Killer of Men - Christian Cameron [49]
Myron was no fool – by settling the borders and not making high demands, he ensured that the treaty would last, and he ensured that he would be elected archon. And by enlisting the arbitration of Corinth, he won us another ally.
As I said, we stripped their dead. Our boys and slaves brought the camp up, and we loaded carts with Theban camp furniture and Theban armour. Pater got quite a bit – he was strategos.
A tribunal met and discussed Simon. He was not the only man to miss the fight, but he was no man’s friend and his cowardice was a public disgrace. Even other men who had missed the fight – too tired to keep up, they claimed – complained about him.
Simon spoke well enough in his own defence. And he knew, as we all knew, that we still had to fight the Euboeans. So he asked that he be allowed to fight in the front rank.
The phylarchs discussed it and refused, but they put him in the second rank, behind Bion. Two men in front of me. To earn back the respect of other men.
After the tribunal, Pater told me that he’d asked that I have that spot. And so the gods speak to us, thugater. If I had stood there – well, I would be a bronze-smith in Boeotia and you would never have been born.
I was tired after the fight and I slept before the light failed, but the next day I was full of energy. That’s how it is for the young, honey. You recover fast. Pater and Epictetus and Myron took much longer.
We sent the spoils home over Cithaeron and marched east, into the rising sun, to fight the Euboeans. It was insane – three battles, in a week. Ah, you brighten – you’ve heard of the ‘Week of Three Battles’, eh?
I was there, honey. And after the first two, the Plataeans thought that they were gods. And the Athenians the same. I said that every army has a heart, a soul, eyes and ears. After the Thebans, that army was as one. We were still Atticans and Boeotians, Athenians and Plataeans, but we shared water and wine and jokes.
Not one of us doubted that we would rout the Euboeans.
They were soft. Their days of greatness were in the past and they had hoped to ride on a chariot of war driven by Thebes and Sparta. Now their mighty allies were gone, and their army marched back out of Boeotia, over the bridge at Chalcis, and stood waiting for us.
It was just seven days since the Spartans had sent their herald to Pater when we marched over the bridge around midday. We did it well – we’d been together for two weeks and by Greek standards we’d become veterans. I was in my second fight as a hoplite and my shin still hurt from the rock a week before. And I could see Simon, two places in front of me, as we closed our files to the right.
The Euboeans formed very close and stood with their shields overlapping, awaiting our charge. They didn’t come forward, and to me, at thirteen, they didn’t look soft at all.
We marched in easy, open order until we were a stone’s throw away. If they had any psiloi, they didn’t come out. Neither did ours.
Then we closed. We closed by doubling our files from the rear, so that seventh-rank men became front-rank men – the ‘half-file’ leaders. This was the closest order. I remained in the fourth rank, and Zotikos was now in the front. He swore and complained and grumbled as we closed, and Bion told him to keep it clean for the gods, and Zotikos said something under his breath and older men laughed.
Now we were a spear’s throw from them. We were locked up in the same close order. We were on the left, and again we were facing the cream of their warriors – the men with the best armour, the right of their line.
Pater stood clear of our line. It was the only time I ever heard him speak before a fight, at least