Eumenes

Eumenes was a Greek general and satrap who served under Alexander the Great and later became one of his successors. He began as Alexander’s personal secretary and eventually took on battlefield command. Throughout his career, he presented himself as a steadfast supporter of Alexander’s dynasty and the Macedonian Argead royal family. After Alexander’s death, during the Wars of the Diadochi, Eumenes first backed the regent Perdiccas in the first conflict, then sided with the Argead royals in the second.

Despite having less military experience than many rivals, he defeated Craterus—one of Alexander’s top generals—at the Battle of the Hellespont in 321 BC. Following Perdiccas’ murder in 320 BC, Eumenes became an enemy of the new regime led by Antipater and Antigonus. In 319 BC, Antigonus beat him at the Battle of Orkynia, and Eumenes was trapped in Nora. He escaped and allied with Polyperchon and Alexander’s mother, Olympias, to fight Cassander and Antigonus.

From 318 BC onward, he waged a tough campaign against Antigonus, winning at the Battle of Paraitakene but then fighting to an indecisive defeat at Gabiene. After that battle, his own soldiers—the Silver Shields—betrayed him and handed him over to Antigonus, who executed him in the winter of 316–315 BC. The Greek writer Plutarch later included Eumenes in his Parallel Lives, pairing him with the Roman rebel general Quintus Sertorius. Eumenes was born in Cardia, a city on the Thracian Chersonese.

His father, Hieronymus, was a prominent citizen there and had cultivated a friendship with Philip II of Macedon. Likely around 342 BC, this connection led to Eumenes becoming a private royal secretary for Philip. He may have fled to Macedonia because the tyrant Hecataeus of Cardia was hostile to his family. Eumenes impressed Alexander’s mother, Olympias, who later called him “the most faithful of my friends.”

Although Macedonians looked down on the secretary role, Eumenes held real power in the office: he managed all written communications and stayed close to the king. He served as both a companion and cavalry captain, as well as royal secretary, under Philip and then Alexander. After Philip’s death in 336 BC, Eumenes remained loyal to Alexander and Olympias, accompanying Alexander into Asia. For most of Alexander’s reign, though, he worked as the royal secretary.

He often clashed with Hephaestion, Alexander’s closest friend, over minor matters. Plutarch also tells a story of Eumenes hiding money from Alexander. After Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela in 331 BC, Eumenes took on military and diplomatic tasks, such as delivering a pronouncement to Sangala in 326 BC. He may have played a bigger role in Alexander’s eastern campaign—especially in India—than surviving records show.

Following Hephaestion’s death in late 324 BC, Eumenes was promoted to leader of the companion cavalry, a post Perdiccas had held. He also took part in the Marriages at Susa in 324 BC, wedding Artonis, daughter of the Persian satrap Artabazus II and sister of Pharnabazus III. This was a high honor, since Artonis’ sister Barsine was Alexander’s mistress and mother of his son Heracles. By the time Alexander had conquered the Persian Empire, Eumenes was a shrewd administrator and secretary for the whole realm, deeply involved in daily affairs.

He is recorded as an author of the Ephemerides, a chronicle of Alexander’s activities leading up to his illness and death. When Alexander died in 323 BC, Eumenes lost much of his standing because his position had depended on the king. Alexander left no clear heir. As Alexander’s leading officers and a mass of infantry debated whether to put a living Argead on the throne or set up a regency for Alexander’s unborn child (Alexander IV), Eumenes was present but did not speak.

When the officers fled Babylon during a riot by the infantry, Eumenes stayed in the city and helped broker an agreement between Meleager, the infantry’s leader, and the officers. He used his Cardian heritage to argue he had no personal stake in the Macedonian struggle. The infantry listened to him because of his close ties to Alexander. The officers eventually subdued Meleager and regained control of Babylon by announcing a joint kingship of Philip III Arrhidaeus and, when born, Alexander IV.

Perdiccas became regent and effective ruler of the Asian part of the empire, with Eumenes as his advisor. Eumenes obtained Alexander’s “Last Plans” and gave them to Perdiccas, who read them to the soldiers before rejecting them. In the Partition of Babylon (323 BC), Eumenes was assigned Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, but these regions were not yet under Macedonian control. The Achaemenid satrap Ariarathes still held Cappadocia, and the Paphlagonian tribes had renounced their allegiance.

So Eumenes had to conquer them to claim his satrapy. Perdiccas, as regent, ordered Leonnatus (satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia) and Antigonus (satrap of Phrygia, Pamphylia, and Lycia) to help Eumenes secure his territory. Eumenes left Babylon in the late summer of 323 BC.