by Mike Rogers
And with those words he turned around again and ordered the men to leave. He would see them the following morning on the field of glory.
As the generals left the atmosphere was that of a funeral. None knew for certain what the next day would bring. In fact, the only certainty they still had was that Anaxis would be watching them closely. And that thought terrified them even more than a possible defeat at Roman hands.
I looked at the dead body in shock and quietly asked, “Did you have any proof of his treason?”
Anaxis cleaned his blade and said, “None whatsoever. In fact, Sylvander has always been the most loyal amongst the generals.”
I was shocked by this revelation and asked him why. Why kill a man that was so loyal?
Anaxis looked at me as if he was tutoring an ignorant child and said, “Can you imagine what the generals will think if I accuse a man so blatantly loyal of treason?”
And then it dawned to me. Sylvander had been the dupe of one of Anaxis' moves to ensure the loyalty of the remaining officers.
“They will think you suspect them all of treason. They will fear your wrath if they talk to any of the Romans spies sent to negotiate a surrender. And thus they will have no other choice than to fight for you, even though it will not be out of free will.”
Anaxis nodded, “Very true. They will fear my blade more than that of the Romans, and they will win the battle tomorrow. It is the only way they can prove their loyalty to me. To Greece.”
“Who says they won't simply grab a horse and run to the Romans right now?” Anaxis looked at me and placed his hand on his sword.
“I say so.”
Chapter 18
The day of the battle was a day to be remembered for generations. I geared Anaxis up in his armor and handed him his blade, dagger, shield and spear. Holding them like they were treasured items he exited the command tent where he had finished giving the generals final instructions. He headed straight for a giant wooden tower in the middle of the camp which he had ordered to be built at least three spears high.
With the greatest ease he climbed onto the tower and overlooked the entire camp. Underneath him, half a million of them, were the men from the Greek army. The greatest Greek army ever to have walked the face of the Earth and it was commanded by a single man.
A savior.
A warrior.
A Spartan.
The men watched in awe as he looked across the compound, and they flocked to the tower to hear what he had to say. As he stood there, with his long red cloak draped around him and gently playing in the wind, I realized what a charismatic figure he was. He was truly Leonidas, Hercules or Alexander The Great reborn. For the first time in generations the Greeks had a man they could look up to and say, He is of my land! He is of my people! He is of my blood!
“Men of Greece,” he shouted at them as he raised his arms, “I salute thee!”
A cheer arose from the gathered men.
“Warriors of the free world,” he shouted again, but louder this time, “I honor thee!”
The men cheered even louder.
“Saviors of Greece,” he shouted with all his might, “today the gods smile upon thee and pay homage!”
The gathered army exploded. Half a million soldiers roared in approval, and I felt the ground shake under their gathered voices. Anaxis was raising the moral of the men and bringing that of the Romans down at the same time. They too must have heard the assembled shouting and been impressed by its fury.
But Anaxis had not finished yet.
“For too long have we been a divided people! For too long have we struggled amongst each other and thus weakening Greece! For too long have the Romans profited from this and taxed us unjustly! The past has shown what the Greeks can do when they strike as one! Troy, once the mightiest city of the east and the origin of Rome! Persepolis, the capitol of the mighty Persian empire and home of the god-emperors! Both crushed under Greek sandals! Both claimed to be eternal! Well, I say it is time we defeated another ‘eternal city!’ as Troy once burned so will Rome burn! The New Trojans thought they could conquer Greece from another location? Ha! They were wrong! All they have done was buy some time! Today, a hundred times a hundred generations later we will crush the new Troy, and we will begin with their pathetic army that stands against us! They burn Epirus? They burn Corinth? We will burn their city and soul for eternity! Not even in Hades will they be welcome after this day! Men of Greece, will you be at my side this day and show the gods that we Greeks are still the mightiest people on the face of the Earth?'”
The cheer from the men was deafening. For minutes it lasted, but it seemed like hours. Half a million throats simultaneously roared, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
And to drive the men over the edge completely, Anaxis pointed at the Roman camp and shouted, “Give no mercy! Today you are the hand of Death itself, and you will strike at them with all your might! Death to all Romans!”
Anaxis climbed down the tower, and as he reached the ground the men flocked around him. Everywhere there were hands touching him. The men smiled and fell on their knees before him, kissing the dirt he walked upon.
He was no longer a mere mortal. To the Greeks he was a god.
I handed him his horse and he merely smiled.
“Not today, Trimidites. Today I fight in the front lines with my Spartan brothers.”
I felt the blood draw from my face and my stomach churn.
“What? But…You're the leader! What madness put you up to this?!”
Anaxis grabbed his spear and said, “No madness. As Leonidas did so will I; I will lead by example. If I win then so will Greece. If I die…”
“…then so will Greece.” I said softly.
He smiled and nodded. “This is it, Trimi. Today we win or die. No other choices. There will not be an army like this one in a thousand years, so I'd better make good use of it. Come along, I'll need you as a weapon master in the fight.”
The horn sounded and our army marched out of the camp. Half a million men marched on a dusty little road to a wretched little place called Leucopetra. From the other end of the valley we heard a second horn and watched the gates of the Roman encampment open. From the opposite end another half million legionnaires marched to the center of the valley. In perfect unison the Romans formed their battle lines with the consul Mummius on top.
No messengers were sent to negotiate our surrender or the terms for peace. It was clear that the Romans, too, wanted to see this war to the end. It was us or they.
I marched at the front of the army with the rest of the Spartan military. Ten thousand scarlet cloaked Spartan Hoplites marched around me, followed by another fifty thousand Spartan Hoplites who were of lesser birth and without the red cloak, but well trained nonetheless.
And at the head of the Spartans walked Anaxis, who was the greatest Spartan of them all. His cloak was more torn than that of the others, his armor older and more used than that of the others and his weapons had drunken more blood than all of us together. Even I momentarily forgot the misery of Corinth and was swept away in that all-powerful sentiment of victory. We were going to crush the Romans! We all knew it, it was merely a matter of time.
But between fantasy and reality is a dangerous line…
The battle itself was…brutal at best. The army held its line perfectly until the battle began. When such a vast number of men clash there is hardly any order. Signals are inaudible amidst the sounds of clashing arms and dying men. Only what is in front of you is existent and you must make the best of it.
Of course it helped being in the middle of the Spartans, the masters of discipline.
We formed the center of the army, the line with the grave responsibility to punch a line in the Roman lines. To the sides of our army the vast cavalry trampled the dirt, waiting for the infantry to clash. Then and only then would they outflank the Romans and crush them.
Suddenly Anaxis raised his arm and a horn blasted in my ear. The Spartan aside me gave the order to halt.
Anaxis lowered his arm to the height of his shoulder and the horn blasted again. In perfect synchrony the front line split apart in smaller units and from the cracks between them thousands of young boys with no armor appeared. Immediately the Romans halted their own forces and wondered what this was about.
The young boys that had appeared from our lines walked a bit further towards the Romans and then started to swing something over their heads. All released leather straps simultaneously and the air became heavy with buzzing.
Half the first line of the Roman army collapsed and men lay on the soil groaning and moaning.
“Rhodian slingers,” I murmured and some of the men around me smiled.
Again the young boys lifted their slingers and unleashed the storm of metal hail into the Roman lines. Too fast and too small to be stopped the round bullets penetrated even steel and were deadly on impact. Again several thousand of the Romans went down and lay dead on the green pasture. But before the third volley the Romans too had a surprise. With a single blast of their trumpets their archers unleashed a storm of arrows into the Rhodians, killing a full quarter of them.
Anaxis still did not give the order to retreat and the Rhodians unleashed another two barrages into the Roman lines. It was only when they were struck by another volley of arrows that Anaxis ordered their retreat.
The results were stunning. Where we had lost perhaps two thousand slingers the Romans must have had ten thousand men either dead or wounded.
In the grand army of the Romans those few thousand dead were nothing, but to us they meant a moral victory. It gave our men even more strength to fight and I could see the Spartans smile. They had smelled blood and were eager for a kill.
Anaxis lowered his arm completely now and the entire army resumed its march.
When our army approached the Romans up to fifty feet Anaxis had the men halted once more. The Romans used this to fire another volley of arrows into our army, which did no harm at all. The tight body of the phalanx shielded the men perfectly from arrows, as the gathered shields and even the tight formation of spears fended off any incoming projectile.
As soon as the last arrow had dropped Anaxis raised his arm again and the entire front line of our army sank to its knees on the mud.
The Romans looked at us as if we had gone mad and wondered what could possess us to expose the entire line like this. But Anaxis did not give them much time to wonder, but all the more to die. For the Rhodians were not the only men who could fire a projectile.
Directly between the first line of Hoplites and the second line Anaxis had set up thirty thousand men with crossbows. The crossbow was an expensive weapon and hardly ever used by the Greeks—despite being invented by one—but could penetrate anything. Anaxis knew the Romans' first line always threw two spears into their enemy before attacking with the sword. The Roman spears wreaked havoc on their enemy's first line, for the spear penetrated even the hardest steel and the tip bent as soon as it hit. So even if one of their enemies survived the spear, he's surely lose his shield. To prevent the Romans from throwing their spears Anaxis had come up with a daring plan: put crossbowmen between the first and the second line and to give them a free shot at the Romans before withdrawing. Anaxis counted on their impact to be devastating on the Roman lines and to hold them from throwing their spears.
How right he was. For no sooner had our men dropped onto their knees or thirty thousand steel arrows flew over their helmed heads and bit into the Roman line like a lion in a bison.
The entire Roman army saw its first line collapse and exposed. Anaxis immediately gave the sign to attack and our entire army crashed into the Romans, with us in the front.
I will never forget that sound the impact made. Shield on shield, the snapping sound of the wood from the spears, the grunts from the men who felt the wind knocked out of them…
The Spartans, like the well-oiled war machine they are, cut into the Roman army like a knife through butter. In perfect synchrony the men stabbed with their spears and set one foot forward. Again, and again, and again. Every stab and every step they took was a Roman dead and a Roman line crushed.
For a moment it seemed as if we were going to crush the Romans with the greatest ease. Inspired by the Spartan exampled all of the other Hoplites from the various cities of Greece doubled their effort and kept up with us. The cavalry charge, led by Deopus, was closing in the Romans and the encirclement was nearly complete. But then I heard another heavy buzzing sound and the five Spartans to my right were catapulted backwards. As I turned my head to look at them I felt my heart stop beating. They were all impaled on a single harpoon…
The men around me stared at their dead comrades, but marched forward nonetheless.
A few moments later I heard a second buzzing and this time no less than a dozen men fell dead. Three of them were still impaled on the harpoon as it stuck in the ground.
Now more and more of the harpoons were hitting the ranks and I could see the line waver. Here and there men had halted completely. I pushed myself through the phalanx to warn Anaxis about it. As I reached him I placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “The Romans are using Scorpions against us! It's Corinth all over! They're breaking the ranks! If they brought the Scorpions with them they'll surely have ballista!”
I should have kept my mouth shut. No sooner or I had said the word "ballista" or I heard an enormous loud noise of wood slamming into wood. I gazed at the sky and watched a fireball heading directly for us. Without even thinking I threw myself on Anaxis and pressed him hard onto the ground. Perhaps no further than thirty paces the ball landed and engulfed the men in burning oil. They did not die silently and their screams still make by bones quiver up to this very day. Anaxis and I were protected by my shield, but as I rose from the ground I noticed it was on fire. I dropped it and took one from a dead Roman legionnaire instead. Anaxis had crawled up as well and looked at the burning men in anger. No, anger is not the right word…
Rage.
He turned around again and stormed into the Romans. His spear shattered as he impaled two men in one strike, and he drew his Falcata.
“Men of Sparta! Onto them!” he roared, causing the Spartans to forget their battle order and to crash into the Roman lines.
Strike after strike the Spartans laid down Roman soldiers by the dozens.
Now the Roman archers, too, started firing into the gaps created by their artillery. More and more of our men were mowed down and few were advancing. The entire line halted and on some points even collapsed. Men started to run away and crashed into those storming forward.
Deopus and the cavalry made a desperate charge for the rear of the Roman lines, but were cut down by a wall of spears from the Roman third line, the Triarii. I watched Deopus being surrounded by two dozen soldiers and fall under a flash of steel. His death roar was heard across the entire battlefield as he tried to put off the inevitable. His death was that of a hero, and I still regret not having had the chance to put two coins on his eyes for Charon.
I quickly saw where the battle was leading. Anaxis had to give the order for an orderly retreat immediately and save the army. We had already done incredible damage to the Romans and surely if we attacked them again the following day we would have crushed them. I pushed my way through the Spartans until I finally reached Anaxis.
“Trimi, give me a new spear!” he shouted.
I took one of the spears I carried on my back and handed it to him. The Spartan next to Anaxis said the same and I handed him one as well. Anaxis was taking down Romans like a madman. His thrust was so powerful that he often struck two Romans in a single push, ramming his spear through the both of them. Several times I even saw him stab down three men at once. Again his spear shattered and he held out his hand.
“Spear!” he roared. Before his next breath I had placed it in his hand, and he was off to killing again.
“Anaxis! You cannot hold this up all day! You must give the order for an orderly retreat or else the army will be cut to piec
es by the Roman artillery! We will still have the advantage, but we must pull back now! We can still kill them tomorrow!”
Anaxis shattered another spear and turned his head towards me. I felt my knees go weak and could barely stay standing. He was completely covered in blood from his enemies and his eyes spew fire. This was no longer a man, nor a god. This was a demon.
“Retreat?! Retreat?!” he screamed. “There will be no retreat today, not for us nor for the Romans! Today we will finally destroy those bastards or be destroyed ourselves!”
He grabbed the spear I was holding ready for him from my hand and it took me a few moments to recuperate.
“But, Anaxis…our men…they'll all be killed!”
“Then let them be killed! It is I who is in command here and no one else! If it takes the death of every Greek to crush the Romans then so be it! Then let them all die and go to hell!”
It was then, when I heard those words, that I knew he meant it. He would drag down Greece with him if that was what it took to kill every Roman here on this day. As I looked around me and watched our line collapse and our men die, I realized Rome could not be defeated. The dream of a free Greece was dead. It was not killed by the Romans, nor by the Greeks. No, it was killed by the man who never believed in it in the first place. All this time Anaxis had used everything and everyone to satisfy his own pathetic quest for revenge on Rome. As long as Anaxis lived it would be Greece that would burn and not Rome.
As long as he lived…
He turned around again and went back to killing more Romans as I realized how much confidence he placed in me. As I told you in the beginning of my tale, it takes a great deal of confidence to allow a slave to carry your weapons and hand them to you in battle. A weapons master has the dangerous task of handing his master a new spear when it breaks during combat and he is exposed to a great deal of dangers in this process. But also his master is in considerable risk. The slave could abandon his master or he stab the spear in his master's back…
It was then that I realized what had to be done to end all this madness. He broke another spear and held out his hand to me, calling for another. My grip around the shaft tightened as I raised it and aimed it at my master's heart. Just as I was about to thrust the weapon into his back, I heard the sound of a bell ringing and felt the top of my head become hot, hot like Hephaestus' forge.