1. It was the opinion of several of the ancient natural scientists, not least Pythagoras of Samos, that men’s souls are immortal, and in keeping with this view they said that at the moment of death, when the soul is separating from the body, it can foresee the future. [2] The poet Homer seems to have agreed with them, because he has Hector, at the moment of his death, telling Achilles about his impending death.* [3] There have been many recorded instances of the same phenomenon in more recent times as well, when men were on the verge of death, and a signal case in point is the death of Alexander the Great. [4] As he lay dying in Babylon, he was asked by his Friends to whom he was leaving the kingdom, and with his last breath he said: ‘To the best. For I foresee that my funeral games will take the form of a memorable contest among my Friends.’* [5] And that is what actually happened: his foremost Friends fell out over the issue of supremacy and fought a large number of major battles after his death.
This book, which contains an account of their deeds, will shed light on this saying of Alexander’s for the interested reader. [6] The previous book covered all of Alexander’s achievements and ended with his death; this one contains the history of the Successors to his kingdom and covers seven years, ending with the year before the accession of the tyrant Agathocles.
2. In the year of the Archonship of Cephisodorus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Lucius Frurius and Decius Junius.* In this year:
Since the king, Alexander, died childless, the throne was left vacant and supremacy became a major bone of contention.* [2] The infantry phalanx was pushing for Arrhidaeus—who was the son of Philip, but was afflicted with incurable mental problems—to become king.* But the most important of Alexander’s Friends and Bodyguards* talked things over among themselves and, since they had the support of the cavalry unit known as the Companion Cavalry, they decided at first to contest the issue with the phalanx, and they sent a delegation of high-ranking men—the most distinguished of them being Meleager—as emissaries to the infantry to demand their obedience.
[3] When Meleager reached the phalangites, however, he made no mention of the mission with which he had been entrusted; on the contrary, he congratulated them on the decision they had taken and stirred them up against their adversaries. The Macedonians therefore made Meleager their leader and advanced under arms against their opponents. [4] The Bodyguards retreated out of Babylon and got ready to fight, but there were men of noble principles present,* and they persuaded the two sides to make peace. Arrhidaeus, the son of Philip, was immediately raised to the kingship, under the name of Philip;* Perdiccas, the man to whom the dying king had given his seal ring,* was made custodian of the kingdom;* and the most important of Alexander’s Friends received satrapies as subordinates of the king and Perdiccas.
3. So Perdiccas assumed supreme command. After conferring with his officers, he gave Egypt to Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, Syria to Laomedon of Mytilene, Cilicia to Philotas, and Media to Pithon. Eumenes received Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and all the neighbouring territories, which had been bypassed by Alexander because at the time the war with Darius had allowed him no opportunity to invade them.* Antigonus was given Pamphylia, Lycia, and Greater Phrygia; Asander* got Caria, Menander* Lydia, and Leonnatus Hellespontine Phrygia. That is how these satrapies were distributed.
[2] In Europe, Lysimachus received Thrace and the nearby peoples of the Black Sea coast,* while Macedon and its neighbours were assigned to Antipater. As for the remaining Asian satrapies, Perdiccas decided to make no changes and to leave them under the governors they already had. He likewise left Taxiles and Porus as masters of their kingdoms, keeping to the arrangements put in place by Alexander himself. [3] The satrapy next to Taxiles’ kingdom Perdiccas granted to Pithon,*† and the satrapy that lies at the foot of the Caucasus,* which is called Paropanisadae, he assigned to Oxyartes of Bactria, whose daughter Rhoxane had been Alexander’s wife. He gave Arachosia and Gedrosia to Sibyrtius, Areia and Drangiane to Stasanor of Soli, Bactria and Sogdiana to Philip, Parthyaea and Hyrcania to Phrataphernes, Persis to Peucestas, Carmania to Tlepolemus, Media to Atropates,* Babylonia to Archon, and Mesopotamia to Arcesilaus. He gave Seleucus the enormously prestigious command of the Companion Cavalry; Hephaestion had been the original commander, and he was followed by Perdiccas, and now Seleucus. And he† gave Arrhidaeus* the job of transporting the corpse and building the carriage that would convey the body of the dead king to Ammon.
4. Now, it so happened that Craterus, one of the leading men, had been sent ahead to Cilicia by Alexander with the ten thousand discharged soldiers.* At the same time, Alexander gave him written instructions to carry out, but after his death the Successors decided not to implement these plans. [2] Perdiccas found in the king’s notebooks plans not only for the completion of Hephaestion’s funeral monument, which required a great deal of money, but for a number of other major projects involving enormous expenditure. It was Perdiccas’ opinion that the best course was for him to cancel these plans, [3] but he did not want to appear to have diminished Alexander’s glory on his own authority, so he referred the decision on these matters to the general assembly of the Macedonians.
[4] The greatest and most remarkable of the plans in the notebooks were as follows.* A thousand warships larger than triremes were to be built in Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and Cyprus for an expedition against the Carthaginians and the other inhabitants of the coastlines of Libya, Iberia, and so on up to Sicily; a road was to be laid along the coast of Libya all the way to the Pillars of Heracles,* with harbours and dockyards constructed at suitable points because of the great size of the fleet; six very lavish temples were to be built, each costing 1,500 talents; and in addition there were cities to be founded and populations to be transferred from Asia to Europe, and also the other way around, from Europe to Asia, the intention being to use intermarriage and the creation of family ties to bring the two largest continents into concord and the kind of solidarity that is only found among relatives.
[5] The temples I have mentioned were to be built at Delos, Delphi, and Dodona,* and the other three in Macedon: a temple of Zeus at Dium, a temple of Artemis Tauropolus at Amphipolis, and a temple of Athena at Cyrrhus.† There was also another temple of Athena to be built at Ilium, designed to match any temple in the world for grandeur. And a tomb was to be built for his father, Philip, to rival the single greatest pyramid in Egypt, which some people count as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.* [6] The Macedonians had no quarrel with Alexander, but once the notebooks had been read out, they appreciated how grandiose and impractical the projects were, and they decided not to put any of them into effect.
[7] The first thing Perdiccas did was put to death the thirty men in the army who were chiefly responsible for the turmoil and were particularly hostile towards him. Next, it was the turn of Meleager, who had acted treacherously during the crisis and on his mission to the infantry; seizing on aspersions† and denunciations of a personal nature, he punished Meleager on the charge of having plotted against him.* [8] Next, since the Greeks who had been settled in the upper satrapies had revolted and raised a substantial army, he sent one of the leading men, Pithon, to put them down by force.*
5. Given the events I am about to describe, I feel that I should first clarify not just the causes of the revolt, but also the overall disposition of Asia and the sizes and characteristics of the satrapies. I want my account to be easy for readers to follow, and nothing will help more towards that goal than if I give them some idea of the overall topography and the distances involved.
[2] From the Taurus in Cilicia, through the entirety of Asia to the Caucasus and the eastern Ocean is one continuous range of mountains.* Each stretch of this mountain range has its own name, because it is divided into distinct sections by various prominences. [3] Thanks to this continuous mountain range, Asia is divided into two parts, one facing north and one facing south. Because of these two different orientations, the rivers flow in opposite directions: those to the north debouch into the Caspian Sea or the Black Sea or the northern Ocean, while their opposite numbers issue either into the Ocean off India or the Ocean that hugs the Indian coastline, or are carried down to the so-called Red Sea.*
[4] The satrapies are similarly divided into those that face north and those that face south.* The easternmost of those that face north, Sogdiana–Bactria, lies on the Tanais river,* and then the next ones to the west are Areia, Parthyaea, and Hyrcania. This last satrapy envelops the Hyrcanian Sea, which is a distinct body of water.* Next comes Media, which includes many regions with their own individual names and is the largest of all the satrapies. Then there are Armenia, Lycaonia, and Cappadocia, all of which have cold climates. Carrying on due west, their neighbours are Greater Phrygia and Hellespontine Phrygia, which have Lydia and Caria off their southern flanks, while Pisidia occupies the high ground beside southern Phrygia, and has Lycia as its neighbour. [5] The coastlines of these last satrapies are where the Greek cities are to be found, but for present purposes there is no need for me to record their names. So much for the positions of the north-facing satrapies.
6. The first of the south-facing satrapies, next to the Caucasus, is India, a large and populous country, ruled by kings and inhabited by many Indian peoples. The greatest of these are the Gandaridae, who avoided being attacked by Alexander because of the great many war elephants they had.* [2] The border between the Gandaridae and the next part of India is formed by a river called the Ganges, which is the greatest river in India and has a width of thirty stades. Then comes the rest of India, the part that Alexander conquered, which is irrigated by the waters of five rivers*† and is famous for its prosperity. This region was where the realms of Porus and Taxiles were, along with many other kingdoms, and through it flows the Indus river, after which the whole country is named.
[3] The next satrapy across the border from India is Arachosia, which is followed by Gedrosia and then Carmania. Next comes Persis, which includes Susiane and Sittacene. Persis is followed by Babylonia, which goes up to the Arabian desert. On the other side of Babylonia, in the opposite direction from that which we take when we journey inland, is Mesopotamia, which is encompassed by two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which have given the satrapy its name.* The next satrapy to Babylonia is Upper Syria, which is bordered by the coastal satrapies of Cilicia and Pamphylia, and by Coele Syria, which includes Phoenicia.* Beyond the border of Coele Syria and its adjacent desert (the desert through which the Nile flows, forming the border between Syria and Egypt) lies Egypt, which is traditionally regarded as the best of all the satrapies for the amount of wealth it generates. [4] All these satrapies are hot, since the southern climate is the opposite of that which prevails in the north. So much for the locations of the satrapies conquered by Alexander. These were the satrapies that were distributed among the most important of his Friends.
7. The Greeks who had been settled by Alexander in the upper satrapies missed Greek customs and the Greek way of life, cast away as they were in the remotest regions of the empire. While the king was alive they put up with their situation out of fear, but they rose up in rebellion after his death. [2] They collaborated, chose as their general Philon the Aenianian, and raised a large army of more than twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse. All the men were hardened veterans of war, noted for their valour.
[3] When Perdiccas heard of the Greek rebellion, he put together a force of three thousand foot and eight hundred horse, drawn by lot from among his Macedonians. He chose as their commander Pithon—a former Bodyguard of Alexander’s, a proud man and a competent general—and passed the soldiers he had selected by lot on to him. He gave him letters for the satraps, in which he ordered them to supply Pithon with troops, specifically with ten thousand foot and eight thousand horse, and sent him off to deal with the rebels. [4] Now, Pithon was a highly ambitious man, and he was delighted to accept command of the expedition because he intended to attach the Greeks to himself by treating them well. Then, once he had enlarged his army by taking them on as auxiliaries, he planned to go independent and rule over the upper satrapies. [5] But Perdiccas suspected that this was what Pithon was planning, and he gave him express orders to kill all the rebels, once he had defeated them, and to share the spoils among his men.*
Pithon set off with the soldiers he had been given, and once he had added the troops supplied by the satraps, he marched to confront the rebels at full strength. Through the agency of a man from Aenis, he bribed Lipodorus,† whom the rebels had put in charge of a contingent of three thousand of their soldiers, and won a decisive victory. [6] Battle had been joined and the outcome was hanging in the balance when, with no warning, the traitor deserted his allies and took himself and three thousand men off to a hill. Discipline broke down in the rest of the army, because they believed that these men had been routed, and they turned and fled.
[7] After his victory, Pithon sent a herald to the defeated rebels, ordering them to lay down their arms and promising that they could return to their homes with their safety guaranteed. [8] Oaths were exchanged to this effect, and the Greeks fraternized with the Macedonians. Pithon was delighted, because things were developing according to his plan, but the Macedonians remembered Perdiccas’ orders and, ignoring their sworn oaths, they violated their agreement with the Greeks. [9] They launched a surprise attack on them, caught them off guard, massacred them to a man, and took their property for themselves. With his hopes dashed, Pithon returned to Perdiccas with the Macedonians. That was how things stood in Asia.
8. In Europe, the Rhodians* threw out their Macedonian garrison and gave their city back its liberty, while the Athenians embarked on the Lamian War against Antipater. It will help to make the course of the war more comprehensible if I preface my account of it with an explanation of its causes. [2] Not long before his death, Alexander decided that all the exiles from the various Greek cities were to be restored to their homelands.* He did this not just to enhance his glory, but also because he wanted every city to contain a good number of individuals who were loyal to him, in order to counteract the revolutionary and rebellious tendencies of the Greeks. [3] So, since the Olympic festival was in the offing, he sent Nicanor of Stagira to Greece with a dispatch on the matter of the restoration of the exiles, and told him to have it read out by the victorious herald* to the mass of people who had come for the festival. [4] Nicanor carried out his orders, and the dispatch that he gave the herald to read out was as follows:
King Alexander to the exiles from the Greek cities: Although we were not and are not responsible for your banishment, we will be responsible for restoring you to your homelands. Only those of you who are under a curse are excluded. We have written to Antipater about this, instructing him to use force in the case of cities that refuse to comply.
[5] This announcement was loudly acclaimed by the crowd. The people attending the festival showed their appreciation of the king’s gift and expressed their happiness by responding to his benefaction with shouts of gratitude. [6] All the exiles had assembled for the festival, and there were more than twenty thousand of them.
On the whole, people thought the restoration of the exiles was a good thing and they welcomed it, but it angered and worried the Aetolians and Athenians. The Aetolians had expelled the people of Oeniadae from their homeland, and now began to expect that they would be punished for their wrongdoing—and in fact the king had already threatened them by saying that it would not be the sons of the people of Oeniadae who would make them pay, but that he himself would see to it. [7] And the Athenians had established a cleruchy* on Samos and were flatly refusing to give up the island. But since they were no match for Alexander’s forces, they kept quiet for the time being. They were waiting for a favourable opportunity, and Fortune soon supplied them with one.
9. When Alexander died shortly afterwards, leaving no sons to succeed to the kingdom, the Athenians made a bold bid for freedom and for the general leadership of the Greeks. As resources for the war, they had not only the great quantity of money abandoned by Harpalus (I gave a detailed account of the affair in the previous book),* but also the eight thousand mercenaries who had been dismissed from service in Asia by the satraps and who were biding their time at Cape Taenarum in the Peloponnese.* [2] So they issued secret orders to Leosthenes of Athens about the mercenaries, stressing that he was to recruit them as though he were acting in his own interests, not on behalf of the Athenian people. Antipater would then hardly trouble himself with making any preparations, since Leosthenes would not appear to him to constitute any kind of threat,* and it would buy time for the Athenians to get ahead in their preparations for war. [3] Proceeding with great discretion, then, Leosthenes hired these mercenaries, and before anyone was aware of it he had a substantial force under his command. They were ready for action as well, because they had served for a long while in Asia, where they had taken part in a large number of major battles and had become trained experts in war.
[4] All this was going on before the news of Alexander’s death had been confirmed, but then some people arrived from Babylon who had personally witnessed the king’s death, and at that point the Athenian people stopped disguising their warlike intentions. They sent Leosthenes some of Harpalus’ money and many suits of armour, and told him that the time for secrecy had passed and he could now openly act in their interests. [5] Once he had paid the mercenaries and equipped those who lacked armour, he went to Aetolia to conclude an agreement about joint action. The Aetolians were happy to comply and they gave him seven thousand soldiers. Leosthenes next wrote to the Locrians and Phocians and their neighbours, urging them to espouse the cause of independence and free Greece from Macedonian domination.
10. The Athenian people <met to decide what to do. In the course of the debate,>† the men of property advised them not to break the peace, while the demagogues tried to stir them up and stiffen their resolve for war, but those who were in favour of war were in the great majority. They were men who customarily made their living as mercenaries—men of whom Philip once remarked that, for them, war was peace and peace war. [2] The politicians accordingly gave shape to the popular impulse by formulating a decree to the effect that the Athenian people should make the freedom of the Greeks their business. They were to liberate any cities that had been garrisoned and make seaworthy forty quadriremes and two hundred triremes, all Athenians under the age of forty were to be called up, and seven tribes were to be ready to serve abroad, leaving the protection of Attica to the other three tribes.* [3] Moreover, envoys were to be sent around the Greek cities with the job of explaining that, just as, in the past, it was because the Athenian people judged Greece to be the common homeland of the Greeks* that they had used their navy to repel the barbarians* who had invaded Greece in order to enslave its inhabitants, so now they were of the opinion that the survival of the Greeks required them to put their lives, wealth, and ships at the service of defending them.
[4] So this decree was ratified, with more haste than prudence. The more intelligent Greeks thought that, if their aim was glory, the Athenian people had made the right decision, but that they had mistaken where their own best interests lay. For they had revolted prematurely and were intending to go to war when there was no urgent necessity for them to do so, against armies made up of a great many men who had never known defeat. Moreover, although the Athenians were reputed to be especially clever, they had failed to learn the lesson of the renowned Theban catastrophe.* [5] Nevertheless, as their ambassadors toured the cities, and tried with typically Athenian eloquence to motivate them for war, most cities did join the alliance, whether they did so as members of a confederacy or as individual city-states.*
11. As for the Greeks who remained outside the alliance, some sided with the Macedonians, while others chose neutrality. The Aetolians, as I have already said, were the first to join the alliance, and they did so unanimously. They were followed by all the Thessalians (except the people of Pelinna), the Oetaeans (except the people of Heraclea), the Phthiotic Achaeans (except for the Thebans), and the Malians (except for the Lamians). Then all the Dorians signed up, and the Locrians, the Phocians, the Aenianians, the Alyzaeans, the Dolopians, the Athamanians, the Leucadians, and the Molossians who were ruled by Arhyptaeus.* But Arhyptaeus’ commitment to the alliance was false, and later he treacherously cooperated with the Macedonians. As for the Illyrians and Thracians, a few joined the alliance out of hatred of Macedon. [2] Then the people of Carystus in Euboea also contributed to the allied war effort, as (to complete the list) did a number of Peloponnesian peoples: the Argives, Sicyonians, Eleans, Messenians, and the inhabitants of the Headland.* These were the Greeks who joined the alliance.
[3] The Athenian people strengthened Leosthenes’ position by sending some of their citizen soldiers to him—five thousand foot and five hundred horse—and two thousand mercenaries. These men had to pass through Boeotia,* but it so happened that the Boeotians were at odds with the Athenians. The reason for their hostility was as follows. When Alexander razed Thebes, he gave its land to the Boeotians who lived near by, [4] and these Boeotians divided the farms of the hapless Thebans among themselves. The land they gained was very profitable for them, and so, since they knew that Athenian victory in the war would be followed by the restoration to the Thebans of their land as well as their city, they had sided with the Macedonians. [5] The Boeotians were encamped near Plataea when Leosthenes arrived in Boeotia with part of his army. Battle was joined and, with the help of the Athenian contingents, Leosthenes defeated the Boeotians. After his victory—and after erecting a trophy—he quickly returned to Thermopylae, where he had been based for a while. The passes were already in his hands, and now he waited for the Macedonian army.
12. The news of Alexander’s death in Babylon and the distribution of the satrapies prompted Antipater—the man who had been left behind by Alexander as his General in Europe—to write to Craterus in Cilicia, asking him to come with reinforcements as quickly as possible. Craterus had been sent ahead to Cilicia and was due to repatriate the Macedonian troops who had been discharged from service, who numbered over ten thousand. Antipater also wrote to Philotas,* who had received the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, asking him too for help, and offering him one of his daughters in marriage.* [2] Then, when he found out that the Greeks had united against him, he left Sippas in charge of Macedon, with an adequate number of soldiers and orders to recruit as many more as he could, while he took thirteen thousand Macedonian infantry† and six hundred cavalry (no more than that, because Macedon was short of citizen soldiers, since so many of them had been sent to Asia as replacements for the army) and left Macedon for Thessaly, with his entire fleet shadowing the army along the coast. This was the fleet of 110 ships which Alexander had sent to convoy a large amount of money from the imperial treasuries to Macedon.
[3] At first, the Thessalians fought for Antipater and supplied him with many fine horsemen, but later they were persuaded by the Athenians to change sides. They rode off to Leosthenes, who posted them alongside the Athenians, and fought for Greek freedom. [4] This substantial addition to the Athenian contingent gave the Greeks considerable numerical superiority and they began to gain the upper hand. After he had been worsted in battle, Antipater had no desire to fight again. At the same time, however, he could not return safely to Macedon, so he fled for safety to the town of Lamia.* He kept his army confined there, improved the city walls, furnished himself with weaponry, catapults, and grain, and waited for his allies from Asia.
13. So Leosthenes and his army halted near Lamia. He fortified his camp with a deep trench and a palisade, and his opening gambit was to approach the town with his men in battle array and challenge the Macedonians to battle. When they proved to have no stomach for a fight, he began to assault the wall day in and day out, with his men working in relays. [2] The Macedonians fought back well, however, and many Greek lives were lost as they pushed forward recklessly. It was not difficult for the defenders to have the advantage: there were a great many soldiers in the town, they were well stocked with all kinds of artillery, and the defensive wall was superb. At this point, the Aetolians asked Leosthenes for permission to return home for a while, to take care of some internal business,* and the entire contingent returned to Aetolia.†
[3] Leosthenes abandoned the idea of taking the place by storm. Instead, he made it impossible for supplies to continue to enter the town, thinking that shortage of food would soon force those who were trapped inside to submit, and he built a rampart and dug a huge, deep trench, so that there was no way for any of the besieged to get out. [4] But just when Antipater had been worn down by this tactic, and imminent famine had brought the city close to surrender, Fortune granted the Macedonians an unexpected piece of good luck.
[5] What happened was that Leosthenes went to the assistance of some of his men—they had been working on the trench, and had become involved in a fight when Antipater had attacked them—and he was struck on the head by a stone. He fell straight to the ground and was carried unconscious back to his camp, but two days later he died. His conduct of the war had brought him great fame, and he was awarded a hero’s funeral. The Athenian people gave Hypereides, the foremost politician in Athens for his eloquence and hostility towards Macedon, the job of delivering the funeral eulogy.* [6] They gave it to Hypereides because the most important Athenian politician, Demosthenes, had been found guilty of accepting a bribe from Harpalus and was in exile at the time.* Leosthenes’ replacement as general was Antiphilus, a brilliant strategist and an outstandingly brave man. That was how things stood in Europe.
14. In Asia, of those who had been assigned satrapies, Ptolemy took over Egypt* without any trouble. The native Egyptians he treated well, and with the chest of eight thousand talents that he inherited* he began to hire mercenaries and build up his forces. A number of his Friends were also attracted to Egypt by his moral integrity. [2] He approached Antipater with a view to entering into a treaty of cooperation, which was duly concluded, because there was no doubt in his mind that Perdiccas intended to try to take the satrapy of Egypt away from him.
Lysimachus launched an offensive in the Thracian countryside and found King Seuthes encamped with twenty thousand foot and eight thousand horse, but he was not fazed by the size of the enemy army. He brought the barbarians to battle, with an army consisting of no more than four thousand foot and two thousand horse, [3] and although he was numerically inferior, his men’s martial skills were superior, and a hard-fought battle took place in which his losses were great, but nowhere near as great as those of the enemy. In the end, he returned to camp the victor of an inconclusive battle. [4] For the time being, then, both sides withdrew from the countryside and occupied themselves with larger-scale preparations for the final struggle.*
As for Leonnatus, when Hecataeus* came to him as Antipater’s ambassador and said that his help was urgently needed by Antipater and the Macedonians, he promised his support. [5] He crossed over to Europe and marched to Macedon, where he enlisted Macedonians in large numbers for his army.* He ended up with a total of more than twenty thousand foot and 1,500 horse, and then he marched through Thessaly to confront the enemy.
15. The Greeks abandoned the siege. They burnt their camp and sent the baggage and the camp followers, who would be useless in a fight, to Meliteia,* while the soldiers, now lightened and ready for battle, advanced to meet Leonnatus before he could link up with Antipater and unite the two armies. [2] The Greeks had an infantry force of only twenty-two thousand in all, because all the Aetolians had already left and returned home, and quite a few of the other Greeks had by then scattered to their various homes. But they had a cavalry force of more than 3,500, two thousand of whom were exceptionally skilled Thessalians, and it was they, above all, on whom the Greeks were depending for victory. [3] And indeed, when a fierce and protracted cavalry engagement took place, the Thessalians’ skill gave them the upper hand. After putting on a dazzling display of martial prowess, Leonnatus found himself trapped in a marsh, with no chance of getting out alive. He died of his many wounds, and his men took up his corpse and carried it back to the baggage train.*
[4] This battle, with Menon of Thessaly in command, was a resounding victory for the Greeks, and the Macedonian infantry, fearful of the Greek cavalry, rapidly retreated from the plain to the nearby hills, where the strength of their position kept them safe. The Thessalian cavalry rode up, but the fractured terrain meant that there was nothing they could do. The Greeks therefore erected a trophy, collected their dead, and left the field of battle.
[5] The next day, however, Antipater and his men arrived and linked up with their defeated comrades. All the Macedonians now formed a single camp, and Antipater took overall command. [6] Under the circumstances, he decided not to continue fighting, and since the enemy had cavalry superiority, he chose not to retreat across level terrain, but instead made good his withdrawal by leading his men over broken ground and by speedily occupying the high points. [7] Antiphilus, the commander of the Greeks, had won a brilliant victory against the Macedonians, and he remained on guard in Thessaly, waiting for the enemy to make a move.
So the Greeks were enjoying a high degree of success. [8] But at sea the Macedonians were supreme, and so the Athenians fitted out extra ships to supplement those at their disposal, until they had 170 in all. The Macedonian fleet, however, consisted of 240 ships, under the command of Cleitus, [9] and when Cleitus engaged his Athenian counterpart, Euetion, in battle, he beat him twice and destroyed many enemy ships off the islands called the Echinades.*
16. Meanwhile, Perdiccas, with King Philip and the Royal Army, marched against Ariarathes, the dynast of Cappadocia. Ariarathes had refused to submit to Macedon, and Alexander had been too distracted by his conflict with Darius to deal with him, so he had enjoyed an extended respite as master of Cappadocia. [2] This had enabled him to put aside a large amount of money from his revenues, and he had gathered a large force of Cappadocians and mercenaries. Styling himself king of Cappadocia, he was ready to fight Perdiccas with an army of thirty thousand foot and 10,500 horse. But when they met in battle,* Perdiccas won, and in doing so killed about four thousand of his men and took more than five thousand prisoners, one of whom was Ariarathes. [3] After torturing him and all his relatives, Perdiccas had them impaled,* but he pardoned the defeated Cappadocians, and once he had settled their affairs, he gave the satrapy to Eumenes of Cardia, to whom it had originally been assigned.*
[4] It was also about now that Craterus left Cilicia and arrived in Macedon, to reinforce Antipater and to redress the balance after the defeats the Macedonians had suffered. He brought with him six thousand foot soldiers who had been with Alexander from the moment he crossed from Europe into Asia,* four thousand who had been added in the course of the march, a thousand Persian archers and slingers, and 1,500 cavalry. [5] Once he arrived in Thessaly, he willingly yielded supreme command of the army to Antipater and they encamped together by the river Peneus.* Their forces in total, including those who had come with Leonnatus, amounted to more than forty thousand heavy infantry, three thousand archers and slingers, and five thousand cavalry.
17. The Greeks now made camp not far from the Macedonians, but with considerably depleted numbers, because a lot of men had returned home to take care of domestic business, since their earlier successes had led them to belittle the enemy’s abilities. [2] With many† soldiers neglecting their duty in this way, there remained in camp only twenty-five thousand foot and 3,500 horse. They were pinning their hopes of victory on the cavalry, because of their calibre and because the terrain where they were was level. [3] After a while, Antipater began to lead his forces up to the Greek camp every day and challenge them to battle. At first, the Greeks waited for their missing men to come back from their towns and cities, but eventually circumstances compelled them to commit themselves to the decisive battle.
They drew up their forces with the cavalry posted in front of the infantry phalanx, since it was the cavalry that they were hoping would win the battle for them. [4] And indeed, when battle was joined, the skill of the Thessalian cavalry gave them the advantage over the enemy cavalry—but Antipater called up his infantry, who smashed into the enemy phalanx and inflicted heavy casualties. The Greek infantry were unable to withstand the pressure exerted by so many men and retreated straight away to the hills. They took care to remain in formation, and so, once they had seized the high ground, the superiority of their position made it easy for them to keep the Macedonians at bay. [5] The Greek cavalry were getting the better of their opposite numbers, but as soon as they realized that the infantry had retreated, they rode off to join them. At that point, with the battle having gone as I have described, the two sides separated, with the scales of victory favouring the Macedonians. More than five hundred Greeks lost their lives in the fighting, but only 130 Macedonians.
[6] The next day, the two senior Greek officers, Menon and Antiphilus, met to determine whether they should wait for their allies to reappear from their homelands, and then fight the decisive battle once they were in a position to meet the enemy on equal terms, or whether they should bow to circumstances and send a delegation to negotiate terms. They decided to send heralds to arrange an end to hostilities, [7] but in response, once the heralds had carried out their mission, Antipater flatly refused to consider a collective settlement and insisted that each city should negotiate separately. But city-by-city solutions were unacceptable to the Greeks, so Antipater and Craterus set about laying siege to the Thessalian cities and taking them by main force, since the Greeks were in no position to send help. The terrified towns therefore began unilaterally to send envoys to discuss terms, and because Antipater treated them decently and never failed to grant peace, [8] the desire to secure safety for themselves swept through the rest of the Greeks, and before long they all obtained peace—except those whose hostility towards Macedon was most bitter, the Aetolians and Athenians. Now abandoned by their allies, they waited for the return of their troops† and then met to try to decide what to do about the war.
18. Having successfully dismantled Greek unity by this manoeuvre, Antipater led his entire army against Athens.* With no help forthcoming from their allies, the Athenian people had no idea what to do. Everyone in the Assembly looked to Demades and called out that he should be sent as an ambassador to Antipater to sue for peace,* but although he was asked to recommend a course of action, he refused to do so. [2] He had been found guilty three times of illegal procedures, and had therefore lost his citizenship privileges and was legally debarred from offering advice. But as soon as the people had given him back his citizenship, he was sent off as a member of an embassy that included Phocion and several others.
[3] After listening to their speeches, Antipater replied that the only way he would end the war with Athens was if they left their fate entirely up to him—the point being that this was the reply the Athenians had given Antipater’s envoys when they had him trapped inside Lamia and he had sued for peace. Since the Athenians were no match for him in military terms, they had no choice but to surrender unconditionally and allow Antipater complete authority over the city. [4] He was lenient in his treatment of them, in the sense that he let them keep their city, their farms, and everything else, but he changed the constitution from democracy* and ordered that citizenship and the ability to play a political role in the city were to depend on a means test—that is, that only those with property worth more than two thousand drachmas should play a role in the administration and be allowed to vote, while all those whose property fell below this level were excluded from political life, on the grounds that their politics was disruptive and hawkish.* However, he offered land in Thrace to anyone who wanted to settle there, [5] and more than twenty-two thousand*† moved there from Athens.
So those with the stipulated level of property, who numbered about nine thousand, were made responsible for the city and its land, and proceeded to govern in accordance with the laws of Solon.* They were all allowed to keep their property in its entirety, but they had to accept a garrison (commanded by Menyllus), whose job was to prevent any sedition.* [6] The decision regarding Samos was referred to the kings.* So the Athenians obtained peace. They had been better treated than they had expected, and from then on their political life proceeded smoothly; they could profit from their land without fear of attack, and it was not long before they had recovered their prosperity.
[7] On his return to Macedon, Antipater enhanced Craterus’ prestige with appropriate honours and gifts, gave him one of his daughters—the eldest, Phila—to be his wife, and helped him get ready to return to Asia.* [8] He treated the rest of the Greek cities just as equitably as he had treated Athens—reducing their citizenship rolls and putting good constitutions in place*—and for this he was formally thanked and awarded crowns.* [9] Perdiccas gave the Samians back both their city and their farmland and restored them to their homeland after an exile of forty-three years.
19. Now that I have covered the course of the Lamian War, I shall move on to the war that took place in Cyrene, so as to keep events in their proper sequential order as much as possible.* But I must first briefly summarize the background, to make my account of particular events more comprehensible. [2] After Harpalus had fled from Asia and landed on Crete with his mercenaries, as I explained in the previous book,* Thibron, who was supposed to be a friend of his, murdered him and took possession of both his money and his seven thousand soldiers. [3] Once he gained his ships as well, he embarked his men and sailed over to Cyrene. He had brought with him a number of exiles from Cyrene, who knew the terrain and were acting as his guides for this venture.*
The Cyreneans confronted him and a battle took place which Thibron won, taking a lot of lives in the process and plenty of prisoners. [4] Once he had gained control of the port,* he put the city under siege and forced the terrified Cyreneans to make a pact with him whereby they were to give him five hundred talents of silver and contribute half of the chariots for the campaigns he planned. [5] He also sent envoys around the other cities of Cyrenaica, asking for treaties of alliance, seeing that he was going to conquer the part of Libya that lay across their borders; and he stole the merchandise that he found in the port from the traders and gave it to his soldiers as plunder, to arouse their enthusiasm for the war.
20. So things were going well for Thibron, but Fortune soon altered course and brought him low. This is what happened. One of his officers, a Cretan called Mnasicles, a man with plenty of experience and knowledge of warfare, held a grudge against him over what he claimed was the unfair division of the spoils, and, hot-headed trouble-maker that he was, he deserted and went over to the Cyreneans. [2] He went on and on to them about Thibron’s cruelty and dishonesty, until he persuaded the Cyreneans to break their agreement and make a bid for freedom. Only sixty talents had been paid up to that point, and when the rest of the money was not forthcoming, Thibron denounced the rebels and arrested the eighty or so Cyreneans he found in the port. Then he immediately led his men against the city and assaulted it, but that got him nowhere and he returned to the port.
[3] Since the people of Barca and Hesperides were on Thibron’s side, the Cyreneans took to the field with half of their army, leaving the other half in the city, and ravaged their neighbours’ farmland. [4] The victims of this expedition appealed for help from Thibron and he set out at full strength to fight alongside his allies. At this juncture, the Cretan, realizing that the port was undefended, persuaded those who remained in Cyrene to attack it. [5] As soon as he had won their agreement, he assaulted the port, with himself leading the operation, and because of Thibron’s absence he easily gained control of it. He gave the traders back what remained of their cargoes and put the port under close guard.
[6] At first, Thibron was despondent, because he had lost a favourable position and his men’s baggage, but later his morale improved, and after taking the town called Taucheira, he fully recovered his confidence. As luck would have it, however, a short while later he met with further serious setbacks. [7] Since they had no access to the port and were short of food, the crews of his ships were in the habit of going out every day into the countryside and foraging for their food. But the Libyans ambushed them as they were roaming around the countryside, and killed or captured a lot of men. The survivors of the affair fled for safety to their ships and set sail for the cities that were allied to them, but a violent wind arose and most of the ships were swallowed up by the sea. Of the few survivors, some were driven ashore on Cyprus and others in Egypt.
21. Despite the magnitude of this catastrophe, Thibron did not give up the fight. He selected those of his friends who were qualified for the job and sent them to the Peloponnese to recruit the mercenaries who were encamped at Cape Taenarum,* where many discharged mercenaries were still on the loose and on the lookout for paymasters. In fact, at that time there were more than 2,500 mercenaries at Taenarum, [2] and Thibron’s agents set about recruiting them, and then set sail for Cyrene. But before the mercenaries arrived,† the Cyreneans, encouraged by the successes they had enjoyed, fought a battle with Thibron, in which they took a lot of lives and came off victorious.
[3] By now these setbacks had made Thibron ready to abandon his attempt on Cyrene, but his spirits abruptly rose again when the soldiers from Taenarum arrived. The addition of this large force to his army gave him renewed confidence. [4] Seeing that the war was intensifying once more, the Cyreneans asked their Libyan neighbours and the Carthaginians for help, and when they had gathered an army of thirty thousand, including their own citizen soldiers, they prepared to settle things once and for all.
A major battle took place, in which Thibron was victorious and killed many of the enemy. He was delighted, believing that the nearby cities would fall to him in short order, [5] but the Cyreneans, all of whose generals had been killed in the battle, elected a new board of generals, which included the Cretan, Mnasicles. With his confidence high as a result of his victory, Thibron put the Cyreneans’ port under siege and launched daily assaults on Cyrene itself. [6] As the fighting dragged on and the Cyreneans became short of food, political strife broke out among them. The democrats came out on top and threw the men of property out of the city, and these outcasts fled either to Thibron or to Egypt. [7] The ones who went to Egypt persuaded Ptolemy to restore them to their homeland, and came back with a large land army and fleet, under the command of Ophellas. When the exiles who had gone to Thibron heard of the arrival of this army, they tried surreptitiously to leave under cover of darkness and join them, but they were spotted and cut down to a man.
[8] The return of the exiles frightened the democratic generals in Cyrene, and they came to terms with Thibron and the former enemies got ready to fight Ophellas together. [9] But Ophellas defeated Thibron and took him prisoner, and then, once the cities had fallen to him, he turned both them and their land over to King Ptolemy.* So Cyrene and its neighbours lost their freedom and became dependencies of the Ptolemaic kingdom.*
22. After Perdiccas and King Philip had defeated Ariarathes and turned the satrapy over to Eumenes, they left Cappadocia and went to Pisidia, where they had decided utterly to destroy two towns, Laranda and Isaura. While Alexander was still alive, the people of these towns had killed Balacrus, the son of Nicanor, who was simultaneously satrap and military governor.* [2] Laranda fell to Perdiccas straight away, and after massacring the men of military age and selling the rest of the population into slavery, he razed the town to the ground. Isaura, however, was large and strong, and brimming with brave defenders. The Macedonians assaulted it vigorously for two days, but then pulled back after sustaining heavy losses. [3] For the Isaurians not only had a good supply of artillery and everything that was required to counter a siege, but they had also steeled themselves mentally to endure the ordeal with desperate courage, and were giving their lives willingly in defence of their freedom.
[4] On the third day, after many men had lost their lives and so few remained that the walls were only thinly defended, the Isaurians did something so heroic that it demands to be recorded. They could see that there was no way to avoid the punishment that awaited them, and that they lacked the strength to make defence a viable option. But they decided not to surrender the town and entrust their fate to the enemy, since there was no doubt not only that they would be punished, but also that it would be a degrading form of punishment. So one night all of them, to a man, resolved to die with dignity. They shut their children, womenfolk, and parents inside their houses and set fire to them, making fire the instrument of their communal death and burial.
[5] As the flames rose into the air, the Isaurians threw their possessions into the fire along with everything that could enrich the victors, while Perdiccas, who could scarcely believe his eyes, stationed his men around the town. Wherever there was a possibility of forcing their way inside, they made the attempt, [6] but the Isaurians fought back from the walls and slew many of the Macedonians, until Perdiccas, now thoroughly perplexed, was left wondering why men who had consigned their houses and everything else to the flames were still determinedly defending the walls. [7] Eventually, Perdiccas and the Macedonians pulled back from the town, and then the Isaurians threw themselves into the fire and were buried along with their families in their homes. [8] The next morning, Perdiccas gave his troops permission to plunder the town, and once they had extinguished the flames they found a great deal of silver and gold, since the town had enjoyed many years of prosperity.
23. The next thing that happened after the destruction of these towns was that two women arrived, both of them aiming to marry Perdiccas. They were Nicaea, the daughter of Antipater, whose hand Perdiccas had actively sought, and Cleopatra, the full sister of Alexander and daughter of Philip, the son of Amyntas. [2] Originally, Perdiccas had decided to work with Antipater, and that was why he had courted Nicaea. That, however, had been before he had consolidated and secured his position, and once he had taken over the king’s forces and the protection of the kings, he changed his mind. [3] He was now aiming for the kingship, and that made marriage to Cleopatra attractive, because her influence, he thought, would help him to persuade the Macedonians to confer supreme power on him. However, since he was not yet ready to reveal his true intentions, he married Nicaea as a temporary measure, so that his plans would not be impeded by Antipater’s hostility.*
Next, however, Antigonus got wind of what Perdiccas was up to,* and Perdiccas decided to get rid of him.* It was not just that Antigonus was on good terms with Antipater, but also that he was the most effective of the leading men. [4] Perdiccas launched a smear campaign against Antigonus, denouncing him for things he had never done, and made no secret of the fact that he wanted to see him dead. But Antigonus was an exceptionally clever and resourceful man, and although in public he let it be known that he wanted the opportunity to defend himself against the charges, he surreptitiously got ready everything he would need for flight, without Perdiccas getting wind of it, and one night he boarded the Athenian ships* with his friends and his son Demetrius.* Once he had reached Europe in this way, he set out to find Antipater.
24. At this time, Antipater and Craterus were engaged on a campaign against the Aetolians, with an army of thirty thousand foot and 2,500 horse. The Aetolians were the only ones of those who had fought in the Lamian War who had never submitted. [2] So far from being alarmed by the size of the army that was sent against them, they raised a force of ten thousand men, every one of them in his prime, and took to the rugged hill country, where they secreted their children and womenfolk, the elderly, and the bulk of their valuables. Towns that were unfortified were abandoned, while those with particularly strong defences they secured by installing strong garrisons in them, and then they fearlessly awaited the enemy.
25. When Antipater and Craterus invaded Aetolia and found that any cities which would have been easy to take had been abandoned, they marched against the Aetolians who had fallen back on the hills. At first, the Macedonian troops suffered considerable losses, as they were attacking places that were easily defended and situated in broken ground. The natural defensibility of the Aetolians’ positions, in combination with their bravery, made it easy for them to ward off men who recklessly rushed forward into desperate danger. Later, however, Craterus had his men build shelters, and he blockaded the Aetolians where they were for the winter, forcing them to endeavour to survive in places that were blanketed in snow and short of food.
The Aetolians found themselves in the gravest danger. [2] They had to either come down from the mountains and fight an army which outnumbered them by far and was commanded by notable generals, or stay where they were and die of hunger and cold. But just when they thought there was no chance of survival, their troubles were resolved without their having to do anything, as though one of the gods had taken pity on them for their courage. [3] What happened was that Antigonus, who had fled from Asia, met up with Antipater, revealed all the details of Perdiccas’ designs, and explained that as soon as Perdiccas had married Cleopatra* he would come to Macedon with his army as king and depose Antipater.
[4] Craterus and Antipater were astonished at the news; they had not been expecting anything like this. They consulted their officers, and the outcome of their deliberations was that they unanimously decided to make peace with the Aetolians on the best terms they could arrange, and then take their forces across to Asia as soon as possible. They planned to make Asia Craterus’ domain and Europe Antipater’s. They also decided to get in touch with Ptolemy with a view to gaining his cooperation. After all, he was on the worst possible terms with Perdiccas, but on good terms with them,* and Perdiccas was scheming against him no less than them. [5] They lost no time in making a truce with the Aetolians, though they were determined to subdue them later, and to move them all, with their households, to the remotest part of Asia where no people lived. And then, once they had drafted a decree to that effect, they busied themselves with preparing for the expedition.
[6] Perdiccas convened a meeting of his Friends and officers, with the agenda of deciding whether they should march against Macedon or make Ptolemy their first target. They all thought that it would be best to defeat Ptolemy first, to forestall the possibility of any interference from him when they went on the offensive against Macedon, so Perdiccas gave Eumenes a substantial army and sent him to watch over the Hellespontine region and stop Craterus and Antipater from reaching Asia. Meanwhile, he left Pisidia and marched on Egypt with his army.
These were the events that took place in this year.
26. In the year of the Archonship of Philocles in Athens, Gaius Sulpicius and Gaius Aelius were elected consuls in Rome. In this year:*
Arrhidaeus, the man who had been given the job of transporting Alexander’s body, completed the carriage on which the king’s corpse was due to be conveyed, and then turned to preparations for the journey. [2] The carriage was built to reflect Alexander’s glory, and since it was the most expensive such vehicle that has ever been made, costing many talents to build, and was famous also for the exceptional artistry that went into it, I think it only right that I should give a description of it.
[3] They started by making a casket of hammered gold, the right size to accommodate the body,† and they filled the inside of it with aromatics which had the property of both imparting a sweet smell to the corpse and preserving it.* [4] On top of the casket was laid a lid of gold, which was a perfect fit and covered the upper rim of the chest. Over the casket was draped a magnificent piece of purple cloth, embroidered with gold, beside which they placed the dead man’s weapons. Their intention was that the overall appearance should reflect what he had accomplished in his lifetime.
[5] Next, they brought up the carriage that was to transport this casket. It was topped by a golden vault, the surface of which was studded with precious stones, and which was eight cubits wide and twelve cubits long. Under the roof, running along the whole length of each side, was a rectangular golden beam,† on which were carved the heads of goat-stags. From the beams hung golden rings, with diameters of two palms, and through them was threaded a brightly and variously coloured festoon, of the kind that might be used in a parade, that hung down from the rings. [6] On the ends of the beams were network fringes furnished with bells that were large enough to ensure that the sound would be heard from a long way off as the carriage approached. On each corner of the roof, where the sides met, there was a golden Victory bearing a trophy. The colonnade on which the vault rested was of gold, with Ionic capitals.* Set back from the colonnade was a golden net, made of strands twined as thick as a finger, on which were fixed four painted panels at the same height as one another, with each panel occupying an entire side.
27. The first of the panels had a chariot in relief, in which Alexander was sitting, holding a magnificent sceptre in his hands and escorted by two units of the Household Guard, one consisting of Macedonians and the other of Persian Apple-bearers,* with their shield-bearers in front of them. The second panel showed the elephants that used to follow the Household Guard, accoutred for war and with mahouts mounted in front and Macedonians, armed in their usual fashion, behind. The third had cavalry squadrons made to look as though they were engaging in combat, and the fourth had ships in battle formation. Golden lions flanked the entrance to the vault, with their gaze turned towards people as they entered. [2] Climbing its way gradually up the centre of each column all the way to the capital was a golden acanthus. On top of the vault, in the middle of the roof, exposed to the open air, there was a stylized palm tree, bearing a large golden olive wreath, which shone with a bright and scintillating light when struck by the sun’s rays, so that from a long way off it looked like a flash of lightning.
[3] The bed of the chariot, under the vault, was fitted with two axles on which four Persian-style wheels revolved;* the felloes and the spokes of the wheels were gilded, while the part that made contact with the ground was made of iron. The projecting parts of the axles were golden and had the foreparts of lions on them, each gripping a spear in its teeth. [4] Halfway along each axle was a rod which was ingeniously inserted inside the vault so as to allow it to remain stable even when shaken or passing over uneven ground.* [5] The carriage had four shafts, and each shaft had four rows of yokes, with four mules harnessed to each yoke, making a total of sixty-four mules, every one selected for its strength and height. Each mule wore a golden crown, golden bells hung down either cheek, and around their necks were collars studded with precious stones.
28. The design of the carriage, and the fact that no description of its splendour did justice to its appearance, made it so famous that it drew large crowds of spectators. In fact, whenever it came to a town, the entire population came out to meet it and then escorted it on its way out again, since they had not exhausted the pleasure of seeing it. [2] And it was in keeping with its magnificence that it was accompanied not just by an armed escort, but also by gangs of road-menders and engineers.
Arrhidaeus spent almost two years on its construction and then conveyed the king’s body from Babylon to Egypt. [3] As a way of honouring Alexander, Ptolemy went all the way to Syria with an army to meet the catafalque,* and after he had received the body, he lavished care on it. He decided not to take it to Ammon for the time being, but to lay it to rest in the city founded by Alexander,* which was close to being the most famous city in the world. [4] So he built a precinct, the size and design of which were worthy of Alexander’s glory, and there he buried him. He instituted sacrifices to honour him as a hero and a magnificent athletic festival.
Ptolemy was well repaid for all this, however, by both men and gods. [5] Men began to flock to Alexandria from everywhere, drawn by his benevolence and generosity, and they did not hesitate to make themselves available for the coming campaign, even though it was the Royal Army that was getting ready to make war on Ptolemy. Despite the obvious risks and the great danger they would face, they were all prepared to risk their own lives in Ptolemy’s defence. [6] And the gods, because of his goodness and the equitable way in which he treated all his friends, saved him unexpectedly from almost certain disaster.
29. Perdiccas was mistrustful of the growth of Ptolemy’s power and decided to march on Egypt with the kings and the bulk of his army, while sending Eumenes to the Hellespont with enough men to prevent an invasion of Asia by Antipater and Craterus. [2] He also attached to Eumenes a number of high-ranking officers, of whom the most senior were his brother Alcetas and Neoptolemus, and ordered them to obey Eumenes in everything, because of his skill as a strategist* and his steadfast loyalty. [3] So Eumenes went to the Hellespont. The army he had been given was deficient in horse, but he had already raised a large cavalry force from his own satrapy, and he made good the deficiency.
[4] When Craterus and Antipater brought their forces over from Europe,* Neoptolemus, who was jealous of Eumenes and had a substantial number of Macedonian troops under his command, secretly got in touch with Antipater.* They came to an agreement and the idea was for Neoptolemus to find a way to kill Eumenes. His treachery was discovered, however, and he was forced to fight. In the battle he came close to losing his life and he did lose almost all his men, not just because a lot of them were killed during the battle, [5] but also because, after his victory, Eumenes won the rest of them over to his side,* so that his strength grew just as much from the addition of a good number of Macedonian soldiers as it did from the victory itself.
[6] Neoptolemus rode off to Antipater with the three hundred cavalrymen who had survived the battle along with him, [7] and Antipater called a meeting of his advisers to discuss how to go about the war. They decided to divide the army into two, with Antipater taking one half and setting out for Cilicia to fight Perdiccas, while Craterus attacked Eumenes with the other half, and then joined Antipater after defeating Eumenes. That way, they thought, once they had reunited the army, and once Ptolemy had been added to the alliance, they would be able to get the better of the Royal Army.
30. When Eumenes found out that the enemy was advancing against him, he gathered his troops together from all quarters, and especially the cavalry. Since his infantry was no match for the Macedonian phalanx, he had been putting together a good-sized cavalry corps, and it was they who, he hoped, would bring him victory. [2] When the two armies were close to each other, Craterus convened an army assembly and delivered a speech that effectively aroused his men’s ardour for the battle, by promising that, in the event of victory, he would allow them the whole of the enemy’s baggage train to plunder.* [3] Once they were fired up, he deployed his forces for battle, taking command of the right wing himself and giving the left to Neoptolemus. [4] He had in all twenty thousand foot, most of whom were Macedonians, famed for their prowess, on whom he was chiefly relying for victory, and he also had two thousand horse under his command. [5] Eumenes had an ethnically diverse infantry division of twenty thousand, and five thousand horse, who he expected to win the battle for him.
Once the two generals had divided their cavalry contingents up between the wings and had led them a long way forward from the infantry, Craterus started the action by leading the best of his men in a ferocious charge against the enemy. He fought superbly, but then his horse stumbled and he fell to the ground. In the swirling, dense mass of horsemen, he went unrecognized; he was trampled and died an inglorious death. [6] His fall boosted the morale of Eumenes’ men, and they swarmed around the enemy and took many lives. The pressure they exerted was too much for Craterus’ right wing and, overwhelmed by the enemy, they were forced to retreat for safety to the infantry phalanx.
31. On Craterus’ left, where Neoptolemus was facing Eumenes himself, the charge of these two generals at each other showed clearly what men can do when driven by love of glory. [2] Once they had recognized each other by their horses and other distinguishing marks, they engaged, and made victory in the battle depend on the outcome of the single combat between them. At first, they went at each other with their swords, but then the duel became unusual, and in fact quite extraordinary, because they were so carried away by their passion and their loathing of each other that they let the reins drop from their left hands and grabbed hold of each other. As they grappled, their horses ran out from under them, carried forward by their impetus, and the two men fell to the ground.
[3] The abruptness and violence of the fall meant that both of them struggled to stand, especially since they were impeded by their armour, but it was Eumenes who found his feet first and got in the first blow, when he struck Neoptolemus behind the knee. [4] It was a bad wound, and Neoptolemus collapsed. He lay disabled on the ground, with the wound making it impossible for him to get to his feet. Yet his mental courage was stronger than his physical impairment, and he raised himself on to his knees and wounded his adversary three times, in the arm and thighs. [5] None of the blows was fatal, however, and with his wounds still fresh Eumenes struck Neoptolemus a second time, in the neck, and killed him.
32. Meanwhile, the rest of the cavalry had also joined battle and a great slaughter was taking place. With so many men falling dead or wounded, for a while there was nothing to tell between the two sides, but then, once it became known that Neoptolemus had died and that the other wing was in flight, his men all turned tail and fled for safety to the infantry phalanx, as though it were a strong rampart. [2] Eumenes was gratified by his success, and once he had taken possession of the bodies of the two enemy generals,* he had the trumpeter recall his men. After erecting a trophy and burying his dead, he sent envoys to the defeated infantry, encouraging them to enlist under him, but also giving any of them who wanted to leave permission to go wherever he wanted.
[3] Once the Macedonians had agreed to end hostilities on these terms, which they guaranteed under oath to honour, they were given leave to replenish their supplies in certain nearby villages—and they played Eumenes false. As soon as they were rested and had stocked up on provisions, they left one night and surreptitiously made their way to Antipater. [4] Eumenes wanted to punish the oath-breakers for their faithlessness, and he set out after the infantry, hot on their heels, but they fought a superb rearguard action, and this, on top of the handicap of his wounds, forced him to abandon the pursuit. But he had won a notable victory and killed two important generals, and this earned him great glory.
33. Antipater took in the survivors of the rout and incorporated them into his forces, and then marched towards Cilicia in support of Ptolemy. At the news of Eumenes’ victory, Perdiccas went about the Egyptian campaign with far more daring,* and he reached the Nile and made camp close to the city of Pelusium. [2] But during an attempt to dredge an old canal the river violently burst its banks and ruined the siegeworks, and at that point many of his friends abandoned him and went over to Ptolemy. [3] For Perdiccas was a man of blood, who tended to restrict the extent to which his officers could act on their own authority, and in general used force to get everyone to obey him, whereas Ptolemy, by contrast, was generous and equitable, and allowed all his officers to speak their minds. Besides, Ptolemy had secured all the most important places in Egypt with strong garrisons, and supplied them with all the equipment they might need, including all kinds of artillery pieces. [4] The reason, then, why his ventures were generally successful was that many men gave him their loyalty and were prepared to fight for him.
[5] Nevertheless, when Perdiccas convened his officers in an attempt to repair the damage, he won their loyalty—gifts or extravagant promises were needed in some cases, but generally it was his courteous and tactful behaviour that did the trick—and motivated them to face the coming dangers. After ordering them to get ready to break camp, he set out with the army in the evening, without telling anyone where he was taking them. [6] All through the night they marched at a fast pace, and then he had them halt by the Nile, not far from a fortress called Camel Fort. At daybreak, he got his men to begin crossing the river, with the elephants going first, then the Hypaspists,* who were carrying scaling ladders, and everyone else he was going to use to assault the fortress. The rear was made up of his best cavalry, whom he was planning to send against Ptolemy, if he happened to appear.
34. His men were only halfway across when Ptolemy and his men did in fact appear, racing up to relieve the fortress. They reached the place before Perdiccas, threw themselves inside, and signalled their presence by sounding their trumpets and shouting, but, nothing daunted, Perdiccas’ men boldly approached the fortifications. [2] The Hypaspists lost no time in bringing up the ladders and starting to ascend, while the riders mounted on the elephants tried to breach the palisade and tear down the parapet. But Ptolemy, who had his best men by his side and wanted to encourage his officers and Friends not to shrink from danger, stood, pike in hand, on top of the bulwarks. First, with the help of his superior position, he put out the eyes of the leading elephant and wounded the mahout mounted on it, and then he turned to those who were climbing up the ladders. Disdainfully he struck at them and sent them tumbling down into the river in their armour, sorely wounded. [3] Following his example, Ptolemy’s Friends also took up the fight, and they neutralized the next elephant by shooting down its mahout controller.
[4] The battle for the wall went on for a long while, with Perdiccas sending in his troops in relays and doing his utmost to take the place by storm, and Ptolemy proving himself the most valiant of his men, encouraging his Friends to show him just how loyal and brave they were, and fighting like a hero. Thanks to the incredible determination of these two generals, [5] there was severe loss of life on both sides, because Ptolemy’s men had the advantage of height, while Perdiccas had superior numbers. Finally, after the fighting had gone on all day, Perdiccas gave up the assault and returned to camp.
[6] That night, he secretly broke camp and set out on the march. His destination was the river bank opposite Memphis, where the Nile divides and creates an island capable of accommodating and offering security to a very large army and its camp. [7] He had his men cross over to this island, but the depth of the river made the going very difficult for them. The water came up to their chins, and its buffeting of their bodies as they crossed threatened to knock them off their feet, especially since they were hampered by their arms and armour.
35. When Perdiccas noticed the problems the current was causing, he placed the elephants to the left of the ford† to break the force of the water and lessen the strength of the current,† and he posted the cavalry to the right, their job being to catch any men who were swept away by the river and to see them safely across to the other side. [2] There was a curious and unusual aspect to this crossing of the river by the army. Although the first to cross did so safely, those who followed them found it extremely dangerous. For no apparent reason, the river had become far deeper and, with their bodies completely submerged, the men were little short of helpless.
[3] When they asked themselves what was causing the water level to rise, they could not figure it out at all. Some said that somewhere upstream a silted-up canal had been cleared, and that the ford had got deeper when the canal water had joined the river; others thought that rainfall upstream had increased the volume of water in the Nile. [4] Neither of these ideas was right, however. The first crossing of the ford had been safer because the sand that formed the bed of the ford was undisturbed, but during subsequent crossings the sand had been trampled and set in motion by the horses and elephants, who had crossed early, and then by the feet of the infantry; the disturbed sand had been carried downstream, leaving the ford hollowed out, and that was why the crossing had become deeper mid-river.
[5] The fact that the rest of the army was prevented in this way from crossing the river left Perdiccas in a considerable quandary. Since not enough of his men had reached the other side to stand up to the enemy, and those who remained on the near side were unable to go to their support, he ordered them all to retrace their steps back again. [6] But this meant that they would have to get across the stream. Some of them—those who were good swimmers and in excellent physical shape—did manage to cross the Nile, although it was a horrific ordeal and they lost much of their weaponry and armour, but the rest, who were not so good at swimming, were less fortunate. Some were swallowed up by the river, some were cast ashore on the bank occupied by the enemy, but most of them were carried a long way downstream and were eaten by river-dwelling creatures.*
36. More than two thousand men lost their lives, including some high-ranking officers, and the army turned against Perdiccas. Ptolemy, however, cremated the corpses of those who had been cast ashore on his side of the river, gave them a proper funeral, and then sent the bones of the dead men back to their relatives and friends. [2] The upshot was that the more the Macedonians on Perdiccas’ side became disaffected with him, the more they were inclined to give their allegiance to Ptolemy. [3] That night, the camp was filled with lamentation, as they mourned the loss of so many men—men who had died for no good reason, not as a result of enemy action, and of whom at least a thousand had been eaten by animals.
[4] So a large number of Perdiccas’ officers met and denounced him, and the threatening shouts coming from the infantry, who had all turned against him, left no one in any doubt of their hostility. [5] It was the officers, then, who were the first to mutiny. There were about a hundred of them, with the most senior being Pithon, the man who had suppressed the Greek rebellion,* and was as valiant and illustrious as any of Alexander’s Friends. Then some of the cavalry joined the conspiracy as well, and they went to Perdiccas’ tent, fell on him all at once, and murdered him.
[6] The next day an assembly was convened, and Ptolemy came to address it. He paid his respects to the Macedonians and defended his actions, and then, seeing that provisions were low, he supplied the army with a lavish amount of grain and made sure that the camp was replete with provisions. This went down very well, and he could have used the favour of the army to assume the custodianship of the kings, but this was not a position he wanted, and as a way of thanking Pithon and Arrhidaeus he arranged for them to share the supreme command. [7] That is, when the Macedonians met to decide what to do about the leadership, Ptolemy made his recommendation, and they all enthusiastically chose Pithon and Arrhidaeus (the man who had been responsible for the king’s cortège) as plenipotentiary custodians of the kings. So Perdiccas lost both his leadership and his life, after having been at the helm for three years.
37. Very soon after his death, messengers arrived with news of Eumenes’ victory in Cappadocia, and of the deaths of Craterus and Neoptolemus in the course of their defeat. If the news had arrived two days before Perdiccas’ death, his great good fortune would have deterred anyone from laying hands on him. [2] But now, when the Macedonians heard how things stood with Eumenes, they condemned him to death, along with fifty of his senior associates, including Alcetas, the brother of Perdiccas. They also killed Perdiccas’ closest friends and his sister Atalante, who was the wife of Attalus, the man who had been given command of the fleet.
[3] At the time of Perdiccas’ murder, Attalus, as Admiral of the Fleet, was based at Pelusium, but on hearing of the deaths of his wife and Perdiccas he sailed off with the fleet and put in at Tyre. [4] A Macedonian, Archelaus, was in command of the garrison at Tyre, and he made Attalus welcome, and surrendered to him not just the city, but also the money—eight hundred talents—which had been given him by Perdiccas, and which he now dutifully returned. Attalus was joined in Tyre by those of Perdiccas’ friends who managed to escape from the camp at Memphis.*
38. After Antipater took his forces to Asia, the Aetolians invaded Thessaly. This was an attempt to distract his attention, which they were obliged to do by their agreement with Perdiccas.* On their way to Thessaly, the Aetolian army of twelve thousand foot and four hundred horse, under the command of Alexander the Aetolian, [2] assaulted the Locrian city of Amphissa,* overran their farmland, and captured some of the nearby towns. They met and defeated Antipater’s general Polycles in a battle in which they killed him and many of his men as well. The captives were either sold or ransomed.
[3] Then the Aetolians invaded Thessaly. They persuaded most of the Thessalians to make common cause with them against Antipater, and before long they had an army totalling twenty-five thousand foot and 1,500 horse. [4] However, while they were winning the cities over to their cause, the Acarnanians, who were their enemies, invaded Aetolia and set about ravaging farmland and assaulting towns. [5] When the Aetolians heard of the threat to their country, they left the non-citizen soldiers in Thessaly under the command of Menon of Pharsalus, while the citizen contingent returned rapidly to Aetolia, cowed the Acarnanians into submission, and freed their country from danger. [6] While they were occupied with this, however, Polyperchon, whom Antipater had left as the governor of Macedon, marched into Thessaly with a large army. A pitched battle was fought, which Polyperchon won.* The Thessalians lost most of their men, including Menon, and Polyperchon recovered Thessaly.
39. In Asia, Arrhidaeus and Pithon, the custodians of the kings, left the Nile and took the kings and the army to Triparadeisus in inland Syria.* [2] But while they were there, Queen Eurydice* began to make a thorough nuisance of herself and to obstruct their projects. This annoyed Pithon and his colleague and, since it was clear that the Macedonians were increasingly taking their orders from her, they convened an assembly at which they renounced their custodianship, [3] and the Macedonians chose Antipater to replace them, with plenipotentiary power. When Antipater arrived in Triparadeisus a few days later, he found Eurydice stirring up trouble and turning the Macedonians against him. [4] There was virtual anarchy in the camp, but Antipater addressed the troops at a general assembly and calmed things down. He also frightened Eurydice into quiescence.*
[5] He then went on to make a new division of the satrapies. He re-assigned to Ptolemy the satrapy he already had: his possession of Egypt was widely regarded as being due to his personal courage, as though it were spear-won land, and so it was impossible to remove him anyway.* [6] He gave Syria to Laomedon of Mytilene, and Cilicia to Philoxenus.* Of the upper satrapies, he gave Mesopotamia and Arbelitis* to Amphimachus, Babylonia to Seleucus,* Susiane to Antigenes (a reward for his having been the first to attack Perdiccas), Persis to Peucestas, Carmania to Tlepolemus, Media to Pithon, Parthyaea to Philip,* Areia and Drangiane to Stasander of Cyprus, and Bactria and Sogdiana to another Cypriot, Stasanor of Soli.* He re-assigned Paropanisadae to Oxyartes, the father of Alexander’s wife Rhoxane, and the parts of India bordering Paropanisadae to Pithon, the son of Agenor. As for the adjacent kingdoms, the one on the Indus he left in Porus’ hands, and the one on the Hydaspes in Taxiles’ hands, since it would take the Royal Army and a senior general to remove these kings. As for the north-facing satrapies,* he gave Cappadocia to Nicanor; Greater Phrygia and Lycia to Antigonus, as before; Caria to Asander;* Lydia to Cleitus; and Hellespontine Phrygia to Arrhidaeus. [7] He appointed Antigonus General of the Royal Army and tasked him with the defeat of Eumenes and Alcetas. And he attached his son Cassander to Antigonus as his chiliarch, so that Antigonus would not be able to pursue his own interests without Antipater hearing about it.* Then he set off for Macedon with the kings and his army, to restore the kings to their homeland.
40. Antigonus, appointed General in Asia for the war against Eumenes, collected his forces from their winter quarters, and once he felt ready for battle, he set out against Eumenes, who was in Cappadocia. [2] One of Eumenes’ senior officers, a man called Perdiccas, had broken with him and was encamped at a distance of three days’ march with the troops who had joined his mutiny, three thousand foot and five hundred horse. Eumenes sent Phoenix of Tenedos to deal with them, with four thousand foot—all picked men—and a thousand horse. [3] Phoenix made a forced march by night and fell on the rebels unexpectedly at about the second watch, while they were asleep. He captured Perdiccas and contained the rebel forces. [4] Eumenes put the ringleaders of the mutiny to death, but he incorporated the rank-and-file soldiers back into his army, and this merciful treatment won him their loyalty.
[5] Next, however, Antigonus got in touch with a man called Apollonides, the commander of Eumenes’ cavalry, and secretly bribed him, with promises of generous rewards, to turn traitor and desert during the battle. [6] Eumenes was encamped on a plain in Cappadocia* that was suitable for cavalry action when Antigonus brought up his entire army and occupied the high ground overlooking the plain. [7] At this time Antigonus had more than ten thousand foot (of whom half were Macedonians, widely admired for their valour), two thousand horse, and thirty elephants,* while Eumenes had at least twenty thousand foot and five thousand horse. [8] A ferocious battle took place, but when Apollonides and the cavalry under his command abruptly abandoned their comrades, victory fell to Antigonus and about eight thousand of Eumenes’ men died. Antigonus also gained possession of all Eumenes’ baggage, and the combination of the defeat and the loss of the baggage caused morale to plummet in Eumenes’ camp.*
41. Eumenes’ next plan was to escape to Armenia and replenish his army from among the inhabitants there, but Antigonus was coming up behind him, and when it became clear that his men were starting to desert to the enemy, Eumenes seized a stronghold called Nora instead.* [2] This was a very small fortress, with a circuit of no more than two stades, but it was astonishingly strong. The place had been built on a lofty crag, and the combination of natural defences and the work of men’s hands afforded it a remarkable degree of security. [3] It was also well enough stocked with grain, wood, and salt to supply all the needs of the fugitives for many years. Eumenes was accompanied by those of his friends who were so exceptionally loyal that they had decided to continue the fight to the bitter end and die along with him. All told, counting both cavalry and infantry, there were about six hundred men.
[4] The incorporation of Eumenes’ forces into his army, his takeover of Eumenes’ satrapies and their revenues, and the large amount of money that he gained prompted Antigonus to aspire to greater things, seeing that none of the leading men in Asia any longer had an army that was capable of deciding the issue of supremacy with him by battle. [5] One result of this was that, although for the time being he kept up a pretence of being well disposed towards Antipater, he had decided that, once he had consolidated his position, he would stop taking orders from either the kings or Antipater.
[6] At first, Antigonus surrounded the fortress and the fugitives with two sets of ramparts, ditches, and remarkably strong palisades, but subsequently* he arranged a meeting, at which he renewed their former friendship and persuaded Eumenes to come in with him. Knowing full well how rapidly luck can change, Eumenes pushed harder for concessions than might have been expected from someone in his position, [7] and insisted on being granted the satrapies he had originally been given and a full pardon in respect of the charges that were outstanding against him. Antigonus referred Eumenes’ demands to Antipater and, leaving an adequate guard, he set out to tackle the surviving† enemy generals who had armies at their disposal, namely Perdiccas’ brother Alcetas and Attalus, who had the entire fleet at his disposal.
42. Eumenes next sent envoys to Antipater to negotiate the terms of the agreement. The delegation was led by Hieronymus, the author of the History of the Successors.* Eumenes had experienced a number of changes of various kinds in his lifetime, and so he remained sanguine, because he was well aware of Fortune’s habit of rapidly changing, for better or for worse. [2] He could see that the current kings of Macedon had no more than the empty trappings of royalty, and that many highly ambitious men were in the process of trying to succeed to the rulership of the empire, each of them interested only in working for his own ends. Eumenes was hoping, then, that there would be plenty of demand for his services, because of his practical intelligence, his military expertise, and his absolutely steadfast loyalty.* And this turned out to be true.
[3] Since the fortress offered only cramped conditions and uneven surfaces, Eumenes could see that it was impossible to exercise the horses and that they would become useless for employment in battle conditions, and so he devised a strange and novel form of exercise for them. [4] He tied their heads with ropes to beams or projecting pegs and then raised them by four or six palms. This forced them to put their weight on their hind legs, with their forefeet just failing to graze the ground. The immediate reaction of the horse, as it strove to take its weight on its forelegs, was to work its whole torso and its legs, with every part of its body being equally affected. This activity caused sweat to pour off its body, and the incredible effort the creatures had to put in made this a perfect form of exercise for them.
[5] All his men received the same rations, and Eumenes joined them himself in their spare diet. The fact that he treated himself no differently from everyone else won him the firm loyalty of his men, and allowed him to ensure that concord reigned in this community of fugitives. That was how things stood with Eumenes and those who had joined him in his rock-bound fastness.
43. In Egypt, after his surprising success in eliminating the threat of Perdiccas and the Royal Army, Ptolemy held the country as though it were spear-won land.† However, since he could see that Phoenicia and Coele Syria, as it is called, would be perfect launching points for an attack on Egypt, he was very keen to annex these territories. [2] He therefore dispatched an adequate army and appointed one of his Friends, Nicanor, as its general. Nicanor marched into Syria, made the satrap Laomedon his prisoner, and gained the submission of the entire province. He also secured the allegiance of the Phoenician cities, and once he had installed garrisons in them, he returned to Egypt, after a brief and effective campaign.*
44. In the Archonship of Apollodorus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Quintus Popillius and Quintus Publius. In this year:
Having defeated Eumenes, Antigonus decided to campaign against Alcetas and Attalus. They were the last of Perdiccas’ Friends and relatives, and they were notable generals with enough troops to make a bid for power. He therefore left Cappadocia and advanced on Pisidia, where Alcetas was based. [2] By making forced marches that tested the limits of his men’s endurance, he covered 2,500 stades in seven days* and arrived at the city called Cretopolis. The speed of his march meant that he took the enemy by surprise. They still did not know about his arrival even when he was near by, and he quickly seized and occupied some rugged hills.
[3] As soon as Alcetas was aware of the enemy’s presence, he drew up his infantry for battle, and had his cavalry assault the hills, since he was determined to take them by storm and dislodge Antigonus’ men from the high ground they had occupied. [4] A fierce battle ensued, with both sides taking heavy losses, but then Antigonus led six thousand horsemen in a furious charge against the enemy phalanx, with the intention of making it impossible for Alcetas to use it as a point of refuge on which to fall back. [5] He succeeded in this, and then the troops of his who were occupying the high ground, who greatly outnumbered their opponents and had the advantage of superior height, routed their assailants. With his line of retreat to the infantry phalanx cut off and the enemy army between him and safety, Alcetas was facing certain death. The situation was desperate, but, though it cost the lives of many of his men, he just managed to break through to the infantry phalanx.
45. Antigonus led his entire army, elephants and all, down from the heights and his greatly superior numbers struck terror into the enemy. Alcetas had in all sixteen thousand foot and nine hundred horse, while, leaving aside the elephants, Antigonus had more than forty thousand foot and over seven thousand horse. [2] With the elephants coming at them from the front, with thousands of horsemen harassing them on all sides, and with the infantry, who vastly outnumbered them and also outclassed them as fighters, holding the superior position, Alcetas’ men were gripped by confusion and fear. The speed and intensity of the attack were such that Alcetas was unable even to deploy his phalanx effectively. [3] The rout was complete, and the prisoners included Attalus, Docimus, Polemon, and many high-ranking officers, but Alcetas, along with his bodyguards and pages, escaped with his Pisidian allies to a city in Pisidia called Termessus.
[4] After receiving the surrender of the officers on terms, Antigonus enrolled the rest of Alcetas’ men in his own ranks—which is to say that, by treating them kindly, he enormously increased his strength. [5] But the Pisidians, six thousand men of exceptional courage, told Alcetas not to worry and guaranteed to stick with him through thick and thin. The reason for their extraordinary devotion was as follows.
46. After Perdiccas’ death, Alcetas found himself short of allies in Asia and he began to think it advisable for him to favour the Pisidians, the idea being that he would gain as allies men who were skilled at war, and who inhabited a country which was rugged enough to discourage invasion and had plenty of strong fortresses. [2] In the course of his campaigns, therefore, he rewarded them disproportionately, compared to his other allies, by sharing the profits of war with them and giving them half of the booty. Moreover, he never spoke harshly to them when they met, every day he invited the most important of them in turns to join him at his table for a banquet, and he honoured many of them with valuable gifts. That is how he gained their devotion. [3] At the time in question, then, Alcetas was resting his hopes on the Pisidians, and he was not disappointed. In fact, when Antigonus and his entire army made camp near Termessus and demanded Alcetas’ surrender, and the elders of the community wanted him to be handed over, the younger ones united against their fathers, set up on their own, and undertook to keep him safe at all costs.
[4] The elders at first argued that their sons should not let the land of their birth fall to a conqueror for the sake of a Macedonian, but when they realized that they were talking to people whose will was unshakeable, they met together in secret and, one night, they sent representatives to Antigonus, promising to hand Alcetas over to him, alive or dead. [5] They asked him to attack the city in a few days’ time† and to have his light-armed skirmishers draw the defenders out from behind the wall by pulling back as though they were in flight. When this happened, they said, and the young men were busy fighting away from the city, they would be presented with a perfect opportunity for executing their plan. [6] Antigonus approved of their scheme. He moved his camp a long way off and used his skirmishers to lure the young men into fighting away from the city. [7] When the elders saw that Alcetas had been left alone, they selected their most trustworthy slaves and those of their citizens who were of military age, but had not sided with Alcetas, and took advantage of the absence of the young men to launch an attack on him. They were unable to take him alive, because he quickly killed himself in order to avoid falling into hostile hands, but they put his body on a bier, draped a plain cloak over it, bore it out of the city gates, and handed it over to Antigonus without attracting the attention of the skirmishers.
47. This contrivance of theirs enabled them to free their city from danger and avert war, but they were unable to avoid the hostility of the young men. When they returned from the battle and heard what had happened, the extraordinary degree of loyalty they felt for Alcetas made them furious with their fellow citizens. [2] They took over part of the city, and at first they voted to burn down the houses and then rush out of the burning city with their weapons and take to the hills. From there, they intended to raid the farmland that was subject to Antigonus. Later, however, they changed their minds and refrained from setting fire to the city, but they still turned to brigandage, and in the course of their raids they destroyed a lot of enemy farmland.
[3] After being given Alcetas’ corpse, Antigonus mutilated it, and then three days later, when it began to rot, he left it unburied* and set out to leave Pisidia. But the mutilated wretch retained the devotion of the young men of the city, and they recovered the body and buried it with full honour.* This is the nature of doing good to others: it has the peculiar property of casting a spell, so to speak, which works in the favour of benefactors by guaranteeing the unswerving devotion of those who are in their debt. [4] Anyway, having decided to leave Pisidia, Antigonus and his entire army set out for Phrygia. When he was at Cretopolis, Aristodemus of Miletus met him with the news that Antipater had died, and that rulership of Macedon and the custody of the kings had been inherited by Polyperchon of Macedon. [5] The news gave Antigonus great pleasure. He was excited by his prospects, and his intention was to retain Asia—to keep supremacy there for himself and no one else. That was how things stood with Antigonus.
48. In Macedon, Antipater fell ill with a rather serious illness, which, with old age a factor as well,* was likely to be terminal. The Athenians sent Demades as an envoy to him—choosing Demades because he was known as an advocate of the Macedonian cause—to ask him to honour his long-standing promise to remove the garrison from Munychia.* [2] Antipater had originally been well disposed towards Demades, but after Perdiccas’ death some letters were discovered in the royal archives in which Demades urged Perdiccas to cross from Asia to Europe at the earliest possible opportunity and attack Antipater.* Without revealing that he now regarded Demades as an enemy, Antipater had therefore withdrawn his favour. [3] So when Demades, following the instructions he had been given by the Athenian people, began to ask Antipater to keep his promise and, speaking rather too directly, made threats about what would happen to the garrison, Antipater said not a word in reply, but merely handed Demades over to the executioners along with his son Demeas, who had accompanied his father on this mission. [4] They were taken away to a shack and put to death, for the reasons I have given.
On his death bed Antipater appointed Polyperchon* the custodian of the kings and General Plenipotentiary—Polyperchon was almost the oldest of those who had campaigned with Alexander, and was held in great respect in Macedon—and he made his son Cassander Polyperchon’s chiliarch and second-in-command. [5] The chiliarchy was first developed as a position of prestige and glory by the Persian kings, and then later, under Alexander, when he started to emulate Persian customs, it became a very powerful and highly regarded post.* So Antipater was following this tradition when he appointed his son Cassander, who was still young, to the chiliarchy.
49. Cassander, however, was dissatisfied with the arrangement. He regarded it as outrageous that his father’s command should be inherited by a man who had no connection with the family, especially given that Antipater had a son who was capable of command and had already given sufficient proof of his abilities and courage. [2] At first, then, he took trips with his friends into the countryside, where he had the opportunity and the time to raise the question of supremacy with them. He took them aside one by one, entreated them to help him seize power, and by promising them substantial rewards he won their willing support. [3] He also secretly sent emissaries to Ptolemy, to renew their friendship, to ask for an alliance, and to request that a fleet be dispatched at the earliest possible opportunity from Phoenicia to the Hellespont. He sent envoys to ask the other leading men and cities for alliances as well, and he arranged a long hunting trip for himself, in an attempt to dispel any suspicion that he was about to revolt.
[4] After Polyperchon had assumed the custodianship of the kings, he consulted with his Friends and gained their approval for his notion of sending for Olympias. He asked her to take on the custodianship of Alexander’s son,* who was just a child, and to stay in Macedon, where she would have royal rank. For Olympias had fallen out with Antipater a few years earlier and fled to Epirus. That was how things stood in Macedon.
50. In Asia, the dissemination of the news of Antipater’s death triggered unrest and the first stirrings of political change, as the power-possessors set about working for their own ends. Antigonus took the lead in this. He had already vanquished Eumenes in Cappadocia and taken over his army; he had defeated Alcetas and Attalus in Pisidia and taken over their armies; and he had also been made General Plenipotentiary of Asia by Antipater, which brought with it the command of a large army.* All this had filled him with arrogance and self-importance, [2] and since his goal was rulership of the entire empire, he decided to take orders from neither the kings nor their custodians, since it seemed certain to him that, with the most powerful army in Asia, he would gain control of the treasuries.* There was no one who was capable of standing up to him. [3] At that time, he had sixty thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and thirty elephants, and he expected to be able to raise more, should he need them, because Asia had the resources to pay for the recruitment of mercenaries for ever.
[4] Bearing all this in mind, Antigonus sent for Hieronymus, the historian, who was a friend and fellow citizen of Eumenes of Cardia, with whom he had taken refuge in the stronghold called Nora.* After giving him valuable gifts as a way of persuading him to act as his agent, he sent him to Eumenes. His job was to ask Eumenes to forget the battle they had fought in Cappadocia, to accept a treaty of friendship and alliance, gifts that would make him far wealthier than he had been before, and a larger satrapy, and in general to be the foremost of Antigonus’ Friends and his partner in the whole enterprise. [5] At the earliest opportunity, Antigonus also convened a council of his Friends at which he informed them of his intention to gain supreme power and distributed satrapies or military commands to the most senior of them. But he held out great prospects for all of them, and made them full of zeal for his endeavours. For his intention was to overrun Asia, deposing the current satraps and re-assigning positions of command in his friends’ favour.
51. While Antigonus was occupied with all this, Arrhidaeus, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, who realized what Antigonus was up to, decided not just to protect his own satrapy, but also to install garrisons in the most important cities.* The largest of the cities, and the one that was strategically the most important, was Cyzicus, so Arrhidaeus set out to attack it with a force made up of more than ten thousand mercenary infantrymen, a thousand Macedonians, five hundred Persian archers and slingers, eight hundred cavalry, all kinds of artillery pieces, both bolt-shooting and stone-throwing catapults, and every other variety of siege equipment.* [2] His attack took the city by surprise and he trapped the majority of the population in the countryside. He then set about the siege, trying to intimidate the Cyzicenes into accepting a garrison.
Given the unexpectedness of the attack and the fact that most of their fellow citizens were stranded in the countryside, leaving few in the city, the Cyzicenes were utterly unprepared for the siege. [3] All the same, they decided to defend their freedom. Openly, they sent envoys to try to persuade Arrhidaeus to call off the siege, on the understanding that they would do anything he wanted, short of accepting a garrison; but, secretly, they set about raising a force large enough to line the city walls with defenders, consisting of young men of military age and selected slaves, who were chosen on the basis of their competence and supplied with arms. [4] When Arrhidaeus insisted on their accepting a garrison, the Cyzicene envoys said that they wanted to put the matter to the popular assembly. The satrap agreed, and the Cyzicenes were granted a truce—and they spent that day and the following night improving their ability to resist a siege.
[5] Arrhidaeus had been outmanoeuvred. His window of opportunity had closed and his hopes came to nothing, because it was not hard for the Cyzicenes to keep enemies at bay: the city, which was well fortified, was extremely easy to defend by land because it is on a peninsula, and they had control of the sea.* [6] They also sent for reinforcements from Byzantium, and ordnance, and everything else that might help them withstand a siege, and the promptness and willingness with which the Byzantines got everything to them boosted their morale, so that they found the courage to face whatever dangers were in store for them. [7] They also hastily launched some warships, which sailed along the coast, picking up people from the countryside, and brought them back to the city. Before long, they had plenty of soldiers and they killed enough of the besiegers to thwart the siege. Arrhidaeus returned to his satrapy, then, outmanoeuvred by the Cyzicenes and without having achieved anything.
52. Antigonus happened to be in Celaenae when he heard that Cyzicus was under siege. It seemed to him that it would help him attain his objectives if he made the endangered city his, so he put together a force of twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse, picking the best men from the entire army, [2] and hurried off with them to help the Cyzicenes. He arrived a little too late, but he made it clear that he favoured the city, even if he failed to achieve his entire objective.
[3] He sent envoys to Arrhidaeus, accusing him, first, of having presumed to put under siege a Greek city which was an ally and had done no wrong, and, second, of plainly contemplating rebellion and wanting to make his satrapy his personal domain. He ended by ordering him to quit his satrapy and to keep the peace, as a resident of just a single city, which would be assigned to him. [4] After listening to what the envoys had to say and reprimanding them for their high-handed words, Arrhidaeus refused to leave his satrapy, and said that what he was doing, in garrisoning the cities, was getting ready† for war with Antigonus. In keeping with this response, once he had secured the cities, he dispatched one of his generals with a division of his army. His mission was to link up with Eumenes, raise the siege of Nora, and then, as his saviour, gain him as an ally.*
[5] Antigonus had no intention of letting Arrhidaeus get away with it, and he sent an army to deal with him, while he himself set out for Lydia with sufficient manpower to attain his objective, which was the expulsion of the satrap, Cleitus. [6] But Cleitus had guessed that Antigonus would attack him, and once he had secured the most important cities with garrisons, he sailed to Macedon to tell the kings and Polyperchon about Antigonus’ presumptuous rebellion, and to ask for help. [7] Ephesus fell to Antigonus at his approach, because he had inside help, and then, when Aeschylus of Rhodes sailed into the harbour with four ships with which he was bringing from Cilicia six hundred talents of silver that was on its way to Macedon for the kings, Antigonus seized the money, saying that he needed it to pay his mercenaries.* [8] This action of his proved that he was focusing only on his own interests and was an enemy of the kings. Then, once he had Cyme under siege,† he proceeded against the rest of the cities, one by one, and either subdued them by force or won them over by diplomacy.
53. I shall move on now from a narrative centred on Antigonus to an account of what happened to Eumenes, who was experiencing great and unexpected shifts of fortune, constantly encountering both good and bad when he least expected them. [2] Earlier, as an ally of Perdiccas and the kings, he had been awarded the satrapy of Cappadocia and its neighbouring territories, where, with large armies and plenty of money at his disposal, he became famous for his good fortune, [3] since he defeated Craterus and Neoptolemus in a set battle, and they were renowned generals with Macedonian troops under their command who had never previously been beaten. [4] But just when he had acquired a reputation for invincibility, he experienced a change of fortune, losing a major battle to Antigonus and being forced to retreat to a tiny stronghold. Shut up inside this place and surrounded by two sets of walls built by his enemies, there was no one to whom he could turn to help him recover from this disaster.
[5] After the siege had gone on for a year, however, and he was beginning to give up any hope of being rescued, an end to his misery suddenly appeared out of the blue. Antigonus, who was the one who had him under siege and wanted to see him dead, changed his mind and invited him to work with him. And as soon as he had received pledges in the form of oaths, he brought the siege to an end. [6] So Eumenes was unexpectedly saved after a period of misfortune. He stayed for the time being in Cappadocia, recruiting his former friends and those of his former soldiers who were at large in the countryside. Thanks to his extraordinary popularity, he had soon gained a large number of men who shared his hopes for the future and accepted his invitation to serve under him. [7] He ended up, after only a few days, with more than two thousand soldiers who had voluntarily joined him, and that is not counting the five hundred friends who had been besieged with him in the fortress.* Then, with Fortune’s help, he became so powerful that he was assigned the Royal Army and became the protector of the kings against those who presumed to bring their rule to an end. But I shall cover this in more detail a little later, at the appropriate points of the narrative.*
54. It is time now to leave Asian affairs and move on to events in Europe. Cassander, undaunted by his failure to be appointed to the command in Macedon, decided to make a bid for it anyway, because he thought it disgraceful for his father’s office to be administered by anyone else. [2] The Macedonians, he could see, were inclining towards Polyperchon, so he talked in private with his trusted friends and sent them as his agents to the Hellespont, as a way of avoiding suspicion, while he took a break of some days’ duration in the countryside, organizing hunting expeditions,* and succeeded in creating the impression that he had no interest in trying to gain his father’s position.
[3] When everything was ready for his departure, he surreptitiously left Macedon and reached the Hellespont via the Chersonese. He sailed across to Antigonus in Asia, to ask for his help, and told him that Ptolemy had promised an alliance as well. Antigonus made him very welcome, guaranteed his full and unstinting support, and told Cassander that he had an infantry force and a fleet available for him straight away.* [4] In doing so, although he pretended that his help was due to the fact that Antipater had been his friend, in fact he wanted Polyperchon to be so thoroughly preoccupied by major troubles that he, Antigonus, could get away with overrunning Asia and securing supreme power there for himself.
55. Meanwhile in Macedon, Cassander’s departure made it clear to Polyperchon, the custodian of the kings, that a major war was brewing, and since he had decided to do nothing without the approval of his Friends, he called a meeting of all his commanders and the most important of the Macedonians. [2] Now that the threat posed by Cassander had been given substance by Antigonus, there could be no doubt that Cassander would retain the Greek cities, some of which were guarded by garrisons imposed by his father, while others were governed by oligarchies which were controlled by Antipater’s friends and by mercenaries. It was also clear that Cassander would gain the military support of both Ptolemy, the ruler of Egypt, and Antigonus, who was already in open rebellion against the kings, and these two had mighty armies at their disposal and plenty of money, and included many peoples and major towns among their subjects. Under these circumstances, the agenda before the meeting was how they should go about fighting these enemies. Many speeches were delivered, stating various views on how to conduct the war, and in the end they decided to free the cities of Greece and to put an end to the oligarchies established by Antipater, [3] on the grounds that this was the best way simultaneously to undermine Cassander’s influence and win for themselves great glory and many important alliances.
[4] They immediately invited all the ambassadors who were there representing their cities to a meeting, at which they told them that they had good news and promised to re-establish democracies in the cities. Once an edict to this effect had been approved and written up, they gave copies to the ambassadors, and asked them to hasten back to their cities and countries, and proclaim to the people the goodwill of the kings and leaders of Macedon for the Greeks. The resolution was as follows:*
56. Since earlier occupants of our throne performed numerous services for the Greeks, we* wish to maintain this tradition and make clear to all the goodwill which we continue to have for the Greeks. [2] Earlier, when Alexander departed from this world and the throne devolved on to us, we thought it our duty to reinstate peace for all our subjects and the political systems which our father Philip had put in place, and we wrote to the cities along these lines. [3] But then some of the Greeks took advantage of our absence far abroad* and unwisely made war on Macedon and were defeated by our generals, and consequently life became difficult for the cities in many ways, but you should know that it was the generals* who were responsible for this, and that we, out of respect for the original policy, are reinstating peace, the political systems that were current in the time of Philip and Alexander, and the right to act entirely in accordance with the resolutions issued in years past by them. [4] Moreover, those who, from the start of Alexander’s Asian expedition onward, left their cities or were banished from them by our generals, we restore. And those who are restored by us are to have full possession of their property and play their parts in the public lives of their communities without being subject to politically inspired antagonism* and without having any of their past wrongs held against them; and if there are any decrees outstanding against them, they are to be made null and void, except in the case of those who were sent into exile after due process of law for murder or impiety. [5] Of the Megalopolitans, those who were sent into exile along with Polyaenetus for treason are not to be restored, nor are the exiles from Amphissa, Tricca, Pharcadon, and Heraclea,* but all the others are to be re-admitted before the thirtieth of Xanthicus.* [6] If Philip or Alexander proscribed any institution in any city as inimical to their interests, the cities concerned are to present their petitions to us, so that improvements can be made and in the future they will act in ways that benefit both us and their cities. The Athenians are to have everything they had in the time of Philip and Alexander, except that Oropus shall remain in the hands of the Oropians, as it is at present.* [7] Samos we give to the Athenians, just as our father Philip did.* All the Greeks are to pass a resolution to the effect that none of their citizens is to bear arms against us or act in any way that is inimical to our interests, and that if anyone does so he and his family are to be punished with exile and confiscation of property. We have instructed Polyperchon to see that these and future measures are carried out, [8] and we urge you, as we did in an earlier letter, to obey him. For we will not tolerate failure to carry out any of the measures included in this decree.
57. Once this resolution had been published and every city had received a copy, Polyperchon wrote to Argos and all the other cities, ordering them to send into exile the politicians who had been their leaders in Antipater’s time—and even to condemn some of them to death—and to confiscate their property, so that they would be so utterly ruined that they would be of no help to Cassander. [2] He also wrote to Olympias, Alexander’s mother, who was living in Epirus because of her hatred of Antipater, asking her to come as soon as she could to Macedon and take charge of Alexander’s child as his custodian, until he came of age and inherited his father’s kingdom.*
[3] Polyperchon also sent messengers to Eumenes with a letter written in the names of the kings, asking him not to bring his enmity with Antigonus to an end, but to take the kings’ side instead. He suggested that Eumenes could either come to Macedon, if that was what he wanted, and work with him as one of the custodians of the kings, or, if he preferred, stay in Asia, where he would be given an army and funds to fight Antigonus, who had already made it clear that he was in rebellion against the kings. The kings, he wrote, hereby restored to him both the satrapy which Antigonus had taken from him and all the prerogatives that he had enjoyed before in Asia. [4] To cut a long story short, he argued that consistency with the services Eumenes had earlier rendered the royal house made it more appropriate for him than for anyone else to care for and concern himself with its fate. And he said that if Eumenes needed more forces, he would come in person from Macedon with the kings and the entire Royal Army.
These were the events that took place in this year.
58. In the year of the Archonship of Archippus in Athens, the Romans appointed as their consuls Quintus Aelius and Lucius Papirius. In this year:
Eumenes, newly released from Nora, received Polyperchon’s letter, in which, in addition to what I have already mentioned, it was written that the kings were giving him five hundred talents with which he was to redress the balance after the defeats he had suffered, and that they had written to the generals in Cilicia and the guardians of the treasury, instructing them to give Eumenes the five hundred talents and more, if he needed it for mercenary recruitment and other pressing needs. He also said that the kings were writing to the leaders of the Macedonian Silver Shields, three thousand strong, ordering them to put themselves at Eumenes’ disposal and cooperate fully with him in everything, since he had been appointed the General Plenipotentiary of all Asia.
[2] Eumenes also received a letter from Olympias, in which she passionately pleaded with him to help the kings and herself; he was the only one left of her friends that she really trusted, she said, and he was in a position to remedy the royal house’s lack of allies. [3] Olympias also asked him for advice: in his opinion, was it better for her to remain in Epirus—that is, for her to remain suspicious of those who were at any given time supposed to be the custodians of the kings, but who in reality were trying to take over the kingdom themselves—or should she return to Macedon? [4] Eumenes wrote straight back to Olympias, advising her to stay in Epirus for the time being, until the outcome of the war was clear. As for himself, since he had always been consistently loyal to the kings, he decided not to take orders from Antigonus, who wanted to appropriate the kingship for himself. Since his help was needed by Alexander’s son, a fatherless boy who was up against rapacious generals, it seemed to Eumenes that the right course for him was to lay his life on the line, if need be, to try to ensure the kings’ safety.
59. He therefore immediately ordered his men to break camp, and he set out from Cappadocia with about five hundred horse and more than two thousand foot. There were others who had promised their support, but they had not yet arrived and Eumenes did not have the time to wait for them, because a large force was on its way, sent by Antigonus. Menander was in command, and his job was to make it impossible for Eumenes, now that he had become an enemy of Antigonus, to stay in Cappadocia. [2] But in fact, when Menander and his men arrived three days later, they found they had missed Eumenes. They set out after him and his column, but they could not catch him, and they returned to Cappadocia.
[3] By putting his men on forced marches, Eumenes made it through the Taurus mountains and into Cilicia in good time. Antigenes and Teutamus, the commanders of the Silver Shields, obedient to the orders they had received in the kings’ letter, came from a considerable distance to meet Eumenes and his friends. They gave him a courteous reception, congratulated him on his unexpected delivery from deadly peril, and promised their full and unstinting support. The Macedonian Silver Shields, numbering about three thousand, also came to meet him, and declared their loyalty and commitment.* [4] Everyone expressed astonishment at the mutability and unpredictability of Fortune, seeing that just a short while earlier both the kings and the Macedonian troops had condemned Eumenes and his friends to death, but now they were ignoring their own ruling,* and had not only let him off his punishment, but had even trusted him with the command of the entire kingdom.
[5] It was hardly surprising that everyone who observed the fluctuations in Eumenes’ fortunes at that time responded with astonishment. For how could anyone with a sense of the inconstancy of human life fail to be astounded by the way luck ebbs and flows one way and then the other? Or how could he put such trust in the power he wields at a time of good fortune that he would give himself airs as though he were not subject to human frailty? [6] Every person’s life seems to be controlled by some divine helmsman, who makes it subject to cycles of alternating good and evil for ever. What is strange, then, is not that unexpected things happen, but that not everything that happens is unexpected. This also gives one a good reason for valuing history, because in a world of inconstancy and change history has the power to remedy both the arrogance of the fortunate and the misery of the unfortunate.*
60. All this was going through Eumenes’ mind as well at the time in question, and in anticipation of further changes at Fortune’s hands, he sensibly secured his own position, since he was not a Macedonian and had no connection to the throne. Moreover, since he was aware that he had been condemned to death by the Macedonians who were now under his command, and that his senior officers were proud men with great ambitions, it seemed likely to him that before long he would come to be despised and envied, and that in the end his life would be in danger. After all, no one is happy to take orders from a man he regards as his inferior, and no one can tolerate having as his master a man who ought to be subject to others.
[2] As a result of turning all this over in his mind, when the five hundred talents for recruitment and construction was offered to him in accordance with the kings’ letters, at first he refused it, saying that he had no need of such a large amount of money, since leadership was the last thing he wanted. [3] Even now, he said, it was not as if he had volunteered for the job; he had been coerced by the kings into undertaking this form of service. Apart from anything else, after so long constantly on campaign, he could no longer stand the hardship and the rootlessness, he said, especially when there was no prospect of high office for him, since he was not a Macedonian and was excluded from the prerogatives that were reserved for ethnic Macedonians.
[4] But he then went on to tell them about a dream he had had, saying that he felt obliged to divulge it, since he believed that it would make an important contribution towards concord and the common good. [5] In this dream, he said, he saw King Alexander alive and bedecked with his royal insignia; he was conducting business, giving orders to his officers, and playing an active part in managing all aspects of his kingdom. [6] ‘It seems to me, then,’ Eumenes said, ‘that we should draw on the royal treasure and build a golden throne, and on this throne we should place all his insignia, especially his diadem, sceptre, and crown. Every day, as the sun rises, all of us officers should make an offering to him, and then we should meet in council with the throne near by, and receive our orders in the name of the king, as though he were alive and at the head of his kingdom.’*
61. This proposal met with universal approval, and everything that was needed was soon made ready, since the royal treasury was not short of gold. A magnificent tent was made, the throne was set up, and the diadem, sceptre, and Alexander’s usual panoply* were placed on it. Finally, a fire altar* was put in place, on which all the leading men would burn frankincense and other precious aromatics, drawn from a golden casket, and worship Alexander as a god. [2] The tent was likewise furnished with plenty of chairs, and it was on these that the commanders used to sit in council and discuss whatever business required their attention at any time.
Whenever they met on official business, Eumenes presented himself as the equal of the other officers. By treating them with the utmost courtesy, he won them all over and not only eradicated the envy they felt for him, but even won a high degree of loyalty from his officers. [3] At the same time, their growing reverence for Alexander filled them all with confidence for the future, as though the way forward were being shown to them by a god. Eumenes was equally diplomatic towards the Macedonian Silver Shields as well, and he became very popular with them, since they regarded him as worthy of the trust the kings placed in him.
[4] Eumenes selected the most suitable of his friends, gave them ample funds, and sent them off to recruit mercenaries, with the rate of pay set at an inflated level. Some of them set out straight away for Pisidia, Lycia, and the neighbouring provinces, where they diligently hired mercenaries, while others travelled through Cilicia, or Coele Syria and Phoenicia, or the cities of Cyprus. [5] Word got around that mercenaries were in demand and, with a generous rate of pay on offer, many came even from the cities of Greece to volunteer their services and were enrolled for the campaign. It was not long before a force had been raised of more than ten thousand foot and two thousand horse, not counting the Silver Shields and Eumenes’ original companions.
62. The astonishingly rapid growth of Eumenes’ power prompted Ptolemy to take a fleet to Zephyrium in Cilicia, from where he got a message to the commanders of the Silver Shields, urging them not to take orders from a man who had been unanimously condemned to death by the Macedonians.* [2] He also got in touch with the commanders of the garrisons at Cyinda,* adjuring them not to give any money to Eumenes and promising his protection. But no one paid any attention to him, because they had received orders in letters written by the kings, by Polyperchon, the custodian of the kings, and by Olympias, Alexander’s mother, that they were to give Eumenes their full support, since he was the General Plenipotentiary of the kingdom.
[3] No one was more displeased at the time by Eumenes’ preferment and all the power that was accruing to him than Antigonus. He understood that, in Eumenes, Polyperchon was creating the strongest possible counterweight to himself, now that he was in rebellion against the monarchy. [4] He therefore decided to hatch a plot against Eumenes, and chose one of his Friends, Philotas, as his agent.* He gave Philotas a letter addressed to both the Silver Shields and the other Macedonian troops in Eumenes’ army, and he sent along with him thirty other Macedonians as well, chosen for their enquiring minds and ready tongues. Their job was to meet in private with Antigenes and Teutamus, the commanders of the Silver Shields, and once they had gained their support by offering to enrich them and set them up in larger satrapies, they were to devise a plot against Eumenes with their help. If any of the Silver Shields were known to them or were fellow citizens, they were to meet with them as well, and bribe them to join the conspiracy against Eumenes’ life.
[5] The only person they succeeded in winning over was Teutamus, the commander of the Silver Shields, who accepted the bribes that were offered him and undertook to try to recruit his fellow commander, Antigenes, for the conspiracy as well. [6] But Antigenes, a man of remarkable intelligence and unswerving loyalty, not only refused to be persuaded, but even got his colleague to change his mind, despite the fact that he had already accepted a bribe, by pointing out to him that he was better off with Eumenes alive than with Antigonus. [7] He argued that if Antigonus became more powerful, he would deprive them of their satrapies and install some of his friends instead, whereas Eumenes, as a non-Macedonian, would never dare to work for his own ends; in his capacity as general, he would treat them as his friends, protect their satrapies for them as long as they cooperated with him, and possibly give them others as well. That, then, was how the plot against Eumenes’ life failed.
63. However, once the commanders had taken delivery from Philotas of Antigonus’ open letter, the Silver Shields and the other Macedonians held their own meeting, without Eumenes, and had the letter read out. [2] In it, Antigonus denounced Eumenes and invited the Macedonians to arrest him as a matter of urgency and put him to death. Otherwise, he said, he would come at full strength and make war on them, and anyone who failed to carry out his order would be appropriately punished. [3] After the letter had been read out, all the Macedonians, including the two commanders, found themselves on the horns of a vicious dilemma: they could either side with the kings and draw Antigonus’ vengeful wrath, or obey Antigonus and be punished by Polyperchon and the kings.
[4] While the troops were in this state of uncertainty, Eumenes arrived. After reading the letter, he called on the Macedonians to comply with the kings’ decrees and not to listen to a man who had chosen to rebel. [5] He brought up many arguments to support his case, and not only succeeded in averting the danger with which he was threatened, but also made the troops feel even more loyalty for him than before. [6] Once again, then, after finding himself unexpectedly in danger, Eumenes managed, against the odds, to strengthen his position. He told his men to get ready for departure and then set out for Phoenicia, since he planned to build up a substantial fleet by getting all the cities to send him ships.* The idea was that these additional ships from Phoenicia would give Polyperchon control of the sea, so that he would be able to take his Macedonians safely over to Asia to go on the offensive against Antigonus whenever he wanted.
So Eumenes was in Phoenicia improving his naval capacity. 64. Meanwhile, when Nicanor, the captain of the Munychia garrison, heard that Cassander had left Macedon and gone to Antigonus, and that Polyperchon was expected to reach Attica before long with his forces, he asked the Athenians to stay loyal to Cassander.* [2] Not only did his request fall on deaf ears, however, but the Athenians were unanimous in holding that they should evict the garrison as soon as possible. So what Nicanor did was trick the Athenian people. First, by assuring them that he was going to act in their interests he persuaded them to wait a few days, and then he spent the few days of Athenian passivity sneaking troops into Munychia a few at a time under cover of darkness, until there was a large enough force there to maintain the guard and to resist any attempt to besiege the garrison.
[3] When the Athenians realized that Nicanor was up to no good, they sent an embassy to the kings and Polyperchon, asking them to send help, as they were obliged to by the terms of the resolution on Greek independence,* while they themselves held frequent meetings of the Assembly and debated how to handle the conflict with Nicanor. [4] Before the Athenians had reached a resolution, however, Nicanor, who had hired many mercenaries, surreptitiously led his men out of the fortress one night and seized the Piraeus walls and the harbour booms. Now, in addition to not recovering Munychia, the Athenians had lost Piraeus as well, and they were furious. [5] They formed a delegation of eminent men who were on good terms with Nicanor—Phocion, the son of Phocus, Conon, the son of Timotheus, and Clearchus, the son of Nausicles—and sent them off to him. They were to protest at what he had done and ask him to obey the edict and give them back their independence. [6] Nicanor, however, replied that they should take their petition to Cassander, because he owed his command of the garrison to Cassander and did not have the right to act independently.
65. Just then, however, a letter reached Nicanor from Olympias, in which she ordered him to return Munychia and Piraeus to the Athenians.* Now, Nicanor was hearing it said that the kings and Polyperchon were intending to bring Olympias back to Macedon,* give her the custody of the boy king, and restore the prestige and respect she had enjoyed while Alexander was alive, so out of fear he promised to go ahead with the restoration, but then he kept finding reasons for procrastination. [2] In the past, Olympias had been well liked in Athens, and now, thinking that the honours that had been decreed for her had worked to their advantage,† they relished the prospect of the trouble-free recovery of their independence with her help. [3] Nicanor’s promises had still not come to anything, however, when Polyperchon’s son Alexander arrived in Attica with an army. The Athenians supposed that he had come to return Munychia and Piraeus to them, but that was an illusion. His intention, on the contrary, was to take both for himself, since they would be valuable possessions in wartime.
[4] Some Athenians—they included Phocion—who had been on good terms with Antipater were worried that there might be legal grounds for punishing them, and they went to meet Alexander. They argued that it was in his best interests to seize the fortresses for himself, without turning them over to the Athenians, at least until Cassander had been defeated, and Alexander agreed. [5] He was encamped close to Piraeus, and he did not invite the Athenians to have a presence at his conferences with Nicanor, but met with him in private and negotiated with him in secret—which made it clear that he was not intending to deal fairly with the Athenians. [6] An Assembly was convened, at which the Athenian people deprived the incumbent officers of their posts and replaced them with boards made up of the most committed democrats. Those who had held office under the oligarchy were either condemned to death or punished with exile and the confiscation of their property. Among those condemned was Phocion, who, in Antipater’s day, had been the most powerful man in Athens.
66. On being thrown out of the city, these men fled to Alexander, the son of Polyperchon, in the hope that, with his help, they would be able to secure safety for themselves. He made them welcome and gave them letters for his father, Polyperchon, to the effect that Phocion and his colleagues should be protected from harm, since they had looked after his interests and were still promising their full cooperation. [2] But the Athenian people also sent an embassy to Polyperchon, denouncing Phocion and the others, and demanding that he give them Munychia and along with it their independence. Polyperchon had been wanting to occupy Piraeus with a garrison, because the harbour could be very useful to him during the war. But he was embarrassed to go against what he had written in the resolution, and reckoned that the Greeks would judge him untrustworthy if he behaved unscrupulously towards the most distinguished of their cities, so he changed his mind. [3] After he had heard the embassies, he gave a favourable and sympathetic response to the representatives of the Athenian people, but he arrested Phocion and his colleagues and sent them to Athens in chains, leaving it up to the Athenian people to execute them or dismiss the charges against them, as they pleased.*
[4] An Assembly was held in Athens, with the trial of Phocion and the others on the agenda, and those who had been exiled during Antipater’s regime and were the oligarchs’ political opponents spoke up in large numbers, accusing them of crimes that deserved the death penalty. [5] Their accusations rested entirely on the claim that after the Lamian War these men had been responsible for the enslavement of Athens, and for the dissolution of the democratic constitution and legal code. When the time came for the defendants to make their pleas and Phocion began to address his own case, the assembled people made enough noise with their heckling to derail the speech, which left the defendants with no recourse. [6] After the disturbance had died down, Phocion made another attempt to deliver his speech, but the crowd shouted him down and made it impossible for the accused man’s voice to be heard. For there were a great many democrats who had been denied their rights as citizens and had now unexpectedly had those rights restored, and they were bitterly hostile towards those who had deprived Athens of its independence.
67. Phocion was overwhelmed; he was faced with a hopeless situation in which to fight for his life. Those who were near by could hear the justice of his case, but the noise generated by those who were disrupting the proceedings was so great that people who were further away could not hear a single word, and all they could do was see the gestures he was making—gestures that were becoming increasingly emphatic and wild because of the great danger he was in. [2] Eventually, seeing that there was no way to save himself, he called on the Athenians at the top of his voice to condemn him to death, but spare the others. But the mob’s violent fury was implacable, and when some of Phocion’s friends stepped up beside him to speak on his behalf, the people listened to their opening sentences, but it soon became clear that the speech they were trying to get through was a defence speech, and then they were driven off the podium by hostile jeers and howls. [3] In the end, the defendants were condemned unanimously by the people and were taken off to prison for execution.
They were accompanied on their way to prison by many men of the better sort, expressing grief and sorrow at their miserable fate. [4] A lot of people found it shocking that men whose standing in society and families were second to none, and who in their lifetimes had performed numerous services for the city, should be denied a hearing and a fair trial—and they were frightened too, by the insight that Fortune was fickle and that everyone was subject to her. [5] Many of the democrats, however, who were ferociously hostile to Phocion, were vicious in their denunciations and bitterly laid responsibility for the city’s misfortunes at his door. Although hatred is silent at times of good fortune, it changes and erupts furiously instead at times of misfortune, and under the influence of rage it becomes truly savage. [6] And when these men had brought their lives to an end with a draught of hemlock, which was the traditional method of execution,* all of their bodies were thrown out unburied beyond the borders of Attica.* So perished Phocion and his colleagues, the victims of vilification.*
68. Cassander sailed into Piraeus with thirty-five warships and four thousand men he had been given by Antigonus. The garrison commander, Nicanor, let him in and transferred Piraeus and the harbour booms over to him, while retaining the command of Munychia, since he had enough of his own soldiers to guard the fortress. [2] Polyperchon was in Phocis with the kings, but when he found out that Cassander had arrived in Piraeus he marched into Attica and set up camp near by. [3] He had twenty thousand Macedonian infantry under his command, along with four thousand from his allies, and then a thousand cavalry and sixty-five elephants. His plan was to subject Cassander to a siege, but he was short of food, and since the siege was likely to be prolonged, he was forced to leave some of his army in Attica under the command of his son Alexander—as much of it as could be fed by the available supplies—while he took the larger division into the Peloponnese. He wanted to coerce the Megalopolitans into obedience to the kings, because they had sided with Cassander and were governed by the oligarchy that had been established by Antipater.
69. While Polyperchon was engaged with these operations, Cassander sailed with his fleet over to Aegina, which submitted without resistance, and then to the island of Salamis, where the people had come out against him. He pinned them inside the city and put them under siege. Every day he assaulted the walls, and since he was short of neither ordnance nor men, the Salaminians found themselves in the direst of straits. [2] The city was extremely close to falling when a large force of infantry and ships arrived from Polyperchon to attack the besiegers. Cassander was frightened into breaking off the siege, and he sailed back to Piraeus.*
[3] Polyperchon’s intention was to settle Peloponnesian affairs to his own advantage, and on his arrival he called on the cities to send representatives for a meeting, at which he raised the question of their entering into an alliance with him.* He also sent emissaries around the cities, to convey his order that the political leaders who had been raised to power by Antipater during the time of oligarchy were to be put to death, and the right of self-government was to be returned to the people. [4] This order was widely obeyed, and massacres took place throughout the cities, although some men were sent into exile. It was the end of the road for Antipater’s supporters, and the states, having recovered the democratic right of free speech, formed alliances with Polyperchon. The only city to remain attached to Cassander was Megalopolis, and Polyperchon decided to put it under siege.
70. When the Megalopolitans discovered what Polyperchon’s intentions were, they voted to move their rural property into the city and, after counting up citizens, foreigners, and slaves, they found they had fifteen thousand men who were capable of military service. They lost no time in either enrolling these men in regiments, or assigning them to work crews, or having them tend to the city walls. [2] At any given moment, men were surrounding the city with a deep trench, fetching wood from the countryside with which to make a palisade, repairing damaged sections of wall, or occupied with the making of weapons and the construction of bolt-shooting catapults. Everyone was so determined, and the dangers they were facing were so great, that the entire city set to work. [3] For rumours were spreading about the size of the Royal Army and the number of elephants that were attached to it—elephants which were believed to possess such spirit and physical aggressiveness that they were unstoppable.
[4] It did not take long for them to be fully prepared. When Polyperchon arrived, at the head of his entire army, he halted near the city and made two camps, one for the Macedonians and one for the auxiliaries. He built wooden towers that would overtop the city walls and brought them up to the city at suitable points. He had placed all kinds of artillery pieces in them, as well as soldiers, and he set about clearing the battlements of the defenders who were stationed there. [5] Meanwhile, his sappers undermined the walls, and when they set fire to the support posts they brought down three of the largest towers and the same number of stretches of curtain wall.
Suddenly, there was a gaping breach in the wall, and the Macedonians shouted in triumph, while the Megalopolitans reacted with terror and dismay. [6] Then, as the Macedonians began to pour into the city through the breach, the Megalopolitans divided their forces, giving some of their men the job of resisting the enemy—and these men succeeded in putting up a strong fight, not least by taking advantage of the uneven surface of the breach—and setting the rest to block the inner part of the breach with a palisade and to work without a break, both day and night, at building another wall. [7] It did not take long for the work to be finished, not just because of the large workforce they had available, but also because they were well supplied with all the materials they needed, and so the Megalopolitans quickly redressed the setback they had suffered with the collapse of the wall. They were also making good use of their bolt-shooting catapults, as well as their slingers and archers, against the enemy soldiers on the wooden towers, many of whom were struck by missiles.
71. Many were falling dead or wounded on both sides, and as night closed in Polyperchon had the trumpets sound the recall and returned to camp. [2] The next day, he cleared the rubble from the area of the breach and made it passable for the elephants, whose great strength he proposed to use for the capture of the city. But the Megalopolitans gained a signal victory over Polyperchon, thanks to their commander, Damis. He had been in Asia with Alexander and knew what elephants were like and the uses to which they were put, [3] and by pitting his brain against the brawn of the animals, he neutralized their great strength. What he did was fix sharp spikes close together in a large number of sizeable boards, which were laid in shallow trenches with the points of the spikes concealed. He left a corridor into the city, formed of these devices, and he posted none of his troops in front of this corridor, but deployed a great many javelineers, archers, and catapults on either side of it.
[4] Polyperchon did† a thorough job of clearing the area where the walls had collapsed, but as he began to advance with his elephants in close formation through the breach, the outcome was far from what he had expected. Since there was no one straight ahead offering resistance to the elephants, the mahouts drove them on into the city, and the elephants charged forward and encountered the spike-studded boards. [5] With their feet wounded by the spikes—and their own weight drove the points deep—they were so impaired that they were unable to carry on and equally unable to turn back. At the same time, with missiles of all kinds coming at them from both sides, the mahouts were being killed, or at any rate were so weakened by their wounds that they were failing to fulfil their potential. [6] The creatures were in great pain as a result of the hail of missiles and the unfamiliar wounds caused by the spikes, and they started to turn back into the ranks of their own friends, many of whom were trampled to death. In the end, the bravest and most formidable elephant fell, and the rest either had no effect at all or killed large numbers of men from their own side.
72. This success gave a great boost to the Megalopolitans’ confidence, but Polyperchon regretted having undertaken the siege, and as he was unable to spend much time there, he left a division of his army to maintain the siege, while he turned his attention to more pressing matters.* [2] Cleitus, his admiral, he sent out at full strength to the Hellespont, where he was to patrol the region and make it impossible for the forces that were trying to cross from Asia to reach Europe. Cleitus was also to enlist the help of Arrhidaeus, who had taken refuge with his troops in Cius and was an enemy of Antigonus.*
[3] So Cleitus sailed to the Hellespont. He gained the allegiance of the cities on the Propontis and added Arrhidaeus’ forces to his own, but then Nicanor arrived in the region, the commander of the Munychia garrison. He had been sent there by Cassander with the entire fleet, and he had also been given the use of Antigonus’ ships, so that in all he had more than a hundred. [4] A battle was fought not far from Byzantium, and Cleitus won. He sank seventeen of the enemy ships and captured at least forty, along with their crews, while the rest fled for safety to the harbour of Chalcedon.
[5] After such a convincing victory, Cleitus imagined that the magnitude of the defeat would deter the enemy from fighting, but when Antigonus heard about the fleet’s losses, to everyone’s surprise he repaired the damage, by quick thinking and sound strategy. [6] What he did was arrange for the Byzantines to send him transport vessels under cover of darkness, which he used to ferry archers and slingers across to the other shore, along with an adequate number of other light-armed troops, and while it was still dark these men launched an attack on the enemy, who had disembarked from their ships and made camp on land. Cleitus’ forces took fright, and before long the entire camp was a scene of panic and turmoil. They rushed for their ships, but that only created chaos because of the baggage and the large number of prisoners.
[7] Meanwhile, Antigonus had made ready his warships and put on board a large force of marines drawn from the bravest of his foot soldiers. He sent his fleet on its way, urging them to attack the enemy with confidence, since victory was sure to be theirs. [8] Nicanor put to sea with these ships during the night, and at daybreak his men fell suddenly on the enemy, who were in utter disarray. They scattered them straight away, with their first attack. The enemy ships were either holed by Nicanor’s rams, or had their oars broken, or were captured without a fight when they surrendered with their entire crews. In the end, Antigonus’ men gained possession of every enemy ship, with the sole exception of the command ship. [9] Cleitus got ashore safely, abandoned his ship, and tried to make his way through to Macedon and safety, but he lost his life when he ran into some of Lysimachus’ soldiers.*
73. The severity of the defeat Antigonus had inflicted on the enemy won him great glory, and he was widely recognized as a skilled and intelligent general. His aims now were to keep control of the sea and to place his supremacy in Asia beyond dispute. He therefore selected from the entire army twenty thousand light infantry and four thousand horse, and set out for Cilicia, with the intention of finishing off Eumenes before he could increase the size and strength of his forces.
[2] When Eumenes heard about Antigonus’ move, he decided to try to regain Phoenicia for the kings, which had been illegally occupied by Ptolemy,* but he ran out of time, and he left Phoenicia with his army and marched through Coele Syria, with his plan now being to reach the so-called upper satrapies. [3] Near the Tigris river he was attacked one night by some of the natives and lost some men, and he was attacked again at the Euphrates river in Babylonia, by Seleucus.* A canal was breached and Eumenes came close to losing his entire army when his camp was totally inundated, but nevertheless, good general that he was, he managed to escape to a rise and saved himself and his men by returning the canal to its original course. [4] Following this narrow escape from Seleucus’ clutches, Eumenes succeeded in reaching Persis with his army, which consisted of fifteen thousand foot and 3,300 horse. He let his men rest and recover from their efforts, and then he sent messengers to the satraps and governors of the upper satrapies, requesting men and money.
So much for the progress of events in Asia in this year. 74. In Europe, Polyperchon’s failure at the siege of Megalopolis earned him a reputation for ineffectiveness, and most of the Greek cities forsook the kings and aligned themselves with Cassander. As for the Athenians, since the help of neither Polyperchon nor Olympias had enabled them to get rid of the garrison, one of their citizens, a highly regarded man, summoned up his courage and suggested that it might be a good idea to come to terms with Cassander. [2] This immediately provoked a stormy debate about the pros and cons of the proposal, but after they had carefully considered where their best interests lay, they unanimously decided to send an embassy to Cassander and to arrange the best settlement with him that they could.
[3] It took a number of meetings, but then a peace treaty was drawn up, according to which the Athenians would keep everything—their city, farmland, revenues, ships, and so on—as friends and allies of Cassander, but Munychia would remain for the time being in Cassander’s control, until the war against the kings was over. Moreover, a regime was instituted based on a property qualification of at least ten mnas,* and the city was to be made the responsibility of a single individual, an Athenian citizen nominated by Cassander. The man Cassander chose was Demetrius of Phalerum, and under his regime political strife died down and his fellow citizens were treated well.
75. Some time later, Nicanor sailed into Piraeus with his fleet adorned with the enemy’s stemposts, as trophies of victory. For a while, his success raised him high in Cassander’s favour, but later, when Cassander saw how arrogant and presumptuous Nicanor had become—and when he realized that the Munychia garrison consisted of Nicanor’s own men—he judged him an enemy and had him murdered. Cassander also campaigned in Macedon, where many of the inhabitants came over to his side. [2] Likewise, the general trend in the Greek cities was to ally themselves with Cassander.*† For Polyperchon was widely held to perform his duties as protector of the kingdom and his allies in an indolent and ill-considered manner, whereas Cassander treated everyone with clemency and went about everything he did energetically. As a result his rule was becoming increasingly popular.
[3] Since it was in the following year that Agathocles became the tyrant of Syracuse, I shall end the present book here, in accordance with my original intention.* I shall begin the next book with the tyranny of Agathocles and give an account of the events that merit inclusion in my work.