Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities Read online

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Dedication

  GLOSSARY

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK ONE EUXINE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  MILETUS, HEADQUARTERS OF ANTIGONUS ONE-EYE, THE TEMPLE OF POSEIDON

  BOOK TWO AEGYPT

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  GAZA, PALESTINE

  BOOK THREE THE SIEGE OF RHODES

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  HERAKLEA, SPRING, 305 BC

  BOOK FOUR

  DEMETRIOS’ CAMP, ISLE OF RHODES, LATE SPRING, 305 BC

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  PART V THE DESTROYER OF CITIES

  30

  31

  EPILOGUE

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Also by Christian Cameron

  Copyright

  GLOSSARY

  Airyanãm (Avestan) Noble, heroic.

  Aspis (Classical Greek) A large round shield, deeply dished, commonly carried by Greek (but not Macedonian) hoplites.

  Baqca (Siberian) Shaman, mage, dream-shaper.

  Chiton (Classical Greek) A garment like a tunic, made from a single piece of fabric folded in half and pinned down the side, then pinned again at the neck and shoulders and belted above the hips. A men’s chiton might be worn long or short. Worn very short, or made of a small piece of cloth, it was sometimes called a ‘chitoniskos’. Our guess is that most chitons were made from a piece of cloth roughly 60 x 90 inches, and then belted or roped to fit, long or short. Pins, pleating, and belting could be simple or elaborate. Most of these garments would, in Greece, have been made of wool. In the East, linen might have been preferred.

  Chlamys (Classical Greek) A garment like a cloak, made from a single piece of fabric woven tightly and perhaps even boiled. The chlamys was usually pinned at the neck and worn as a cloak, but could also be thrown over the shoulder and pinned under the right or left arm and worn as a garment. Free men are sometimes shown naked with a chlamys, but rarely shown in a chiton without a chlamys – the chlamys, not the chiton, was the essential garment, or so it appears. Men and women both wear the chlamys, although differently. Again, a 60 x 90 piece of cloth seems to drape correctly and have the right lines and length.

  Daimon (Classical Greek) Spirit.

  Ephebe (Classical Greek) A new hoplite; a young man just training to join the forces of his city.

  Epilektoi (Classical Greek) The chosen men of the city or of the phalanx; elite soldiers.

  Eudaimia (Classical Greek) Well-being. Literally, ‘well-spirited’. See daimon, above.

  Gamelia (Classical Greek) A Greek holiday.

  Gorytos (Classical Greek and possibly Scythian) The open-topped quiver carried by the Scythians, often highly decorated.

  Himation (Classical Greek) A heavy garment consisting of a single piece of cloth at least 120 inches long by 60 inches wide, draped over the body and one shoulder, worn by both men and women.

  Hipparch (Classical Greek) The commander of the cavalry.

  Hippeis (Classical Greek) Militarily, the cavalry of a Greek army. Generally, the cavalry class, synonymous with ‘knights’. Usually the richest men in a city.

  Hoplite (Classical Greek) A Greek soldier, the heavy infantry who carry an aspis (the big round shield) and fight in the phalanx. They represent the middle class of free men in most cities, and while sometimes they seem like medieval knights in their outlook, they are also like town militia, and made up of craftsmen and small farmers. In the early Classical period, a man with as little as twelve acres under cultivation could be expected to own the aspis and serve as a hoplite.

  Hoplomachos (Classical Greek) A man who taught fighting in armour.

  Hyperetes (Classical Greek) The Hipparch’s trumpeter, servant, or supporter. Perhaps a sort of NCO.

  Kithara (Classical Greek) A musical instrument like a lyre.

  Kline (Classical Greek) A couch or bed on which Hellenic men and women took meals and perhaps slept, as well.

  Kopis (Classical Greek) A bent bladed knife or sword, rather like a modern Ghurka kukri. They appear commonly in Greek art, and even some small eating knives were apparently made to this pattern.

  Machaira (Classical Greek) The heavy Greek cavalry sword, longer and stronger than the short infantry sword. Meant to give a longer reach on horseback, and not useful in the phalanx. The word could also be used for any knife.

  Parasang (Classical Greek from Persian) About thirty stades. See below.

  Phalanx (Classical Greek) The infantry formation used by Greek hoplites in warfare, eight to ten deep and as wide as circumstance allowed. Greek commanders experimented with deeper and shallower formations, but the phalanx was solid and very difficult to break, presenting the enemy with a veritable wall of spear points and shields, whether the Macedonian style with pikes or the Greek style with spears. Also, phalanx can refer to the body of fighting men. A Macedonian phalanx was deeper, with longer spears called sarissas that we assume to be like the pikes used in more recent times. Members of a phalanx, especially a Macedonian phalanx, are sometimes called Phalangites.

  Phylarch (Classical Greek) The commander of one file of hoplites. Could be as many as sixteen men.

  Porne (Classical Greek) A prostitute.

  Pous (Classical Greek) About one foot.

  Prodromoi (Classical Greek) Scouts; those who run before or run first.

  Psiloi (Classical Greek) Light infantry skirmishers, usually men with bows and slings, or perhaps javelins, or even thrown rocks. In Greek city-state warfare, the psiloi were supplied by the poorest free men, those who could not afford the financial burden of hoplite armour and daily training in the gymnasium.

  Sastar (Avestan) Tyrannical. A tyrant.

  Spola (Classical Greek) Body armour of leather. Herakles in heroic depiction has a spola in the form of a lion’s skin, but soldiers might wear anything from a light leather tunic to stiffened abdomenal protection and call it a spola.

  Stade (Classical Greek) About 1/8 of a mile. The distance run in a ‘stadium’. 178 meters. Sometimes written as Stadia or Stades by me. Thirty Stadia make a Parasang.

  Taxies (Classical Greek) The sections of a Macedonian phalanx. Can refer to any group, but often used as a ‘company’ or a ‘battalion’. My taxeis has between 500 and 2,000 men, depending on losses and detachments. Roughly synonymous with phalanx above, although a phalanx may be composed of a dozen taxeis in a great battle.

  Thorax/Thorakes (Classical Greek) Body armour – literally, that which covered the abdomen. Could be bronze, quilted wool or linen or a mixture of textile and metal armour; could also refer to a leather armour like a spola. The so-called ‘muscle cuirass’ forged by the armourer to look like the male abdomen was one form, and probably the most expensive.

  Xiphos (Classical Greek) A straight-bladed infantry sword, usually carried by hoplites or psiloi. Classical Greek art, especially red-figure ware, shows many hoplites wearing them, but only a handful have been recovered and there’s much debate about the shape and use. They seem very like a Roman gladius.

  PROLOGUE

  HERAKLEA ON THE EUXINE, SPRING 306 BC

  Stratokles the Athenian sat on an
iron stool in his mistress’s receiving chamber, and crossed his legs comfortably.

  ‘Interesting times, Despoina,’ he said.

  She was reading through her correspondence – he’d already read it, of course – and making notes. ‘Demetrios has taken Athens!’ she said. She snapped her fingers at a maid for more milk, and tapped her fingers impatiently until the maid had warmed the milk in a silver cup, mixed in honey and transferred the contents to a second cup, before presenting it with averted eyes.

  Quietly, firmly, she spoke to her slave. ‘Listen, girl. I expect you to have this ready-mixed. Understand? Don’t wait for me to demand it. How long have you been with me?’ Amastris of Heraklea snapped her index finger against the maid’s forehead and the girl cried out. Then Amastris turned back to her Athenian. ‘Does this change your views on Antigonus One-Eye?’

  Stratokles shrugged, wondering idly if, by comforting the slave-girl after his interview with her mistress, he might put himself between her legs. He allowed himself to catch her eyes, and she hesitated before looking away. Interesting. Slaves were always so lonely.

  ‘Are you attending to me, sir?’ Amastris asked sharply.

  Stratokles was unflappable – at least, by his mistress. ‘It relieves me of any responsibilities towards Demetrius of Phaleron or Cassander,’ he said carefully. ‘I remain loyal to the city of Athens. Demetrios the Golden will pretend to be a democrat – everyone always does when they come to power in Athens. We shall see, after the first few months. But, for once, the news from Athens is not the most important. There’s more news – more immediate, if not more important. Look at the dispatch from Byzantium.’

  Amastris shook her head, the blond ringlets staying crisp and perfect as her head went from side to side. She drank her honeyed milk absently. ‘When I finish this.’

  Stratokles got up and poured himself a cup of wine.

  ‘Satyrus is coming here!’ Amastris said, eyes on the scroll, and her hand went to her hair as if she needed to preen a little.

  ‘Yes, Despoina,’ Stratokles laughed. He wished that he might affect her – or any woman – the way Satyrus of Tanais affected her. He shot a glance at the maid, who met it – and then dropped her eyes. Played this game before, have, you? he thought with satisfaction. ‘He’s coming with his fleet and his merchants, moving the grain south to Alexandria.’

  ‘As usual, not coming just to see me.’ She sat up. ‘Why does my uncle continue to forbid the match? I want to be wed.’ She read further. ‘He’s too devoted to that slut of a sister. He’d be well rid of her.’

  ‘Your father is about to crown himself king,’ Stratokles said with unfeigned distaste – distaste for kings, and distaste for his mistress’s obvious jealousy.

  ‘Melitta is Queen of the Assagetae in her own right,’ he said. ‘Your princely Satyrus needs her.’

  Amastris snapped her fingers and another maid brought her a wrap, a costly piece of work imported from India. ‘I need him to need me,’ she said with a sweet smile. ‘And if my uncle wants to be a king, why must you sound so sour about it?’

  Stratokles, whatever his faults, and he admitted that he had a phalanx of them, nonetheless saw himself as a true democrat in a world of aristocratic despots. ‘As King of Heraklea, he expects to marry you a little better than the King of Hyperborea.’

  ‘Satyrus is the King of the Bosporus,’ Amastis said with asperity. ‘He is as much a king as my father. And Stratokles – why is it that when you say the word “king” you render it like an insult?’

  ‘Despoina, if you don’t know by now, it is too late for me to teach you. I loathe tyrants.’ He shrugged.

  ‘And yet you serve me,’ she said.

  ‘You need me, Despoina. And Athens needs this city and her grain, and my eyes on the north. I have never pretended to love your uncle’s tyranny, nor your lover’s kingship.’ He rolled his shoulders, flexing his fighting muscles and wondering, in the way of middle-aged men, if he didn’t need to spend more time in the gymnasium.

  ‘You might give pretence some consideration, or Nestor will have your head.’ Nestor was the captain of the Tyrant’s bodyguard, and no friend of the Athenian’s.

  Stratokles chose to ignore her. ‘Satyrus won’t just be an ally if he weds you,’ Stratokles said. I’ll be out of a job, he thought. ‘He’ll be master here. He has a fleet, an army and a core of professionals that we can’t really match. With Pantecapaeaum and Olbia behind him, surely you can see that we’re next.’

  ‘Hmm. I look forward to his being my master,’ Amastris said, and licked her lips. She laughed at his discomfiture. ‘Don’t be a prude. Satyrus isn’t half as bright as I am. Who’ll run whom, do you think? Heraklea won’t be the loser. Melitta might be, though,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Your uncle is not interested in ruling through your womb,’ Stratokles said. ‘And you will need Melitta’s good will as much as Satyrus does, if you come to be his wife.’

  ‘Now that’s the sort of thing I employ you to say,’ Amastris nodded. ‘He’s old, though – my uncle, I mean.’

  ‘Don’t be rushing him to his grave, Despoina. Please read the dispatch from Byzantium.’ Stratokles wasn’t always perfectly pleased with his charge. She was past the first innocence of youth and she was becoming headstrong, just when he felt she most needed a rein. And with Demetrios in Athens . . . The world was changing. Stratokles was beginning to wonder if he had lingered too long in Heraklea. Although he had other ideas—

  She flipped through the scroll tubes. ‘Demostrate is dead?’ she asked.

  ‘Got it in one!’ Stratokles pounced like a cat taking a rat off a post.

  ‘By Aphrodite, lady of ladies!’ Amastris said, and shook her head. ‘The old pirate is dead? Who killed him?’

  ‘Who cares? The point is that a new man has Demostrate’s fleet – if he can hold it. They are pirates. And now Antigonus One-Eye will have a clear run at allying with them – the pirates – a fair shot at buying all of them.’ Stratokles swirled the wine in his cup.

  ‘But we’re no allies of old One-Eye. My uncle broke that chain.’ She drank off the last of her milk.

  Stratokles swirled his wine again. ‘There are never just two sides in politics, my dear. Antigonus would like to be master here. So would Lysimachos and so would your Satyrus. By naming himself “king”, your uncle puts himself on the same level as all of them. He can only maintain that level by ceaseless vigilance and a willingness to play one against the other.’

  ‘And my beloved has just lost his guarantee of passing the straits unmolested,’ Amastris said. ‘Perhaps he’ll come here and stay awhile.’ She smiled.

  ‘He’s lost more than that, dear,’ Stratokles said. ‘He’s lost his immunity, and some of his status with the great powers. Now he’ll have to buy the pirates like the rest of us. And if Antigonus has Athens’ fleet, and the pirates,’ Stratokles shrugged, ‘well then, so much for Ptolemy.’ He leaned back and recrossed his legs. ‘Times are changing, dear.’

  She looked at him from under her eyelashes. ‘You don’t love my Satyrus,’ she said.

  ‘I helped him achieve his kingdom,’ Stratokles said. ‘But no – he’s no friend of mine.’ He didn’t mention that in another dispatch – one he didn’t need to pass to her – he’d had news of Lysimachos. Lysimachos, the fourth contender for Alexander’s power. Lysimachos, whose Thracian wife had just died.

  The perfect husband for his little princess. With Lysimachos and Amastris, Stratokles could guarantee Athens’ grain trade for fifty years, and to Hades with Satyrus of Tanais.

  And why dream small? With the two of them, Stratokles could aim higher.

  Whereas her marriage to Satyrus would mean that he would have to start all over again.

  BOOK ONE

  EUXINE

  1

  TANAIS, EUXINE SEA, SPRING 306 BC

  Late winter, or perhaps early spring on the shores of the Euxine. The first crocus buds were peeping out of the earth, and the l
ambs were coming, and the horses were foaling, and in just a few weeks there would be fresh green on the Sea of Grass.

  Two archers stood on the city’s Field of Ares, shooting arrows into a distant target made of linen canvas stuffed tight with rags and straw. Shooting with a precision that bored the onlookers, who mostly sat on the dead winter grass enjoying the first day of sunshine. Until both archers started shouting.

  Melitta touched the corner of her mouth with the fletchings at the peak of her draw, and loosed her arrow at the target.

  It struck home with a satisfying thwack as the barbed head cut the taut canvas. ‘When is she going to marry you, if she loves you so much?’ she asked her brother.

  Satyrus pulled an arrow from the gorytos at his waist and nocked the arrow. He drew a breath, raised the bow and shot – a continuous motion that sent the arrow into the target with the same flat thwack. ‘When her uncle is done traipsing about pretending to be one of Alexander’s men,’ Satyrus said. He didn’t hide the disappointment in his voice. Every spring brought a new delay in his wedding plans. He was twenty-four, and Amastris was older.

  Melitta nocked, drew and shot. Thwack. ‘You have a slave in your bed,’ she said, accusingly.

  Satyrus nocked, drew and loosed. His arrow flew over the top of the target. ‘By the Lord of the Silver Bow, sister, is that any of your business?’ he asked pettishly.

  ‘We swore to Mater that we would not lie with slaves,’ she said. ‘You missed, by the way. The horse is mine.’

  Satyrus struggled with his temper for as long as it took his heart to beat three times. ‘Yes,’ he said after the third heartbeat.

  ‘Yes, you are sleeping with a slave? Or yes, the horse is mine?’ Melitta asked. Just for emphasis, she drew, nocked and shot again – and her arrow struck dead in the centre of the mark.

  ‘Yes, I think it’s time you got moving on your spring progress,’ Satyrus said. He didn’t do a very good job of keeping the anger out of his voice.