Free Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire by Robin Waterfield Page A

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 thatPerdiccas 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