‘Pluton, lord of good fortune – husband of Persephone, who brings the spring in all its abundance, Demeter’s lovely daughter; brother of Zeus, all powerful under the earth, lend us your daughter Tyche and withhold your hand from us. And let the shades of our friends drink deep of these libations of wine and blood, and remember when they were men, and walked the earth beneath the kiss of the sun.’
The sun was just setting – a red fireball on the distant horizon of the ridges to the west.
Coenus was there. He was born of one of the oldest families in Greece, who claimed descent from Zeus, or so the poets told, and he was unmoved by Macedonian kings.
Seleucus extended his arm. Coenus had been an intimate of Ptolemy’s at Alexandria, and the two men knew each other well. They clasped hands, and Coenus embraced Diodorus, who had made his career with the King of Babylon.
‘If he raises the shades of all of our friends,’ Coenus said, and there were tears in his eyes.
Seleucus nodded. ‘All the men that Alexander took to Granicus, Issus, Arabela, the Jaxartes River and the Hydaspes, Persepolis, Babylon, India. There must be five armies there.’
Lysimachos habitually wore an air of irony, as if there was nothing he took seriously, neither life nor death, danger, scorn, even defeat. But as the sun sank below the horizon, he shook his head. ‘Why did the priest say that? Those shades – they would outnumber every man here, in both armies.’
Coenus nodded. ‘Perhaps the night before a battle is the time to remember the fallen – as we may well join them tomorrow. When you are cold and rotten in the ground, brothers, would you not want to think that other men will pour wine over your memory from time to time, and think of all your deeds, and praise you?’
They were a great circle of men and women around the altars, then – the sun was going down, and he cast a last blaze of bronze colour over everything.
Unbidden, a man – a Macedonian – spoke up. ‘I remember Granicus,’ he said. ‘I remember trying to climb the river bank, and Memnon and all his fucking hoplites at the top, killing us. My brother fell there.’
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of voices came out of the dark. ‘Aye!’ they shouted, and they said aloud the names of the men they’d known who fell there.
Diodorus held up his wine cup. ‘I remember Chaeronea, brothers. I stood with Athens against Macedon, and I saw my father’s corpse, and two of my boyhood friends died there.’
And again, the chorus – smaller, this time. Again the shouts of names.
Coenus took the cup. ‘I remember Issus. I was with the allied cavalry. Kleisthenes fell there, where we broke the Persian nobles.’
Now the chorus from the dark was louder, hundreds of voices raised, and the list of shouted names went on for as long as a man might drink a cup of wine, on an evening under the stars.
‘I remember Arabela,’ Seleucus said. ‘I was with the Companions, when we won Asia. So many of my friends fell there …’
And again, louder yet. Hundreds of voices, hundreds of names.
‘Ectabana!’ shouted one of the pikemen.
‘The fight in the passes by Persepolis!’ shouted another.
‘Hydaspes!’ shouted one of Seleucus’s staff officers. ‘The elephant fight!’ And the chorus had become a throaty shout.
The names of battles continued from the dark around the fire as the sun finally settled below the horizon – the siege of Tyre and the battles of the Lamian War, named in order by Stratokles, the first contests of the Diadochoi … skirmishes of which Satyrus had never heard.
His sister came and put a callused hand in his. The names came from the darkness – never strictly chronological, but as men drew the courage to shout a name – famous battles and skirmishes, an eternal litany of war and the victims of war. And sometimes the voices in the dark were women’s voices.
Eumenes of Olbia raised the cup. ‘The Ford of the River God,’ he said.
The Sakje roared their approval.
Lysimachos shook his head. ‘Zopyron died there, and four thousand Macedonians, farm boys and veterans, and Thracians – not the wisest choice to mention.’
‘Jaxartes River!’ Melitta called into the darkness, and again the Sakje roared, and all the Saka, and many of the Bactrians and Persians.
‘Kineas fell there, defeating Alexander!’ Melitta shouted again.
Lysimachos growled but Seleucus nodded as the Saka and Persians were emboldened to add their dead. But Herakles, Alexander’s son, looked at the fire. And Lucius put his arms around the boy and led him apart, lest he be recognised and acclaimed, or worse.
It was fully dark now, and the bonfires roared, full force, their fire an exchange for the sun.
And the veterans of a hundred battles continued to shout the names of their fights, and their absent friends – Raphia, Tanais River, Cyprus, Gaza, – land fights and sea fights, skirmishes and battles, and now the chorus was the roar of a thousand lions that filled the darkness.
The priest of Zeus came and bowed to Seleucus. ‘My lord … I had no idea … my apologies. I did not mean this to happen.’
Seleucus poured wine on the ground from the cup that Phoibos pressed into his hand. ‘I can feel them pressing in – and I am no superstitious man, priest.’
Apollodorus, emboldened by wine, shouted at the commanders, ‘You helped make the shades! Now endure them!’ and hundreds of voices roared approbation.
It might have led to a fight—the contest of victories and the bitterness of the lost friends. There stood Persians with the men who had killed their fathers, and there were Macedonians with the Saka who had fought them on every field.
But Phoibos kept the wine flowing, a legion of slaves carrying amphorae as far as the firelight carried, with wine bowls that were, by day, wooden campaign bowls, or mess pots, or simply fire-hardened clay that had a sticky feel and stained black with the wine – and the Sakje shared with the Persians, with the Macedonians and the Greeks, the Ionians and the Syrians – the wine passed, and with it, some of the fear.
And then Anaxagoras began to play.
He may, indeed, have been playing for an hour – the sound of a lyre is not loud enough to compete with the roars of five hundred men. But as silence fell, respectful and tired, his lyre song rose above the whispers in the dark.
And when he was sure that he had them, he played the paean of Apollo.
Of all the songs of the Hellenes, the paean of Apollo was one that the Sakje and the Bactrians knew as well. Lysimachos began to sing, and Prepalaus, and Diodorus and Antiochus and Seleucus, and Coenus and Apollodorus, Melitta and Scopasis and Charmides and Thyrsis and Draco and Phoibos – even the slaves sang, so that the song rose to the night with the wine and the blood.
A little away from the fires, Stratokles wept. Lucius put an arm around him. ‘At least this time, we’re on this side of the line,’ he said.
Stratokles laughed through his tears.
Four stades away, Demetrios stood looking at the glow coming from the south-east – the left end of his enemy’s camp. Roar after roar came from the glow, and now he could hear the unmistakable sound of the paean.
A man came out of the dark – an officer, short, stocky, with blond hair that shone in the firelight. ‘Lord,’ he asked, ‘what is the watchword for the night?’
Demetrios didn’t recognise the officer but he wasn’t worried about a night attack. ‘Zeus and Victory,’ he said.
The officer stopped, listening to the sound of the paean. ‘Ahh,’ he said. He seemed disappointed.
He turned and began to walk towards the distant fires, and Demetrios wondered who he was. But when he turned to call out after the man, there was no one there.
He shrugged and went into his father’s pavilion. Antigonus was subdued – he ate a good dinner, but he was neither ribald nor dismissive of their enemies – not his usual pre-battle performance at all, Demetrios thought.
‘I have had such dreams, the last few nights,’ Antigonus said.
‘Something you ate, I suspect,’ Demetrios said. He shook his head. ‘Pater, one more battle. We’ve got them where we want them – all of them, except Ptolemy.’
Antigonus raised his head, and his half smile and cunning eyes were those Demetrios had known all his life. ‘Aye, lad. We have all of them in a basket. But I begin to wonder: can a pack of hyenas make themselves into lions? Have you heard the sounds from their camp?’ He shook his head. ‘And where in the great girdle of Mother Earth has Seleucus found so many elephants?’
Demetrios had never been the one to reassure his father – it felt odd. ‘Pater, relax. Are you not the one who always tells me that elephants are a gimmick? That they have little effect on a battle?’
‘Two hundred elephants can have a mighty effect,’ Antigonus said. ‘I intend to put all of ours into the front line – spread at intervals to add weight to our skirmishers and overawe their elephants.’
Demetrios shrugged. ‘There you are, then. I’ll take the right flank cavalry—’
‘You’ll have most of the good cavalry. I have planned a little surprise for the morning.’ Antigonus drank some wine.
Demetrios nodded. ‘Which is?’ he asked.
‘What, afraid you’ll miss the sound of the trumpet, boy?’ Antigonus asked. ‘Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m past mark of mouth. You’ll get my orders with all the other officers – in the morning.’ He sipped his wine. They were singing again, four stades away. Antigonus shook his head.
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ he said.
Charmides sang the
Iliad
– almost the whole first book, the Rage of Achilles, like a reminder of how pride and anger could divide an army of allies. His voice was beautiful, his postures noble, and Anaxagoras’s notes fell from his lyre like flames of a fire, igniting the imaginations, soothing the fears, and Charmides sang the poet’s words until his voice was gone.
Satyrus sang a poem of Sappho, and when he sang, he sang to Miriam, a thousand stades away.
Melitta sang a bawdy song of Theogonus, about a man who loved boys too much – funnier than ever, from a woman – and the Greeks pounded their thighs and laughed, and then she sang a Sakje song about a maiden who avenges the death of her lover by killing his murderers, one by one, and the Saka howled their shrill war cries.
Sappho came to the fire, poured a libation, and stood still in the dark for a long time, and then came and stood with Diodorus, Crax, Antigonus and all of the ‘old men’ who had served with Kineas and Diodorus.
Satyrus found that he was weeping. He watched Sappho embrace Diodorus, and he watched Apollodorus sacrifice a lamb – chanting a prayer to Kineas, with half a hundred men.
‘Will we win tomorrow?’ Satyrus asked Coenus.
Coenus shrugged. ‘I am not a commander,’ he said. ‘But these men are in high heart.’
Stratokles, who had been talking to Antiochus – plotting, Satyrus suspected, and plotting without conscious thought – stopped talking. He came and offered his horn cup full of wine to Coenus. ‘I feel that we will win,’ he said.
Seleucus extricated himself from Prepalaus, who had drunk too much. ‘We will not lose,’ he said. ‘We have a good army and a safe retreat, and this evening has done much to bind our army together.’
Satyrus made a wry face. ‘I’m not satisfied to avoid defeat,’ he said. ‘Wine has made me over-bold, perhaps, but I am not in this war to avoid defeat. I’m in this war to see it over. I am twenty-eight—’
‘Not for nearly a month,’ said his twin.
‘I am nearly twenty-eight, and I have been at war since I was twelve. The men around these fires know no other life. They deserve an end.’ Satyrus crossed his arms, having said more than he intended.
Anaxagoras smiled. He took the cup and drank deeply. ‘Playing that long is like an athletic competition,’ he said. ‘Listen, Satyrus, I agree that this war should end. But consider, if you will – there are fifty
thousand
men around these fires, and the enemy has the same again. And the last thirty years – by the gods, Satyrus, the last
fifty
years – have given men the habit of war. Hellenes have lost the habit of peace. They settle everything by war. One battle will not fix that. The losers will creep away to rebuild, the winners will squabble among themselves.’
Stratokles nodded. ‘How will these men make their livings, Satyrus? War is an honourable profession – should they be bandits? The gentlemen – where will they go? Back to the cities that exiled them, back to ruined farms and dead families? The smaller men – to what shall they return? The cowards who stayed at home – the young men who stayed with the loom and the potter’s wheel and the blacksmith’s shop – they have all the jobs. They rise in the trades. What, exactly, is a man who has been the file leader of a file of hoplites for twenty years to do, back in Corinth? Go back to his dye vat? Serve as an apprentice under a man ten years younger?’
Satyrus took the wine cup – freshly filled by Phoibos himself – and drank. Pure water with a little vinegar; Phoibos was telling them all it was time for bed. He nodded.
Melitta agreed. ‘I wouldn’t be here at all but my brother insisted we tip the scales so that the allies could end this stupid dream of a universal empire and everyone can return to their own grass.’
Anaxagoras smiled at her, but he shook his head. ‘It has become fashionable to blame King Alexander for everything,’ he said. ‘But I am a student of history, and I say that Ashniburnipal and Darius and Xerxes – and Agamemnon and Priam – Sargon – the dream of universal conquest is everywhere. Alexander didn’t start it.’
Seleucus nodded. ‘I know those names from Babylon,’ he said. ‘Sargon – you are an educated man. But Alexander did more than any man before him.’
Anaxagoras nodded. ‘Perhaps. But smashing Antigonus will not smash the restless urge to conquer. Nor will you, Lord King, give up your spear-won lands – nor Ptolemy, nor Lysimachos, nor Cassander.’
Seleucus nodded. ‘It is true.’
‘War is the king and father of all,’ Anaxagoras said. He shrugged. ‘I do not know how to make men make peace. To be honest, I’m not even sure it would be a good idea.’
Satyrus handed the vinegar water on. ‘I’m sure that it is a good idea for me,’ he said.