A Captain of Thebes

by Mark G McLaughlin

  Ari, never known for having the coolest of heads, responded just as predictably. Rising from his knees, he socked the big man in the gut, and from there things went really bad. Dimitrios knew there was no time to calm things down, especially as the rapidly escalating altercation had attracted the attention of a pair of what, from their dress, were obviously officers. Even if he could quiet things down, there were surely questions that would be asked and answers that would be demanded. None of that would work out well for him or Ari, even if they had the time to try. So, Dimitrios did what had to be done. He hurled himself into the fray, bowled over a couple of the gamblers, one of whom fell into the fire with a loud scream, and grabbed Ari by the scruff of his tunic.

  “The money!” he screamed at Ari. “Throw it up into the air!”

  “What!” said Ari in surprise. “Are you crazy? There's a small fortune here, and I won it fair and square!”

  “Not with those dice, you didn't, Ari,” replied Dimitrios. “I told you a long time ago to get rid of those!”

  Ari smiled a bit sheepishly, and then did as his friend had asked – he threw his winnings up into the air with both hands, and shouted “here you go, men! I've gotta be going!”

  After which he and Dimitrios turned about and headed for the picket lines at as best a run Ari could manage. Klemes saw them take off and followed, albeit at a bit more leisurely of a pace. “Well, well,” he said to himself. “I must be a better physician than I thought. Ari moves pretty damn fast for a man with a bad leg.”

  But not quite fast enough, Klemes realized, as a gang of angry soldiers tumbled into Ari and Dimitrios. Fortunately, many of the soldiers were not exactly sure who was angry at whom, only that there was money on the ground to grab and a brawl to join. As the officers Dimitrios had spied earlier motioned for some armed guards to come with them to break up the rapidly expanding fight, Klemes looked around for some way to create a distraction, anything that would force the officers to respond to something more dangerous than a soldiers' free-for-all.

  He was not alone in that thought, as the four men Dimitrios had left outside the camp took it upon their own initiative to do just that. Each had made their way into the camp and, while so many others were drawn inward to the tussling gamblers and scattered coins, each had picked up a burning brand from a fire and had tossed it into a pile of dry fodder, an empty tent or, in one case, a cart packed with jars of oil – which went up very nicely and very quickly. The four then began running about the camp, pretending panic, and crying the alarm.

  With their tents, carts and supplies ablaze, the battling soldiers quickly forgot about the fight and what or who started it, and scurried back to save what they could from the flames. One man, however, the big fellow Ari had punched in the stomach, was too enraged and too focused on the man he thought had cheated him at dice to care about the fire. Dimitrios tried to pull him off of Ari, but the man was as big as a bull – and just as strong, and just as fierce. He threw Dimitrios off as if he were naught but a cat that had landed on his shoulders, and delivered a blow to Ari's head that nearly separated it from his neck. Bellowing and howling like a mad animal, the angry gambler was so fixated on his two opponents that he did not see Klemes come up behind him – or the log the physician swung to smash into his skull.

  “Come on, you two, get up. We're leaving this party and fast!” yelled Klemes, not that he needed to, for Dimitrios and Ari were already stumbling away from the flaming camp and heading for the safety of the darkness. While almost every other soldier in the camp was now concerned with the fire, there were guards on the picket line who were disciplined enough to stay at their post. They saw Klemes, Dimitrios and Ari running away from the fire while everyone else ran towards it. Backlit by the flames, they were easily noticeable to the guards, two of whom leveled their spears and moved toward the fleeing Greeks.

  What they did not see or even think to look for were four other men who came at the guards from the dark – four men with knives and short swords. An unequal contest though it was against men in armor, Dimitrios' four soldiers hurled themselves at the guards, doing their duty as their captain had feared they might be need to do. The guards went down, but not without a fight – and shouts that alerted others on guard that intruders had been in the camp, and were escaping.

  A chase ensued that was part flight, part running fight, as pairs of soldiers left the picket line to run after Dimitrios and his party, none of which, to their credit, were willing to leave the slowest member of the group behind. Even with Ari's limp, however, the scouting party was able to gain ground on the guards, who, weighed down with armor, helmet, shield and weapons, soon began to tire, especially after a few tumbles and missteps in the dark.

  Battered, bruised, and bearing cuts and other light wounds, the seven Greeks eventually outdistanced their pursuers and reached the Granicos. Allowing themselves only a moment to dive in, Dimitrios and his men waded as quickly as they could bring themselves through the river, all the while calling out for help to the Persian guards who patrolled on their bank. Three or four of the Macedonian camp guards reached the river just as Dimitrios and his men were crossing, but a few flights of arrows from the Persian horse archers sent them scurrying back into the protection of the darkness, their way home guided by the blazing Macedonian camp.

  22

  The River Granicos

  Memnon's Command Tent

  “I don't like it, Memnon. I don't like it one bit.”

  “I don't much care for this battle plan either, Ephialtes,” sighed Memnon, “especially not after what your scouts reported. By the way, that young officer...”

  “Dimitrios, a Theban,” Ephialtes answered the question his commander was about to ask. “Good man.”

  “Yes, indeed. If we ever get out of this battle alive, have him report to me. We are going to need good officers – good, solid, Greek officers, if we are to have any hope of defeating this spoiled Macedonian kinglet.”

  “Then you really don't have any faith in this battle plan, do you, Memnon?”

  “No, but, like you, I have to obey orders. And it is not so much that it is a bad plan...”

  “Yes, it is, and you know it, Memnon. That river out there is not very wide or very deep, and while it is a bastard to cross, it can and will be crossed. My men – our men – should be there at the top of the bank when the Macedonians try to claw their way up it. Those massive phalanxes of theirs will be nothing more than disorganized mobs. Imagine trying to stay upright on those slippery rocks and shifting, wet sands while holding heavy, 12 to 18 foot pikes! Keep them in the river and they're at our mercy. Just think of it. A solid line of shields and spears at the top of the bank, while the Persian archers on horseback behind us darken the sky with arrows. It will be a massacre – and payback for every defeat, every insult, Philip and his brat ever inflicted on us.”

  “Yes, Ephialtes, that is how we should deploy, but our masters have other ideas. They want to line the banks with their cavalry, so they can fire directly into the Macedonians as they cross.”

  “All right, I can see some wisdom in that,” mumbled Ephialtes. “Then once the Macedonians get close, the Persians will ride off to the sides, like curtains being pulled, to reveal my hoplites. We take a few steps forward and there we are, as I recommended. That could work.”

  “Yes,” said Memnon, “it could. That is how it should happen, and I have put that idea forward...but that is not how it is going to happen.”

  “Why not?” exclaimed Ephialtes.

  “Because while the light horse on the far ends of this two-mile-long line will do that, the nobles and their retainers who will be in the center will not. They won't retire – they think that would be cowardly. No, they will fire and fire away with their bows until their quivers are empty, and then they will hurl their javelins when the Macedonians get closer. Then they will draw their swords, their axes and their maces, and scream their own names to tell the gods and the Macedonians who it is who will come
to kill them.”

  Ephialtes stared at Memnon, his mouth open in disbelief, his shoulders hunched and his hands balled into fists as they rested on the map. “That is ridiculous. That is insane. Cavalry, standing still on a river bank against infantry? Cavalry are supposed to charge across open ground, not hold the line. Worse, they'll only get in the way of my hoplites.”

  “No, they won't,” said Memnon shaking his head. “You see, your hoplites won't be there.”

  “What? Then where exactly will they be?” grimaced Ephialtes.

  “Back, way back, up on that hill there. Between the river and the camp.”

  “And just what in Hades are we supposed to do there? Sit and watch?”

  “Yes, Ephialtes. Watch. Watch the nobles gain glory and honor. They believe they can do it all on their own, and do not wish to share the credit -or the presumed rewards- with...us.”

  “Memnon...”

  “Do not say it. I know what you are thinking. I tried to object. I tried to pull rank, even to waving the staff of command that came directly from the hand of Darius to me. Well, maybe not directly, but at least by his orders. But Darius is far, far away, out to the east, quelling some tribal uprisings or some other nonsense. Despite my warnings he thinks of the Macedonians as if they were just another barbarian incursion on the fringes of the empire. He has even less regard for any Greek, enemy or ally, subject or mercenary. The satraps share that, it seems. Arsites says we are 'a little people, a petulant people, who squabble among ourselves like spoiled children.' How do I enforce my will upon such men as those?”

  Ephialtes laughed. Not a hearty, happy laugh, but one that showed his disdain and disgust.

  “Do they not recall Salamis, or Marathon, or Plateai or Thermopylae? Do they not remember when our forefathers sent them packing, with their tails between their legs?”

  “No, Ephialtes, they are familiar with those battles, but they have, how can I put it,” Memnon paused, trying to find a diplomatic way of saying what was on his mind, “re-interpreted those events.”

  “Re-interpreted? How do you re-interpret a defeat, let alone a series of defeats? Have they learned nothing?”

  Memnon grinned at his old friend, moved to the side of the tent to take up a cup and pour himself some watered-down wine from a beaker. He offered to do the same for Ephialtes, but the white-haired veteran demurred. Memnon nodded, took a long swallow from the cup, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and shook his head.

  “At the court of Darius such defeats are thought of differently. Thermopylae, as they see it, was a triumph. A victory in which an upstart king and his army was defeated, and after which they were able to capture, loot and burn Athens. The Athenians so feared them that did not even man the walls – although one small band did try to hold the Acropolis, of course...”

  “Against orders, if you remember your history,” interjected Ephialtes.

  “Yes, true, but the court historians and the king's advisers are correct in both cases, at least technically. As for Salamis, they blame the foolhardiness, cowardice and even treachery of the captains of the Phoenician squadrons for that – and note, quite rightly, that the other half of the fleet did return safely to the ports in Asia Minor.”

  Ephialtes shook his head. “Return? You mean fled! And then Xerxes and the rest of the army ran for home as well. It was only because Themistocles didn't follow up his victory and sail to the Hellespont to burn their bridges that they got away!”

  “A decision he made, I believe, in order to ensure that Xerxes did leave – as he knew the great king must. After all, how long can the king of an empire that reaches the four corners of the world remain on the outermost fringes of that empire? Themistocles wanted Xerxes to go home – and to take his army with him. He knew the Greeks could never raise an army large enough to defeat Xerxes and his host of 100,000, but the garrison he knew the king would leave behind to hold those areas of Greece which had fallen to him, well, that was a force the Greeks could deal with...”

  “And they did! At Plateai!” said Ephialtes proudly. “And that is something I will drink to!” he added, as he also went to the table to pour himself some wine.

  “But that, dear friend, was 150 years ago, and the Persians like most men prefer to embellish their victories and play down their defeats. They also remember that after Plateai, as you know, we fell out among ourselves, as we always do. Spartans against Athenians, Thebans against Spartans, Corinthians against whomever they felt was insulting them that year...and each time, in each conflict, one or more of us would go to the Persians, looking for money or ships or...”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” grumbled Ephialtes. “That is exactly how I came to be here, as you know, and how your family, too, eventually came to serve the empire.”

  “When the Athenians dominated the seas, my family's fortunes in Rhodes fell, and we looked east. My brother, Mentor, and I won regard first as scouts and then as surveyors, mapping so much of Asia Minor for the old Great King, Artaxerxes. He was particularly fond of Mentor, so much so that he gave him a small army and sent him to make trouble for the rebels in Egypt. Damn if my brother didn't turn a raid into a victory. For that he warded with the hand of the beautiful Barsine, daughter of Artabazus, who was then satrap here.”

  “I did not know your brother well, but heard naught but good of him.”

  “Would that he were here today, Ephialtes. He was a far better general than I could ever be. He wouldn't have just given Parmenion a bloody nose at the Scamandros River – he would have thrown him all the way back into the Hellespont, and then swept across the water to snatch up Alexander to boot.”

  “It is well that you honor his memory in your heart, and that you took his widow into your household, Memnon. Both do credit to you.”

  “Ha!” laughed Memnon. “Marrying my brother's widow may be a custom among the Persians, but I deserve no praise for that. I loved her from the moment I saw her, and still do. Sometimes I feel guilty, though. She would not be mine if my brother were still alive...”

  “Well, I say we are just as fortunate to have you as our commander, Memnon. If only you could get the Persians to understand what we are up against.”

  “I have tried but, you see, my old friend, because of the way the Persians remember history, the great king does not take a threat of invasion from Greece seriously. That is why he is happy to leave the matter to the local governors and his mercenary generals. And that is also why,” Memnon sighed, “the satraps have no respect for you or me or those 7,000 hoplites you brought to fight for them. That is why they do not want you up in the front line. They think they do not need you. They feel you and your men are worthy only to guard the camp, and to keep the levy infantry from running away.”

  Memnon leaned over the camp table and toyed with the little wooden figurines that marked the position of each command for the coming fight. “Not that that rabble of farmers is good for anything anyway. But it cheers the satraps so to see the peasants where they can keep an eye on them – and where they can see their betters in action. All the better to remind their subjects what they would have to deal with should they even think to rise up. Besides, the nobles want you out of the way. They don't want to have to share their glory with a bunch of Greek hirelings.”

  “That is Arsites talking, not you” said Ephialtes, finally understanding that the battle would, indeed, most likely be lost. “Have you told them that what they are facing is something more than the Greek city state forces their fathers faced and dealt with? That this army is different from anything they have seen or had to fight? That the Macedonians are not just soldiers, but cogs in a giant, monstrous machine – a machine that eats up, grinds down and spits out entire armies, and which dines on cities for dinner?”

  “Arsites did not want to hear about that. He knows what he knows and that is all that he wants to know. And it is not just him, but the other satraps and the lesser nobles...”

  “You mean those who have never actually fought in a bat
tle before. Surely the veteran commanders...”

  “I would have thought they would have talked some sense into these firebrands,” added Memnon with a deep sigh, “but you know how the nobles are. Once someone even hints at a suggestion that things might not go their way, he is derided as defeatist, or coward – or even a traitor. Nothing is as predictable as a Persian once he thinks he has been insulted, or that his honor or abilities are being questioned. No, their pride, it gets in the way.”

  “And as the playwrights tell us,” said Ephialtes sadly, “pride will be their undoing. So, I am just supposed to watch from a hill while the Persians allow themselves to be slaughtered? Then what do I do when the Macedonians form up on the plain between my hill and the river?”

  “Nothing, Ephialtes, nothing. Because you won't be there, old friend. You'll be long gone from this field.”

  Ephialtes, who in his youth had often been referred to as a giant of a man, both for his height and build as well as his strength and courage, began to turn red with anger.

  “I am no coward to leave the field of battle and abandon my men. Nor am I some old woman who needs to be sent away, or is that how you now see me, you by whose side I have stood in many an...”

  “No, no, Ephialtes, not that. No. On the contrary,” said Memnon soothingly, and in as friendly and as calm a manner as he could muster. “I need you out of here so you can prepare for the next battle. Omares has been given command of all of the infantry – your men and the Persian levies. He knows the value of your men, even if the other Persian nobles won't let him make the best use of them. Let your second in command, Clearchos, take charge of the men. I will even send my nephew, Thymondas, and my own sons, Agathon and Xenocrates to help him and Omares hold the line. Perhaps they can convince some of the nobles to pull back once things start to go wrong. And go wrong, I fear, it will.”