Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire (13 page)

Typically, then, the cavalry’s work was divided between attempting to outflank the enemy and defending against the enemy cavalry’s attempts to outflank their own phalanx. The phalangites normally faced forward, though in case of encirclement they could rapidly form a square. Given the enormous numbers of men in a phalanx, it consisted of smaller tactical units, each with its own officer, which were capable of independent action in an emergency and of rapid response to emerging situations. The main weakness of the phalanx was that it became very vulnerable if its formation was lost as a result of lax discipline, failure of nerve, or uneven terrain. It was rightly considered a sign of fine generalship to force a confrontation on terrain that gave his men the advantage.

The light infantry, typically mercenaries and native troops, were usually posted (along with the elephants, if the army had them) in front of the entire line of infantry and cavalry at the start of the battle. Their job was to screen the deployment of the main army and do as much damage as possible before slipping back through their lines to take up a position in the rear. If they still had some missiles left, they could act as a reserve in case of an encircling or outflanking movement by the enemy; otherwise, their work was done. They were also useful as marauders, or to run down heavier armed fugitives. Only in rough terrain did they become a strike force. If elephants were involved, it was the job of the mobile troops in the opening stages of the battle to try to cripple the creatures, while protecting their own.

Light cavalry, archers and javelineers, were used mainly as scouts, skirmishers, and scavengers. A heavy cavalryman was typically well armored from head to foot and wielded a long lance. Macedonian and Thessalian horsemen were particularly highly regarded as shock troops, but by the time of the Successors they had been joined by formidable native contingents. On parade, or sometimes for formal battle, the heavy cavalry made a gorgeous display, worthy of their wealth and social standing. As in all eras (think of the
hippeis
of classical Athens, the
equites
of Rome, the
chevaliers
of medieval Europe), the cavalry contingents tended to consist of members of the social elite, because by tradition a cavalryman was expected to provide and look after his own horse, and horse rearing was expensive. Only the wealthy had spare pasturage and the time to acquire equestrian skills, especially in the days before stirrups and saddle. The cavalry usually went into
battle in waves of squadrons consisting of perhaps fifty or a hundred horse, operating as semi-independent units.

Every army was followed by a host of noncombatants: slaves, wives, prostitutes, doctors, translators, priests, philosophers (the founder of Scepticism, Pyrrho of Elis, accompanied Alexander, for instance), dignitaries, diplomats, coiners, merchants, slave traders, bankers, entertainers, various artisans such as carpenters and blacksmiths, diviners, scribes and other civil servants, engineers, and sappers. Then there were the carts for the transport of food and drink, fodder, artillery and siege equipment, arms and armor, the wounded and sick, swathes of canvas for tents, cooking equipment and countless other utensils, spare timber, leather straps, and everything else that an early Hellenistic army might need by way of support.

One of Philip’s most important military innovations had been to slash the number of noncombatants and wagons and to decrease the individual soldier’s burden, to allow for greater mobility, but there was still a multitude of men and animals—horses, mules for the carts, elephants, plundered livestock—and the logistical problems were enormous. Every person required about 1.25 kgs (2.75 lbs) of food per day; every mule or horse about 9 kgs (20 lbs) of chaff and grain; every elephant up to 200 kgs (440 lbs) of fodder. Generally speaking, little water was carried (though plenty of wine was), and campsites were chosen for the availability of good water and fodder.

The baggage train would typically be parked some distance from the battlefield. The word “baggage” may give an inadequate idea of what was involved. For professional soldiers such as the Macedonians and mercenaries, their baggage was everything: their women-folk, families, and all their possessions. Some of the Macedonians in both Eumenes’ and other armies had been continuously campaigning away from home for twenty years; their whole lives were bound up in their “baggage.” And so it was a common tactic in ancient warfare to try to seize the enemy baggage, which could then be used as a bargaining counter. We have already seen Eumenes do this to Neoptolemus.

For a pitched battle, the troops were typically deployed in a long line. The phalanxes occupied the center, the cavalry was divided between the wings, and the light infantry and elephants were posted out in front. If there was broken terrain on one of the wings, mobile infantry might be posted there instead of cavalry. After the light infantry had expended their missiles, one side or both would make a general advance, either in a straight line or obliquely, favoring one wing or the
other. Typically, it would be the right wing that was weighted with more shock troops than the other and would lead the attack. For Greeks and Macedonians, the right wing was the place of honor, and this was where the king or commander tended to take up his position. Ancient generals still fought from the front.

The formulaic layout of the troops meant that, provided numbers were more or less equal, each type of contingent was most likely to clash first with its opposite number: cavalry fought cavalry, phalanx clashed with phalanx. Normally, it was only in the event of success or failure, or of ambush, that they would find themselves fighting dissimilar troop types. Commanders usually committed all or the vast majority of their troops at once, rarely holding any in reserve. One fundamental tactic, then, was for the winners of the cavalry engagement to try not to race so far off the battlefield that they were unable to return and support the central phalanx.

Elephants were newcomers to Greek or Macedonian battlefields in the early Hellenistic period. Alexander’s eastern conquests had first brought them to western attention, as he met them in battle against both the Persians and the Indians. They were as important and unreliable as the new armored tanks of World War I. Apart from serving as a potent symbol of a war leader’s might and raising the morale of men who felt secure that they had these awesome beasts on their side, they had two main military purposes. Their defensive purpose depended chiefly on the fact that their smell and sight upset horses, so that they could blunt a cavalry assault. Their aggressive purpose was to disrupt the enemy lines, either by trampling them or simply by terrifying them into falling back, while archers riding behind the mahouts fired down on their foes. If both sides had elephants, a terrifying spectacle followed, which was witnessed by one ancient historian: “Elephants fight by tangling and locking their tusks together, and then pushing hard while leaning into each other, trying to gain ground, until one overpowers the other and pushes its trunk aside, thereby exposing its opponent’s flank. The stronger elephant then gores its opponent, using its tusks as a bull does his horns.”
⁴

Pitched battles were often decisive, and sometimes armies would maneuver for days or weeks before meeting in full battle, knowing that the outcome of the war, and the future of their state, might well depend on it. Battles were generally over within a few hours. In the event of a rout, casualties could be appalling, but in the era of the Successors mass surrender was common; defeated troops were likely simply to join the enemy army. After all, the opposing commander had just
proved himself potentially a better paymaster than their previous commander had been.

Eumenes had won a notable victory—but the news did not reach Egypt in time to make a difference. Perdiccas was having a hard time of it. He had never managed to win the confidence of his men, and the expedition was plagued by desertion. Ptolemy undoubtedly had a very active fifth column within Perdiccas’s camp, and many of the officers as well as the rank-and-file troops were not convinced of the wisdom of attacking Ptolemy, or of the necessity for civil war. But Perdiccas stuck at the task and by May or June 320 was not far from the capital, Memphis. Then disaster struck.

Memphis was on the farther, western side of the Nile, but Perdiccas managed to find a place where he could cross the river unopposed. As it turned out, there was a good reason for its being undefended: it was not a true crossing. Many men forded the chest-high waters, with Perdiccas cleverly deploying his elephants upstream to lessen the force of the current. But their passage disturbed the sandy bed of the river and increased its depth, so that the rest were unable to cross. Those who had made it were too few to risk an attack on Memphis, and Perdiccas recalled them. Hundreds were swept away by the river and drowned.

The Nile has been forced only about a dozen times in history; even so, Perdiccas seems to have chosen an inept way to make the attempt. The ghastly episode added considerably to the disgruntlement in his camp. A failing Macedonian war-leader was always at risk, and a group of senior officers, led by Peithon and Antigenes (the commander of a regiment of Alexander’s veterans that Perdiccas had recruited in Cilicia), now took advantage of the troops’ despair. They entered Perdiccas’s tent under the pretext of official business and killed him. Given that Perdiccas represented legitimate authority and direct succession from Alexander, it was a momentous step.

The murder was certainly carried out with Ptolemy’s prior knowledge and encouragement, because within a few hours he had ridden into the enemy camp for a meeting with the senior officers. He was made welcome. They decided to convene the army and explain the situation to them. The assembly was in effect a kind of show trial of Ptolemy. He was found innocent of any crime, which meant that
Perdiccas had no cause for invasion and therefore his murder was justified. Ptolemy also endeared himself to the troops by promising to supply them and send them on their way.

Who would now be regent of the kings? The post was offered to Ptolemy. He was a senior man, who had the necessary cachet of having served Alexander long and well, and the added prestige of having been a boyhood friend. But, in a momentous decision, he refused. Why? Subsequent events showed that he was not short of ambition, so perhaps he felt the time was not yet right, that matters were too fluid and unstable. Most probably, he did not want to fall out with Antipater and Craterus (not yet knowing that Craterus was dead), and wanted more than anything to be left alone. He did not want to become a target, and thought he could build Egypt into a powerful stronghold for himself and his heirs. He was right, but there was a long way to go yet before such visions could be fulfilled. But at least he had gained a powerful argument to wield against anyone who challenged his rule of Egypt: he had not just been granted it by a committee but had won it by conquest. It was now his “spear-won land.” But, since there had been little actual fighting, apart from the defense of a fortress, this was close to an admission from Ptolemy that he had been behind P erdiccas’s death.
⁵

Instead of Ptolemy, then, Peithon and Arrhidaeus were made temporary guardians, tasked with protecting the kings and the court until a new settlement could be reached. A few days later, when the army heard about the popular Craterus’s death, the officers conducted another show trial, at which Eumenes, Alcetas, Attalus, and about fifty others were condemned to death as traitors. This signaled a commitment to war, not reconciliation. Perdiccas’s court was purged of his most loyal friends, and even his sister, Attalus’s wife, was slaughtered. A minor incident, but a foretaste of a brutal future.

A week earlier, Eumenes and the rest had been on the side of the angels, protected by Perdiccas’s legitimate regency; now the loyalists were the outlaws. Attalus took the fleet back to the Phoenician city of Tyre, where Perdiccas had left a war chest of eight hundred talents, and made it a haven for loyalist survivors. Thousands gathered there; with Eumenes and Alcetas in Asia Minor, the Perdiccans were still a force to be reckoned with. On Cyprus, however, Aristonous made peace and was allowed to live. He returned to Macedon, on the understanding that he would retire quietly to his baronial estates—or so I interpret his temporary disappearance from the historical record.

Within three years of Alexander’s death, two members of the triumvirate that succeeded him were dead. The Babylon settlement had plainly already been superseded, and a new dispensation was now needed. The anti-Perdiccan allies arranged a conference for the late summer of 320 at Triparadeisus in Syria (perhaps modern Baalbek).
⁶
A
paradeisos
was a playground for the Persian rich, a large, enclosed area combining parkland, orchards, and hunting grounds—a “paradise” indeed. Triparadeisus, as the name implies, was extra special, a suitable location for such a summit meeting. Under the command of Seleucus, Perdiccas’s former army, with two kings, two queens, and two regents, moved north from Memphis through Palestine and Phoenicia to the triple
paradeisos
. In due course, Antipater arrived from Cilicia, and Antigonus from Cyprus.

Sixteen-year-old Adea Eurydice clearly felt that Perdiccas’s death was an opportunity to agitate for greater power for herself. She accepted that there had to be a regency, but wanted the regent or regents to consult her as an equal, since she could speak for the only adult king. She achieved half her objective relatively easily: Peithon and Arrhidaeus could not handle her and resigned the regency in favor of the still absent Antipater. For a few days, before Antipater’s arrival, the field was clear for Adea. The young warrior queen was popular with the troops, and she exploited the fact that some of Alexander’s veterans were pushing for a generous bonus that had been promised them. These were the three thousand veterans commanded by Antigenes, who had been incorporated into Perdiccas’s army as he passed through Cilicia. Craterus had paid the rest of the veterans when he took them back to Macedon and joined Antipater, and Antigenes’ men were resentful at the delay in their case. Perdiccas had perhaps promised to pay them as a peaceable way of persuading them to join his Egyptian campaign.