The Sacred War

by H A CULLEY

  ‘Don’t worry. Both Athens and Rhodes are concerned about the situation. They depend on importing grain from Thrace to feed their people.’

  ‘Well, their concern’s no use to me. What are they damn well going to do about it?’ another captain asked angrily.

  ‘I shouldn’t tell you this,’ one of the trireme trierarchs said, lowering his voice so that the two young spies could only just hear him as they continued to munch their way through olives, cheese and salad dressed with olive oil. ‘But both Athens and Rhodes are sending a fleet of triremes to help us defeat the Macedonians at sea. They should be here within the month. We plan to trap Philip’s fleet between them and us in the Propontis and destroy it.’

  Enyo knew that Philip depended on his fleet to resupply Parmenion’s army and to blockade the cities he was besieging along the coast. Without it, besieging Perenthus and then Byzantium on land would be futile. Furthermore, not only could Byzantium then be resupplied by sea but the Athenians could land an army which, with what was left of the Thracian forces and the garrisons of the two cities, they could well defeat Parmenion.

  ‘This is too important to wait,’ Enyo said, pacing up and down their small room in the tavern a little later.

  ‘I agree. We need to get this information to Iphitos as soon as possible. We can leave first thing in the morning.’

  ‘That’ll look suspicious if we need to come back.’

  ‘Not if we announce that our father has been delayed and we can’t afford to stay for too long. We’ll tell the innkeeper that we’re going home for a bit and will return later.’

  Enyo tried to find flaws in this, but couldn’t.

  ‘Very well. We’ll leave straight after we’ve eaten breakfast tomorrow morning.’

  Iphitos was able to devote little time to engineering problems and had to leave those to Kleandros as he was too busy trying to keep track of what was happening elsewhere. He was starting to receive reports that there had been a revolt against Macedonian rule by the Maedi tribe, who lived on the border between Paeonia and Thrace. Prince Alexander had ended his sojourn in the wilderness with Aristotle to take over as joint regent, with his mother, whilst Philip was in Thrace. Hearing of the uprising he had apparently raised a militia army in northern Macedon on his own authority and marched eastwards to deal with the problem.

  Philip had groaned when he heard this. His son was only just sixteen and a military disaster could be fatal to his plans. However, the latest report said that the prince had defeated the Maedi army and had then successfully invested the capital, Iamphorynna, which had been captured by the Dacians. Apparently the Dacian invasion was what had driven the Maedi south into Macedonia in the first place.

  Philip had been delighted by the news and was evidently proud of his son right up to the point when Iphitos informed him that Alexander had promptly expelled the Dacian population of Iamphorynna and re-popluated the city with the surviving Maedi , poor Macedonians, Piaonians and Illyrians, renaming his new colony Alexandropolis after himself. He had also given orders for the improvement of its defences at Philip’s expenses as a bulwark against further encroachments by the Dacians. Philip was furious and responded childishly by re-naming one of the cities that Parmenion had recently captured Philippopolis .

  Reports from Antigonus in the far north were rather mixed. He had defeated the Thracian tribes but then he had come under attack from a large Scythian tribe called the Dobruja . They didn’t have an army as such but every male between the ages of fifteen and forty was a horse archer. They had inflicted a large number of casualties on the Macedonians, but they had been unable to defeat Antigonus decisively. Eventually he had trapped them between his army and a bend in a river in spate after a torrential rainstorm in the mountains. As he was, at long last, able to deny them the room to manoeuvre that they needed, he had all but wiped out their warriors.

  According to the report he had just received, Antigonus had captured twenty thousand old men, women and children and a similar number of horses. He was asking Philip’s permission to end the campaign, most of the Thracian tribes having made peace and having recognised Philip as their overlord, and march his captives back into Macedon.

  The news from Odrysia was not as good. Attalus was still laying siege to the city. Chronos had written to him privately more or less saying that the man was an idiot and had no idea how to capture a town. He had ignored Chronos’ advice and was busy trying to batter his way through gates that had obviously been blocked up on the inside. Furthermore, he didn’t seem to know what to do with the valuable information that Enyo had risked her life to obtain. She had identified a point in the wall which was lightly defended because the manpower to do so came from a very poor quarter where men couldn’t afford bows or proper weapons. Chronos was convinced that an assault using scaling ladders would have succeeded here but, as usual, Attalus turned a deaf ear.

  When Enyo and Theon returned with the information about the naval ambush Iphitos rushed off to see Philip immediately. The king was no expert in naval warfare but he could see that the loss of his fleet would be a serious blow to his prestige as well as to his military capability. It didn’t take him long to reach a conclusion. The fleet was to withdraw into the Aegean and thus escape the ambush and he would enter into negotiations with both Perenthus and Byzantium to agree a truce. The one non-negotiable condition was the surrender of Cersobletes to him.

  Byzantium was happy to agree a truce but, it sadly informed Philip, King Cersobletes had died in his sleep. They offered to return the body and he agreed, giving it a royal funeral. Privately he was convinced that the elders had poisoned him to escape the scorn of others for handing over their king alive.

  Whilst these negotiations were taking place Philip sent Parmenion and Iphitos north again to take over direction of the siege of Odrysia from Attalus, who was effectively reduced in status to Parmenion’s deputy. With the information provided by Enyo and Theon, the Macedonians successfully attacked the weak section of wall and took the city within days of Parmenion’s arrival.

  Philip had conquered most of Thrace but he had failed to capture Byzantium, his springboard into Persia. That would have to wait until another day. His immediate concern now was Athens.

  Chapter Seventeen – The Anti-Macedon Alliance

  339 BC

  It had not been a good year so far for Philip. Always a fool for a pretty female or a handsome male, Philip had fallen for Cleopatra Eurydice, Attalus’ niece, who was now thirteen. Many of Philip’s friends and courtiers laughed behind his back at the forty three year old king marrying such a young girl, but Attalus was excessively proud that he could now call himself the king’s uncle.

  It was unfortunate that both he and Philip got spectacularly drunk at the wedding feast. When Attalus staggered to his feet to give a drunken toast to the happy couple he implored the gods to give them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his niece.

  Unsurprisingly Alexander was furious and threw his goblet of wine at the man’s head.

  ‘You scoundrel, how dare you say that. What am I then, a bastard?’

  Philip was dimly aware that his bride’s uncle had been insulted and got to his feet, drawing his sword. Looking around for whoever had spoken he saw that it was Alexander. Still with his sword in his hand he moved towards him. Many there thought that he intended to strike him down, but he merely wanted to berate him for calling the guest of honour a scoundrel. However Parmenion intervened to put a stop to the impending confrontation between father and son by subtly tripping Philip up so that he collapsed onto the floor.

  At this Alexander couldn’t resist deriding his father’s drunken state.

  ‘Look at that, there lies the man who wants to cross from Greece to Persia but he can’t even cross from one couch to another,’ Alexander sneered before sweeping out of the room followed by his friends.

  Philip lay on the floor weeping at both his humiliation and at the public rift between him and his son. Parmenion, whose delibe
rate tripping up of the king hadn’t been noticed, went to him and, with Iphitos’ help, they managed to get him onto his feet and helped him onto his throne.

  ‘Thank you, my friends. What have I done?’

  ‘It’s alright, basileus, I’ll go after him and calm him down,’ Parmenion told him.

  Taking Iphitos with him, he made his way to Alexander’s part of the palace, but he wasn’t there. In fact the prince was with his mother. When Olympias heard what had happened she feared for Alexander’s life and they fled the palace with Hephaestion, Nicanor , Taulus and a few other friends before Parmenion could find him.

  A few days later they arrived at Dodona, the new capital of Epirus, and, leaving his mother in the care of her brother, King Alexandros, he fled into Illyria. Arriving at Damastion , the capital of Dardania , an ally of Macedon, he was welcomed as an honoured guest.

  ‘I need someone to go to Damastion and make peace with my son,’ Philip told his military council one he had found out where Alexander was. He glared at Attalus when he said this. He had fallen out of favour with Philip and, although he’d been allowed to keep his rank as strategos, he was now serving under Parmenion again. Antipater had been promoted in his place.

  ‘I’ll go, basileus, if you so wish,’ Iphitos volunteered when no one else spoke up.

  Philip knew that it could be a dangerous mission if the Dardanians had sided with Alexander against him. Iphitos was a good choice; he was an Illyrian by birth and, as his spymaster, he would know how to be diplomatic. He nodded and thanked him.

  Two days later he set out accompanied by Enyo, Theon, Galen and Timandros . He took an ilium of cavalry with him, not for protection – they wouldn’t be much use against the Dardanian army – but for prestige. He was more likely to get to see Alexander quickly if he arrived in style. He took Enyo and Theon along to widen their experience; neither had visited northern Macedon or Illyria before.

  Evidently his arrival had failed to impress either Alexander or the Dardanian king because he was kept waiting for two months before he was allowed an audience with the prince. During that time Enyo and Theon had established that Dardania wasn’t mobilising and the rest of Illyria seemed quiet, so Philip could rest easy on that score.

  ‘Kyrios, thank you for seeing me. I trust I find you in good health?’

  Alexander was sitting in a chair in his bedchamber with Hephaestion standing behind him with his hand resting possessively on his shoulder. His other companions stood around looking warily at Philip’s messenger, who nodded a greeting to Parmenion’s son, Nicanor . However, the boy didn’t respond.

  ‘You haven’t come here to enquire after my wellbeing, Iphitos, what does my father want?’

  ‘His greatest desire is to be reconciled with his son and heir. He bitterly regrets what happened when he was in his cups and blames Attalus for causing the rift between you.’

  ‘He should have had him executed!’ the seventeen year old youth barked at him.

  Iphitos wisely decided not to point out that he was still the uncle of his latest queen, who he was infatuated with.

  ‘Athens and Thebes are making threatening noises, kyrios. You father’s greatest wish is to have you by his side if war comes. He is even prepared to offer you a command in the army to show you how much he trusts and values you.’

  This was the other bane of Philip’s life at the moment. Having thought that he’d subdued all of Greece, either through conquest or diplomacy, Athens was once more making threatening noises and Iphitos’ agents had reported that there was a growing anti-Macedon feeling in Boeotia and Corinth as well. Sparta was also vociferously anti-Macedon, but they were far from the military power they once were and, as long as they stayed in their far corner of the Peloponnese, Philip could safely ignore them.

  Iphitos knew how much Alexander wanted to demonstrate his prowess on the battlefield to his father and hoped that his offer would tempt the somewhat volatile young man to return to Pella.

  ‘Very well, I accept my father’s apology. I’ll return with you to Pella, but you better be correct about a command.’

  Iphitos prayed that Philip hadn’t changed his mind about that and merely nodded.

  They set off back to Pella two days later after a farewell feast at which even Iphitos got really drunk. However Enyo and Theon didn’t accompany them. They headed for Athens to find out how imminent war was and what preparations they were making.

  -o0o-

  Theon was now sixteen and a half and Enyo was nineteen. He had grown considerably and filled out so that he was now a few inches taller than she was. They made a handsome couple and twice they had to deal with a lecherous admirer on the road. Enyo was quite capable of dealing with unwanted advances herself but she liked it when her lover stepped in to protect her. Their relationship had developed into an equal partnership and every decision taken was one that they could both accept. They did quarrel occasionally, and when they did it was usually tempestuous, but it never lasted long and they always enjoyed making up afterwards.

  They were impressed with Athens. It made Pella look like a provincial backwater. Their cover story this time was that Theon wished to enrol as a student in a school of philosophy and Enyo had accompanied him to look after him. That cast her in the role of servant but, given the different dialects of Greek that they spoke, it was more believable than pretending to be siblings.

  Theon found that the school wasn’t the hotbed of gossip that he had hoped for so he started visiting the public gymnasium to wrestle and gossip with both the ephebes who trained there and their older admirers. He had soon collected a few admirers of his own and he was invited to join them at the symposia they held at their houses.

  The conversation was often tedious, pretentious and tended to consist of arguments about which of their boys was the most beautiful. Theon could understand it if they wanted have sex with their current boy, even if he personally found the idea abhorrent, but they didn’t, for the most part anyway. Theirs was a romantic admiration for the boyish form, a sort of pure and innocent infatuation with youth.

  Luckily they also discussed politics from time to time. He was at the house of his latest admirer when the conversation turned to Macedon.

  ‘Did you pass through Macedon on your way here from Thrace, Theon?’ asked a simpering young man who made Theon’s flesh crawl.

  ‘No, we took ship from Byzantium to Thessaly and then rode down through Attica.’ He wanted to avoid any association with Macedon.

  ‘Really? Why didn’t you come straight to Athens by sea?’ asked another suspiciously.

  ‘Because that wasn’t where the ship was going.’

  The others laughed at the questioner’s discomfort.

  ‘I hear that Philip of Macedon is in the habit of raping young boys. The man is a monster,’ one of the other youths attending the symposium offered.

  ‘I agree with Demosthenes that it’s time we put the upstart in his place,’ the boy’s admirer smiled at his friend.

  ‘It’s a pity that not all our council agree with him though.’

  ‘Once he has the agreement of Thebes and Corinth, not to mention the rest of Attica, the cowards will soon stop their bellyaching,’ their host added, taking another gulp of the fine wine he had served up.

  ‘Yes, and the rest of Boeotia will follow where Thebes leads.’

  Theon sensed that the conversation was about to move on, probably to something irrelevant like Antiphanes ’ latest comedy, so he asked his first question of the evening.

  ‘But with Thessaly, Illyria, Epirus and now, regrettably, Thrace providing him with soldiers as well as Macedon, how can you hope to defeat him.’

  ‘Because Olympias hasn’t forgiven Philip his slight to her son, even if Alexander seems to have. You can forget about Epirus boy,’ he was told sharply.

  Then, as he had expected, someone started to deride the Female Oiler, a comedy about a masseuse by Antiphanes .

  Meanwhile Enyo went to the main agora ever
y day to listen to the gossip. When she went to have her dagger sharpened at one of the armourers’ workshops one day she was struck by the number of men coming in to buy new weapons or helmets or to have old one’s repaired. Evidently Athens was on the brink of war.

  Between them they managed to compile a list of the other city states who were part of the anti-Macedon alliance. In addition to Athens, Thebes and Corinth, the rest of Boeotia was involved, as were five other city states in Attica.

  Unfortunately, their interest in the coming war had not gone unnoticed. One of the other men who customarily attended his admirer’s symposiums had evidently had his suspicions as Theon only ever seemed interested in the discussion when war with Macedon was mentioned. His claim to come from Byzantium, which had successfully resisted Philip’s siege, allayed any misgivings that might be aroused by having a Thracian in their midst; until now.

  ‘Why are you so fixated about our coming war with Macedon, Theon?’

  ‘I’m not. I want to be a soldier when I’m older so I’m fascinated by anything military.’

  ‘Leave the poor boy alone, Scopas. Why shouldn’t he be interested?’

  ‘Well, I’d have thought that anyone who wants a military career would be an ephebe in the academy, not attending a sophist school.’

  ‘That’s my father’s idea, Scopas, not mine.’

  The conversation moved onto other things but Theon felt Scopas’ eyes on him from time to time during the rest of the evening. Once he caught the man’s eye and stared boldly back at him - something boys were not meant to do in Athens, they were expected to act demurely in a symposium. Scopas’ eyes narrowed in suspicion and Theon knew then that it was time that he and Enyo left.

  He had deliberately not told anyone where they were staying and so it didn’t come as a surprise to see five members of the city watch hiding around the corner from the house of the philosopher whose school he attended. That and the gymnasium where he trained in the afternoon were the only two places where he could be found. Scopas was standing outside the entrance, presumably waiting for Theon to appear so he could call the soldiers of the watch to arrest him for interrogation.