ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’m always sorry to finish an historical novel,
because writing them is the best job in the world and researching
them is more fun than anything I can imagine. I approach every
historical era with a basket full of questions - How did they eat?
What did they wear? How does that weapon work? This time, my
questions have driven me to start recreating the period. The
world’s Classical re-enactors have been an enormous resource to me
while writing, both with details of costume and armour and food,
and as a fountain of inspiration. In that regard I’d like to thank
Craig Sitch and Cheryl Fuhlbohm of Manning Imperial, who make some
of the finest recreations of material culture from Classical
antiquity in the world (www.manningimperial.com), as
well as Joe Piela of Lonely Mountain Forge for helping recreate
equipment on tight schedules. I’d also like to thank Paul
McDonnell-Staff, Paul Bardunias, and Giannis Kadoglou for their
depth of knowledge and constant willingness to answer questions -
as well as the members of various ancient Greek re-enactment
societies all over the world, from Spain to Australia. The
Melbourne and Sydney Ancients have been especially forthcoming with
permission to use their photos, and many re-enactors in Greece and
the UK and elsewhere have been tireless in their support. Thanks
most of all to the members of my own group, Hoplologia and the
Taxeis Plataea, for being the guinea-pigs on a great deal of
material culture and martial-arts experimentation. On to
Marathon!
Speaking of re-enactors, my friend Steven
Sandford draws the maps for these books, and he deserves a special
word of thanks.
Speaking of friends, I owe a debt of gratitude to
Christine Szego, who provides daily criticism and support from her
store, Bakka Phoenix, in Toronto. Thanks, Christine!
Kineas and his world began with my desire to
write a book that would allow me to discuss the serious issues of
war and politics that are around all of us today. I was returning
to school and returning to my first love - Classical history. I am
also an unashamed fan of Patrick O’Brian, and I wanted to write a
series with depth and length that would allow me to explore the
whole period, with the relationships that define men, and women, in
war - not just one snippet. The combination - Classical history,
the philosophy of war, and the ethics of the world of arête - gave
rise to the volume you hold in your hand.
Along the way, I met Prof. Wallace and Prof.
Young, both very learned men with long association to the
University of Toronto. Professor Wallace answered any question that
I asked him, providing me with sources and sources and sources,
introducing me to the labyrinthine wonders of Diodorus Siculus, and
finally, to T. Cuyler Young. Cuyler was kind enough to start my
education on the Persian Empire of Alexander’s day, and to discuss
the possibility that Alexander was not infallible, or even close to
it. I wish to give my profoundest thanks and gratitude to these two
men for their help in re-creating the world of fourth century BC
Greece, and the theory of Alexander’s campaigns that underpins this
series of novels. Any brilliant scholarship is theirs, and any
errors of scholarship are certainly mine. I will never forget the
pleasure of sitting in Prof. Wallace’s office, nor in Cuyler’s
living room, eating chocolate cake and debating the myth of
Alexander’s invincibility. Both men have passed on now, since this
book was written - but none of the Kineas books would have been the
same without them. They were great men, and great academics - the
kind of scholars who keep civilization alive.
I’d also like to thank the staff of the
University of Toronto’s Classics department for their support, and
for reviving my dormant interest in Classical Greek, as well as the
staffs of the University of Toronto and the Toronto Metro Reference
Library for their dedication and interest. Libraries matter!
I now have a website, the product of much work
and creativity. For that I owe Rebecca Jordan - please visit it.
The address is at the bottom of this.
I’d like to thank my old friends Matt Heppe and
Robert Sulentic for their support in reading the novel, commenting
on it, and helping me avoid anachronisms. Both men have
encyclopedaeic knowledge of Classical and Hellenistic military
history and, again, any errors are mine. I have added two new
readers - Aurora Simmons and Jenny Carrier; both re-enactors, both
well read, and both capable of telling me when I’ve got the whole
thing wrong.
In addition, I owe eight years of thanks to Tim
Waller, the world’s finest copy-editor. And a few pints!
I couldn’t have approached so many Greek texts
without the Perseus Project. This online resource, sponsored by
Tufts University, gives online access to almost all classical texts
in Greek and in English. Without it I would still be working on the
second line of Medea, never mind the Iliad or the
Hymn to Demeter.
I owe a debt of thanks to my excellent editor,
Bill Massey, at Orion, for giving these books constant attention
and a great deal of much needed flattery, for his good humor in the
face of authorial dicta, and for his support at every stage. I’d
also like to thank Shelley Power, my agent, for her unflagging
efforts on my behalf, and for many excellent dinners, the most
recent of which, at the world’s only Ancient Greek restaurant,
Archeon Gefsis in Athens, resulted in some hasty culinary
re-writing. Thanks, Shelley!
Finally, I would like to thank the muses of the
Luna Café, who serve both coffee and good humor, and without whom
there would certainly not have been a book. And all my thanks - a
lifetime of them - for my wife Sarah.
If you have any questions or you wish to see more
or participate (want to be a hoplite at Marathon?) please come and
visit www.hippeis.com.
Christian Cameron
Toronto, 2009
Toronto, 2009