Extraordinarily enough, Alexander’s plan worked and not one of his men was killed, although we may suppose some bruises and broken bones. The Macedonians then stood up and charged uphill in close formation. At the same time, archers on the left and the king on the right, with some elite troops and Agrianian javelin throwers, threatened the enemy’s flanks should they advance down the hill.
In fact, the poorly equipped tribesmen were so daunted by the failure of the wagons and by the discipline of the Macedonian infantry that they fled down the mountainside, every man for himself. Fifteen hundred of them were killed and all the women and children who accompanied them were captured.
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HAVING CROSSED THE BALKANS, Alexander now entered the territory of the Triballians.
Their king was no fool. He understood the implications of Alexander’s victory and decided to avoid a full-scale battle. He sent a large number of his warriors together with the women and children to a place of safety, a large island on the Danube. Then as the Macedonians approached the river a force of Triballians countermarched in a bid to cut off his rear. If the enemy succeeded in garrisoning the Balkan passes, Alexander’s position would become very difficult. So he turned around his army and went in hot pursuit of the Triballians. He caught up with them as they were making camp in a densely forested glen. The trees were so closely grouped together that direct attack would certainly fail. Aware that tribal hordes were undisciplined and liable to react violently to provocation, the king devised a stratagem. He sent his archers and slingers to the edge of the wood where they discharged their missiles at the enemy. Meanwhile he formed up his phalanx out of view but ready for action.
As Alexander had calculated, he so irritated the Triballians that they rushed out of the wood and drove back the archers and slingers. The trap snapped shut when they were suddenly faced with the Macedonian phalanx and cavalry. It was too late to regain the safety of the trees and defeat was total; three thousand Triballians fell, as against Macedonian losses of eleven horsemen and forty foot soldiers.
Three days after the battle, Alexander arrived at the Danube, where he met the squadron of warships as prearranged. His next task was to land on the island and round up all the tribespeople who had taken refuge there. However, he soon saw that the water ran too fast and the banks were too steep for a landing to be practicable. So he was forced to come up with a new idea.
It would have to communicate shock and awe, to strike the enemy as an almost miraculous achievement. Otherwise the king would fail to achieve his strategic objective—namely, so to cow the insurgent tribes that they would create no trouble in the future.
Then inspiration came. Fortuitously, another tribe, the Getae, who lived on the far side of the Danube, arrived at its banks en masse with four thousand horse and ten thousand infantry. They were determined to prevent the Macedonians from coming over.
At this point, the historian Arrian applies to Alexander the ancient Greek word pothos. This means a desire or yearning for what one does not have. It was a notable feature of Alexander’s personality. He was not subject to personal ambition as ordinarily conceived so much as to a need to achieve the impossible. That was true glory, he believed.
On seeing the Getae, Alexander conceived a pothos to cross the wide river. Once again he improvised. He gathered together a number of dugout canoes, which the locals used for fishing, and ordered his men to make rafts out of their leather tent covers by stuffing them with hay. During the course of one night fifteen hundred cavalry and four thousand infantry were ferried across. This was an astonishing feat and our sources leave unexplained the transit of the horses; perhaps they swam supported by rafts.
The Macedonians reached the far bank while it was still dark and marched smartly to the Getae encampment, which they stormed while the tribesmen were still asleep. Survivors fled to a permanent but poorly fortified settlement three and a half miles away, which Alexander also attacked. The Getae abandoned it, put as many women and children as possible on horses, and set out for empty country as far away from the river as they could get.
Alexander called a halt to the fighting. Not one of his men had been lost. The settlement was razed and sacrifices were offered to Zeus, Heracles, and the benevolent god of the Danube. The king led his men back across the river in daylight and they returned to their camp.
The Triballians on the island looked on aghast. What they had witnessed was superhuman. Alexander was too good for them, they concluded, and immediately capitulated. A spate of shocked embassies from Thracian tribes arrived to make peace with the Macedonian king.
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BAD NEWS SOURED THE savor of victory. The following day, Alexander learned that Macedonia itself was under attack. Illyrians governed by Cleitus, the ruler of a fierce tribe called the Dardani, had launched an invasion of the northwest frontier. He was the son of the old battler Bardylis, who had devoted his long life to transforming Illyria into a great power. As we have seen, Philip had destroyed him and his army in 358. Now his unforgetting offspring was pressing for another round of conflict.
Cleitus was occupying Pelium, a fortified settlement that commanded a mountain pass between Illyria and Macedonia. Before he launched his invasion he was awaiting another insurgent leader, Glaucias of the Taulantii, a cluster of Illyrian tribes on the Adriatic coast (roughly in today’s Albania). Alexander realized he had to move fast if he was to prevent the two monarchs from joining forces. He made for Pelium with all speed, determined to deal with Cleitus before Glaucias appeared on the scene.
As if he did not have enough enemies already, Alexander learned that his progress would be delayed, perhaps fatally, by another dissident tribe, the Autariates, which planned to intercept him en route.
Threatened by three hostile armies, the king had his back to the wall. He was to be rescued by his friend Langarus.
It is only between those who are good, and resemble one another in their goodness, that friendship is perfect. Such friends are both good in themselves and, so far as they are good, desire the good of one another. But it is those who desire the good of their friends for their friends’ sake who are most completely friends, since each loves the other for what the other is in himself and not for something he has about him that he does not need to have.
This was Aristotle, Alexander’s onetime tutor, asserting the high importance of friendship or philia—and, more particularly, of male friendship. It was a topic of great interest to the ancient Greeks, and the philosophers Socrates and Plato had devoted much thought to it.
So too, we may guess, had the young king. He derived his idea of self-worth from Homer’s epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. His lordly warriors owed their personal glory, their honor, not only to courage and victory on the battlefield, although that was a large part of it, but also to the conventions of friendship.
Aristocrats traveled around the Mediterranean and developed a network of equals on whose hospitality they could depend. These relationships had a basis in affection, but from a practical point of view they functioned as alternatives to the institutions of modern life—banks, travel agencies, passports, legal services, hotels.
When that great but god-bullied hero, Odysseus, is washed up on the shores of the legendary land of Phaeacia, he is offered food and drink and a bed for the night before he is even asked to identify himself. Only when all his needs have been satisfied is he invited to tell the story of his life and trials. He is laden with valuable gifts and sent on his way without cost in a Phaeacian ship.
Guest-friendship survived into the age of the Hellenic city-state. The underlying principle was that a favor given created a moral obligation to reciprocate. Philia’s mutually profitable courtesies facilitated the comings and goings of the merchant and the sailor. It also enabled politicians to explore foreign-policy issues with international counterparts or to deploy pe
rsonal alliances against the interests of regimes in power. The interdependence of friends was supported by arranged marriages, homosexual pairings, and partnership in commercial enterprises.
Alexander pursued friendship with enthusiasm. Many of his fellow-pupils in the shady walks at Mieza reappeared in Alexander’s circle as adults. Those who committed crimes or misdemeanors were easily forgiven. Affection promoted the not-so-talented, and anyone who betrayed personal loyalty lived to regret it.
Alexander had gotten to know Langarus during his teen years, when Philip had appointed him regent at the age of sixteen. Langarus had been an open supporter of the young prince and the two had developed a strong relationship.
In 335 Langarus, accompanied by a crack troop of foot guards, was in attendance during the Thracian expedition and must have been pleased to see the confidence that Alexander placed in his fellow tribesmen. Arrian writes:
When he heard that Alexander wanted to know who the Autariates were, and how numerous, he told him not to give them another thought. They were the least military of the tribes in the region. He himself would invade their land, then they would have something of their own to worry about.
The Agrianian king was as good as his word. Fire and the sword silenced the hapless tribe.
Alexander was so pleased with his friend that, in addition to generous gifts, he offered him the hand of his half-sister, the redoubtable Cynane. She had been the wife of Amyntas, son of his uncle King Perdiccas, but seeing that Alexander had recently executed him she was on the market again. This was, to put it mildly, a good marriage. But nothing came of the project, for Langarus unexpectedly fell ill and died after his return from ravaging the Autariates. Had he survived, he would surely have played a considerable role in Alexander’s life.
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THE FORTIFIED SETTLEMENT OF Pelium stood on a rise in the center of a small plain, inside a bend of the river Eordaicus. To the north, south, and west thickly wooded heights overlooked the plain. The river itself flowed westward through the narrow Wolf’s Pass. Here, between the river and some precipitous cliffs, there was room only for four men abreast, although there was more space on the other side, across a ford.
When Alexander’s weary army arrived at the plain, he was taking a considerable risk and he was relieved to find that Cleitus was still alone. The tribal chief was occupying Pelium and the surrounding heights. The Macedonians made camp in the vicinity. Relying on the superior fighting quality of his men, Alexander decided to launch a frontal attack on the fortified settlement, thus tempting the enemy to come down from the hills and take the Macedonians on their flanks and in the rear. Alexander was ready, of course. He smartly about-turned his army and routed Cleitus’s warriors. He then hemmed in the enemy inside Pelium with a contravallation. The corpses of three boys, three girls, and three black rams were found in the enemy’s deserted positions. In an act of futile cruelty that offended Hellenic sensibilities, they had been sacrificed for victory.
On the following day, the military situation was transformed, negatively. Glaucias and his army arrived and occupied the hills Cleitus had abandoned. From holding the initiative, Alexander was now outnumbered and surrounded. From every eminence enemies gazed threateningly down on him and his men.
What was worse, Alexander was desperately short of supplies. He ordered Parmenion’s son, the competent but conceited Philotas, to take the baggage vehicles and as many cavalrymen as he needed to guard them, and gather foodstuffs from nearby fields. When Glaucias learned of this foraging expedition he set out to attack it. Scouts reported the danger to Alexander, who marched off as fast as he could to the rescue. He took with him his elite foot guards, the hypaspists or “shield carriers,” the archers and his favorites, the Agrianians, along with four hundred cavalry. The rest of his army he left in front of Pelium to keep Cleitus boxed in. Glaucias preferred discretion to valor and after a skirmish allowed the Macedonian king to lead his foragers safely back to camp.
The supply problem had been solved, but otherwise Alexander’s situation remained desperate. How could he extricate himself from the trap he had so incautiously entered? To retreat in the face of two hostile armies was too dangerous, so he took the bold decision to advance between them to the Wolf’s Pass; in that way he would keep them divided and his own force united. Once beyond the pass he would be free from encirclement.
The following morning the king staged a coup de théâtre unique in military history. He arranged his phalanx as a solid block, 100 men wide and 120 men deep, with a squadron of 200 horsemen on each flank. Arrian describes what happened next.
He commanded total silence and an instant obedience to commands. He first ordered “spears upright” to the foot soldiers, then at another order he had them lower their spears to the ready and simultaneously swing the massed points to the right and the left. After this he advanced the entire phalanx at a quick march, executing wheels on each wing in succession.
The enemy watched with growing amazement the speed and precision of the drill. Glaucias’s Taulantians came down from the high ground to have a better look. Suddenly the left half of the phalanx formed itself into a wedge and charged Cleitus’s Dardani. They panicked and fell back. Then the Macedonians shouted out their battle cry, alala, and beat their spears on their shields. Glaucias’s men were the target this time and, petrified by the din, hastily sought refuge inside the fortress.
By this extraordinary means Alexander had bought himself enough time to move his phalanx unopposed along the river to the Wolf’s Pass, where it could be forded. He and his bodyguards and Companion cavalry stormed a ridge from where he was able to guard his army as it crossed over.
Once the infantry had reached the other side it re-formed into a long thin rectangle. Presumably the baggage train followed. Before moving out from the pass, it waited for Alexander’s cavalry to descend the ridge. By this time the enemy had understood what was happening and did its best to impede the Macedonians.
Arrian takes up the story.
Alexander let them get close, then rushed them with his own company while the main phalanx shouted the war-cry and got ready to attack them through the river. Faced by this concerted onslaught, the enemy broke away and fell back. In the ensuing interval, Alexander brought the Agrianians and the archers down to the river at the double. He himself got across ahead of them, and when he saw the enemy closing in on the hindmost he had the catapults set up on the far bank and ordered fire at maximum range of all the missiles they could discharge: the archers had begun to cross, and he ordered them too to shoot from mid-stream. Glaucias’s troops would not venture within range.
The army then cheerfully marched off to safety. Although we do not know how long the whole operation had taken, we can assume that the shadows cast by the circumscribing hills were lengthening. Not a single Macedonian had lost his life.
Meanwhile, Cleitus and Glaucias took the view that they had soundly beaten the Macedonians—or at least driven them off. They saw no need to chase after them on the far side of the pass. Alexander had evidently taken fright and they would not be troubled by him again. Their armies bivouacked carelessly around Pelium and they did not trouble to build defenses or mount guards. This was unwise. Alexander had been given a fright, but had not taken fright. Presumably using excellent scouting methods once again, Alexander learned of these careless dispositions and launched a night attack. He assembled a strike force of hypaspists, Agrianians (as ever), and two infantry brigades—in all, some seven thousand men—silently reentered the Wolf Pass, and crossed the river undetected. The rest of the army followed on behind.
The king fell on the still sleeping enemy. Many were dispatched in their beds and others taken alive. The rest fled in an uncontrolled rout. Alexander pursued them for miles. Cleitus took refuge in Pelium. Then he set fire to the place and escaped to the land of the Taulantians. He and Glaucias had p
lenty of time to discuss what went wrong with their campaign, but one thing was certain—Thrace and Illyria would be quiet for many years.
Alexander had achieved his strategic goal and could safely follow his dreams eastward.
* * *
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BUT ALTHOUGH ALEXANDER’S FIRST serious military outing under his own command had ended in victory, in truth it had not gone very well.
His impetuosity landed him in serious, nearly terminal, trouble, although his ready admission, however painful, of a setback helped him to win through. He never lost his delight in danger. We need to remember that he and his generals were very young men, mostly in their early twenties. Many of them had grown up with Alexander and gone to school with him. They were high-spirited and audacious. They were living out a boys’ own adventure.
There were two adults to lend a restraining hand—Antipater and Parmenion—although neither was present for this campaign. They knew better than to oppose the king’s will, but they contributed stability and sensible advice—which was sometimes taken. As the years passed Alexander and the others matured, but at heart he remained the kid who never grew up.
He enjoyed one huge advantage: he had inherited Philip’s army. His father had spent years drilling and disciplining it. It was now a flexible and highly efficient organism. The young king managed it with the firmness, sensitivity, and affection with which he rode his horse Bucephalas, and he found it instantly responsive to command.
Both Philip and Alexander were personally brave, led from the front, and risked life and limb in every battle. In one respect, though, the son was very different from the father. Both faced a similar challenge when they assumed the throne—attacks from old foes on every side. Philip preferred diplomacy and its subset, wholesale corruption, to war, although he resorted to war enthusiastically when necessary. In 358 he decided to act with caution. He dealt with his opponents one at a time, negotiating or paying for temporary cessations of conflict with some of them while facing the most pressing threats on the battlefield.
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