The rest fought on, till a Macedonian officer came up, calling that if they surrendered the King would spare their lives. At this they laid down their arms. While they were being marched off, between the dying and dead strewed everywhere, to join the herd of captives, one of them said to the rest, “Who was the little fellow who ran away, the one poor Eubios was quoting Demosthenes to?”
The man with the broken arm, who had been a good while silent, answered, “That was Demosthenes.”
The prisoners were under guard, the wounded were being carted off on shields, beginning with the victors. This would take many hours, many would be there at nightfall. The defeated lay at the mercy, for good or ill, of those who found them; many, unfound, would be with the dead tomorrow. Among the dead too there was precedence. The conquered would lie till their cities sued for them; their bodies, asked and granted, were formal acknowledgment that the victors possessed the field.
Philip with his staff rode down the long wreck-strewed shore of battle from south to north. The moans of the dying sounded in fitful gusts, like wind in the high woods of Macedon. Father and son said little; sometimes a landmark of the fight would prompt a question. Philip was trying to make real to himself the event with all its meaning. Alexander had been with Herakles; it took time to come down from that possession. He did his best to attend to his father, who had embraced him when they met, and said everything that was proper.
At length they reached the river. Here by its shore, there was no straggle among the dead of men caught flying. They lay compactly, facing all ways outward, except where the river for a time had guarded their backs. Philip looked at the cable-trimmed shields. He said to Alexander, “You went in here?”
“Yes. Between them and the Achaians. The Achaians stood well; but these died harder.”
“Pausanias,” called Philip. “Have them counted.”
Alexander said, “You will find there is no need.”
The count took time. Many were buried under Macedonians they had killed, and had to be disentangled. There were three hundred. All the Band was there.
“I called on them to yield,” Alexander said. “They called back that they didn’t know the word; they supposed it was Macedonian.”
Philip nodded, and sank back into his thoughts. One of the bodyguard who had done the counting, a man fond of his own wit, turned one of the bodies over on another and made an obscene joke.
“Let them alone,” said Philip loudly. The uncertain titters died. “Perish the man who says they did or bore anything base.”
He wheeled round his horse, followed by Alexander. Unseen by either, Pausanias turned and spat on the nearest body.
“Well,” Philip said, “the day’s work done. I think we have earned a drink.”
It was a fine night. The flaps of the royal tent were opened; tables and benches overflowed outside. All the chief officers were there, old guest-friends, tribal chiefs, and various allied envoys who had been following the campaign.
The wine was tempered at first, because people were dry; when thirst was slaked, it went round neat. Everyone who felt happy, or thought it useful, started a new round of toasts, and pledged the King.
To the rhythm of old Macedonian drinking-songs, the guests began clapping, slapping their thighs, or banging the tables. Their heads were crowned with wreaths from the broken vineyards. After the third chorus, Philip rose to his feet, and proclaimed a komos.
An unsteady line was formed. Anyone in reach of a torch snatched it up and waved it. Those who were giddy grasped the next man’s shoulder. Swaying and limping, Philip lurched along at the head of the line, arm in arm with Parmenion. His face glistened red in the shaking torchlight, the lid of his dead eye drooped, he bawled out the song like battle orders. The truth of the wine had lit for him the vastness of his deed; the long plans ended, the vista of power ahead, the downfall of his enemy. Freed from careful southern graces as from a hampering cloak, one in soul with his highland forebears and nomad ancestors, he was a chieftain of Macedon, feasting his clansmen after the greatest of all border raids.
The lilt of the song inspired him. “Hark!” he roared. “Listen to this:
“Demosthenes decrees!
Demosthenes decrees!
Demosthenes of Paiania,
Son of Demosthenes.
Euoi Bakchos! Euoi Bakchos!
Demosthenes decrees!”
It spread down the line like fire in tinder. It was easy to learn, and even easier to sing. Stamping and shouting, the komos wavered out through the moonlit night over the olive fields by the river. A little way downstream, where they would not foul the water for the victors, were the prisoners’ pens. Roused by the noise from exhausted sleep or lonely brooding, the drawn grimy men got to their feet and stared silently, or looked at one another. The torches shone on still rows of eyes.
Near the tail of the komos, among the young, Hephaistion slipped from his neighbors’ convivial arms, and walked along through the olives’ shadows, looking out and waiting. He kept along by the komos till he saw Alexander leave it; he too looked about, knowing Hephaistion would be there.
They stood together under an old tree with a gnarled intricate stem, thick as a horse’s body. Hephaistion touched it. “Someone told me they live a thousand years.”
“This one,” Alexander said, “will have something to remember.” He felt at his brow, dragged off the vine-wreath and stamped it under his heel. He was cold sober. Hephaistion had been drunk when the komos started, but that had soon cleared his head.
They walked on together. The lights and noise still meandered before the prisoners’ pens. Alexander walked steadily down river. They picked their way over broken spears and sarissas and javelins, round dead horses and dead men. At length Alexander stopped by the riverbank, where Hephaistion had known he would.
No one had stripped the bodies yet. The bright shields, the victors’ trophies, glimmered softly under the moon. The smell of blood was stronger here; bleeding men had fought on longer. The river chuckled gently among the stones.
One body lay by itself, face down, feet towards the river; a young man, with dark crisply curling hair. His dead hand still grasped his helmet, which stood by him upside down, with water in it. It was unspilled, because he had been crawling when death overtook him. A blood-spoor, along which he had been returning, led from him to the heap of dead. Alexander picked up the helmet, carrying the water carefully, and followed the trail to its end. This man too was young; he had bled a wide pool, the great vein of his thigh being severed. His open mouth showed the dry tongue. Alexander bent, with the water ready, and touched him, then laid the helmet aside,
“The other had stiffened, but this one is hardly cold. He had a long wait.”
“He would know why,” Hephaistion said.
A little way on, two bodies lay across each other, both facing upward to where the enemy had been. The elder was a strong-looking man with a fair clipped beard; the younger, on whom he had fallen back in death, was bareheaded. On one side he was bare-skulled; a downward slash of a cavalry saber had flayed off the face to show a bony grin. From the other side, one could see that beauty had been there.
Alexander knelt, and as one might straighten a garment, replaced the flap of flesh. It adhered, sticky with blood. He looked round at Hephaistion and said, “I did this. I remember it. He was trying to spear Oxhead through the neck. I did it.”
“He shouldn’t have lost his helmet. I suppose the chin-strap was weak.”
“I don’t remember the other.”
He had been speared through the body, and the spear wrenched back in the urgency of battle, leaving a great torn hole. His face was set in a grimace of agony; he had died wide awake.