Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [25]
After three days of sullen anticipation, word arrived that the cavalry counterstrike had begun. The horsemen stationed outside Babylon had cut off the city’s food supply, threatening to starve the infantry into surrender. The mutineers became disturbed not only by their own plight but also by the restive movements of the city’s population, deprived as it was of provisions. Some troops went to Meleager and demanded that he either fight Perdiccas or arrange a deal. Eumenes, the Greek who had thus far remained on the sidelines, began intervening at last, urging the mutineers to reconcile with their former leaders before more harm was done.
Reluctantly but resignedly, Meleager opened negotiations with Perdiccas. The cavalry initially announced harsh terms, insisting that the heads of the mutiny be handed over for summary punishment. Then Perdiccas himself appeared before the infantrymen to sound a conciliatory note. Fearlessly walking into their midst, he delivered an impassioned speech about the dangers that now loomed. The Macedonians would inflict on themselves the defeat they had never suffered at the hands of their enemies; all their labors would be for nothing; they would appease with their own blood the ghosts of their slaughtered foes. The voice of familiar authority stirred the rebellious soldiers. They made clear they were prepared, under suitable terms, to take back Perdiccas as their leader.
The path to a compromise now lay open, though it was a bizarre compact that was struck. Perdiccas and the cavalry recognized Philip, formerly Arrhidaeus, as monarch, while Meleager and the infantry agreed that Rhoxane’s child, if a son, would become a second king. Philip would have first position in this dual monarchy under the fiction that he had the ability to rule, at least more ability than a newborn baby. Meleager was added to the board of guardians administering the empire in the kings’ names, replacing Leonnatus, who was mysteriously removed. Meleager would be subordinate to Perdiccas in Asia, while Craterus and Antipater would remain joint custodians of Europe. His mutiny had bought him a sizable share of control of the empire, though he was not destined to enjoy it for long.
The crisis had been defused. By creating a joint kingship, a peculiar arrangement at odds with the very notion of monarchy, the two sides pulled back from the abyss of civil war. Infantry and cavalry were reunited into one army, though the breakdown of trust was not so easily healed. Both sides must have known, despite the appearance of an amnesty, that there were still scores to be settled, once the traditional leaders were back in power.
Several days had passed since the death of Alexander. The king’s body lay in state in the palace throne room, mute witness to the struggle that had taken place in its awesome presence. Amid the tumult, there had been no opportunity to take measures against decomposition. But miraculously, according to Plutarch and Quintus Curtius, the corpse remained uncorrupted, still radiating the beauty, strength, and fragrant smell that distinguished the king in life. Indeed the embalmers who were now at last summoned feared to treat a corpse that still seemed alive. Perhaps they were right to be afraid: a panel of experts who analyzed Alexander’s death in 1996, and who published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine, suggested that the king did not die on June 11 but