Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [93]
A second blueprint had been drawn up for the post-Alexander world, as though Perdiccas’ reign had been only a bad false start. But the great problem that had scuttled the old settlement, the relationship between Europe and Asia, was replicated in the new. The two great blocs of the empire were once again in fatal counterpoise, Antipater holding sovereignty in one bloc, Antigonus controlling the kings and the royal army in the other. The ultimate questions posed by Alexander’s conquests had again been dodged: Was the new empire a European state, controlling Asian territory many times its own size? Or was it essentially Asian, a new incarnation of the Persian empire, with a small European appendage? Lacking a clear answer, the architects of Triparadeisus, Antipater and Antigonus, designed a structure that would straddle the straits of the Hellespont. Their sons would still be contesting the issue at the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C., after two more decades of war.
There was one further development before the leaders decamped from Triparadeisus. Perdiccas had not had the chance to destroy his papers before being murdered in Egypt, and Antipater now got control of these, presumably receiving them from Peithon and Arrhidaeus. Among them he found a letter from Athens, from Demades, one of his two most trusted political agents (the other was Phocion). Antipater discovered in this document that Demades had plotted against him, instigating Perdiccas, by way of a caustic joke, to invade Europe: “Our cities are held together only by an old and rotting rope.” Antipater was not amused by this mocking reference to his advanced age, and neither was his hotheaded son Cassander. There would be a score to settle with Demades when Antipater returned home—if the old man lived long enough to do so.
4. EUMENES (CAPPADOCIA, SPRING 320 B.C.)
Eumenes had become the loneliest man in the empire. Word reached him from Egypt that Perdiccas was murdered and that the royal army had condemned him to death; then more reports from Triparadeisus, that Antigonus One-eye had been given a powerful army and a commission to hunt him down. His supposed allies, Perdiccas’ former lieutenants, had already proved unwilling to work with him; chief among them was Alcetas, Perdiccas’ brother, who had refused to offer him aid even when ordered by Perdiccas himself. Branded a traitor by the royal army, yet despised by those who shared his outlaw status, Eumenes could not expect help from any quarter. He and his troops, the fine Cappadocian cavalry he had trained and the Macedonian infantry he had won in battle, were on their own.
A twisting path had brought Eumenes, a Greek from Cardia in the Chersonese (modern Gallipoli), to this isolated stand in western Asia. Plucked from obscurity by Alexander’s father and placed in charge of the royal paperwork, Eumenes did not seem destined for leadership. Alexander had promoted him to a cavalry command only late in the Asian campaign, in India, and even then had used him sparingly. Changing times had forced Eumenes to adapt, to learn the ways of the battlefield rather than archive and chancery. And he had learned them well. Eumenes had won his battles on behalf of Perdiccas, even while Perdiccas was losing his war against Ptolemy. The opposite outcomes of their campaigns had made Eumenes a consigliere without a capo, the right arm of a regime that had got its head cut off.
It was comical to think that only two years earlier, Eumenes had tried to mediate the strife in Babylon, claiming he could be trusted by all because he had no interest in politics. Politics had drawn him in and forced him to choose sides. He had aligned himself with the Argeads, his mentors and benefactors since childhood. Their cause had become his, and he had backed Perdiccas as champion of that cause. He had come within a hair of transforming Perdiccas into an Argead, but the regent’s