Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [163]
24 the five-way parley broke up: Sadly, I have been unable to deduce the meaning of a remark Plutarch assigns to Eumenes here, “It’s just like the old saying, olethrou oudeis logos.” There is no other instance in Greek of this “old saying,” nor is its sense—literally, “of destruction [there is] no account”—at all clear from this context. Plutarch evidently regarded this as a very memorable remark, but its point is lost on me and on others I have consulted.
25 He sent out a high officer: The story is found in Polyaenus 4.6.6. It is significant that Antigonus’ list of stratagems is far longer in Polyaenus’ catalog than that of any other Macedonian general (King Alexander’s of course is longer).
26 one last indignity: Arrian, Events After Alexander 1.44–45.
27 who chose it as the end point: Scholars often maintain that the portion of Events After Alexander summarized by Photius does not represent the entirety of the original work, but I see no grounds for this assumption. The great problem for a historian of the post-Alexander period is where to conclude, and Antipater’s crossing of the Hellespont makes a reasonably good end point.
28 a demoralizing trick: The source is of course Polyaenus 4.6.19.
29 a fortress called Nora: The fort was atop the ten-thousand-foot Mount Hasan, near a site known today by the Turkish name of Viransehir. The ruins shown to tourists there are Roman and medieval, not those of Eumenes’ times, which as far as I know are no longer in evidence.
Chapter 8: The War Comes Home
1 Loss of the right: It was unclear whether the poor were stripped of their voting rights de facto or de jure; see discussion by Hughes in chapter 4 of “After the Democracy.”
2 manning the oars of its warships: Because the Athenians were required to supply their own gear for military service, the armed forces were highly stratified according to wealth. Those who could not afford hoplite armor—the breastplate, helmet, and spear that were standard middle-class possessions—were relegated to the navy, which paradoxically was the strongest arm of Athens’ war machine. Thus the poor bore an outsize share of the glory the city had won in battle.
3 Convicted five years earlier: See this page. It is unclear whether his penalty was imposed for conviction in the bribery scandal, for support of the measure making Alexander a god (see this page), or for a host of different violations (Diodorus 18.18.2 mentions three unspecified convictions and Plutarch no fewer than seven).
4 subsidize all his pleasures: The story that follows comes from Plutarch, Phocion 30.3.
5 to stop him from deporting: Plutarch, Phocion 29.3. The Ceraunian Mountains were considered the limits of European Greece to the north; Taenaron, to the south, formed a similar limit and is also mentioned by Plutarch as the place beyond which Antipater banished his enemies.
6 Phocus: Anecdotes about this colorful man are related by Plutarch at Phocion 20, 30, and 38.2. At 38.1, Plutarch tells us that Phocus ultimately hunted down and took vengeance on those who had brought down his father.
7 According to Plutarch: The episode of Demades’ brutal execution by Cassander was compelling enough to Plutarch that he narrated it twice, Phocion 30.8–9 and Demosthenes 31.4–6. Diodorus, by contrast, leaves Cassander out of the story and instead has Antipater handing the two Athenians over for execution in a dispassionate manner (18.48.3–4).
8 probably not Aristotle’s adopted son: See Bosworth, “A New Macedonian Prince” (in the bibliography under “Leosthenes and the Lamian War”).
9 the countryside: The highlands surrounding central Macedonia had always been uneasy with the authority exerted from Pella.
10 The first warning: As described by Polyaenus 4.6.7. It is impossible that Antigonus traveled with slow-moving elephants on his forced march from Nora, even if Diodorus’ estimate of his speed (18.44.2) is exaggerated. Presumably, he had been keeping the beasts stabled somewhere near Pisidia or had sent them on ahead to await his arrival there.
11 to a fort he controlled: The remarkable