The roar of battle changed. An exultant shout ran like fire through the packed mass. It began to move, no longer in labored heaves but like a gathering landslide. The enemy was retreating! The glories of Marathon, of Salamis, of Plataia, flashed before his eyes. Men in front were yelling, “On to Macedon!” He started running with the rest, calling in his high sharp voice, “Catch Philip! Take him alive!” He should be led in chains through the Agora; after that they would make him talk, name every traitor. There would be a new statue on the Acropolis, next to Harmodios and Aristogeiton: DEMOSTHENES THE LIBERATOR. He shouted to those ahead who could run faster, “On to Macedon! Take him alive!” In his haste to be there and see it, he almost stumbled over the bodies of the young men who had fallen in the front line.
Theagenes the Theban, commander-in-chief of the confederate army, urged his horse behind the battle-lines towards the center. The long front fermented with shouted rumor, too garbled to be of use. Here at last came one of his own scouts. The Macedonians were indeed, he reported, in retreat.
How? asked Theagenes. In disorder? In fair order, but getting away pretty fast. They had already fallen right back from the heights, with the Athenians after them. After them? What! Had they left their station, then, without orders? Well, orders or not, they were already in the plain; it was the King himself they were chasing.
Theagenes, cursing, beat his fist on his thigh. Philip! The fools, the misbegotten, fribbling, vainglorious Athenian fools. What had become of the line up there? There must be a gap as long as a hippodrome. He sent off the scout with orders that it must at all costs be filled, and the left flank covered. No sign anywhere else of the enemy falling back; they were laying on harder than ever.
The leader of the Corinthians received the order. How better guard the flank, than get up on the good rising ground where the Athenians had been? The Achaians, left feeling naked, spread out towards the Corinthians. Theagenes stretched out his own troops in turn. Let these Athenian speechmakers see what real soldiers look like. In their place of honor on the right wing, the Sacred Band changed order; briefly, as they moved, they showed in twos.
Theagenes surveyed the long threshing chain of men, now loose at one end, and weaker over all. Before him, the enemy rear was obscured by a tree-tall thicket of sarissas; ranks not engaged held them high, for the safety of those in front. With them and the dust-cloud, one could see nothing. A thought hit him, like a jolt in the midriff. No word of young Alexander. Where is he? On garrison duty in Phokis? Toiling unnoticed in the line? Yes, when iron floats. Then where is he?
There was a lull in the fight before him; almost a stillness, after the noise before; the heavy pause of earthquake weather. Then the deep bristling phalanx swung sideways, ponderously but smoothly, like an enormous door.
It stood open. The Thebans did not go out of it; they waited for what was coming in. The Sacred Band, turning face to face before they locked the shield-line and settled their spears, showed up in twos, once and for all.
In the stubble-field among the trampled poppies, Alexander lifted his sword-arm, and yelled the note of the paean.
Strong and sustained, the voice trained by Epikrates rang down the great square of horsemen. They took up the paean; it lost in its passage the sound of words, dinning like the fierce outcry from a cloud of swooping hawks. It goaded the horses more than spurs. Before ever they came in sight, the Thebans had felt their thunder through the ground.
Watching his men like a shepherd on a mountain trail, Philip waited for news.
The Macedonians were plodding back, sullenly, carefully, fighting for every few yards of ground. Philip rode about, directing their retreat just where it should go. Who could believe it, he thought. When Iphikrates was alive, or Chabrias…But their orators appoint their generals now. So soon, so soon. A generation…He shielded his eyes to scan the line. The charge had begun, he knew no more.
Well, he’s alive; if he fell, the news would fly quicker than a bird. Curse this leg, I’d like to take a walk among the men, they’re used to it. A spearman all my life. I never thought I’d breed a cavalry general. Ah well, the hammer still needs the anvil. When he can bring off a planned fighting withdrawal like this…He understood his briefing. Everything pat. But only half there, he had that look of his mother.
Thought changed to tangled images like a knot of snakes. He saw the proud head lying in blood; the mourning, the tomb at Aigai, the choice of a new heir; idiot Arridaios’ jerking face, I was drunk when I got him; Ptolemy, too late now to acknowledge him, I was a boy, what could I do?…What’s four-and-forty, I’ve good seed in me yet. A sturdy square dark-haired boy ran up to him, calling, “Father!”…
Shouts sounded, nearing, directing a rider to the King.
“He’s through, sir. He’s broken the line. The Thebans are standing, but they’re cut off beside the river, the right wing’s rolled up. I didn’t speak with him, he said ride straight to you when I saw it, you were waiting for the word. But I saw him there in the van, I saw his white crest.”
“The gods be thanked. A bringer of such news deserves something. See me after.” He summoned the trumpeter. For a moment, like a good farmer at harvest-time, he viewed the field which through his careful husbandry stood for the reaping just as it ought. His cavalry reserve had appeared upon the heights, before the Corinthians could command them. His withdrawing infantry had spread into the shape of a sickle blade. Enclosed in its curve were the jubilant Athenians.
He gave the order to attack.
The knot of young men was still resisting. They had found a stone sheep-pen, nearly breast high, but the sarissas came thrusting over. In the filth on the ground a lad of eighteen was kneeling, clutching at his eye which was falling down his cheek.
“We should get away,” said the older man in the middle, urgently. “We shall be cut off. Look, you can see, look round.”
“We’re staying here,” said the young man who had assumed command. “You go if you want, we’ll never notice the difference.”
“Why throw away our lives? Our lives belong to the City. We should go back and dedicate our lives to restoring Athens.”
“Barbarians! Barbarians!” yelled the young man to the troops outside. They replied with some uncouth battle-cry. When he had time to spare, he said to the older man, “Restore Athens? Let us rather perish with her. Philip will blot her from the earth. Demosthenes has always said so.”
“Nothing is certain, terms can be made…Look, they have almost closed us round, are you mad, wasting all our lives?”
“Not even slavery, but annihilation. That’s what Demosthenes said. I was there, I heard him.”
A sarissa, poking forward out of the thick of the attackers, caught him under the chin and went tearing up through his mouth into his brain-base.
“This is madness, madness,” said the middle-aged man. “I’ll have no more part in it.” Dropping shield and spear, he scrambled over the far wall. Only one man, inactive with a broken arm, was looking when he shed his helmet too.