Phalerum, 440BC

Alexander’s senses were assaulted by the noise, sights and smells and he stopped with his face wrinkled.  The hard jolt from behind knocked him forward and he stumbled into others entering the port. People pushed him back with shouts of “Watch it.” He turned to see who had shoved him out of the way and saw another of the many soldiers entering the port. This one was average height but thick set, not muscular, just overweight. His dull and tarnished armour matched his greasy hair and beard. He sneered at Alexander then sniffed. “Watch where you’re going, urchin.”

“But you bumped into me!” shouted Alexander.

“I’m a hoplite of Athens, so you should make way, street rat.” The soldier put a thumb to his nose. Blowing hard, he snorted mucus and snot out of one nostril at Alexander’s feet, smiling with pride at the result. 

“That’s disgusting,” Alexander couldn’t help himself. The hoplite replied by cuffing him hard around the head, knocking him to the floor before walking away. 

Alexander heard the word “Scum,” as he tried to scrabble away from the feet trampling around him and get back to his feet. He could see his assailant, who now pawed at one of the women, who in turn was pushing at him trying to wriggle away. Alexander watched him lick her face and receive a slap in return. The soldier pushed her away laughing and continued his journey, barging through the crowd. Alexander shook his head and searched again for his father. 

Alexander spotted his father’s group and hurried to catch them. He thought Athens stank, remembering his one visit there, but this smell shocked him. His sensitive nose, used to open space and clean air wrinkled again at the stench of filth, garbage and bodies. His eyes started to water and he held his tunic over his face to try to breathe without retching.

The port of Phalerum opened out before him. There were troop ships arranged around the port and Alexander counted twenty that he could see. Some were moored in the docks being loaded, some were anchored off shore waiting. He paused to watch people teeming over the moored ships with hoists, loading barrels and crates of supplies. His head swam from the cacophony of shouting and noise of the port. In front of him, a hive of activity and movement created a seething mass of indiscernible people like a nest of snakes. The bodies seemed to be moving against each other in one teeming bulk, each part sliding over and moving around the next in a space too small to hold them all. He had only experienced this many people at the Panathenaic games but they weren’t moving as much as this. As they got closer, figures became more discernible with soldiers milling around waiting to board ships and hawkers moving between them selling all manner of goods. Alexander saw a stream of scantily dressed women moving through the crowds selling something as well, although he couldn’t see what they were selling.

Alexander pushed his way towards the waterfront. His small size allowed him to slip between people and squeeze through the tight press of the crowd in the port. He managed to find a large iron bollard and by standing on it he could just see over the throng. With relief, he spotted the group with his father in it a short distance away. As he watched, the soldiers in his father’s group met up with another bunch who seemed to have been waiting for them. The man his father called Methiodos seemed to arrange them so that they closed up into a tighter formation of four lines of eight with no more than a word. The throng now flowed around and to either side of the thirty-two men without touching them, they somehow stood in an isolated area of their own, segregated from the rest of the crowd as if by an invisible barrier. Alexander noticed that no-one tried to squeeze through their lines. A couple of hawkers did try to sell them something but the men just stared ahead and the hawkers soon moved onto more receptive prey. No-one bothered them after that. They marched through the crowd, Methiodos leading the way, heading towards the far end of the port. Alexander jumped off the bollard and followed for a short time along a parallel course to them on the harbour front where the crowd thinned, but it meant he lost sight of them again. 

A barrel waiting to be loaded provided another platform to raise himself from, so Alexander jumped up onto it and scanned the harbour front again, trying to pick out his father or his companions in the seething mass in front of him, acclimatising his other senses as he did so. He spotted his father’s group emerging from the crowd further along to his relief they formed up in full view as Methiodos detached himself and disappeared into the crowd. Alexander could feel time slipping away from him, his chance to talk to his father diminishing as it passed. This looked like their destination. If he didn’t get to him before he got on a ship he would have failed.

Methiodos’ enomotia of thirty-two men were the only ones who stood in formation. Some of the other soldiers jeered at them but most ignored them as they sat and gambled or rested, waiting for their orders. At length Methiodos returned and marched his men to a jetty at the other side of the port where stevedores loaded a troop ship with supplies. Alexander followed unseen through the throng of people although he couldn’t keep them in sight because of his size. Methiodos gave a command and the men relaxed, finding places to sit in the meagre shade available. Alexander almost stumbled into them, getting closer than intended, trying to see where they were, and ducked behind a stack of water urns while he tried to work out what to do next.

His father sat on a bale of sailcloth chatting with another hoplite. Alexander wondered if he should take his chance now. He weighed the options. He could approach his father while he talked with this other soldier, which wasn’t ideal, but it might be the only chance he would get. He considered how his father might react and concluded that he would be in for a shock either way. Lysander wouldn’t expect Alexander to have followed him all the way from Agryl, but Alexander had to talk to him before he left for battle. The risk of missing him altogether was now greater than the risk of his reaction. He decided to take the chance and approach him.

“What are you doing skulking around there boy?” a voice boomed from above him. 

Alexander started and looked up in terror at the owner of the voice. A large fat man with a big bushy black beard loomed over him with a large sack thrown over his shoulder. Alexander stole a glance back at his father and saw with relief that no-one paid him any notice among all the other sights and sounds of the harbour. 

“Here, carry one of these for me and I won’t throw you into the water,” the stevedore chuckled, shoving an urn at Alexander.

Alexander manoeuvred the urn into a position on his shoulder where it would be between him and the soldiers, hiding his face from his father should he happen to look his way. He didn’t want to be noticed by accident. He followed the stevedore onto the ship and into the hold.

“Put it over there with the others and then come and get another” The stevedore put down his sack and didn’t wait for Alexander to follow as he made his way up to the quay. Alexander followed up the ramp but when the stevedore didn’t look back, he paused and shuffled backwards, into the shadow of the hold where he could still watch while remaining unseen. He needed to escape the ship so he could get back to his father. If he left on a different ship while Alexander hid on this one, then he would have lost his chance. The stevedore looked around seeking out his unwilling helper when he got to the stack of urns again. After a moment, he shrugged his shoulders and returned to his own labours. 

Alexander crept back into the hold working his way between the stacks of urns and the other crates and provisions trying to find a way out that would be out of sight of the stevedore. After the searing bright heat of the port, it took Alexander’s eyes a few moments to adjust to the cool and dark of the hold. The hold took up two thirds of the length of the ship with a ramp at one end and a large hole for hoisting provisions into it in the middle. Alexander worked his way around, keeping to the shadows as he listened for the return of the stevedore. As he heard footsteps on the gangplank, he threw himself under the ramp, squeezing as close as he could to the bottom out of sight. 

The ramp above him thumped and vibrated as people came and went loading the ship, so he stayed as still as he could. Each time he crept out from his hiding place to try to escape, he heard someone else approach, causing him to scuttle back into hiding. The loading got busier as large crates were passed through the hole in the roof and he heard people moving around the hold and shouts of instructions. To his relief no-one discovered him and so he made himself comfortable as he could while he waited, listening to the constant activity a few feet away from him. He must have dozed, exhausted by the journey to the port and the stress of the situation he was in, lulled by the gentle swaying of the ship as the loading continued. He awoke with a start and cracked his head on the ramp above him as he became aware of a change in the ship. It was the absence of noise in the hold must have alerted his subconscious.

He lay still and listened. No sound came from inside the hold and although there was a lot of noise nearby, it was muffled. He reasoned that it must be on the deck so he lay still, waiting until he knew what was going on. The hold started to go darker as the loading hole was covered over and he realised that the loading must be finished. He still could not hear anyone moving around the hold so he crept out from his hiding place, he needed to get off the ship and find his father’s enomotia again.

Alexander decided that there was no-one around and started to move from under the ramp but, before he could make his escape, he felt the ship rock as loud tramping came from the gangplank. He froze in position while he tried to work out what this new sound meant. Whatever it was, the ship was noisier somehow. After listening for a short time, he realised that the troops were boarding the ship. He needed to get away, so he dragged himself fully our and from his hiding place and made his way to the ramp. Maybe he could just run past them all before they realised he was there. Then, to his horror, the ramp down into the hold started shaking and the tramping came closer as the soldiers started coming down it into the hold to shelter from the sun.

He was trapped.