is it Lade again?’
I shook my head. ‘Aristides thinks they’l vote to retreat to
I shook my head. ‘Aristides thinks they’l vote to retreat to
Athens in the morning, and there wil be immediate desertions.
He paints a bleak picture, lads.’ I shrugged. ‘We’re a long way
from home. And if there is a traitor—’
Idomeneus shook his head. ‘We’re al right,’ he said. ‘Keep
the archers safe, head for the hils and walk the high ground al
the way home. Could take a while, but we’l live.’
‘What do we eat, drink?’ I asked. His strategy was the one I
liked, too – but it was fraught with danger.
‘Steal what we can – hunt when we can.’ Idomeneus shook
his head. ‘It wil suck, that’s for sure, lord. But the boys wil get
it done.’
Antigonus looked at the speaker’s bema in the middle of the
encampment. ‘If what you say is realy true,’ he said, ‘we should
be gone in the morning.’
‘Then men wil say we deserted,’ I said.
Antigonus shrugged. ‘Wil we care? If these bastards run for
Athens, the Persians wil eat them, and someone in the city wil
sel it out just the way the Euboeans were sold. And the Ionians.’
‘And it won’t be a thetes,’ Idomeneus added. ‘I heard that
bastard at your little meeting, lord. Chalcis was betrayed by an
aristocrat.’
I nodded. ‘I heard that, too. Doesn’t matter, though.
Antigonus, what’s your point?’
He frowned and looked at the ground. ‘It’s not a very
glorious thought,’ he admitted, ‘but if Athens is going down, we
don’t need to give a shit about what they think of us – our duty is
to get our people home alive.’
It made sense. He was a good man, my brother-in-law.
‘If we cut and run before the Athenians break up,’
Idomeneus said with his terrible, calous practicality, ‘their
cavalry wil waste a day or two kiling Athenians and we’l never
see them. Lord, it could save many men.’ Then he reverted to
form. ‘Seems a horrible waste, though.’ He grinned.
‘Waste?’ I asked.
‘This should be the most glorious battle of our time,’
Idomeneus said. ‘If these fuckheads waste it, I’l go and fight for
Persia. I’l never forgive them.’
‘Get the boys ready to march – without getting them ready to
march. Tel them we might try a raid on their foragers tomorrow
and they’l be a day in the field.’ I was keeping my options open.
I went and walked through the camp – the whole camp.
It was like the camps of the East Greeks before Lade.
Worse, in a way, because at every fire, men urged others to
go home. To cut and run. I thought they were cowards, and then
I realized that, in effect, I’d just done the same.
Why can’t Greeks get along? Why can’t they maintain a
common goal?
We lost Lade when the Samians sailed away and abandoned
us – for the greed of a few men.
I saw Marathon going the same way, and I wanted to weep.
It was almost dark when Paramanos found me.
‘You move too fast,’ he said. ‘Miltiades wants you.’
‘You move too fast,’ he said. ‘Miltiades wants you.’
That was like the old days. I knew what he would want.
He’d want the Plataeans to join with his men – the professionals
– in covering the retreat of the army. I’d already thought it
through. I was about to tel my own lord – a man to whom I
owed a great deal – to sod off. I wasn’t losing any Plataeans to
save Athens.
That’s how bad things were that night.
Miltiades had a tent. Few men did in those days. Greece is
kind to soldiers, and it seldom rains. But Miltiades had fought
everywhere, and he had a magnifcent tent – another reason for
men to hate him. If they needed a reason, of course.
I went in, and a slave handed me a big cup of wine.
Miltiades was wearing a simple dark chiton and had boots
on.
‘I need you and twenty of your best men,’ he said.
That caught me by surprise. ‘What for?’ I asked.
‘We’re going to raid the Persian camp,’ he said. ‘It’s the only
tomorrow night. He fears treason in the city just as much as I do.
He’s not a fool. He’s just cautious.’ Miltiades drank some wine.
‘Listen – Phidippides the herald just came in from the mountains.
The Spartans haven’t marched yet. It’l be five days – at least –
before we can expect them. But they are coming.’
Aristides came in through the beaded door. He was wearing
plain leather armour. ‘They want us to die,’ he said.
Miltiades shrugged. ‘They’re pious men, our Lacedaemonian
friends. They have a festival.’ He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I
friends. They have a festival.’ He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I
doubt I’d hurry to save Sparta from the Medes, either. But when
Phidippides’ news is known, the last heart wil go out of the
army. Five days is too long. We have to strike.’
‘I’m ready,’ Aristides said.
‘Arimnestos hasn’t heard the plan,’ Miltiades said. He
glanced at me. ‘Wil you do it?’
‘Do what?’ I asked.
‘We need a demonstration in front of the Persians – by men
who can fight or run in the dark.’ He shrugged. ‘I can give you
all the Athenian archers to go with you. I wouldn’t sacrifice
you,’ he said, as if reading my mind.
‘Where wil you be?’ I asked, but I was already smiling,
because, by al the gods, I saw the whole plan as neatly as if it
was stitched into leather. ‘The horses!’
‘Told you he was smarter than he looked,’ Miltiades said.
‘If we pul this off, the army wil stay,’ Aristides said.
‘And if we fuck it up, we’l be dead,’ Miltiades said. He
shrugged. ‘I can’t take any more officers’ meetings.’
‘I’l drink to that,’ I said. ‘I can get a hundred men.’
‘Then take a hundred,’ Miltiades said. ‘The more you take,
the more noise you’l make. What can you do, though?’
I remember making a face. I remember laughing. ‘Have you
noted that, while we sit here doing nothing, the Persians sit there
doing nothing?’ I said.
They both nodded.
I raised my cup and poured a libation. ‘Ares – Zeus’s least
favoured child. If they fear us at al – and they must – then they
favoured child. If they fear us at al – and they must – then they
have to fear a night attack.’ I grinned. ‘So let’s feed them one.
I’l go for their ships.’
Ever been out for a walk at night?
Ever been out for a walk outside the city?
As joyously as we prepared to make our raid, the truth was
that none of us had ever been in a night attack. There’s a reason
why men don’t make night attacks on land.
At sea, it’s different. At sea, there’s always a little light – and
not much to bump into, if you steer badly. But on land?
I roused my epilektoi as soon as I got back, but just
preparing them to march took me too much time. By the time I’d
led them to the base of the hil and out into the fields, the moon
was high and we were late.
The Athenian archers were supposed to meet us opposite
their camp – which turned out to be far too vague a direction on
a dark night. I looked for them for as long as my heart could
take it. Miltiades was long gone, heading up into the hils to get
around the marsh and the Persian camp, and I needed to make
noise to keep the enemy focused on me. I was taking too long.
Everything was taking too long.
I gave up on the Athenian archers when I saw how far the
moon had moved across the sky.
‘Where the fuck are they?’ I hissed at Teucer when I got
back to my own men. The archer shrugged.
So we set off across the fields in the middle watch of the
night, an hour late for our plan and moving too fast. We made a
night, an hour late for our plan and moving too fast. We made a
great deal of noise.
The hedgerows, which seemed to run straight by day, were
like the maze of the Minotaur by night. I’d folow one for a
distance and then realize that I had gone close to the sea rather
than closer to the enemy – and time was passing. I could al but
hear Clotho’s shears trimming the wick of Miltiades’ life.
When the Pleiades were high in the sky, I took my bearings
like a sailor, found the north star and realized that, again, I was
leading the long file of my men away from our camp and towards
the sea – and not closer to the enemy encampment.
Resolutely I put my right shoulder to the sound of the sea –
close now – and searched the next wal for a gate. I crossed, the
rest of the men stumbling behind me and making enough noise
for an army, which I guess was the idea, and found myself
walking across a hayfield in the ful light of the moon – towards
the sea.
Of course, the beach curves – radicaly, in come places – and
I’d simply missed my mark. Again.
My heart was pounding, my anxiety had reached a lethal
intensity, my helmet burned my head and I was sweating through
my armour – and we stil weren’t within long bowshot of the
enemy.
Idomeneus came up beside me. ‘You thinking we should go
on the beach?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. Because there was no cover at al on the beach.
We’d be seen two stades away, even at night.
We’d be seen two stades away, even at night.
Of course, even as I thought that, I realized that being seen
two stades away might be a fine thing.
‘Actualy, yes,’ I said. ‘We’re going along the beach.’
Idomeneus laughed. ‘Good – I was worried you were lost.’
I chuckled – I remember the falsity of my laugh, how it caught
in my throat. When you are the fearless leader, it is important to
appear fearless – and knowledgeable. I thought of al the stupid
things I’d seen other leaders do. Now I knew why they did it.
Somehow, command on land was not like command at sea – too
many choices, perhaps. Maybe it’s just that your men can simply
walk away if they lose trust in you.
Down to the beach.
As soon as we reached the beach, I could see the enemy
camp – the ships, drawn up as thickly as fleas on a dog, and the
fires inland from the beach al the way past the marsh to the hils.
We seemed incredibly close, although in reality we were five
long stades from the ships – but because of the curve of the
beach, we were looking at the ships across the water, and they
were close.
As soon as we were down the dune, I hissed the order to
form front by files. We were strung out, but the boys were fast
and probably as eager to get formed up – to feel the comfort of
the next man’s shield – as I was to get them formed.
Stil no alarm. So we moved forward. Sand filed my sandals,
and I had to remind myself that the beach was, despite the
labour, easier on me, and easier on the lads, than tying to cross
the farms of the Marathon plain.
the farms of the Marathon plain.
After two stades, we seemed to be level with the first Persian
ships – and stil there was no alarm. I tried to reassure myself
that if Miltiades were attacking, I’d hear something from him –
the hils were visible as a loom of dark against the paler darkness
of the sky to the north and west.
Another stade, and the ships were so close that it seemed we
could swim to them. We were just two stades – less, I think –
from the ships that were beached when a man on one of the
anchored ships, a Greek, caled out, asking who we were.
‘Men!’ I responded, but in Persian.
‘What?’ he asked, his voice echoing over the water.
‘Men!’ I caled back again, this time in Greek.
And that satisfied him.
By such threads do empires hang.
Now we were running – stumbling more like – through the
dark. I had a new notion – that I’d put fire into some of their
ships. I’d done it before, at Lade, and it had done the trick, and
there were plenty of fires near the ships.
Less than a stade – no alarm.
How the gods must have laughed.
We came to the first fires – a line of blazes long since burned
down to coals – and my men broke ranks and began to slaughter
the oarsmen at the fires without my orders. The whole situation
slipped away from me in those moments – one second, I had a
column of trained warriors running through the dark, and the
next, there were screams and al my men had gone.
Or that’s how it seemed to me.
Or that’s how it seemed to me.
To my mind, kiling the oarsmen was a complete waste of
time, but as a diversion, it did wel enough. The problem was that
there were about a hundred of us, and almost sixty thousand
oarsmen. With the best wil in the world, my men couldn’t make
a dent in them. And then they began to fight back.
It was chaos on the beach, and Tartarus, too – arrows faling
from the sky as the Medes who had camped just to the north
shot into the confusion, and the thousands of oarsmen, unable to
believe there were so few of us, fel on each other – Phoenicians
against Cilicians, Greeks against Aegyptians.
I puled Idomeneus out of the fighting and dragged him clear
the way you pul a dog out of a fight.
‘Order the raly!’ I remember shouting at him. He had a horn
and I did not.
He looked at me with dul, lust-filed eyes. ‘I was fighting,’ he
said reproachfuly.
‘Order the raly!’ I said again.
He lifted the horn and sounded three long blasts.
Al along the beach, men heard it. Some understood and
some were lost in the fog of combat.
I put my spear in the gut of a man with no shield – I had to
assume in the dark that anyone without a shield was one of theirs
– and ran back a
few paces.
‘Plataea! On me!’ I roared, again and again.
Men came to me in dribs and drabs, some bringing their little
swirl of combat with them, some alone.
It took for ever. Everything takes for ever in the dark.
Idomeneus sounded the horn again, and again later, and stil I
had fewer than half of my men – my picked, best armoured men.
I could not afford to leave them on the beach.
The trouble – my fault – was that I had not set a raly point or
explained to them what I wanted after we hit the enemy. I had
to trust that they would know the signal from the hunting
expeditions.
In the end, most did, but men died because I didn’t know
enough to plan the recal as part of the attack. Another lesson
learned at bloody Marathon.
Every time we blew the raly, we ran back down the beach, a
little farther from the ships. By the time I had eighty men –
perhaps a few more – we were a stade from the enemy. We
should have been clear.
We weren’t. We had taken too long – far too long. And the
sun was coming up in the east – stil only a line of grey-pink out
over the ocean towards Euboea, but it was going to rise like the
hand of doom. We were just eighty men, caught a long way from
our camp.
I cursed and kiled a man. By then we were fighting Medes –
real soldiers. They weren’t swarming us, but their braver souls
started to come in close while others shot at us from a distance.
The light was stil bad, their bowstrings were damp and Teucer
and his lads were shooting back, so we were relatively
unscathed, but I could see better with every passing minute, and
that meant that they could, too.
that meant that they could, too.
I was in the centre of my own line. Nothing for it – we
needed a miracle.
‘Ready to charge!’ I caled out.
There was that reassuring sound as every man closed a little
to the centre and the shields tapped together. Perhaps you’ve
heard it in dril – it is a sound that always gives you heart, that
rattle. It means your friends are stil together – stil in good order,
stil with enough heart to fight.
I took a deep breath. We were fighting Medes – they
couldn’t understand me.
‘When I say charge,’ I belowed, as loud as my throat and
lungs could manage, ‘you go fifty paces forward, turn and run as
if the hound Cerberus was at your heels. Hear me, Plataeans!’