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At the time of Alexander’s death, the two largest concentrations of veterans were in the royal army in Babylon and with Craterus in Asia Minor. Soon the Macedonian core of the royal army would shrink. Every general who left Babylon for his satrapy must have wanted to take with him at least a Macedonian guard unit and, if he could get it, a piece of the phalanx. The number of veterans each took depended on Perdiccas and on the deals made with him, about which we know nothing. But we do hear of Macedonians who fought under different commanders in the ensuing years. This chapter and the next track their paths—sometimes divergent, sometimes intersecting—as they followed their generals’ ambitions and fortunes. The resulting history of the period is fragmentary, like the soldiers’ knowledge of it. perdiccas’s veterans As the commander of the royal army, Perdiccas probably had more Macedonian veterans than any other commander except Craterus. Their number accounts for the relatively prominent role they played in his campaigns. The first attested campaign led by Perdiccas was in 322, against Ariarathes , the local ruler of Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor. Ariarathes, who managed to survive Alexander’s conquest with his dominion relatively intact, succeeded also in preventing Eumenes of Cardia from taking over Cappadocia as his province. Failing to obtain help from neighboring satraps , who had other plans for their troops, Eumenes went back to Perdiccas . Needing all the loyal governors he could get, the regent resolved to help Eumenes, and this is why Perdiccas, the royal court, and the royal chapter 4 the dissolution of the royal army, i: the veter ans of perdiccas and cr aterus Roisman-final.indb 87 Roisman-final.indb 87 1/29/12 9:46:10 PM 1/29/12 9:46:10 PM 88 alexander’s veterans & the early wars of the successors army with its Macedonian veterans found themselves in Cappadocia in the summer of 322.¹ Ariarathes’ wealth reportedly allowed him to muster a local and mercenary force of 30,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry. Nevertheless, Perdiccas won the battle, his first military victory since Alexander’s death, killing 4,000 enemy troops and capturing more than 5,000. According to one version , the captured Ariarathes was first tortured and then crucified. After securing Cappadocia for Eumenes, Perdiccas launched a punitive expedition into Pisidia against two cities that had killed the local strap, Balacrus, during Alexander’s reign. Perdiccas took the first Pisidian city, that of the Larandians, by storm, killed all men of fighting age, enslaved the rest, and left the city in ruins. This harsh punishment suggests that he was treating them as rebels, just as he had dealt with Ariarathes.² His actions moved the second Pisidian city—of the Isaurians—to fight him to the bitter end. For two days the locals successfully withstood the attacks of the royal army and inflicted many losses on it. But they also suffered many casualties and resolved to deprive the enemy of the fruits of victory by setting their houses on fire and destroying their families, slaves, and goods. We are told that Perdiccas was astonished at their conduct and ordered the soldiers to break into the city. The defenders kept fighting and killed many Macedonians, forcing the yet-more-wonderstruck Perdiccas to call the Macedonians off. At last the Isaurians threw themselves into the flames. When the invaders entered the city in the morning, they extinguished the fires and, with Perdiccas’s permission to plunder, found much gold and silver. This account of Diodorus’s, which likely follows Hieronymus, highlights the Isaurians’ display of such Hellenic ideals as valiant courage, heroic sacri fice in the name of liberty, and refusal to allow the enemy to decide one’s fate.³ Perdiccas, whose treatment of the Larandians was partly responsible for the Isaurians’ opposition, is depicted as both cruel and unable to com1 . For Eumenes’ mission, see chap. 5 below. Perdiccas’s campaigns in Asia Minor : Diod. 18.16.1–3, 22.1–8; 31.19.4; Just. 13.6.1–3; Plut. Eum. 3.3, 12–14; Arr. Succ. 1.11 (uniquely reports two battles against the Cappadocians); Appian Mithridatic Wars 8 = Hieronymus FGrHist 154 F 3; FGrHist 154 F 4; Briant 1982, 15–17; Heckel 1992, 155–156. Ariarathes’ career and policy: Hornblower 1981, 214–243; Anson 1988a; Briant 2002, 743, 1024–1025. 2. Ariarathes’ fate: Diod. 18.6.3; cf. Arr. Succ...

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