The Virtues of War

by Steven Pressfield

  We fought two battles, at the Ibys and the Estros, river crossings, and after a pursuit of two days and a night cornered the last forty-five hundred tribesmen, under their war chief Tissicathes in the great wooded pass between Mounts Haemus and Othotis. A savage blizzard had got up. The foe held the heights, which we must seize to overhaul his column. It was late afternoon; snow was dropping in heaps. I called Craterus to me.

  “You say you know this country.”

  “By Hades’ iron balls, I do!”

  He declared there was a gorge, one range to the west. It would deliver us in the enemy’s rear by morning. He would need fifty men and four surefooted mules, two loaded with oil and two with wine.

  “For what?”

  “The cold!”

  Two hundred volunteered. Many who today command armies first won their place in my heart that night. Hephaestion, Coenus, Perdiccas, Seleucus, Love Locks, others long dead. I left Antipater and Amyntas with the main force, with instructions to assault the pass at dawn. Antipater was fifty-nine; I was sixteen. He was beside himself with concern for my safety—and of Philip’s wrath if harm should befall me. I spoke to him apart, addressing him by the tenderest of Macedonian endearments. “Little old uncle, tomorrow morning nothing will stop me from being first to strike the foe. Better for all if I hit him from behind than from in front.”

  The foot of the gorge took till nightfall to reach. Snow was barrel-deep on the animals. I had considered, respecting Antipater, sending Telamon up in command of the party, with Craterus to guide him, while returning myself to the main force. One look ended that. The climb was all ice and scree. If a trail had ever existed, it was buried beneath chest-deep drifts. A torrent plunged, filling the cleft with sleet, spume, and thunderous din. I knew I must lead in person. No one else possessed the will.

  The party started up. The depth of cold surpassed description, made more excruciating by the dark and the drenching wet. Worse, a north wind the natives call the “Rhipaean” roared down the gap all night. We followed the cataract, ascending a chimney of loose stone and shingle, ice-slick in the moonless dark. Each time the company crossed the river, all had to strip naked, holding weapons and kit overhead to keep our clothing and footgear dry; otherwise we would have frozen to death. We crossed eleven times, compelled by the twists of the gorge. Oil ran out. We had nothing to rub ourselves down with. The men’s limbs lost all sensation.

  Craterus was tremendous. He sang; he told jokes. Halfway up, we came to a cleft in the stone. “Know what’s down there? A wintering bear!” Craterus declared this sent by heaven. Before any could speak, he had seized a brand, a lance and line, and plunged in.

  The men clustered at the den’s mouth, blue to the bone. A count of a hundred passed. Suddenly out hurtled Craterus, as if shot from a catapult. “What are you waiting for, lads? Pull!”

  He’d got a noose around the bear’s foot. Now the beast himself spilled free. Still half in torpor, the poor fellow must have thought himself in a hibernian nightmare. Craterus had him lassoed, hauling to jerk him off his feet, while a score of us plied our lances from all angles. The bear would not go down. Each time he rushed, our mob scattered like schoolboys. Finally the weight of our numbers overwhelmed him. What cold? We were sweating. Craterus gutted the beast of fat; we greased ourselves head to toe. He cut shoes from the fur, hacked off the bear’s crown and wore it on his head. Crossing succeeding torrents, he was first in and last out, assisting each man across. Rebundling on the far side, Craterus jigged and rubbed the fellows down with more bear grease while offering ditties of corrosive obscenity. Gold cannot purchase such a fellow. We would have died without him.

  With dawn, we attacked from the heights in the enemy’s rear and routed him. The regiments under Antipater and Amyntas swarmed up the pass. Dividing the spoils, I made Craterus lord of Othotis, pardoned him of all transgressions, and paid from my own purse reparations to the clan of the aggrieved.

  Such was Craterus, forever “Bear,” who now in the dark before Chaeronea draws me aside to inform me that the men are suffering anxiety, in consternation over Philip’s depletion of their numbers. “A word from you would mean the world, Alexander.”

  I am no believer in prebattle speeches, particularly before senior commanders and mates I have known all my life. But this occasion may call for a point or two.

  “Brothers, we will find no wintering bears between ourselves and the enemy.”

  All tension dispels in laughter. Here in the fore rank are my comrades of that night, Hephaestion and Telamon, Coenus, Perdiccas, Love Locks, not excluding Antipater, who commanded the assault force that dawn, and Meleager, whose brother Polemon won honors that same day as a captain of heavy infantry. I go over again what we know we must do. It takes no time, so repeatedly have we rehearsed it.

  “Let me underscore this only, my friends, in regard to the foe. It is not our place to hate these men or to take pleasure in their slaughter. We fight today not to seize their lands or lives, but their preeminence among the Greeks. With luck, they will fight at our sides when Philip turns for Asia and marches against the Persian throne.

  “That said, let us hold this foremost in our minds: Defeating the Sacred Band is everything. No army ever won a battle when its elite unit was destroyed. And make no mistake: The Sacred Band’s destruction is our task; it is the chore our king has set us.”

  My fellows murmur. All hesitancy has fled. They are like racehorses stamping for the gate.

  “But we must do more, brothers, than overcome the enemy by might. We must show him that we are better men. Let no one dishonor himself in victory. I will flay the man I catch taking prizes and make a garrison unit out of that squadron that loses its head to blood slaughter.”

  Dawn ascends. The units move on line. Philip is no patient man. To the fore canters his standard rider.

  We are away!

  Seven

  DRAGON’S TEETH

  MY FATHER DOES NOT BELIEVE in drums or pipers. In his army, sergeants call the cadence. Their cries are coarse but musical and they carry, even in the wind, like the keenest whistle. Each sergeant has his own style. I have seen good men passed over for want of throat, and mediocre rise because they had the knack to bawl the beat.

  Philip’s infantry steps off first. The king takes the right of the field. I have the left, Parmenio the center. Folds of ground block my sight line: My father’s regiments are a mile and a third away; we can’t see them and won’t be able to until they’ve nearly reached the foe. They have moved out, though, or Parmenio’s brigades in the center (which I can see) would not be dressing the line and elevating their sarissas, in their carrying slings, to march slope.

  How brilliant the regiments look! Right and left, horses stamp and nicker. Eleven hundred yards separate us from the foe. I crane to the rear, to Hephaestion at the fore of his squadrons. His helmet is a visored iron causia burnished to silver, his mount a seventeen-hand chestnut, Swift, with a white blaze and four white stockings. There is not a handsomer man and horse on the field.

  As always before a battle, gangs of local urchins dart in bold spirits across no-man’s-land. Their dogs chase; it is great sport to them. Mounted couriers, ours and the foe’s, gallop out and back, bearing messages and reports of last-minute shifts in dispositions. No rancor prevails among these fellows; they help one another remount after a spill. For reasons I have never fathomed, birds, too, favor fields of conflict. Swallows swoop now, and clouds of plovers. You will never see a woman and never see a cat.

  Parmenio’s regiments of the center push off now. Time for my wing to cinch up. I nod to Telamon; he signs to the brigade commanders. Infantry captains step out before their squares; their master sergeants backpedal beside them, sarissas elevated at the horizontal. “Dress the line! Stand ready!”

  At the count of five hundred, my regiments step off. The field is almost two miles side to side, far too wide for any unified action. I cannot even see Philip, let alone ride to him. Our army will f
ight not one battle today but three: right, left, and center.

  Philip’s scheme divides the field accordingly. Our front advances on the oblique. The king’s right will strike the foe first. Philip’s infantry phalanx—six brigades, nine thousand men, plus the three regiments of Royal Guardsmen, a thousand apiece—will engage the Athenian heavy infantry at the extreme left of the enemy line (our right). Once in contact, Philip’s front will feign retreat. There is a good deal of playacting in war and even such seasoned theatergoers as the Athenians can be hoodwinked in the heat of action. Athens’s militiamen possess audacity, my father believes, but not courage. They are amateurs, citizen levy. It is twenty years since they took the field, and then only for a month. Their state of mind, as Philip’s phalangites bear down on them, will be constituted of equal parts terror and overexcitement, which they will mistake for valor. In the flush of contact, they will lose their heads. Seeing the infantry of Macedon shrink before them, they will believe the fiction of their own supremacy and, carried away by this, bolt forward, anticipating the rout. Philip’s regiments will withdraw before their rush. But Philip will not let go. His front ranks will hold the foe by the hedge of their projected sarissas, as a bullhound fastens on the muzzle of an ox. Philip will draw the Athenian line with him until the slope of the ground changes from downhill to up. There, his phalanx will check its retreat. The king will be upslope of the Athenians now; at the trumpet’s call, the Foot Companions of Macedon will plant their soles and surge back upon the foe, the heat of whose blood will by now be plunging, as they enter what the Spartan general Lysander used to call “the hangover” of false courage. We will see the creases of the enemy’s buttocks then, and the bowls of their shields as they sling them and bolt in terror to save their lives. That will be the battle’s first stage.

  Stage two will be Parmenio in the center. His brigades of foot will engage the Corinthians, Achaeans, and the Greek allies and mercenaries. His orders are to come to close quarters and hold. He has cavalry and light infantry on both seams, abutting my father’s wing and my own, to keep contact and seal all breaches.

  Stage three will be me.

  I will charge the Theban heavy regiments and Sacred Band on the right (our left). Philip has not instructed me in how to attack, nor has he inquired of my dispositions—though Antipater, of course, has relayed every detail—other than to ask was I satisfied that I had what I needed. For this alone I account his greatness.

  My father’s plan is shrewd. By giving me the left of the field, he cedes me abundant scope for glory. If I succeed, Macedon gains a fighting prince and Philip a true heir and deputy; should I miscarry or be slain, the king knows he can still produce victory out of his own triumph on the right (he has kept six squadrons of Companion Cavalry to finish the job) and Parmenio’s in the center.

  Nine hundred yards now. Enemy riders transit, just out of bowshot. I have scouts out front too, to identify the colors of the individual Theban regiments and report the position of each in the enemy front. It is the responsibility of each colonel of foot to locate his enemy counterpart, so that his men know whom to hit and where in the enemy line they are stationed. This aligning of units is called “singling up.” It is performed expeditiously but with tremendous care as the front advances across the field. In each company, word is passed man to man, with the veteran sergeants of the front rank picking out the pennants of the enemy units that their units will duel. The closer the armies get, the narrower the aim, until men can almost designate individuals of the foe and say, “That is my man; there is the shield I will strike.”

  I have other scouts ahead too, keen-eyed and cool-headed, who can read a field and report without losing their heads. Their job: Find the Sacred Band.

  At eight hundred yards the enemy begins to deploy. Companies of his extreme right start forward (we can make out the mass but not the individual units) without haste, holding flush against the river that protects their flank.

  “Do you see, Alexander?” Black Cleitus trots at my shoulder. We have rehearsed this move of the Thebans. We think we know what it means.

  “Yes. But can it be the Sacred Band?”

  Our scouts should have returned by now.

  Where are they?

  Where is the Sacred Band?

  Cleitus: “Want me to go?” He means ride forward.

  “No, stay here.”

  I am about to send to the rear to Hephaestion, to be sure he has seen and understands what his squadrons must do, when he spurs up on his own. “Have we got their colors?” He means have we found the Sacred Band.

  “Not yet.”

  “Let me ride out, Alexander.” Cleitus means it will take minutes to cross the field and get back. But I need him with me.

  “Wait.” At my shoulder, Telamon points ahead. Our scouts. The youngest, Adrastus, called “Towhead,” gallops up in a lather.

  “The Sacred Band!” Towhead reins-in, breathless. “There! At the seam of the center.”

  He means the knights of the Band are not on the wing against the river, as they feigned yesterday, but have moved inboard to where the Theban front abuts their Greek allies in the center.

  “How are they formed up?”

  “As a unit.”

  This decides everything.

  One report is not enough. Still I sign to Telamon: “Brigade commanders assemble.”

  A second scout, Andocides, whips back. His report confirms Towhead’s.

  In a body we spur forward to a rise. Andocides points. “There, by the tall cypress. See their shields?”

  The Sacred Band’s aspides are gold and scarlet; even at this distance we can make them out.

  “What’s their alignment?”

  “Two, seven, and one. A hundred across.”

  He means the Sacred Band’s configuration is two knights of the Band in the first and second ranks, seven ranks of militia levy in the middle; then a file-closer of the Band.

  “Who’s on their right?”

  “Eel-eaters.” Meaning the Theban militia regiments from Lake Copais. “Ten deep, like the Sacred Band.”

  “Only ten? Are you sure?”

  Two more scouts report, confirming this.

  “What’s behind the Band?”

  “Laundry,” says Towhead. He means the hanging lines of their tents and camp.

  “Well done, gentlemen.” I send them back to work with a pledge of bonuses when this day is done. Our front continues its advance.

  Seven hundred yards.

  From the scouts’ reports, I apprehend the Theban scheme.

  The foe shows us massed troops along his unturnable right flank; then he advances the rightmost of these companies visibly and aggressively. His message: You cannot penetrate me on this wing. He sets his line obliquely to ours, seeking to deflect us inboard. There he shows us the Sacred Band—not stacked in unbreachable numbers, but only ten shields deep. This is the bait. The foe knows that his opponent this day is Philip’s eighteen-year-old son, a callow prince on fire for glory. This youth will not be able, the enemy believes, to resist such a target. I will throw everything I’ve got at the Sacred Band. The foe hopes for this. He will either reinforce this elite company at the fatal instant or he has some other surprise—pitfalls or leg-breakers concealed behind his front. No matter. The foe will permit my infantry to become engaged in a shoving match. At this point I will have taken the lure. I will be in the jaws of the trap.

  The Theban general is Theagenes, a canny and experienced commander who learned his craft under captains trained by Epaminondas. When I have become engaged futilely with the Sacred Band and the regiments reinforcing it, Theagenes will launch his push from his extreme right along the river. This wing—thirty, forty, even fifty shields deep—will wheel inboard like a great gate, pivoting on the hinge that is the Sacred Band, to take our line in flank and rear.

  It is a good plan. It makes the most of the Thebans’ strengths and minimizes their limitations. It follows the logic of the ground. And it
reckons its antagonist cannily. It is predicated upon facing a young general—rash, impetuous, impatient for glory.

  But the plan depends on two things not happening. One, no Macedonian penetration of the Theban line. Two, no troops of Macedon held back across from the extremity of the Thebans’ great gate, to take it from flank and rear when it tries to swing shut.

  This is what I will do.

  The Thebans do not understand modern warfare. They believe Philip’s strength resides where theirs does, in the massed formation of heavy infantry. No. The role of the Macedonian phalanx is not to slug it out, power for power, against the foe. Its job is to fix the enemy in place, while our heavy cavalry delivers the decisive shock from the flank or rear. The Theban despises cavalry. His hoplite soul holds horse troops in contempt. He cannot believe that mounted men will willingly fling themselves upon the hedgehog’s back of bristling, serried spearpoints.

  But we will.

  I will.

  Today we will make believers of them.

  All this goes through my mind in one-fiftieth the time it takes to tell. By the time my brigade commanders have rallied to my colors to receive their orders, their master sergeants, sergeants, and corporals are already reconfiguring the line and rehearsing the ranks and files in the counter we have prepared and practiced, both in Thessaly on the approach march and here, in council, at Chaeronea.

  Five hundred yards. Our regiments continue to advance in the oblique. What does the foe see? Only what I want him to.

  He sees three brigades of sarissa infantry, forty-five hundred men, sixteen ranks deep, covering three hundred yards of the nine-hundred-yard front. (Allied infantry covers the final six hundred to our left against the river.) The sight of the Macedonian phalanx is unlike anything in warfare, ancient or modern. Instead of the stubby eight-foot spear, which the foe is accustomed to seeing, my corps advances with the eighteen-foot pike. Our front looks like a forest of murder: one serried, immaculately ordered mass, sarissas at the upright, with their honed iron blades twenty feet in the air, shafts swaying and nodding with the cadence of the advance.