The Lost Army

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Marsyas’s flute let out a final long piercing peal that softened into a deeper, darker note, then into a tremor that faded into dazed silence.

  It was Apollo’s turn then. The outline of his figure could barely be made out in the flaming radiance of the aura that surrounded him, but a lyre suddenly appeared in his hand, his fingers plucked the strings and the instrument burst into sound.

  Marsyas knew the sounds that a lyre could make and he knew that his flute was capable of more mood and more colour, more notes high and low, but the god’s instrument had all of this in a single string and much, much more. He heard Apollo’s fingers unleash the crash of the sea and the roar of thunder with such power that Mount Argeus trembled all the way down to its roots, raising whole flocks of birds from the treetops in a concerted rustling of wings. And then, as soon as that roar died down, another string vibrated and then another and another still and their vibrations mixed and cascaded in a breathless race, uniting into a chorus of wondrous clarity and majestic power. The shrill notes chased one another at an ever swifter pace with iridescent splashes of silvery outbursts, dark echoes of horns, luminous flares of dazzling sound which surged out into solemn, vast resonance.

  Marsyas himself was enthralled. His eyes filled with tears, his expression spoke of wonder and enchantment. And thus was he condemned. Nothing in his music had moved the impassive demeanour of the god; every note of Apollo’s music, on the contrary, poured into the dark eyes of the satyr. The Muses had no doubts in awarding the victory to Apollo. All of them, except one, beautiful Terpsichore, the muse of dance. Distraught over the fate of the woodland creature, she did not join her vote to those of her companions, risking the wrath of the god of light. But her gesture did not prevent the cruel punishment of him who had dared to make such a sacrilegious challenge.

  Two winged spirits appeared all at once at the sides of the god and put their hands on Marsyas, tying him to the branch of a large tree, securing his feet so he could not escape. He implored mercy, in vain. The god flayed him alive and screaming. Apollo proceeded with serene detachment, stripping the skin of man and beast from him and leaving him mangled and bloody to the wild animals of the forest.

  No one knew how that dry hide ended up in the cave above the source of the river that bore his name, or whether it was another false relic stitched together craftily from the skin of a man and the hide of a goat. But the story was terrible and disturbing nonetheless, and it could mean but one thing: the gods are jealous of their perfection, their beauty and their infinite power. Anyone who so much as gets close to them will arouse their suspicion and push them to strike out with a vengeance so that the distance between man and god will always remain insurmountable. But if that were true it would mean that the gods fear us, that the spark of intelligence born of our fragile, perishable nature frightens them somehow, makes them worry that one day, maybe a long time from now, we could become like them.

  On the high plain, stories blossomed and flourished like the poppies that painted the fields and slopes of the hills red. Many of them concerned Midas, the king of Phrygia, who had bid the god Dionysus to transform everything he touched into gold, nearly causing his own death by starvation. The god took back that ruinous gift, but he gave the king two donkey’s ears to remind him of his foolishness. The king hid them under a wide hat, and the only person to know about them was his barber, who the king had sworn to secrecy and threatened with death should he let the word out. This poor man could not keep such a huge, intolerable secret but was wise enough to realize that he must not confide in anyone, since anything he said would quickly get back to the asinine ears of the king. The poor man was dying nonetheless to tell his secret, so he dug a hole in the river bank and whispered inside, ‘Midas has donkey’s ears,’ then filled it back up again and warily made his way home. But a bed of reeds grew where the hole had been and every time the wind blew, they whispered that phrase endlessly, ‘Midas has donkey’s ears . . .’

  Further on, when we had nearly reached Cappadocia, the army stopped near a spring to stock up on water, and there we heard another story about King Midas. There was a satyr named Silenus who was a follower of Dionysus’s. This creature was gifted with extraordinary wisdom, but it was practically impossible to force him to share his knowledge unless he could be enticed by wine, for he was an insatiable drinker. Midas mixed wine with the water of the spring and the satyr drank so much that he became drunk and Midas succeeded in tying him up for long enough to compel him to reveal all his secrets.

  This was obviously a very tranquil time for the army. No one was worried, there were no enemies in sight, the men were being paid regularly. So there was time even to tell fables. But over one hundred thousand men cannot move without being noticed. Soon the first worrisome events would occur, signals that the advancing army had awakened a huge, wrathful empire. The Great King, in Susa, surely knew we were coming.

  5

  I’VE OFTEN WONDERED how many stories populate the villages of the world, stories of kings and queens or of humble peasants or the mysterious creatures of the woods and rivers. Every cluster of houses or huts has its own, but only very few grow and spread and become known beyond local confines. Xeno told me many stories about his homeland during those long nights when we were stretched out next to one another after making love. He told me of a war that lasted ten years against a city in Asia called Ilium, and the story of a small king of the western islands who called himself ‘no one’, but who had journeyed over all the seas, defeating monsters, giants, enchantresses. He had even descended into the land of the dead. When in the end he came back to his island home he found his house full of pretenders to his throne who had devoured his riches and wooed his wife. He killed them all, except one: a poet.

  He was right to spare the poet: those who sing tales should never die because they give us what we could never have otherwise. They see far beyond our horizons, as if they lived on the peak of the highest mountain. They hear sounds and voices that we don’t hear, they live many lives simultaneously and they suffer and rejoice as if these many lives were real and concrete. They experience love, grief, hope with an intensity unknown even to the gods. I’ve always been convinced that they are a race unto themselves. There are gods, there are human beings. And then there are poets. They are born when the heavens and the earth are at peace. Or when a bolt of lightning flashes out in the deep of night and strikes the cradle of a baby but does not kill him, brushing him only with its fiery caress.

  I liked the story of that wandering king and every night I had Xeno tell me a little more. I imagined myself in the part of his bride, a queen with a long unpronounceable name. She had waited twenty years for her husband’s return, not out of servile devotion, but because she couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than her hero with his multi-faceted mind.

  ‘Bend this bow, if you are capable of it,’ she had said to her suitors, ‘and I will choose the one among you who succeeds.’ Knowing that none of them could ever succeed. And then she had thrown herself into the arms of her husband who had finally returned to her, for only he knew the secret that united them: he had built their wedding bed nestled in the branches of an olive tree. How lovely to sleep in the arms of an olive tree, like birds in a nest. Only he could have had such an idea. How happy they must have been in that bed, the young prince and princess of a happy land, contemplating the future of their newborn son. And I shivered as I thought of the horrors of the war they had yet to experience.

  I was certain that the same would happen to us. It was only a question of time.

  The first ominous signs had already emerged before Xeno and I even met, when the army was crossing the vast highlands. The morale of the troops was low, in both the Greek and Asian camps. Xeno knew why: money. Cyrus hadn’t been paying the men for some time. Strange . . . very strange indeed. Cyrus was immensely wealthy: how could he not have enough money to sustain the costs of an expedition against an indigenous tribe? Xeno thought he knew the reason, but
the troops certainly didn’t, nor did many of their officers. Some of the men had become suspicious and were spreading stories that were fomenting tension and unrest in the camps. Fortunately something happened that changed the mood of the soldiers, at least for a while.

  One day the army had stopped at the centre of a huge clearing, surrounded by woods of poplar and willow. As evening approached, a great procession of warriors arrived at their camp, escorting a carriage covered by fluttering veils. Inside was a woman of incredible beauty. A queen. The queen of Cilicia. Cilicia was the land that bordered on my own, but it was much more fertile and luxuriant. It overlooked the foaming sea and was rich with olive groves and vineyards. Her husband, the sovereign of that beautiful land, must have been worried. Although Cilicia was theoretically independent, he was still a subject of the Great King, and his kingdom was on the direction of march of Prince Cyrus. At this point, it wasn’t hard to guess at his objective. If the Cilician king opposed Cyrus’s advance, he would be mown down. If he didn’t stand up to him, the Great King would demand to know why he hadn’t been stopped, and the Great King was not a man to quarrel with. He probably decided that it was best to face one problem at a time, and Cyrus’s approaching army was the closest and most pressing. The only true weapon that the king had at his disposal was the beauty of his wife: an invincible weapon, stronger than any army. All it would take was a little money and a queen in the prince’s bed and this problem, at least, would be solved. Money and beautiful women move mountains, and the two together would crumble any bulwark.

  Cyrus was young, handsome, daring and powerful. As was the queen. She was also willing to satisfy him in any way he desired. She brought him a large sum of money on behalf of her husband so that he could pay his soldiers’ salaries, and she brought him herself. For a few days, it seemed that the whole world had stopped. The army was encamped, its tents solidly pitched. The royal pavilion was adorned with the finest fabrics and the most precious carpets, with bronze tubs for her majesty’s bath. The men whispered that Cyrus would watch as she undressed and sank into the hot, fragrant water and had herself washed and massaged by two Egyptian handmaidens dressed only in tiny loincloths. He would sit on a stool covered with the royal purple and caress a cheetah curled up at his feet. The sinuous forms of the feline must have felt like the curves of the queen languidly stretching her limbs in the bronze tub.

  The third day he decided to offer her a stirring display of his military might, all decked out in full battle order. He asked Clearchus to draw up all of his red-cloaked warriors wearing their polished armour and carrying their big round shields. They were to march at a cadenced step, to the beating of drums and the music of flutes, and parade before the prince and his beautiful guest on their chariots. The effect was brilliant. The queen was happy, as excited as a little girl watching a show of street jugglers.

  Suddenly the blare of a bugle filled the ears of the royal spectators, shrill and prolonged. The scarlet warriors slowed their pace, executed a long, perfect right wheel then, at a second bugle call, charged towards the Asian camp where Ariaeus’s troops were housed, their spears low and ready. The attack was so realistic that the Asians ran off in every direction, overwhelmed by panic. When a third bugle call stopped them, Clearchus’s warriors turned back, laughing and making fun of Ariaeus’s troops, who had certainly not made a great show of bravery or resistance.

  Strangely, Cyrus was pleased with the trick, because it proved what a disruptive effect a heavy infantry charge by the red cloaks had on the Asian soldiers.

  The queen left the camp a few days later, after Cyrus had promised that her husband would suffer no damage or harassment from his troops, in exchange for their unchallenged transit through the pass known as the Cilician Gates. The gap was so narrow that two harnessed horses could not pass at the same time. In effect, a very few selected, well-trained troops posted at the point of passage could have prevented anyone – even the most powerful army of the earth – from crossing. But it seemed that the king of Cilicia had no desire to engage in conflict and preferred to let Cyrus pass rather than attempt to stop him. Whoever held the Gates had the whip hand, so Cyrus had no choice but to trust him. Soon his word of honour would be put to the test: the Gates were only days away from their camp.

  The queen departed laden with precious gifts, and perhaps Cyrus made a secret promise to see her again in Cilicia. A beautiful woman – and a queen at that – can’t be considered the object of a few nights’ hurried amusement.

  Some days later the army passed close to Mount Argeus where Marsyas was said to have been flayed alive by Apollo. It was a lofty, solitary mountain that loomed like a giant over the high plains. Many other legends were told about that place. They said that deep inside the mountain there was a titan fettered to the rock who from time to time would angrily shake his chains and spew forth flames from his mouth. Rivers of fire would erupt out of the mountain top then, incandescent clouds would form and the whole region resound with fearsome roars. But most of the time Mount Argeus was calm and peaceful, perennially capped with white snow.

  Fifteen days or so passed without anything much happening until they reached a city called Dana. Before them loomed the imposing Taurus range. Up on those snowy peaks, Anatolia ended and Cilicia began. As the army made ready to ascend towards the pass, Cyrus imprisoned the Persian governor of the city and had him put to death. Another person, whose name was kept secret, was arrested as well and executed. It seems that neither one of them had ever done anything to deserve such punishment.

  Xeno did not know Persian and there was only one interpreter who maintained contact between the Greek officers and Cyrus. The reason was clear enough: restricted conversations could not be heard by too many people, and in this case ‘too many’ meant more than one.

  The only Greek to confer with Cyrus was Clearchus. The other senior officers – Menon, Agias, Socrates and Proxenus – were invited to banquets every so often, and sometimes to war council meetings, but at such meetings Cyrus spoke personally to the interpreter, who repeated his words to Clearchus in a murmur. Clearchus passed the orders on to his officers, probably as he saw fit.

  Anyone who approached this single interpreter would certainly arouse suspicion and attract the attention of unsavoury characters. All Xeno had to rely on were rumours and hearsay that were difficult to verify. It was very likely, nonetheless, that Cyrus wanted to hide his presence in the area as far as possible, since it was evident that he never should have been there in the first place. No one believed the story of an expedition against mountain tribes threatening Cappadocia any more.

  Xeno was already convinced then that the march of such a huge army hadn’t escaped the powers that be: Susa, for instance, and Sparta. But we wouldn’t be sure of this until much later, when Xeno learned that something important had taken place in Greece, something that would influence the fate of us all.

  SOMEONE IN SPARTA had already made a decision that might have shifted the balance of our world, but at that point he didn’t know how to control the sequence of events that he had set off. The instrument was the mercenary army that was now crossing Anatolia, but how could the situation be handled? How to stay out of the game and be inside at the same time?

  It was late at night in Sparta when the two kings were awakened one after another in their houses by a messenger: they were to report immediately to the council hall where the five ephors – the men who governed the city – had already joined for a special session.

  They probably discussed the issue at length, attempting to establish, with the help of informers, where the army was at that moment and whether it was possible to intercept their march at the border between Cilicia and Syria.

  It was evident by now that Cyrus’s objective was the one they had all imagined, although no one officially knew anything: he planned to attack the heart of the empire and overthrow Artaxerxes.

  ‘Brother against brother,’ someone observed. ‘It’s difficult to hypothesize any other
possibility.’

  A heavy silence fell over the council hall for a few moments, then the two kings exchanged a few words in a whisper, as did the ephors.

  Finally the eldest of the ephors spoke. ‘When we made the decision to accede to Cyrus’s request we considered all the evidence scrupulously and cautiously. We feel that we made the right choice and acted in the best interests of the city.

  ‘We could have turned Cyrus down, but he would only have looked for help elsewhere: in Athens, for example, or Thebes or Macedon. It was best not to miss out on this opportunity: if Cyrus is truly marching against his brother, there are only two possible outcomes. If he wins, he will owe us his throne and our power in that part of the world will have no limits. If he loses, the army will be destroyed, the survivors executed or sold off as slaves in distant lands. No one will ever be able to accuse us of having plotted against the Great King or of supporting the endeavours of a usurper, because none of the men recruited knows the reason for which Cyrus had ordered them to assemble at Sardis, except for one. And he will never talk. There is not one regular Spartan officer among them.’

  Someone present there, perhaps one of the kings, or both, must have thought about how much things had changed in three generations. Then, Leonidas and his men had fought at the Fiery Gates, three hundred against three hundred thousand, the Athenians had done battle on the sea, one hundred ships against five hundred, all the cities of Greece had fought, together, on the open battlefield. Against Persia. Side by side they had fought for the freedom of all of Greece and defeated the largest, richest and most powerful empire in the world. Now the Grecian peninsula was an expanse of ruin and devastation. The flower of its youth had been mown down by thirty years of civil strife. Sparta had won hegemony over a graveyard, over cities and nations that were shadows of what they had once been. And in order to feed this ghost of power they were forced to beg for money from the barbarians, their former enemies. This expedition represented the point of no return. They had reached the limit, sending off a select corps of over ten thousand extraordinary warriors in a venture that was almost certainly doomed to failure, with a good chance that these men would be completely wiped out. What city was this that they ruled over? What sort of men were these five bastards called ephors who were responsible for governing Sparta?