Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [90]
2. THE ROYAL FAMILY (EGYPT AND POINTS NORTH, AUTUMN 321 B.C.)
What were the first words spoken by the son of Alexander the Great, just now acquiring the power of speech? Were they in Macedonian or in the Bactrian tongue he presumably learned from his mother, Rhoxane? Or was he tutored in high classical Greek, the language his father had made the lingua franca of the new ruling class? Did he know, at age two, that his words had the power to shape a realm stretching from the Adriatic to the banks of the Indus? Such questions are beyond speculation, since of all the records preserved from this era, not one gives the boy a voice or a consciousness. Though he stood closer to the maelstrom than anyone, we do not have a single utterance or action by which his personality might be judged. The young Alexander, known today as Alexander IV, remains a cipher, even after the opening of his still-unplundered tomb in 1979.
How was the young Alexander told that Perdiccas no longer had charge of him but others he barely knew? What was told to his uncle and co-ruler, Philip, who must have realized, however dimly, that a coup had taken place? Was any attempt made to enlist Philip’s support for the new regime? Or was he a mere possession conferring power, like the signet ring given to Perdiccas? One anecdote from later in Philip’s life shows that this monarch had a partial understanding of events around him. But his behavior could become erratic and violent, and his keeper on at least one occasion had to restrain him. Peithon and Arrhidaeus could only have given him the illusion of agency, securing his token approval for acts of state as Perdiccas had done.
Philip’s new wife, however, was a different matter. Adea, now also called Eurydice, had all her wits about her and all the energies of youth. She was determined to be more than a figurehead. As the army moved north out of Egypt, Adea began to assert herself. She sensed an opportunity to grasp supreme power, an opportunity her mother, Cynnane, had sacrificed her life to give her.
By now Adea had spent several weeks with the royal army and had learned much about the new breed of soldier Alexander had created. Money, she knew, was much on the men’s minds. Many of their comrades, those discharged by Alexander but now fighting again under Antipater, had received a handsome bonus at their send-off, a talent of silver per man. The others had gotten no such boon, though they claimed Alexander had promised one. Now the expedition to Egypt had disappointed their hopes of plunder, and even their standard salary was in arrears (Perdiccas’ brother-in-law Attalus, on the run from the death sentence imposed on him, had made haste to secure a stash of money from which they would have been paid). For these hardened veterans, fighting not for a cause or country but because fighting was their way of life, money meant everything. It was a measure of prowess, a reward for hard labors, a bond linking them to their commanders. If money was running short, as Adea knew it was, that bond could easily be broken.
As the army made its way back into Asia, Adea began making her voice heard in camp. With her status as granddaughter of the great Philip ensuring an audience, she harped on the theme of owed money, a theme she knew would provoke her listeners to outrage. She was in contact with the outlawed Perdiccan faction, men like Attalus who had access to ready cash. Discontent began to swirl around this teenage firebrand, prompting Peithon and Arrhidaeus, the new heads of the central government, to impose a gag order on her. But Adea refused to comply. She knew that after the near mutiny caused by the murder of her mother, the generals would not dare lay hands on her, and they had no other way to stop her voice.
3. TRIPARADEISUS (WINTER, LATE 321 B.C.)
The army arrived at Triparadeisus, a “triple game park” somewhere in what is now Lebanon, with