Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [24]
The infantry went wild, clanging spears on shields to hail the new head of their mutiny. Meleager made a speech that fanned their anger into a demand for action. Armed and accompanied by a bewildered Philip, the rebellious mob marched on the palace. As they had done just two days before, they demanded admittance to the chamber where Alexander lay.
Forewarned, Perdiccas had assembled a few hundred picked troops in the throne room and barred the doors. He was hoping to hold the room and thereby preserve his tenuous grasp on power. Alexander’s corpse, and the empty throne decked with royal armor and insignia, were locked in with him, the talismans of authority. Whoever possessed these, it now seemed, controlled the empire.
The infantry forced the doors and spilled into the room, javelins at the ready. Meleager, at the head of the mob, confronted Perdiccas face to face. A full-scale battle loomed, but Perdiccas and his men saw they were outmatched. They made a tactical retreat and left the palace by a side door, then rode for the safety of the plains outside the city.
In one swift coup Meleager had gained control of the room, the throne, and the corpse. He and the infantry now set up their new government before Alexander’s still-untended body. Philip, their half-wit king, was installed as head of that government and invested with the royal garb left on the empty throne, Alexander’s robe and diadem.
Perdiccas and the other generals had vanished, all except one. Little Eumenes, Alexander’s former secretary, only recently promoted to cavalry commander, remained in the palace in hopes of mediating the conflict. Eumenes made the case that as a Greek with no interest in Macedonian politics and nothing to gain or lose, he could be trusted by both sides. This reasoning was quite likely advanced by Eumenes in perfect sincerity and was accepted by Meleager’s men—though events of years to come would make it seem laughably naive.
According to legend, Alexander predicted on his deathbed that a great funeral contest would be held over his tomb. But even he might not have believed that, within a day of his demise, the two main branches of the army would draw weapons on each other over his very corpse. The speed of the unraveling, the scale of the breakdown of trust and order, was breathtaking. The saving grace for the Macedonians was that events at Babylon were moving faster than the messengers reporting them to the world. Provinces that might have profited from the disorder, subject peoples that might have rebelled, did not yet even know that Alexander was dead.
Meleager’s first move was to order the arrest of his displaced rival, Perdiccas. He must have sensed that his time in power would be short if Perdiccas still lived. Despite the mistrust between cavalry and infantry, the army’s traditional leaders could still command the loyalty of many in the rank and file. Indeed Perdiccas seemed to be waiting to reclaim that loyalty, remaining inside Babylon while sending his fellow officers out. Meleager was determined to prevent him from doing so. It was a simple matter to obtain the requisite authority: Meleager explained to King Philip why Perdiccas posed a danger to the state, and the king’s befuddled silence was taken for assent. A squad was dispatched to arrest Perdiccas, or to kill him if he resisted.
Perdiccas responded to the bold attack with superb sangfroid. He was at his quarters with an honor guard of sixteen page boys, too few to defend him, when Meleager’s men approached. Showing no fear but only righteous anger, he appeared in his doorway in full armor and denounced his would-be captors as traitors and slaves of Meleager. The tactic worked. Shamed by the reproaches of their top general, the men slunk away without completing their mission. Perdiccas hastened to leave the city before other hit men could arrive.
Meleager’s failed strike at Perdiccas sparked