The Lost Army

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  I remembered that although I’d always called them the Ten Thousand there had been considerably more to start with, about thirteen thousand five hundred. Of these only eight thousand six hundred answered the call. Almost five thousand men had died of the cold, hunger, wounds. Most of them in the last grievous battle of the crater.

  The soldiers also divided up the booty that had been plundered in all of the assaults conducted during the expedition. The tenth part was offered to the gods, and the rest was divided according to rank, among the generals, the battalion commanders and the soldiers.

  I was really struck by the fact that Sophos refused his due. He left his whole entitlement to his field adjutant, Neon of Asine. I was watching Xeno when the supreme commander gave up his share: his initial expression of surprise changed to one of sad realization. Sophos had told Xeno he would never return to Sparta, and his actions revealed how convinced he was of this.

  After we’d left that city we arrived at the border of a territory inhabited by savages who had divided into two factions. We allied with the faction that agreed to let us pass and attacked the other. They called themselves ‘tower-dwellers’ in their language because their chiefs lived in wooden towers that loomed above the huts in their settlements.

  It was another bloody battle that resulted in many losses, but our men were victorious once again. When the Greeks formed up, obedient to their commanders, when they made a wall with their shields and shouted out their terrible war cry in unison, no one could resist them. No one could even bear the sight of their ranks advancing in compact order to the sound of flutes and drums.

  After our victory, our allies showed us their villages and the chieftains introduced their children, extraordinary creatures, I must say. They fattened them up on certain nuts that grew in their territory that were inedible if you tried them raw, but delicious if you roasted or boiled them and peeled off their leather-coloured shell. Those children were broader than they were tall, barded with layers of fat. Their flesh was very pale and completely covered with colourful tattoos. They looked something like talismans that you’d offer to the gods to appease their wrath. They wouldn’t have been good for anything else.

  The men were very active and even quite intrusive. They would try – in plain sight! – to mount the girls who had remained among us, as if they were animals. Melissa was hotly contended for, and a brawl would certainly have broken out had the interpreters and local guides not interceded and made appropriate explanations on both sides.

  Xeno told me that he thought those were the most barbarous of any of the barbarians we had encountered. In fact, they did in public what the Greeks did in private, like have intercourse with a woman or perform their bodily functions, and in private what the Greeks did in public, like talking or dancing.

  I saw them myself, dancing or carrying on a conversation, all alone. It was fascinating. They were a people who lived in a natural state, without cunning or hypocrisy, but that didn’t make them any less fierce. It made me think that ferocity was a part of being human, especially for men, although women were certainly not immune to it. I recalled what Menon had told me about the tortures inflicted by the Queen Mother on those who had boasted of killing her son; they’d left me sick with horror.

  We had ample provisions now, and plunder, and pack animals. The situation had changed greatly. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that Sophos, that is, Commander Chirisophus, had grown detached. He occupied himself with marginal tasks, like looking for ships. He no longer appeared in public meetings, you’d never see him inspecting the troops. He seemed to want to melt away, as if he were no longer needed or no longer had a role to play. Who knows, maybe he was planning on slipping away as suddenly as he had appeared. Maybe one morning he just wouldn’t be there any more.

  I would have liked to ask Xeno what he thought, or what he knew, but since I’d been caught searching through Sophos’s things, the topic was out of bounds. Strange, from a certain point of view, if you considered that it was that act of mine that brought everything to a head and forced Sophos to take a decision that I think he may have been already convinced of, deep down. I could understand, though. I had interfered in a delicate, secret, dangerous situation – I was well aware of that! – and no one could be allowed to learn what I had done. Anything I might say could only add to the risk.

  We arrived at another city by the sea inhabited by Greeks. It was called Cotyora, as I recall, and like the others we’d visited by then, it was subject to the authority of another city to the west of it called Sinope, which had been founded by yet another city, perhaps one of those on the Greek mainland.

  Here at last Xeno openly revealed the intention he’d long nursed of becoming the founder of a colony. After all, he’d often told me that he could never go back to his city, Athens, because he had fought on the side of the losing faction. Even if he were allowed to return, and his safety guaranteed, he would never be able to assume any important role in the government or in the army, nor would he enjoy respect or consideration. I knew him well: he would prefer death to such an existence. On the other hand, to found a colony meant becoming the father of a new homeland and a legend for his descendants, commemorated in statues and public inscriptions, not only in the new colony but in his land of origin as well. Thus, a total redemption of his name and reputation. As I understood it, the homeland was ready to forget any negative aspects of a native son if he managed to establish himself in a distant place, overseas, and no longer represented any problem for them. He could create a new community that would enjoy a special relationship with its mother city, and he would be long honoured in both.

  A plan like that would benefit the soldiers as well. Many of them were rootless men who trusted in providence and sold their swords to the highest bidder. Those who had families could send for them, those who didn’t could marry a native girl. They would be the privileged founders of the most important families, of a new aristocracy. They would be forever remembered in popular stories and songs that would be handed down for generations in the new city.

  I admit that his project fascinated me as well, although I couldn’t even confess this to myself at the time.

  If Xeno had become the hero of a new homeland I could have become his wife. I – the little barbarian from a dusty, forgotten village – would become the mother of his descendants, and my name would be honoured along with his. My long and adventurous journey would have a happy ending, like the stories told by the old men in Beth Qadà, as in the dream I’d embraced the first time I met him at the well.

  Was that why Commander Sophos was pulling away? He was not a common man. Perhaps he wanted his friend to remember him for ever as the man who had paved the way for his glorious destiny and then faded into the shadows to allow him to be the sole protagonist. I could think of no other explanation. Or maybe I didn’t want to.

  Our tent hosted repeated meetings of the officers so that they could weigh the various options. They counted up the men who might be willing to join them, to gauge how big the colony might be. They spoke of the Phasis and of returning to Colchis, ruled by a descendant of the king who had possessed the golden fleece; a rich and magical land where our city would enjoy flourishing trade, an ideal base for creating ties, alliances and treaties with other cities and states.

  They were dreaming.

  But there was no saying that this time dreams could not become reality. Xeno continued to offer sacrifices to the gods, assisted by an augur who had followed us during the entire expedition. He wanted to know whether to tell the entire army or to keep his plans to himself and his fellow officers for the moment. It was rumoured that many men were favourable to founding a colony. Many wanted to stay where we were, others were inclined to follow Timas the Dardanian, who proposed they settle in his native land or somewhere nearby.

  When Xeno finally made his move it was too late. The project was completely compromised. No one wanted to return to Colchis, and so many different opinions had sprung up that
it was impossible for any of the alternative projects to get sufficient support. The only thing that everyone agreed upon was accepting the proposal from the government of Sinope to transport us by sea to the limit of their area of influence. This would save us yet another long march through the territory of yet another warlike tribe. Xeno accepted, but only on condition that all of the army be transported together at the same time. He wanted no part in splitting them up.

  Xeno had earned such esteem from the soldiers that they called an assembly and decided to offer him the supreme command.

  Xeno refused. He was sure that the army’s choice was the result of a passing whim. He was afraid that sooner or later old resentments would re-emerge, vestiges of the Great War, and that he, as an Athenian, could not hold sway for long over an army made up almost completely of men from the territories and cities of the enemy coalition that had won the war. He said that the only man worthy of the position was Chirisophus the Spartan.

  Thus Sophos, who had gradually withdrawn, perhaps to allow Xeno to emerge, was forced by Xeno’s refusal to undergo an official investiture which confirmed him in the position he already held through a formal act of the assembly.

  I wondered whether they had spoken beforehand, if there was any agreement between them, but Xeno never mentioned it to me. In any case, Sophos’s attempts to manipulate events according to a precise plan had not succeeded. In the light of what happened later I can say that his plan was to ensure the survival of the army by allowing Xeno to assume command. Not because there weren’t other officers courageous and charismatic enough to hold the army together, but because Xeno was the only one who was aware of the grave danger that still threatened the army and the only one capable of taking adequate measures to hold it off.

  Our journey continued by sea. We travelled west until we reached another of the Greek cities dedicated to their greatest hero, Heracles. The city was called Heraclea, in fact, and the authorities welcomed us as friends. They gave us flour, wine and livestock, which we knew, however, would not last us long. We needed much more than that. Some of the officers proposed that we ask the city for a large sum of money. The authorities would certainly not dare to refuse, seeing the size of our force. Sophos rejected the idea resolutely. ‘We cannot tax a city of Greeks that has already spontaneously given us all it could. We have to find another solution.’ But his words were not heeded. A group of officers including Agasias, one of the heroes of the army who had distinguished himself in many bold acts, went nonetheless to the city to demand an exorbitant sum in gold. The inhabitants’ only answer was to gather all the provisions they had harvested, bar the gates and post armed sentries along the entire circuit of the walls.

  Discontent exploded among the troops. The common dangers we’d faced were behind us, making way for negative and disruptive forces, rivalry and jealousy. No one realized that the most terrible threat was still looming over us. Placing all the blame on the incompetence of their commanders, the most numerous ethnic groups – the Arcadians and the Achaeans – decided to break away from the rest of the army and go off on their own. Cleanor was an Arcadian, and he left with Melissa. She and I parted with a long and tearful embrace, thinking we’d never see each other again.

  The army was split in two.

  Xeno and Sophos were dismayed. The unity of the army had been, until then, the supreme prize that was never lost sight of, and conserved at any cost.

  Xeno decided he would attempt to join the contingent that had left, taking with him the men who had remained loyal to him. He was still trying to prevent the army from dispersing, and he thought Sophos would do the same. He was wrong.

  Xeno learned, I’m not sure how, that Neon – Sophos’s field adjutant, the one he had left all his booty to – had made the commander a proposal. It turned out that Cleander, the Spartan governor of the most important Greek city of the east, Byzantium, who was responsible for relations with the empire of the Great King, had already been informed of our presence and had made a proposal: if Sophos and his men showed up at the next port, he would send ships to pick them up.

  Sophos was completely demoralized. Not because he was certain this meant that there was no way out for him, but because the source of that proposal was his own field adjutant, a man he had always trusted and to whom he had bequeathed all his worldly goods. Yet it was Neon who was pushing him into the hands of those who were longing to eliminate him.

  Yes, they must have wanted very badly to be rid of him, Commander Chirisophus, the only regular Spartan officer, the hero who had led his men through a thousand dangers. The only man who knew the secret of Spartan involvement in the plot to dethrone and assassinate the Great King, officially their most powerful ally. The man who should have died or disappeared along with the rest of the army, he who had wilfully disobeyed his orders at the sight of his men’s desperate courage. He who had sworn that he would bring them back, knowing that he was signing his own death sentence.

  Perhaps Sophos thought that at this point all his efforts had been in vain. That Dexippus, who had fled Trapezus with one of the warships, had done so not to save himself but to report to Sparta that the army was returning. Sophos must have thought that he had no choice but to face his destiny, and so he did.

  No one heard Neon’s conversation with Sophos, but I imagined it, imagined the look in Sophos’s eyes when Neon asked him to leave. I’d wager that not even then did he resist making a sardonic remark. It made me want to cry. I’d never forgotten how he stayed by my side and protected me on the day of the battle of Cunaxa, when Cyrus confronted his brother the Great King on the banks of the Euphrates.

  Xeno met with him the evening before his departure, at one of the harbour taverns.

  ‘You’re about to leave, then.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Why? Together we can still achieve great things.’

  Sophos curled his lip. ‘Who told you that? One of your seers? Did he read it in the guts of some sheep?’

  ‘No, Commander, I’m convinced that if we want to we can . . .’

  ‘. . . found a colony? Hard to let go of your dream, isn’t it, writer? Do you seriously believe that a dream can become reality? Are you truly convinced that in a world divided between two dominant powers it’s possible to found an independent city? In an important, strategic location, where it could thrive and become prosperous? I’m afraid you’re deceiving yourself. The days when a handful of men, guided by the prophecy of a god, weighed anchor in search of a new home in a wild, faraway land where they would grow free and strong . . . those were other days, my friend. The days of the heroes are gone for ever.’

  Xeno was silent, his heart heavy. Sophos buckled the sword that he’d laid on the table onto his belt and threw his cloak over one shoulder.

  ‘Farewell, writer.’

  ‘Farewell, Commander,’ Xeno replied, and sat there listening to the sound of his hobnailed boots fading away in the night air.

  29

  AFTER NEGOTIATING WITH the city authorities, the Arcadians and the Achaeans had left by ship. The city had agreed to transport them to a village called Calpe, a few days’ sail to the west.

  Commander Sophos set off a day or so later on foot, followed by over two thousand men who had refused to leave him.

  Xeno was torn by doubt over what to do. So deluded was he that he thought for a while that we should set off alone, find a boat somewhere and set sail for Greece. But the remaining two thousand men gathered around our tent, saying that they considered themselves at his orders. He was profoundly moved, especially since among them was Timas of Dardania, one of the five generals, who immediately offered to be his field adjutant. That meant a lot to Xeno: the men recognized his role as their leader and he rose to the occasion. That same day he convinced the inhabitants of Heraclea to transport them west as well, but only as far as the border of their territory. The army which had been such an impenetrable block was now divided into three parts, each of which was drifting off on its own.
If nothing else, Xeno’s decision to leave straight away meant that he still wanted to join forces with the biggest contingent.

  In the meantime, the Arcadians and the Achaeans had reached their destination as night was falling. They decided to set off at once so they wouldn’t be seen and marched towards the interior. Just before dawn, they swooped upon a number of inland villages, seeking to raid their livestock, plunder their homes and take a great many of the inhabitants as prisoners, to be sold as slaves.

  They had left Greece in the hope of returning with immense riches, and they didn’t want to show up empty-handed. This was their last chance.

  They had split up into a number of units and planned to meet on a hill that overlooked the territory so as to share out their plunder and return all together. But they hadn’t anticipated that the reaction of the natives would be so fierce. The smoke of the fires and the alarm that passed from village to village over the whole region rallied a host of mounted warriors who attacked each of the Greek marching columns. Overloaded with booty and held up by the livestock and prisoners, they were overwhelmed by an incessant rain of arrows shot from a distance, sowing panic and death. One of the units was trapped in a ravine and annihilated. Another, surrounded by crushing forces on the plain, was almost completely destroyed. The others, after suffering heavy losses, managed to regroup on the hill, and there they spent the night without closing an eye.

  Commander Sophos, unaware of any of this, proceeded along the coast in the direction of Calpe, he and his men all ready and willing to die hard.

  After we disembarked, Xeno decided to travel by an inland route, and every so often, when we met a shepherd or peasant, we would use our interpreters to ask whether there was any news of an army passing through. On the evening of our second day’s marching, two old men told us that there was an enemy army being blockaded on a hill that could be seen about twenty stadia away. They were besieged on all sides.