A story...
Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:19 pm
The slightly less abridged version...
The dead lay everywhere. The ground onto which they had been driven was littered with their corpses. Shattered sarissae, viscera and body parts shared the killing ground with the whole weapons and armour that had been abandoned in the rout. The foetid odours of blood and bowel fouled the increasingly frigid air as the cries of the dying and the wounded faded with the Iranian mid-winter sun set. Litter bearers carried the still living from the blood soaked dust into which they had fallen and carts, the produce of carnage piled high inside, plied their way to funerary bonfires yet to be lit. Morale in the camp matched the freezing night air as confusion, tinged with anger at the day's proceedings, spread with the smoke from the campfires.
As the lamps were lit the self-proclaimed “strategos of Asia”, having surveyed the killing field, called a meeting of his hetairoi. The military prospects for the morrow were not propitious: his phalanx and, more importantly, his Macedonians were shattered. A resumption of hostilities in the morning would be difficult, if not impossible. The strategos still had a card in play though and the situation was far from decided.
The day ... had started in more promising fashion. The "strategos of Asia" had marched south in battle order across the eight kilometres of cold and dry salt plain that, still now, separated him from the recent ally who'd renounced his feality for what was clearly personal gain... His 22,000 heavy infantry, which – depending on its depth – stretched in excess of two kilometres (1.25 miles), included some 7,000 or so Macedonian phalangites, almost all recent drafts from the homeland. An equal number of epigoni, “successor infantry” armed and trained in the Macedonian fashion of phalanx fighting, adjoined them and mercenaries, Lycians and Pamphylians filled out his line. The remainder of the cavalry was posted on the left wing under the command of Peithon. The entire array would be screened by some 65 elephants and many thousands of light infantry and skirmishers...
The dead lay everywhere. The ground onto which they had been driven was littered with their corpses. Shattered sarissae, viscera and body parts shared the killing ground with the whole weapons and armour that had been abandoned in the rout. The foetid odours of blood and bowel fouled the increasingly frigid air as the cries of the dying and the wounded faded with the Iranian mid-winter sun set. Litter bearers carried the still living from the blood soaked dust into which they had fallen and carts, the produce of carnage piled high inside, plied their way to funerary bonfires yet to be lit. Morale in the camp matched the freezing night air as confusion, tinged with anger at the day's proceedings, spread with the smoke from the campfires.
As the lamps were lit the self-proclaimed “strategos of Asia”, having surveyed the killing field, called a meeting of his hetairoi. The military prospects for the morrow were not propitious: his phalanx and, more importantly, his Macedonians were shattered. A resumption of hostilities in the morning would be difficult, if not impossible. The strategos still had a card in play though and the situation was far from decided.
The day ... had started in more promising fashion. The "strategos of Asia" had marched south in battle order across the eight kilometres of cold and dry salt plain that, still now, separated him from the recent ally who'd renounced his feality for what was clearly personal gain... His 22,000 heavy infantry, which – depending on its depth – stretched in excess of two kilometres (1.25 miles), included some 7,000 or so Macedonian phalangites, almost all recent drafts from the homeland. An equal number of epigoni, “successor infantry” armed and trained in the Macedonian fashion of phalanx fighting, adjoined them and mercenaries, Lycians and Pamphylians filled out his line. The remainder of the cavalry was posted on the left wing under the command of Peithon. The entire array would be screened by some 65 elephants and many thousands of light infantry and skirmishers...
