The Ten Thousand (15 page)

BOOK FIVE

The victor's cause is pleasing to the gods,

But girls prefer the vanquished...

—UNKNOWN

THE PERSIAN SCOUT galloped furiously up to Cyrus on his frothing horse, his beard wiry and dusty from the sprint, a wild expression in his eyes. He shouted in Persian and in camp Greek, sometimes intermingling the two, his tongue tripping over itself in his hurry.

"The king... the king is marching toward us in battle array! Today is the day, Lord Cyrus! The hour of your glory is at hand!"

Word spread quickly down the line, raising panic among the camp followers and confusion among the men. Officers marching in the front, near Cyrus' party, immediately wheeled and began racing back to their units, colliding with the troops advancing behind. Concerned that we might be attacked at any moment, and on unfavorable ground, the prince dispatched officers the length of the army's march to begin making order out of the chaos and to provision the troops. Other riders he sent up into the surrounding hills to observe the king's forces, and to identify favorable terrain for a battle. Cyrus himself hastily donned corselet and greaves. Within a half hour the army had arranged itself into full battle formation along the crest of a low range of hills running perpendicular to the river. We were just outside the tiny hamlet of Cunaxa, six months and a thousand miles distant from Sardis, a mere three days' march from Babylon itself. The Spartans anchored the pivotal right line against the Euphrates, with Proxenus' division beside them, along with a thousand Paphlagonian horsemen from Cyrus' native troops, all of whom would be commanded by Clearchus. Menon held the left wing, adjacent to Ariaius, while the remainder of the native troops were positioned in the center. Behind the long ranks of soldiers the motley thousands of camp followers had gathered in shuffling order, bearing gap-toothed grins of anticipation and wielding makeshift weapons they had assembled from broken remnants of the drilling field. All carried sacks or baskets, for they did not intend to return empty-handed from their task. Behind them the quartermasters worked frantically, arranging the supply wagons into a compact, organized array, leading the vast herds of beasts into temporary enclosures, and setting up field hospitals and officers' quarters. The five hundred Lydian guards Cyrus had posted over the camp arrangements, in continued punishment for their sorry performance before Queen Epyaxa, stalked impatiently among the chaos, irritated at being assigned to camp detail. Sitting on his horse motionless in the middle of the front ranks was Cyrus, easily recognized by his bare head and flowing hair, surrounded by his six hundred cavalry, their polished armor glittering in the blinding sunlight.

We stood in silent formation, facing the hills to the east whence the king's troops would be arriving. Hardly a man stirred. The only movement was the occasional distant rider galloping from or toward the army, retrieving messages from the outposts and carrying Cyrus' orders to his far wings. The moment was otherworldly and eerie, tens of thousands of men motionless and silent—that brief moment before engagement when the lines are orderly, the troops confident, the horses calm, and the Homeric glory of battle is most apparent and anticipated.

The distant hills facing us began shimmering in the mid-afternoon heat, becoming hazy and ill-defined. Small flies buzzed about our faces, and sweat trickled down my sides under the corselet. My scalp burned and itched under the helmet, the felt caul lining my head underneath already drenched with perspiration. The initial tension, the sharp knot I had felt in my stomach while making my preparations, had given way to a dull, throbbing ache, a weight in the lower belly and knees, a pervasive background presence of anticipation and fear. Some men, even officers, became restless in the heat, shifting on their feet, gulping fetid water from their skins and chatting idly with their companions. A few set the rims of their heavy shields on the ground leaning against their knees, to free up their hands while they wrung out their caps. Others simply sank down into the dust where they were, grunting loudly as they sat, concluding that whatever repose they were able to afford their tense limbs was worth the difficulty of standing up again under the weight of their gear.

The sun beat on us relentlessly, turning the outside of our armor and helmets hot to the touch, steaming our bodies inside like loaves of bread in an oven. The haziness increased, and we had almost begun to doubt we would be seeing action that day at all, when we noticed the distinct outline of a brownish cloud floating up from the horizon. At first it was so distant and faint that when I pointed it out to Xenophon, he simply dismissed it as the effect of heat waves on the sand as the sun burned hotter. After a few minutes, however, we saw that the cloud was drifting closer, becoming denser and more ominous as it approached—the dust raised by the million marching feet of Artaxerxes' army.

The horizon at the top of the distant hills darkened to black, and then thickened in a wavy line, from the downstream course of the Euphrates at the right of our present location, in a wide arc almost to the farthest left of our view—and then the line began spreading and thickening like the dark shadow of a cloud, moving toward us, inexorable and plaguelike, as the massed forces of five times a hundred thousand men and horses approached us in formation. Certainly no sight ever seen by mortals, not the sacking of Thebes nor the destruction of Ilium, surely not even the war between the gods and the Titans, was a match for this sight of the king's enormous army, for pure, destructive splendor. Here and there shone sparkles of light as the sun reflected off glittering armor and polished bridle bits, and within moments the occasional shouts of officers' orders, the whinnying of horses and the thunderous, rhythmical tramping—above all the tramping—were carried floating and wafting to our ears by stray gusts of wind.

Earlier in the day Cyrus had warned us not to be unnerved by the battle cries of the barbarians. As a Persian himself, he was well accustomed to their practiced technique of trying to break their enemies' concentration even before coming to blows, by emitting an ear-piercing shriek that would carry for miles, designed to strike terror into the hearts of all who heard it. But this time the prince was wrong: The barbarians came marching in complete and utter silence, without a sound from their men other than the insistent tramping. In its own way, this was even more unnerving, making them seem more like shades or gods than creatures of flesh and blood.

I glanced at Xenophon, who stood transfixed by the sheer wonder at seeing in this barren, empty landscape the vast multitude of men and animals suddenly appearing from nowhere. Only Clearchus seemed unmoved by the spectacle. He trotted ceaselessly up and down the lines on his enormous, frothing war-charger, fine-tuning placements here, berating an officer there, his long, carefully dressed braids flying out behind him from under his full-faced Spartan battle helmet—a terrifying sight, only his glittering eyes and bushy chin exposed from beneath the polished bronze.

Cyrus pounded up to our lines, searching out Clearchus, who calmly finished bellowing orders to his captains before he turned to the prince, waiting impatiently on his skittish horse. "Your highness!" Clearchus exulted, a murderous glint flashing through the deep eye sockets of his bronze helmet, "
This
is your Greek army! These are the men who will lead you to victory!"

Cyrus ignored Clearchus' boasting. "Victory! Victory over the enemy's auxiliaries perhaps. The false king and his Immortals are marching against us in the center of their forces—if we defeat them there, the battle is won. You are on the wrong end of our lines, General! Fall back and cross with your men to the left!"

Clearchus gaped at Cyrus in astonishment, then scanned the approaching forces more carefully and saw that what the prince said was true—the enemy was so numerous that the king's center actually faced our far left, so much did the king's lines overlap and extend beyond ours. Still, the value of shifting his troops to the other end of the line at this late hour was dubious, and the prince's implicit questioning of his tactical skills was intolerable. He whipped his helmet off in a rage.

"Wrong end, my ass! The first rule of battle,
Prince,
is to position your strongest troops to anchor the right. Absent us, the king's cavalry will cut through your right like butter and fold you up from behind. With our forces hard against the river, we can't be outflanked on this side at least. Believe it—I've been doing this since before you were born. As long as I command the Greek troops they stay on your right."

Now it was Cyrus' turn to gape at his subordinate's direct challenge, and after an astonished pause, he lit into the Spartan with a barrage of oaths and insults that made my hair rise, even under the soaked helmet and caul. Proxenus, Xenophon, and I froze as we watched Cyrus and Clearchus rant at each other, shouting and gesturing as the vast forces of the enemy continued their inexorable march toward us across the plain. Artaxerxes would not wait for our tactical dispute to be resolved before launching his troops into battle. I despaired at seeing the two generals at the point of coming to blows, but Clearchus remained unyielding. There are few men more stubborn than an old soldier, and none more stubborn than a Spartan. The prince finally raised the palm of his hand sharply, cutting off Clearchus in mid-sputter.

"I have staked my life and my fortune on defeating the false king in this battle," he seethed, in a voice barely audible to the rest of us, "and I will not be stymied by a petty autocrat. You have resisted my orders, but I do not have the time to enforce them. The enemy is almost upon us! If you will not take on the king, by the very gods, I will myself! And we shall see this matter through again after the battle, Clearchus, I assure you."

Wheeling his horse with an angry jerk of the reins he cantered off, his chestnut hair flowing freely behind him, and Clearchus angrily jammed his own helmet back on his head. His long Spartan braids, oiled and black yet streaked with the gray of his years, draped over his shoulders like the snakes of the gorgon.

"Stupid, vain son of a whore doesn't even wear a battle helmet," Clearchus spat, not bothering to lower his voice to prevent the rest of us from witnessing his insubordination. "If he wants to feel the wind through his hair he'd do better to ride without his pants. At least then he wouldn't be jeopardizing the whole fucking army."

Proxenus spoke up for the first time, pressing his horse against the side of Clearchus' nervous animal to calm him, and looking straight into the face of the furious Spartan.

"Clearchus, your position is correct, but this is no time to break with the prince. Whether Cyrus is right or wrong, you disobeyed his direct order, which you would never tolerate from us. For the sake of the army and our future, send an olive branch before battle commences."

Clearchus stared at him in a fury, and I thought he might even strike Proxenus with his sword for second-guessing him; but after a long moment he glanced away in silence, the cords in his neck working furiously as he clenched his jaw and surveyed the rapidly approaching enemy. He coughed harshly, clearing his throat of the thick, acrid dust, and then turning his head to the side he seized his nose between thumb and forefinger and blew two arching strings of snot to the ground, narrowly missing Proxenus' horse. He then twisted in his seat the other way to locate the prince, who by now had stationed himself at a more favorable viewing area several hundred yards away. "You," he said, glancing at Xenophon. "Run a message to Cyrus over there: Tell him I will take heed, and all will go well." With that, he wheeled his horse contemptuously and galloped off to make further preparations. Xenophon and I raced over to Cyrus' position, anxious to deliver the message and return to our own forces before the battle commenced.

The two sides were now no more than a quarter mile apart, and we were able to distinguish the Persians' various units. The black cloud of marchers separated into individuals. Cavalry in white, silk-decked corselets supported the heavy infantry in the enemy's left wing facing us, and Clearchus passed word down the line that these riders would be led by Tissaphernes himself. He was proven right a moment later when the enemy commander's personal banner—a golden, winged horse on a black pennant—hove into view. "A gold daric to the man who kills that donkey-faced son of a bitch!" Clearchus bellowed to all within earshot. The men's excitement visibly increased.

Within minutes, we were able to identify the king's vanguard to our left, the fearsome Medes, marching in disciplined silence with their rouged faces, bright purple pantaloons, and bejeweled necks and ears. They resembled Cyrus' effeminate eunuch slaves, but their chain mail vests, plumed bronze helmets and tanned, muscular arms added a sinister effect to their otherwise delicate appearance, which was intended to strike terror into less disciplined forces, as does the ambiguous face of a clown to a small child. They were followed by troops from the dozens of nations over which the king of Persia held sway, and from which he had forcibly conscripted his forces: Phrygians, Assyrians, Bactrians, Arabians, Chaldeans, Armenians, Kurds—the list was endless. Even the most expert among our troops were, in the end, unable to tell one from the other, much less recall each of their peculiar fighting styles, weapons, and special penchants for killing. Most astonishing of all was the variety of weapons and defensive devices arrayed before us—from the light wicker shields carried by the Cissian archers, so different from our own thick oak and bronze bowls, to the thin, reedlike spears carried by the Egyptians, which were deadly when thrown at medium range, but which were too light for close-in sparring. Perhaps most unnerving to all but the Spartans were the sixty Persian scythe-chariots pulled by white stallions. Their drivers grinned murderously beneath their visors as they surveyed our lines, waiting for the opportunity to charge into the fray with their axle-mounted knives, slicing in half or running down any soldiers who might stand in their way. To Clearchus the range of men and techniques was of no consequence. He held all enemy forces in equal disdain, convinced that the superior Spartan discipline and endurance of his troops were capable of overcoming any number of enemy forces he might face.