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

At any rate, Philotas flatly refused to stay in Ephesus when the army marched. Alexander only accepted him when he’d had a conference with Parmenio – a talk that none of us was welcome to overhear. It must have been something.

But there was worse to come. Parmenio wanted a forward strategy. He wanted to commit the fleet to a major action at Mycale. He was willing to see either of two strategies – a night assault on the beached Persian ships, or a combined attack with the army and the fleet. Philotas marched off with half the hypaspitoi and half the Hetaeroi to close all the stream-heads to the Persians – so that they had to sail a hundred stades around the headland to get water for their rowers.

Parmenio didn’t ask the king before sending his son away with half the Aegema, and a bitter dispute arose.

‘When I see an opportunity, I act on it!’ Parmenio roared. We were in the command tent – a dozen of the king’s friends, and most of the ‘college of old men’, as Diodorus called Parmenio’s generals.

‘Just as you did at Granicus?’ Alexander asked.

Parmenio laughed. ‘Boy, you rode off with a wild hare under your arse and almost got yourself killed – as we knew would happen. That wasn’t an opportunity.’

Alexander smiled, and his eyes got that glittery look they did in combat. ‘Then you are a fool. We could have had Granicus in an hour if your son hadn’t wasted so much time.’

Parmenio shrugged. ‘I won’t debate with you, lord. Men know who won the Granicus, and how it was won.’

Alexander nodded. ‘Precisely. You will not dispatch troops without my consent, Parmenio. Not ever again. And these were my own household.’

‘They were in armour and prepared,’ Parmenio said, but I could tell from his tone that he knew himself bested.

‘And I will not risk my empire and my future on a sea battle. The last time the Greeks made a stand here, half their fleet defected. I won’t allow it. I don’t trust them enough to lead them in person.’

Parmenio crossed his arms on his chest. ‘Then we may as well go home. As long as the Persians hold the sea, we’re here on their sufferance. Any day now, Memnon will fill that fleet with marines and send it to Athens – and a day later, Greece will be afire behind us and we’ll have to march home.’

‘Really?’ Alexander asked. Again the smile.

‘Oh – you have one of your amazing plans?’ Parmenio was contemptuous. ‘Spare us. Let’s get this done. The Athenians are a match for any ten Persian ships. Let’s send to Athens for another fifty ships – they’ll send them after Granicus. Then we’ll have the ships and the skilled rowers. They could be here in two weeks. Less.’

Alexander’s smile never faded. ‘You can be remarkably un-Macedonian, Parmenio. If we call on Athens for a fleet, whose victory will it be? And what price will Athens demand in the aftermath? And what will the League say?’

‘Who gives a fart?’ Parmenio roared. ‘Lord – you try my patience.’

Alexander’s smile broadened. ‘Luckily for both of us, I’m the king and you are not.’

It was the first time their conflict was open.

We stormed Miletus anyway. But part of the garrison got away, and Memnon had already shifted his base to Halicarnassus, the best-defended city in Ionia – the birthplace of Herodotus, master of history.

Alexander was determined to follow him. He was tired of men telling him that Memnon was the finest strategos in the world.

So as the autumn rains started to fall on the green coast of Asia, we marched on Halicarnassus.

EIGHTEEN

It was four days’ easy marching south from Miletus to Ephesus.

After a long argument with Parmenio, Alexander disbanded the fleet. He kept only the Athenians. The rest of the Greek ships he dismissed, and they ran home as fast as they could. The Persians couldn’t believe their luck – without a battle, they had deprived Alexander of his only hope of sea power.

Cynical armchair strategists tell me that Alexander didn’t trust them, and that he hated the sea, and that he couldn’t afford a defeat, and a dozen other notions. There’s a little truth in every one, but the greatest was this – Alexander trusted himself. He had a new plan for the defeat of the Persian fleet, and he was sure that he could effect it. And he didn’t understand the sea, and he disliked the extent to which he could not control it. On land, he could walk through the worst weather, the driest desert, the most afflicting blizzard. I know – because he did. Sheer will can overcome weather, on land.

At sea, you just die. Poseidon is, in many ways, the mightiest god, and when you commit yourself to his element, you admit your humanity and your deep helplessness. Alexander was not particularly gifted at such admissions.

But most of all, he wanted rid of the money they cost. Every ship had two hundred skilled oarsmen. The oarsmen cost more than his soldiers, and there were thirty-two thousand rowers to feed and pay. That’s why he disbanded the fleet. We were broke – we were literally living from town to town – and he needed to send all those oarsmen home.

Parmenio had learned not to argue that we should quit and go home – but in one season, we had conquered all Phrygia and Lydia and we were poised to take Caria, as well. I’m not sure that it was unrealistic of him to suggest that we march back from Miletus to Ephesus and take up winter quarters.

‘You seem to have liked it well enough,’ Parmenio said. ‘And you found that nice city site – wouldn’t you like to be there when they start to build?’

Alexander had, indeed, found a pretty site while hunting. I was there. It’s Smyrna, now.

But Alexander just shook his head.

‘All Caria,’ he said. ‘I will face Memnon now.’

Kineas and his squadron of Athenians were assigned temporarily to the Hetaeroi. This sort of thing happened all the time – we built temporary brigades for scouting, for flank guards, for night guards – all sorts of purposes. After Miletus, Alexander wanted to have all his Athenians together – where he could see them, I expect, because the most obvious strategy for Memnon was to spark revolt in Greece, as I’ve said.

And we didn’t make the march to Halicarnassus in four easy days. We made it in ten brutal days, because we didn’t take the coast road into Caria. Oh no.

We marched east, into the mountains.

Armies live on rumours, and as soon as we marched on a sunny early autumn day, I heard veterans suggesting that we were marching on Susa or Persepolis. We were obviously going east, and into the mountains – hence, to many soldiers, this must be the great march.

I couldn’t fight the rumour because, despite being a friend of the king, I had no more idea where we were going than they did. I knew that Parmenio was angry, and I knew that Philotas had attempted to block my very temporary promotion to command of the scouts. I had half the Agrianians and my Hetaeroi and Kineas and his Athenians, and we scoured the country ahead of the army, a broad ‘W’ with the Agrianians in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks. A ‘W’ is a superb way to counter potential ambushes – enemy troops close to a road or defile are caught by your outflung wings and exterminated.

Nothing like that happened. We entered the mountains and the arms of our ‘W’ came in closer and closer to the column, and eventually we halted and switched roles, with the hardy Illyrians out on the wings, climbing the ridges above us, and the cavalry close in.

Kineas loved it. He loved scouting and careful, professional cavalry work – he excelled at little details of tactics, such as keeping a file of horsemen over the crest of a ridge so that they were invisible as they moved. He was a keen hunter on horseback, and he used the skills from hunting very well.