Alternate Generals (12 page)

Now, at about the time his heir Xerxes succeeded to the throne, a stranger from the land of Sind in the east came to the court at Susa, who claimed to be a general and an expert on the craft of war. His name, as far as anyone could make it out, was Sontseus. According to Dikaios, he never really learned the Persian language; an interpreter always had to speak for him, a man from Hind.

His story was that he'd been the general commanding the armies of a king in his own country—he called the kingdom Wu. But the king of Wu became jealous of his success in war and started to worry that Sontseus was plotting to take the throne for himself, and he was exiled, on pain of death. So he came to the court at Susa and offered his services to the Great King, because, as he said, he was a general and he wished to practice his craft.

At first, of course, no one there took him seriously. Besides his outlandish speech he always wore a long robe, not trousers like the Persians, and he couldn't ride a horse or drive a chariot. But Sontseus insisted he could prove he was a better general than any other commander in the King's service. Finally Xerxes was curious and asked him how he thought he could prove such a thing. And Sontseus answered: let the King give each general a hundred men each to train in his own way. Or a thousand men, or ten thousand—any equal number. Then pit them against each other in battle, and whoever was the losing commander would have his head cut off, and whoever won would be made general over all the King's armies.

Now, this was the kind of wager Xerxes enjoyed. Nothing he loved better than cutting off men's heads or noses if they failed him. So he agreed, and he called all his officers together and asked them which one would take the stranger's challenge. Now Artaphernes had been one of the losing commanders at Marathon, and he considered this a chance to recover from that disgrace and win the confidence of the King. So he accepted the challenge, and Xerxes allotted each of them one hundred men. Artaphernes picked his from the first ranks of the Immortals, all expert cavalrymen. But Sontseus chose untrained levies, and he exercised them in secret.

When the time came for the contest, Sontseus drew up his troops on foot in close order, much like our phalanx, but they were on open ground where they were vulnerable to a cavalry attack. So Artaphernes ordered his horsemen to charge and attack them on both flanks. Just as expected, Sontseus's troops broke and ran for their lives, throwing down their pikes like cowards. But as the horsemen charged after them in pursuit, the fleeing spearmen threw down caltrops they'd concealed underneath their cloaks: sharp, three-pronged spikes that pierced the horses' hooves and crippled them. And when the horses were down and the cavalry all in disorder, then Sontseus's company fell on them with swords and took the field in triumph.

—In other words, he only won by using a trick, a ruse!

—Indeed, that was one of the first maxims of his
Craft of War
, as Dikaios recalled it: "All warfare is based on deception."

But consider this: is what Sontseus did any different from the ruse that "wily Odysseus" used against the Trojans—the wooden horse? The important thing is this: Sontseus knew his opponent was arrogant and overconfident, and therefore his men would be, as well. His plans took advantage of that.

At any rate, Xerxes fulfilled his part of the bargain and cut off Artaphernes' head, even though he was part of his own family, as all his high-ranking generals were. But when it came to appointing Sontseus as commander of all his armies, it was another matter, because he didn't speak the Persian language. It had been difficult enough, apparently, for him to give orders to just one hundred men, even with his interpreter. To command a vast force in the field would have been impossible. So this is why we remember Mardonios the conqueror on his white horse and not Sontseus, although he had riches and honors enough for all that he accomplished.

Now, to understand what he did, you have to know how the Great King's armies had been organized in those days, which is quite different from the way they are now, and that is all owing to Sontseus. Because if the battle of Marathon had proved one thing, it was the relative superiority of our Greek hoplites to even the best of the Persian troops, so that the Athenians could push twice the number of the enemy back into the sea. But the Persians had always relied on superiority of numbers to overcome this deficiency.

At that time, the Great King had a standing army of no more than ten thousand men, all of Persian blood, who were called the Immortals. Like the Spartans, they had no other occupation than preparing for war, and they had the best armor and equipment and training. But when the King went to war, then he would call on his levies, and every nation under his rule would have to send their soldiers for the campaign. At the time of Darius's death, he was planning to muster as many as three hundred thousand men under arms for the invasion of Hellas.

—So many men would strip the countryside bare as they marched through it!

—Precisely what Sontseus told the King. It was one of his maxims that "Advantage of numbers alone is no advantage."

But there were other problems with an army that size that he pointed out, as well. The soldiers came from all different parts of the empire, all with different weapons and equipment. They couldn't all speak the same language. And so many of them were conscripts, they had to be driven into battle under the lash.

But certainly your pedagogue did more than just wipe your nose. You must know how the poet described the Persian host.

 
—And all the nations born of Asia
Brought their swords from their own lands—
Ranks of them behind the banners
Of the King of Kings.

—Very good, my young friend!

So Sontseus reviewed the levies, one nation at a time, and from each of them he chose the best men, then sent the others back to their homes until he had an army of one hundred thousand remaining. Then he made sure each man was furnished with the best weapons and armor, although of course the equipment was in the Persian style, not hoplite armor such as our soldiers use. And he trained them all to march in step to the drum, and retreat to the sound of the gong, and he introduced large banners for signals, and flares for signaling at night, and so he built the army that conquered Hellas.

When Xerxes questioned the cost of equipping so many soldiers and keeping them all under arms, Sontseus replied:

First, that an army of paid volunteers, instead of conscript levies, would always be more eager to fight.

Second, that the King could request additional tribute in exchange for those men who were sent back to their own countries, and this would help defray the expenses.

And finally that a smaller, more efficient army was less of an expense, since there would be fewer men to feed and transport. For example, it would have taken a thousand additional ships to transport all the levies Darius had originally meant to assemble, along with all their equipment and supplies.

—It sounds like dull work, counting bags of beans and ships. More like an estate manager than a soldier.

—Ah, but part of the general's craft is the same as the estate manager's. This is precisely my point.

And Sontseus was a master of strategy, too, not just training and logistics. Another one of his maxims was: "Separate your enemy from his allies. First divide them, then plot against them both."

—Now that sounds like politics, not war!

—And is there a difference? Lies and deception are one of a state's best weapons in war. Unfortunately for Hellas, Sontseus was a master of deception, and dividing our states was too easy to accomplish. More than one city was willing to join the Great King's forces, either for gain or for revenge against their old enemies. But his principal enemies, the cities he most wished to defeat, were two: Athens, for what our hoplites did to the Persian troops at Marathon. And Sparta.

—Do you suppose that story is true, Sokrates, that the Spartans threw the Persian heralds into a well?

—I have no doubt of it. Too many other cities were sending Xerxes the tokens of submission to his rule. Telling his envoys to get their earth and water from the well was really sending a message to the other states of Hellas: to hold fast or they would have the Spartans to deal with.

But, as I was saying, Sontseus realized that his first goal must be to separate Athens from Sparta, for in those days they weren't enemies. What most people remember now is that Sparta refused to come to the aid of Athens at Marathon, because Persian agents spread the rumor that the Great King had bribed the Spartans to hold their army back, and most Athenians believed them.

—Because, of course, they would have done the same themselves!

—Alas, you're probably right. But this was the real origin of the hatred between Athens and Sparta. In fact, the Spartans did send an army, after all: two thousand hoplites, with the excuse that a religious festival had made them late.

—As if anyone would believe that!

—Well, many Athenians didn't. And from that time on, they were mistrustful of Sparta. However—this is my point—they were still nominally allies against the Persian king. So that when Hellas learned of the threatened invasion—as all the world must have known, from the scope of Xerxes' preparations—the states all met at Korinth to decide what they must do to defend themselves. The larger party, the cities of the Peloponnese, all favored making a stand at the Isthmus of Korinth. Since this would have meant abandoning all Attika to the Persians, naturally the Athenians opposed any such plan, and there was more talk that once again the Spartans were going to sell them out. But even the Spartans were aware that they could never win the war without the Athenian fleet, which was the strongest in all Hellas, and our general Themistokles vowed that he would never commit the fleet if his allies abandoned Attika to the enemy.

So the Greek states were all undecided on their strategy, and they did nothing but quarrel, while all the time the Persian preparations were well under way. Now of course the Great King had always had his spies and agents among us, and so this debate was no secret. But Sontseus made the outcome inevitable when he divided the Persian force and sent five hundred ships to invest the island of Kythera, just across the straits from Lakonia. With this threat at their rear, so close to home, the Spartans abandoned all thought of sending their hoplites to the defense of Attika, and without them there was no hope for Athens, standing alone.

Sontseus by this one stroke accomplished his goal and won the war, for he not only deprived Athens of all allies, he deprived the rest of Hellas of the Athenian fleet. So you see, Alkibiades, if you do become a general, you owe it to him. Because Athens is still standing and our citizens weren't carried off as slaves, while the only Spartan generals now are barefoot, herding goats on Mount Ithome.

 
Well-watered Lakonia they ruled
And Messenia's rich plowlands
By the strength of their arms
And their thirsty spears.
But now bowed down in defeat
Overcome by Persian might.
 

—Yes, but Sokrates, you claim this Sontseus won the war before he fought a single battle?

—Indeed I do. And this was another one of his maxims: "To defeat the enemy without fighting is better than to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles."

—But if he never fought a battle, Sokrates, how can you claim he was so skilled at the craft of war? I mean, doesn't the essence of war lie in fighting?

—Well, he was too old a man to stand in the front ranks with a pike, if that's what you mean. And of course it's true that Mardonios gave the actual orders. But according to Dikaios, Sontseus was always there to plan the strategy and tactics, which were based on his maxims.

For example, he said: "Never let an enemy know where you intend to give battle. If he prepares in the front, attack in the rear where he is weak." Now, you know what happened when the Peloponnesian allies had concentrated their force behind the Isthmian Wall, expecting the Persians would have to attack them there. Instead, they turned the Isthmus into a trap, bringing up their forces from the rear, through the Argolid where there was no opposition.

And because another of his rules was: "Never attack an enemy at bay," he didn't waste his own troops in a futile frontal assault. He simply waited until they were so desperate they tried to break through to Korinth, and ambushed them on the road. "Show a surrounded enemy a way out, and he will take it."

 
Raise your voices in lament
For the Spartan dead!
Raise a cry of mourning
For the host destroyed!
 

—All right, Sokrates! I'm convinced! But what about all these maxims? Did Sontseus write them down? Because it's clear that all I have to do is study them, and I'll be the greatest general in history!

—He did write them down, according to Dikaios. He called the book
The Craft of War
. Unfortunately, it was in his own language, which no one in the entire empire can read. His name is almost forgotten now, and a few of his maxims are all anyone remembers.

But his story does show that knowledge is at least as important in war as in any other activity, and that a general has to learn his craft exactly as a physician does.

—You know, Sokrates, it occurs to me that it's too bad our own generals didn't have this book. Or if this Sontseus had come over to the side of the Greeks instead of the Persian King's. If he was such a great general, we might have won the war and sent Xerxes back to his court in defeat.

—Well, my young friend, I'll just say this: if you can imagine Athens and Sparta—and all the rest of the Greek states—operating together against a common enemy, then you can imagine almost anything!

Eleanor, Queen of France, fumed within the sumptuous hangings of her wagon. Her prison. How impossibly humiliating for a queen and a duchess. To be swept up and carried off like a loaf of bread by a common thief! Her husband had much to answer for.