The Sacred War Read online

  As Iphitos had anticipated, Sostratos and Chloe became lovers and the resentful youth watched jealously as they seemed to grow closer and closer. Then, much to his surprise, the couple announced that were to marry. If this did nothing to ease the itch in his groin and the ache in his heart, at least it made it easier for the boy to accept them as a couple.

  Sostratos bought a house for the two of them in Pella, near to that of Parmenion’s wife, Kharis and her friend, Myrrine , but neither he nor Parmenion had much time to enjoy being with their wives before they left again. It was time to deal with the growing problem of Illyria.

  Chapter Three – The Conquest of the Taulantii

  Autumn 356 BC

  Parmenion stood on the makeshift rostrum and glanced over the sea of faces in front of him. Every one of his officers was present, from the most junior phylearch to his two taxiarchs .

  ‘You will, I’m sure, have heard that we are outnumbered by nearly two to one. From somewhere Grabus has managed to muster some seventeen thousand men of various types.’

  At this, a mutter ran around the three hundred officers gathered in front of him. There had been losses at Potidaea and, as yet, the replacements were still under training. Parmenion had three under-strength chiliarchia of hoplites, an epihipparchia of cavalry, four hundred peltasts and the same number of light infantry.

  ‘However, they are ill-armed and ill-disciplined tribesmen and no match for the most professional soldiers in the Hellenistic world. Our task is not to defeat them, that’s easy for men like you. No, we need to utterly destroy them and kill Grabus so that the Taulantii never pose a threat to Macedon again.’

  He paused and his gaze swept over the crowd, looking as many men as he could directly in the eye.

  ‘The enemy are advancing towards us and walking into a trap. There is a steep sided valley in the mountains thirty miles north of here which runs for six miles. We’ll wait until they’re in the gorge then we’ll block it with the hoplites at one end and the cavalry at the other. The peltasts, protected by the light infantry, will hold the sides of the valley and pour death and destruction down on the Taulantii .’

  The officers, so despondent a few minutes ago, now cheered until they were nearly hoarse.

  As Parmenion had said, the valley was steep sided but it was quite broad; varying from a hundred to three hundred metres wide. He drew his three chiliarchia up across the narrowest part of the valley with the lightly armed spearmen above them on the hillside to protect the two flanks. The peltasts lined the hillsides above the infantry blockade.

  The Taulantii and their allies flowed into the valley like a tsunami, running, leaping in the air, and yelling as they advanced on the Macedonians. There was no organisation or discipline as they charged the hoplites. They filled the valley and stretched back for a third of a mile or more. Their king, Grabus , brought up the rear with his chieftains, all mounted. There was a small escort of horsemen around him but the Taulantii were an impoverished people and few could afford a horse. Thus, nearly all the seventeen thousand were on foot.

  Those in the front of the wave of yelling tribesmen suddenly realised the danger that the long sarissas posed. They started to slow down, unwilling to be speared on the wicked points, but those behind them forced them on. Over five hundred died on the sarissas in a few seconds. There was no chance of pulling the sarissas out before the next wave hit the ranks of hoplites so the first four ranks withdrew, leaving behind their sarissas embedded in the dead, and the next four in each file took their place just in time to impale some seven hundred of the frenzied Taulantii .

  By the time that the next four men in each file had moved to the rear, the first ranks had collected spare sarissas from the waggons and had taken their place at the back of each file. And so it continued. Meanwhile the peltasts on the slopes rained arrows, javelins and stones down on the masses below. Many fell but not enough to make much of an impact on the attacking tribesmen.

  Slowly the mass hysteria which had caused the Taulantii to rush to their deaths on the sarissas faded away and the tribesmen retreated to yell insults and threats at the Macedonians from a safe distance. Grabus was about to ride forward to instruct his men to attack uphill against the peltasts and the light infantry so that they could then take the hoplites in the rear when he became conscious of the pounding of thousands of hooves coming up the valley from behind him.

  Sostratos and his cavalry had hidden in a side valley until the bulk of the Taulantii had passed. Then, as the unguarded baggage train had lumbered into view he had attacked the hundreds of carts, killed the oxen and the drivers, and then turned to pursue the enemy army, confident that the baggage train would stay where it was until the battle was over. Then the Macedonians could plunder it at their leisure. There was no doubt in their minds who the victors would be.

  The cavalry appeared behind the tribesmen just as Grabus was starting to harangue his men. The chieftains and the hundred or so mounted Taulantii panicked when they saw the mass of horsemen charging towards them, but there was nowhere to go.

  Sostratos thrust his spear at a giant of a man sitting on one of the small horses bred in that part of Illyria. The man tried to ward off the blow with his sword but all he did was deflect the point down so that it entered the rump of his horse. The beast tried to rear up in its agony, but the man was too heavy and it collapsed, rolling over and trapping its rider. Sostratos was past the fallen giant by then, drawing his sword as he went, but the man behind him stuck his spear into the giant’s neck and pulled it out again ready to impale another enemy.

  Sostratos wasn’t to know but the giant he had unhorsed was Grabus . Word of his death spread amongst the Taulantii like wildfire and the heart went out of them. They would have fled if they could have done so but they were trapped in the valley. Sostratos withdrew his men and then sent them in against the demoralised rear of the enemy army one hipparchia at a time. Five hundred men would charge in and kill those at the front and then withdraw as the second hipparchia charged in.

  As they had found bundles of spare spears in the carts, they could afford the luxury of throwing their spears then withdrawing, thus avoiding the dangers of close combat. This continued until the men’s throwing arms became too weak to continue. By this time there was a wall of enemy dead at the rear of their army.

  Thousands of the enemy tries to scale the sides of the valley. Many were brought down by the peltasts but there weren’t enough of them to engage all those swarming up the lower slopes. As the routed tribesmen got higher, so the hillside got steeper and the fleeing men slowed down before coming to halt below cliffs that only a skilled climber could hope to scale.

  They turned and raced downhill instead. The peltasts realised that they were in danger of being overrun and killed so they hastily retreated to the area behind the hoplites on the valley floor. The turma of light infantry on each side of the valley moved up to confront the charging Taulantii . The tribesmen were a disorganised mass of men, many of whom had thrown away their weapons as they had fled and the first ranks died on the spears of the Macedonians. Then the peltasts moved forward again and launched javelins and arrows into the mass of the enemy, firing at high trajectory over their compatriots’ heads.

  Gradually the tribesmen started to surrender. Parmenion had won a stunning victory despite the fact that he had been outnumbered by more than three to one. A few hundred of the Taulantii had escaped, but over nine thousand had died or been badly wounded and seven thousand had been captured. Those too badly wounded to recover had been killed and the captives were herded into a stockade hastily erected for the purpose a mile away from the battlefield.

  Iphitos had killed four of the enemy during the battle and had felt elated as a result. The fact that he had been born an Illyrian didn’t bother him. There was nothing and no-one left for him in his former home – his elder brother hadn’t wanted him back and they had always hated each other. Besides, these were Taulantii – the traditional enemies of his trib
e, the Dardanians.

  However, when he looked over the battlefield the next morning and saw the thousands of dead being picked at by a swarm of carrion birds, melancholia overcame him and he wept. The Macedonians were combing the battlefield for weapons and looting the dead of any coins or other valuables. In one or two places a fight broke out over a valuable until an officer rode up and put a stop to it.

  As the sun rose higher in the sky and the wind picked up, the stench of death stung his nostrils. It was a mixture of the coppery tang of dried blood, the stench of voided bowels and the sweet smell of corruption as the corpses started to rot in the heat.

  Eventually he turned away to go and find Sostratos to see if he needed him for anything. As he left he passed a detail digging a mass grave for the two hundred or so Macedonians who’d been killed. The dead tribesmen would be left to rot until all that marked the battlefield would be their bleached bones.

  -o0o-

  Iphitos rode into Damastion , the former capital of Illyria when Bardylis had ruled the whole kingdom, but now just the capital of Dardania . He grinned at Kleandros, Parmenion’s aide, by whose side he rode, and the other boy grinned back. Both them had regarded this place as their capital city at one time, though Kleandros had never been there before.

  Dardania was unlike Pella, or even the now demolished Potidaea. The houses were made of timber and the roofs of thatch. Most Greek and Macedonian houses were made of large sun dried clay bricks or even stone if the owner was wealthy enough. The poor used a wooden framework filled with fibrous material such as straw, or seaweed on the coast, covered with clay or plaster. The roofs were invariable tiled. The one thing houses in Damastion had in common with Greek houses was the foundation of stone on which they were built, which protected the walls from rising damp in winter. Here only the king’s palace and the temples on the acropolis were built of stone and, whereas this would have been dressed stone elsewhere, the stone used here was roughhewn.

  In contrast to the wide paved thoroughfares of Pella and other Macedonian cities, the streets were just beaten earth and quite narrow, allowing few spectators to watch the procession at ground level. Most watched from the windows and roofs of the houses. Although Macedon had long been an enemy of Dardania , Parmenion’s defeat of the Taulantii had been popular and so the Macedonians were fairly well received with even some muted cheering from the crowds.

  Eventually the procession reached what had been Bardylis’ palace, which now served as the residence of the Hegemon of Illyria, a pro-Macedon Dardanian called Faenos . He had been elected by the council of the Dardanian tribes from a list approved by Philip after the defeat and death of Bardylis. Although officially the governor of all of Illyria, his writ had never run to the Ardiaei and their allies or the Taulantii and theirs. The Ardiaei lived in the coastal region to the south west of Dardania and had always remained aloof from the plotting against Macedon, so Philip had been content to leave them alone.

  Once the official welcome was out of the way Parmenion, Sostratos and Emyntor met Faenos in private. Iphitos and Kleandros were there as the aides of the Macedonian leaders, as was Emyntor’s aide.

  ‘I hear that the Taulantii have already elected a new king – Pleuratus , a nephew of the dead Grabus . Not that it matters overmuch as their army is destroyed and it will be a generation before they can field another one.’ Parmenion began.

  He paused whilst Faenos ’ servants poured them a goblet of wine each and placed platters of figs, olives, bread and tzatziki on the table around which they sat. When the others had helped themselves, Parmenion continued.

  ‘However, I want to make sure that they aren’t tempted to invade again at some stage in the future. That means protecting the routes into Dardania . These are along the valleys of the Rivers Lim and Ibar . There are other routes over the hills but these are goat tracks and impractical for a large army. Grabus was making for the Ibar Valley when we met him.’

  ‘So how do you propose to block these two routes, Parmenion?’ Faenos asked.

  ‘By building fortified encampments, one on either side of each river at the narrowest point. They will need to be manned by peltasts and light infantry in the main with an ilium of cavalry for patrols. Five thousand men in total should suffice. They are only meant to deter and delay, not hold out indefinitely. They will give you advance warning of an attack.’

  ‘I see; and who will man these forts?’

  ‘Why, Dardanians, of course. It is you who they will be protecting.’

  ‘Only on their way to attack you.’

  ‘As I say, they won’t be in a position to do that for quite some years, by which time the Athenians will have forgotten all about bribing them to attack us. They may well have already done that, of course, given their present preoccupation with the sacred war against Phocis.’

  ‘Yes, I gather that’s not going too well.’

  ‘No, rather surprisingly Phocis seems to be holding its own against the might of Thebes and Athens. Of course, they are very largely dependent on mercenaries, bought with Athenian, Theban and Corinthian gold and silver. Rather ironic isn’t it?’

  Parmenion couldn’t help but smirk when he said that and the others laughed.

  ‘How will these four forts and the men to garrison them be paid for?’

  ‘In three ways. Initially from the sale of those we captured into slavery, from levying taxes on merchant caravans using these routes and finally by levying a fine on this so-called King Plautanus .’

  ‘Why should he pay?’

  ‘Because otherwise you’ll invade and devastate his lands. He doesn’t have any army to stop you and Macedon will lend you some men to bolster your numbers. We will also lend you some experienced officers to help train your garrisons in the forts.’

  And to ensure that we behave and don’t ally ourselves to the Taulantii , Faenos thought, but said nothing. He had little option but to agree and, despite the nasty taste left in his mouth by the necessity of using Dardanians to protect Macedon, he knew that his people were better off with the Macedonians as friends rather than as enemies.

  Chapter Four – The Elusive Thracian

  Autumn 356 – 355 BC

  Whilst Parmenion was busy defeating Grabus in Illyria, Philip and Attulus were having less success in Thrace.

  ‘It’s like Odysseus’ ridiculously long journey back from Troy to Ithica . Every time we think we’ve pinned Amadocus down so he’s got no option other than fight us, he manages to escape with his whole army. How does he do it? This is turning into an odyssey of our own.’ Philip complained as he paced his tent, enraged that the Thracian king had evaded him once again.

  ‘We’ve got to defeat him soon. The men are demoralised and many of them are landowners or farmers who keep pointing out that they have already had to rely on their labourers to harvest and thresh the crops but now it’s the season to pick the grapes for wine making and other fruit. It’s an important time for them and they want to be present for it. Furthermore, soon after that it’ll be time for ploughing and sowing,’ Attulus warned him.

  Philip was well aware that most of his army were militia and over half lived and worked in the countryside. Many of the hoplites were city dwellers, but the peltasts and the light infantry depended on the land for a living. Furthermore, the larger estates were owned by noble families who provided many of the horsemen.

  The king gave his strategos a dirty look and continued pacing. However, he knew that the strategos was right and began to work out how long it would be before Parmenion could join him with his full-time army.

  At the time Thrace was divided into three separate parts, ruled by three brothers. The Odrysian Kingdom in the mountainous interior was ruled by Berisades , the eastern coastal strip by Cersobleptes and Amadocus ’ kingdom ran along the western coastal plain from near Philippi, the easternmost Macedonian city named by Philip after himself, to Ainos . The ports of the coast were dependent on trade with Athens, and hence subject to their influence. Amado
cus had no objection to withdrawing in the mountains, nominally part of Berisades ’ territory, when Philip got too close. As Philip needed to keep the Odrysians neutral, he didn’t try to follow.

  However, he’d grown bored with Amadocus ’ games. At the start of the invasion his aim had been to convince the Thracian king to abandon any idea of a concerted attack on Macedon in conjunction with Grabus . As soon as the latter had been removed, so had the threat of a combined attack on Macedon. Now he just wanted revenge for being made to look a fool for the past three months, so he started systematically to attack the Thracian cities and towns along the coast of the Agean Sea. The fact that a few of these had Athenian residents as well as Thracian didn’t both him in the least.

  The first to fall was Abdera. The city lay ten miles from the mouth of Nestos River and it managed to hold out for two weeks before Philip’s lithoboloi battered down the gates and his men swept into pillage, rape and burn.

  He besieged Methone next. It wasn’t a difficult city to take but Philip made the mistake of inspecting the walls personally with his senior officers. As he rode around the city assessing its strong and weak points, an archer in one of the towers decided to test the range and the arrow flew true. It struck the brim of Philip’s helmet and was deflected downwards towards his right eye. The rise of Macedon as the pre-eminent power in Greece could have ended there and then but Philip was doubly lucky. The arrow had been fired at maximum range and so a lot of its force was spent. Furthermore it struck the bone above the eye before lodging in it. Otherwise it could have continued on into the brain.

  Philip didn’t feel anything for a moment, then an excruciating pain struck him, almost as if someone was pushing a red-hot poker into his eye socket. He bit his tongue in an effort not to scream in agony in front of his officers and then, mercifully, he lost consciousness and fell from his horse. His staff swiftly constructed a litter using two spears and a cloak so that the king could be carried to the surgeons by his anxious officers.