Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt

by Alexander at the World's End (lit)

  hired hands, tenant farmers’ sons, city trash, small boys, without a decent

  helmet or breastplate between them. But what they did have were throwing-spears

  and bows and arrows and an infinite quantity of good, hand-fitting stones, the

  size and weight your father told you never to throw at people in case you did

  someone an injury.

  ‘It wasn’t an army; it didn’t have the gear or the social standing to be an

  army. And since it wasn’t an army, it couldn’t fight a battle, so it didn’t.

  What it could do, though, was buzz round our resplendent and immaculately

  polished army like a swarm of angry bees, stinging and buzzing away before they

  could be swatted. Trying to catch them was a waste of time; you’d feel the

  chunk! of a slab of rock on the back of your bronze-encased head, and down you’d

  go; by the time you were on your feet again, they’d be nowhere to be seen. The

  few men who did go scampering off among the rocks in full armour and hot pursuit

  never came back, of course; twenty or so adolescent thugs were wait­ing just

  over the skyline to pull the breathless hero down and tear him apart with their

  fingernails.

  ‘Nothing for it, then, but to keep marching; in full armour, because of the

  unceasing shower of stones; in the heat of the day, because they daren’t stop;

  wandering about, herded like goats bewildered by the yapping of small, fierce

  dogs — they tried to shake them off by marching at night, but they didn’t know

  the way, and the enemy did. The further they went, the further they were driven

  from the road they should have been following, the one that had wells and

  streams along it; no water, no food, but lots of dust and heat and the constant

  nagging persecution of the enemy that wasn’t even an army...

  ‘In the end, they broke into two sections, one straggling behind the other. The

  first party staggered down to a river; tortured with thirst, they plunged into

  the water and the Sicilians killed them as they drank — I gather they didn’t

  make any attempt to fight, they just lay in the water and guzzled it, all filthy

  with silt and blood, till an arrow or a stone stopped them, or until the

  Sicilians rounded up the survivors and marched them back the way they’d just

  come towards Syracuse.

  ‘On the way, they passed the place where the other half of the army had been

  killed, in a walled orchard on some wealthy Syracusan’s country estate. My

  grandfather was one of a handful who got out of there before the archers and

  slingers finished off the job. The rest stayed, kneeling behind their shields

  until hunger, thirst or the unofficial weapons of the Sicilians did for them.

  ‘Only a fraction of the army lived to be taken prisoner; but there were

  thousands of them nevertheless, and they died of starvation and neglect squashed

  together in the stone-quarries of Syracuse, the only secure place big enough to

  hold such a multitude. They died simply because there wasn’t enough food or

  water to spare for such a huge number of men, and nowhere big enough to shelter

  them.’

  I stopped there and looked at my audience. They looked uncomfortable, like

  children who’ve just become aware that their father isn’t the biggest, strongest

  man in the world, and that there isn’t really a Good Fairy who watches over them

  while they sleep. In retrospect, maybe it was an unkind thing to do to them, at

  such an early and impressionable age, to strip them of the comfortable belief

  that high breeding, solid plate armour and obeying orders without question will

  always see you right, no matter how dismal the situation. After all, these boys

  had been raised to be soldiers, and a soldier must have something to believe in,

  else he’d turn tail and run at the first sight of the sun flashing off the

  enemy’s helmets.

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘that’s the facts of the case. You don’t need me to tell you

  that it flatly contradicts everything I’ve taught you so far about military

  theory. In case some of you weren’t listening, I’ll just repeat that one basic

  lesson: in war, the side that doesn’t screw up, wins. But in this case, apart

  from a few logistical problems which they were by no means the first to

  encounter, I don’t think the Athenians made a mistake. They saw they’d bitten

  off more than they could swallow, so they resolved to withdraw in good order.

  There was no field army to oppose them. More to the point, there was no reason

  to oppose them, because they were going away, with no suggestion that they were

  likely to come back. According to basic military theory, there was nothing to be

  gained by fighting an enemy who’s pissing off of his own accord. After all, what

  did the Syracusans actually gain by the exercise, apart from a lot of healthy

  exercise burying the dead? They killed thousands and thousands of men; so what?

  ‘And that’s the point, surely. The Syracusans changed the rules. Up to that

  moment, everybody in the world knew why people fought wars; it was to decide a

  simple question, such as who owns this attractively situated plain, or who’s

  going to rule this city. When other means of deciding the issue fail, the

  question is put to the gods, who hold up a set of golden scales with the fates

  of each side in the pans — you remember the scene from Homer, no doubt, and very

  memorable it is, too. We Greeks designed heavy infantry warfare to be efficient

  and suited to our needs; first, it always gave a clear result; second, it was

  decided by courage and physical strength rather than the cleverness of

  individual generals; third, it was relatively safe, even for the losing side;

  fourth, only the ruling class, the men who can afford armour, are allowed to

  take part. We’ve fought this way for hundreds of years without a significant

  change in the way we go about matters because it works, it does what we want it

  to do. As a result, war in Greece has never been about killing as many people as

  possible, which would be infamous and an affront to the gods. So; what went

  wrong?

  ‘There are many possible answers. You can say that the Sicilians aren’t proper

  Greeks (though, by the same token, neither are you; and you’re just as shocked

  as I was when I first heard the story). You can say that the attack on Syracuse

  was simply state piracy and utterly unprovoked; and that’s true, too, but hardly

  unprecedented. Maybe you could claim that, after enslaving their fellow Greeks

  for fifty years, the Athenians were so bitterly hated that something like this

  was inevitable, sooner or later. You can argue that this all happened at the end

  of the longest and nastiest war in our history, at a point where one side

  finally lost its temper and played spitefully, like a violent child. All sorts

  of reasons; maybe you can put them all together and end up with enough reasons

  to make sense of what happened. But that’s not good enough for us, because we’re

  trying to learn history here, and the whole point of history is to find out how

  certain things happened with a view to making sure they never happen again. One

  day, you’ll be at the head of an army in hostile territory, and you’ll see far

  away in the distance a big mob of en
emy skirmishers keeping pace with you, and

  you’ll think of me then and ask yourself, “What do I do now?”

  ‘All right, here’s the answer. Not necessarily a definitively correct one, but

  something you can write down on your tablets and learn by heart; the side that

  doesn’t screw up, wins; making assumptions is an easy way to screw up. Never

  assume that the rules will stay the same, that the difficult job is too

  difficult or the easy job is too easy. My grandfather and his comrades-in-arms

  assumed that walking to Catana was easy, and destroying a vast army with sticks

  and stones was difficult; they made assumptions. Now, if I were you, I’d lie

  awake at nights worrying about what I’ve just told you. In fact, the night when

  you can put it out of your mind and go back to sleep should be the night before

  the day you hand over command to someone else. Any questions?’

  I hadn’t expected any (I’d made an assumption, see?) so I was a little bit put

  out when Alexander solemnly raised his hand and looked me in the eye.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  Alexander swatted away a fly. ‘I think it’s obvious where the Athenians went

  wrong. Their army was too big. They had more men than they could feed, and then

  they sent more men instead of food. And all their soldiers were heavy infantry,

  with no light troops or cavalry; if they’d had cavalry and archers, they

  wouldn’t have got into such a mess. And they didn’t know the way, they can’t

  have or they wouldn’t have ended up wandering aimlessly about. That’s three

  mistakes. If they’d have got one of those three right instead of wrong, they’d

  have made it to Catana without any trouble. So I don’t see what the fuss is

  about.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘as far as the details go. But you tell

  me, why did the Syracusans attack them when they were going home anyway? Why

  didn’t they just let them go and be glad to be rid of them?’

  Alexander frowned. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘If they’d reached Catana alive, they could

  have come back later; fewer of them, with food and cavalry support and guides

  who knew the way. They couldn’t do that if they were dead. It made sense to kill

  them all.’

  I studied his face for a moment. ‘You reckon,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘What was the name of their general, by

  the way?’

  ‘Gylippus,’ I replied. ‘He was a Spartan.’

  ‘Well,’ said Alexander, ‘if I’d been Gylippus, I’d have done the same thing.’

  I smiled. ‘And so would I, if I’d been Alexander.’

  After class, I went to a meeting of the Town Planning and Statues sub-committee.

  It was the seventh meeting we’d had so far, and we’d covered the town plan in

  the first half hour. That left the statues.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss,’ one of them said to me, his face

  bright red. ‘After all, you know you’ll have yours, and slap bang in the middle

  of the market-place too. So I can’t see why you begrudge the rest of us a little

  recognition. After all, we’re the ones founding this city, we’re entitled. .

  There’s a kind of exasperated noise best described as the sound patience makes

  when it’s been heated to steam and escapes through a gap in one’s teeth. I made

  it. ‘I don’t want a damn statue,’ I said. ‘If I have a right to one, I hereby

  waive it. Now, statues of the gods, yes, we need a few of those; but forty-seven

  others — have you any idea how much valuable cargo space they’re going to take

  up? Not to mention the expense.’

  ‘Depends where your priorities lie,’ someone else said disdainfully. ‘You’re an

  Athenian. Wouldn’t you just love it if you had genuine authentic statues of

  Cecrops and Theseus and Aegeus and Alcmaeon, taken from life? Think how proud

  you’d be, with that kind of tangible proof of your nation’s heritage.’

  I drummed my fingers on the ground. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I really want to be

  remembered as the oecist whose people starved over their first winter because

  all they had in the holds of the ships were statues of themselves. Tell you

  what; let’s have the statues carved out of hard cheese. That way, when we’re

  done admiring them, we can eat them.’

  There was a gloomy silence.

  ‘All right.’ My heart sank; Theagenes was speaking, and I’d come to dread his

  intervention. Whenever there was deadlock, up would pop Theagenes the voice of

  reason, with a compromise pitched with geometrical precision exactly halfway

  between the opposing view­points. Unfortunately, halfway between sensible and

  utterly fatuous is still utterly fatuous. ‘All right,’ Theagenes said, ‘how

  about this? Instead of lots of separate statues, what about one big statue? A

  frieze or something like that, with all of us on?’

  I shook my head. ‘A frieze that big wouldn’t even fit on the ship,’ I said.

  ‘We’d have to build a ship specially, or buy one of those great big barges they

  use for shipping marble from Paros .’

  Theagenes nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘What about this; we hire a sculptor,

  take him with us, and he can do all the statues once we get there? That way

  we’ll save all that space on the ship, and we can have as many statues as we

  like instead of having to decide in advance.’

  It took me about three heartbeats to make up my mind to support this proposal

  with every last scrap of enthusiasm I could fake. After all, no sculptor skilful

  enough to know which end of the chisel to hit was going to want to leave Greece

  and go and settle in Olbia; we’d search for one, in vain, until it was time to

  go, and by then it’d be too late to have our portraits carved — result, no

  statues. Ideal.

  Of course, at that time I hadn’t yet formulated Euxenus’ Law; namely, never

  underestimate the perversity of human nature. We found our sculptor all right.

  His name was Agenor, and he was born on a little chip of rock off the south

  coast whose name escapes me for the moment. His love for and skill at carving

  stone led him in time to Corinth, and after a year or so there he started

  wandering from city to city, staying in one place just long enough to establish

  a reputation as a highly competent marble-basher and then get himself chased out

  of town by whoever was running the place, be it a democracy, monarchy or

  oligarchy. Agenor, you see, was a dreamer, an idealist, a thinker of such deep

  thoughts that it always amazed me that he didn’t bash his own thumb with the

  hammer more often than he did. Everywhere he went, he found fault with the way

  the city was governed, and being Agenor he felt it his duty to explain these

  shortcomings, loudly and in public, whenever he found somebody willing to

  listen. In Athens , they formally exiled him. In Sparta , they flayed the skin

  off his back and threw him out of a window; the only reason they didn’t hurl him

  from the city wall is that Sparta hasn’t got any city walls. In Megara they

  dumped him in a cesspit. In Sicyon they tied him backwards on a three-legged

  mule and let the children chase him out with sticks. In Orchomenus they

  sentenced him to death and left him in a cell
under the citadel with the tools

  of his trade (an ancient tradition of the city), and he escaped by chiselling

  out a hole in the rock and slithering through it. In Ambracia they listened to

  him, and had a brief but highly unpleasant civil war as a result, from which he

  escaped with great difficulty and the loss of the top third of his left ear. In

  Pella they found him a job cutting paving-slabs for road-making, and when he

  said it wasn’t quite the sort of work he was looking for they said, tough, make

  yourself useful or we’ll cut out your tongue. Oh, Agenor was delighted to have

  the opportunity to join us, and after a brief show of reluctance I agreed to

  take him. After all, I reasoned, he could hardly be more of a pest than most of

  my fellow Founders, and if I had my way, we’d be laying a lot of paving-stones,

  so he might come in useful after all.

  So we had deadheads, we had enthusiasts, we had idealists, we had the antisocial

  and the mentally inadequate; we also had some genuine farmers, men whose fathers

  had had one too many sons, and some craftsmen with useful skills that they were

  willing to exercise in return for a fair day’s pay, and some ex-slaves who knew

  all there was to know about hard work for little reward; and we had a thousand

  Illyrian mercenaries, who’d been led to believe that the life they were

  embarking on was going to be better than the one they were leaving behind. In

  other words we had Greeks, two and a half thousand of them including women and

  children. It was a better start in life than many cities get, because we also

  had food and animals and materials and tools, provided for us by the King of

  Macedon; we had five ships of our own and the loan of twenty-five others there

  and back; we had the services of a hundred professional stonemasons for a year,

  to be paid by Philip in arrears on their return; we had a splendid and extremely

  long written constitution, composed by a committee chaired by Aristotle himself,

  of which seven copies housed in shiny bronze canisters were ceremoniously placed

  in a cedarwood chest in the hold of the expedition’s flagship on the day before

  we sailed — how the mice managed to get at and chew up all seven copies to such

  an extent that nothing legible remained I simply have no idea, or at least not