CHAPTER V. State of the Empire. Fancied Theocracy in the Throne of Alexander. CHAP. THE death of Antipater, the only one of Alexander's sucV. cessors long practised in government, dissolved the whole empire at vigour of the regency. In Egypt and Cyrenè Ptolemy conAntipater's firmed his separate sovereignty. On the banks of the Eu State of the the time of death. Olymp. exv. 2. B. C. 319. Eumenes command in Asia against phrates, Seleucus was meditating designs equally independent and still more lofty. Lysimachus laboriously reared his barbarous monarchy of Thrace; the civil commotions in Greece conspired with the domestic dissensions in the royal family of Macedon to throw these countries into the hands of Cassander; while Lesser Asia exhibited a various and deep drama, ennobled at once by the powers of the performers and the splendid prize of victory. The prize was the golden throne of Lydian Crœsus; the combatants were Antigonus and Eumenes; Antigonus, the most energetic, and Eumenes, the most dexterous of all the Macedonian captains. We have already seen the artful secretary of Alexander takes the released by his own consummate address from the Cappadocian fortress of Nora; and from the successive and equally Antigonus. abject conditions of a fugitive and a prisoner, raised, as it were, at one bound, to the most efficient station in the empire. In virtue of the office conferred upon him by the protector Polysperchon, he was entitled to summon to his standard the silver shielded hypaspists, who had faithfully performed the Olymp. cxv. 3. B. C. 318. V. business recently intrusted to them, of conveying part of the CHAP. 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 intrusted 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. of Alexan Olymp. C. 317. Before he received this ample commission, Eumenes, im- Fancied mediately upon his escape from Nora, had been joined by in the porttheocracy several thousands of those provincial troops whom he had able temple himself formed, and who now accompanied their beloveder, commander and friend to the neighbourhood of Kuinda. exv. 4. B. 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 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 ingrafted the pompous luxury of Asia on their native pride and habitual fierceness. These dangerous passions, Eumenes, after vainly endeavouring to appease them by great personal modesty, contrived happily to control 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 highminded Macedonians; and from that immortal prince, humble as was his own condition, he had been honoured with a message VOL. I. 1 Diodor. I. xix. s. 12. & seq. Plutarch in Eumen. CHAP. V. Thereby defeats the machina tions of Ptolemyand other satraps against him. 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 shown to him an altar and pavilion, declaring that when his friends assembled in the pavilion round his altar, he would be present in the midst of them to direct their councils. The royal munificence intended for myself personally, I will therefore consecrate to him, through whose incomparable merit all our fortunes have been established. On a resplendent throne of gold, let us deposit his armour, sceptre, and diadem: let us daily worship at his altar: around both let the chiefs assemble on every important emergency: we shall deliberate boldly, yet wisely, when inspired by the unerring genius of our divine sovereign." The proposal was heard with an enthusiasm of applause; and the design being executed with equal magnificence and celerity, a fancied theocracy was vested in the portable temple of Alexander, which glowing with the gems of the East, thenceforward directed the motions of the royal army 2. While Eumenes was busied with rearing in Cilicia this extraordinary engine of government, Antigonus was still detained at the farther extremity of the peninsula. Aridæus, governor of Hellespontian Phrygia, had been enabled to keep a footing in that province through the cooperation of Clytus commanding the numerous fleet of Polysperchon. But the decisive battle of Byzantium, in which Antigonus had prevailed through his matchless activity and energy, gave him the entire command of the narrow seas; and as he had now no dangerous enemy behind in Asia, nor any reason to apprehend the transportation of troops from Europe to wrest from him his conquests, he prepared to march eastward to crush the rival general of the empire, who more consistently than himself with that character, maintained the indivisibility of Alexander's succession. The principle of 2 Plutarch et Diodor. 1. xix. s. 12. & seq. V. indivisibility was highly obnoxious to Ptolemy. He consi- CHAP. dered Egypt and Cyrenè as completely his own, and expec-ted also to retain his recent conquest of Syria, including Palestine and Phoenicia. Upon the first appearance of a new power hostile to his views, growing up in the center of the empire, he had sent a fleet of observation to the Cilician harbour of Zephyrium; and his emissaries, as well as those of Antigonus, now crowded the camp of Eumenes, and industriously sowed sedition. Teutamus, one of the leaders of the Argyraspides, was seduced into a conspiracy against his general's life. But these profligate machinations, Eumenes surmounted with such dexterity, that the abortive attempts to excite discontent among the soldiers, only riveted him more firmly in their affections; augmented their zeal and animated their alacrity3. marches to To avail himself of these favourable dispositions, he led Eumenes his army, now fifteen thousand strong, into the neighbouring Babylonia province of Phoenicia. Ptolemy's garrisons were weak. He had usurped the country in direct opposition to the authority of the kings and the protector. Eumenes was every where successful in Phoenicia; and was on the point of recovering for the kings the whole of that maritime coast, when he received news of Antigonus' march against him, at the head of the most select part of his army, amounting to twenty-four thousand well disciplined soldiers. In consequence of this information, it became necessary to move into Upper Asia, whose satraps still respected the authority of the kings: had he remained on the seacoast, his small force must have been crushed between Ptolemy and Antigonus, both of whom set that authority at defiance. By hasty marches Eumenes proceeded through Calesyria, traversed the long valley of the Orontes, crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma, and encamped first at Carrhæ in Mesopotamia, and afterwards in the narrower peninsula of Babylonia, thirty miles above Babylon. 3 Plutarch and Diodor. ibid. CHAP. Seleucus his army by exv. 4. B. C. 317. In his march eastward he had sent an embassy to Seleucus, acquainting him with his commission and his views. Seleucus distresses spoke respectfully of the royal commission; but instead of assisting the general who had been named to exercise it, seinundating the coun-cretly tampered with the Argyraspides and endeavoured to try. Olymp. seduce their allegiance. Having discovered and defeated these intrigues, Eumenes prepared to pass the Tigris, (whose western bank had been unmercifully foraged in preceding wars,) both for the sake of more plentiful subsistence, and that he might approach the rich province of Susiana, particularly the royal treasury in the fortress of Susa. Seleucus, apprised of his design, determined to avail himself, for defeating it, of the nature of the country, perpetually intersected by rivers or canals, since it is the common drain of the Highlands in Media, at the same time, that it receives from the more distant Taurus in Armenia, the majestic streams of the Tigris and Euphrates. By opening the sluices of an old and neglected communication between these rivers, he exposed the camp of Eumenes to a sudden inundation: so that when a chosen division of his troops had passed the Tigris in boats hastily collected by them, they were under the necessity of returning in order to save the baggage and more encumbered portion of the army. The information of an intelligent native of Babylonia taught Eumenes how to divert the superfluous waters. While proper measures were using for that purpose, Seleucus, who had not sufficient strength openly to resist the invaders, and who wished by all means to remove them from his province, sent to offer a truce and an unobstructed passage of the river, at the same moment that he urged by message Antigonus, who was already in Mesopotamia, to hasten his progress to Babylon; that they might cooperate effectually against their common foe. Eumenes meanwhile crossed safely into Susiana, a country enriched by alluvious slime, and celebrated for making re 4 Diodor. 1. xix. s. 13. |