by H A CULLEY
He pulled his horse to a standstill and motioned for Enyo to take another route to the north gates. As he followed her he chuckled; Scopas was going to have a long wait.
They encountered no problems travelling through Attica and Boeotia and planned to enter Thessaly via the Gates of Fire, where Enyo had first met Iphitos. They were nearing Thermopylae when they saw a boy up on the mountain side with a herd of goats and a large dog.
‘I’m certain that’s Philomedes ,’ Enyo told Theon. ‘He’s my cousin. When Georgios and I left he must have taken over as goatherd from my brother. He’d was nine then so he must be thirteen now. He used to follow me around like a puppy.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘I’ve never considered before what it must have been like for him when we disappeared. Come on.’
With that she urged her horse up the goat trail towards where the goatherd sat, dismounting and walking her horse over the difficult going. A slightly bemused Theon followed her. When the boy saw them coming he leapt up in alarm and the dog growled, but Enyo waved at him and he hesitated. As they got closer she could see that it was Philomedes .
‘Philomedes , it’s me, Enyo.’
‘Enyo? Really? We thought you were dead.’
‘No, we were captured by the Macedonians but they released us and one of their senior officers adopted us.’
The boy looked at the girl in the clean blue linen chiton and a red chlamys riding an expensive mare and couldn’t believe that it was his cousin. The last time he had seen her she was filthy, as he was now, and dressed in a grubby coarse wool chiton and a sheepskin.
‘How’s that miserable, joyless excuse for a man you call father?’
The boy laughed. Now he was certain that it was Enyo.
‘Still miserable, joyless and bad-tempered,’ he replied, grinning.
‘This is Theon, he’s a Thracian.’
The boy nodded at the youth, uncertain where Thrace was and what he was to make of him accompanying his cousin. When the two smiled at each other the goat boy felt a twinge of jealousy. He’d always fancied himself in love with Enyo, even if she was six years older than he was. His spirits sank when she spoke again.
‘We’re lovers.’
‘Oh.’ The boy looked at the ground miserably.
There was an uncomfortable silence and then Enyo offered to share their lunch with Philomedes .
‘Whew! Go and sit downwind of us, Philomedes . You stink.’
That was the final straw and the boy got up and ran off, blinking back the tears. He felt totally humiliated. Enyo cursed at her stupidity and ran after him, her long legs catching him up within a few hundred yards. The dog was uncertain what was happening but relaxed when Theon gave him some bread.
Enyo wrestled Philomedes to the ground and started to tickle him, knowing how ticklish he was. He started to giggle and begged her to stop. When she did so she bent down and kissed him gently on the lips.
‘I still love you, Philomedes , just not in that way.’
The boy sighed. ‘I know. I was being stupid.’
‘No, you weren’t. It was calf love and I think it was rather sweet. But you still stink!’
He smiled. ‘You used to as well. Now you smell like, I don’t know what, but nice.’
Once they had eaten lunch together Philomedes asked them where they were headed.
‘Through the Gates of Fire and into Thessaly.’
Philomedes looked alarmed.
‘You do know that the Thebans have bribed the Thessalian garrison to hand the fort over to them? Will the Thebans let you though?’
Enyo cursed. All the trouble that Philip had gone to capture the fort and garrison it with his allies had been for nothing. She was certain that the hapless Thessalian fort commander would be hunted down by Philip and killed, but it didn’t help them to reach Thessaly.
‘It looks as if we are going to have to follow the same track as we did when Parmenion captured the fort a few years ago.’
‘You know Parmenion?’ Philomedes knew little about anything except goats and his mountain but even he had heard of Parmenion. His father called him the greatest military commander of his age. It was an exaggeration, that was Philip, but the king and his behaviour were not popular amongst common folk, who tended to rather be prudish in their outlook on life.
‘Yes, he’s a good friend of my father, Iphitos.’
‘Take me with you; I’d love to meet him.’
‘What about your parents and your younger siblings?’
‘You didn’t think about us when you had the chance to escape.’
‘It wasn’t like that, Philomedes . We weren’t given the choice.’
‘Well, I have a choice and I want to come with you!’ the boy said fiercely. ‘You didn’t come back when you had the chance did you? And you won’t stay now. Moiro is ten, he can look after the goats.’
‘Very well, but on two conditions.’
‘What are they?’
‘That you scrub the filth off yourself when we reach the coast the other side of the mountain and that you stay clean.’
‘Fine. Do you think I like smelling like a goat on heat?’
He was referring to the fact that billy goats tended to spray their pungent urine all over anything and everything in range when they were feeling randy.
‘But what’ll I wear? I can’t put this back on again.’
‘Theon will lend you a spare chiton of his. It’ll be rather long on you so you’ll look like a girl in it, but I’ll protect your virtue.’
Philomedes punched her arm and Theon laughed.
‘What about the goats?’ he asked.
‘I’ll leave the dog with them. Moiro will be up tomorrow with more food for me so he can look after them.’
‘I take it you don’t get on with your brother?’ Theon asked sympathetically.
‘No, he’s a lazy little bastard and he’s always trying to get me into trouble. The only members of my family that I was ever close to were Georgios and Enyo.’
Three weeks later they were back in Pella and made their way to Iphitos’ house. They had bought Philomedes a chiton and chlamys in his size as well as sandals for his bare feet on the way and cut his hair to tidy it up so he looked reasonably presentable. Iphitos and Claire embraced them both when they walked into the house but Philomedes hung back and at first they didn’t notice him.
‘Oh, sorry.’ Enyo pulled Philomedes forward. ‘This is my cousin Philomedes . Like Georgios he was a goat herd but he scrubs up quite well.’
‘I see.’ Iphitos glanced at Chloe before continuing. ‘You are welcome, of course, as my children’s cousin, but I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with you Philomedes .’
Philomedes fought to keep back the tears. Pella was like a different world to a boy brought up in the mountains and now he wasn’t wanted here. He wished he had stayed in Thessaly with his goats.
-o0o-
Philip listened to Iphitos’ report and then asked to see Enyo and Theon to question them personally. He also asked to see Philomedes to ask him about the Gates of Fire. He returned that afternoon with the three of them in tow.
Philomedes had been dismayed at Iphitos’ reaction to his arrival but Chloe had immediately realised what he must be feeling and ran to hug him.
‘You are an insensitive boor sometimes, Iphitos. Of course, Philomedes is as welcome in our home just as much as Georgios and Enyo are. I may have a baby now but I can’t have enough children.’
Philomedes ’ own mother had died when he was seven and his father never showed his children any affection. Chloe’s maternal embrace was something he was totally unused to and this time he couldn’t hold back the tears.
‘I’m sorry my dear, of course you’re right. We’ll adopt him too, if you wish. I suppose I was thinking what use he’d be in the army.’
‘I want to be a soldier like Parmenion,’ the boy blurted out and they laughed when Iphitos asked ‘not like me then?’
‘Yes, like yo
u, but we’d only heard of Parmenion in my village.’
Philip was perturbed after Iphitos and his young agents had left. He had counted on using the Gates of Fire to enter Boeotia and now he’d have to think again. This Anti-Macedon alliance sounded stronger than he was expecting too.
He began to plan his invasion of Boeotia. He’d need to leave one army in Pella in case of trouble elsewhere but he’d need a large army to defeat his enemies in southern Greece so he’d need to weld two of the present three armies into one and bolster the numbers with troops from his allies.
To add to his problems Alexander came to him as soon as he heard about the impending war.
‘What command do you intend to give me father?’ he asked after they had discussed the campaign in general terms.
It wasn’t a question that Philip had been expecting and he temporised.
‘I’ll need to think about that, Alexander. You’re very young for a sizeable command of your own.’
‘I’m seventeen father. The same age as you were when Perdiccas made you Hegemon of Eastern Macedonia. I defeated the Maedi when I was barely sixteen. Surely you can see that I’m ready to be a strategos?’
‘I said I’ll consider it, but I’m making no promises. Now, stop pestering me and let me think.’
He sighed when Alexander turned on his heels and swept out of his study. The boy was petulant when he didn’t get his own way. No doubt he’d now run to his mother and whine to her, and then she would start to nag him as well. It had been a mistake to marry Olympias. Then he brightened up when he thought of his new wife, Cleopatra Eurydice. She was heavily pregnant and he prayed it would a boy. If it was, perhaps he could make him his heir when he grew up. After all he was not that old and he could expect to live at least another twenty years.
In fact Alexander hadn’t gone to complain to his mother after he left his father’s study, he had gone to see Parmenion. He knew that Philip would rely on the strategos’ advice when reorganising the army for the invasion of Boeotia and so he hoped that he might advance his case to be given a decent command.
Parmenion liked Alexander and had been impressed by the youth’s campaign on the borders of Paeonia and Thrace. Unlike Philip, he didn’t discount the prince’s abilities as a commander because of his age.
‘What is it that you seek, kyrios?’
Alexander was pleased by the old strategos’ use of the honorific. It meant that he recognised him as a man, not an ephebe. It was usual to address even a prince by his given name until he became an adult at eighteen.
‘Either the command of one of the divisions of the phalanx or of the cavalry.’
Parmenion nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but the final decision if your father’s, of course.’
With that Alexander had to be content for now.
Philip had discussed the creation of a larger army with Parmenion. His thoughts were to recruit another ten thousand hoplites from Illyria, Thrace, Chalkidike and Epirus. That would give him a phalanx of thirty thousand. With peltasts, light spearmen, heavy cavalry and light cavalry he would have an army of forty thousand, which should be enough, even if his enemies could muster fifty thousand, which was Iphitos’ latest estimate.
However, the new troops would need training, especially in the use of the sarissa. Even the existing army would need to be drilled as the new, larger phalanx. He had therefore decided to move the army into Thessaly and train them there. That way he could quickly engage the enemy if and when they tried to invade Thessaly.
Chapter Eighteen – The Final Battle
338 BC
Philomedes ’ chest swelled with pride. The fourteen year old was guiding Alexander’s wing of the army, which was mainly made up of Thessalians and Epirians , up the side of Mount Callidromos . They were heading for the wide valley of the River Kephisos which they would then follow to Elatea in Boeotia; the rendezvous point for the whole army.
Philip knew that it was impractical to move the army as one and so he had divided it into three wings, commanded by himself, Parmenion and his son. Antipater was with Alexander as his second-in-command and Attalus was given the prestigious post as Philip’s deputy, much to the annoyance of Alexander who had never forgiven the man for insulting him.
Parmenion, guided by Theon, was following the old path around the Gates of Fire to the coast beyond; a route that he had used before. He would then take the well-trodden road to Elatea . Enyo took Philip on a third route through Phocis, now an ally of Macedon. Iphitos had elected to travel with Philip as his route seemed the easiest for his katapeltikons, the lithoboloi having been left in Pella. Another reason for staying with Philip was to make sure that Philip, who was obviously very attracted to his daughter, left her alone. He wasn’t worried so much about her virtue but, given her feisty nature, she might get into trouble repelling his advances.
In late July 338 the three wings of the army were re-united at Elatea . Iphitos was now faced with the major task of transporting everyone over the River Kephisos so the army could continue its march through Boeotia towards Attica and Athens. There was a ferry but it would take far too long for the whole army to cross over using that, so he decided to build a bridge.
This was something new to Enyo, Theon and Philomedes . They watched in fascination as the engineers built pontoon boats which they then anchored fore and aft alongside each other across the river. Iphitos had used the ferry to convey a small force of light spearmen, peltasts and Thracian light cavalry over to the far bank to secure it. The Thracians patrolled out to a distance of ten miles, stopping just out of sight of the Boeotian city of Chaeronea.
After the timber roadway had been laid over the pontoons, Iphitos was the first rider to cross and, taking Enyo, Theon, Philomedes and a tetrachium of Thracians with him, he rode to within sight of the acropolis on top of the Petrakos Rock above the small city. What he saw alarmed him.
The Kerata Pass through the mountains beyond Chaeronea was full of soldiers marching down the track and disappearing from his sight. It would only mean that the Athenian and Theban armies were assembling ready to attack Philip. If they advanced on him now, with part of his army on the other side of the Kephisos , they could annihilate that half the Macedonian army who had already crossed.
He left Theon and Enyo with the Thracians as escort to keep watch on the enemy and, taking just Philomedes , he raced back to the bridgehead.
‘And there was no sign of enemy patrols you say?’
Philip was plainly puzzled by the incompetence of his foes. The first thing he would have done would be to push patrols out as far as the river.
‘Right, we’ve got the initiative but it won’t be long before they realise how close we are.’ He turned in his saddle and beckoned his son over.
‘Alexander, get the rest of the cavalry across now and take all five thousand of them onto the plain below the Petrakos Rock. Don’t risk an engagement with the enemy, just demoralise them by showing them the strength of our cavalry. I don’t suppose that they can muster more than a thousand, if that. Iphitos, go with him and try and get an estimate of their numbers by types of troops.’
The two men wheeled away to get the cavalry organised and Philomedes , not knowing what else to do, followed them. Two hours later they arrived outside the city and Alexander, Iphitos and an excited Philomedes rode forward to where Enyo and Theon were hidden.
‘What’s been happening, Enyo?’
‘Nothing interesting really,’ she told her father, ‘just more and more men arriving.’
‘Can I suggest, kyrios, that you lead a feint attack to panic them and I and my family will try and get an estimate of numbers when they react?’
Alexander nodded and his companions clustered around him. The dozen boys who had been with him at the Gardens of Midas were now all young men of seventeen or eighteen. They had become an unofficial bodyguard and they now formed up around Alexander as he gave his orders to the five epihipparchai .
The Thracian light cavalr
y were to sweep forward as a screen, throw their two spears at whatever targets presented themselves without getting too close to the enemy, and then withdraw. The two epihipparchia of companions came next with orders to cut down any easy targets but not to get involved in any serious fighting and then the two epihipparchia from Parmenion’s and Antipater’s armies were to follow up to beat off any organised attempt to attack the cavalry. It sounded simple enough but Iphitos had his doubts about how well the cavalrymen, who were itching for a fight, could be controlled in practice.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t his problem. He just prayed to Zeus that Georgios, who was now serving in the Companion Cavalry, would be safe. He took Enyo, Theon and Philomedes up onto a small hill so that they could see the plain below. Enyo was to estimate the numbers of cavalry, Theon the peltasts and Philomedes the light spearmen. He would look out for the hoplites and any artillery.
He was pleasantly surprised that Alexander’s men did what they had been told, though the order to retreat had to be sounded more than once to remind everyone of their orders. He came away with rough estimates that they would be facing about eight hundred cavalry, over thirty five thousand hoplites, five thousand light spearmen and four thousand peltasts, mainly archers. There was no sign of any artillery. That gave a total of forty five thousand, rather less than Philip had feared, unless there were more still to arrive. If they were awaiting reinforcements, a quick attack would be sensible. The other thing he had noted was the Sacred Band of Thebes with their distinctive shields portraying a man and a youth in armour standing beside one another.
The Scared Band had a reputation as the best warriors in Greece. They only numbered three hundred but they were professional soldiers who were specially chosen in pairs. Sometimes the pair would be older men and sometimes a young man and a youth; but invariably they were lovers. The theory was that each would die to protect the other and, if the later was killed, then the survivor would exact a terrible revenge for his loss. The theory worked, partly because they were among the greatest fighters in Greece, but also because they were feared.