Alexander (Vol. 2) Read Free

camp.
    ‘You think so?’ replied Ptolemy.
    ‘There’s no doubt about it. He doesn’t believe in the myths and the legends any more than you or I do, but he behaves as though they were more real than reality itself. This is how he demonstrates to his men that dreams are possible.’
    ‘It’s as though you knew him like the back of your hand,’ said Ptolemy, his voice full of sarcasm.
    ‘I have learned to observe men, and not just nature.’
    ‘In that case you should be aware that no one can ever claim to know Alexander. His actions are there for everyone to see, but they are not predictable, and neither is it always possible to understand their deeper significance. He believes and he doesn’t believe at the same time, he is capable of great expressions of love and of uncontrollable rage . . . he is . . .’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Different. I first met him when I was six years old, and I still cannot say I truly know him.’
    ‘Perhaps you’re right. But now he has all his men believing he is Achilles reincarnate and that Hephaestion is Patroclus.’
    ‘At this moment the two of them believe it as well. After all, wasn’t it you who established, on the basis of your astronomy, that our invasion took place in the same month in which the Trojan War began, exactly one thousand years ago?’
    Alexander in the meantime had dressed again and put his armour on. Hephaestion too got ready and they both mounted their horses. General Parmenion ordered the trumpets to be sounded and Ptolemy, in his turn, leaped on to his charger. ‘I must join my division. Alexander is about to inspect the army.’
    The trumpets resounded again, repeatedly, and the army lined up along the shore, each division with its own standards and insignias.
    There were thirty-two thousand foot-soldiers in total. On the left-hand side were three thousand ‘shieldsmen’ and then seven thousand Greek allies, one tenth of the number which a hundred and fifty years previously had taken on the Persians at Plataea. They wore the traditional heavy armour of Greek frontline troops and sported massive Corinthian helmets protecting their faces completely, right down to the base of their necks, leaving only their eyes and their mouths exposed.
    In the centre were the six battalions of the phalanx, the pezhetairoi – some ten thousand men. On the right-hand side, instead, were the auxiliary barbarians from the north – five thousand Thracians and Triballians who had taken Alexander up on his offer, attracted by the money and the prospect of looting. They were brave men, capable of the most reckless of feats, indefatigable, and they were able to bear the cold, the hunger and the ordeals of battle. They were a frightful sight with their red, bristly hair, their long beards, their fair, freckled complexions and their bodies covered with tattoos.
    Among these barbarians, the wildest and most primitive were the Agrianians of the Illyrian mountains: they had no Greek and an interpreter had to be called to communicate with them, but their unique talent was their ability to climb any rocky face using ropes made of plant fibres, hooks and grappling-irons. All the Thracians and the other auxiliaries from the north were equipped with helmets and leather corsets, small crescent-moon shields and long sabres that were used both with the point and the blade. In battle they were as ferocious as wild beasts and in hand-to-hand combat they had been known to bite lumps of flesh out of their opponents’ bodies. Behind them, almost as a sort of barrier, came seven thousand Greek mercenaries – light and heavy infantry.
    Out on the wings, detached from the infantry, was the heavy cavalry, the hetairoi – two thousand eight hundred of them in total. To these were added the same number of Thessalian horsemen and some four thousand auxiliaries, plus the five hundred special horsemen of the Vanguard, Alexander’s squadron.
    The King, astride Bucephalas, inspected his troops division by