ALEXANDER’S HEIRS
[323-321 B.C.]
While such honours were paid to the conqueror’s corpse, two of the living objects of his affection fell victims to the revenge of Roxane and the ambition of Perdiccas. Roxane, with the agent’s concurrence, invited Statira and her sister Drypetis to Babylon by a friendly letter, and when they came she caused them to be assassinated and secretly buried. In the course of time Roxane was delivered of a boy, who was acknowledged as partner of Philip Arrhidæus in the empire, and bore the name Alexander (Ægus).[b]
Arrhidæus, the Imbecile
The sham government of Arrhidæus was now to commence. He must have been staying with the army. The phalanx no doubt did not believe that Arrhidæus was an idiot, but probably considered him to be a wise ruler who was only calumniated: just as even in Denmark, no one would believe that Christian VII was mad, from fear of wronging the king’s majesty. The king’s madness was in Holstein such a secret that persons at the utmost whispered it to one another, and to believe it appeared to the people like a culpable act; there is something mystic in the belief that such royal aberration is not madness, but profundity of thought. This may have been the feeling of the phalangites.
The cavalry were satisfied, as soon as they had him in their power. Perdiccas was chiliarchus or administrator, and Craterus was to take care of the king’s person, as the queen took care of the person of King George III, while the successor managed the government. Craterus was assigned to him as a kind of tutor, who took care of him, and always kept him in order; this shows how imbecile he must have been. Arrhidæus disappears altogether from history, and he was no more king than his nephew Alexander, the son of Roxane, and is mentioned only as a name. But in order to understand many coins and some inscriptions, we must bear in mind that Arrhidæus assumed the name of Philip.
The satrapies were now distributed afresh.
But before proceeding to the history of the satraps, or governors, we must relate the first of the horrible scenes of that time—viz., the insurrection of the unfortunate Greeks in the ἄνω σατραπεῖαι (323 B.C.)—a term comprising Khorasan in its widest extent, partly the province, properly so called, and partly the whole of Persia, east of the great Median desert. There Alexander had settled the captive Greeks, who had served as mercenaries under Darius, as well as other Greeks from among his own allies; he formed them into military colonies. These people were driven by despair to revolt, probably when they heard the report of the Lamian War; they assembled and determined to force their way to Greece. A Macedonian army under Pithon was sent against them. The fearful demoralisation among the mercenaries became manifest on that occasion; he would probably have been unable to do anything against them, if he had not bribed one of their commanders, who during the engagement deserted his post. Being overpowered, they now capitulated. Pithon had received orders from Perdiccas to put them all to the sword, that they might no longer be troublesome to him. But Pithon had formed a different plan: he wanted to employ those Greeks as a force, with the aid of which he hoped to play a prominent part; he was a Macedonian, and had claims upon the empire which was already beginning to be torn in pieces. Accordingly he spared their lives; but now his Macedonians rebelled against him—here we see the effects of the national hatred existing between the Greeks and Macedonians—for they found that it would be much more advantageous to kill the Greeks and seize the booty they had collected. They therefore made a general massacre among them, and took their property. After this was done, Pithon returned as if he had executed the orders of Perdiccas. It is as if we read a history of Ali Pasha. Soon afterwards, the hostilities among the governors broke out.
The Diadochi
The generals and satraps of Alexander, called in Greek the Diadochi [διάδοχοι, or “successors”], were about twenty in number; none of them was inclined to play a subordinate part, but a great many could not entertain the thought of assuming supreme power. Some of them, therefore, at first kept aloof from the disputes; these were the men who had no great expectations for themselves. The great rupture at the beginning was between Perdiccas on the one hand, and Antipater and Ptolemy on the other.
Perdiccas claimed the supreme power, because Alexander, by giving him his seal-ring, had conveyed it to him; and Antipater claimed it as regent of Macedonia, because he looked upon himself in that capacity as the representative of the nation. He was joined by Ptolemy because he was far off, for if they had been near each other, Antipater and Ptolemy could never have become allies. But as it was, Ptolemy in a distant and inaccessible kingdom considered himself safe, and Antipater could have no inclination to deprive him of his kingdom.
Ptolemy showed himself as a very practical and intelligent man; for he never thought for one moment of making himself master of the whole of Alexander’s empire, while the others were more or less harbouring such notions; but he was satisfied with the enormous prize he had carried off from the lottery, the possession of Egypt; and he only sought such provinces as could be maintained from his own kingdom, that is, Syria, Cyprus, and the countries on the opposite coast of Asia, which formed the monarchy under Philadelphus and Euergetes, who were masters of the opposite coast. This was very natural, as he could not but wish to secure himself on all sides.
Antipater aimed at power, but despised the diadem, still having the feelings of a soldier of Philip. He was already very far advanced in years, being the oldest of the generals; and Philip had had none who surpassed him in ability, and he had honoured him more than any other, as, for example, by the embassy to Athens. We recognise Antipater and Parmenion as the greatest among Philip’s generals. Antipater was a man of the old school, and affected great simplicity. While the other generals appeared in purple chlamydes, he used the common Macedonian garment, and a stick, so that no one could distinguish him from an ordinary Macedonian. Such an affectation, combined with internal rudeness, is very often found in men of a bloodthirsty disposition. Not even Plutarch is able to conceal his cruelty.
Perdiccas was the worst of all. He seems to have been a Macedonian noble. Although we read little of a nobility and the like among the Macedonians, and yet he appears in all circumstances as a person of great pretensions. He was guilty of every license, even the greatest cruelties, without being bloodthirsty like Antipater, who was another Duke of Alva. Perdiccas was a purely oriental and unprincipled character; a man of very moderate talents, to whom nothing was sacred.
He had no friends; Eumenes of Cardia alone was in connection with him, and drew close to him. As Craterus was the most chivalrous and gallant among the Macedonians, so Eumenes was the cleverest, and very much distinguished by his great talents: he would have been a distinguished man at any time. He is the only man of that period (if we except Craterus, who fell early) in whom we can take a personal interest; he was a true Odysseus, inexhaustible in resources. He never sacrificed a friend to his own interests. He always obeyed the dictates of humanity, and whenever in his life there occur actions which would be deplored in better times, still they are praiseworthy in comparison with what others did at the time. Being inexhaustible in counsel, he also had quite different ideas from those of the Macedonians. Had he been a Macedonian, he would unquestionably have gained the inheritance of Alexander, as far as it was possible, and as far as it could be concentrated in one man’s hand. But he was a stranger, a native of Cardia in Chersonesus, and this circumstance placed him in a position among the Macedonians, which prevented his ever rising to the height which he might otherwise have attained.
Eumenes had not risen, like the rest, by his military talents alone, but more especially as a statesman. At the age of twenty he had entered the cabinet of King Philip, and was employed by him for seven years as secretary; he had then, without interruption, been with Alexander until the king’s death, so that for twenty years he had been the organ of the royal government. But he was by no means unfit for the calling, by which men at that time rose to greatness, for he was also a good soldier. Alexander had a horse-guard consisting of two squadrons, and one of them was commanded by Eumenes. If he had been a native of Macedonia, he would unquestionably have eclipsed all others. He afterwards displayed the very greatest talent as a general, which is the more wonderful, as in the time of Alexander he had never commanded an army: he had only acted the part of a looker-on. He was then forty years old, but he was like the men of the revolution who displayed their military skill, although no one had suspected that they possessed any. Eumenes was appointed governor of Cappadocia and Pontus, but had first to conquer them. Perdiccas, feeling that Eumenes was very useful to him, assisted him in his conquests.
The Women Claimants
While Perdiccas was aiding Eumenes, the women of the family of Alexander began a commotion with a view of taking possession of the reins of government. Even during the life-time of Alexander, his sister, Cleopatra, the widow of the Molossian, ambitious like her mother, Olympias, and her whole race, had tried to interfere in the affairs of Macedonia. Even before Alexander’s death, Olympias quarrelled with Antipater, and went to her family in Epirus. Cleopatra now endeavoured to obtain influence with Antipater, but he would not allow her any; it would, however, seem that she acted on the authority of her brother, who wished to prevent Antipater establishing himself too firmly, and therefore allowed her some influence along with Antipater. She seems to have been the spy of her brother. After Alexander’s death, Olympias remained in Epirus for several years, until she unfortunately returned after Antipater’s death. Cleopatra, fearing Antipater, who was master in Macedonia, went to Sardis, where she kept a princely court, which became the centre of the intrigues and endless complications of the time.
Female Costume
As Queen Elizabeth continued to deceive many by allowing them to believe that they might hope for her hand, so Cleopatra held out hopes to several of the generals, partly because she had no confidence in her own situation, and partly because she expected brilliant results from her marrying one of the commanders. Thus she contrived to keep up a hope especially in the aged Perdiccas. This was a cause of great alarm to Antipater, who endeavoured to counteract the scheme, and to connect Perdiccas with himself by offering him his daughter, Nicæa, in marriage. This double intrigue was quite in the spirit of all the transactions of that time; it has all its meanness and untruth. The result was, that Perdiccas, through these negotiations, was placed in great difficulties. He thought it dangerous to offend Antipater; but the latter was not in earnest, wishing only to put off Perdiccas and to gain time, and thus both negotiations came to nothing.
About the same time there appeared in Asia Minor another daughter of Philip, who is called by some Cyna, and by others Cynane, a Barbaro-Macedonian name. She was a daughter of Audata, an Illyrian woman, for King Philip, according to Macedonian custom, had lived in polygamy, like other barbarian kings. The fate of this Cyna was very tragic. The fact that no one has ever made the last misfortunes of the family of Alexander the subject of a historical tragedy, shows how little the history of that time is known; we have here a most excellent subject for a tragedy, and if Shakespeare had known the fate of that princess and of Olympias, he would unquestionably have seized it as a subject for his muse.
Cyna had been married to the pretender Amyntas, a cousin of Alexander, and she had remained behind in Macedonia with her only daughter, Adeia, who afterwards adopted the Greek name Eurydice, which had also been assumed by her grandmother, the mother of Cyna, whose Illyrian name was Audata; Eurydice was a common name in the family of Philip (his mother also bore it), just as Laudice or Laodice was common in the family of the Syrian dynasty. The names of the Macedonians are very often confounded; it is remarkable, that among the Macedonian princes sometimes even brothers have the same name; two brothers of Antigonus Gonatas, e.g., were called Demetrius.
Cynane was an Amazon character, having accompanied her father on his last expedition, and she educated her daughter in the same way. She went to Asia Minor for the purpose of creating a revolution; she belonged to Antipater’s faction, and it was, no doubt, according to a preconcerted plan with Cleopatra, that Perdiccas caused her to be murdered by his brother Alcetas; she died like a heroine. This made a terrible impression upon the Macedonians, and was the main cause of the fall of Perdiccas.