'No, he's a party politician. The voters didn't like to see paid troops drawing pay and rations in Attica, while citizens went to war. They've been on my mind; trained men, and too mobile where they were, too mobile by far. At the clinch, ten thousand extra men is a good many. Now we can deal with them first; they're being sent direct to Amphissa.'

'So we wait till they're there. Then what?'

Philip's yellow teeth grinned in the firelight. 'You know how I slipped away at Byzantion? We'll try that again. We'll have bad news, very bad news from Thrace. Revolt, Amphipolis threatened, every man needed to hold the frontier. I shall reply, in good clear writing, that we are marching north with all our forces. My courier will be captured, or maybe sell the letter. The enemy's scouts will see us starting northward. At Kytinion we'll go to ground, lie low, and wait.'

'Then over the Grabian Pass, and attack at dawn?'

'A stolen march, as your friend Xenophon says.'

They stole it, before spring thaw had drowned the river-crossings. The mercenaries of Athens did their duty, as long as there was hope in it; after that, being professionals, they either got away to the coast, or asked for terms. Most of these last ended by enlisting with Philip, had their wounds dressed, and sat down to a good hot meal.

The Amphissians surrendered without condition. Their government was exiled as the Sacred League had decreed. The holy plain was stripped of their impious husbandry, and left fallow for the god.

In the first warmth of spring, at the theatre of Delphi, the steep pale eagle-cliffs of the Phaidriades behind them, the great temple of Apollo before, and the vast gulf beyond, King Philip was crowned by the League with a golden laurel crown. He and his son were eulogized in long speeches and choric odes; a sculptor sketched them, for statues to adorn the temple.

Afterwards, Alexander walked with his friends on the jostling terrace. It hummed and stank with the throng from all over Greece, and as far as Sicily, Italy and Egypt. Rich votaries marched with their offerings displayed on the heads of slaves, goats bleated, doves moaned in wicker cages; faces eager, devout, relieved, drawn with anxiety, came and went. It was one of the days for the oracle.

Under the noise, Hephaistion said in Alexander's ear, 'Why don't you, while you're here?'

'Not now.'

'It would set your mind at rest.'

'No, the time's not right. One should take the seer by surprise, I think, in a place like this.'

A sumptuous performance was put on in the theatre; the protagonist was Thettalos, renowned for his heroic roles. He was a handsome ardent young man, whose Thessalian blood was mixed with some Celtic strain; his training in Athens had contained his fire in good technique, and his natural rashness in good manners. He had often played in Pella, and was a favourite with Alexander, for whom he conjured some special vision of the hero's soul. Now in Sophokles' Ajax, doubling Ajax and Teukros, he made it unthinkable the one should outlive his honour, the other fail in loyalty to the dead. Alexander went round afterwards with Hephaistion to the skene-room. Thettalos had pulled off the mask of Teukros, and was towelling the sweat from his strongly-carved face and short curly chestnut hair. At the sound of Alexander's voice he emerged and glowed at him with large hazel eyes, saying, 'I am glad if you were pleased. I was playing it all to you.'

They talked awhile about his recent travels. At the end he said, 'I get about a good deal. If ever you have any business, never mind what, and need someone you can trust, you know it would be a privilege.'

He was understood. Actors, the servants of Dionysos, were protected persons; often used as envoys, as secret agents even oftener. Alexander said, 'Thank you, Thettalos. There is no one I would sooner ask.'

When they were walking away towards the Stadium, Hephaistion said, 'You know that man's still in love with you?'

'Well, one can at least be civil. He's sensible, he doesn't misunderstand. Some day I might need to trust him, one never knows.'

With good spring weather, Philip moved down to the Gulf of Corinth, and took Naupaktis, which commanded its outer strait. In summer, he moved about in the country behind Parnassos, strengthening strongpoints, keeping alliances warm, making roads, feeding-up his cavalry mounts. Now and again he would make feints to the east, where Athenians and Thebans tensely manned the passes. Then he would march away, leaving them flat and stale, and would hold manoeuvres or games, to make sure his own men were neither.

Even now, he sent once more envoys to Thebes and Athens, offering to discuss terms for a peace.

Demosthenes proclaimed that Philip, twice repulsed by their arms, must be growing desperate; these offers proved it. One good push would finish him in the south.

In late summer, when the barley between the trees in the olive-orchards of Attica and Boeotia was yellowing in the ear, he went back to his base at Elatia, but left his strongpoints manned. The forward outposts of Thebes and Athens were at a pass about ten miles south. Till his offers were thrown back, he had done no more than tease them. Now he displayed his strength; they were outflanked, and could be cut off when he chose. Next day his scouts found them gone; he took and manned the pass.

The men of the cavalry looked happy, polished their gear and made much of their horses. Now, the coming battle would be in the plains.

The barley whitened, the olives ripened. By the calendar of Macedon, it was the month of the Lion. King Philip gave a birthday feast in the fort for Alexander. He was eighteen.

Elatia had been made snug; woven hangings on the wall of the royal quarters, tiles on the floor. While the guests were singing, Philip said to his son, 'You've not named your gift yet. What would you like?'

Alexander smiled. 'You know that, Father.'

'You've earned it; it's yours. It won't be long now. I shall take the right wing, that goes back time out of mind. You will command the cavalry.'

Slowly Alexander set down on the table his golden cup. His eyes, shimmering and wide with wine and visions, met Philip's lopsided black glint. 'If you ever regret it, Father, I shan't be there to know.'

The appointment was cheered, and toasted. Once more the birth-omens were remembered: the Olympic racing win, the Illyrian victory.

'And the third,' said Ptolemy. 'It's the one I remember best, I was at the age for marvels. It was the day the great temple of Artemis was burned at Ephesos. A fire in Asia.'

Someone said, 'I never heard how it came to happen, without a war. Was it a thunderbolt, or did some priest upset a lamp?'

'No, a man did it on purpose. I heard his name once. Heiro -Hero - a longer name than that. Nearchos, can you remember?'

No one could. Nearchos said, 'Did they find out why he did it?'

'Oh, yes. He told them all willingly, before they killed him. He did it so that his name should be remembered for ever.'

Dawn glimmered over the low hills of Boeotia, heather and scrub burned brown with summer, scattered with grey boulders and gravelly stones. Dark and rusty like the heath, weathered like the stones, spiny like the thorn-trees, the men poured over the hills towards the plain. They trickled down the slopes and silted in the river-valley; the silt thickened, but steadily flowed on.

Along the smoothest inclines the cavalry came ambling, careful of unshod hooves. The horses made only a muffled thudding as they picked their way among the heather, their bare backs gripped by the men's bare thighs. It was the harness of the men that clicked and rattled.

The sky lightened, though the sun still stood behind the great eastward bulk of Parnassos. The valley, scoured out by primeval floods and filled in with their topsoil, began to flatten and widen. Along it burbled through stones the Kephissos river in its summer bed. East of it, low on the terraced slopes, its pink-washed houses still mauve with shadow, stood the village of Chaironeia.

The flood of men slowed its onward course, paused, and spread sideways across the plain. Ahead of it was stretched a dam. Its thick line bristled, and glinted in the first slanting sunbeams; a dam of men.

Between lay a clear space of innocent fields, fed by the river. Mown barley-stubble round the olive trees was pretty with poppies and vetch. There was a noise of crowing cocks, a bleating and lowing of farm-stock, sharp cries of boys and women driving the herds away uphill. The flood and the dam both waited.

In the broad throat of the pass, the northern army made camp along the river. The cavalry went downstream, to water their horses without fouling it for the rest. The men untied their cups from their belts and unpacked their food for their noon meal; flat griddle-cakes, an apple or an onion, a crumble of dirty grey salt from the heel of the bag.

The officers looked about for unsound spear-shafts or javelin thongs, and took the feel of morale. They found a healthy tension, like a drawn bow's; the men had caught the sense of something momentous.

They were thirty-odd thousand foot, two thousand horse; the host ahead was as many; this would be the greatest battle of all their lives till now. They were aware too of the men they knew, the captain who was the squire at home, the village neighbour, the fellow-tribesmen and kin, who would report their honour or their shame.

Towards afternoon the long baggage-train laboured down with the tents and bedding. They could sleep well, all but the outposts; the King held all the flanking passes, their position could not be turned. The army ahead could only sit and wait his pleasure.

Alexander rode up to the ox-cart with the royal tents, and said, 'Put mine there.' A young oak gave shade by the river; under the bank was a clear gravelly pool. Good, said his servants, it would save carrying water. He liked his bath, not only after a battle but, if he could manage it, even before. Some grumbler had said he would be vain even of his corpse.

The King sat in his tent, giving audience to Boeotians, eager to tell him all they knew of the enemy's plans.

The Thebans had oppressed them; the Athenians, their sworn allies, had just sold them publicly to the Thebans; they had nothing much to lose by a leap in the dark. He received them with charm, listened to all their involved and ancient grievances, promised redress, and made notes in his own hand of all they had to tell. Before dusk, he rode up the hill to look for himself, with Alexander, Parmenion, and the next in command, a Macedonian lord called Attalos. The royal bodyguard under Pausanias rode behind.

Below them spread the plain which some old poet had called 'the dancing-floor of war', so often had armies met there. The confederate troops spread across from the river to the southern foothills, a front of about three miles. The smoke of their evening fires was rising, with here and there a spurt of flame. Not yet in line of battle, they were clumped, like birds of different species, each city and state apart. Their left wing, which would face the Macedonian right, was based firmly on rising ground. Philip narrowed his good eye at it.

'The Athenians. Well, I must have them out of there. Old Phokion, their only general who's good for anything, has been given the navy; he was too canny to please Demosthenes. Our luck; they've sent Chares, who fights by the book...Hm, yes; I must put on a good-looking assault before I start falling back. They'll swallow it, from the old general who writes off his losses.' He leaned over with a grin to clap Alexander's shoulder. 'It wouldn't do for the Little King.'

Alexander's brow creased, then cleared. He returned the grin, and went back to considering the long bar of men below, as an engineer who must divert a river considers obstructing rock. Tall lank-cheeked Attalos, with his forked yellow beard and pale blue eyes, had edged his horse up nearer, but now moved quietly back.

'So, then,' said Alexander, 'in the centre we've the odds and ends; Corinthians, Achaians, and so on. And on the right...'

'The high command. For you, my son, the Thebans. You see, I've not stinted your dish.'

The river gleamed in the light of the paling sky, between tapering poplars and shady planes. Beside it, in orderly patterns, the Theban watch-fires budded into flame. Alexander gazed in deep concentration; for a moment he pictured in this distant firelight the human faces; then they dwindled into the spread of the great design. And all the gates were- opened, and the warriors came pouring out. Foot and horse, and the din of onset resounded.

'Wake up, lad,' said Philip. 'We've seen all we need; I want my supper.'

Parmenion always ate with them; so tonight did Attalos, newly come in from Phokis. Alexander saw with discomfort that Pausanias was on guard. Those two together in one room always put his teeth on edge.

He greeted Pausanias with special warmth.

It was Attalos, friend and kin of the dead rival, who had planned the obscene revenge. It was a mystery to Alexander why Pausanias, a man with no lack of courage, should have come to the King demanding vengeance, rather than take it with his own hand. Could it be that he had wanted a sign of Philip's loyalty?

Long ago, before the change, he had had a kind of archaic beauty, which could have housed such an arrogant Homeric love. But Attalos was chief of a powerful clan, a good friend of the King, and useful; the dead boy's loss had been bitter, too. Pausanias had been talked out of it, and his honour patched up with rank. Six years had gone by, he had been laughing oftener, talking more, becoming an easier presence, till Attalos was made a general. Now once more he never met one's eyes, and ten words were a long speech for him. Father shouldn't have done it. It looks like a reward. People say already...

His father was talking of the coming battle. He brushed clear his mind; but an aftertaste lingered, as of tainted food.

Alexander had his bath in the gravelly pool, and lay on his bed, going over in his mind the battle-plan, point by point. There was nothing he had forgotten. He got up, dressed, and walked along quietly between the watch-fires, till he reached the tent Hephaistion shared with two or three other men. Before he had touched the flap, Hephaistion had risen soundlessly, thrown on his cloak and come out. They stood for a while talking, then went back to their beds. Alexander slept well till the morning watch.

The din of onset resounded.

Over the barley stubble and round the olive-trees, crashing through vineyards half-picked when the labourers fled, knocking down the props and treading the grapes into bloody wine, the press of men swayed and mixed and seethed, their mass swelling and bursting like bubbles, rising and settling like yeast. The noise was deafening. Men yelled to one another, or to the enemy, or to themselves; or screamed in some piercing agony beyond what they had known that flesh could feel. Shields clashed, horses squealed, each corps of the confederate army shouted its own battle-paean at full stretch of its lungs. Officers roared orders, trumpets blew. Over everything hung a great cloud of rusty, choking dust.

On the left, where the Athenians held the foothills which formed the confederates' anchor, the Macedonians shoved their long sarissas doggedly from below, the points of three graded ranks forming one row of weapons, bristling like a porcupine. The Athenians took them on their shields when they could; the bravest pressed between them, stabbing with the short spear or hacking with the sword, sometimes overwhelmed, sometimes denting the line. Along the far flank Philip sat his strong cobby war-horse, his couriers by him, waiting; for what, his men all knew. They heaved and strained in the line, as if their failure to break it was killing them with shame. Though huge noise was everywhere, among them it was somewhat less; they had been told to listen for the word.

In the centre, the long front leaned to and fro. The confederate troops, strangers to their neighbours, sometimes rivals, shared the common knowledge that where the line broke disgrace and death would enter. Wounded men fought on till with luck the shields closed before them; or fell, and were trampled on by men who could not drop their guard or pause. The hot press churned in the hot dust, sweating, grunting, cursing, hacking, thrusting, panting, moaning. Where rock broke the ground, the melee heaved round it like sea-foam, and splashed it with crimson spray.

At its north end, where the river guarded its flank, there stretched as evenly as a string of beads the unflawed shield-line of the Sacred Band of Thebes. Now in action the couples were forged into a single bar, each man's shield overlapping the left-hand man. The elder of each pair, the erastes, kept the right, the spear side; the younger, the eromenos, the side of the shield. The right was the side of honour, for a corps or a man; though the youth might grow up the stronger, he would never ask his friend to cede it. All this was governed by ancient laws. Newly-sworn lovers were here, intent upon their proving; and couples who had been in the corps ten years, solid bearded fathers of families, love rendered-down to comradeship; the Band was too famous to be renounced at a dream's passing. Its lifelong vows were battle-vows. Even through the dust, it glittered. Its bronze hatlike Boeotian helmets and its round shields edged with cable-work had been burnished to shine like gold. Its weapons were six-foot spears with iron blades, and short stabbing swords, still sheathed, the spear-hedge being unbroken.

Parmenion, whose phalanx faced them, had all he could do to hold them. Now and then they gave a great heave forward, and could have gone further yet, but for fear of breaking contact with the Achaians next to them in the line. They were polished and smooth like some old well-made weapon a man knows the feel of in the dark. Hurry up, Philip; these fellows have been to school. I hope you know what you've given your boy to bite on. I hope he has the teeth for it.

Behind the labouring phalanx, just out of bowshot, the cavalry waited.

They were massed in a thick column like a catapult-bolt, with a tapering head, whose point was a single horseman.

The horses fidgeted at the noise, at the drifts of blood-smell on the wind, and the tension in their riders'

bodies; they blew from the tickle of the dust. The men talked to neighbours or called to friends, rebuked or fondled the horses, straining to see through the ten-foot dust cloud how the battle went. They were to charge a line of hoplites, the horseman's nightmare. Cavalry against cavalry, the other man could fall off as easily as you, pushed with the spear, or over-reaching himself; he could be out-maneouvred, slashed with the sabre. But to run at firm up-pointed spears went against a horse's nature. They fingered the hard-cured bullhide pectorals on their chargers' breasts. The Companions found their own equipment; but they were glad they had listened to the Boy.

The foremost rider flicked off a fly from his horse's eyelid, feeling with his thighs its strength, its knowledge of the coming fury, its implicit trust, its complicit horse-sense. Yes, yes; we'll be going when I say go. Remember who we are.

Hephaistion in the next short rank felt at his sword-belt; should it be one hole tighter? No, nothing makes him so angry as a man fixing his turnout in the line. I must catch him up before he gets there. His colour's high. It often is before an action. If it was fever he'd never say. Two days with it before the fort fell, and not a word, I could have carried extra water. A fine night I had of it.

A courier rode through the dusty trampled stubble, and hailed Alexander in the King's name. The message was word-of-mouth: 'They are taking the bait. Be ready.'

Up on the hill, above the pink-washed village of Chaironeia, in the tenth row back of the Athenian force, Demosthenes stood with his tribal regiment. The young men held the front; next behind were the strongest of the middle-aged. The whole depth of the line shifted and strained, as a man's whole body does when his right arm alone makes some great effort. The day grew hot. It seemed they had been standing and swaying and staring down for hours; suspense ached in him like a tooth. Ahead men were falling, getting spears in their guts and chests; the shock of the blows seemed to travel all through the thick ranks, back to where he stood. How many fallen already; how many ranks still left between that and him? I should not be here, I am wronging the City by risking myself in war. The milling press made a long shove forward; it was the second in a short time; without doubt now, the enemy was giving ground. There were still nine ranks between him and the long sarissas; and their line was wavering. It is not unknown to you, men of Athens, that I carried shield and spear on the field of Chaironeia, counting as nought my life and my own concerns, though some might have called them weighty, and indeed you might have reproached me with hazarding your welfare in risking mine.... A choking cry of pain came from the front rank, which had been the second. Men of Athens...

The roar of battle changed. An exultant shout ran like fire through the packed mass. It began to move, no longer in laboured 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 this 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 centre. The long front fermented with shouted rumour, 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 honour 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 overall. 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 I'...

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.'