Christian Cameron - God of War - The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

Then we had a little more than six thousand Thracians. The conquered chieftains each submitted a band in lieu of tribute – they were serving for plunder. They began to trickle in with the first melting of snow, and they were as excited as children before a feast, and you would never have known we’d beaten them like a drum the year before.

We had about the same number of Greeks – mostly small contingents from the smaller states, three hundred men each from places like Argos and Corcyra. Worth noting here that the Greeks weren’t worthless, but they were outnumbered by the Thracians – this in the Panhellenic crusade to avenge the destruction of Athens!

So that was the infantry, with five thousand mercenaries and Parmenio’s army in Asia (another ten thousand Macedonian foot in six more regiments). Altogether, we had about forty-two thousand infantry.

For cavalry, Alexander and Parmenio spent the winter expanding the Hetaeroi to almost two thousand five hundred, and we took three-quarters of them to Asia – eighteen hundred men with three horses each and full armour.

We had as many again – Thessalians. They served for pay, but under their own officers, as if Thessaly were a new set of Macedonian provinces, like Outer Macedonia. In effect, they were – they elected Alexander Archon for Life. So – eighteen hundred superb Thessalian cavalry.

Then the one really reliable contribution from the Greeks – six hundred splendid cavalry. Athens sent her best – the lead squadron of the Hippeis, all aristocrats, under my friend Kineas. But the other contingents weren’t bad, and they, unlike the hoplites, were friends of Alexander and willing to fight.

Parmenio had another thousand cavalry – mostly mercenaries – and then there were the Prodromoi, now augmented with Paeonians and with Thracians – a little short of a thousand light cavalry. All told, we had at least six thousand cavalry. The army totalled out just short of fifty thousand men, and we calculated rations and forage on fifty thousand, because it was easy, and because a surplus is a hedge against disaster. And besides, if you don’t already know it, that army had at least one slave for every soldier – probably more, and certainly many more after we started to gain Asia.

But I get ahead of myself.

Antipater and I went through all these figures, and then we started to draw things. Camps – laid out for one hundred thousand men. Forage – care to know what it takes to feed a hundred thousand men? It takes six hundred thousand pounds of food a day. Thirty thousand animals? Another three hundred thousand pounds of food. Call it a round million pounds of food a day.

Some of that can be found in grass. But that still leaves a lot to find.

And you can’t put a month’s worth of food in wagons. There just aren’t that many farm wagons in the world.

What you do is build magazines, and store food. Philip had started the process, and Alexander had, thank the gods, never stopped spending on his preparations so that the magazines were full at the two ports in Asia and all across Macedon and down the road to the Bosporus.

It was doubly good, because Antipater showed me the accounts. The magazines were full, and the troops were paid, and we had less than thirty talents in the treasury – cash for thirty days’ operations.

The men wouldn’t mutiny right away, of course – but it would only be a matter of time.

Memnon was reputed to be the best general of his generation, and a brilliant deceiver – and a careful strategist who never fought unless he had to. I began to sweat just thinking of what he could do to us by not fighting . Two months of avoiding us and we’d be broke.

Alexander flatly refused to marry. He’d accepted all of Parmenio’s appointments, and he’d accepted all of Antipater’s financial advice, but he was determined to march in the spring, unencumbered, and he referred to marriage in terms that left no one in any doubt of his views that marriage was profoundly unheroic. Achilles was mentioned a great deal.

Parmenio convinced me to talk to the king. On this topic, I agreed with the king’s mature councillors. An heir would make the kingdom more stable.

On the other hand, I saw through Antipater and I saw through Parmenio. Both had daughters – both seemed to feel that they would make fine fathers-in-law.

Ochrid was still alive, and no one had attempted to poison the king. My arrangements for his daily security were untouched.

Had I warned them off? Had the warning been a false alarm?

You never know, in this business.

I approached the king and asked if there was anyone he would marry.

He shrugged. ‘If Athens had a king, I’d marry that man’s daughter,’ he said. ‘If Darius offered me his sister, I’d consider it.’ He gave me his new, lopsided, man-of-the-people grin. ‘Otherwise, no.’

I nodded. ‘An heir would be good for the kingdom,’ I suggested.

‘I’d be dead the moment a son of mine put his head from between his mother’s thighs,’ he said.

I thought so, too.

So I went back to the old general and told him that Alexander would not marry.

He made a face, and dismissed me.

Kineas arrived with the Athenians. He kissed Thaïs, made much of Eurydike, and bought a house for himself and his friends. He was rich in a way that I’d never seen before – he refused all offers of help.

He still adored Alexander, but in private he told me that his father’s loyalty to the cause was costing him in the Assembly and in everyday business – that the anti-Macedon faction had unprecedented popularity.

That was sad. Athenians are fools, and democracy is an idiotic way to run a state.

Alectus came down from the hills and learned that we were to share the brigade of Psiloi. He came and had dinner with me, and we embraced and agreed to be good partners. In everything.

‘Which nights do I get Thaïs?’ he asked with a broad wink at her. In my home, she ate with my friends.

‘All the nights I don’t want her,’ I said.

Thaïs snorted. ‘All the nights I don’t want him,’ she said to Alectus with her dazzling smile.

But I got the better smile, and Alectus rolled his eyes.

‘It’s the tattoos, isn’t it?’ he said.

He was sixty if he was a day, and his abdominal muscles stood out like soldiers on parade. She ran a hand over his stomach.

‘Some people could learn a thing or two,’ she said wickedly.

I went back to training four hours each day.

Alectus laughed. But he always did.

Alexander recruited a small army of non-soldiers. Many were philosophers – men who studied plants and animals, who studied other men, who wrote about government. Their master was Aristotle’s nephew, Callisthenes, who had an even bigger mouth than I have and never hesitated to use it. I liked him fine. He made me look good.

Although it was never officially said, all those civilians came under my command – or rather, I was responsible for them. There were more than two hundred of them, with that many again in slaves, and not a fighting man among them, believe me. They had to be cosseted, protected and fed – marched about, saved from predators, kept warm – amid a constant stream of whiney abuse. Once, in the Trans-Oxiana, I wanted to kill them all myself, but that’s another story. Alexander was using them to make him famous. What they actually accomplished was, and is, so much more than any of us ever expected – well, that’ll come in time. But for the moment – in a way, they all helped me keep the Journal. Callisthenes began a History the moment he joined us, and he used to read it some nights. It was tougher than the Journal – sometimes more accurate, but nowhere near as detailed in military information. All the scrolls on the far side of the tomb are my copy of Callisthenes. He was a poor philosopher but a superb historian, and he did a better job than I. However, he was no soldier.