It was no coincidence that Meleager, in the council session at the palace, had backed Arrhidaeus as successor at the same moment that his infantry battalions, meeting elsewhere, made the same choice. In both cases, the preference for Arrhidaeus over Rhoxane’s unborn child sprang from a longing for the past. Arrhidaeus, as a son of the great Philip, evoked the days before Alexander when Asians had still been enemies and slaves, not comrades-in-arms. The foot soldiers who anointed him left no doubt about their hopes for his reign. They took the step, unprecedented in their history, of changing the new king’s name, dubbing him Philip after his revered father.
Meleager knew why his infantry comrades had hailed Arrhidaeus as monarch and rejected Rhoxane’s unborn child, whose mixed blood embodied the hated program of Euro-Asian fusion. He shared their feelings, yet he had been sent to their camp to persuade them to reverse course. Perdiccas was counting on him to reconcile his men to the choice made by the cavalry. He was the perfect go-between, since his stalled career gave him unmatched credibility among the infantry; he was the one officer who had stayed in their ranks. He had a fair chance of quelling their revolt if he spoke in support of the generals and their fetal king.
But he also had a fair chance of leading that revolt to victory if he followed his own inclinations. As he entered the infantry camp, where the foot soldiers were hailing the newly renamed Philip, Meleager took stock of the opportunity before him. Here was an incompetent king who needed a guardian to tend him; here was an army that already regarded himas its chief, troops far more numerous than those of Perdiccas. Leading this army, championing this king, Meleager could grasp supreme power as easily as Perdiccas, indeed more easily, since he would stand beside a flesh-and-blood monarch, not a mere in utero hope. He took the dare Fortune offered. He put on armor and stood beside the former Arrhidaeus, now Philip—a gesture that signaled his acclamation of the king.
The infantry went wild, clanging spears on shields to hail the new head of their mutiny. Meleager made a speech that fanned their anger into a demand for action. Armed and accompanied by a bewildered Philip, the rebellious mob marched on the palace. As they had done just two days before, they demanded admittance to the chamber where Alexander lay.
Forewarned, Perdiccas had assembled a few hundred picked troops in the throne room and barred the doors. He was hoping to hold the room and thereby preserve his tenuous grasp on power. Alexander’s corpse, and the empty throne decked with royal armor and insignia, were locked in with him, the talismans of authority. Whoever possessed these, it now seemed, controlled the empire.
The infantry forced the doors and spilled into the room, javelins at the ready. Meleager, at the head of the mob, confronted Perdiccas face to face. A full-scale battle loomed, but Perdiccas and his men saw they were outmatched. They made a tactical retreat and left the palace by a side door, then rode for the safety of the plains outside the city.
In one swift coup Meleager had gained control of the room, the throne, and the corpse. He and the infantry now set up their new government before Alexander’s still-untended body. Philip, their half-wit king, was installed as head of that government and invested with the royal garb left on the empty throne, Alexander’s robe and diadem.
Perdiccas and the other generals had vanished, all except one. Little Eumenes, Alexander’s former secretary, only recently promoted to cavalry commander, remained in the palace in hopes of mediating the conflict. Eumenes made the case that as a Greek with no interest in Macedonian politics and nothing to gain or lose, he could be trusted by both sides. This reasoning was quite likely advanced by Eumenes in perfect sincerity and was accepted by Meleager’s men—though events of years to come would make it seem laughably naive.
According to legend, Alexander predicted on his deathbed that a great funeral contest would be held over his tomb. But even he might not have believed that, within a day of his demise, the two main branches of the army would draw weapons on each other over his very corpse. The speed of the unraveling, the scale of the breakdown of trust and order, was breathtaking. The saving grace for the Macedonians was that events at Babylon were moving faster than the messengers reporting them to the world. Provinces that might have profited from the disorder, subject peoples that might have rebelled, did not yet even know that Alexander was dead.
Meleager’s first move was to order the arrest of his displaced rival, Perdiccas. He must have sensed that his time in power would be short if Perdiccas still lived. Despite the mistrust between cavalry and infantry, the army’s traditional leaders could still command the loyalty of many in the rank and file. Indeed Perdiccas seemed to be waiting to reclaim that loyalty, remaining inside Babylon while sending his fellow officers out. Meleager was determined to prevent him from doing so. It was a simple matter to obtain the requisite authority: Meleager explained to King Philip why Perdiccas posed a danger to the state, and the king’s befuddled silence was taken for assent. A squad was dispatched to arrest Perdiccas, or to kill him if he resisted.
Perdiccas responded to the bold attack with superb sangfroid. He was at his quarters with an honor guard of sixteen page boys, too few to defend him, when Meleager’s men approached. Showing no fear but only righteous anger, he appeared in his doorway in full armor and denounced his would-be captors as traitors and slaves of Meleager. The tactic worked. Shamed by the reproaches of their top general, the men slunk away without completing their mission. Perdiccas hastened to leave the city before other hit men could arrive.
Meleager’s failed strike at Perdiccas sparked a contrary swing of emotion in the mutinous army. The next day saw recriminations against Meleager and even a judicial inquiry into his abuse of power. King Philip himself was questioned and admitted he had approved the move against Perdiccas. But, he argued—apparently able to speak and reason to a limited degree—Perdiccas was still alive, so why make so much trouble? Meleager survived, but his position was much weakened. The throne room began to feel like a hollow sham of a government seat: envoys came and went, state business went on as usual, but those in attendance glowered silently at one another, afraid to admit their fears and doubts.
After three days of sullen anticipation, word arrived that the cavalry counterstrike had begun. The horsemen stationed outside Babylon had cut off the city’s food supply, threatening to starve the infantry into surrender. The mutineers became disturbed not only by their own plight but also by the restive movements of the city’s population, deprived as it was of provisions. Some troops went to Meleager and demanded that he either fight Perdiccas or arrange a deal. Eumenes, the Greek who had thus far remained on the sidelines, began intervening at last, urging the mutineers to reconcile with their former leaders before more harm was done.
Reluctantly but resignedly, Meleager opened negotiations with Perdiccas. The cavalry initially announced harsh terms, insisting that the heads of the mutiny be handed over for summary punishment. Then Perdiccas himself appeared before the infantrymen to sound a conciliatory note. Fearlessly walking into their midst, he delivered an impassioned speech about the dangers that now loomed. The Macedonians would inflict on themselves the defeat they had never suffered at the hands of their enemies; all their labors would be for nothing; they would appease with their own blood the ghosts of their slaughtered foes. The voice of familiar authority stirred the rebellious soldiers. They made clear they were prepared, under suitable terms, to take back Perdiccas as their leader.