Fire From Heaven (38 page)

The roar of battle changed. An exultant shout ran like fire through the packed mass. It began to move, no longer in laboured heaves but like a gathering landslide. The enemy was retreating! The glories of Marathon, of Salamis, of Plataia, flashed before his eyes. Men in front were yelling, ‘On to Macedon!’ He started running with the rest, calling in his high sharp voice, ‘Catch Philip! Take him alive!’ He should be led in chains through the Agora; after that they would make him talk, name every traitor. There would be a new statue on the Acropolis, next to Harmodios and Aristogeiton: DEMOSTHENES THE LIBERATOR. He shouted to those ahead who could run faster, ‘On to Macedon! Take him alive!’ In this haste to be there and see it, he almost stumbled over the bodies of the young men who had fallen in the front line.

Theagenes the Theban, commander-in-chief of the confederate army, urged his horse behind the battle-lines towards the centre. The long front fermented with shouted rumour, too garbled to be of use. Here at last came one of his own scouts. The Macedonians were indeed, he reported, in retreat.

How? asked Theagenes. In disorder? In fair order, but getting away pretty fast. They had already fallen right back from the heights, with the Athenians after them. After them? What! Had they left their station, then, without orders? Well, orders or not, they were already in the plain; it was the King himself they were chasing.

Theagenes, cursing, beat his fist on his thigh. Philip! The fools, the misbegotten, fribbling, vainglorious Athenian fools. What had become of the line up there? There must be a gap as long as a hippodrome. He sent off the scout with orders that it must at all costs be filled, and the left flank covered. No sign anywhere else of the enemy falling back; they were laying on harder than ever.

The leader of the Corinthians received the order. How better guard the flank, than get up on the good rising ground where the Athenians had been? The Achaians, left feeling naked, spread out towards the Corinthians. Theagenes stretched out his own troops in turn. Let these Athenian speechmakers see what real soldiers look like. In their place of honour on the right wing, the Sacred Band changed order; briefly, as they moved, they showed in twos.

Theagenes surveyed the long threshing chain of men, now loose at one end, and weaker overall. Before him, the enemy rear was obscured by a tree-tall thicket of sarissas; ranks not engaged held them high, for the safety of those in front. With them and the dust-cloud, one could see nothing. A thought hit him, like a jolt in the midriff. No word of young Alexander. Where is he? On garrison duty in Phokis? Toiling unnoticed in the line? Yes, when iron floats. Then where is he?

There was a lull in the fight before him; almost a stillness, after the noise before; the heavy pause of earthquake weather. Then the deep bristling phalanx swung sideways, ponderously but smoothly, like an enormous? door.

It stood open. The Thebans did not go out of it; they waited for what was coming in. The Sacred Band, turning face to face before they locked the shield-line and settled their spears, showed up in twos, once and for all.

In the stubble-field among the trampled poppies, Alexander lifted his sword-arm, and yelled the note of the paean.

Strong and sustained, the voice trained by Epikrates rang down the great square of horsemen. They took up the paean; it lost in its passage the sound of words, dinning like the fierce outcry from a cloud of swooping hawks. It goaded the horses more than spurs. Before ever they came in sight, the Thebans had felt their thunder through the ground.

Ê

Watching his men like a shepherd on a mountain trail, Philip waited for news.

The Macedonians were plodding back, sullenly, carefully, fighting for every few yards of ground. Philip rode about, directing their retreat just where it should go. Who could believe it, he thought. When Iphikrates was alive, or ChabriasÉ But their orators appoint their generals now. So soon, so soon. A generationÉHe shielded his eyes to scan the line. The charge had begun, he knew no more.

Well, he’s alive; if he fell, the news would fly quicker than a bird. Curse this leg, I’d like to take a walk among the men, they’re used to it. A spearman all my life. I never thought I’d breed a cavalry general. Ah well, the hammer still needs the anvil. When he can bring off a planned fighting withdrawal like thisÉ. He understood his briefing. Everything pat. But only half there, he had that look of his mother.

Thought changed to tangled images like a knot of snakes. He saw the proud head lying in blood; the mourning, the tomb at Aigai, the choice of a new heir; idiot Arridaios’ jerking face, I was drunk when I got him; Ptolemy, too late now to acknowledge him, I was a boy, what could I do?É What’s four-and-forty, I’ve good seed in me yet. A sturdy square dark-haired boy ran up to him, calling, ‘Father I’É

Shouts sounded, nearing, directing a rider to the King.

‘He’s through, sir. He’s broken the line. The Thebans are standing, but they’re cut off beside the river, the right wing’s rolled up. I didn’t speak with him, he said ride straight to you when I saw it, you were waiting for the word. But I saw him there in the van, I saw his white crest.’

‘The gods be thanked. A bringer of such news deserves something. See me after.’ He summoned the trumpeter. For a moment, like a good farmer at harvest-time, he viewed the field which through his careful husbandry stood for the reaping just as it ought. His cavalry reserve had appeared upon the heights, before the Corinthians could command them. His withdrawing infantry had spread into the shape of a sickle blade. Enclosed in its curve were the jubilant Athenians.

He gave the order to attack.

Ê

The knot of young men was still resisting. They had found a stone sheep-pen, nearly breast high, but the sarissas came thrusting over. In the filth on the ground a lad of eighteen was kneeling, clutching at his eye which was falling down his cheek.

‘We should get away,’ said the older man in the middle, urgently. ‘We shall be cut off. Look, you can see, look round.’

‘We’re staying here,’ said the young man who had assumed command. ‘You go if you want, we’ll never notice the difference.’

‘Why throw away our lives? Our lives belong to the City. We should go back and dedicate our lives to restoring Athens.’

‘Barbarians! Barbarians!’ yelled the young man to the troops outside. They replied with some uncouth battle-cry. When he had time to spare, he said to the older man, ‘Restore Athens? Let us rather perish with her. Philip will blot her from the earth. Demosthenes has always said so.’

‘Nothing is certain, terms can be madeÉLook, they have almost closed us round, are you mad, wasting all our lives?’

‘Not even slavery, but annihilation. That’s what Demosthenes said. I was there, I heard him.’

A sarissa, poking forward out of the thick of the attackers, caught him un?der the chin and went tearing up through his mouth into his brain-base.

‘This is madness, madness,’ said the middle-aged man. I’ll have no more part in it.’ Dropping shield and spear, he scrambled over the far wall. Only one man, inactive with a broken arm, was looking when he shed his helmet too.

The rest fought on, till a Macedonian officer came up, calling that if they surrendered the King would spare their lives. At this they laid down their arms. While they were being marched off, between the dying and dead strewed everywhere, to join the herd of captives, one of them said to the rest, ‘Who was the little fellow who ran away, the one poor Eubios was quoting Demosthenes to?’

The man with the broken arm, who had been a good while silent, answered, “That was Demosthenes.’

Ê

The prisoners were under guard, the wounded were being carted off on shields, beginning with the victors. This would take many hours, many would be there at nightfall. The defeated lay at the mercy, for good or ill, of those who found them; many, un-found, would be with the dead tomorrow. Among the dead too there was precedence. The conquered would lie till their cities sued for them; their bodies, asked and granted, were formal acknowledgement that the victors possessed the field.

Philip with his staff rode down the long wreck-strewn shore of battle from south to north. The moans of the dying sounded in fitful gusts, like wind in the high woods of Macedon. Father and son said little; sometimes a landmark of the fight would prompt a question; Philip was trying to make real to himself the event with all its meaning. Alexander had been with Herakles; it took time to come down from that possession. He did his best to attend to his father, who had embraced him when they met, and said everything that was proper.

At length they reached the river. Here by its shore, there was no straggle among the dead of men caught flying. They lay compactly, facing all ways outward, except where the river for a time had guarded their backs. Philip looked at the cable-trimmed shields. He said to Alexander, ‘You went in here?’

‘Yes. Between them and the Achaians. The Achaians stood well; but these died harder.’

‘Pausanias,’ called Philip. ‘Have them counted.’

Alexander said, ‘You will find there is no need.’

The count took time. Many were buried under Macedonians they had killed, and had to be disentangled. There were three hundred. All the Band was there.

‘I called on them to yield,’ Alexander said. “They called back that they didn’t know the word; they supposed it was Macedonian.’

Philip nodded, and sank back into his thoughts. One of the bodyguard who had done the counting, a man fond of his own wit, turned one of the bodies over on another and made an obscene joke.

‘Let them alone,’ said Philip loudly. The uncertain titters died. ‘Perish the man who said they did or bore anything base.’

He wheeled round his horse, followed by Alexander. Unseen by either, Pausanias turned and spat on the nearest body.

‘Well,’ Philip said, ‘the day’s work done. I think we have earned a drink.’

Ê

It was a fine night. The flaps of the royal tent were opened; tables and benches overflowed outside. All the chief officers were there, old guest-friends, tribal chiefs, and various allied envoys who had been following the campaign.

The wine was tempered at first, because people were dry; when thirst was slaked, it went round neat. Everyone who felt happy, or thought it useful, started a new round of toasts, and pledged the King.

To the rhythm of old Macedonian drinking-songs, the guests began clapping, slapping their thighs, or banging the tables. Their heads were crowned with wreaths from the broken vineyards. After the third chorus, Philip rose to his feet, and proclaimed a komos.

An unsteady line was formed. Anyone in reach of a torch snatched it up and waved it. Those who were giddy grasped the next man’s shoulder. Swaying and limping, Philip lurched along at the head of the line, arm in arm with Parmenion. ?His face glistened red in the shaking torchlight, the lid of his dead eye drooped, he bawled out the song like battle-orders. The truth of the wine had lit for him the vastness of his deed; the long plans ended, the vista of power ahead, the downfall of his enemy. Freed from careful southern graces as from a hampering cloak, one in soul with his highland forbears and nomad ancestors, he was a chieftain of Macedon, feasting his clansmen after the greatest of all border raids.

The lilt of the song inspired him. ‘Hark!’ he roared. ‘Listen to this:

Demosthenes decrees!

Demosthenes decrees!

Demosthenes of Paionia,

Son of Demosthenes.

Euoi Bakchos! Euoi Bakchos!

Demosthenes decrees!’

It spread down the line like fire in tinder. It was easy to learn, and even easier to sing. Stamping and shouting, the komos wavered out through the moonlit night over the olive fields by the river. A little way downstream, where they would not foul the water for the victors, were the prisoners’ pens. Roused by the noise from exhausted sleep or lonely brooding, the drawn grimy men got to their feet and stared silently, or looked at one another. The torches shone on still rows of eyes.

Near the tail of the komos, among the young, Hephaistion slipped from his neighbours’ convivial arms, and walked along through the olives’ shadows, looking out and waiting. He kept along by the komos till he saw Alexander leave it; he too looked about, knowing Hephaistion would be there.

They stood together under an old tree with a gnarled intricate stem, thick as a horse’s body. Hephaistion touched it. ‘Someone told me they live a thousand years.’

“This one,’ Alexander said, ‘will have something to remember.’ He felt at his brow, dragged off the vine-wreath and stamped it under his heel. He was cold sober. Hephaistion had been drunk when the komos started, but that had soon cleared his head.

They walked on together. The lights and noise still meandered before the prisoners’ pens. Alexander walked steadily down river. They picked their way over broken spears and sarissas and javelins, round dead horses and dead men. At length Alexander stopped by the river bank, where Hephaistion had known he would.

No one had stripped the bodies yet. The bright shields, the victor’s trophies, glimmered softly under the moon. The smell of blood was stronger here; bleeding men had fought on longer. The river chuckled gently among the stones.

One body lay by itself, face down, feet towards the river; a young man, with dark crisply-curling hair. His dead hand still grasped his helmet, which stood by him upside down, with water in it. It was unspilled, because he had been crawling when death overtook him. A blood-spoor, along which he had been returning, led from him to the heap of dead. Alexander picked up the helmet, carrying the water carefully, and followed the trail to its end. This man too was young; he had bled a wide pool, the great vein of his thigh being severed. His open mouth showed the dry tongue. Alexander bent, with the water ready, and touched him, then laid the helmet aside.

‘The other had stiffened, but this one is hardly cold. He had a long wait.’

‘He would know why,’ Hephaistion said.

A little way on, two bodies lay across each other, both facing upward to where the enemy had been. The elder was a strong-looking man with a fair clipped beard; the younger, on whom he had fallen back in death, was bare-headed. On one side he was bare-skulled; a downward slash of a cavalry sabre had flayed off the face to show a bony grin. From the other side, one could see that beauty had been there.