by David Grant
But before leaving the field in the face of these setbacks, Eumenes had the opportunity to seize the enemy baggage train. Knowing the booty would only slow down his own retreat, he sent a secret communication to its defender, Menander, a high-ranking Companion serving Antigonus, imploring him for the sake of ‘old friendships’ to move himself to higher ground to better defend it. The false magnanimity impressed the enemy troops but Antigonus saw through the misdirection: ‘Nay my good men, that fellow did not let them go out of regard for you, but because he was afraid to put such fetters on himself in his flight.’76 Luxury and distractions, a condition Plutarch described as malakoteroi, getting ‘softer’, would have encumbered the mobility of any army. This was vintage Eumenes playing vintage Alexander, who had in fact been following Xenophon when he burned the army’s accumulated wealth before entering India: ‘thus deprived of their treasures, [they] immediately became anxious for more; and, in order to obtain it, of course ready for new enterprises.’ And that meant booty from victory in future battles and plundering the surrounding area meanwhile.77
Eumenes reportedly ‘lost’ 8,000 men at Orcynia in spring 319 BCE from of a total of 20,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry; it is a huge number that must have comprised the dead, wounded, captured and probably the deserters too, and he was left with no option but flight.78 The flattering version of events painted his departure as an anaklesis, a tactical feint, in this case to double-back to the battlefield to burn the dead on pyres made from wooden village doors – that is if Plutarch was not confusing the occasion with the ‘magnificent burial’ mentioned by Diodorus after the later clash at Paraetacene.79 What is revealing for any analysis of camp practice and the distinctions of hierarchy is the report that officers were burned on separate pyres from those of the common soldier.
A more sober narrative from Diodorus suggested Eumenes was overtaken in his flight and had little directional choice. The best hope of immediate survival lay in the mountain fortress of Nora, but before entering that ‘lofty crag’, Eumenes ‘… persuaded most of his soldiers to leave him, either out of regard for them, or because he was unwilling to trail after him a body of men too small to give battle, and too large to escape the enemy’s notice.’80 The First Diadokhoi War was all but over.
THE SIEGE, THE HOSTAGE AND THE MASTER OF HIS SWORD
Following Eumenes’ incarceration at Nora, Antigonus found himself in a formidable position, potentially dominating the empire from the Mediterranean shores of Asia Minor to the eastern borders of Armenia. He was, of course, still acting for the Pellan court, or so his official dispatches would have claimed. But secretly he aspired to ‘… greater things… and decided… he would no longer take orders from Antipater, while maintaining the pretence of being well disposed to the aged regent.’81
Antigonus invested the stone stronghold with ‘double walls, ditches and amazing palisades’ so there was no hope of escape for Eumenes and his 600 loyal confederates. The fortress of Nora was termed ‘impregnable’ and ‘marvellously fortified, partly by nature, partly by the work of men’s hands’; presumably this explains why we read of no storming attempts.82 The beseiger instigated a hostage exchange and invited Eumenes to parley, sending in his own talented nephew, Polemaeus (who would later try and subdue Eumenes’ satrapies), for goodwill. Eumenes exposed himself for negotiation and Hieronymus was offered in exchange;83 this achieved hostage symmetry for the historian was possibly Eumenes’ own nephew.84
The commencement of the siege was a fulcrum point for Hieronymus and his history; it was (we beleive) the moment his two patrons – present and future – first met in his presence. Yet it was Plutarch, and not Diodorus (who appears to have more rigidly followed Hieronymus), who most effectively captured the poignancy of the face-off between the veteran general and his captive who was now demanding full satrapal reinstatement and the return of his possessions:85
… the bystanders were amazed and they admired his [Eumenes’] lofty spirit and confidence. But meanwhile, many of the Macedonians came running together in their eagerness to see what sort of a man Eumenes was; for no one else had been so talked about in the army since the death of Craterus. Then Antigonus, afraid that Eumenes might suffer some violence, first loudly forbade the soldiers to approach, and pelted with stones those who were hurrying up, but finally threw his arms about Eumenes and, keeping off the throng with his bodyguards, with much ado removed him to a place of safety.86
Despite the alleged warmth, Antigonus demanded that Eumenes address him as ‘his better’ and received as a result the following alleged response: ‘I regard no man as my superior, as long as I am master of my sword.’87 We imagine that exchange was the end of any chance of progress through immediate negotiations.
Some six months or more into the siege, and soon after the death of Antipater in Macedonia in autumn 319 BCE, Antigonus invited Eumenes to ‘share in his own undertakings’.88 According to Plutarch, before Eumenes was released in early 318 BCE, Antigonus demanded he sign an oath of loyalty. Eumenes allegedly amended the wording, cunningly adding the words ‘Olympias and the Kings’ to those he pledged his fealty. Both the original and the extended oaths were shown to the Macedonian siege captains, who agreed that Eumenes’ version was the fairer, whereupon they let him loose.89 The inference here is that the amendment embedded the latitude for Eumenes to oppose Antigonus if his actions were deemed hostile to the Argead royal house. If this episode genuinely took place, this was a strategic hypotaxis, a hidden formation behind Eumenes’ visible ranks, and as Green pointed out, the oath-taking was in the spirit of Euripides’ Hippolytus: ‘My tongue swore, but my mind remained unsworn.’90
When eventually informed of Eumenes’ dissimulation, Antigonus ordered the siege to be reinstated, no doubt pondering the consequences of the amendment and possibly Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech: ‘As hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who hides one thing in his thoughts, but says another.’91 It was too late; Eumenes had fled the vicinity and was heading to Cilicia. This episode is absent from Diodorus’ text, either due to aggressive précising or because Hieronymus thought it cast a shadow on Eumenes’ volte-face.92 Of course the rerendering of the oath may simply be a device of a later historian, which might, nevertheless, be a subtle embellishment of a less attractive truth: Eumenes simply did not honour his word to Antigonus and claimed a higher loyalty when justifying it.93
What does appear to be clear is that once he departed Nora, Eumenes initially tarried in Cappadocia, apparently provisioning for campaigning and returning his Cappadocian hostages for ‘horses, beasts of burden and tents’.94 The delay, potentially several months, suggests that Eumenes was either using the time he had to physically recover from the siege and raise troops before Antigonus’ inevitably hostile reply came back to Nora. But in an oathless scenario, it suggests that Eumenes may not have immediately abandoned an alliance with Antigonus at all; he may have been waiting for word from across the Hellespont from former Perdiccans still on the loose before declaring his hand.95 Eumenes was most likely rounding up any men he had dismissed before entering the fortress, and he managed to rather quickly assemble a corps of 1,000 cavalry and some 2,000 soldiers in total, including those who had been freed with him.96 Having lost his waggons at Orcynia, the only way his supporters were going to retrieve their possessions would be to fight alongside him again, for defection to Antigonus was unlikely to yield the same tangible reward, his promises aside.97
With Menander hot on his heels once his direction was known, Eumenes traversed the Taurus Mountains and descended into Cilicia. His immediate goal was Cyinda, a fortified treasury in a still-debated location that held nearly 20,000 royal talents; it was possibly the ancient Kundi that served a similar purpose for the Assyrian kings.98 The Second War of the Diadokhoi was about to begin.
En route, or in fact before his departure from Cappadocia (and perhaps precipitating it), Eumenes received two remarkable missives that regally empowered him once more.99 They
were, it is claimed, from Polyperchon, Antipater’s successor as regent in Pella; the first offered him either co-guardianship of the kings in Macedonia, or, should Eumenes prefer, money and an army to fight Antigonus in Asia. Polyperchon additionally offered to journey across the Hellespont himself if Eumenes needed further support, presumably with the elephants Antipater had taken to Macedonia.100 The second letter compensated Eumenes with 500 talents for his personal losses, it authorised further funds for the raising of an army, and it assured him the crack Silver Shields brigade had been summoned to operate under him.101
Eumenes was transformed from prisoner to royal commander-in-chief in a matter of weeks. Diodorus recorded the general dismay: ‘All wondered at the fickleness of Fortune (Tyche)… for who, taking thought of the inconstancies of human life, would not be astonished at the alternating ebb and flow of fortune?’102 In fact we see a full page of epeidectic reflections on that Polybius would have termed ekplektikai peripeteiai, ‘sensational reversals’. Eumenes would now command the 3,000 strong Argyraspides; we can only speculate if they constituted, or incorporated, some of the 3,000 ‘most rebellious Macedonians’ (a description which recalls the ataktoi ‘unruly’ brigade) that Antigenes, now the satrap of Susiane and Silver Shields commander, had been given when tasked with collecting treasure (or revenues) from Susa. Whether the Argyraspides were still on treasury duty there, or had already returned to Cyinda in Cilicia, remains sub judice, but they reportedly journeyed a ‘considerable distance to meet Eumenes and his friends’,103 and fast approaching was the winter of 318 BCE.
The treasuries across the empire held immeasurable wealth and crack squads would have been required to defend them, overseen by a local trusted phrourarchos, or more specifically a gazophylax, a treasury officer. Located in natural fortresses – phrouria – these treasuries had to be defensible; the ‘lofty crag’ of Nora itself later became a depository for Sisines (ruled 36 BCE-17 CE), Rome’s client king of Cappadocia in Strabo’s day.104 The consistent nature of the roles of the allegedly aged Silver Shields (though surely not as advanced in age as Diodorus claimed: the youngest sixty) raises the question of whether their role as roving treasury guards, or porters of treasure from one citadel to another, was the true inspiration behind the brigade’s name.105 Possibly with this crucial ‘state’ duty came expensive silver adornment for their armour and shields, for heavy and soft semi-precious metal was not a practical accessory in battle; and yet what better way to recognise and secure the loyalty of the defenders of the royal deposits?
Although Eumenes had been provided with a suspicious-sounding carte blanche to dig into state funds and campaign against the extremely powerful Antigonus – who had in fact never directly challenged Polyperchon’s authority in Pella – Eumenes declined his new military mandate and the ‘donation from the kings’. This was quite brilliant: he was shunning a royal promotion he may (as we will argue) himself have birthed: ‘…he said, it was not of his own will that he had yielded with respect to his present office, but he had been compelled by the kings to undertake this great task.’106 The feigned reluctance was a showpiece designed to eventually bank the silver in a more loyal purse, for the Silver Shields were always unpredictable.107 Appreciating that ‘the fickleness of fortune tests the reliability of friends’, Eumenes ‘prudently made his own position secure’:108
These men, on receiving their letters, ostensibly treated Eumenes with friendliness, but were plainly full of envy and contentiousness, disdaining to be second to him. Eumenes therefore allayed their envy by not taking the money, alleging that he had no need of it; while upon their love of contention and love of command, seeing that they were as unable to lead as they were unwilling to follow, he brought superstition to bear.109
That new play on superstition saw Eumenes declare another dream vision of Alexander; the Cardian commander was acting out the role of a theios aner, a divine man, who now saw an eidolon, a ghostly apparition, though whether Eumenes emerged Pythia-pale and still trancelike from his commander’s tent (strategion) we can only ponder.
Eumenes had certainly learned what moved and mystified soldiers through a decade on the march, and that included phantasmata. Here, in the fragile, suspicious and intriguing air of Eumenes’ camp, the soldiers’ natural deisidaimonia was being artfully employed once more. The campaign headquarters became a mobile nekyomanteion, a chthonic prophecy place, with Eumenes a self-proclaimed hieromnemon, a sacred deputy. He required the troops and the hegemones that led them to ‘make ready’ a gold throne in a magnificent tent, and arranged alongside it the diadem, sceptre, crown and armour of Alexander, and here he would conduct his councils of war. This, we recall, is reminiscent of Perdiccas’ actions at Babylon and of Ptolemy’s speech that suggested ‘group rule’ by council in the presence of the symbols of royal office.110 The rundown of insignia sounds familiar too: it is reminiscent (though not perfectly matching) of the finds in Tomb II at Vergina.111
What was transmitted as a ‘tent’ in Cilicia was more realistically a royal pavilion formed from multiple open canopies.112 Incense was burned upon an altar to invoke the presence of ‘Alexander the God’ and to raise the esprit de corps; it was a charade through which Eumenes reinforced his own unique relationship with their dead king and to the Argead house in the frequent synedria that were to follow.113
Just how Eumenes, or the vaults at Cyinda, came into possession of this unique royal insignia needs some thought. Perdiccas could have housed them there when (we propose) he was based close by in Syria, and he may have passed the items, including the tent, to Eumenes (perhaps anticipating Macedonians would resent his command without them) before he marched on Egypt; if these were the very same royal symbols that had been placed in Alexander’s funeral bier as it departed Babylon, then Attalus and Polemon and their men had managed to salvage the portable regalia before Ptolemy took control of the sarcophagus; there was, significantly, no further mention of Alexander’s insignia in relation to Ptolemy’s burial of his body in Egypt, though his weapons and armour were later mentioned when Roman emperors liberated them from the tomb.114 Eumenes could not have held onto them in his flight to Nora, and so it is more likely that several ceremonial ‘sets’ were in circulation; Diodorus’ reference to ‘a throne from the royal treasure’ has the ring of a generic item. The Persian treasuries had been raided and could have yielded diadems, sceptres and thrones and they could have been ferried west by the Silver Shields on their march from Susa, along with darics and uncoined precious metal.
In these convocations, Eumenes no doubt reminded his officers of Alexander’s Will, and of the rightful inheritances of his sons and mother whose legacy they were defending, for the Silver Shields, once destined for Macedonia with Craterus, had not been present in Babylon when the king died. No doubt somewhere in his speech Eumenes would have slipped in his own rightful inheritance while pointing out to them that Antigonus’ lands would be available to them as prizes of war. His thaumaturgy worked; the officers were ‘… filled with happy expectations, as if some god were leading them.’ The dream vision produced the cult of Alexander and with it the acceptance of his supreme command. Curiously, a similar cult appeared on the island of Rhodes, which was so prominently favoured in the Pamphlet Will.115
The army wintered near Cyinda and Eumenes sent out recruitment agents who ‘… travelled through Cilicia, others through Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, and some through the cities in Cyprus.’116 He was clearly blocked from mustering support from further north by Antigonus’ dominence in Asia Minor, and mustering in Cyprus must have been a calculated risk after the recent Perdiccan defeat there. But the initiative added 10,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry to his ranks, though we wonder whether Eumenes concealed the identity of his opponent, as Cyrus had when sending out scouts to the Peloponnese for the war against Artaxerxes II; he had claimed they would be facing Tissaphernes and the Pisidians rather than the Persian Great King. Similarly, and with the recent turn of events, facing Antigonus would have
been a daunting prospect for any mercenary to contemplate, even at Cyrus’ rate of a gold Persian daric per month.117
Arms and armour were expensive if not provided by the state; in the previous century Aristophanes recorded a price of 1,000 drachmas for a corselet and 100 for a helmet which meant that many mercenaries could not afford to present themselves as hoplites but rather as light skirmishers, or peltasts who had become increasingly important in engagements in the Peloponnesian War.118 A good deal of them were impoverished: the litany of their possessions given by the poets included (apart from haversacked cheese and onions) armour, a wallet, a blanket and a wine cup, possessions handed down from father to son, including the indestructible hoplon and more practical descendants of the Corinthian helmet.119 That would have been customarily hung on the wall of the owner’s house during his lifetime and possibly buried with him after being ‘killed’ or rendered unusable by bending the cheekpieces outward; if a helmet fitted a son, it could be passed down. In harder times mercenaries appeared in an array of different helmets, many of them taken, inevitably, from the dead.
What Macedonian state regulars had once been paid under Philip and Alexander remains a vexatious question; many scholars assume that if the state fed, outfitted and housed them, then in Philip’s day at least, booty was the only remuneration they saw. Although Curtius and Diodorus gave us bonus figures in Asia, their relation to any set pay is never explained; Macedonian officers were reportedly on double, or even triple, pay (for example the dekastateroi, 10-stater men and the dimoirites), a comparison only possible if regulars were paid too. So an equalisation between mercenary and state conscript must have taken place at some point in Alexander’s campaign in Asia (if not from the outset), especially when mutinies were appearing.120 Conditions were just as challenging here in the post-Alexander world, and the ever-threatening Silver Shields would, no doubt, have demanded special treatment despite the fact that they were still ostensibly national conscripts doing the king’s biddings.121
