“Those fellows interest me. I will make myself their student.” Telamon from Steven Pressfield’s “The Virtues of War”

Two weeks ago I wrote a column attempting to explore why men test themselves in dangerous ways. The conclusion of the post was that men do it because they find it a transcendent experience. It was the least opened or read column I have ever posted. A more prudent man would probably take a lesson from the experience and do it no more. Perhaps I should as well, but my conclusion was that I did it poorly and that if tried again I could do a better job. Perhaps this time I’ve done better. That is for you to decide.

This time I will use my favorite novelist, Steven Pressfield, to help and hope that with his assistance you may see the transcedent experience men seek in these moments.

Pressfield’s “Virtues of War” is about Alexander and his conquests from Persia to India. One of its very early chapters is titled “Telamon.” It is about the man and depicts his early instruction of Alexander. Telamon was an Arcadian and a career warrior. Alexander’s father, King Philip of Macedon, ordered Telamon to take his teenaged son on a wolf hunt—in the dead of winter. The point being to teach Alexander what it meant, “to be a soldier.” He was forced to ride over frozen lakes, never entirely certain just how frozen they were, sleep in the snow covered with only a thin blanket, eat no more than the few rations he carried, ride into sleet and snow, keep a keen eye out for a wolf pack, become the hunter instead of the hunted, and do it all when commanded and without comment—certainly without whimper.

This little subplot then skips to almost the end of the story—to India. The monsoon rains so overflowed at the Hyphasis River that it became impossible to cross. Alexander was forced to stop his march and build a tent city for his 47,000-man army. Typical of Alexander’s engineering excellence, the streets were laid out perfectly with the intersection of the two largest meeting in the city center. I will offer the next paragraph straight from Pressfield’s telling of the story. Alexander is the narrator.

“My party had been crossing that quadrant of the camp that abuts Oxila village. One of my Pages, a bright lad name Agathon, was striding ahead to clear the lane, when he came upon a troupe of gymnosophists taking the sun in the public way. These declined to vacate for my passage. An altercation broke out between the boy and several vendors, who took up their cudgels on the renunciants’ behalf. A crowd gathered. By the time I arrived, a full-blown incident was in progress. The nut of the quarrel was this: Who was more worthy to possess the right-of-way—Alexander or the gymnosophists? As I reined-in, Agathon stood in spirited exchange with the eldest of the wise men. Indicating me, the lad declared, ‘This man has conquered the world! What have you done?’ The philosopher replied without an instant’s hesitation. ‘I have conquered the need to conquer the world.’

I laughed with delight. At once my party yielded.”

Telamon’s story next continues very near the end of the book. As Alexander’s army prepares to decamp and start the long march back to Babylon, Telamon approaches Alexander to exercise his long ago given right to leave the army anytime he pleased. Alexander offered him gifts of departure but Telamon would accept none, saying he carried all he would need.

Then Alexander asked Telamon where he intended to go. Telamon pointed to a road leading high up the hills into the east on which a group of gynnosophists traveled. He said, “Those fellows interest me, I will make myself their student.”

“To learn what?” Alexander inquired.

“What comes after being a soldier.”