God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

We headed almost due south along the coast, and the plain was opening before us. In the distance, less than twenty-five stades away to the south, we could see a great lake spread in rippling fire from the setting sun, and to the north lay the Propontis, the great inland sea between the Euxine and the Mediterranean.

As we came down a low ridge, I could see the Persians moving along the road to the east – and they were already leaving the road and expanding into a battle line, and doing it pretty well, I thought. I could see six . . . seven . . . eight cavalry regiments, their spear-points flickering like flame. Sixteen thousand cavalry – maybe more.

But their attempt to fan out from the road was slowed by ploughed fields. And while I could see horsemen along the river, there weren’t so many.

Just behind their cavalry was a phalanx. It didn’t look any smaller than ours, and it was already in formation.

Five stades away.

It was pretty clear to me that our three hundred cavalry, however bold, were too little and too late. Too late by about fifteen minutes.

The ridge the Thracians had described was lower – much lower – than I had imagined. But I could see that determined infantry atop that ridge would close the road, and that the lake to the south would cover the flank of the Persian army, meaning that their thirty thousand men would fill the field from the sea to the lake.

And if I could see it, Alexander was doubtless ahead of me.

He turned – he was ahead – and waved to me. ‘I need your Polystratus,’ he said.

I brought all my grooms forward.

Alexander reined in, snapped his fingers and a groom came up with Bucephalus. While he changed horses, he issued orders to Polystratus.

‘Straight back – find Parmenion. Tell him to march the phalanx to the right by sections – along the line of hills and around the lake to the south. Use the hills to screen the march. I’ll buy us some time at the ford and fix their attention there. And tell him to send me all the Hetaeroi.’

Polystratus nodded. ‘All the Hetaeroi to you, phalanx to the right, screened by those hills and around the lake.’ He raised an eyebrow.

I read his mind. ‘That’s forty stades, lord. They won’t make it before darkness falls.’

Alexander bobbed his head. He was up on Bucephalus, and his cheeks were bright crimson with anticipation, and Hephaestion was holding out his magnificent golden helmet.

‘If this works, they won’t be necessary, and if this doesn’t work, we fight tomorrow,’ he said. His eyes were fixed on the ford, now just three stades away.

The second and third squadrons of the Hetaeroi were coming up. Nearchus saluted. ‘Philotas is ten minutes behind me, lord,’ he said to Alexander. ‘He’s pushing the rest of the Hetaeroi up the column.’

Alexander nodded. ‘I won’t wait. Wedge!’

We formed behind the king – he insisted on being at the point of the wedge – and after all, he was King of Macedon. I fell into place behind him – with Black Cleitus on his right rear and me on his left rear.

And then we trotted for the ford.

The Persians saw us, but they took for ever to react. I’m going to guess that they didn’t expect us to cross. And they weren’t formed in a body, but a few hundred Persian nobles spread out across a stade of ground – some were even watering their horses.

We went from a trot to a canter, and our wedge began to spread out. The king was making no concessions to differences in horse flesh. He was watching something – I could see from the tension in his neck under the base of his helmet.

All the Persians began to point. The king was hard to miss. His green-bronze armour and his superb helmet shouted his presence. A messenger dashed back from the forward Persian troops, and they began to form.

We hit the ford. Our horses raised a curtain of spray and Alexander wasn’t slowing, so I dug my heels into Poseidon and hung on. Poseidon doesn’t love water.

A Persian – a noble in a bronze peaked helmet and a magnificent scarlet saddle – hurtled across our front on a big Nisean horse, moving like a grey streak, and he threw his javelin at the king, and Alexander caught it in the air with his own spear and parried it – a fine feat. Men cheered all along the faces of the wedge.

We started up the far bank. There were fifty Persians there, all throwing their spears, but none of them abided our onset, and they broke before us, and we were across.

Yet as soon as we were up the far bank, I could see that we’d charged into a nest of angry bees. Cavalrymen were coming up from the south and the east – even from the north – as far as the eye could see.

Alexander laughed. It was a mad laugh. He turned and his eyes glittered and his face was white, his cheeks and lips red as blood, and he looked like a dramatic mask – or like a god.

‘I think we have their attention!’ he shouted, and pointed the tip of the wedge at the nearest formed enemy body, two hundred Phrygian horse preparing to charge us. He raised his spear. ‘Ready, Hetaeroi? Charge!’ he roared, and my trumpeter picked up his command and sang it out.

The head of the wedge turned less than an eighth part of a circle, and then we were pounding forward up a slight incline, and the Phrygians came down at us with their longer spears. Their files spread as they charged, so that just before impact you could see the sunset between their men.

Alexander did his job as ‘wedge leader’ perfectly, taking the point of the wedge into the widest gap between enemy files – and he ducked the first enemy lance, a beautiful piece of horsemanship, perfectly judged, so that the lance-point passed a hand’s breadth over his back, and then he rose and his spear took the Phrygian on his right just below the throat – killing him and ripping him from his horse in one movement. The king’s spear snapped from the impact, and Alexander swung the butt of the spear into the next lance, parrying it off to his left across his horse’s head and then cutting back with his whole weight behind the staff – thunk, into the head of the second man on the left, and the man collapsed from the saddle – the king dropped his spear haft and unsheathed his sword, his body flat along the neck of his horse to evade the third lance . . .

It was beautiful. It made my heart ache to watch him.

And then I was fighting.

I was on the left, and the king had left the front-left man for me – I parried his spear with mine and ran my spearhead along his shaft, so that it slammed into his thorax and he was gone. I kept the spear, turned it and caught the next man with the butt close in – a clumsier blow than the king’s, but my man fell too. My horse’s haunches bunched and expanded and I was into my third man – Poseidon hit his horse, breast to breast, and knocked it to the ground, and Amyntas son of Amyntas struck me from behind – these things happen in a melee – and we got tangled, and the wedge was slowing – but the king was still pushing ahead, and I put my heels into Poseidon despite the ringing in my ears. I pushed forward into the press – the Phrygians were thickening like lentil soup in the pot, because another squadron had thrown themselves into the fight.

The king had three of them around him. In the glance I got, I saw him thrust his sword into one exposed side, and then, quick as a cat, draw back and flick a cut at the second and carry it around to the third.

He was like a god.

But he needed help.

Poseidon did his bit, pushing forward with heavy, massive, powerful surges from his hindquarters, so that I seemed to be rowing forward.

We were suddenly so close to the Phrygians that we were no longer threading between their files – now we were pushing in close, knee to knee, face to face, horse against horse, and now the horses began to fight each other, and I had to keep my knees all but locked and hang on with my arms to stay with my mount, because he was kicking, biting and pushing.

Hipposthismos, I remember thinking, in that way that your brain wanders off in moments of critical danger. Blows hit me – Persian spears – I got a slash across the top of my thigh, below the line of my tassets, and my bridle hand took its usual abuse – that’s why it looks the way it does, eh?

Othismos is the pushing and shoving and vicious infighting of the closest-packed melee. So you can guess— hipposthismos is the mounted version.

I came up against an officer – a high officer, with superb embroidery on his cloak and a sword with a hilt of gold – a sword I got to know very well, because he cut at my head, and I parried – sword to sword. Our blades cut into each other – that’s why you don’t use a sword to parry, lad! – and we bound up, and our horses pressed in, and