Antigonus was a huge man with a booming voice, a scarred face where he had lost one eye at the siege of Perinthus in 340, and an abundance of energy. He had had to wait a long time to play a leading role: born about 383/2, he was around sixty-three years old when appointed general over Asia in 320. He was determined to make the most of this delayed opportunity. He spent the fall and winter of 320 to 319 preparing his forces and laying his plans, and made his move in spring of 319, advancing to meet Eumenes with an army about fifteen thousand strong. Eumenes was in his province Cappadocia, where he had collected an army well over twenty thousand strong, based on the troops originally granted him by Perdiccas but with additions from the defeated forces of Neoptolemus and Craterus. His main strength was in cavalry: the excellent Cappadocian cavalry he had himself recruited and trained. The two armies drew together in southern Cappadocia, at a place called Orcynia, where Eumenes was completely out-generaled by Antigonus. By a clever stratagem Antigonus persuaded his opponents that substantial reinforcements had reached him just before the battle, demoralizing them by the belief that far from outnumbering Antigonus’ army they were now the smaller of the forces. And Antigonus also succeeded in establishing contact with one of Eumenes’ key cavalry commanders, persuading him to switch sides with his squadrons during the battle. The result was a devastating defeat for Eumenes, from which he escaped with a few hundred men to take refuge at a small fortress named Nora, where Antigonus besieged him. Eumenes was a quick study, however, and learned from his defeat: he was to prove a much tougher opponent in the next few years.
16. Macedonian ruler (probably Antigonus the One-Eyed) from villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, now in Metropolitan Museum, New York
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
Antigonus left a small force to besiege Eumenes in Nora, and with the bulk of his army, now supplemented by most of Eumenes’ defeated army, carried out an astonishing forced march across southern Asia Minor from Cappadocia to southern Pisidia, where Alcetas and his army were encamped near the city of Cretopolis. Alcetas and his men were heedless of any danger, secure in the belief that Antigonus was hundreds of miles away in Cappadocia. The first they knew of Antigonus’ army being present and about to attack was when they heard the trumpeting of Antigonus’ advancing elephants. With Alcetas’ army taken completely by surprise, the engagement was not so much a battle as a rout. Most of Alcetas’ army and officers surrendered to Antigonus; Alcetas himself fled to the nearby friendly city of Termessus, where he was subsequently killed by citizens seeking to gratify Antigonus. In one swift campaign taking only a couple of months and characterized by boldness, speed of movement, and brilliant improvisation, Antigonus had defeated and incorporated into his own force two rival armies, and ended the war against Perdiccas’ supporters. As he marched back towards Cappadocia to finish with Eumenes in late summer of 319, Antigonus received momentous news: the aged Antipater had succumbed to illness, and on his deathbed had nominated the former phalanx battalion commander Polyperchon to succeed him as regent. Antigonus had no intention of obeying the rather mediocre Polyperchon, however; and neither did a number of other Macedonian leaders. Already the “settlement” of Triparadeisus had began to unravel, beginning the second War of the Diadochi.
This renewed war was fought essentially on two fronts. Though the coalition opposing Polyperchon included Ptolemy and Lysimachus in its number, they were in fact fully engaged in securing their own realms of Egypt and surrounding territories, and Thrace, respectively. The fighting occurred in the east, where Antigonus with various allies fought out an extended and remarkable duel with Eumenes and a fractious coalition of allies; and in the west, in Greece and Macedonia, where Antigonus’ ally Cassander challenged Polyperchon. Antipater’s choice of Polyperchon as regent has always been something of a mystery: in many years of service under Philip and Alexander Polyperchon had never risen above the rank of battalion commander, nor apparently shown much ambition to do so. Antipater, when leaving to attack Perdiccas in Asia, had appointed Polyperchon to oversee Macedonia and Greece, and Polyperchon had done so capably. But it may well be that it was the man’s very mediocrity that appealed to Antipater: he wanted, we may suppose, a regent who would have no ambition to supplant the legitimate kings, who would hand over quietly to Alexander IV when the time came. But this choice infuriated Cassander, who had naturally expected to succeed his father as regent; and left men like Antigonus and Ptolemy deeply unimpressed. Cassander promptly fled from Macedonia to start building up forces of his own for a rebellion, and Antigonus and Ptolemy simply ignored Polyperchon as a man of little account.
Sensing his weakness, Polyperchon attempted to shore it up by three main expedients. He wrote to Alexander’s mother Olympias inviting her to return to Macedonia from her self-imposed exile in Epirus, to take up oversight of her grandson Alexander IV and his education. He announced to the cities of southern Greece that the oligarchies established by Antipater would be abolished, and that the cities would be free to create their own favored governing systems: in effect Polyperchon feared that the oligarchs would be more loyal to Antipater’s son Cassander than to the new regent, and rightly so. And Polyperchon sent letters to Eumenes in Asia, offering him appointment as royal general over Asia, authorizing him to draw upon the royal treasuries in Asia for any necessary funds, and instructing all loyal officers and governors in Asia to obey and co-operate with Eumenes. The effectiveness of these moves varied. Olympias stayed where she was for the time being, lacking confidence in Polyperchon, but she did write to Eumenes urging him to accept Polyperchon’s offer and asking for advice. The oligarchic regimes in southern Greece did not give up power: instead they predictably turned to Cassander for help, and bolstered his position as rival to Polyperchon. The latter would have to intervene militarily in southern Greece to achieve real change. The letters to Eumenes had the greatest effect, tying up Antigonus with a major war in Asia and preventing him from intervening against Polyperchon directly. For Eumenes was no longer besieged in the small fortress of Nora in Cappadocia.
Late in 319 Antigonus had learned of Antipater’s death from Eumenes’ close friend and (probable) relative Hieronymus of Cardia, who was later to become the greatest historian of this period. Taking stock of his situation, Antigonus had decided that he would take no more orders from the central government, despising Polyperchon the new regent, but would operate strictly on his own behalf. He calculated that Eumenes, an old friend from the days they had served Philip together, could be a very useful ally, and sent Hieronymus to him with proposals offering Eumenes a high position as one of his chief officers and advisers. Eumenes pretended to agree and was released from his siege; but instead of joining Antigonus he accepted the position of overseer of Asia offered by Polyperchon, which is to say he became Antigonus’ chief rival. He made his way to the royal treasury at Cyinda in Cilicia, where there were ample funds for his purposes guarded by the famous three thousand strong unit called the Silver Shields. As already discussed, these men were the former guard unit of Philip (when they had been known as pezetairoi) and Alexander (when they had been known as hypaspistai). They were the most experienced and feared military unit in the Macedonian Empire, indeed one of the supreme infantry units in military history, comparable in their discipline, ferocity, and elite status to Caesar’s tenth legion or Napoleon’s “Old Guard.” The Silver Shields, along with a younger unit of three thousand men known as the hypaspistai who were being trained as their replacements, accepted the orders in Eumenes’ letters from Polyperchon and Olympias, and took service under him. With their help and the funds from Cyinda, Eumenes was in a strong position to make trouble.
Before Antigonus could try to deal with Eumenes, however, he had another troublesome situation to deal with: Craterus’ former admiral Cleitus the White appeared in the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) with a great fleet as Polyperchon’s ally. Affairs in Greece had not been going well for Polyperchon. To counter his rival Cassander’s influe
nce with the oligarchies and garrisons installed in many southern Greek cities by Antipater, Polyperchon had declared all Greek cities free to establish whatever governing system they desired (which in effect meant democracies), but it would take military force to make that declaration effective. Meanwhile, Cassander controlled most of southern Greece through various allies, and also received allied troops from Antigonus and Ptolemy. Since he had control of the Piraeus, the great harbor of Athens, through his friend Nicanor, the commander of the Macedonian garrison there, he was able to mobilize the remnants of the Athenian fleet along with ships gathered from elsewhere in southern Greece to seek control of the sea. Nicanor led this fleet to the Hellespont and Propontis to join up with a flotilla of ships gathered there on Antigonus’ behalf, and Polyperchon had persuaded Cleitus to side with him against Cassander and Antigonus, and go in pursuit of Nicanor’s fleet. Antigonus hastened to the Propontis to take command of this fleet, but arrived too late. In summer 318 the two fleets met in battle near the entrance to the Bosporus, and Cleitus won a clear victory. The bulk of Nicanor’s fleet escaped from the battle to port on the Asian shore intact, but greatly dispirited; while Cleitus and his ships encamped on the European shore to celebrate their victory. Antigonus arrived the night after the battle, immediately took command, and set about redressing the situation.
Realizing that the crews on the ships were demoralized by their defeat, Antigonus had the fleet transport most of his army across the Bosporus to the European shore, while posting detachments of his soldiers on the ships to ensure that they would obey orders and fight. The fleet rowed quietly to lie in wait outside Cleitus’ camp, while Antigonus marched the bulk of his army along the shore to spring a surprise night attack. Cleitus’ men were indeed taken completely by surprise, sleeping off their victory celebration; and as the sounds of fighting rose in the night air, Antigonus’ ships attacked from the sea. Just hours after its seemingly decisive victory, Cleitus’ fleet was captured by Antigonus with scarcely a struggle. Cleitus himself managed to escape with a few ships, but was forced to land and there captured and killed by soldiers allied to Antigonus. Nicanor sailed back to Athens victorious, the prows of his ships decorated with victory wreaths, to boost Cassander’s already successful operations there. Cassander, in fact, was proving to be more than a match for Polyperchon, who turned out to be the classic officer promoted beyond his abilities. His attempts to win control of Greek cities failed, and an attempted siege of Megalopolis proved disastrous. In 317 Polyperchon was forced to retreat to Macedonia with nothing accomplished, leaving Cassander to consolidate his control over southern Greece and lay plans for invading Macedonia.
Meanwhile, his victory near the Bosporos freed Antigonus to deal with Eumenes. He sent messengers to Cyinda to try to detach the Silver Shields from their allegiance to Eumenes, and divided his forces. He had about sixty thousand soldiers available at this point, and selected the twenty thousand fittest to accompany him to confront Eumenes, leaving the remainder under loyal officers to secure full control of Asia Minor. The messengers he had sent to the Silver Shields, as well as others sent by Ptolemy, had failed to detach them from their loyalty to Eumenes. But the latter did face a problem of disloyalty: it came from the senior Macedonian officers of his troops, who resented being subordinated to a non-Macedonian Greek. This was especially true of Antigenes and Teutamus, the commanders of the Silver Shields and the Hypaspists, respectively. To overcome this, Eumenes pretended to have had a dream in which Alexander himself had appeared to him and instructed him to hold collegial meetings in a leadership conference to be held in his (Alexander’s) own tent. Setting up a tent formerly used by Alexander, with suitable furnishings, and sacrificing ritually to Alexander, Eumenes presided over councils of the leading officers in Alexander’s name, and found it easy enough to persuade them to see things his way. Learning that Antigonus was approaching with a numerically superior force, Eumenes did not wait for a showdown: he moved his army south into north Syria and Phoenicia, and there learned news from the east that greatly encouraged him.
While Cassander and Polyperchon were fighting it out in Europe, and Eumenes and Antigonus were confronting each other in western Asia, trouble had arisen in the eastern or “upper” satrapies (provinces) of the empire too. The strongest governor in the east was Peithon, son of Crateuas, who had defeated the rebellious Greek colonists in the east on behalf of Perdiccas in 322. As governor of Media now, he sought to assert his domination over all of the eastern satraps. They resisted this, and wisely banded their forces together, led by the governor of Persia, Peucestas. A showdown ensued in which Peucestas and his colleagues defeated Peithon and his army. Forced into flight, Peithon with the remnants of his forces took refuge with Seleucus, the governor of Babylonia and an old friend of Peithon. While they were planning together how to get the best of the “upper” satraps, Eumenes appeared leading his small but potent army eastwards through Mesopotamia. Eumenes had calculated that by combining either or both of the two eastern armies with his own forces, he would be strong enough to confront Antigonus with a good prospect of success. Attempts to negotiate with Seleucus and Peithon failed, however: they were both, as we have seen, deeply implicated in the assassination of Eumenes’ good friend and patron the former regent Perdiccas, and they neither trusted nor liked Eumenes. On the other hand, envoys sent to Peucestas and the “upper” satraps received an encouraging welcome: they were seeking support against a renewed attack by Peithon and his ally Seleucus, and were very willing to combine with Eumenes to that end. So Eumenes hurried eastwards to link up with the army of the eastern satraps near Susa. Combining his forces with theirs, he now commanded an army of at least forty-five thousand, including strong cavalry forces and war elephants in addition to his own incomparable Silver Shields.
When Antigonus appeared in Mesopotamia pursuing Eumenes, he was met by messengers of Seleucus and Peithon warning him of Eumenes’ new strength. Realizing that his army of about twenty thousand was no longer adequate, Antigonus encamped in Mesopotamia for the winter while sending for additional forces to come to join him, and also sealing an alliance with Peithon and Seleucus. At the beginning of 316 he crossed the Tigris and marched for Iran with an army in excess of fifty thousand men, including strong and excellent cavalry forces in addition to nearly twenty thousand Macedonian or Macedonian-trained and equipped infantrymen. This led to a remarkable campaign lasting a little over a year between two very evenly matched armies of the same type and composition, and two brilliant and inventive generals, whose skills and efforts to outmaneuver each other remind one of a match between chess grandmasters.
Initially, Eumenes faced difficulties asserting control over the ambitious Macedonian generals and governors commanding the various units of his disparate army. He used a variety of ploys to establish and maintain his leadership. The Alexander command tent made its reappearance, for example; the letters signed by the regent and the kings gave Eumenes access to the royal treasury at Susa, enabling him to pay his troops well and distribute gifts; on the other hand, he borrowed money from some of the governors against a promise of handsome repayment terms once he was victorious; and on one occasion he forged letters from Polyperchon and Olympias reporting that Cassander was defeated and dead, and a large relief army commanded by Polyperchon himself on its way to aid him. By these various stratagems and others, Eumenes did retain control over his army, helped greatly by the fact that the soldiers trusted him more than any other general. He decided, however, that he needed time to prepare his army before facing Antigonus, so leaving Susa and its treasury strongly fortified and guarded by a loyal officer, he marched south into Persia. Arriving at Susa to find Eumenes gone and the city’s gates closed to him, Antigonus left Seleucus with several thousand men to besiege the place, and moved south in pursuit of Eumenes’ army.
Eumenes had had two years now to reflect on how he had been outwitted and outmaneuvered by Antigonus in the campaign and battle of Orcynia, and proceeded to sh
ow that he had learned from his defeat. Arriving at a deep and swift-flowing river in northern Persia called the Copratas, Antigonus found only enough boats to ferry his men across a few thousand at a time. That would be very risky, but since the opposite bank seemed deserted, he took the risk, ordering the first contingent to start preparing a fortified camp while the rest crossed. However, Eumenes had a large force concealed nearby, which emerged when only the first group of Antigonus’ troops had crossed and caught them isolated on the south bank, cut off by the deep river from the bulk of Antigonus’ army. More than four thousand of Antigonus’ soldiers were killed or captured, a severe setback which demoralized Antigonus’ troops, who had been forced to watch helplessly the fate of their comrades. It was Antigonus’ turn to retreat, to find time and space in which to repair his army’s morale. He decided to march north into Media, Peithon’s satrapy, to rest and recuperate his army, which suffered from the summer heat in Persia. In Media he found funds in the royal treasury at Ecbatana, and was able to supply his men with everything they needed in abundance, including fresh horses. The move was risky in that it opened to Eumenes the possibility of marching west to attack Antigonus’ lands in Syria and Asia Minor, but Antigonus rightly calculated that the eastern governors would refuse to allow their troops to be marched so far from their provinces while Antigonus and his army were in the east. So Eumenes in fact marched deeper into Persia, and the two forces spent the hottest months of summer 316 resting and preparing for the coming showdown, one in Media and the other in Persia.
In late summer it was Antigonus who made the first move, marching south with his army into a region of central Iran named Paraetacene. Informed of Antigonus’ move, Eumenes marched north to meet him. When the two armies came together, they drew up in strong positions about half a mile apart on either side of a steep ravine, each challenging the other to try an attack at a severe disadvantage. Neither was inclined to take the risk, and after several days of posturing, supplies in the area ran short and Antigonus decided to march away by night into a richly stocked neighboring area named Gabiene. However, Eumenes learned of this plan from deserters, and sent apparent deserters of his own into Antigonus’ camp to warn of an intended night attack by Eumenes. While Antigonus therefore kept his army under arms through the night awaiting attack, it was Eumenes who stole away in the night with his army towards Gabiene. Learning in the morning how he had been tricked, Antigonus set out in pursuit of Eumenes with his best cavalry, ordering his infantry to rest awhile and then follow at the best speed it could manage. Eumenes had just emerged from a range of hills into a broad flat plain when Antigonus’ cavalry appeared on the crest of the hills behind him. Fearing that Antigonus’ entire army was there, Eumenes had to stop his march and draw up his army for battle. Meanwhile Antigonus simply kept his cavalry in plain view to hold Eumenes in place, and waited for the rest of his army to catch up. When it did, he arranged them in battle formation and marched down into the open plain to confront Eumenes. Diodorus comments (19.27) on the awe-inspiring sight Antigonus’ army made as it marched down from the foothills into the plain, making it clear that he was drawing on an eye-witness report: undoubtedly that of Eumenes’ officer, the historian Hieronymus of Cardia.
Before and After Alexander Page 24
