Alexander’s Veterans and the Early Wars of the Successors

Introduction

In the spring of 319 BCE, Eumenes of Cardia and Antigonus the OneEyed —both former commanders under Alexander the Great—fought at Orcynia in Cappadocia over the control of Asia Minor.¹ Antigonus won the battle and Eumenes fled in the company of Macedonian troops who had served with Alexander. Eumenes’ biographer, Plutarch, relates that in the course of his flight Eumenes came across Antigonus’s rich baggage but decided not to seize it. He feared that the heavy booty would slow down his men and make them too spoiled (lit. “softer,” malakoteroi) to endure the wanderings and the long recovery required before he could defeat Antigonus in a second round. Knowing, however, that it would be hard to stop the Macedonian veterans from taking property within their reach, Eumenes told them to rest before attacking the enemy. He then sent a messenger to Menander, the man in charge of Antigonus’s baggage, advising him to move it to a place inaccessible to cavalry. Menander heeded his advice, and Eumenes, feigning disappointment with the news, went away with his men. Plutarch adds that when the Macedonians in Antigonus’s camp learned that Eumenes had spared their belongings and families, they were filled with gratitude and praise for him. But Antigonus quipped that Eumenes had acted not out of concern for the Macedonians but because he did not want to tie up his legs when in flight (Plut. Eum. 9.6–12). We shall reexamine this incident in its historical context later in this book (chapter 6). Here I wish to draw attention to how the story is told. The focus is on the generals and their perspective, and even when Antigonus ’s troops think that they and their affairs are important, Antigonus has1 . For the battle, see chap. 6 below. For the date, see Boiy 2007, 148. introduction Roisman-final.indb 1 Roisman-final.indb 1 1/29/12 9:45:27 PM 1/29/12 9:45:27 PM 2 alexander’s veterans & the early wars of the successors tens to bring them back to reality. Generally, the role of Eumenes’ veterans in Plutarch is to highlight the merits of their general. The narrative contrasts Eumenes’ foresight with the Macedonians’ shortsightedness, his selfcontrol and superior manliness with their corruptibility and almost Pavlovian greed at the sight of potential gain. For Plutarch the incident illustrates (once again) Eumenes’ brilliant resourcefulness, which resulted in his duping both his own troops and those of Antigonus. But the troops’ point of view and interests are ignored by both the generals and the biographer. The Macedonian veterans expected to be given booty, both as an important supplement to their irregular wages and as their due reward. Moreover, Eumenes’ veterans had just lost their possessions to Antigonus, and capturing his baggage would have allowed them to recover their losses. Eumenes’ plan to wage a prolonged war against Antigonus also typically assumed that his interests overrode the veterans’. Yet Plutarch approves his cheating of his troops of their reward and options. This biographer is known for focalizing his heroes, but other authors share his viewpoint. When the troops and their leader are in conflict, the sources as a rule take sides with the latter. The history of the events following Alexander’s death is in many respects the history of the leaders who succeeded him. This circumstance is the legacy of our sources, which deal primarily with prominent individuals , as well as of the scholarship that is dependent on these sources. Indeed, many historians of the Hellenistic age focus on the careers, ambitions, and points of view of Alexander’s great successors. This book endeavors to deal with the Macedonian masses rather than the elite of the postAlexander era. By tracing the histories of Alexander’s Macedonian veterans in the armies of his successors, I hope to illuminate their experience, along with the military, political, social, economic, and cultural conditions that shaped it. Such an examination is justified, because modern investigations of the period tend to give only cursory attention to the veterans’ story or to treat it as an addendum to their leaders’ careers, except when the troops earn the generals’ and the sources’ reprimand (and many scholars’) by disobeying orders.² In addition, scholarly analysis of the troops’ conduct tends to adopt the ancient sources’ elitist view of them as primarily interested in ma2 . Among the notable exceptions are M. Launey’s commanding work on Hellenistic armies (1949–1950; addenda 1987) and P. Briant...