. (By chance he has taken this moment to drop back to confer with Attalus, whose javelineers, on foot, are falling behind the Lancers' pace.) Ariston's deputy is Milon, a great-nephew of Parmenio. He has not taken the lead post vacated by Ariston, as procedure demands; he rides still in his number-two slot at the wing of the leftmost wedge. I come round the formation, purple with rage. “By Zeus, does no one command here!” Love Locks is on my left, Telamon swinging round on the right. I feel him rap me on the shoulder with the shaft of his lance.

“Alexander!”

I turn. A courier races up from Menidas. “There, sire!” He points ahead to our right flank. “Do you see them?”

Out of the dust on the wing, four furlongs distant, appears a front of horsemen half a mile across.

By Heracles, it is a sight!

“What nations? Persians?”

“Bactrians, my lord.” Tribal horsemen of the eastern plains.

The courier reports that this division has ridden round from the enemy front in column and come, only moments before, into line of attack. He requests orders for his commander Menidas.

“He has his orders. Attack.”

I gallop with the courier back to his division. Menidas is out front with his squadron commanders. “By Chiron's furry crease”—he points to the foe—“these villains are impatient!” Menidas is a huntsman; at home he runs two hundred superb hounds. He's as cool now as if we were coursing only after hares.

The foe are not yet at the gallop. They come at the trot. Dust ascends in ranges behind them; the squall at their backs drives it with them, so that their fore ranks appear to emerge out of sand-colored murk. The plain is crusty; its surface muffles the foe's tread, making the sound seem as if it comes from twice as far as it does.

“Take your fifties straight in. I'll bring up the Lancers to rip them from the flank.”

I mean that I want Menidas to attack the foe head-on in wedges of fifty. I'll align Aretes' eight hundred Royal Lancers to tear through the foe, right behind, from the side.