‘Fucking Getae,’ Syrmas muttered. But then he spoke, in Thracian, and Red Beard answered. The man’s contempt was obvious.
Alexanor had to lean his weight on Philopoemen to keep standing.
More Getae trotted up the Ditch – an overwhelming force, forty horsemen, with bows.
Syrmas spoke again.
Red Beard laughed. He waved. In Greek, he said, ‘This man speak for you, Hipparchos?’
He pointed at Syrmas, and Philopoemen nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said, standing straight from his crouched fighting guard.
‘Eight drachmae a day?’ the man asked. ‘I’d fight my fucking brother for that. And a hundred tetradrachmae for me.’
Alexanor knew the crisis was past, and so did his knees. He fell.
‘You’re hired,’ he heard Philopoemen say, as if at a great distance.
CHAPTER THREE
Mytilene and Crete
221 BCE
‘This is not our bargain, brother,’ Philopoemen said.
He was standing with a bowl of soup in one hand and a comb in the other, and behind him was Dinaeos, smiling nervously.
Alexanor wriggled, fretting at the pain of his recovering body.
‘How so?’ he asked.
He was frustrated with his body, and frustration made him peevish. He was the worst patient he’d ever met.
‘I get wounded. You heal me.’ Philopoemen smiled. He’d been endlessly patient, had made it through two medical tirades unfazed, and now that they’d sailed to Mytilene, he continued to wait on his doctor as if he was a slave. ‘Next, you’ll be commanding cavalry.’
‘Never,’ Alexanor snapped. ‘I will never fight anyone ever again. What a foolish waste of life. We killed how many men? Innocent men?’
‘Innocent rapists and murderers,’ Philopoemen said.
‘Lykortas?’ Alexanor asked, rather than admit that he agreed.
‘Lykortas was knocked unconscious. Nothing more. He has headaches, which he treats by drinking unwatered wine and having sex as promiscuously as possible.’ Philopoemen smiled.
‘Damn,’ Dinaeos said, entering with more soup. ‘I need to get knocked on the head more often. That sounds wonderful. Is this a new part of the whole Stoic thing that you’ve been hiding from me?’
‘I don’t want soup,’ Alexanor said.
‘Interesting, since Leon prepared and prescribed it. As many bowls as we can make you take.’
‘Leon! That quack …’ Alexanor knew he was going too far.
‘Eat your nice soup, there’s a good boy,’ Leon said cheerfully, appearing in the doorway.
Alexanor knew that ruthlessly cheerful tone; he used it himself. He resented it …
He recovered very quickly, once his body had made up the blood loss; indeed, he was only bed-bound one day on Lesvos, and then he was moving around the house that Philopoemen had rented. In fact, he’d rented an entire farm – a small plain along the beach and a hillside full of olive groves. Alexanor could go to the windows, open them, and walk out into the brilliant sunlight, and he did, breathing the sea-scented air just touched with the smell of the distant pines. On the plain, the cattle and sheep had been penned so that seventy cavalrymen could drill. Alexanor sat wrapped in a cloak and watched his friend cajole, demand, mock, and laugh as forty assorted Greeks and thirty Thracians moved up and down the little plain and then up into the olive groves. Alexanor had assumed that the cavalry couldn’t move easily among the rocks and trees, but the Getae seemed to flow through the trees like water and the Achaeans were almost as nimble.
‘He plans so far ahead,’ Leon said. ‘It’s terrifying. I imagine the gods must be like this.’
Alexanor glanced at his assistant. ‘I’m very sorry for my behaviour as a patient.’
‘And you should be,’ Leon said, but his smile took the sting out. ‘It was as if you were in an Olympic contest to be the worst patient ever born of woman.’ He shrugged. ‘Luckily, the one benefit of my former life as a slave is that I am immune to master’s little ways.’
He spoke without bitterness, but Alexanor was shamed.
‘You speak more plainly …’ He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say.
‘Less like a slave?’ Leon asked, an eyebrow raised. ‘I’m free. And as you and Philopoemen treat me as a peer, I thought I’d respond. Should I be silent?’
Alexanor drank soup and pondered slavery.
But Leon didn’t leave him to writhe.
‘Never mind all that. What I was trying to say was that Philopoemen rented this place before we arrived. Dinaeos was already here. Everything was already paid, already done.’
‘Yes,’ Alexanor said. ‘But it’s easier to plan this way when you are as rich as Croesus.’
‘True enough,’ Leon said. ‘But the Getae chief? Thodor? Philopoemen took him at Sellasia. I think he had already sent for him … I want to learn to ride like that,’ he said as a Getae leapt a downed pine tree and swarmed down a steep slope of stone, with Aristaenos and Philopoemen’s servant Arkas side by side a horse length behind. They moved like centaurs over the broken ground, an expertise shared by Achaeans and Thracians.
During the entirety of Alexanor’s recovery, the cavalry continued to train. Alexanor was used to practice – the rigid practice of detailed ritual, the memorisation of training routines in pankration, the memorisation of texts from the great medical writers – yet he was surprised to find that soldiers trained so hard.
‘The greatest thing is that they have to ride well,’ Dinaeos said.
‘The most important thing is that they have to trust one another,’ Philopoemen said. ‘It is a sad comment on mortals that the bonds men forge in war are often the closest they will ever know.’
Alexanor winced.
Philopoemen shrugged. ‘What would you have, brother?’
‘I’d have a man’s bond with his wife stronger than one forged in blood.’
He realised that he’d said the word wife, and paused. No one spoke of wives before Philopoemen, by tacit agreement.
The Achaean glanced at him, face unreadable.
‘I’ve often wondered if we shouldn’t encourage women to be warriors,’ he said. ‘It would change the way men perceive them.’
‘What a radical you are!’ Alexanor said.
‘What a spoilsport!’ Dinaeos said. ‘Don’t we go to war to get away from our wives?’
‘No,’ Philopoemen said. ‘If my wife was alive, I would never leave her to make war.’
His face worked; he turned away.
The silence was made of iron.
Training was not merely physical. Every evening the officers, including three of the Thracians, gathered on couches and lay in the heated andron of the country house like men around a campfire. While they ate and drank, they talked about making war, and Philopoemen encouraged every man present to tell stories of combat and heroism that he himself had witnessed.
Other men came and went from the country house: merchants from Mytilene, who brought supplies – swords, armour, good horses, oats, olive oil. But they also brought news, and Alexanor, as the man always in the house, realised early on that Philopoemen had organised an entire network of merchants to report to him about politics in Crete.
‘You have a very secret mind,’ Alexanor said with a smile, one afternoon in the second week.
Philopoemen was covered in dust, wearing his armour as if it was light clothing, his dark red cloak almost white with local dust. He stood in the entrance of his rented country house, reading a scroll that a messenger, no more dusty than the captain himself, had just handed him.
‘I have, too,’ the hipparchos admitted. ‘If you aspire to be the New Achilles, you must work in secret so that the effort is invisible. No one fancies a hard-working Achilles. It has to appear effortless.’
‘How many men in your network?’ Alexanor asked, when the messenger had been paid, rewarded, and dismissed.
Philopoemen gave him a thin-lipped smile
. He looked out at the Thracian, Syrmas, drilling the other Thracians in close-order formations.
‘Why do you assume men?’ Philopoemen asked. ‘Women hear everything.’
Alexanor shrugged. ‘An expression—’
‘Words have power,’ Philopoemen said. ‘A priest should know that. Regardless, you give me too much credit. It is Phila’s network. I thought you knew that.’
Alexanor felt himself flush. ‘I do not enquire too closely into her life. She doesn’t belong to me.’
Philopoemen gave his friend an odd look, as if he was confused.
‘I didn’t mean anything like that.’ He shrugged. ‘At any rate, she has an extensive network of friends. She told me that last year she made more money selling financial advice to shippers than she did … with her contracts.’
Alexanor narrowed his eyes. ‘She talks to you a great deal,’ he said carefully.
‘I’ve seldom met a woman with such a grasp of the world. And she’s Stoic. Indeed …’ He glanced at Alexanor. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You are in love with her?’ Alexanor blurted out.
Philopoemen frowned. ‘No. Why?’
The two men looked at each other, and Alexanor had to look away. His hands were shaking.
‘I should be getting to my temple,’ he said. ‘I’d have left before now if I hadn’t been wounded.’ He looked away. ‘And I intend to visit my father, on Rhodes.’
Philopoemen opened his mouth to speak, and then thought better of it.
‘I thought we might land at Lentas together,’ he said.
Alexanor was prey to a rip tide of conflicting emotions.
‘I should get there first. Too much surprise could work against us.’
Philopoemen nodded. ‘You’d know best, of course. But at least stay and meet our new recruit. He’s from Crete.’
Philopoemen’s new recruit was the oldest man of the taxeis, a Cretan from Gortyna, tall, athletic, and with immense dignity and a body that told of hard exercise every day. Scars on his sword hand and arm spoke of a life as a soldier.
‘This is Antiphatas,’ Philopoemen introduced him. ‘He is the leader of the Neoteroi among the exiles of Gortyna. He will ride with us when we land.’
Antiphatas clasped hands with all of the officers.
‘What a fine body of men,’ he said to Philopoemen.
‘Coming along,’ said Dinaeos.
‘Let’s all sit and hear what Antiphatas has to say,’ Philopoemen said, and all of the officers sat or reclined: Thodor lay with his tanist and nephew, the strikingly handsome Dadas; Alexanor with Leon; Dinaeos with Lykortas; Kleostratos with Syrmas; Aristaenos lay alone, because he was sharing his kline with Antiphatas.
The Cretan stood by an ornate bronze lamp stand with a figure of Aphrodite rendered in ruddy bronze. The Thracians had started the custom of touching her breasts each time they entered the room; it was apparently a Thracian custom, and after just a week of training, her breasts were polished to a near-perfect gold.
Antiphatas glanced at the figure of Aphrodite and smiled.
‘I’ll do my very best to distract you from the Mistress,’ he said, and the soldiers chuckled. Several made religious signs.
‘A good many things have changed since we sent a delegation to King Philip,’ the man continued.
‘Who’s “we”?’ called Thodor, the Thracian chief.
Philopoemen nodded. ‘Good point,’ he said. ‘Please explain.’
‘I am from Gortyna,’ the man said. ‘Gortyna and Knossos are the richest cities on Crete – perhaps in the Greek world.’
Lykortas laughed. ‘Richer than Athens? Richer than Pella?’ He was dismissive.
Antiphatas nodded. ‘Yes. I don’t think you foreigners have any idea of how rich Crete is. Leave it – you’ll see soon enough. Knossos and Gortyna are the two main cities, but there are dozens of others. Knossos and Gortyna are in a state of almost perpetual war.’ He shrugged. ‘Cretans take war very seriously. It is the principal occupation of men. What else makes men worthy, or good?’
‘Love?’ Dinaeos asked.
‘Philosophy?’ Lykortas said.
Antiphatas waved a hand dismissively. ‘The only reliable measure of a man is war. But I’m sailing away from my port, to use a Cretan saying. My point is that warfare is our daily routine, and it is conducted honourably – raids and counter-raids, so that men can show their courage, test their skills—’
‘Accomplish nothing,’ Dinaeos muttered.
‘Let the man speak,’ Philopoemen said.
‘Two years ago, the Presbyteroi came to power in both Knossos and Gortyna.’
‘What’s a Presbys when he’s at home?’ Dinaeos asked. ‘It just means “old man”.’
‘Among us, it is used for the old aristocrats. Oligarchs really. A few hundred families who own … almost everything. Their ownership of property has increased to the point where other families are being excluded from the warrior classes. As their estates grow, the number of free farmers in the hoplite class declines.’
‘That’s true everywhere in Greece,’ Alexanor said, and Lykortas nodded, as did Philopoemen.
‘In Knossos, they allied themselves with some of the poorest people, however unlikely, and formed a political party, and then they moved on Gortyna. Now, with the help of Aetolian soldiers, they have pushed all of the Neoteroi, the so-called “new men” out of the cities. My people have been hoplites for twenty generations. I am now an exile with no income, excluded from rank or political office in my own city.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s nowhere in central Crete not subservient to the oligarchs. Only Polyrrhenia and a handful of other towns are still free.’
‘Aetolians?’ Dinaeos asked. ‘Zeus Soter! They’re everywhere.’
Philopoemen nodded. ‘So they are. What do they want on Crete?’
‘Money, soldiers and slaves,’ Antiphatas said. ‘Crete is rich. But it is also a source of troops – Cretan mercenaries are valued everywhere—’
‘If you all spend so much time making war, and you export mercenaries,’ said the young Thracian, ‘why do you need us?’
His accent was guttural, but his grammar was good, and his tone was a little sarcastic, and most of the soldiers laughed.
‘First, we have almost no cavalry,’ Antiphatas said. ‘You’ll understand when you see Crete. It’s all rock,’ he added cheerily.
‘But rich …’ muttered Dinaeos. ‘This bastard is about to sell me a rug, I can just feel it coming …’
‘Dinaeos,’ Philopoemen said.
‘Second, the Aetolians …’ He shrugged. ‘They do not fight the way we fight. They execute every man taken. No one is ransomed. Their combat is ignoble. They decline single combat, they only fight when they have overwhelming odds, they pursue the defeated ruthlessly and execute the survivors.’ He was red with anger. ‘They are cowards!’
‘They sound very effective,’ Philopoemen said. ‘How many men has Aetolia sent?’
‘A thousand cavalry. A thousand!’ Antiphatas took several deep breaths. ‘How many do you have, Hipparchos?’
Philopoemen smiled grimly. ‘A hundred, give or take.’
‘Philip promised us two hundred Achaean horse!’ Antiphatas said.
‘He’d have been more honest if he’d sent you Macedonian cavalry,’ Philopoemen said. ‘I, too, have been promised two hundred Achaeans. No one ever suggested that they would be cavalrymen.’ He looked around. ‘I doubt they’ll reach us before spring.’
Antiphatas looked around. ‘A hundred men?’
‘I understand,’ said Philopoemen carefully, ‘that there is, at least in Gortyna, a large faction of discontented, disenfranchised men.’
‘All of the leaders are in exile. Many are in Aegypt.’ Antiphatas shrugged. ‘I came to Mytilene …’
‘Some are in Antioch, too,’ Philopoemen said. ‘I have letters from several of them. Including your son, who is on his way.’
‘Yes,’ Antiphatas admitted. ‘And in Macedon.�
��
‘So your “New Men” are further divided into factions,’ Philopoemen asked.
Antiphatas slumped. ‘Yes. And no one trusts Macedon.’
‘Least of all the Achaeans in this room,’ Philopoemen said.
‘Or the Thracians,’ Kleostratos said.
‘So, having requested military aid from Macedon, you don’t have the unity to support it?’ Philopoemen said.
‘You mean, since we are receiving less than half the support we were promised, which was itself less than a tithe of what we requested?’ Antiphatas spat back.
Philopoemen gestured to Arkas and Lykon, his personal servants, and they bustled through the room, serving bits of roast lamb and barley rolls and more wine.
‘Is there support for us in Gortyna?’ Philopoemen asked.
Antiphatas shrugged. ‘I haven’t been back in months. And as you have a hundred men, I can’t imagine—’
‘Imagine,’ Philopoemen said. ‘Imagine I can seize the main gate at Gortyna. Imagine that …’
‘How will you get there?’ Antiphatas asked. ‘Gortyna is forty stades from the sea—’
‘I know,’ Philopoemen said. ‘My father and my stepfathers knew it well. I know where it is, how far from the sea, and even how well some of the gates are guarded. Are you willing to try?’
‘An insane risk,’ Antiphatas said. But then he smiled. ‘But I’m sick of being an exile, and my son deserves to grow to manhood as a warrior, not someone’s serf. I suppose the worst outcome is that I’ll be spreadeagled and executed. Ugly, but, merely death.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Philopoemen stood up. ‘Starting tomorrow we’ll practise attacks on towers.’
‘On horseback?’ Thodor called out.
Philopoemen laughed. ‘Of course. Although you’ll have to teach me how to ride up a ladder.’
‘Where are these Aetolians?’ Dinaeos asked.
‘I’ll learn more,’ Antiphatas said. ‘Some will be in the garrison at Knossos and others at Gortyna, at least.’
‘If the Aetolians fight so much against the customs of the country,’ Alexanor said slowly, ‘do you think any of the Presbyteroi might turn against them?’
The New Achilles Page 21