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

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.
THE TRIPARADEISUS CONFERENCE
     
    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 The Babylon settlement had plainly already been superseded, and a new dispensation was now needed.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.
    Adea’s next action showed how far she was prepared to go: she invited Attalus, officially an outlaw, to come and address the troops. Since Attalus’s presence would have been intolerable to many if not most of the officers and men, the fact that he came and went with impunity demonstrates the extent of the disarray in the camp, with different units acting independently of any central command. His control of the treasury at Tyre made him a powerful ally. He and Adea presumably tried to induce the veterans to change sides. Adea seems to have been prepared to take her husband Philip III back over to the Perdiccans. They would regain the legitimacy they urgently needed, and she would gain the power she desired. 7
    When Antipater arrived empty-handed, then, he was greeted by simmering unrest. But with Attalus occupying Tyre and its treasury, no money was immediately foreseeable, and all Antipater could do was prevaricate. The veterans became angry, and Adea continued to inflame their anger, until they came close at one point to lynching the old viceroy. Antigonus and Seleucus, however, managed to calm the situation down. They must have promised money, but there was also the implied threat of conflict, with the rest of the army lined up against the veterans. Adea backed down to avoid bloodshed and her own certain death, and peace was restored.
    Antipater was duly acclaimed regent. He ran the conference that followed with the expected new broom. 8 Vacant positions were filled, loyalty was rewarded, and his marriageable daughters passed around. Ptolemy finally married Eurydice, Lysimachus was given newly widowed Nicaea, and Antigonus’s seventeen-year-old son Demetrius received Phila, at least ten years his senior, who had been widowed by the death of