The Sacred War

by H A CULLEY

  The Macedonians arrived on the battlefield driving flocks of livestock plundered from the Taulantii and laden with booty looted from the towns they had destroyed. They were left behind with the baggage train but Pleuratus ’ men had caught sight of them and it made them even more furious than they were already; so much so that their king had trouble in stopping his men from running downhill at the Macedonians like an ill-disciplined mob.

  Philip drew his men up with his artillery in the front, his massed hoplites in one phalanx behind them and the peltasts and the spearmen on the flanks. His three thousand cavalry were nowhere in sight. Only a hundred and fifty mounted Companions remained as Philip’s personal bodyguard.

  The two armies stood staring at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move. It was plain that Pleuratus wished to retain the advantage of his position whilst Philip wanted him to attack so that he could avoid attacking uphill. Besides which, if he did so he would also be unable to use his artillery.

  Eventually he tired of waiting and he brought out some of the Taulantii he had captured during his rampage across the country. A few of his men began to make elaborate preparations to hang the men, women and children from gibbets they erected in front of their army.

  That was all the provocation they needed. Ignoring their officer’s order to stand firm, they began to stream down the slope towards the Macedonians. Iphitos sat with Philip and the other senior officers who were watching on horseback from a raised hillock behind the Macedonian lines. When Philip nodded at him he turned to his keras player and the man blew the signal for the artillery to commence firing.

  First the katapeltikons and then the gryphettes opened up. One hundred and twenty bolts tore into the Taulantii but they swept on as two hundred of their number fell. It happened again and again but the losses meant nothing to the seething mass. The artillerymen retreated behind the ranks of hoplites and the peltasts on each flank took over as the enemy spearmen ran into range. This time three thousand peltasts did make a difference and the dead fell in heaps on the flanks, impeding their fellows. Again and again the peltasts fired and by now thousands of Illyrians had been hit. However they were all on the flanks and the centre was unaffected.

  When they hit the Macedonian phalanx it was a different story. The hoplites in the centre were all armed with the sarissa and the almost robotic way that the four or five front ranks would spear an opponent and then the next five would step forward and do the same thing to the next wave of unarmoured Taulantii was impressive. Soon the pile of the dead and wounded in front of the centre of the phalanx formed a barrier that deterred any more attacks.

  It wasn’t the same on the left and right of the phalanx. This was composed of hoplites from the militias of Epirus, Dardania , Amphipolis and Chalkidike who were armed with the shorter twelve foot spear. The sheer numbers of Taulantii attacking them meant that those in the front three ranks tired quickly and they weren’t trained to rotate with the fresher men behind them. Soon they started to take casualties and they were forced back. As they retreated they managed to retain their formation but that left the centre exposed. The light spearmen and the peltasts retreated with them and so the flanks of the army was protected but the danger was that the Macedonian hoplites were becoming a peninsular surrounded by Taulantii as they held their position.

  Despite all the casualties they had suffered, there were still an awful lot more Taulantii left alive on the battlefield than there were Macedonians and their allies. If the centre was overwhelmed it would turn into a massacre.

  -o0o-

  Antipater had led the three thousand Macedonian cavalry out of camp before dawn that morning and headed south east, away from the direction in which Pleuratus ’ Illyrians were advancing. Unlike some of the other Illyrian tribes like the Dardanians, the Taulantii had few horsemen. Only chieftains and some of the richer farmers could afford a horse and Philip had been told that Pleuratus had less than two hundred cavalry with him. Philip therefore felt that he could spare his own cavalry from the main battle to spring a little surprise on his opponents.

  They had a long way to go and Antipater just hoped that they would reach their destination in time. He varied the pace from a canter to a trot to cover ground as quickly as possible without exhausting the horses. Inevitably a few would succumb but they had brought a hundred spare ones with them. He followed the lake until it became a river again and then they turned right up a wide valley travelling up into the hills. The man riding beside him was a Dardanian but he had been born a Taulantii . He had grown up as a shepherd boy in these hills and claimed to know them well. When he was sixteen he had made the mistake of seducing his chieftain’s daughter and, as she had already been promised to another, he had been condemned to death. His friends had helped him escape and he had fled into Dardania . However, Antipater wasn’t sure that he was entirely trustworthy and had a nasty feeling that the man could be leading him into a trap.

  However, it seemed he spoke the truth as they were following the route that the man had outlined to him before they set off. The valley rose to a col and dropped down into another valley with a small river running down it. They crossed it without difficulty and Antipater decided to take a five minute rest break so that the horses and the men could take a drink from the clear, cold water. When they started off again the guide led them up the new valley and around the boggy ground which was the source of the river.

  Then the going became more difficult. It was steep and rock strewn so the men had to dismount and lead their horses. Antipater noted with alarm that the sun was barely an hour away from its zenith and they still had a long way to go.

  -o0o-

  By noon the centre of the phalanx started to suffer significant casualties. The Illyrians surrounded them on three sides and they could no longer change places and so the men in the first few rows were becoming exhausted.

  The rest of the phalanx were still holding but they were having to give up more and more ground. The light spearmen on the flanks were also under a great deal of pressure. The peltasts had retreated to the rear and the archers were firing into the ranks of the enemy at high trajectory, but the javelin throwers and the slingers were now useless.

  Philip was starting to become anxious. He had expected Antipater to join the fray long before this and he wasn’t certain how much longer his outnumbered infantry could hold out. His one consolation was that at least a third of the new generation of Taulantii men had been killed already. He was confident that, if he could win this battle, Illyria would cease to be a problem for another decade or more.

  Meanwhile Antipater and his men had reached the second col and they could now see the lake glistening in the sun below. He cursed though when he saw that there was another boulder field to negotiate before his men could mount and start making decent progress again. What made it even more frustrating was that he could hear the sounds of battle faintly now, though he could see nothing because there was a ridge between him and the battlefield.

  Twenty minutes later he gave the order to mount as each hipparchia reached the grass covered sward below the boulder field. Now they were able to canter downhill and presently they rode through a large flock of sheep, who scattered in panic and fled up into the hills in every direction. The two boys who were in charge of the sheep yelled some of the worst profanities that Antipater had ever heard after them and the cavalry taxiarch laughed.

  Philip reluctantly gave the order for the centre of the phalanx to start falling back into line with the rest, not an easy thing to do carrying an unwieldy sarissa horizontally. They were intended to be carried vertically when on the move and even then it took skill to control one. The sun was past its zenith now and still there was no sign of Antipater. He had been so certain that the guide was loyal but he was beginning to have doubts.

  Then he heard the welcome sound of thousands of horses’ hooves pounding the ground and his Companion cavalry and the epihipparchia from Parmenion’s army swept around the side
of a hill and charged towards the rear of the enemy infantry.

  They ignored the enemy baggage train and Pleuratus with his two hundred horsemen sitting on top of the ridge, and formed up into twelve wedges, each approximately two hundred and fifty men strong. The points of the wedges advanced at the canter spread out all along the enemy rear. Antipater knew how tired the horses must be so it he left it until the last possible minute before changing to the gallop.

  The rearmost men were already aware of the long line of cavalry charging straight at them but they failed to communicate the information to their fellows who were busily engaged attacking the retreating hoplites. The rear ranks turned and prepared to face the oncoming horsemen but they were unarmoured, apart from a few helmets, and armed with eight foot spears and small shields in the main.

  The cavalry tore into them, sweeping them aside like chaff in the wind. A few managed to thrust their spears into a horse’s chest or a rider’s leg but most were too frightened to even try. The wedges penetrated deep into the mass of infantry before losing momentum and coming to a stop. Most of the cavalrymen had already lost their spears and now drew their swords to cut down the hapless infantrymen.

  Panic set in and even those busily engaged in fighting right at the front became aware that the pressure of men behind them on had dissipated. The hoplites were given a new lease of life when the saw their cavalry arrive and they started to push forward. The Illyrians realised that the battle was now lost and men started to slip away, many throwing down their weapons as they did so.

  Philip breathed a sigh of relief, but then he saw Pleuratus turn and lead his two hundred horsemen off the field of battle.

  ‘He mustn’t get away,’ he hissed. ‘Come on, after him!’

  Philip led his escort of Companions through the ranks of his own army, pushing men out of his way with roars of rage, then he was clear and he galloped through the fleeing enemy, ignoring them. His quarry had just disappeared round a bend in the lake by the time that he was clear of the battlefield. By this time he was over the ridge and he rode on past the Illyrians baggage train and its terrified drivers and camp followers.

  Parmenion and the other senior officers watched him go. The strategos had nearly gone with him but someone had to stay and command the army in the aftermath of the battle.

  When the Taulantii king and his group came in sight again Philip grunted in satisfaction. He was closing on them quite fast. He and his men were mounted on large horses bred for war whilst the Taulantii rode anything they owned from ponies to plough horses. Pleuratus realised that he was being overtaken and decided to stop and fight. It was a reasonable decision as he outnumbered Philip and his men.

  However, the Taulantii weren’t used to fighting as a formation and charged the Companions in a disorganised mass. Philip’s men, on the other hand, formed into a wedge before they hit the Illyrians and this divided the enemy into two like the prow of a ship parting the sea. By the time that Philip had led his men through the ranks of their opponents over a dozen Illyrians lay dead and twenty more had been unhorsed. In return the Illyrians had managed to wound just two of the Companions.

  He turned the wedge around and charged back into the enemy. This time Philip wasn’t so lucky. One of the unhorsed Taulantii chieftains had got to his feet and stood fearlessly holding an axe directly in Philip’s path. The man swung the heavy axe at Philip, intending to hit his chest, but another Macedonian horse struck his shoulder and the axe hit Philip at the bottom of his leg instead.

  Unlike most Macedonians, who only wore a cuirass and a helmet for protection, Philip had bonze greaves protecting his shins, like his hoplites, but his feet were only encased in sandals. Luckily for the king, a lot of the power of the axe blow had been lost when the Illyrian had been struck by the other horse. Nevertheless the axe bit into the bottom of the greave, denting it and crushing Philip’s ankle. Waves of pain shot up his leg and he had trouble staying on his horse. The chieftain who had struck the blow had been knocked flat on his back and he died under the hooves of numerous horses belonging to friends as well as foes.

  The Companions immediately formed a protective ring around their king and one of them rode in to support him in the saddle. Now there was no question of killing or capturing Pleuratus , their priority was to get Philip to safety.

  The remaining Illyrian horsemen were ecstatic when word spread through them that Philp had been wounded and they pressed home their attack with renewed vigour. Fifty companions died in the next ten minutes as they struggled to fight their way clear. Try as they might they couldn’t succeed and they had grimly decided that they would die protecting Philip if needs be. Then salvation came from an unexpected quarter.

  -o0o-

  Antigonus had been less than happy when he had been detached to march via a circuitous route down to the coast just to march back up the Drin valley in what he regarded as a futile hope of trapping the Taulantii army between his army and Philip’s. His scouts had seen no sign of any Taulantii , other than the odd shepherd boy, since they had started out. They had managed to fire a few olive groves and the odd vineyard but they had seen no sign of people. He suspected that the men were with Pleuratus ’ elusive army and the women and children were hiding in the hills.

  He had been following what he thought was the River Drin but it wasn’t as wide or as deep as he was expecting. Then his scouts came riding back to say that the river they were following met another, much bigger river three miles ahead. One of them had followed this new river to where it ran into a long lake. Antigonus knew then that he hadn’t gone along the coast far enough to find the Drin Estuary. If Pleuratus ’ army was encamped on the coast he’d missed them and Philip would not be pleased.

  He sent the scouts out again to follow what he now knew to be the Drin upriver. This time when one of them came back it was with news he hadn’t anticipated.

  Philip’s companions managed to hold him in the saddle despite the fact that he’d passed out from the pain. The rest gave up their lives to defend him but, as more and more of them died, Pleuratus ’ men were sustaining even greater losses. At this rate the two groups would annihilate each other. Then the whole situation changed. Antigonus ’ scouts had seen Philp’s personal standard waving in the melee and, as soon as he heard about this, he set off at a canter with his cavalry. The outcome was never in doubt; the sight of another thousand horsemen charging up the valley from the direction in which they hoped to flee quickly persuaded the Taulantii to forget about killing Philip and save their own skins.

  Antigonus and one ilium continued on towards the knot of Companions who had survived but the rest of his epihipparchia pursued the enemy. However, they didn’t get far before the saw the first of the fleeing Illyrian infantry coming towards them and they changed course with a roar and headed for them. The routed infantry took one look at the Macedonian cavalry cutting off their retreat and fled up into the hills instead, just as Pleuratus and his horsemen had.

  The cavalry chased after them and managed to kill or capture a number but most of them made it up into rocky ground where it was difficult for the cavalry to follow them. They returned to the valley where they found that Parmenion’s cavalry and the rest of the Companions had arrived. By this time it was mid-afternoon and Parmenion, as the senior strategos, decided there was no point in doing anything further that day. The two Macedonian armies set up camp beside the river and waited for dawn.

  The physicians were worried that they might have to amputate the king’s leg above the smashed ankle but one of their number thought that it might be possible to repair the damage and set the shattered bones. The others disagreed but Parmenion insisted that, if there was a chance of saving Philip’s lower leg, it should be taken.

  When he cut open the damaged flesh the physician could see that the end of the fibula had broken off and one side of the talus had been crushed. He removed the loose fragments of bone and sewed the flesh back together. He then strapped the ankle up so that it was i
mmobilised so that the talus could heal. It was the best that he could do. He suspected that the ankle would always be weak and that Philip would always be in pain when he put weight on it, but at least he was confident that he had saved the foot.

  Parmenion and Antigonus rounded up as many captives as they could and sent them south to the slave markets. They had continued the policy of pillaging what they could take and burning what they couldn’t. It would take a decade or more for the country to recover. Pleuratus realised that he was beaten and dispatched an envoy to plead for a truce. By this time Philip’s ankle was making a good recovery. The wound had healed over, leaving a nasty scar, and the catgut stitches had been removed. However the ankle was still tightly bound whilst the bones knitted together again. He therefore chose to meet Pleuratus sitting in a chair in his campaign tent.

  He was still in a lot of pain and was in no mood to be conciliatory.

  ‘You have caused me a great deal of trouble, Pleuratus . I thought that I had taught you Illyrians not to annoy me twelve years ago but it seems that you don’t learn very well. Now your country is depopulated, your agriculture is in ruins and your towns and villages have been destroyed.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with Macedon and we didn’t ask you to interfere. It was a dispute between two Illyrian tribes: the Dardanians and ourselves. We didn’t deserve what you did to us,’ Pleuratus spat at him resentfully.

  ‘The Dardanians are my allies, as is Epirus, where you have also sent your men into to raid and pillage.’

  ‘That was not my doing. It was a chieftain who should have known better. He had been dealt with.’

  ‘Nevertheless he was from the Taulantii and you are his king. You need to keep better order amongst your subjects.’

  ‘You seem to have killed most of them so it shouldn’t be too difficult from now on,’ Pleuratus sneered.