CHAP. proffered nuptials. They were celebrated with IV. Builds Cassandria. Olymp. cxvi. 1. B. C. 316. Restores a pomp surpassing that of the obsequies of Arrhidæus and Euridicé; who were interred, however, with royal honours at Egae, as legitimate wearers of a crown, which rightfully devolved, by their inhuman murder, on Cassander and Thessalonica. To mark his accession to power, Cassander founded a new city called by his name, on the isthmus of Pallené; a situation uniting peculiar advantages in point both of war and of commerce. Cassandria arose from the ruins of Potidæa; and being endowed with a fertile territory, adorned by a double harbour, and strongly fortified by sea and land, speedily attained, under the fostering hand of its founder, a magnitude proportional to its rank, as the new Macedonian capital. 80 Yet, as the founder of Cassandria, this fortunate usurper gained less glory, than he shortly afterwards acquired as the restorer of Thebes. In an expedition, undertaken for destroying Polysperchon's adherents in the Peloponnesus, whom he expelled from all their possessions, except Corinth and Sicyon, Cassander passed through the ancient city of Cadmus, so famous in the history, and still more in the fables of Greece. He viewed its desolation with real or well-affected concern, and embraced the resolution of rebuilding its walls, and collecting its wandering citizens within them. Such a So Diodor. 1. xix. s. 52. IV. generous purpose inspired the Athenians and CHAP. neighbouring states with an emulation of beneficence. Even the Greeks of Asia, Italy, Sicily, and Cyrené, vied with each other in contributions towards restoring the pristine splendour of Thebes; and the renovation of this ancient capital, whose ruin had been invidiously ascribed to the son of Philip, helped to consolidate the power and renown of the supplanter of his family. 81 81 Conf. Pausanias, l. xi. c. 7. & Diodor. I. xix. s. 53, 54. V. CHAP. V. State of the Empire.-Fancied Theocracy in the Throne of Alexander.-Machinations of the Rebellious Satraps. -Defeated by Eumenes.-He marches into the upper Provinces.- Peculiar Circumstances of their Governors at that Moment.-War between Antigonus and Eumenes. Their mutual Stratagems, and Battles. Defection of the Argyraspides.- Eumenes's Captivity and Death. CHAP. THE death of Antipater, the only one of Alexander's successors long practised in government, the empire dissolved the whole vigour of the regency. at the time In Egypt and Cyrené, Ptolemy confirmed his State of of Anti pater's death. Olymp. CXV. 2. B. C. 319. separate sovereignty. On the banks of the V. command CXV. 3. We have already seen the artful secretary of CHAP. Alexander released by his own consummate address from the Cappadocian fortress of Nora; Eumenes and from the successive and abject conditions takes the of a fugitive and a prisoner, raised, as it were, in Asia against at one bound, to the most efficient station in the Antigonus. empire. In virtue of the office conferred upon Olymp. him by the protector Polysperchon, he was entitled B. C. 318. to summon to his standard the silver-shielded hyspaspists, who had faithfully performed the business recently entrusted to them, of conveying part of the treasures of Upper Asia to the Cilician fortress Kuinda, situate among abrupt fastnesses about twelve miles north of Tarsus. The protector's vicegerent in Asia was further entrusted with ample powers over the other treasuries in the empire; and the satraps, in every part of the East, were commanded to assist him to the utmost of their abilities. 1 Olymp. CXV. 4. Before he received this ample commission, Fancied theocracy Eumenes, immediately upon his escape from in the Nora, had been joined by several thousands of portable temple of those provincial troops whom he had himself Alexander. formed, and who now accompanied their beloved commander and friend to the neighbourhood of B.C. 317. Kuinda. The treasures in that fortress enabled him to reward their alacrity, to make hasty levies in Caria and Pisidia, provinces still unconquered by Antigonus, and to employ numerous agents in hiring mercenaries from many parts of Greece, and even from Tarentum in Italy. Upon his Diodor. 1. xix. s. 12. et seq. Plutarch in Eumen. V. CHAP. appearance in Cilicia, the Argyraspides joined his standard in compliance with the royal mandate. But the submission of their chiefs, Antigenes and Teutamus, was reluctant; the obedience of the troops was precarious, and both officers and men had engrafted the pompous luxury of Asia on their native pride and habitual fierceness. These dangerous passions, Eumenes endeavoured to soothe by kindness and courtesy, and more effectually controuled by an expedient congenial to the superstition of the age, and perhaps suggested by his own. Besides the ample powers contained in his commission, Polysperchon, in name of the kings, had bestowed on him five hundred talents to repair his pecuniary and private losses; a present, which Eumenes told the Argyraspides, as far exceeded his wishes, as the princely authority conferred on him surpassed his birth and his abilities. "Alexander alone was worthy to command the high-minded Macedonians 2; and from that immortal prince, humble as was his own condition, he had been honoured with a message to them, which being communicated by supernatural means, ought to be respectfully received and implicitly obeyed. In a manifest and distinct vision, he had beheld his august master: he had heard his commanding voice. Alexander had This speech of Eumenes is illustrated by the most affecting scene in military history, the dismay of the army on the wound, deemed mortal, which Alexander received in the Mallian fortress, and the enthusiasm of joy which followed on his recovery. Arrian, 1. vi. c. 12. et seq. |