Free Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Nicholas Nicastro Page A

pikes, taking the kisses of young women on the roadsides. We were off to Boeotia, the theatre of so many other battles that Theban Epaminondas rightly called it the “dancing-floor of war.” Like the Thebans facing down Spartan power at Leuctra, the Athenians were coming at last to dance with King Philip and his detested Macedonians.
    Our campfires spread for miles up the road by night. We bivouacked without sentries, without order, and without care. There were rumors that a man named Stratocles was in charge. He was a strategical genius, they said, and he had a plan to rout the Macedonians, who were much due for a humbling. A drink to victory! And another to Stratocles! And more after that, until the fires were superfluous, and we danced away whatever energy the march had left to us.
    The joy division reached Thebes, and streamed around her walls, thinking the Theban army would come out to embrace their new allies. But the gates stayed shut, and the guards in the towers looked down on us warily. On the far side of the city we saw a neat square of armored men waiting on the road. It was not the whole Theban army, but the best part of it: we had the Theban Sacred Band on our side, three hundred strong. Since the action at Delium, 86 years before, this Band had never lost a battle. They fought as couples, each man consecrated to his lover in the ranks. It was a coup for Demosthenes, to have convinced the Thebans to plight this, their most cherished unit, in our cause. What need, then, of strategy, tactics, security? On to victory! And then on the Macedon, to smash the half-barbarian upstarts who presumed to enslave true Greeks! The only sour note was struck by the Thebans: though undefeated in more than a generation, they marched diffidently, without joy or confidence on their faces. Some thought they felt dishonored to share the road with us. We might have suspected that they had a better idea of the quality of the opposition.
    Our scouts sighted the enemy in a narrow valley in the north of Boeotia. From that moment the events of the day became a blur to me. Stratocles, it turned out, had no strategy in mind. Officers from different units came scurrying up to organize us into phalanxes eight shields deep, then sixteen, then back to eight. First we stood here, then we stood there. An order went out to march forward onto the plain—but the command went to only half the army, leaving big gaps in our lines. The mood passed from happiness to frenzy, as everyone wanted something done, but no one was clearly in charge, and the gaps infuriated the officers, who yelled at the gallant but frustrated boys and old men. With these annoyances we became aware that we were footsore and, though we had feasted on patriotism, hungry. The good times on the road gave way to squabbling as men were crushed against each other. The only cool heads were on the shoulders of the Thebans, who marched in precise order to our right flank and settled there, resting their peculiar crimped shields on the ground against their legs.
    The Macedonians, meanwhile, were collected in their neat ranks, watching us struggle to form our lines. Of the Companion cavalry and Philip and Alexander, there was yet no sign. Somebody in the vanguard observed that the enemy had just tiny shields hanging from the shoulders, and that they wore only leather armor. A rumor was passed back through the ranks that the Macedonians had no protection at all, and for a moment all discomfort was forgotten, for the enemy had left their shields at Pella, and it would be an easy day of killing for the Greeks!
    At last they had us all organized and pointed the right direction. I was on the right, adjacent to the Sacred Band, in the sixth row of a phalanx eight shields deep. I recall it was already late in the day to begin a battle; the sun beat down so mercilessly on my helmet that I could smell the liner cooking within it. To keep their hands dry on their spears, men up and down the line were