The Virtues of War Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  CHRONOLOGY

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  Book One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Book Two

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Book Three

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Book Four

  Chapter Eleven

  Book Five

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Book Six

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Book Seven

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Book Eight

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Book Nine

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  EPILOGUE

  IN GRATITUDE

  OTHER BOOKS BY STEVEN PRESSFIELD

  Excerpt from The Profession

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  For Mike and Chrissy

  He ruled over these nations, even though they did not speak the same language as he, nor one nation the same as another; for all that, he was able to cover so vast a region with the fear which he inspired, that he struck all men with terror and no one tried to withstand him; and he was able to awaken in all so lively a desire to please him, that they always wished to be guided by his will.

  —XENOPHON, “THE EDUCATION OF CYRUS”

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Alexander, son of Philip

  King of Macedon, conqueror of Persian empire

  Philip of Macedon

  Alexander’s father, extraordinary general in his own right

  Olympias

  Philip’s wife, Alexander’s mother

  Cyrus the Great

  Founder of Persian empire, circa 547 B.C.

  Darius III

  Great King of Persia, defeated by Alexander

  Epaminondas

  General of Thebes, inventor of the “oblique order”

  Parmenio

  Philip and Alexander’s senior general

  Antipater

  Senior Macedonian general, garrisoned Greece

  Antigonus One-Eye

  “Monophthalmos,” senior general

  Aristotle

  Philosopher, tutor of Alexander

  Hephaestion

  Alexander’s general and dearest friend

  Telamon

  Arcadian mercenary, friend and mentor to Alexander

  Craterus

  Alexander’s general

  Perdiccas

  Alexander’s general

  Ptolemy

  Alexander’s general; later dynast of Egypt

  Seleucus

  Alexander’s general

  Coenus

  Alexander’s general

  Eumenes

  Alexander’s Counselor-at-War

  Leonnatus

  Alexander’s friend and Bodyguard

  Philotas

  Parmenio’s son; Commander of Companion Cavalry

  Nicanor

  Parmenio’s son; Commander of Royal Guards brigades

  Black Cleitus

  Commander of Royal Squadron of Companion Cavalry; murdered by Alexander in Maracanda

  Roxanne

  Alexander’s Bactrian bride, “Little Star”

  Itanes

  Roxanne’s brother; later a Royal Page in Alexander’s service and, later still, a Companion

  Oxyartes

  Bactrian warlord, father of Roxanne

  Memnon of Rhodes

  Greek mercenary general, commander under Darius

  Barsine

  Alexander’s mistress, daughter of Artabazus, widow of Memnon

  Artabazus

  Persian noble, father of Barsine; Alexander’s satrap of Bactria

  Bessus

  Darius’s satrap of Bactria, commander of the Persian left at Gaugamela; murderer of Darius and pretender to the throne

  Mazaeus

  Satrap of Mesopotamia, commander of Persian right at Gaugamela; later Alexander’s governor of Babylonia

  Spitamenes

  Rebel commander in Bactria and Sogdiana

  Bucephalus

  Alexander’s horse

  Porus

  King of Punjab in India; defeated by Alexander at Battle of Hydaspes River

  Tigranes

  Persian cavalry commander, later friend of Alexander

  CHRONOLOGY B.C.

  CIRCA 547

  CYRUS THE GREAT CONQUERS ASSYRIA, BABYLONIA; ESTABLISHES PERSIAN EMPIRE

  490

  ARMY OF DARIUS I INVADES GREECE; BATTLE OF MARATHON

  480/479

  XERXES INVADES GREECE; BATTLES OF THERMOPYLAE, SALAMIS, PLATAEA

  356

  ALEXANDER BORN TO PHILIP AND OLYMPIAS

  338

  BATTLE OF CHAERONEA; PHILIP OF MACEDON DEFEATS ALLIED GREEKS

  336

  ASSASSINATION OF PHILIP; ALEXANDER BECOMES KING, AGE TWENTY

  334

  ALEXANDER’S ARMY CROSSES TO ASIA; BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS RIVER

  333

  BATTLE OF ISSUS; ALEXANDER DEFEATS DARIUS III

  332

  SIEGES OF TYRE AND GAZA; ALEXANDER TAKES EGYPT

  331

  BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA

  331/330

  ALEXANDER CAPTURES BABYLON, SUSA, PERSEPOLIS, ECBATANA; DEATH OF DARIUS

  330–327

  ANTIGUERRILLA CAMPAIGN IN AFGHANISTAN

  326

  ALEXANDER CROSSES HINDU KUSH TO INDIA; BATTLE OF THE HYDASPES

  326

  ALEXANDER’S TROOPS REFUSE TO GO FARTHER

  323

  ALEXANDER RETURNS TO BABYLON

  323

  DEATH OF ALEXANDER AT THIRTY-TWO

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  What follows is fiction, not history. Scenes and characters have been invented; license has been taken. Words have been put into the mouths of historical figures, which are entirely the product of the author’s imagination.

  Although nothing in this telling is untrue to the spirit of Alexander’s life as I understand it, still I have transposed certain historical events in the interest of the theme and the storytelling. The speech that Arrian tells us Alexander gave at Opis, I have made his eulogy for Philip. I have Parmenio in Ecbatana, when Curtius tells us he was still at Persepolis. The harangue that I have Alexander delivering at the Hydaspes, he actually made at the Hyphasis, while the plea of his men, which Arrian tells us Coenus voiced at the latter, I have him offering at the former. I note this so that the knowledgeable reader will not believe that events are migrating perversely of their own will.

  I have taken the liberty of using, on occasion, contemporary place names, such as Afghanistan, the Danube, and words such as miles, yards, acres, which obviously did not exist in Alexander’s time, as well as such latter-day concepts as chivalry, mutiny, knight, guerrilla, and others, which technically have no equi
valent in Greco-Macedonian thought but which, in my judgment, communicate to the modern reader so vividly and so closely in spirit to the ancient import that their employment may be by the purist, perhaps, forgiven.

  Book One

  THE WILL TO FIGHT

  One

  A SOLDIER

  I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A SOLDIER. I HAVE KNOWN NO OTHER LIFE. The calling of arms, I have followed from boyhood. I have never sought another.

  I have known lovers, sired offspring, competed in games, and committed outrages when drunk. I have vanquished empires, yoked continents, been crowned as an immortal before gods and men. But always I have been a soldier.

  From the time I was a boy, I fled my tutor to seek the company of the men in the barracks. The drill field and the stable, the smell of leather and sweat, these are congenial to me. The scrape of the whetstone on iron is to me what music is to poets. It has always been this way. I can remember no time when it was otherwise.

  One such as myself must have learned much, a fellow might think, from campaign and experience. Yet I may state in candor: All that I know, I knew at thirteen and, truth to tell, at ten and younger. Nothing has come to me as a grown commander that I did not apprehend as a child.

  As a boy I instinctively understood the ground, the march, the occasion, and the elements. I comprehended the crossing of rivers and the exploitation of terrain; how many units of what composition may traverse such and such a distance, how swiftly, bearing how much kit, arriving in what condition to fight. The drawing up of troops came as second nature to me: I simply looked; all showed itself clear. My father was the greatest soldier of his day, perhaps the greatest ever. Yet when I was ten I informed him that I would excel him. By twenty-three I had done so.

  As a lad I was jealous of my father, fearing that he would achieve glory on such a scale as would leave none for me. I have never feared anything, save that mischance that would prevent me from fulfilling my destiny.

  The army it has been my privilege to lead has been invincible across Europe and Asia. It has united the states of Greece and the islands of the Aegean; liberated from the Persian yoke the Greek cities of Ionia and Aeolia. It has brought into subjection Armenia, Cappadocia, both Lesser and Greater Phrygia, Paphlagonia, Caria, Lydia, Pisidia, Lycia, Pamphylia, both Hollow and Mesopotamian Syria, and Cilicia. The great strongholds of Phoenicia—Byblus, Sidon, Tyre, and the Philistine city of Gaza—have fallen before it. It has vanquished the central empire of Persia—Egypt and nearer Arabia, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Media, Susiana, the rugged land of Persia herself—and the eastern provinces of Hyrcania, Areia, Parthia, Bactria, Tapuria, Drangiana, Arachosia, and Sogdiana. It has crossed the Hindu Kush into India. It has never been beaten.

  This force has been insuperable not for its numbers, for in every campaign it has entered the field outmounted and outmanned; nor for the brilliance of its generalship or tactics, though these have not been inconsiderable; nor for the proficiency of its supply train and logistical corps, without which no force in the field can survive, let alone prevail. Rather, this army has succeeded because of qualities of warriorship in its individual soldiers, specifically that property expressed by the Greek word dynamis, “the will to fight.” No general of this or any age has been so favored by fortune as I, to lead such men, possessed of such warlike spirit, imbued with such resources of self-enterprise, committed so to their commanders and to their call.

  Yet now what I have feared most has come to pass. The men themselves have grown weary of conquest. They draw up on the bank of this river of India, and they fail of passion to cross it. They have come too far, they believe. It is enough. They want to go home.

  For the first time since I acceded to command, I have found it necessary to constitute a unit of the army as Atactoi—“Malcontents”—and to segregate them from the central divisions of the corps. Nor are these fellows renegades or habitual delinquents, but crack troops, decorated veterans—many of whom trained under my father and his great general Parmenio—who have become so disaffected, from actions and words taken or omitted by me, that I can station them in the battle line only between units of unimpeachable loyalty, lest they prove false in the fatal hour. This day I have been compelled to execute five of their officers, homegrown Macedonians all, whose families are dear to me, for failure to promptly carry out an order. I hate this, not only for the barbarity of the measure but also for the deficiency of imagination it signalizes in me. Must I lead now by terror and compulsion? Is this the state to which my genius has been reduced?

  When I was sixteen and rode for the first time at the head of my own corps of cavalry, I was so overcome that I could not stay myself from weeping. My adjutant grew alarmed and begged to know what discomfited me. But the horsemen in their squadrons understood. I was moved by the sight of them in such brilliant order, by their scars and their silence, the weathered creasing of their faces. When the men saw my state, they returned my devotion, for they knew I would burst my heart for them. In strategy and tactics, even in valor, other commanders may be my equal. But in this, none surpasses me: the measure of my love for my comrades. I love even those who call themselves my enemies. Alone meanness and malice I despise. But the foe who stands with gallantry, him I draw to my breast, dear as a brother.

  Those who do not understand war believe it contention between armies, friend against foe. No. Rather friend and foe duel as one against an unseen antagonist, whose name is Fear, and seek, even entwined in death, to mount to that promontory whose ensign is honor.

  What drives the soldier is cardia, “heart,” and dynamis, “the will to fight.” Nothing else matters in war. Not weapons or tactics, philosophy or patriotism, not fear of the gods themselves. Only this love of glory, which is the seminal imperative of mortal blood, as ineradicable within man as in a wolf or a lion, and without which we are nothing.

  Look out there, Itanes. Somewhere beyond that river lies the Shore of Ocean: the Ends of the Earth. How far? Past the Ganges? Across the Range of Perpetual Snows? I can feel it. It calls me. There I must stand, where no prince has stood before me. There I must plant the lion standard of Macedon. Not till then will I grant rest to my heart or release to this army.

  That is why I have called you here, my young friend. Days, I can keep up a front, knowing the men’s eyes are on me. But nights, the crisis of the army overwhelms me.

  I must unburden myself. I must reorder my thoughts. I must find an answer to the corps’s alienation.

  I need someone I can talk to, someone who stands outside the chain of command, who can listen without judgment and keep his mouth shut. You are my bride Roxanne’s younger brother and, as such, beneath my protection only. No other may be your mentor, to no other may you carry this tale. These are my motives of confidentiality. As well, I recognize in you (for I have watched you closely since you came into my service in Afghanistan) that instinct of command and gift for war that no amount of schooling may impart. You are eighteen and will soon receive your commission. When we cross this river, you will lead men in battle for the first time. It is my role to instruct you, for, though prince you be in your own country, here you are only a Page, a cadet in the academy of war which is my tent.

  Will you stay and hear my tale? I shall not compel you, for such confidences as I must disclose in attempting to reorder my priorities may place you in peril, not now while I live, but later, for they who succeed me will seek to employ your testimony for their own ends.

  Will you serve your king and kinsman? Say aye and you shall come to me each evening at this hour, or at such interval as may suit my convenience. You need not speak, only listen, though I may employ you as the occasion demands upon errands of trust or discretion. Say nay and I release you now, with no hard feelings.

  You are honored to serve, you say?

  Well, my young friend.

  Sit then. Let us begin. . . .

  Two

  MY COUNTRY

  MY COUNTRY IS A RUGGED AND MOUNTAINOUS PLACE. I came o
ut of it when I was twenty-one. I will never go back.

  The great estates of Macedon’s plains produce horsemen who call themselves Greeks, descendants of the sons of Heracles. The mountaineers are of Paeonian and Illyrian stock. Infantry comes from the mountains, cavalry from the plains.

  Great clefts transect my country’s uplands into natural cantons, spectacularly defensible, which themselves are divided into mountain valleys called “creases” or “runs.” A run is a watershed; what “runs” is the rill or wash. One vale may contain a dozen runs; each has its clan and each clan hates every other.

  The law of my country is phratreris. This means “feud warfare.” Custom forbids a man to marry within his crease; he must court a maiden from another. If her father will not give his consent, the suitor steals the maid. Now the bride’s kin mount a raid to take her back. No end of bloodshed is produced by this, and of saga and ballad. I have heard melodies all over the world, yet none more haunting than those of the mountains of my home. The songs are of feuds and lovers’ quarrels, of loss and heartbreak and revenge.