The Lover of Soldiers

Cineas of Athens is a well-educated, hero-worshipping young man. He lives in a world where Alexander the Great's surviving generals battle for kingdoms of their own within Alexander's conquests. Cineas leaves his stodgy family behind and joins the mercenary army of glamorous Demetrius the Besieger at his fortress of Acrocorinth. "Three months later," Cineas recalls, "I was in Asia…." Following the armies there, he fights as a pikeman at the enormous Battle of Ipsus. From there Cineas travel...