Alexander

by H A CULLEY

  He ignored the hint of sarcasm in his mother’s voice. He was well aware that she thought that he was being weak but that wasn’t true. His mother couldn’t see beyond her hatred and ambition; Alexander was more aware of how things would seem to others.

  ‘Yes, I am quite sure. You can make the necessary arrangements, but if I hear that Amyntas has been killed I’ll exile you again so you can’t do any more damage, and I don’t suppose you want that.’

  Olympias’ eyes narrowed dangerously. Everything she’d done she had done for her son, she told herself. The fact that she had derived a great deal of satisfaction from killing the girl who had replaced her as queen and her brats was conveniently forgotten. She bit back the retort she had been about to make and smiled at her son, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘Very well, Alexander, you’re the king. I’ll do as you say, but don’t forget that Amyntas remains a threat whilst he still lives.’

  -X-

  Parmenion received the order from Alexander to execute Attalus just as he was about to attend a meeting of his senior officers to plan their tactics for the coming battle against Memnon of Rhodes and the Satrap of Lydia’s army. The news that Philip was dead came as a shock and he knew that he had to keep it from the army until after the battle if at all possible. The men would be unsettled by it and morale would suffer. Come to that, he felt uncertain about his own position. He and Philip didn’t always agree but he knew that he always had the king’s trust. Alexander was a young man of twenty whereas Parmenion was now sixty four, old enough to be the new king’s grandfather. He wasn’t close to Alexander as he had been to his father and he had little doubt that he was seen by him as a doddering old fool.

  He burned the letter from Alexander and, for the moment, ignored its contents. He couldn’t execute Attalus on the eve of a major battle; that might cause a mutiny by those he commanded and unsettle the rest. He took a deep breath and strode into the tent where his senior officers were gathered trying to look confident and self-assured.

  ‘Memnon has fifteen thousand men against our ten thousand but they are all lightly armed. Our scouts have counted some two thousand light cavalry, two thousand archers and slingers and eight thousand infantry armed with eight foot spears and wicker shields. There are also three thousand Rhodian hoplites and they are my main concern. As you know, we have six thousand hoplites, one thousand heavy cavalry and an ilium of Thracian light horse, a thousand peltasts and fifty gastraphetes, and two thousand light infantry. So they outnumber us but our troops are better trained, more disciplines and better equipped. They are also veterans in the main.’

  He then handed over to Iphitos, who had accompanied him as his intelligence officer, but on whom he was coming to depend more and more in other areas as well.

  ‘The Persian army is advancing along the road from Sardis. We plan to intercept them near Magnesia, a city on a tributary of the River Maeander. The city was established by Thessalians and was named after the region in Greece that they came from. Hopefully, the Greek population will oust their Persian masters when we arrive so we won’t have to worry about the few troops they have stationed there,’ he began. ‘The tributary is called the Lethacus and the city lies between it and the lower slopes of Mount Thorax. By occupying these lower slopes we can anchor our left wing against the city and our right against the mountain. Only the left flank is suitable ground for cavalry.’

  Parmenion nodded his thanks and took over the briefing.

  ‘So obviously the place for our cavalry is on the left with the Thracians held in reserve. The phalanx will form up in the centre with the peltasts on the right where they can hit the left flank of the enemy. The gastraphetes will be positioned in front of the phalanx and retreat through their ranks once the enemy get close. The light spearmen will protect the peltasts on the right. Any questions? No? Good. We leave at dawn tomorrow.’

  -X-

  Amyntas had married Cynane, the daughter of King Philip and his first wife, Audata of Illyria, when he was twenty five and they had a daughter, Adea, a year later. Whereas Amyntas was quite content with his lot, Cynane was not. She had been brought up by her mother to ride well, to use a bow and to hunt. He might have been content to accept Alexander’s accession to the throne without demur had it not been for his wife’s constant nagging. She insisted that he was the rightful king and that he should challenge his cousin before it was too late.

  Alexander’s assessment that Amyntas was a nonentity with no support and was therefore no threat to him might have proved true were it not for Cynane. Amyntas was living on an estate in Eastern Macedonia that Philip had given to him when he usurped the throne and deposed him. Initially he had been guarded by a tetrachium of King’s Companions but over the years, as Philip became more and more established on the throne, these had been withdrawn. Cynane was therefore free to stir up trouble and started to do so, both locally where she and Amyntas were well liked, and over the border in Thrace.

  When the tetrachium of King’s Companions sent by Alexander to place Amyntas under house arrest arrived they found themselves confronting a thousand men who had been recruited to her husband’s side by Cynane. Nicanor, the tetrachos in charge, wisely decided to stage a hurried retreat and made for Amphipolis, the nearest city with a sizeable enough force to deal with the incipient revolt.

  Amphipolis had been an independent city-state when Parmenion had been born there in 400 BC. It had been fought over by Athens, whose colony it once was, and its neighbour, Macedon, until Philip managed to capture it in 357 BC. Now it was as Macedonian as any other city ruled from Pella. The governor listened to the tetrachos’ tale and dithered. He had been appointed by Philip but he was old enough to remember King Perdiccas, Amyntas’ father. He had been outraged when Philip had deposed Amyntas and his loyalties lay with the young man now. However, he wasn’t a fool and he knew that Alexander would make a far stronger king than his cousin. If he was elected as king the person who’d rule in reality would be Alexander’s half-sister, Cynane.

  He sighed; given the choice between rule by a strong man and a strong woman he knew which he’d prefer. Besides which, the rest of Greece might just accept Alexander’s leadership if he acted quickly, they would never accept a weak character like Amyntas. He realised that the silence after the tetrachos had finished speaking had gone on for too long.

  ‘What do you need from me?’ he asked brusquely to hide his discomfort.

  ‘How many men can you raise immediately?’

  When Amphipolis was an independent city they could have raised six of seven thousand hoplites and five hundred cavalry as well as a few thousand peltasts and lightly armed spearmen. Now many of the young men had joined the Macedonian army and half of those that were left lived in the outlying farms and villages.

  ‘Perhaps a chiliarchy of hoplites, a couple of hundred cavalry and another thousand peltasts and light infantry.’

  ‘It will have to do. How soon can they be ready to march? Amyntas is recruiting more men, mainly Thracians hoping to make their fortunes, every day.’

  ‘Two days?’

  ‘Make it by dawn tomorrow. We’ll march then with whoever is ready.’

  Suddenly the young tetrachos realised that he could hardly command a force of over two thousand men. Although one of Alexander’s close friends, he was only a tetrachos and therefore far too junior.

  ‘Who will command?’

  ‘I should but I’m far too old,’ the governor replied, though he was younger than Parmenion by a decade. ‘I’ll give the command to Ephranor; he’s Parmenion’s nephew.’

  ‘I thought that was Sostratus?’

  The governor grimaced. He didn’t like to be reminded about the man who had been killed by Parmenion for treachery.

  ‘No, I’d hoped that people had forgotten about him. It’s his elder brother who owns an estate near the city.’

  Ephranor, Nicanor - who was Ephranor’s cousin, though they had never met – the chiliarch of the ho
plites, and the officers commanding the peltasts and the light spearmen sat around the table in the governor’s palace. Ephranor was officially the hipparchos in command of the mounted militia but, having been given command of the city’s militia, the governor promoted him to epihipparchos so he was at least equal in rank to the chiliarch commanding the hoplites. If the latter felt that he should have been given the command he was wise enough not to say so.

  ‘Well, Nicanor, you’re the only one of us to have seen the estate where Amyntas and his small army are located. Please describe it so we know the lie of the land.’

  The estate lies between a range of low hills and a small river and extends for several miles along the river. The slope is south facing. It’s about a mile from the river bank to the nearest hilltops. This area is cultivated, mainly dates and figs but there is a vineyard. The farmhouse sits on the slope with views over the valley. It is quite extensive and has a number of outbuildings. Unlike the rest of the estate, the area to the immediate south of the buildings is given over to pasture for horses. I didn’t see any other animals during my brief survey of the estate. If there are any goats and sheep they would probably be up in the hills behind the house. The approach road runs alongside the river with a track forking of it up to the house.’

  ‘Where are the Thracians?’ the chiliarch wanted to know.

  ‘Most are camped behind the house, in the low foothills, but their horses were grazing the pasture near the river.’

  ‘Cousin, you’ve fought with Alexander. Where do you think the best place to fight a battle would be?’ Ephranor was evidently at a loss to know how to attack Amyntas’ small army.

  ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t.’ He paused and looked around the room, where he was the junior officer by far. ‘I would make a night attack using the light spearmen to cause as much chaos as possible in the enemy camp whilst driving off the horses using the cavalry. Then advance along the valley at dawn and try and negotiate their surrender. They’ll be demoralised and worried about the loss of their horses.’

  ‘Umm, it sounds like a good plan.’ Ephranor smiled gratefully at his cousin. ‘What do I do with them if they surrender?’

  ‘Hang the Macedonians and Amphipolitans as traitors and enlist the Thracians in Alexander’s army, provided that they’ll swear an oath of loyalty to him. I’ll take them back to Pella with me.’

  The newly promoted epihipparchos nodded. ‘And what about Amyntas and his family?’

  ‘My orders are to escort them back to Pella.’

  -X-

  It went much as Nicanor had planned. Ephranor lost a few spearmen who got carried away and didn’t retreat when they were told to but otherwise the raid was a great success. By the time that he marched his small army along the road alongside the next morning his cavalry had rounded up the Thracian horses and were guarding them on the far side of the river. His men turned to face the farmhouse so that they firmed a battle line with the hoplites in the centre and the peltasts and light spearmen on the flanks. Amyntas’ men had stood in a lose formation in front of the buildings watching the Amphipolitans but making no threatening moves.

  Ephranor, Nicanor, the chiliarch and Nicanor’s tetrachium rode up the slope towards them. The three leaders held their right hands in the air to indicate that they were unarmed and wanted to talk. As they walked their horses closer to the mass of Thracians, the latter parted and Amyntas rode towards them with his wife beside him. A dozen men rode behind them on horses that were evidently kept up at the farmhouse.

  ‘What are you doing here on my land?’ Amyntas asked in a high voice, which betrayed his nervousness.

  Emphranor was caused off guard by the question and looked at Nicanor, who was more prepared.

  ‘I have here a letter from King Alexander inviting you to join him with your family in Pella.’

  ‘Ha, so my brother can quietly poison us like he did his other siblings?’

  Nicanor looked at Cynane sharply.

  ‘They may be dead, kyria, but it was not by the king’s hand.’

  ‘Then it was that serpent witch of a mother of his.’

  ‘He had asked me to give you his personal assurance that you will not be harmed.’

  ‘Ha! I’d no more trust the usurper than I would his bitch of a mother. ‘

  ‘He’s not a usurper; he’s been formally elected by the council of nobles and by the army. To term him as such is treason and you must come with me to Pella to answer for it in front of the king.’

  ‘Oh, so now it is to be judicial murder is it?’

  Nicanor flushed with anger and drew his sword. Seeing this, Amyntas drew his own sword, not that he intended to use it but to show that he would defend his wife. However, one of the Companions sitting on his horse behind Nicanor thought that Amytas meant to strike his tetrachos down, so he kicked his horse forward and thrust his spear into Amyntas’ chest. As the former boy king collapsed onto the ground Cynane screamed in rage and drew a dagger, intending to kill the man who had struck down her husband. However, Nicanor was quicker and he threw a punch at Cynane as her horse came alongside his. She too fell to the ground, but only unconscious.

  For a moment it looked as if things could get ugly but the Thracians and Amyntas’ other supporters were leaderless and they milled around uncertain what to do. Luckily Emphranor kept his head and he signalled his army to advance. Turning back to the men in front of him he issued an ultimatum.

  ‘Thracians you have invaded Macedonia and your only hope of staying alive now is to surrender. If you do so immediately I will give my men to the order to halt. If you don’t they’ll cut you down where you stand.’

  ‘We’d rather die that become slaves,’ one brave soul called out from amongst the ranks of his fellows.

  ‘If you surrender now I’ll allow you to enlist as light cavalrymen in King Alexander’s army. Only your leader and the Macedonian traitors amongst you will be executed. Hand them over now.’

  Much to his own surprise, Emphranor’s bluff worked. The Thracians seized the other supporters of Amyntas and forced them to kneel in front of Emphranor. Half an hour later they had been hung from the trees around the house and the Thracians had sworn an oath to serve Alexander. Emphranor ignored the fact that the Thracians hadn’t handed over their own leaders.

  The next day Nicanor set off back to Pella with Cynane and her daughter, the Thracians and Amyntas’ body. He wisely thought that a public funeral for Alexander’s cousin might dispel any rumours that Alexander had arranged for his cousin to be put to death quietly. It wouldn’t be stretching the truth too much to indicate publically that he had died in battle whilst leading a revolt against his cousin. That should divert any suggestion of culpability away from the king.

  Alexander wasn’t displeased that the problem of his cousin had been solved in this way and Nicanor went up in his estimation as a result. He decided that his half-sister was too much of a liability to be let loose; after all, she had been the driving force behind Amyntas’ nascent revolt. He decided to send her to where she could do the least damage and married her off to a minor king in in Paeonia. However, shortly after the wedding he died in mysterious circumstances. By that time Alexander had more important things to worry about than Cynane.

  Chapter Twelve - The Battle of Magnesia

  December 336 BC

  Parmenion had done his best to keep the news of King Philip’s assassination from his army but somehow rumours about it started to circulate just before the confrontation with the Lydians. He decided that he had little choice but to address his troops and tell them the truth. He was convinced that this would be less corrosive to their morale than the growing rumours. However, just as he was about to call an assembly of the whole army, Iphitos came to him with even more disturbing news. One of his agents had intercepted a messenger sent by the Athenians to Attalus. The contents of the message were less important than the fact that he had evidently been in communication with Demosthenes, who had been Philip’s constant oppo
nent in Athens and was now Alexander’s.

  The letter from Desmosthenes promised the support of Athens if Attalus could seize control of Parmenion’s army and make a bid for the throne of Macedon himself. It was utter nonsense, of course. Macedon would never accept him as king even if he could somehow defeat Alexander, nor would the army follow him whilst Parmenion led them. Then he realised with a start that Attalus would have to kill him if he was to gain command. He took a deep breath and sent for Iphitos.

  An hour later he called an assembly of the whole army.

  ‘Soldiers, some of you may have heard rumours about the tragic death of King Philip. It’s my sad duty to tell you that Philip had indeed been assassinated, probably by those bribed by the King of Persia.’

  A buzz ran around the assembled throng and Parmenion waited for it to die down. He hoped that by blaming the Persians he might instil a determination in his troops to exact revenge on the Lydians in the forthcoming battle.

  ‘His son Alexander has been elected king in his place and he has instructed me to assure you that the plans his father drew up for the invasion of Persia have not changed. King Alexander will be joining us with a mighty army as soon as he has put matters in order at home.’

  He sensed that this statement had settled most of the disquiet that his statement had aroused. He only prayed that his next announcement went down as well. He glanced nervously at Iphitos before continuing. Attalus stood at his right hand and Iphitos had placed men he could trust behind him on the dais.

  ‘Inevitably some have tried to exploit the assassination of King Philip to their own advantage. It will come as no surprise to you that Desmosthenes of Athens is one of those who seeks to raise a revolt against Alexander and he has even gone so far as to write to a senior Macedonian officer offering him the support of Athens if he murders me, takes command of this army and takes the throne for himself.’