The Strategos by H A Culley

Author:H A Culley [Culley, H A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Ancient, Fiction, Greece, Historical, War & Military
Amazon: B018QPPZ9G
Publisher: Orchard House Publishing
Published: 2015-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Finally Parmenion was ready and he mustered his three thousand cavalry, five thousand hoplites and two thousand peltasts before setting out towards Thermes, an eastern Macedonian city near the border with Thrace that Pausanius had recently captured. He and Kharis had seen each other several times before he left, each time chaperoned by her rather formidable mother, and each time Parmenion fell more and more in love. He quickly learned that Kharis was no simpering little girl. She was sixteen but much more mature than most girls her age. Her interests lay outside the home, which was why she had persuaded her father to allow her to help him in the workshop, and even extended to strategy. She knew little about it at first but she was a quick learner and the speed with which she grasped military concepts convinced Parmenion that she wasn’t just pretending to be interested. However, he had to put her from his mind for now. He needed to concentrate on defeating Pausanius.

When he neared Thermes he split his army in two, sending a thousand peltasts, two thousand hoplites and a thousand cavalry under Orestes’ command to loop round to the north through the hills along the border. He had no intention of allowing Pausanius to escape this time.

The enemy army was drawn up on the plain outside the city when Parmenion arrived. Evidently the reports that the city had fallen were incorrect and all the signs were that Pausanius had broken off the siege on learning of the Macedonians’ approach. Parmenion studied the enemy ranks. The formation was classic with the peltasts in front as skirmishers, the hoplites drawn up in what appeared to five blocks of a thousand and the cavalry in the rear. Of the latter, there appeared to be a thousand light horsemen from Thrace and a thousand Greek heavy cavalry.

Although Parmenion was outnumbered he had several surprises in store for Pausanius and he was confident of victory, but he was in no rush to engage the enemy. First he wanted to know where Orestes was and he needed time to demoralize the enemy. The latter had been standing out in the hot sun for several hours and, although his men had just marched for six miles, they had taken a break during the march and were now resting in the shade of the various olive and fruit trees that dotted this end of the valley. They were therefore much fresher.

Seeing the Macedonians lounging around in the shade, drinking water from the streams that irrigated the orchards and olive groves whilst his men sweated, Pausanius decided to attack whilst the enemy was unprepared. His peltasts had just started to move forward when the Macedonians began to form up. Parmenion had just received word from a messenger that Orestes was in position.

To Pausanius’s amazement Parmenion sent his cavalry forward with the Macedonian peltasts, walking their horses forward on each flank. He was uncertain what to do. He had never heard of deploying cavalry

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