Virtues of War by Steven Pressfield Read Free Book Online Page A

the earth. Men and beasts shudder, taut as bowstrings. All are spooked, even colonels with half a hundred campaigns, while the younger captains chatter in the chill like colts.
    At once comes the scrape of boots on the “cat step,” the portal fronting the picket lines. Into the midst strides my father. It is as if a great lion has padded into the tent. The hair stands up all over my body. At one beat, the mood catapults from trepidation to absolute assurance. Its signal is a sigh, a collective expulsion of breath. Every man knows, at once and without speech, that with Philip here, we cannot lose. My glance holds riveted to my father. What is fascinating is how little he does. He does not thrust himself forward. If anything, he holds back. The eyes of the commanders, even those of the great generals, track Philip as he works his way across the warped plank floor. He is gnawing one of those jerked-meat sticks the troops call a “dogleg.” As he enters, an aide hands him the briefing roll. He parks the dogleg between his teeth, wiping one hand on his cloak and the other on his beard. Parmenio and Socrates Redbeard, a colonel of the Companion Cavalry, move apart from the king’s campaign chair; a Page angles it outward. My father does not advance to the head of the table and seize control of the council. Instead he drops like a sack of meal into his seat, more concerned with his greasestick, it seems, than with the fight to come. It is impossible to overstate the effect this insouciance produces. Philip glances up to Parmenio and, indicating the field plots and disposition sheets, speaks only these words: “My friend . . .”—as if to say, Forgive my tardiness, please continue.
    Parmenio does. And here is another turn to note. Although the officers attend gravely upon this general’s recital of the instructions of battle, his actual words matter not at all. The captains have been briefed and rebriefed; they know their assignments, buckle and strap. All that counts at this hour is the confidence in Parmenio’s voice—and the silent presence of Philip at his shoulder.
    As for me and my orders, these are tolled with utter nonchalance. “Alexander’s squadrons,” Parmenio pronounces, “will destroy the Theban heavy infantry on the left.”
    The briefing concludes. My father invokes neither gods nor ancestors. He simply rises, tossing his greasestick to the floor, and glances to his comrades with an air of cheerful anticipation. “Now, gentlemen,” he says. “Shall we get to work?”

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ix
    CRATERUS
    T HE FOLLOWING ARE THE MEN AND UNITS under my command at Chaeronea. Six squadrons of Companion Cavalry—the Apollonian, Bottiaean, Toronean, Olynthian, Anthemiot, and Amphipolitan—twelve hundred ninety-one men; with three brigades of sarissa infantry, the Foot Companions of Pieria under Meleager, of Elimeotis under Coenus, and the Argead regiment of Pella under Antipater, who is also in overall command of our infantry. Philip has taken my fourth foot brigade, of Tymphaea under Polyperchon. Of cavalry, my father has recalled to his own use the Royal Squadron and all five squadrons of Old Macedonia, about fourteen hundred, under Philotas. He retains as well for himself on the right and Parmenio in the center the Thracians, Royal Lancers, and the Paeonian Light Horse—in other words, all of the army’s light cavalry.
    Each of my squadrons of horse is at full strength, two hundred twenty-eight, except that of Torone, which is understrength at one ninety-seven, and Anthemos at one-eighty-two. Not a man has gone sick or injured. I take the Apollonian for myself, keeping its colonel, Socrates Redbeard, and combining the five others into two brigades of three and two, placing Perdiccas in command of the forward, which will charge with me, and Hephaestion at the head of the wing, which will hold back, as a force of threat, to fix in place the Theban