by H A CULLEY
It was Orestes who came up with the solution. Parmenion had thought that he might become his deputy, as he had been in the past, but Orestes already held the rank of taxiarch as commander of the cavalry and Parmenion knew that it wasn’t fair to ask him to give up command for a job stuck inside with clerks for most of the day. Instead he asked his friend if he could think of anyone suitable.
‘What about Kionos? His wife, Calisto, is extremely capable and could easily run your estate whilst he is away. The question is, would he be willing to leave her?’
‘He is a pentakosiarch with the Macedonian citizen levy so he’s had experience of command, and managing the estate will have taught him other useful skills. I think you may have found a solution, Orestes. That’s if he’s willing to take it on, as you say. I suppose I can but ask him.’
It would take a week to get to his estate and back again so Philip wasn’t very happy to lose Parmenion go for that length of time when they were all busy preparing for the arrival of the Athenian fleet. However, when Orestes volunteered to cover Parmenion’s work as well as his own, he relented.
Parmenion took just his skeuphorus and an escort of twenty men so as to travel as quickly as possible. At night they slept wrapped in a blanket so they were lucky the weather stayed fine, except for one night when it rained heavily. Luckily on that occasion they were able to take shelter in an isolated temple to Hermes and they sacrificed a goat before sharing their food with the priests in return for their hospitality. As dusk fell on the third day they finally arrived at the house.
Kionos and Calisto were pleased to see him again and Nicias could hardly contain his excitement. He had just turned twelve and he was convinced that Parmenion would take him back with him. When she found out what Parmenion wanted Calisto’s pleasure turned to anger.
She was no longer the lithesome horse archer she once had been. After three children and a more sedentary life looking after the house she was plump and was developing a double chin; however, she had lost none of her old fire.
‘So you want to steal my husband away to serve you, putting him in danger and leaving me to manage the whole estate on my own? And now the only child left at home with me is convinced that you will let him go with you too? What have I done to deserve being left on my own like this? I thought you were my friend, Parmenion. Now I see that nothing matters to you but your own glory.’
Kionos looked embarrassed and even Nicias felt a twinge of guilt at his eagerness to leave his mother on her own.
‘Calisto, if there was anyone else who I thought was more suitable to be my taxiarch I wouldn’t be here now but I have no intention of taking Nicias away from you as well.’
At this, the boy burst in tears and ran from the room, ashamed at his childish outburst. Parmenion watched him go, and then had a brilliant idea.
‘What if, when we leave Pella to go to Amphipolis, Kharis and Myrrine came here to stay with you instead of remaining at Charakoma?’
Calisto brightened up immediately. She had imagined that she was unlikely to see much of her daughter now that she was married and the thought of spending some time with her again cheered her up enormously. She had liked Kharis too. What no-one knew at the time was that Kharis was pregnant and her stay at the house was would last until after the baby was born.
‘Have you asked them?’
‘Not yet. The idea only just came to me, but I can’t imagine that either of them would object.’
‘Very well. In that case I’ll let Kionos go, albeit reluctantly; but I want him back in one piece, mind.’
‘What about me?’ a small voice asked from the doorway.
Parmenion allowed his relief to cloud his better judgement and he nodded.
‘If your parents agree, you may join my staff as a messenger until you are old enough to start your training at the academy.’
Calisto was reluctant, but she could see that her son would be sulky and resentful if she made him stay. She and her husband had a quiet word before agreeing that Nicias could accompany his father.
Kharis broke the happy news to Parmenion as soon as he arrived back. Now he was faced with a dilemma. He had promised Calisto that she would have company whilst her husband was away but he was dubious about his wife making the journey in her condition. Myrrine could go on her own but she and Kharis had become close friends and wouldn’t want to be separated, especially whilst Kharis was going through her first pregnancy.
However, Kharis mocked his concerns, saying that she had at least another six or seven months to go and she could still ride. Parmenion wasn’t having that though, and he arranged for her to travel by litter. This Kharis did until they and their escort were out of sight and then she mounted a horse and rode the rest of the way. Parmenion realised what she had done when the litter returned, but by then it was too late. It would take him some time to catch them up and he had run out of time. The Athenian fleet had reached Akanthos on the isthmus between Akte and Chalkidike and so Philip was preparing to leave for Tragilos, the nearest Macedonian city to Amphipolis.
The first battle in the war for domination of Greece between Athens and Macedon was drawing ever closer and Philip ordered the muster of the citizen levies in the eleven cities of his hegemony. This would give him another thousand cavalry, six thousand hoplites and two thousand peltasts. They were not trained to the same level as his professional army, but he didn’t need them to be. His plan was to use them to threaten, but not to engage.
-o0o-
Criton watched as the coastline through which the estuary of the River Strymon flowed drew ever closer. The plan was to beach the majority of the fleet, leaving a few galleys to blockade the entrance to the Strymon so that Amphipolis was cut off from the sea. The rest would be lashed close together with their prows on the beach and a defensive rampart would be constructed to protect the vulnerable ships from attack. A tagma of hoplites and another of peltasts would be left to defend the ships and the rest of the army would march inland to lay siege to Amphipolis. The good news from Criton’s point of view was that he was to command the beachhead with a promotion to the rank of phrourach. He suspected that, as a former citizen of Amphipolis, he either wasn’t trusted near the city, or perhaps Iphicrates was trying to spare him any embarrassment. Either way, he was more than happy to stay well away from the fighting.
His orders were to throw up a rampart and erect a timber palisade on top to enclose the beached galleys but sand proved difficult to pile up into a mound and there was no wood nearby to provide felled tree trunks for the palisade. A more energetic commander might have used carts to bring in earth for the rampart from the area behind the beach and then look further afield for timber; after all there were plenty of wooded areas between the sea and Amphipolis. By the end of the first week the beachhead was marked out by a low raised mound but that was no more of a defence than a line drawn in the sand would have been.
Iphicrates had an army of ten thousand infantry – seven thousand of them hoplites – and five hundred cavalry. Even the few hundred horses had proved difficult to transport by sea but Iphicrates was confident that they would suffice against the army of Amphipolis, which was rumoured to consist of five thousand hoplites, fifteen hundred peltasts and five hundred cavalry. He had also brought two battering rams, four dismantled siege towers and six large lithoboloi.
He had decided to concentrate his attack on the east wall as the other sides lay in a semi-circular bend in the river. He started by using his lithoboloi to bombard the stout wooden gates whilst his men worked under cover of darkness to level the approach to the walls for his battering rams and the towers.
The citizens of Amphipolis watched these preparations for an assault with dismay and wondered where their Macedonian allies were. Then, on the seventh day of the siege, when the east gates were on the point of destruction by the rocks and the battering rams that had bombarded them, Philip and his army appeared on the skyline to the west. Unfortunately the river lay between him and the Atheni
ans but his appearance with what appeared to be an army nearly as large as that of Athens caused Iphicrates to halt his plans to assault the city and start to build a defensive camp for his army instead. He knew that the combined Macedonian and the Amphipolitan forces would seriously outnumber him if they could combine. In order to prevent that happening he decided to cross the river at dawn the next day and attack Philip’s army first.
Parmenion had left Philip the previous day, taking the professional element of the army with him. Now he squirmed forward through the sand at the edge of the beach to study the long line of Athenian ships drawn up on the sand. He estimated that there were probably a hundred and fifty of them; half were galleys and half transports. He could see a further twenty triremes patrolling at the entrance to the River Strymon. A few listless sentries stood or sat on top of the low mound that surrounded the beachhead. About half of these were hoplites and the rest were peltasts armed in the main with no more than slings.
At dawn the next day Parmenion’s army advanced quietly towards the beach. It had taken them all night to move into position well back from the Athenian position and now they advanced in four columns, each made up of a chiliarchy of hoplites and a lochus of peltasts. The cavalry brought up the rear. Horses would flounder in the soft sand and, in any case, their task was to prevent anyone escaping the net that he was drawing around the Athenian fleet.
As they neared the beach the infantry deployed into long lines so that each chiliarchy was in contact with the one next to it. The peltasts ran to the front and formed a loose skirmishing line. The sentries on top of the mound of sand were no more alert at the end of a chilly night than they had been in the heat of the previous day. The first they knew about the Macedonians’ arrival was the whir of slings and the sound of javelins and arrows rushing through the still air. The sentries fell, almost without a sound and then the hoplites lumbered through the soft sand, slipping and sliding their way up the mound and down the other side.
The thousand Athenian soldiers and three thousand rowers and sailors asleep in their tents on the sand were caught completely unawares. Many were cut down as they tried to scramble unarmed out of the tents and others were killed inside the tents. Parmenion had left the hoplites’ sarissas behind for this attack, swords being of more use.
After the initial surprise had worn off, several thousand Athenians managed to arm themselves and form up in groups. The Macedonians surrounded them and the peltasts whittled the numbers down. Parmenion had no compassion. This was a surgical operation and, unless they surrendered, his orders were to kill everyone. After they realised that the situation was hopeless the various isolated groups started to surrender.
Criton had been asleep in the arms of the young daughter of a local farmer when he first heard the sound of fighting. He kicked the girl out of his tent to fend for herself whilst he scrambled into his armour. Once outside he quickly realised that he was looking disgrace in the eye. His command had been caught napping and he had failed to complete proper defences as ordered. Even if he survived, he would be ostracized and might even be executed. He contemplated surrender but even that wouldn’t work; he’d still be regarded as a traitor by his family in Amphipolis.
All this passed through his mind in a few seconds and he came to the conclusion that a quick death would be preferable to any other option. When he came to this realisation, he felt sick to his stomach but he tried to summon up enough courage to die with some semblance of honour. Suddenly he saw an officer directing operations in the middle of the camp who was wearing the helmet and crest of a strategos. With a start of surprise he heard someone address him as Parmenion and from somewhere in the recesses of his mind he recalled the two ephebes from over twenty years ago. He had loathed Parmenion and Kionos then and he hated the former even more now for being the architect of his destruction. He strode towards the strategos, beating aside the swords of those who tried to engage him in battle.
‘Parmenion,’ he yelled when he was close enough. ‘I should have killed you on the walls of Amphipolis all those years ago. Prepare to die now.’
Criton tore the helmet from his head as he reached his nemesis.
‘Remember me? Criton?’
Slowly recognition dawned on Parmenion’s face.
‘Oh yes; the bully who made the lives of Kionos and me such a misery.’ He turned to those around him. ‘Don’t interfere; he’s mine.’
‘Not that he’ll best you, but if he does be aware, Criton, that I also seek revenge and you’ll face me next.’ Kionos pulled his own helmet off and threw it down.
Criton looked blank for a moment, then he realised who it was and a feral grin split his face in two.
‘It’ll be my pleasure to kill you next, Kionos.’
Whilst the rest of the Athenians were taken prisoner and a few foolish souls who continued to resist were killed, Parmenion and Criton faced each other inside a ring of Macedonian spectators. Criton made the first move thrusting his sword at Parmenion’s neck. His opponent deflected it easily with his shield and stabbed down with his own sword, aiming at Criton’s feet. He man leaped back and the pair warily circled one another.
Parmenion feinted towards Criton’s feet again and this time he dropped his shield to fend off the thrust. Halfway to its target, Parmenion bent his arm and brought it up straight, aiming at Criton’s unprotected head. The latter drew back sharply but not quickly enough to prevent the sword slicing open his forehead to the bone just above his right eye. Blood streamed out, blinding him in that eye.
Having scored a useful hit, Parmenion relaxed slightly; that was his mistake. Quick as a striking snake Criton lashed out with his own sword and hit Parmenion’s cuirass. The sword slid down the polished bronze, leaving a gouge in the metal, and came to rest on the studded leather straps that protected Parmenion’s groin and thighs. It cut through the leather and the linen chiton underneath and made a shallow cut in his thigh.
The strategos ignored it as the cut began to sting. It wouldn’t hinder him at the moment and that’s all that mattered. He moved to his left so that Criton had to turn his head to the right to keep him in sight out of the one eye he could see out of.
Parmenion moved further to left so that Criton had to turn his whole body. Whilst he was slightly unbalanced, Parmenion struck; stabbing his sword at the blinded eye. The man didn’t see it coming and the point entered the socket, puncturing the eye and continuing to sever the optic nerve before puncturing the soft material of the brain behind it.
Criton fell to his knees and, before he could crash to the ground, Kionos stepped forward and grasped his hair. With a quick slash he cut Criton’s throat, then he let go and the body fell face down into the sand, the blood quickly seeping away.
Parmenion and Kionos gave each other a sombre look. Until that day both of them had put the miserable time they had suffered at his hands to the back of their minds, but resentment had festered there subconsciously. They took no pleasure in his death, but they both felt relief that the cruelty that he had inflicted on them in the past had been avenged.
-o0o-
Philip was pleased by the outcome of Parmenion’s attack on the Athenian fleet but he was eager to try out the use of the sarissa in battle. Parmenion left Kionos in charge at the beachhead and the latter started to bring in earth to build a rampart and to bring in timber for the palisade. This was a matter of urgency as he knew that the Iphicrates would be desperate to recapture his ships. Without them he was stranded on land with Macedonia, Thessaly and Thebes - all enemies - between his army and Athens.
Three thousand men from the citizen levy were sent down to guard the ships and were placed under Kionos’ command whilst Parmenion and his four thousand rejoined Philip. The latter hadn’t wanted to attack Iphicrates before, but now he was eager to see how his new hoplite formation and their sarissas performed for real. He hoped that the army inside the city would sally forth to help him, but there was no way he could coordinate this. In any case, his army was m
ore or less equal in size to the Athenians’ and he had more cavalry, therefore he was confident of victory even without their help.
Philip deployed the two thousand hoplites armed with the sarissa in the centre of his force with a chiliarchy of normal hoplites on each side. The cavalry and the peltasts were deployed to guard the flanks and he kept a further chiliarchy of citizen levy in reserve.
Iphicrates adopted the normal Greek practice of deploying his peltasts in front and his cavalry in the rear of his massed ranks of hoplites. As soon as his peltasts came within range they started bombarding the Macedonians with stones, javelins and arrows, but they had only just started when the long line of peltasts were hit on each flank by the Macedonian cavalry and, with little defense against a mounted charge, they suffered heavy casualties.
This didn’t affect those in the centre but their bombardment had little effect on the well trained hoplites who had learned how to use their interlocked shields to protect their bodies. At this stage they kept their sarissas vertical. When the severely mauled peltasts withdrew and the Athenian hoplites came close, the first five rows in the centre lowered their sarissas. The outer formations lowered their shorter spears at the same time but only the first three rows did so.
When the two massed formations of heavy infantry clashed the struggle on the flanks was typical of any other battle between hoplites but it was a different story in the centre. The extra four feet of the sarissa meant that the opposing hoplites couldn’t get close enough to attack their enemy. This, coupled with the fact that five spears were in use in each file instead of three meant that the Macedonian centre was invincible. The Athenians gave way before them and the Macedonians advanced over the dead bodies of the Athenians they had already slain.
Parmenion was watching closely and saw that the Macedonian line was now bowing outwards in the middle, which put the whole army in danger of being enveloped from the flanks. He pointed this out to Philip who nodded when Parmenion suggested a solution. Five minutes later Orestes gave the order to the cavalry on each flank to charge the sides of the Athenian formations. Whilst they were doing this, the peltasts ran to take up position and when the cavalry withdrew they too attacked the retreating Athenians’ flanks.