Dividing the Spoils

by Waterfield, Robin

  In any case, they had long been familiar with wealth and power: Leonnatus and Perdiccas were royal in their own right, from the princely houses of cantons of Upper Macedon; Ptolemy had been brought up in Philip’s court alongside the heir; Perdiccas had been Alexander’s second-in-command and chief cavalry officer since Hephaestion’s death; all were from the very highest echelons of Macedonian society. By virtue of their elevation by Alexander, each of them was the head of his clan, and therefore a potential dynast. Their personal ambitions were bound by an oath of loyalty to Alexander, but the bond had dissolved on his death. Now, given the certainty of a troubled succession, each of them had to decide where to place his loyalty and that of his subordinates, or whether to make a bid for power himself.

  There were also senior men present who were not Bodyguards. Seleucus had for the past seven years been the commander of the crack infantry regiment, the Shield-bearers, three thousand strong. Eumenes of Cardia, Alexander’s secretary and archivist, was joined, as a Greek, by Nearchus of Crete, the admiral of Alexander’s Indian fleet, based in Babylon. Nor were there only Macedonians and Greeks; as a matter of policy (largely insurance policy), Alexander had included a number of easterners in the highest court circles. But they will play little part in what follows—such an exiguous part that it is clear that, as far as almost everyone was concerned apart from Alexander, they were there on sufferance. After Alexander’s death, they were never going to be contenders; all the principal resources were in the hands of the new conquerors.

  Some very important people were not in Babylon. Apart from Olympias, brooding in Molossia, two leading men were absent, though they were on everyone’s minds. These two were Antipater and Craterus. By virtue of his viceregal position, Antipater was the most powerful man in the empire after Alexander—or at least he had been until Alexander had ordered him replaced. Craterus, as we have seen, had been given two specific jobs: he was to take back home ten thousand Macedonian infantry veterans and 1,500 cavalry, and he was to replace Antipater as viceroy in Europe and head of the League of Corinth. Antipater, meanwhile, was to bring fresh Macedonian troops east to replace those Craterus had repatriated.

  But Alexander’s death found Craterus still lingering in Cilicia, halfway home, some months after he had been sent on his way. Why? The silence of our sources has attracted a few more or less sinister answers, but the probable truth is relatively banal. In the first place, when Craterus set off for Macedon, he was so ill that there was some doubt whether he would even get there, so he may have been recuperating for a while. At any rate, he had certainly recovered enough to play a vigorous part in what followed. If he had died, his replacement would have been Polyperchon, another senior officer who was being repatriated.

  In the second place, Cilicia was to be the headquarters of Alexander’s planned conquest of the western Mediterranean, but it was not entirely stable. The traitor Harpalus, for instance, had recently made Tarsus his temporary home. Craterus, then, had been busy ensuring the stability of the region and supervising the preparations for the conquest of the western Mediterranean. But even if this was the main reason for his delay, he might also have been unwilling to carry out his mission. After all, it was not impossible that Antipater, relying on his long-established power base, would simply refuse to be deposed, in which case Craterus’s arrival might provoke civil war in his homeland.

  So Antipater and Craterus were on everyone’s minds. What would happen to Antipater now? How would Craterus react to the news of Alexander’s death? Would either or both of them make a bid for power? Antipater had Macedonian troops and the money to hire mercenaries; in Cilicia, Craterus had the men and the money and the armament, several experienced officers who would certainly side with him, and the Cilician fleet, commanded by Cleitus. And he was enormously popular with the Macedonian troops.

  There were somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand Macedonian troops stationed in Babylon at the time. There were also thousands of native troops and mercenaries (with tens of thousands more scattered around Asia and Asia Minor, chiefly on garrison duty), but it was the Macedonians, and the soldiers trained in the use of Macedonian weaponry and tactics, who made the difference. Not only were they the most powerful fighting force in the known world, and therefore a critical resource for an ambitious man, but they represented the end of the chain in the Macedonian process of selecting a king. What normally happened was that the outgoing king nominated his successor, by word or by deed, and his choice was debated and fought over by his inner circle of Companions until consensus was reached. Since the Companions ruled all or most of the country, and had the loyalty of their forces, that was effectively the end of the matter, but the decision was finally presented to an assembly of however many ordinary, landowning, Macedonian citizens could be rounded up at relatively short notice, who vocally acclaimed the new king.

  The sequence could, in theory, be broken at two points—the approval of the Companions and the acclamation of the assembly. On the bloody occasions when such a breach happened, it was invariably the result of noble disapproval rather than refusal by the assembly to give its acclamation. But the possibility was there, and in Babylon in June of 323 BCE the Macedonian troops were the assembled Macedonian people. Moreover, as the years of the eastern campaigns had passed, even the Macedonian troops had begun to behave more and more like mercenaries. Factors such as military prowess and the ability to enrich them might, or might soon, weigh as heavily with them as Argead blood or the king’s and his councilors’ approval. If any of Alexander’s successors was to succeed, he would need the wealth and military charisma to gain and keep troops, as well as the ruthlessness to use them against fellow Macedonians.

  CONFRONTATION AT THE CONFERENCE TABLE

  The night after Alexander’s death was spent in mourning by Macedonians and Persians alike. All fires were ritually extinguished to mark the extinction of their king.2 The next morning, the Bodyguards and Companions met in the palace; there may have been as many as fifty men present. The whole business reeks of haste. Someone, probably Perdiccas, the recipient of the ring, was pushing things along fast, without waiting for Craterus and Polyperchon to return to Babylon to attend the meeting, or to see if aged Antipater would make the long journey from Macedon. By the time they even got to hear of Alexander’s death, the decisions taken in Babylon would have become established facts.

  Perdiccas was worried about how long the troops would abide a period of uncertainty. They were far from home, under the blazing sun, with no leader or paymaster, and with idle time on their hands. He could also argue that wherever the king was—or, in this case, had been—was the administrative center, and so that they had the right to meet and make unilateral decisions that would hugely affect others’ lives.

  It was meant to be a private meeting, more council than general assembly, and it was meant, in typical Macedonian fashion, to be followed by an army assembly. The senior officers would come to a decision about the succession, and they would put it to the assembly for acclamation. But a large number of junior officers and rank-and-file soldiers pushed their way into the palace compound too, agitated, grieving, numbed by the enormity of what had happened. The soldiers’ cries were an audible reminder to those inside the palace that their decisions would generate either calm or chaos, and information about what was going on inside the palace percolated outside, while the views of the mob were also able to influence the meeting inside.3

  Perdiccas had stage-managed the meeting in high ritual fashion. The noble Companions were to deliberate in the presence of Alexander’s empty throne, which was adorned with the royal robes and armor, and the diadem, the simple hair band that Alexander had made the symbol of kingship. And he opened the meeting with a moment of silence in which he added to the display the signet ring that Alexander himself had handed him not long before his death.4 Reverence for the symbols of kingship was a Macedonian tradition. It was a solemn moment, but they had to put aside such feelings and get down to
some hard negotiation.

  The critical assumption of the meeting was that the task for the foreseeable future was to keep hold of all of the territories acquired by Alexander, and the corollary of this was that those areas within the empire that remained unsubdued should be brought into line, and borders and other trouble spots should be secured. There was work to be done, but also a hierarchy to be established, with Alexander’s heir at its head. The existing administration was bound to be shaken up, and there would be plum jobs available for those who played the game of power well. But above all they had to determine whose domain it was in the first place.

  Perdiccas used the weight of his authority to argue that they should all wait and see whether Rhoxane’s unborn child was a boy, and then make it king. She would come to term in a couple of months, and he hoped and expected not only to hold the reins of power until then, but to act as regent afterward, until the boy came of age—if the boy were allowed to come of age. No doubt Perdiccas remembered that Philip II had gained the Macedonian throne after acting as regent; no doubt he was already hoping that Rhoxane would give birth to a girl, so that power could more easily remain in his hands.

  The first hint that Perdiccas was not going to have things all his own way—and of the tensions just below the surface of the meeting—came from Nearchus. He agreed that it was unthinkable to consider anyone but a boy with Argead blood a legitimate successor, but argued that the situation was too tense to wait even the few weeks until Rhoxane should give birth. He proposed, then, that Heracles should be made king. This was Nearchus’s bid for power, since at the Susa weddings of the previous year he had gained as his wife Heracles’ half sister. Eumenes, who had gained Heracles’ aunt, was silent; he was Perdiccas’s man, or at any rate an Argead loyalist who was naturally inclined to favor Rhoxane’s offspring. Nearchus’s suggestion was shouted down, on the grounds that Alexander himself had never acknowledged the child as his own and therefore as a possible heir.

  Ptolemy pointed out the problem with both Heracles and Rhoxane’s unborn son: they were not full-blooded Macedonians, and therefore would not be acceptable in all quarters. Some would wonder what had been the point of conquering the east, if an easterner was then given the throne. Ptolemy suggested a compromise solution. He wanted to see the inner circle of Alexander’s advisers become a junta of marshals; they had been Alexander’s council in war and peace, and so they should continue to meet in the presence of Alexander’s famous golden throne, and to deliberate and issue decrees for the empire, just as they always had done. This suggestion was an attempt on Ptolemy’s part to gain at least equal power with the other members of his proposed junta for himself and his allies, chiefly Peithon and Leonnatus. Otherwise, and especially because he and Perdiccas were not on the best of terms, he could see himself becoming sidelined. The proposal was not as republican as it looked; spelled out, it meant that Alexander’s Bodyguards and senior Companions would be assigned satrapies and other positions of responsibility, so that the most powerful of them, at least, would each in a sense be monarchs of their own kingdoms, but they would meet as a council when decisions had to be taken for the empire as a whole.

  Ptolemy’s impractical solution met, to Perdiccas’s irritation, with considerable approval, presumably because more people present saw it as a way of gaining a slice of the pie themselves. An impasse was rapidly developing, created by the mutual distrust of the senior officers. Aristonous tried to tip the scales in Perdiccas’s direction by suggesting that the unconstitutional irregularity of any kind of period without a true king could be avoided if Perdiccas himself were to succeed to the throne. This idea too was warmly welcomed; perhaps that is what Ale xander had meant by handing his ring to Perdiccas, who was, after all, royal in his own right, even if not an Argead.

  Perdiccas was tempted, but he was intelligent enough to realize that confrontation would inevitably follow his assumption of kingship. There were many who were loyal to the Argead line, and it would be easy for someone to challenge his right to the throne once Rhoxane’s child was born. At the same time, if he had Rhoxane and her unborn child killed, he would court massive unpopularity. So he could not be king, but it appeared that he could not be regent of an unborn child either, and that any kind of interregnum might be unacceptable and unworkable. Even while he was hesitating and considering his options, Meleager, a respected infantry officer, was arguing against his or any other man’s sole regency, on the grounds that it would be equivalent to non-Argead kingship.

  So far, if our confusing sources have preserved at least in outline some traces of the actual debate, Alexander’s half brother Arrhidaeus had not been mentioned as a candidate for kingship. But Arrhidaeus was, to put it patronizingly, a kind of mascot for the infantry, and a royal presence in their religious rituals. It became clear to those inside the palace that those outside would like to see Arrhidaeus on the throne: he was an adult, fully Macedonian Argead, and he was there in Babylon. He may even have already been given the honorary title of King of Babylon by Alexander.5 There was no need for an interregnum.

  Peithon, however, spoke for many in dismissing the idea that a half-wit should occupy the Macedonian throne. He suggested a less radical way out of the impasse than had been mentioned before, and one that recognized his friend Leonnatus’s stature: Perdiccas and Leonnatus, as the two with the highest credentials, should act in Asia as regents for the boy king, Rhoxane’s child, when he was born, while Antipater and Craterus should similarly be the guardians of the kingdom in Europe. After a little more debate, this was the position on which this first meeting settled.

  PERDICCAS’S CHANCE

  It is commonly said that a camel is a horse designed by committee; certainly Alexander’s Companions had produced a camel. If anyone had stopped to think, it must have been obvious that the existence of four regents for the next eighteen years or so (or three regents, once aged Antipater had died) was no recipe for peace. And, although Perdiccas’s lobby in the meeting had been powerful—in addition to Aristonous and Eumenes, he had the support of several very highly respected senior officers, including his younger brother Alcetas and Seleucus—he was not likely to be happy with the outcome. He had glimpsed and laid claim to sole power, only to be denied it. In short, the outcome of the first meeting looks like a temporary measure. Scheming undoubtedly continued behind the scenes.

  Nevertheless, the Companions behaved as though they had found a solution. Delegates were chosen to present the decision of the meeting to the cavalry and the infantry. The cavalry made no demur, but the infantry was incensed. The officers who were sent to win them over, led by Meleager and a respected senior officer called Attalus, met with the overwhelming demand that Arrhidaeus be made king. The loyalty of the Macedonian infantry to the Argead line was impressive, and the fact that the cavalry was prepared to go along with the meeting’s decision would hardly have weighed with them at all. Every ancient commander had to come to terms with the fact that his forces consisted of two groups who were perennially divided: the cavalry and all the senior officers came from the highest social classes, while the infantry was made up of peasant farmers. The two did not always see eye to eye, and sometimes even had to be coerced into making up a single fighting unit.

  Meleager and Attalus saw an opportunity for themselves. As matters stood, they were not going to be major beneficiaries of the new dispensation. But perhaps the passion of the infantry could sweep them to power. Instead of merely reporting the decision to the troops for their acclamation, they threw in their lot with the infantry. Before long, they returned to the palace at the head of an armed mob, insisting that Arrhidaeus be made king; they had chosen the name “Philip” for him, to remake him in the image of his heroic father, so that he would be Philip III, King of the Macedonians. Meleager had Arrhidaeus prominently displayed beside him, dressed as Alexander, while he himself wore the insignia of a Bodyguard of the new king. Disturbingly, the infantry had usurped the barons’ role and turned kingmaker, for the
first time in Macedonian history. They had the right to acclaim a king, but never before had they effectively chosen one. Alexander’s death had shaken fundamental structures.

  The cavalry, however, remained loyal to their officers and refused to accept the infantry’s choice. They were still committed to Rhoxane’s unborn child. Civil war was about to erupt between the cavalry and the infantry, as it almost had in India two years earlier, just at rumors of Alexander’s death. Within a day or two of his actual death, the champions of two rival candidates for the throne were poised to come to blows, and a mob was in the process of elevating a man who was not fully competent to kingship. These were not good omens for the future.

  Perdiccas and a number of others took refuge in the vast palace with its hundreds of chambers, but it was not hard for Meleager’s men to force their way in. There was no way that Perdiccas could win this confrontation, so he surrendered. Leonnatus led the cavalry units and the war elephants out of the city. Perdiccas stayed in an attempt to patch things up, but, feeling uncertain whether he would remain alive long in Meleager’s Babylon, he soon joined Leonnatus in camp outside the city.

  Meleager’s brief moment had arrived. He was the king’s right-hand man, he controlled Babylon, and he had possession of Alexander’s talismanic corpse. But this was illusory power. Leonnatus’s flight with the cavalry did not serve only to prevent Macedonians killing fellow Macedonians, but was also a tactical move. Their mobility enabled them effectively to put the city under siege.