Alexander

by H A CULLEY

  Alexander rode Bucephalus and the column with its baggage train made an impressive sight as it wound its way north from Pella to the foothills of the Bermion Mountains that marked part of the border between Macedon and Illyria. The countryside there was green and the soil rich. The area known as the Gardens of Midas because it was so productive grew cherries, olives, peaches and figs. The south facing slopes were full of vineyards and everyone, including Alexander and his friends, enjoyed picking the grapes and then treading them to extract the juice. They enjoyed drinking the end product even more on those feast days when Aristotle permitted them to drink.

  Mieza itself was part of the region governed from Berea, some fourteen miles to the south of the village. Because of the region’s prosperity Berea was rapidly becoming the second largest city in Macedon; only Pella was more populous.

  The regime that Aristotle introduced at Mieza was designed to keep his pupils out of mischief. The day began at dawn with a run. As at Pella previously, Alexander and Hephaestion ran separately from the other boys, though the latter slowly improved as time went on. The two friends habitually ran fifteen miles a day up into the hills surrounding the village. Because there were lions, wolves and bears – not to mention the occasional brigand – in the Bermion Mountains, Philotas and two or three of his men rode behind them. It was just as well that they did as one day they ran past a cave which was home to a brown bear.

  Evidently the bear was a female with cubs because it rushed out to confront the two boys as they neared the entrance to the cave. It stood there on its hind legs some six and a half feet tall and weighing about five hundred pounds. Unarmed as they were, the two boys were defenseless against the irate animal and they did the only thing they could do in the circumstances – they turned and fled back the way they had come.

  The track the boys had been following was littered with stones and small rocks at this point and, whilst the boys enjoyed leaping from the top of one to the next, Philotas and two of his men were forced to slowly pick their way leading their horses for fear of a broken leg. They were therefore a few hundred yards behind their charges when Alexander and Hephaestion suddenly re-appeared around the bend ahead of them. The three soldiers were dismounted and taken off guard when the brown bear lumbered into view no more than fifty yards behind the boys.

  ‘Mount quickly,’ Philotas yelled, knowing that they would have more chance against the bear in the saddle than on foot.

  He and the soldiers had only just got back in the saddle when the two runners reached them. Without saying anything the boys grabbed the spears that the two Companions were carrying and wrenched it out of their hands. They turned as one and leveled the spears. The bear saw the danger but either ignored it or couldn’t stop in time.

  The point of Hephaestion’s spear took the bear in the chest, penetrating the thick pelt and driving between its ribs to lodge in a lung. He was flung back by the weight of the oncoming animal and lay winded on his back.

  Alexander had realised that a spear wasn’t going to stop the beast and aimed for its right eye instead. It was a very risky gamble as the chances were that the point would glance off the thick bone surrounding the socket; it also took a very cool head to stand there with the bear nearly on top of him and still keep the spear on target. Fortunately his gamble came off and the spear point hit the eye squarely, bursting it, before continuing into the brain.

  The animal died instantly but its momentum carried it forward so that it collapsed on top of Hephaestion. The boy struggled to move it but it was far too heavy. His own spear had snapped close to the point when the bear fell and its body was now pressing against his face so he couldn’t breathe. He remembered thinking that the bear stank worse than anything he had ever smelt just before he passed out.

  It took the combined efforts of Alexander and the three cavalrymen to roll the dead bear off him and for a moment Alexander thought that he was dead. The suddenly Hephaestion coughed and turned his head to vomit. Weeping tears of relief, Alexander threw himself onto his friend and kissed and hugged him. Hephaestion pushed him off and went bright red as he saw the amused looks on the faces of Philotas and his men. However, Alexander couldn’t have cared less. All that mattered to him was that Hephaestion was unharmed, aside that is from a deep cut in one shoulder made by the dead bear’s claw.

  One of the soldiers produced a kit with some catgut and a needle and proceeded to sew the cut up. In time it healed well but Hephaestion always bore the scar.

  The cave contained two bear cubs which Alexander insisted on keeping and sent for a bear trainer to tame them. It amused him when he was older to allow the now fully grown bears to wander amongst his guests at a feast. Many were terrified but the worst thing the two bears ever did was pinch food off their platters.

  After their narrow escape, Alexander and Hephaestion were forced to confine their running to the valley where the fruit and olive trees grew.

  The routine of the day continued after a breakfast of flatbread, olives and yoghurt with lessons on philosophy, biology, geography, mathematics and history. These continued after a light lunch, usually a salad, until mid-afternoon when the boys were turned over to their military instructors for wrestling, riding, javelin throwing, archery and fighting with sword and shield.

  Even then there was no respite. After bathing and changing their chitons they joined Aristotle for supper where the food was incidental to a lively debate on various topics chosen in turn by each pupil. These sessions tended to last for hours until the boys climbed wearily into bed for five or six hours sleep before the daily routine started all over again.

  Being boys who were on the verge of becoming men, often the subject they chose related to sex and, although Aristotle was happy to explain his views on love and relationships, he made sure that the debates were rather more wide ranging in nature.

  However, when Cassander asked him which was better, the love between men or the love between a man and a woman he spent the whole evening on the topic. Aristotle had very clear views on the matter. In his view, love between men which was based on a deep friendship was the ideal. Having been a pupil of Plato himself, it wasn’t surprising that Aristotle was a strong advocate of platonic love. He regarded a lustful sexual relationship between men, or even between boys, as abhorrent, which caused one of two boys to look at each other guiltily. He conceded, however, that physical love between males which was merely an expression of the deep love they felt for each other was acceptable. Here everyone looked at Alexander and Hephaestion but the two boys ignored them.

  He held the traditional view that women were there to serve men but he believed in the ideal of love in marriage and told his pupils that, when they married themselves, they must ensure that their wives got as much pleasure from making love as they themselves did. This wasn’t a view commonly held by Greek men, who regarded the role of women as merely receptacles for their pleasure and for procreation.

  During the time that he was at Meiza Philotas and Alexander became friends and both were sorry when it was time for his tetrachium to be replaced by another. Alexander could see that many of the Companions found guarding a load of schoolboys tedious and therefore changing them over every six months made sense, but he never developed the same rapport with any of the other tetrachoi as he had with Philotas.

  Alexander gained a great deal of knowledge and honed his skills as an athlete and as a soldier in the three years he spent in the Gardens of Midas but once he turned sixteen he began to chafe at being so far away from what was happening in the rest of Greece.

  Although Meiza was isolated it wasn’t completely cut off from the outside world. Apart from the changing of the Companions who guarded him, merchants visited, farmers went to sell their produce at Berea and the regular re-supply carts brought news and gossip with them. The prince had followed his father’s campaigns in Northern Thessaly and now in Thrace with interest but he was frustrated by the conflicting reports on the detail of the latter.

 
His mother had been left as regent when Philip left for Thrace as he expected to be away for a couple of years, and so it proved. She had been in regular correspondence with her son but, frustratingly, never mentioned her husband or the campaign. However, her latest letter changed all that.

  ‘Your father is nearing victory in Thrace and so I have hesitated to bother him with a problem rather closer to home,’ she wrote. ‘The Maedi tribe, who live in the valley of the River Strymon, which forms the border between Paeonia and the western part of Thrace, have revolted and declared their independence from Macedon. As you will know your father is in the far east of Thrace, as are all three of his armies. I daren’t dispatch the troops here in Pella to deal with the Maedi as that would leave Macedon defenseless. I therefore beg you to raise an army yourself capable of defeating these barbarians. I have no-one else I can trust to do this.’

  It was signed: ‘your loving mother.’

  Alexander smiled to himself. The Maedi were no more barbarians than were the Molossians – the tribe his mother had belonged to before she married his father. It was the excuse he was looking for to leave Meiza and he summoned his own companions and Philotas, who had just returned as the tetrachos commanding the guard from Philip’s Companion Cavalry. It was only when Hephaestion reminded him that it would common courtesy to include Aristotle in the war conference that he sent for his tutor.

  ‘Queen Olympias, regent of Macedon for the time being, had written to me instructing me to raise an army to go and put down an insurrection of the Maedi who live in the Strymon valley. I therefore intend to send out messengers to all the cities in Northern Macedon between Berea and the Strymon telling them to raise as many men as possible for what I am certain will be a very short campaign. I intend to use the cavalry we have here as the messengers and they are to be ready to depart here at first light tomorrow. The rest of us will also leave then and head for Berea. The men we recruit there will escort us east. Any questions?’

  At first there was a stunned silence, then his friends started to chatter excitedly amongst themselves about the coming adventure and the level of noise gradually rose as the tetrachos, Aristotle, the chamberlain and various others all started to talk at once.

  ‘Silence! One at a time. Aristotle you first.’ Alexander’s commanding voice restored order immediately.

  ‘Alexander, I know nothing of this. You can’t just go off on some hair brained military adventure. King Philip left you in my charge and, until he releases me from that responsibility, you are to remain here.’

  ‘The order from the regent supersedes that. I am very grateful to you for all you have taught me, and my friends, but this is what I have been trained for. I suggest that you and the servants make your own way back to Pella and see my mother. I’ll want our military instructors to remain with me to help officer the army I need to raise.’

  He then dealt with numerous other questions, including one from Hephaestion asking what role he and his fellow pupils would be given.

  ‘I’m forming my own unit of Companion Cavalry. You, my friends, will form the nucleus and Hephaestion will command it.’

  Chapter Four – The Regent Prince

  340 BC

  Alexander spend the rest of the evening writing to the governors and chief elders of the various cities telling them to call up their militias, and sending another letter to his mother to say that he would deal with the crisis. He added that he was assuming the role of joint-regent with her so that he would have the necessary authority to act as he saw fit. Then he discussed strategy with Hephaestion and Philotas. His companions spent the time cleaning their armour and sharpening the blunted swords they had been using for weapon training.

  Half the cavalrymen rode out at sunrise with their dispatches and Alexander set off with his escort of a dozen ephebes, half a dozen grizzled veterans who had been the boys’ instructors, and the remaining twenty cavalrymen. Hephaestion rode on his right and Philotas on his left. The prince wanted to move as quickly as possible so there was no baggage train. He had taken one of the stable boys to act as his servant, termed a skeuphorus in the army, and he and the other grooms and stable boys led spare horses and packhorses laden with provisions, fodder for the horses and other essential equipment. There were no tents; they would be sleeping rough.

  The prince’s arrival at Berea caused something of a stir. The messenger had only beaten Alexander’s group to it by an hour and the governor was still digesting his letter when a breathless servant interrupted him to say that the prince had just ridden into the courtyard. Ten minutes later Alexander, dressed in a dusty linothrax and carrying the plain bronze helmet that he used for weapon training, entered the audience chamber followed by a dozen ephebes similarly dressed and a tetrachos of the King’s Companions.

  ‘Alexander, I am delighted to see you. Welcome to Berea. I was just reading your letter but you must understand that…’

  ‘You will call me kyrios, governor, until I invite you to call me by my given name. I am co-regent of Macedon now. How many men do you have in your militia, and of what types?’ he responded brusquely, cutting across whatever the governor was about to say.

  ‘About four thousand or so, but I need those to defend our northern frontier against the Illyrians. Kyrios,’ he added after a pause.

  ‘Are we at war with our allies, the Dardanians, then? It can’t be the Taulantii; my father’s campaign completely defeated King Plauratus less than six years ago. His son stands by my side in proof of their good behavior now.’ He ignored the slightly injured look that Taulas gave him.

  ‘No, kyrios, of course we are at peace with both Dardania and the Taulantii now.’

  ‘Then is there trouble brewing elsewhere, perhaps?’

  ‘No, not that I know of.’

  ‘Good. Then I will leave you the city watch, your ephebes and men over forty to guard you and the city. How many cavalry, hoplites, peltasts and light spearmen can you let me have between the ages of eighteen and forty?’

  ‘I’ve no idea; I would have to find out.’

  Alexander was beginning to lose patience with the man.

  ‘You say you are concerned about the defence of Macedon’s second city and yet you have no idea how many men and of what type you have to do that?’ He fixed the nervous governor with his oddly matched eyes but the man refused to meet his stare, looking down at the floor instead.

  ‘You may be certain that my father shall hear of your incompetence,’ Alexander hissed. ‘Now who would know these things? Who is your senior military officer?’

  ‘I am, kyrios,’

  A tall man with grey hair and wearing a military exomis and chamlys but no armour walked forward from the doorway and introduced himself.

  ‘I’m retired now but I used to be a chilarch in the army of your uncle, King Alexander the Second. When I retired I was given the honorary rank of taxiarch and placed in command of the militia here. I can raise about eighty horsemen, a chiliarchy of hoplites, a tagma of peltasts and the same number of light spearmen – just over two thousand in all - but it will take me a week to do so.

  ‘Excellent. I am grateful to you. I assume that your campaigning days are over, if that doesn’t offend you? Who will be in charge?’

  ‘My son commands the hoplites. I suggest he brings our forces on to your rendezvous as soon as they are ready.’

  ‘Very well. We will meet at Siris in, shall we say three weeks?’

  The old man looked uncertain then he smiled.

  ‘It will give my son something of a challenge, but he will be there.’

  ‘Very good, and thank you. Oh! And if you get anything but full support from the governor you have my authority as co-regent to arrest him and confine him until you receive orders from my father to execute him. Is that clear?’

  ‘Thank you, kyrios, but that won’t be necessary. I’m certain that the governor will give me his full co-operation.’

  -X-

  Three weeks later Alexander had assembled a
n army of four thousand hoplites, eight hundred heavy cavalry and a hundred scouts, two thousand peltasts and fifteen hundred light spearmen at Siris. He had sent scouts up the Strymon Valley every day and two days ago they had returned to report a force of some fifteen thousand Maedi moving south east down the valley. Yesterday reports had placed them some twenty miles away and Alexander decided that time had run out. He couldn’t wait for any more reinforcements; besides tomorrow the enemy would enter the part of the valley where he wanted to offer them battle.

  The scouts who had estimated their numbers said that about three thousand were mounted and the rest were unarmoured infantry. Most carried spears and square wooden shields but about a thousand were archers and another five hundred or so were slingers. The camp followers were even more numerous than the warriors and seemed to consist of old men, women and children, so presumably the whole tribe was on the march.

  They had come across a small foraging party and they had killed all of them after a brief fight, except for a young boy. He didn’t know much but thought that the Dacians had attacked the tribe’s main city of Iamphorynna and the tribe was searching for a new place to settle. He didn’t know that his people had entered Macedon and hadn’t even heard of the kingdom.

  Alexander nodded and thanked the scout’s leader but, when he asked to speak to the boy himself he was told that he had died under torture.

  ‘We obviously need to defeat the Maedi to teach them not to despoil Macedonian territory but I suspect that the Dacians are more of a threat,’ he told his senior officers at that evening’s briefing. ‘After we have dealt with the incursion we will continue up the Strymon to their capital, expel the Dacians and create a new colony to prevent further Dacian expansion down the valley. Now, back to the immediate problem, defeating the Maedi.’