The Historians' History of the World 04

The facts are these. After the death of Perdiccas, Eumenes, together with the other partisans of Perdiccas, especially his brother Alcetas of Pisidia, was declared an outlaw in an assembly of the Macedonian army, which on such occasions represented the nation. Antigonus was commissioned to carry the sentence into effect, and he also received the means necessary for this object—but he employed them for the purpose of establishing for himself a larger dominion.

Eumenes, after having lost a battle in Cappadocia, in the face of Antigonus, shut himself up with five hundred men, in the mountain fortress of Nora in Cappadocia, and disbanded his whole army, in the hope that if circumstances should improve, his soldiers would be drawn towards him as towards a magnet. He sustained the siege for half a year. Then, after having been besieged in vain during the winter, he escaped from the besiegers, having kept them engaged, until he had collected strength in other parts. He fled into Syria, and then to the upper satrapies (which had taken no part in the earlier war) to Antigenes of Susa, and Peucestas of Persia. A second war then broke out between Eumenes and Antigonus.

The death of Antipater, which had taken place in the meantime, had greatly altered all circumstances. He had appointed Polysperchon regent, and the latter called upon Olympias to come forward again. Antigonus, Cassander, and Ptolemy (though the last did not do so actively), declared against him; Polysperchon, on the other hand, put himself in connection with Eumenes, on behalf of Olympias and her grandson, and called upon him to take the family of Alexander under his protection.

Eumenes now appeared in upper Asia with full authority from Olympias. The argyraspidæ and most of Alexander’s veterans were likewise in those parts, for what reason, we know not. They looked upon themselves as a station of invalids, were in the enjoyment of perfect leisure, and lived in the greatest abundance, like the followers of the Normans in England. They were all seigneurs. They had hitherto joined no party, and lived like a nation of Mamelukes, almost in the forms of a republic. Eumenes, provided with the authorisation of Olympias, now applied to them, and gained them over to his side. The satraps also declared themselves in his favour, and he obtained possession of the royal treasures. With these means at his command, Eumenes for years carried on the war on behalf of Olympias and young Alexander. For years he overcame the jealousy of the Macedonian commanders, who hated him as a foreigner, and controlled those old faithless men of the sword. He induced them to quit their merry quarters for the objects he stated to them, to follow him, and to risk their own existence for his personal objects; he guided them all by assuming the appearance that they were all equal, and by erecting a symbolical throne of Alexander.

All the Macedonian world was now divided into two masses, which fought against each other both in Europe and in Asia. Cassander was engaged in Greece against Polysperchon, and Antigonus in Asia against Eumenes, still pretending that he was obliged to carry into effect the decrees of the Macedonian army against Eumenes.

The power of Antigonus, however, increased immensely through the war with which he was commissioned: he not only made himself master of Eumenes’ satrapy of Cappadocia in western Asia, and of other satrapies in Asia Minor, such as Pisidia and Lycia, but he also occupied Media and the intermediate provinces, so that his rule extended from the Hellespont to Persia. He took his headquarters at Ecbatana, whence he made war upon the southern provinces. In order to attack them he had to pass through the desert of Rhei and Kom, which separates Fars and Kerman from Media. Antigonus there undertook the celebrated expedition through the desert, in order to attack the allies in their winter quarters; but the manner in which Eumenes discovered and thwarted his march, is much more brilliant, for he deceived his enemy, and induced him to give up his plan, which could not have failed, and to make his retreat. In the eighth year after Alexander’s death, Antigonus concluded the war against Eumenes, by attacking him with a far superior force. Peucestas had displayed a miserable character, but Antigonus had conducted the war in a most able manner. In the end (316 B.C.), he defeated the allies, and conquered the immense oriental train and their harems, which they carried about with them; and in order to recover these, they concluded peace with Antigonus. This was the price for which the unfortunate Eumenes was delivered up by his own troops, as Charles I was delivered up by the Scotch. Antigonus would willingly have saved him, but he was obliged to sacrifice him to the national hatred of the Macedonians against the Greeks.

THE EMPIRE OF ANTIGONUS