The men of the caravans had never said much about the Greek soldiers, for what was there to tell? They were savages from the distant west who knew only how to kill. The merchants had not spoken of the warriors grown weary of Alexander the Greek, of the ones who whispered that they should halt and turn back for home, and that the young Great King was too drunk with wine and his own might. They did not speak, if they ever knew, of how Alexander grew angry with these men, and ordered that they be taken from their regiments and formed into a special band. Into it went all the men who criticised him, all those who broke his rules, all those who tried to desert and were caught, and any who disgraced themselves in battle. Few outside the army ever heard of these men, the ‘Disorderlies’, as they were called, or knew that in the tongue of the Greeks they were called the Ataktoi, and that Alexander gave them all the posts that brought great danger for little honour. Many died, but some did not, and there were always more sentenced to join them.

These were the soldiers who came, sent by Alexander the Greek to make a new city and hold the lands around it in his name. They told the farmers and the shepherds that they were to be subject to this city, that their fields, flocks and herds were no longer their own, but property of the citizens of this new place for whom they must work. The farmers and the shepherds could not hope to match the weapons and murderous skill of the newcomers, so did as they were told, and the colonists had the sense to leave them enough to feed their families. Such is the way of the world.

Yet these Greeks were strange folk, who called their new city Thebes and said that it was because there once had been a great city in the land of the Greeks of that name until Alexander the Greek had destroyed it. They did not seem happy or sad when a few months later the news came that Alexander the Greek was most certainly dead, and they did not leave but continued to build their city, quarrying stone from the hills rather than baking clay into bricks like sensible men. Many of them had brought women from half the world – Carians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, Bactrians and Indians as well as Greeks – and the rest took girls from the villages to be their wives and that was as it should be.

The settlers said that the brother of Alexander the Greek was now Great King and that the unborn son of Alexander the Greek would also be king, but that they no longer cared and wished only to live, and that seemed wise to the shepherds and the farmers. Yet kings arose throughout the lands and made war against each other and in time two armies came. The settlers argued for many days, for such is the way of the Greeks, until they decided to arm themselves and join one of the kings, for thus they said their homes would be safer. They arrived late for the battle, when already corpses lay in heaps and the carrion fowl were feasting, and one king, bloodied and weary, was rallying his bloodied and weary soldiers for a last stand. Yet the settlers came from behind the enemy army, and their attack was so sudden and so bold that the enemy panicked. The other king led a charge against the settlers and died on their spears, and his soldiers grew afraid and fled. It was a victory, as if that mattered, and the almost defeated king praised the settlers and renamed their city Nicopolis, which meant ‘City of Victory’ in the Greek tongue. There were lots of cities with much the same name and some were famous and most were not. The shepherds and the farmers did not mind, and watched their animals and tilled the hard earth and were glad when the armies went away.