Alexander’s next day visit was to the eastern military district.
“My lord, thank you for coming,” At the very edges of the district, Grahtos greeted him from his horseback, an excited smile plastered on his face.
He had been waiting literally close to two months to see the new cavalry armor and tactics promised by Alexander.
“Haha, yes, it was about time I showed myself to the soldiers,” Alexander gently chuckled the reply.
He had been too busy to keep in touch with the men and thought it was past time.
“Then please allow me to show the lord around,” Graptos offered and the group was escorted into the former red-light part of the district.
“We have a lot of men working on the renovations. Especially demolishing many of the poor houses and building infrastructures around them,” Grahtos informed as they made their way through the streets.
Alexander could see a lot of torn-down buildings around him, while men and donkey carts driven by women moved with haste to remove the stone and timber with haste.
Due to the labor shortage and high demand, women too had been employed in less physically intensive manual labor.
And their presence could be seen also on Alexander’s right side too.
Over to the side of the narrow road, new roads were being constructed, as men moved gravel, sand, earth, and cement with women driving the carts dragging rollers to flatten the layers, thus laying the foundations of a good, functioning city.
“Are these soldiers working here?” Alexander inquired, as he glanced at the toiling workers.
To which Grahtos replied, ” Not currently my lord. They are all military servants, some new recruits, and also hired slaves and refugees.”
“But, yes, occasionally we do use soldiers.” Grahtos admitted, and then a bit fearfully asked, “Does my lord not approve?”
Due to the manpower shortage, this action was chosen by Menes himself to get the basic construction up and running as soon as possible, and he did not get Alexander’s express permission.
“No, it’s alright.”Alexander casually brushed away the question.
And even encouraged the act, “It’s good for the soldiers to get some of this practice. The experience will come in handy as combat engineers.”
Every military needed an engineering corp after all, even an ancient military, such as building bridges, damming rivers, and building siege towers.
Graphtos did not know the exact word ‘combat engineer’ but the concept certainly existed in his time and so he understood what Alexander was saying.
Thus he nodded and said, “Yes, learning such construction training will come in handy when making fortifications on the battlefield.”
The two men then made other small talks like Alexander asking about the general mood in the military, the housing condition there, etc. and soon the entourage arrived at the heart of the district.
Here was the army headquarters, equipped with all the necessary facilities and buildings.
Some of which Grahtos introduced as they passed, “The officers such as sergeants (100 men leader) usually live in these,” He pointed to a multi-storied decent looking building fit for a somewhat well-to-do merchant to live in.
The rooms in them would be more spacious, the walls would be of better quality without large cracks, and there would be usually good cooking facilities on the first floors.
After proceeding a bit further, Grahtos then pointed to a small villa and said, “My lord, from captain onwards (600 men leader) they live in private houses like this, with their own servants and courtyard. We too live in such houses.” 𝐨𝘃𝗹.
Here ‘we; mainly meant him, Melodias, and Menes.
Of course it had to be noted that though Grahtos said all of them lived in villas, not all villas were built equally.
It was like saying one lives in an apartment.
It could be in a shitty, third-class apartment next to a chemical plant, or it could be one next to central park at the heart of manhattan.
And the people in Alexander’s council certainly lived in very nice houses no doubt about it.
Only officers were allowed private residences, as the general foot soldiers resided in the many newly constructed barracks, sharing the space with 7 other fellow soldiers and 2 servants, for a total of 10 men per barrack.
“How often do married men get to visit their spouse? Or their wives get to see them?” Alexander then posed as Graphtos told him about the barracks.
“We divided visiting days for the ten companies. So from Thursday to Monday, every day, the wives and children of two companies can visit the barracks. Also, soldiers can take one day leave every fortnight to see their family.” Grahtos detailed the procedure.
“I see.” Alexander nodded and then asked, “And where have you placed these soldiers’ families?”
Since these men would fight and die for him, he wanted to make sure their families were kept safe.
“They are placed at the outer skirts of the district. In fact, my lord saw many of them working there,” Grahtos answered, making Alexander recall the earlier sight.
It also pleased Alexander that the families were not too far in case an emergency happened.
This kind of chat continued while the group proceeded further, until they came across a large wooden fenced-off section, with Menes and Melodias waiting for him at the gate.
This was the main training section and had been quarantined off from the general public to prevent them from seeing what the soldiers were doing.
Alexander exchanged a few general pleasantries with the two men, after which Menes invited inside, “Come my lord, the soldiers are eager to see you.”
This was a scheduled visit, and so Menes had prepared the soldiers to show to Alexander.
Originally he intended to show off the entire legion to Alexander by lining them up in full battle formation outside the city.
But Alexander felt such a huge undertaking would waste a whole day’s otherwise productive worth.
So the compromise he worked out was that he would address all the soldiers, and then dismiss all but two battalions (480 soldiers each) who would participate in an exercise outside the city to show off the new legionary system.
“Then let’s meet the soldiers. They must have been waiting a long time,” Hearing Menes, Alexander hence urged.
He had gotten back quite late last night and overslept a bit, making him a bit late.
Alexander found the inside to be a large clearing, now filled with fully armored soldiers standing rows and rows in attention, ready to greet their commander.
And Alexander did not keep them waiting any longer as he quickly got on the podium built for him, and addressed the cheering crowd, “My fellow men, greetings to you all.”
With this, Alexander then gave a half an hour speech detailing the various changes in the army that had been agreed on.
“Every new recruit will be given a salary of 150 ropals a month. And each year it will be increased by 10 ropal until it reaches 200 ropals,” He promised them better pay, getting a loud roar.
To the men, it seemed a very lucrative offer as in just one year they would earn more than most of their peasant fathers.
And in five years they would earn as much as a good blacksmith.
Of course, Alexander skipped the fact that a large part of this salary would be deducted from them as food, equipment, and housing costs.
This was very much different from the professional army of modern times, but after doing the math Alexander found that if he followed the same model of his time, he would be severely handicapped in his ability to increase his army number.
And so, as always when faced with a problem, Alexander tried to find a solution from history.
And like many times before, the Romans were there to save his bacon, as they practiced the method suggested by Alexandr to equip their army.
Early Roman soldiers would be required to pay for their own equipment, while later legionaries would be given standard equipment which they would have to pay for in installments from their salary.
And this was the model Alexander decided to use, thus using the soldier’s pay to pay for a part of his army.
To do this, he calculated the various expenses behind a legionnaire.
He estimated that food would cost each legionary 70 ropals.
In context, a peasant would spend 60 ropals a month on just his own food.
And given that a legionary’s portions would be bigger and richer, this estimate was actually on the lower side.
The equipment cost included everything from all the armor such a helmet, chainmail, gambeson, etc, to weapons such as the sword, shield, and pilum, to utilities such as shovels, leather bags, utensils, tents, etc.
Alexander tried to calculate the costs of everything but found it too hard and tedious.
And so just made the number 20 ropals per month.
Lastly, there was the housing cost, which was the cost of living on the land where the barracks were situated.
There was also the cost of the bedding, the firewood for cooking, the wood or cement used to make the building, and the cost of buying the slave that would help the squad, and many other miscellaneous expenses.
Again, because he got it too fussy, Alexander rounded the cost to 10 ropals.
So, each soldier was required to pay 100 ropals per month for himself, leaving a raw recruit with only 50 ropals a month, a bit over half of the 90 ropals a peasant could have after feeding himself.