Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [74]
Perdiccas had been weak when he first asked for Nicaea’s hand, in those desperate days when he had cast his own troops under trampling elephants. But much had changed since then. Perdiccas had led a campaign in Cappadocia on behalf of Eumenes—Antigonus One-eye and Leonnatus both having spurned their assigned commands there—and had prevailed in a tough fight. Ariarathes, leader of the Persian holdouts looking to undo Alexander’s conquests, had put an army of thirty thousand in the field, including large cohorts of Greek mercenaries, but Perdiccas had defeated them in two major battles, and impaled Ariarathes as a lesson to his supporters. Then he had gone to Cilicia and added to his forces the magnificent corps of veterans left there by Craterus, the Silver Shields. This crew of three thousand, led by an oak-hearted captain named Antigenes, were thought to be the best infantry soldiers in the known world. Indeed they had beaten virtually every foe in that world, during three decades of active service.
Perdiccas’ strength had increased, and along with it the stature of Eumenes, who had shown he could wield a cavalry lance every bit as well as his secretarial stylus. When trouble had arisen in Armenia from unruly troops, and the regional commander there, Neoptolemus, was making a hash of things, Perdiccas dispatched little Eumenes to set things right. With judicious grants of free horses and tax amnesties, Eumenes quickly raised a decent Cappadocian cavalry force. He drilled and trained these horsemen to fight like Macedonians, and using this cavalry, he soon set Armenia in order. Perdiccas found he had gained not just a devoted ally and wise counselor in Eumenes but a fine field commander as well. Eumenes, for his part, found he had gained a new enemy—for Neoptolemus did not like being upstaged on his own turf by a Greek.
Recently, Perdiccas had claimed yet another victory, over troublesome Pisidian tribesmen who had long defied authority. It was the Pisidians who had killed Balacrus, the first husband of Antipater’s daughter Phila, a few years earlier, and now Perdiccas made them pay the price—though in the end they robbed him of the full satisfaction of vengeance. There were two main towns in Pisidia, and after Perdiccas captured the first, he imposed summary punishment, executing all male inhabitants and enslaving women and children. Those in the second city resolved on a more dignified end. As Perdiccas’ army attacked, they collected their families into a few houses and set the buildings on fire, then threw into the flames all their possessions. Defenders manning the walls held off Perdiccas’ men until this mass immolation was complete, then leaped into the conflagration themselves. The next day the Macedonians entered the smoking ruin and picked through charred bones for puddles of congealed gold and silver.
Despite this dismaying conclusion, the campaign had been a success, making three victories for Perdiccas in the past year. His hand had been greatly strengthened in the contest for Alexander’s power, since, to the soldiers on whom power depended, good generalship—and the booty it provided—meant everything. Perdiccas had even begun to plan how he would answer the challenge thrown at him by Antigonus One-eye. That man’s refusal to obey orders could not be overlooked. A summons would be sent to Antigonus