“You keep yourself waiting, my beloved son,” said the king, with a light reproach, “you have undoubtedly accomplished many feats, but still?
– Sorry, father, -Alexander came up and kissed the king on the cheek,
“Your son is a skillful commander!” Said Perdiccas loudly, “he has the sense of a true warrior!”
Philip really liked the praise of a skilled commander, and he didn’t hide it.
“I don’t like to shed blood just like that, and Alexander’s face slightly twisted, as if it were from pain,” but it’s better to live a faithful ally than scorched fields and mountains of corpses.
“Well, after all, you took Alexandropolis by attack,” Philip pointedly noted, “this is the Tsarevich who kept modestly silent,” now the hones will send us help, the tsar added for his entourage. And just the butlers filled the cups, and the king proclaimed:
– For my son, Alexander, the brave and intelligent commander!
All happily shouted and drank fragrant wine. Then they went merrily – they drank for the army, for Macedonia, then the saints began to perform excerpts from the Iliad, singing the heroic deeds of the heroes, and many noble births of the Macedonians were directly descended from the heroes of the Trojan War, at least it was thought so. Then they were just drinking a lot, and the young people with Alexander slipped out of the hall. On the way from the hall, all the prince’s friends noticed that the butler was leading the flutist and heter to continue the fun.
The next day, after saying goodbye to his father and mother, Alexander and his retinue gathered and moved to Mieza to continue their studies with Aristotle. They did not know what was left to study for less than two years. The arresttel taught the main thing that to act decently and correctly is better and more useful than to follow evil and commit evil. A letter came to Nearh that Kallifen would soon arrive with his son in Amphipolis, and the prince agreed that this was correct because it was not good when the wife was far from her husband, and the husband was from his wife. But Kallifen arrived only two years later, after a big war.
A new war broke out two years later, Thebes in alliance with Athens came out against Macedonia. The messengers from Philip jumped up so that the Eters and Alexander would gather and would appear in Pella, and that the prince would receive the sludge in command. It’s time for parting. mentor, everyone gathered, and went to his house. Alexander knocked on the door, opened the elderly servant of the philosopher, let the students into the courtyard,
“Come in, I will call the tutor now,” and quickly went into the house, from which he almost immediately emerged majestically and leisurely, leaning on his staff, dressed in white linen clothes befitting a philosopher, Aristotle.
– Hello Alexander, hello my worthy students, – he greeted,
“Greetings, Teacher, we came to say goodbye, I don’t know whether we will meet again or not,” Philip’s son began to speak loudly and clearly, “a great war began, and we should go on a campaign. We did not pass your training for nothing, and I hope you will be proud of us.
– I am also glad that you took lessons from me, I didn’t have any better students, and there won’t be. The best gratitude for a mentor is worthy student behavior.
“You will not be ashamed of having taught us,” Alexander added with a bow, and so the students of the Miezensh School said farewell to the philosopher Aristotle. And so ended their adolescence.
War
Philipe convened all the sovereign princes of the conquered areas with their retinues, and successfully prepared regular troops with the help of Parmenion and Antipater. We managed to collect thirty thousand infantry, of which twelve thousand prepared phalangites and three thousand cavalry, of which about eight hundred cataphracts. Alexandrov gastrafeti were not ready, although the prince wanted to check them in, and the first detachment of three hundred soldiers trained with might and main. But the mechanism was very expensive, costing an inexpensive horse, and when Philip found out how much he was worth, he simply choked at dinner. Thebes collected eleven thousand infantry and one and a half thousand horsemen, the Athenians recruited fifteen thousand mercenaries in Arcadia and Messenia, and collected fifteen thousand infantry militia and a thousand horsemen, so the forces were almost equal, but the Macedonians had easy cavalry, Agrian and Thracian, and they took to ruin Boeotia. Parmenion and Philip constantly maneuvered to trap the mercenaries in one of the passes, and they succeeded, the Athens mercenaries surrendered, and the prisoners were sent north to Thrace to keep the border from the Mezians, since the mercenaries quickly figured out the situation and agreed to serve Argeadam, but did not want to fight Athens and Thebes. The clash was inevitable, and Lysicles hastily led the Athenian militia to help Thebes, and even Demosthenes also took the goplon in his hands. The intelligence of the Macedonians from light cavalry disturbed the Athenians and the Thebans, holding them like a hunting dog of a bear, and not allowing them to leave the flat field advantageous to the Macedonians. Philip hastily led the army in three columns, he entrusted the cavalry and hypaspites to Alexander, himself led the Phalangites and Peltasts and the Thracian infantry.
The enemies set up camps opposite each other at Heronei, where the battle was to break out. Philip summoned the peacers to the Council and a feast to encourage the commanders before the battle, and once again to discuss the battle plan. Towards noon, all the commanders, Parmenion with his son, Antipater with Cassander, Cleet, Ken, Attal, Meleagr, and Alexander with the inseparable friend Hephaestion and his bodyguard Ptolemy, approached. In the middle was a table with poured sand, and figures of soldiers denoting military units, white Macedonians, black opponents, the Athenians and the Thebans.
“Come, comrades-in-arms,” suggested Philip, everyone looked at the location of the Macedonians – infantry in the first row, Thracians and Pelttes in the first row; in the second row, in the distance of the arrow-phalanx, three hundred Thracian riders of the reserve were built, on the right flank all was built cavalry and hypaspists and runners, as well as eight hundred cataphracts under the command of Alexander.
“Dangers, said Parmenion,” are the Peltasts ahead? yes they will flee before the Athenians,
“That’s just the point, an old friend,” Philip smacked, blinking with one single eye, “Lysikel, Hares, and especially Demosthenes, people who are fond of, and rush to pursue our avant-garde and fall on spears of phalangites and Alexander will hit them on the flank, and the Athenians shall be broken, they shall bare the flank, and we shall surround the Thebans. -pages began to distribute wine to guests, handing out filled bowls to the generals.
“And you, son, restrain the Thebans, and remember – Feagen is clever, you can’t lure him into an ambush,” Philip said further, taking a sip of wine, “break their cavalry, and wait for our help and do not break it, and the goddess Nika will open his wings above us.
Everyone agreed, nodding that the best possible plan, the servants brought tables with food, as always the same sheep cheese, flatbread and olives. None of the guests lost their appetite in front of the Sich, everyone was experienced fighters and commanders. They drank three bowls, the last for all the gods, and went to bed.
The starry sky over Herney became brighter in the east, and wake-ups began to play in the camps, the warriors had a little snack, and rejoicing that the summer heat had not yet begun, put on armor and went out to build according to the schedule of the commanders and went away in perfect order to the field covered from the sudden the attacks of the enemy by preservation, Alexander, and Philip, the son and the father, went to different flanks of the army, and with them the warriors and ordinary fighters rose to their seats in the ranks. Far in the haze, it was clear how the Athenians were being built with the Thebans, and there, too, the detachment was connected with the detachment, making up an impregnable line of hoplites. The troops