Christian Cameron: Salamis

‘I’m returning to the allied fleet,’ I said. ‘The Greek ships are at Salamis.’

‘As long as there’s a fight, we can count on it that you’ll be there,’ Simonides said. ‘Will the army ever form, do you think?’

It was a fair question and asked without malice. The Spartans were still slow in getting their army together, and that autumn, with Attica and Boeotia threatened, it seemed suspicious, to say the least.

‘The Spartans said to form the allied army on the isthmus,’ I said. ‘Hermogenes should know more by the time you get there.’

‘Hmmph,’ Ajax said, his arms crossed. ‘So you’ll desert us again?’

Age does have its benefits. I didn’t cut him down on the spot. I sighed — audibly. ‘I’m deserting you to help Athens fight the Persians,’ I said. ‘The best of luck to you, cousins, and may the gods go with you.’

Simonides shocked me. ‘And with you, cousin. You’ve been more than fair with us. May I have your hand?’

We shook.

‘My brother,’ he said quietly, ‘is not much of a farmer and fancies he might be a soldier. Would you take him?’

I looked at Achilles, and saw nothing but a bag of blood and rage. Like many strong young men.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t need-’ he began.

His brother shook his head. ‘Be silent, brother. Arimnestos, I ask this of you, as head of our family, formally. Please take my brother where his arm may hack at enemies and not friends, and where, if he dies, his blood will go to the gods and not stain our threshold.’

Ouch. Achilles had really angered his brother. I wondered what he had done.

But blood truly is thicker than water. Simonides had referred to me as the head of the family. I had little choice.

‘You have a panoply?’ I asked Achilles.

He nodded.

‘You think I’m mad?’ Idomeneus said quietly.

I turned. ‘This young man is all yours,’ I said.

Idomeneus laughed. ‘I walked into that,’ he said. ‘Lad! You’ll need a mule for your kit!’

From the flanks of Cithaeron, we looked back over the fields of Boeotia. There was smoke rising towards Thebes — but it might just have been a farmer burning his fields. At our feet we could see the rearguard of the Plataeans moving out from the shadow of the old mud-brick walls, the glitter of the late-summer sun reflecting off their spear points and their bronze.

Over towards Thespiae we could see more metal and a cloud of dust.

Horses.

And closer to hand, as well.

Just for a moment, it was hard to get the senses around just exactly what we perceiving. There were matching dust clouds on a number of roads — on the ridge opposite Plataea, across the Asopus, there was one, and then over to my right, looking down towards Eleutherae, there was another.

It took as long as a hurried man might take three breaths.

‘By Poseidon,’ whispered Idomeneus.

It was a veritable cloud of cavalrymen. They were expanding like the ripples in a pond from Thebes, which lay at the centre of all the roads in Boeotia, less than a parasang — that’s thirty-six stades — away. From high enough on Cithaeron, you can see Thebes.

We were seeing hundreds — thousands — of Persian cavalrymen pouring over the fields of Boeotia like water from a rising tide rushing over a beach.

More particularly, the different groups of horsemen on different roads were, at least some of them, converging on Plataea. And they moved — discernibly. Marching men scarcely seem to move, but these dust clouds moved quickly. I looked back at our rearguard, headed for Corinth by the lower Asopus road. The cavalry over by Thespiae would cut them off. No great matter — I expected a hundred hoplites would make short work of the horsemen. But not if they were then taken in the rear by the cavalrymen coming down the main road behind them.

I had almost five hundred men at my back — well-armed, fit men, veterans of a dozen fights. With oars.

‘We need to go back,’ I said. ‘We need to sting this nearest group and draw them up Cithaeron behind us, rather than let them go by and sail into the backs of the hoplites.’

Men were already pulling their weapons off the donkeys and the mules. A few of us had horses and armour and shields, although I’ve never met a man who can manage an aspis and a horse at the same time.

I didn’t fancy facing Cyrus and his war-brothers on a horse, anyway.

‘Follow me!’ I yelled, when I felt I had enough men armed. That’s all the plan I made.

We came back down the mountain on the road past the shrine. There were a dozen of us mounted — all the best-armed men — and we left the rest behind immediately. It was my sense that we needed to do this thing immediately or not at all.

We went down the hill from the shrine to the stream that runs there, where Hermogenes and I swore our friendship many years before. That’s where the mountain road meets the road to Eleutherae.

Only then did the idea strike me: we needed an ambush.

At the tomb, naturally.

I turned to Hector. ‘Back to the men on foot,’ I said. ‘Get to the dip in the road just beyond the tomb and make an ambush. Both sides. Tell Moire to take command.’

Hector nodded. ‘Moire to take command. An ambush from both sides of the road, where you killed the bandits before I was born.’ He smiled to show he knew what I was ordering.

And to show how much fun he was having.

Young men, and war. It is a remarkable thing. I was ready to fall off my horse, my knees were shaking so hard — I was committing myself to be bait for a trap, and on horseback. And Hector was smiling. He didn’t want to go, but he was happy.

He rode away.

My mounted men were a hodgepodge of Plataean gentry, like Teucer, son of Teucer, and Antimenides, son of Alcaeus, on the one hand, and sailors who happened to have armour and a horse, like Giorgos of Epidauros and Eumenes, son of Theodorus, an oarsman. And ten more, including a couple of reliable killers in the persons of Idomeneus and Styges, his apprentice. In war, anyway.

‘We wait here,’ I said. ‘When we see the Persians, we turn and run up the hill. No heroics. All we want to do is lead them off this road.’

Idomeneus drew his sword.

I heard the hoof beats too.

‘No heroics!’ I said again.

‘This from you?’ Idomeneus asked.

They were coming quickly. I assumed they knew what they were about; that their prey was our baggage column. It only took a runaway slave or a traitor.

‘Form across the road as if you mean business,’ I said, and took my spear in my right hand. I didn’t even have a shield, which made me feel naked, despite my shiny bronze armour.

We were on a good spot of road, with a big rock on the right and a bit of a drop on the left, so there was just room to form up two-deep, on horseback.

The lead Persian wore a beautiful scale shirt plated in gold, and a magnificent tiara. The man behind him wasn’t Persian. He was a Saka. I knew his kind immediately from the long flaps on his leather cap and the sheer amount of gold he had. He saw us — and whooped.

That whoop could freeze your blood.

Then everyone did everything wrong.

I had never fought on horseback. That’s not really true; I have been in some fights on horseback, but never willingly, and never against Saka.

If I was committed to this suicidal action, the worst thing I could possibly have done was to remain stationary. I have since learned that the only way to meet a charging horse is on another.

On the other hand, my adversaries should have uncased and loosed their bows. They are the greatest archers in the world. However, they are also the most enthusiastic horse thieves, and I’m going to guess that they didn’t want to hit our horses. They thought we were easy marks.