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The boys were quite kind, all things considered. I got some back slaps and some ‘get the bastard next time’ comments, and then I was in my spot at the head of the wedge. The Athenians were formed in a rhomboid, and they had some slope behind them.
And then we were off.
Troop to troop, same weight of horseflesh, same ground, not much to tell in skill – it might have been a bloodbath. It wasn’t. We smashed into them, and I never got sword to sword with Kineas – we struck a few horse lengths from each other, and I was into the Athenian ranks before I had time to think about it, cutting to either side, taking blows on my armour and a heavy cut to my bridle arm – see the scar? But I kept my seat and burst out the other side of their formation and found that old Philip had started his infantry forward.
There was a third troop of horse – Thessalians under Erygius – and they smashed into the flank of the melee, bowling Athenian Hippeis right over with their long lances, and suddenly the whole pack of them was in flight, and the hypaspists cheered us.
I could see Philip, just a few horse lengths away. I saluted with my sword, and he waved. A handsome boy came ru
Up close, I could see it was Attalus’s pretty cousin, Diomedes. To me, he looked more like Ganymede.
‘The king thanks you and orders you back to the left,’ he said.
I saluted, and my trumpeter started blowing the recall.
It was all going according to plan, until the hypaspists slammed into the Athenians and the Athenians rolled them right back down the hill.
My lads were just behind them, crossing back from our right to our left by the shortest route, and we felt it when the hypaspists went into the Athenians. Not for them the sarissa – they had the hoplite spear, the dory and the bigger, heavier hoplite aspis. But they were not all individual athletes like the Athenians, and nor did they have a front rank in leg armour, sometimes arm, face and hand armour – a rich Athenian can look like a bronze automaton.
I heard all the excuses that night – there was a line of animal holes, men fell, the Athenians had dug pits in front – for whatever reason, our front rank stumbled and the Athenians gave a great shout and pushed, and our best were stumbling back.
We companions had to hotfoot along to get clear before they slammed into us and all order was lost. Laodon turned back at this point – against orders, I’ll add – and manoeuvred to cover the flank of the hypaspists, in case the enemy light troops got brave. It was a smart move.
Whether Philip had intended it or not, his extreme right – his hypaspists – had engaged first, so that the entire army was echeloned from right to left, with the best troops leading the way and the worst following well behind. I’ve done this on purpose, but on that morning, I still think it was the result of the king being on the far right when he gave the signal to advance, so that the rightmost files stepped off first and started a sort of marching cascade.
It scarcely matters why – except that the whole army sawthe king and the hypaspists recoil. And the Athenians raised a great cheer, sang the paean, and their whole line moved forward.
I couldn’t rein in and watch – bad for discipline. But it didn’t look good.
I kept turning my head and looking back as we rode – and the hypaspists were driven down and down the ridge, even as our rawest troops were marching forward into the Thebans.
When I reached Alexander, he was alone except for Hephaestion, well in front of all the cavalry.
‘What in Tartarus is happening?’ he demanded.
What exactly do you say? ‘The hypaspists seem hard pressed, lord,’ I said.
Alexander nodded sharply, eyes everywhere.
With a pots-and-pans sound audible even from a stade away, the centres met. The allies had the smaller town contingents and some dubious mercenaries in the centre. We had foot companions. Ours were better, and almost instantly they started to push the allies back.
Why?
The smaller a town is, the smaller its phalanx. Some towns have as few as three or four hundredhoplites. That means they’ve never served in a bigger phalanx – they usually don’t form deep enough, and they aren’t used to the terror of a dozen spear-butts with long bronze points licking around their heads. Oh – the rear ranks can be difficult.
But the worst is that the danger spots in a phalanx are always the joins – the places where two contingents line up – say Athens and Thebes. Those two files don’t know each other – don’t trust each other, don’t lap their shields or anything like it. In fact, believe it or not, men from different towns or nations will often leave a gap, even though they know – they know– that the gap is a death warrant. Their distrust for other men is so physical they ca
In our army, of course, we had contingents of about two thousand – every one the same. All Macedonian, or like enough. We drilled them together. We had nojoins. Our pots never needed repair.
Their centre fractured, as an old pot will when it takes a blow.
That transformed the battle, but it didn’t give us a victory. The hypaspists and our right were still reeling back – the Athenians scented victory, and who could blame them? Traditionally, when an army’s strong right was broken, the game was won, and the hypaspists were barely hanging together. They were still plodding backwards. The noblest thing I can say about them is that they didn’t break, and I think anyone else would have.
But the crushing of the centre halted the Theban advance. Or perhaps the Thebans had never intended to fully support Athens. That, too, was part of Greek warfare. Leaving an ally to die was an old tradition – especially with two allies who hated each other.
Alexander was chewing his lip. His eyes went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth – like a caged lynx I had seen once at Pella. A desperate animal.
On our right, the foot companions to the left of Philip’s elite began to bleed men from their rear rank.
‘How can this be happening!’ asked Alexander.
Hephaestion looked at me. I didn’t have an answer.
It looked to me like a race between two men ripping sheets of linen. Would our centre blow through theirs? Or would our right collapse? I feared with every heartbeat that the call would go up that Philip was down, or dead.
Alexander’s eyes stopped darting about and fixed on the centre.
‘Here we go,’ he said.
Remember, he was eighteen, and this was his first battle.
He saw it, he made the call and he led it. And by the gods, he never flinched once he made the call.
‘Wedge on me!’ he shouted. I pulled in at his back – not my normal position, but I was right there and we were doing this thing right then, I could see.
He grabbed Hephaestion’s bridle.
‘Go to Erygius – tell him to take four troops from the left and fix the Sacred band in place.’ He looked at his best friend. ‘Do you understand?’
Hephaestion never really understood. ‘I can take the message,’ he said.
Alexander had an eye to the men forming behind us and another on the battle in front of us.
‘Do you understand, Ptolemy?’ he asked.
I knew exactly what he needed. But I wanted to charge with him. To glory. I saw what he had seen – minutes too late, but I knew, now, that Alexander was about to win the battle.
But being a loyal servant of a great prince is not all wine and gold. ‘Yes, lord,’ I said. In that moment, I hated Hephaestion, as the bitch had a look of triumph – I was sent away, and he was to stay with his lord.