Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [131]
10. EUMENES AND PEUCESTAS (PERSEPOLIS, AUTUMN 317 B.C.)
Eumenes’ army marched east into Persis. This was Peucestas’ home province, and he played the gracious host, feeding the army liberally from cattle herds it passed en route. Dismayed at Eumenes’ popularity, Peucestas determined he would win back the esteem of the troops. Food, as he well knew, was an important magnet that drew their allegiance, along with money, victory, and marks of favor from Alexander the Great. Since Eumenes could best him in the other three categories, Peucestas staked his claim to the first.
In Persepolis, his satrapal capital, Peucestas sponsored an enormous banquet for an army of more than forty thousand. A vast set of four concentric circles was laid out in open ground, the outer one more than a mile in circumference, and dining couches were built out of heaped-up leaves covered with carpets. The troops were assigned to various rings according to their status: rank-and-file infantry in the outermost, Silver Shields and other Alexander veterans next, then cavalrymen and lower officers, and top generals in the inmost ring. At the center of this military cosmos stood altars of the gods, with two new ones added for the divinized Alexander and his father, Philip. This was a banquet of unprecedented grandeur. The admiration of the troops, and the growth in Peucestas’ power, were palpable.
Eumenes was hard put to respond. It was clear now that Peucestas wished to contest leadership of the army, but for Eumenes even to acknowledge this rivalry, never mind counter it, might lead to an open split. He did not want a showdown over the right to invoke Alexander’s ghost, like the showdown over Alexander’s corpse in which his master, Perdiccas, had been wrecked. Eumenes sought a different solution, drawing not on his military skills but on those he had learned in his first career, as secretary to the Macedonian kings.
From Persis to Macedonia was a journey of weeks, and news that traveled between the two places was old by the time it arrived. Eumenes took advantage of this time lag by forging a letter that gave news of dramatic events in the West. Olympias had defeated Cassander and killed him, his letter reported; the young Alexander was securely ensconced on the throne; Polyperchon and his army had crossed into Asia with able troops and elephants, and were moving eastward at that very moment. Eumenes tricked the letter up to look like a report from Orontes, the Persian satrap of Armenia, a known friend of Peucestas, whose word would be trusted by all. For added authenticity he composed it in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the old Persian empire.
Eumenes had the forged letter sent round to all the commanders, and word of its content spread quickly. The camp came alive with ebullience, elation, and esteem for Eumenes. His allies, the men believed, had triumphed in the West and were headed east to help him in his fight with Antigonus. Because of Eumenes, they would all be redeemed; after an easy victory, they could count on rewards from a grateful monarchy and an end to the civil wars. It was Eumenes, they foresaw, who would dominate the postwar era. He could obtain promotion or punishment for any of them, based on how loyally they followed him now. The little Greek’s stature among the troops soared to new heights.
With a masterstroke of deceit, Eumenes had eclipsed the public relations coup Peucestas achieved with his grand banquet. He pressed his advantage by charging Sibyrtius, one of Peucestas’ close allies, with secretly aiding Antigonus. Whether or not there was substance to this charge, it was clearly a shot across Peucestas’ bow. As for the other coalition satraps, who, as he knew from experience, would hate him more the higher he climbed, Eumenes devised a new measure to guard against betrayal. He asked each of them to lend him a large sum of money, amassing more than four hundred talents in all. As his creditors could