CHAPTER XCVI.
FROM THE LAMIAN WAR TO THE CLOSE OF THE HISTORY OF FREE HELLAS AND HELLENISM.
The death of Demosthenes, with its tragical circumstances recounted in my last chapter, is on the whole less melancholy than the prolonged life of Phokion, as agent of Macedonian supremacy in a city half-depopulated, where he had been born a free citizen, and which he had so long helped to administer as a free community. The dishonor of Phokion’s position must have been aggravated by the distress in Athens, arising both out of the violent deportation of one-half of its free citizens, and out of the compulsory return of the Athenian settlers from Samos; which island was now taken from Athens, after she had occupied it forty-three years, and restored to the Samian people and to their recalled exiles, by a rescript of Perdikkas in the name of Aridæus.[779] Occupying this obnoxious elevation, Phokion exercised authority with his usual probity and mildness. Exerting himself to guard the citizens from being annoyed by disorders on the part of the garrison of Munychia, he kept up friendly intercourse with its commander Menyllus, though refusing all presents both from him and from Antipater. He was anxious to bestow the gift of citizenship upon the philosopher Xenokrates, who was only a metic, or resident non-freeman; but Xenokrates declined the offer, remarking, that he would accept no place in a constitution against which he had protested as envoy.[780] This mark of courageous independence, not a little remarkable while the Macedonians were masters of the city, was a tacit reproach to the pliant submission of Phokion.
Throughout Peloponnesus, Antipater purged and remodelled the cities, Argos, Megalopolis, and others, as he had done at Athens; installing in each an oligarchy of his own partisans—sometimes with a Macedonian garrison—and putting to death, deporting, or expelling, hostile, or intractable, or democratical citizens.[781] Having completed the subjugation of Peloponnesus, he passed across the Corinthian Gulf to attack the Ætolians, now the only Greeks remaining unsubdued. It was the purpose of Antipater, not merely to conquer this warlike and rude people, but to transport them in mass across into Asia, and march them up to the interior deserts of the empire.[782] His army was too powerful to be resisted on even ground, so that all the more accessible towns and villages fell into his hands. But the Ætolians defended themselves bravely, withdrew their families into the high towns and mountain tops of their very rugged country, and caused serious loss to the Macedonian invaders. Nevertheless, Kraterus, who had carried on war of the same kind with Alexander in Sogdiana, manifested so much skill in seizing the points of communication, that he intercepted all their supplies and reduced them to extreme distress, amidst the winter which had now supervened. The Ætolians, in spite of bravery and endurance, must soon have been compelled to surrender from cold and hunger, had not the unexpected arrival of Antigonus from Asia communicated such news to Antipater and Kraterus, as induced them to prepare for marching back to Macedonia, with a view to the crossing of the Hellespont and operating in Asia. They concluded a pacification with the Ætolians—postponing till a future period their design of deporting that people,—and withdrew into Macedonia; where Antipater cemented his alliance with Kraterus by giving to him his daughter Phila in marriage.[783]
Another daughter of Antipater, named Nikæa, had been sent over to Asia not long before, to become the wife of Perdikkas. That general, acting as guardian or prime minister to the kings of Alexander’s family (who are now spoken of in the plural number, since Roxana had given birth to a posthumous son, called Alexander, and made king jointly with Philip Aridæus), had at first sought close combination with Antipater, demanding his daughter in marriage. But new views were presently opened to him by the intrigues of the princesses at Pella (Olympias, with her daughter Kleopatra, widow of the Molossian Alexander)—who had always been at variance with Antipater, even throughout the life of Alexander—and Kynanê (daughter of Philip by an Illyrian mother, and widow of Amyntas, first cousin of Alexander, but slain by Alexander’s order) with her daughter Eurydikê. It has been already mentioned that Kleopatra had offered herself in marriage to Leonnatus, inviting him to come over and occupy the throne of Macedonia: he had obeyed the call, but had been slain in his first battle against the Greeks, thus relieving Antipater from a dangerous rival. The first project of Olympias being thus frustrated, she had sent to Perdikkas proposing to him a marriage with Kleopatra. Perdikkas had already pledged himself to the daughter of Antipater; nevertheless he now debated whether his ambition would not be better served by breaking his pledge, and accepting the new proposition. To this step he was advised by Eumenes, his ablest friend and coadjutor, steadily attached to the interest of the regal family, and withal personally hated by Antipater. But Alketas, brother of Perdikkas, represented that it would be hazardous to provoke openly and immediately the wrath of Antipater. Accordingly Perdikkas resolved to accept Nikæa for the moment, but to send her away after no long time, and take Kleopatra; to whom secret assurances from him were conveyed by Eumenes. Kynanê also (daughter of Philip and widow of his nephew Amyntas) a warlike and ambitious woman, had brought into Asia her daughter Eurydikê for the purpose of espousing the king Philip Aridæus. Being averse to this marriage, and probably instigated by Olympias also, Perdikkas and Alketas put Kynanê to death. But the indignation excited among the soldiers by this deed was so furious as to menace their safety, and they were forced to permit the marriage of the king with Eurydikê.[784]
All these intrigues were going on through the summer of 322 B. C., while the Lamian war was still effectively prosecuted by the Greeks. About the autumn of the year, Antigonus (called Monophthalmus), the satrap of Phrygia, detected these secret intrigues of Perdikkas; who, for that and other reasons, began to look on him as an enemy, and to plot against his life. Apprised of his danger, Antigonus made his escape from Asia into Europe to acquaint Antipater and Kraterus with the hostile manœuvres of Perdikkas; upon which news, the two generals, immediately abandoning the Ætolian war, withdrew their army from Greece for the more important object of counteracting Perdikkas in Asia.
To us, these contests of the Macedonian officers belong only so far as they affect the Greeks. And we see, by the events just noticed, how unpropitious to the Greeks were the turns of Fortune, throughout the Lamian war: the grave of Grecian liberty, not for the actual combatants only, but for their posterity also.[785] Until the battle of Krannon and the surrender of Athens, everything fell out so as to relieve Antipater from embarrassment, and impart to him double force. The intrigues of the princesses at Pella, who were well known to hate him, first raised up Leonnatus, next Perdikkas, against him. Had Leonnatus lived, the arm of Antipater would have been at least weakened, if not paralyzed; had Perdikkas declared himself earlier, the forces of Antipater must have been withdrawn to oppose him, and the battle of Krannon would probably have had a different issue. As soon as Perdikkas became hostile to Antipater, it was his policy to sustain and seek alliance with the Greeks, as we shall find him presently doing with the Ætolians.[786] Through causes thus purely accidental, Antipater obtained an interval of a few months, during which his hands were not only free, but armed with new and unexpected strength from Leonnatus and Kraterus, to close the Lamian war. The disastrous issue of that war was therefore in great part the effect of casualties, among which we must include the death of Leosthenes himself. Such issue is not to be regarded as proving that the project was desperate or ill-conceived on the part of its promoters, who had full right to reckon, among the probabilities of their case, the effects of discord between the Macedonian chiefs.
In the spring of 321 B. C., Antipater and Kraterus, having concerted operations with Ptolemy governor of Egypt, crossed into Asia, and began their conflict with Perdikkas; who himself, having the kings along with him, marched against Egypt to attack Ptolemy; leaving his brother Alketas, in conjunction with Eumenes as general, to maintain his cause in Kappadokia and Asia Minor. Alketas, discouraged by the adverse feeling of the Macedonians generally, threw up the enterprise as hopeless. But Eumenes, though embarrassed and menaced in every way by the treacherous jealousy of his own Macedonian officers, and by the discontent of the soldiers against him as a Greek—and though compelled to conceal from these soldiers the fact that Kraterus, who was popular among them, commanded on the opposite side,—displayed nevertheless so much ability that he gained an important victory,[787] in which both Neoptolemus and Kraterus perished. Neoptolemus was killed by Eumenes with his own hand, after a personal conflict desperate in the extreme and long doubtful, and at the cost of a severe wound to himself.[788] After the victory, he found Kraterus still alive, though expiring from his wound. Deeply afflicted at the sight, he did his utmost to restore the dying man; and when this proved to be impossible, caused his dead body to be honorably shrouded and transmitted into Macedonia for burial.
This new proof of the military ability and vigor of Eumenes, together with the death of two such important officers as Kraterus and Neoptolemus—proved ruinous to the victor himself, without serving the cause in which he fought. Perdikkas his chief did not live to hear of it. That general was so overbearing and tyrannical in his demeanor towards the other officers—and withal so unsuccessful in his first operations against Ptolemy on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile—that his own army mutinied and slew him.[789] His troops joined Ptolemy, whose conciliatory behavior gained their goodwill. Only two days after this revolution, a messenger from Eumenes reached the camp, announcing his victory and the death of Kraterus. Had this intelligence been received by Perdikkas himself at the head of his army, the course of subsequent events might have been sensibly altered. Eumenes would have occupied the most commanding position in Asia, as general of the kings of the Alexandrine family, to whom both his interests and his feelings attached him. But the news, arriving at the moment when it did, caused throughout the army only the most violent exasperation against him; not simply as ally of the odious Perdikkas, but as cause of death to the esteemed Kraterus. He, together with Alketas and fifty officers, was voted by the soldiers a public enemy. No measures were kept with him henceforward by Macedonian officers or soldiers. At the same time several officers attached to Perdikkas in the camp, and also Atalanta his sister, were slain.[790]
By the death of Perdikkas, and the defection of his soldiers, complete preponderance was thrown into the hands of Antipater, Ptolemy, and Antigonus. Antipater was invited to join the army, now consisting of the forces both of Ptolemy and Perdikkas united. He was there invested with the guardianship of the persons of the kings, and with the sort of ministerial supremacy previously held by Perdikkas. He was however exposed to much difficulty, and even to great personal danger, from the intrigues of the princess Eurydikê, who displayed a masculine boldness in publicly haranguing the soldiers—and from the discontents of the army, who claimed presents, formerly promised to them by Alexander, which there were no funds to liquidate at the moment. At Triparadisus in Syria, Antipater made a second distribution of the satrapies of the empire; somewhat modified, yet coinciding in the main with that which had been drawn up shortly after the death of Alexander. To Ptolemy was assured Egypt and Libya,—to Antigonus, the Greater Phrygia, Lykia, and Pamphylia—as each had had before.[791]
Antigonus was placed in command of the principal Macedonian army in Asia, to crush Eumenes and the other chief adherents of Perdikkas; most of whom had been condemned to death by a vote of the Macedonian army. After a certain interval, Antipater himself, accompanied by the kings, returned to Macedonia, having eluded by artifice a renewed demand on the part of his soldiers for the promised presents. The war of Antigonus, first against Eumenes in Kappadokia, next against Alketas and the other partisans of Perdikkas in Pisidia, lasted for many months, but was at length successfully finished.[792] Eumenes, beset by the constant treachery and insubordination of the Macedonians, was defeated and driven out of the field. He took refuge with a handful of men in the impregnable and well-stored fortress of Nora in Kappadokia, where he held out a long blockade, apparently more than a year, against Antigonus.[793]