An empty throne, p.5
An Empty Throne, page 5
‘But then I have to face him alone.’ And have to make tactical decisions.
Olympias turned to Aristonous. ‘He’s right; it should be you who leads the main army and Polyperchon should command the smaller force.’
Aristonous shook his head. ‘With the main army it is just a question of going south and finding good ground to fight a pitched battle against Kassandros; but whoever commands the smaller force has to be able to make quick and bold decisions that our survival may well depend on.’
‘Meaning he can’t.’
Aristonous did not reply but, rather, shrugged.
I’ve never claimed to be a leader.
Olympias studied Polyperchon for a few moments, as if she were examining an unpleasant-smelling creature of unsightly aspect. ‘Very well, Aristonous, I agree to your plan; you command the smaller force. I myself will come with you as far as Pydna and take command of whatever ships we have there; they may not be enough to turn back Kassandros’ fleet but they’ll be sufficient to prevent him from taking the harbour if he tries a landing there. I’ll bring the king with me; maybe the presence of Alexander’s son and heir will cause Kassandros’ men to have a change of heart.’
Polyperchon felt the weight of responsibility begin to press down upon his shoulders and panic to rise within. ‘But surely dividing the army is a basic tactical error. Antipatros and Krateros did it and it resulted in Krateros’ death.’
‘And that’s what Kassandros will think,’ Aristonous countered, his voice overtly patient, ‘which will make it even more likely he’ll attempt to land behind you, and then we’ll be ready for him.’
‘And what if he decides to completely surprise us and not take the road or the sea route but strike inland and come to Pella from the west?’ Thessalonike asked.
Polyperchon rubbed his bald pate. All these questions; just tell me what to do and I’ll do it but don’t leave me in command of an army, not after Megalopolis.
‘Then we’ll need to act fast in coordination with Aeacides and his Eperiot army whom we’ll leave in the west to counter that very move,’ Aristonous replied. ‘But first we need to find out what Kassandros is doing and we won’t be able to do that until the armies are close enough for our spies to make contact.’
Olympias rose from the throne. ‘Then we must hurry; sitting here and talking about what may or may not happen won’t get the job done. I want Kassandros, and his two surviving brothers, dead by the full moon.’
Polyperchon felt sick; there was nothing he could do but go along with the plan, for to run away and seek shelter with his son in the south would bring shame upon him, and the eternal enmity of Olympias.
And so it was with a sense of relief, two days after leaving Pella with a force of twelve thousand men, that he reviewed the muster at Pydna, as it gave him an opportunity to once again indulge in what he excelled in: pedantry. By the time the combined force of over twenty thousand men were back on the march south there were very few who had not witnessed at firsthand what a martinet their new commander was, and grumbled about it whilst they were forced to do extra fatigues at the end of the day’s march for some minor infringement involving a sandal strap or a peeling shield rim.
‘The men are very disgruntled, sir,’ Annias, who had been selected by Aristonous to be Polyperchon’s second-in-command, informed him on the evening of the third day out from Pydna. ‘There’s too much attention to the detail of their appearances for their liking; they’re not used to it.’
‘I’m not asking them to like it; they must submit to it.’
In his late forties, Annias had worked his way up from the ranks, and was well aware of the thoughts and grievances of the common soldier. ‘They understand there has to be a degree of inspection but it is very difficult to keep kit immaculate as if it’s just been issued. The old sweats are complaining they’ve never seen it so strict, and my officers are telling me they don’t like it one bit as the lads are blaming them for their misery as much as you.’
‘Annias, I will have my men smartly turned out. If they kept their equipment clean and in good repair they would have nothing to gripe about.’
‘There must be some leniency.’
Polyperchon drew himself up. ‘I will not allow standards to slip in my army, Annias. Other generals may be lax in their approach to turnout, I know, I’ve served under them, but I won’t allow a similar lackadaisical attitude; a smart army is an efficient army and let that be an end to it.’
And so it was by the time Polyperchon had left Olympias with her small navy in Pydna and had led his men south to the border with Thessaly, in the shadow of Mount Olympus, more of his men were on fatigues than not.
‘He’s bypassed Thermopylae as we expected,’ Polyperchon said to Annias after they had debriefed the four scouts who had come in overnight. ‘He’s landed his entire army on the coast by Lamia and is marching north with the fleet keeping pace with him.’ Polyperchon slammed his palms down on the desk. ‘You see, Annias; I told Aristonous that Kassandros would never risk travelling the whole way by sea. He’s going to arrive here in a couple of days with twenty thousand men and I’ll have to face him alone unless I can persuade Aristonous to come south. We’ve split our forces unnecessarily.’
Annias shrugged. ‘Can you be sure Kassandros won’t suddenly re-embark his army to bypass us? Perhaps that’s why he’s keeping his fleet alongside him?’
Polyperchon dismissed the notion with a petulant wave. ‘Why would he do that having just disembarked them? No, he’s marching north along the road through Thessaly and we’ll meet him here with five thousand fewer men than we could have. I’ll write to Aristonous immediately and stress the urgency of him bringing his men south.’
‘I doubt whether he’ll come,’ Annias said, pulling a couple of scrolls from a satchel.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘He considers you’ve got adequate numbers to deal with Kassandros; or, at least, should have, had there not been so many desertions in the last few days.’
‘Desertions?’
‘Yes, desertions; running away, either home or to join the enemy.’
‘I know what desertion means.’ Do they all think I’m an idiot? ‘How many have we lost?’
‘Nearly a thousand in the march south.’
‘A thousand! Why wasn’t I told?’
‘I’m telling you now, sir.’
‘Why so late?’
‘Because, sir, there was only a trickle at first.’ Annias consulted one of his scrolls. ‘Twenty or thirty a night; but three nights ago we lost almost a hundred and then the following night another hundred, but then, last night it was over five hundred including an entire ile of Companion Cavalry, all two hundred of them, and a syntagma of two hundred and fifty-six phalangites, both units with all their officers.’ He handed the scroll to Polyperchon.
‘Five hundred? That’s impossible!’
‘Is it?’
‘Why are they doing this? Where’s their loyalty to Macedon? We’re meant to be saving her from invasion.’
‘Are we? Or are we just trying to keep a ruthless, power-crazed woman ruling over the country with an army that has more men on a charge than not, because of the unreasonable standard of turnout expected by its general?’
Polyperchon rose from his seat, indignant. ‘A smart army is an efficient army, Annias.’
‘As you keep on repeating, but no, sir, it’s not. An efficient army is one where every man feels valued for his fighting ability and not the condition of his sandal straps. A smart army is only of interest to the finicky.’
‘Are you saying my insistence on a smart turnout is contributing to the desertions?’
‘Yes; the lads are being pushed too far for a cause most of them don’t support and, what’s more, this was found.’ Annias handed Polyperchon the second scroll. ‘And where there’s one there are bound to be more all over the camp.’
Polyperchon opened it and read its contents, his eyes widening with each word. ‘The bastard! He can’t do this.’
‘Why not? Offering money to the enemy to desert is common practice.’
‘Yes, but this amount per man is outrageous. How can he afford it?’
‘Does it matter if he can or can’t? The fact is he’s making the offer and to a lot of the lads it sounds much better than fighting in an army rigid with discipline for a woman who has just murdered a king and five hundred prisoners including Kassandros’ brother, not to mention the desecration of Antipatros’ family graves and the murders of his wife and their two youngest sons. What were their ages again? Two and four, wasn’t it? When you look at it from the lads’ point of view, Kassandros seems like the sensible choice.’
Polyperchon stared at his second-in-command, aghast. ‘Unless we do something, the whole army will be deserting to him.’
KASSANDROS.
THE JEALOUS.
‘IF OLYMPIAS IS in Pydna with a dozen ships and a small garrison, where’s Aristonous and his subsidiary force?’ Kassandros asked.
The chiliarch of the syntagma of Companion Cavalry, who had deserted Polyperchon two nights previously, took a couple of sips of wine, looking in turn at each of his five interrogators sitting around the table in Kassandros’ tent. He contemplated the question. ‘It took us all yesterday and most of today to reach you from Polyperchon’s camp to the south of Heracleum on the Thessalian border, that’s about twenty leagues. Messengers who travel between Polyperchon and Aristonous usually take three days to complete the round trip; however, they’re very tight-lipped about where exactly they’ve been. But I do know they have to pass through Pydna, which is just over a day to the north of Heracleum if you’re using the messenger relay.’
‘How do you know they pass through Pydna, Menelaos?’ Pleistarchos asked, reaching over and refilling the officer’s cup.
‘Ah, well. That’s because they never use messengers who come from around Pydna; it’s always lads from Pella or other parts of the country who get the job. They aren’t tempted to take a few hours out to go and see their families or sweethearts and then claim the horse went lame and they had to walk it to the next station, if you know what I mean.’
Kassandros nodded and rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, I see; that’s an interesting point.’ I’ll make a mental note of that; you can’t trust anyone.
‘So Aristonous is somewhere beyond Pydna,’ Philip said.
Menelaos inclined his head. ‘I would say he’s to the north of Methone, which is about a three-hour ride north of Pydna, and my guess is that he’s inland.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Atarrhias asked. Of an age with Kassandros, he was everything that his commander was not: broad, dark and rugged; a life-long natural soldier.
‘Because they would be using ships to communicate, not mounted messengers,’ Crateuas answered before Menelaos could reply; he looked at the cavalry officer with respect. Older and more grizzled than his colleague, Crateuas had served with Antigonos throughout his tenure as satrap of Phrygia, thus had not been a part of Alexander’s great adventure, unlike Atarrhias – or, indeed his, Crateuas’, son, Alexander’s former bodyguard Peithon, now the satrap of Media, who shared his father’s physical prowess if not his intellect. Crateuas looked at the rudimentary map spread out on the table and pointed to Methone and then to a crudely drawn depiction of a mountain. ‘That’s Mount Olympus; north of it is Mount Pierus, part of the Cambunian Range that heads west all the way to Epirus.’ He then traced his finger north along the coast until it came to a river. ‘That’s the River Haliacmon skirting to the north of Mount Pierus, and then following the course of the Cambunian Range through the region of Eordaea. If Aristonous is inland, he will need a good water supply and this would be it. Now, I come from Eordaea and if I remember correctly from my youth there’s a small town about two leagues from the coast called Alorus; I would wager he’s camped there. It’s perfect for taking us in the rear should we try to land a force behind Polyperchon. It’s also well placed to relieve Pella or Pydna if we were to make a landing at either. What’s more, it has reasonable connections with the west of Macedon where Aeacides is lurking with his Eperiot army. Here Aristonous, who, let’s face it, is in overall command of the enemy, can keep in contact with his two sub-generals. He’s the one we need to get. After that everything will fall into place.’
‘And how do you recommend we do that?’ Kassandros asked, agreeing with his general’s assessment.
Crateuas looked at the map and rubbed the back of his neck, musing upon the issue, and then indicated to Menelaos to leave them. ‘We’re here at Larissa on the Peneus River,’ he said, pointing to the main town in Thessaly. ‘Aristonous is expecting us to do what every army travelling either to or from Macedon always does: keep to the road that heads north-east back to the sea. Once it passes to the north of Mount Ossa, at the head of the inaccessible coastline of Magnesia, it brings us to Heracleum, where Polyperchon awaits us in an excellent position with the sea on his left flank and the foothills of Mount Olympus to his right. When we’re back at the coast Aristonous expects us to use the fleet, embarking a force at the mouth of the Peneus to get around Polyperchon in order to attack his rear; to counter that he remains inland to the north.’
Crateuas glanced around his audience to check they were all following his reasoning; satisfied, he continued: ‘So we make Aristonous think he’s anticipated our moves correctly and then do something completely different. We divide our force into three.’
Kassandros was astounded. ‘Three? I thought it was the height of folly to split an army.’ Is he trying to sabotage me?
‘Normally I would agree with you, sir; but consider this: we’ve already had nearly a thousand deserters from Polyperchon joining us, and the money you’ve offered will bring many more. He may have twenty thousand or so men but those numbers will reduce daily. It’s in our interest to delay facing him. So what I suggest is we send seven thousand men, slowly, towards him, have them rendezvous with the fleet and go through the motions of embarking as if we are going to do exactly what’s expected of us. Meanwhile, we head north, as fast as we can, to this river.’ He pointed to the Europus River, a tributary of the Peneus. ‘We follow that to its source in a pass in the Cambunian Range. At this time of year the pass should still be negotiable; it’ll bring us down past the town of Phylacae to the River Haliacmon to the west of Aristonous, cutting him off from his Eperiot allies. We leave Atarrhias with a holding force of three or four thousand men to prevent Aeacides coming to Aristonous’ aid, and then take him in the rear with eight thousand men to his five. Even if Polyperchon still has an army by then – which I doubt – the news of Aristonous’ defeat will bring most of the rest over to us and Macedon will be yours.’
He makes it sound so simple. ‘How long will it take us to get to the Haliacmon?’
Crateuas pursed his lips. ‘If we move fast we could be there in three days and then be at Alorus in another three, before Aristonous realises the fleet is a feint.’
‘Issue the men with six days’ rations.’
And it was with a heart beating swift with nervous excitement that, six days later, Kassandros peered over the crest of a rock-strewn hill and looked down onto the town of Alorus bathed in soft dimming sunlight; there, outside its long-shadowed walls, stood Aristonous’ camp exactly where Crateuas had predicted it would be. ‘They still have no idea we’re here. We should take them in their camp and not chance a set-piece action.’
Crateuas scrutinised the position for a few moments. ‘I agree, sir.’
Kassandros smiled to himself: achieving his goal was that much closer; in fact, it was tantalisingly within sight. Leaving Philip and Pleistarchos, under the watchful eye of their kinsman Callas, to command the feint to the coast, he had led his army north as Crateuas had suggested. He had driven the men at a blistering pace and they had complied willingly, for they trusted their two generals, Crateuas and Atarrhias. Having reached the Haliacmon, Atarrhias was left with three thousand men to intercept any aid or messengers coming from Aeacides in the west on the Epiriot border. Kassandros and Crateuas had crossed the river on rafts with the horses swimming alongside, and moved east at speed with mounted patrols screening the advance and killing or capturing any rider found upon the road. Total secrecy had been kept; their attack would be a surprise.
‘We must move fast,’ Crateuas said in a hushed tone, crawling back down the hill. ‘The longer we leave it the more chance we have of being spotted by a foraging party.’
‘We go in at dawn,’ Kassandros said to his assembled officers gathered around him; no tents had been pitched nor fires lit in the makeshift camp, two leagues from Alorus. ‘Crateuas will take in the infantry, the heavies in dispersed order, just swords and shields, to surround the camp as the light troops and peltasts sweep through it. I’ll stand back with the cavalry ready to contain any attempt to break out.’ He searched a few eyes to see if anyone registered surprise at him taking the lesser – and safer – role. Good, they don’t know my weakness; I’ll endeavour to keep it that way. ‘Now remember, the objective is to kill as many of them as possible so as to scare the rest of the army of Macedon into submission.’
‘These are our fellow countrymen, sir,’ Menelaos objected. ‘Many of our lads will have kinsmen in that camp, especially those recently come over to you.’
‘And I want them dead.’ Kassandros held the man’s stare but he did not back down.
‘If you kill more than necessary,’ Crateuas whispered in his ear, ‘you’ll be setting yourself up for many blood-feuds and your life will be in constant danger long after this is over.’
Maybe he has a point. But how can I back down now without losing face?
‘May I make a suggestion, sir?’ Crateuas asked out loud.
Kassandros gave a curt nod.
‘Just kill those who show any resistance; remember, Olympias murdered your kinsman Nicanor and his men in cold blood; we need to appear better than her.’
