The New Achilles

by Christian Cameron

  Dinaeos scratched his beard. Alexanor expected hard words, but he nodded.

  ‘Yes. It is a fantasy of anger. I’m sorry.’

  Philopoemen shrugged. ‘The time to fix this problem would have been yesterday, or the day before. Either the Strategos should have won the agreement of his hoplites in camp, that we would all march together, or he should have accepted their decision and dismissed them with the thanks of the League. Right here.’

  ‘But then he would be giving in to them!’ Dinaeos said.

  Philopoemen smiled. ‘You have served with me three times, Dinaeos, and still you imagine that an officer can just give orders and be obeyed? Even among the Spartans, the king is only first among equals, and the “Peers” can comment, even disobey – read your Herodotus! An officer can only lead by the consent of the led, like any government. The only place where a commander’s authority is absolute is on the battlefield, like the powers of a Strategos granted by an emergency session of the League parliament.’ He looked back at Dinaeos. ‘Even then, that trust must be earned.’

  Alexanor smiled and looked away. Something in the Achaean officer made his heart seem heavier in his chest, and he counted slowly and put a finger on his pulse, to see if the idea of liberty actually raised his heartbeat. His eyes met those of the Thracian, Kleostratos.

  The man nodded. ‘You see why we follow him? For me, I would kill whomever he told me to kill.’ The Thracian looked away and caught sight of something he didn’t like. ‘Cleander? What the fuck are you doing?’

  The man in question had ridden out of the column and was creating chaos as other men tried to ride around him. He was fiddling with his bridle, oblivious to the consternation of his mates. Kleostratos rode off to deal with him.

  Dinaeos turned back to Philopoemen.

  ‘You see? Kleostratos would kill for you,’ he said. ‘I, too, would do as you said. If you told me to crucify six farmers, I’d do it, and so would most of the rest of us, I’ll wager.’

  Philopoemen sighed. ‘What a terrible power. And what a burden you lay on me – to carry the weight of all your moral decisions, which you cede to me? No thanks.’ He seemed angry, and he rode a little ahead.

  Cercidas was still in the road. He stood in silent rage; his sons stood by him, leaning on spears and tugging at their beards.

  He saw Philopoemen and his rage broke.

  ‘You!’ he shouted. ‘Take the hippeis and ride down those traitors!’

  Philopoemen reined in, probably lost in his own thoughts.

  The League Strategos raised an arm.

  ‘Get your head out of your arse and obey me!’ he shouted.

  The Achaean was in his armour. The wounds on his legs were bandaged but didn’t seem to hurt him; his back was straight. The Strategos wore no armour; he stood in the road in a cloak with gold embroidery and a long chiton over walking sandals, like a rich traveller and not a soldier. Indeed, almost none of the Achaean hoplites wore any part of their military kit. Slaves were carrying it, a huddle of them flocking like sheep just off the road.

  The mob of angry hoplites was blocking the road, and the phalanx of Macedon was visible coming around the shoulder of the mountain behind them.

  Philopoemen affected not to have heard the Strategos.

  Cercidas put his hands on his hips.

  ‘You! Philopoemen! Get down that road and force those fishermen back into the ranks!’

  Philopoemen frowned. He waited for a long time, but, as Cercidas drew breath, he finally answered.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘I am your Strategos!’ Cercidas spat. ‘Obey!’

  ‘No.’

  Philopoemen held out a hand and motioned, and the cavalry went from four files to two; not quite as neatly as Macedonians, but it was a creditable performance, and the two-wide column began to thread the mob of angry hoplites filling the road.

  Alexanor pressed in behind the cavalry officer, so that the big warhorse ahead made a hole in the crowd that he could follow.

  ‘Best get your men moving,’ Philopoemen said to the Strategos. ‘The king of Macedon is no friend to indiscipline.’

  ‘I order you …’ the Strategos said. ‘I will see you never, ever hold office in the League, you fucking ingrate.’

  Philopoemen nodded. ‘Sir, with respect, I am not serving the League. Megalopolis raised three hundred cavalrymen from her exiled citizens. As a city. Not for your League.’ He looked around. ‘Indeed, I think that you have a hipparchos of your own, and the League voted to keep the cavalry home.’

  ‘A lawyer’s quibble,’ snapped the Strategos.

  Philopoemen had turned his horse aside, and Dinaeos led a long file of cavalrymen past. Kleostratos was pushing along the far edge of the road, through the slaves.

  ‘No,’ Philopoemen said, his reserve cracking. ‘No, it is not. If I were to obey your foolish order, the League would explode right here. Arkadians against the Coast.’

  Cercidas snapped around as if he’d been struck.

  ‘Did you just call my order foolish?’ he asked.

  ‘Foolish. Ill-advised. Impossible to carry out. Yes, all of those things.’

  Philopoemen was enraging the man by sounding like a schoolteacher. Direct, like a man giving children a lesson. And edging towards frustration.

  Alexanor, who was used to the soldier being a man of near perfect control, was amazed to see Philopoemen seeming to expand with anger.

  He put his heels into his marvellous horse and pushed forward. Then, as Cercidas stumbled back, he managed some mostly pretend flailing, as if he’d lost control of the big gelding, who turned in circles because Alexanor had his left heel pressed into the horse’s side. Round and round they went, and Cercidas ducked away, and his sons both struck the horse with spear shafts, confusing it more, until Philopoemen got the bit in his right hand and dragged Alexanor, horse and all, clear.

  ‘Don’t go back,’ Alexanor said, as Philopoemen turned his horse again. Behind them, a Macedonian officer was bellowing at Cercidas. ‘Just keep riding.’

  ‘You are right,’ Philopoemen said, the annoyance peaking in his voice. ‘But it angers me that the League sent such a fool to war. The divisions are deep. Fucking idiot. Traitor.’

  The vulgarity was the first that Alexanor had ever heard from the young Achilles. It was uttered as the Macedonian column simply drove through the unarmed Achaean hoplites, who were driven off the road. The Macedonians marched in open order, with their slaves between the files, but all of them wore their armour, which gleamed in the autumn sun, and carried swords. They punched right through the Achaeans, their supposed allies, and marched on. Dinaeos had to look sharp to keep the Megalopolitan cavalry ahead of the Macedonian phalanx.

  ‘What did he mean, he’ll keep you from holding office?’ Alexanor asked.

  Dinaeos shook his head. ‘That was a mistake, Phil. He’s still spitting.’

  Philopoemen rode off, silent.

  Dinaeos shook his head and ordered the Megalopolitan cavalry on down the road.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Alexanor asked.

  ‘He doesn’t like to show anger,’ Dinaeos said. ‘I think he tried too hard. Anyway, he’s no doubt embarrassed at his outburst. He’ll ride alone for a while. No, leave him! He won’t thank you.’ He shrugged. ‘The sad part is that he craves public honours, and Cercidas will now make sure he is denied them.’

  ‘Craves public honours?’ Alexanor looked back at the lone figure riding somewhat recklessly down the long slope instead of taking the road. ‘He seems above all that, surely?’

  Dinaeos grinned. ‘You may be Apollo’s favourite medico, but you have a lot to learn about people. He isn’t just called the new Achilles. He wants to be Achilles.’

  Three days later, and they were at Argos, its citadel rising over the plain. It had been an easy march from the Isthmus, and the summer games there were drawing to a close. There were twenty thousand Greeks from all over the Peloponnese, as well as Attica and Boeotia,
camped on the plain. The stadium was packed, and there were people outside the stadium too, in among the olive groves. Outside the stadium was the old racecourse for horses, and it was there, on the perfectly flat ground, that Doson paraded his phalanx in full view of the spectators, and they cheered.

  ‘He’s a very able politician, for a king,’ Philopoemen said, looking on.

  The Megalopolitans looked like young gods; all their bronze was polished, and their fine red chitons and scarlet plumes made them visible across the plain.

  The head of the Macedonian phalanx halted, and the files at the rear flowed forward, so that in the time it took the black-robed Nemean judges to come forward from the stadium, the whole phalanx had formed to the front, sixteen ranks deep and almost a hundred men wide.

  ‘You see how good they are,’ Philopoemen said.

  ‘Yes,’ Alexanor said.

  ‘And yet, how little space they occupy. Twelve thousand men, and not much more than sixty paces wide.’ He shrugged. ‘I wonder …’

  One of the Macedonian noble messengers was riding towards them, across the flat plain of Argos, from where the king sat on horseback with his officers at the edge of the olive grove.

  Philopoemen smiled and turned to Dinaeos. ‘Could this be for us?’

  Dinaeos raised an eyebrow. ‘We can hope, eh?’ he said, a little too casually.

  The messenger trotted up and threw Philopoemen a salute – a crisp one, the kind of salute that Macedonians gave each other and not usually their inferior ‘allies’.

  ‘The king requests that the hippeis of Megalopolis come to the left of the phalanx and join the line. The Agema will come to the right of the phalanx.’

  Philopoemen raised his arm to return the salute.

  ‘Column of fours,’ he said. ‘We will form the rhomboid on me as we come into line.’

  Dinaeos snapped his hand to the visor of his helmet.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Alexanor was struck by the speed with which the Megalopolitans went from a society of equals to obedient soldiers. In one comment, Dinaeos expressed casual disinterest; in the next, he sparkled with obedience.

  I do, indeed, have much to learn about men, the physician thought.

  ‘Ride with me,’ Philopoemen said to Alexanor. ‘When we approach the king to salute him, you can ride over and join his staff.’

  ‘I wasn’t asked,’ Alexanor said with a smile.

  Philopoemen was looking back over his column, which had formed well, although two men were wrangling over a place in the sixth rank. Kleostratos cantered down the lines, jaws working behind the moustached bronze cheek plates that hid his face.

  Philopoemen nodded. ‘You don’t have to be asked,’ he said. ‘You are on his staff. I promise you this is true.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Alexanor. ‘Should I have been there all morning?’

  ‘Yes.’ Philopoemen flashed the Rhodian a brilliant smile. ‘But I’m glad you were here with us.’

  He’s nervous. A man who opened a hole in the Spartan ranks and fought on with a spear through both legs, and he’s afraid of the crowd. Or is that too simple?

  Philopoemen looked back again. The column was now formed well; the horses shone like children of Poseidon, their riders alert, heads up.

  The king of Macedon had dismounted and now stood with the Nemean judges, a purple and white figure with eleven black ones. Prince Alexander was well off to the right, emerging from the olive groves with the Macedonian Companion cavalry; the magnificent Hetaeroi, once Alexander’s bodyguard.

  ‘Olympic salute,’ Philopoemen said over his shoulder to Kleostratos, who made a face.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Dinaeos asked quietly. ‘Think of Cleander and what an awkward sod—’

  ‘The gods are with us.’ Philopoemen smiled.

  Kleostratos bellowed the order. The column began to move forward.

  Alexanor rode aside, to be clear of the column, and then trotted past the king to where his staff waited in the burning sun of the Argosian plain. Alexanor had time to realise how much better his riding had become in three short weeks, and then he slid to the ground and looked back.

  The Megalopolitans, four wide and more than seventy deep, were just drawing abreast of the king. A trumpet sounded, and three hundred hands raised their spears, straight up into the heavens, so that the sun burned like fire on their tips. And then three hundred arms came down, and the spears pointed sideways. The men’s arms extended to the right, parallel to the ground, a dangerous manoeuvre in close order and ten times as dangerous on horseback.

  Several of the Nemean judges applauded. Doson extended a hand in the Macedonian salute. The Megalopolitan Exile cavalry went by in a rattle of horse harness and a flash of scarlet plumes. The spear points went back up as the last files passed the judges and the king. The cavalry wheeled sharply to the left, rode along the flank of the phalanx, heading away from the king, and then whirled, wheeling through half a circle to come straight back at the judges.

  Philopoemen rode out of the dust cloud, raised his spear, and sang out a command.

  Dinaeos and Kleostratos emerged behind him and each of them put their knees behind his, their order very close – so close that the flanks of the horses touched. Like a flock of starlings settling on a tree, the rest of the hippeis settled in behind them. Even if Cleander and one or two others rode too far and had to haul their reins, the whole formation was creditable, and it came together so quickly as to draw spontaneous applause from the spectators.

  Doson shook his head, but he was smiling.

  ‘Not bad, not bad,’ he said softly.

  The Macedonian household cavalry appeared from the opposite direction. They didn’t form a wedge or rhomboid; instead, they wheeled by squadrons from column into line, forming to the right of the phalanx. While nowhere near as showy as Philopoemen’s manoeuvre, theirs had an effortless perfection that spoke of long hours of training, of men who had spent years together.

  Doson spoke to the judges, and then he turned and received some cheers from the crowd of spectators. Then he beckoned to one of his hypaspists, who ran forward with his horse. All the rest of his staff mounted, so Alexanor followed suit.

  Young Antipater glanced around, saw the physician, looked him up and down, and smiled.

  ‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘Ride with me. Stay right next to me and do what I do.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Alexanor asked the young Macedonian noble.

  ‘The Nemeans and the other Peloponnesians have asked the king to enter the stadium and receive a wreath,’ Antipater said, looking at the staff. ‘We’ll ride at his heels, and then Prince Alexander with the Agema and then your friend Philopoemen with his Greeks.’ He made a face. ‘Apparently it’s a great honour.’

  ‘You don’t think much of Greeks, do you, Antipater?’ Alexanor asked.

  The Macedonian smiled. ‘Oh, you Greeks are fine. Great artists. Marvellous philosophers. Medicine. All that.’

  He locked his knees on his horse’s back and raised himself, looking back behind them.

  Alexanor could hear the word ‘but’ coming.

  ‘But?’ he prompted.

  ‘Crap soldiers,’ Antipater said. ‘All the real men must have died fighting the Persians.’ He made a face. ‘No offence.’

  Alexanor was surprised at the depth of the resentment he felt, but he didn’t allow the anger to register in his face, and besides, they were entering the stadium.

  If he had thought the cheers of the spectators loud on the plain, here, inside the stadium, which held another twenty thousand people, the noise was deafening. His horse started, ears laid back, eyes rolling, but Alexanor put a hand on the gelding’s neck and hummed, as Kleostratos had taught him, and the gelding’s ears went forward again.

  Doson rode through the gate, waving to either side, and then went slowly around the course. The men in the stands were all citizens of various states; they were on their feet, and the handful of women attending, mostly senior pr
iestesses, added their cries.

  As he entered the closing stretch, the Agema entered the stadium from the open end. There was more cheering, and Prince Alexander saluted the crowd as the cavalry rode by, their purple cloaks moving like wings in the breeze.

  The cheering seemed more subdued.

  Doson, led by one of the judges, turned aside at the end of the track, and his staff followed him. They all dismounted and hypaspists took their horses. Alexanor found himself next to the king.

  Philopoemen entered the stadium, his red cloak flashing behind him, his bronze helmet making him look as if he was crowned in light.

  The crowd roared. And they roared more as the Megalopolitan cavalry came in behind.

  ‘Hellas!’ shouted someone in an upper tier. In a few heartbeats, it was a chant.

  ‘Hellas! Hellas! Hellas! Hellas!’ they called. And voices cried, ‘Achilles, Achilles for the Achaeans!’

  Doson raised an eyebrow. He glanced at Alexanor, and his eyes danced with amusement.

  ‘Greeks,’ he said. ‘If I gave them their so-called freedom on a platter, they’d have lost it by the next Olympiad.’

  His cynicism stung Alexanor the way his orderly’s comments had.

  ‘They cheer young Philopoemen as if he was their god. But in fact, most of these very same men voted not to send the League cavalry to aid me.’ The king of Macedon shook his head. ‘And if the League had sent me its precious cavalry, they would have been led by Mikkos of Dyme, who can’t find his arse with both hands.’

  Alexanor had no idea what to say, so he bowed.

  Doson shook his head. ‘Aratos, their usual Strategos Autokrator, is a meddling busybody. Good politician – terrible soldier.’ He watched Philopoemen. ‘This young man, though … I’ll take him. He belongs in Macedon.’

  Alexanor wondered why the king was telling him these things.

  Philopoemen came by them, face aglow from the cheers. Every man in the stadium was on his feet, roaring for Greece. The Macedonian cavalry was filing out at the far end of the theatre.