As he buried his dead, Eumenes had the body of Craterus cremated with all due rites and ceremony. He could not afford to stint the honors for this hero, for many, even in his own camp, were grieved by his fall. Perhaps Eumenes himself felt remorse. There had never been antipathy between the two men; they had merely become enmeshed in the war between their masters, Perdiccas and Antipater. Eumenes would keep the cremated remains with him and saw that they eventually reached Craterus’ widow, the noble Phila.

Eumenes had triumphed as tactician and soldier, but had also learned his limitations as leader. In this new kind of war, where allegiances were unclear and a general’s best strategy was to draw defections, Eumenes had been on the defensive. Though some Alexander veterans, like those serving under Neoptolemus, might switch to his side in defeat, troops fresh from Europe had refused to do so, even at peril to their lives. And Eumenes’ need to conceal Craterus’ identity showed how much lower he stood in the soldiers’ affections. Had Eumenes not denied him the chance, Craterus could have won the battle simply by revealing his face.

Dream though he might, Eumenes was no Alexander. He never could be, given the deficit of his birth. He had the talent of a first-rate general but none of the stature. His origins barred him from the heights of Macedonian power, certainly from the throne, and he knew that. When, in the aftermath of the battle, he took horses from the royal herds to replenish his losses, he gave receipts for them to the stablemen; he claimed the right only to borrow, not seize, the property of the crown. The humility of the gesture raised a laugh from old man Antipater—a rare moment of levity in what had become an intense and bitter civil war.

9. PERDICCAS (EGYPT, SUMMER 321 B.C.)

While Eumenes was winning glory in Anatolia, Perdiccas and his army were approaching the delta of the Nile. At the apex of that seven-stream triangle was Memphis, and in Memphis was Ptolemy, who had troubled Perdiccas’ regime from the start, mocking his authority and defying his orders. In Memphis too was Alexander, now a mummified corpse but still emanating a power that could hold three continents in awe.

The Nile delta had repelled many invaders over the centuries. Perdiccas was determined to penetrate it by crossing its easternmost branch, the Pelusian. Once across, he could march south to Memphis, bring Ptolemy to heel, and recover the body of Alexander. That talisman of royal might could yet repair his losses and restore his waning ability to exert control.

Perdiccas’ control had eroded during the past months at an alarming rate. The treachery of Cleitus at the Hellespont, the defections of the western satraps, the refusal of his officers (his own brother!) to follow orders, the theft of Alexander’s corpse—these challenges had come at him simultaneously and from all corners of western Asia. Now even the royal army, the six thousand or so crack veterans he had brought to Egypt, was showing signs of insubordination. When he had convened an assembly near the borders of Egypt to charge Ptolemy with rebellion, the soldiers had listened to Ptolemy’s defense and then voted to acquit. They were not willing to give Perdiccas the political cover he so obviously wanted. Perdiccas had been forced to distribute bribes to top officers, buying their commitment to the invasion when he could not inspire it.

And what couldinspire them to attack their own countrymen or to make war on Ptolemy, whom they had respected and heeded only two years earlier? Perdiccas had brought the joint kings with him as a reminder of their cause, but these hardly commanded reverence: the vacant Philip with his sharp-tongued teenage wife, the toddler Alexander with his babbling barbarian mother. It was a pathetically shaky platform on which Perdiccas rested his authority, yet it was the only source of legitimacy in the post-Alexander world. It would have to be enough, for Perdiccas was already here at the delta, accompanied by infantry, cavalry, siege equipment, and war elephants—enough armed force to take Ptolemy down, if he could only get across the Nile.

Fortunately, Perdiccas had superb training in river crossings, for these had been Alexander the Great’s choice stratagem. Alexander had brought his army across the Danube, the Oxus, and the Indus, three of the world’s largest rivers, and finally, in India, had pulled off a brilliant crossing of the Hydaspes despite a determined foe on the other side. For weeks Alexander had unbalanced this foe, the raja Porus, by moving in plain sight up and down the bank, making feints and sallies, all the while scouting for a crossing point that would be hidden from Porus’ view. When he finally made his move, he marched the army all night through torrential rains and deafening thunder, then led it through the roaring Hydaspes in the dark, with men and horses only barely keeping their heads above water—but got onto dry land and into formation before Porus’ forces arrived. Speed and secrecy, as in so many of Alexander’s operations, had secured victory.

Perdiccas too needed secrecy for his crossing of the Nile, but he did not have time for the cat-and-mouse games Alexander had played with Porus. His troops were becoming unsteady in their loyalty. Some had already defected to Ptolemy after Perdiccas tried, but failed, to draw off water from the Pelusiac Nile and render it more shallow. Others, he suspected, were passing along information to Ptolemy’s forces. When Perdiccas chose a crossing point, opposite a fort called Kamelonteichos, or Camels’ Rampart, he told no one of his destination. He could not trust his own men. He marched the army to this spot under cover of darkness, hoping he would get there unobserved.

At first light Perdiccas’ troops began fording the river but were only halfway across when, on the other bank, Ptolemy’s forces could be seen streaming toward the fort. The element of surprise had been lost during the night. There was no choice now but to slug it out with Ptolemy’s men, and with Ptolemy himself, who had entered the fort and was making ready to lead its defenders in person.

Perdiccas mounted a determined effort to capture the fort. His crack infantry troops, the Silver Shields, were sent up scaling ladders under barrages of spears and arrows. Elephants were brought forward to batter the mud-brick walls with their heads. Ptolemy apparently speared one of these beasts in the eyes and blinded it, then killed its driver, and began boldly knocking men off the ladders into the river below (though this account, like all tales of Ptolemy’s heroics, may be the invention of his propaganda machine). Perdiccas’ men hurled themselves at the fort for much of the day, but finally, toward evening, Perdiccas gave up. He ordered his troops back across the river to base camp. The Camels’ Rampart had held.

Though his men were exhausted, Perdiccas gave them only a short rest before again ordering an all-night march, south along the Nile’s bank. He was desperate now to find a way over, or he would face mass defections. His reconnaissance had revealed a spot opposite Memphis where the Nile was split by a midriver island. Both sides appeared to be fordable, and the island was large enough for his entire army to make camp. The opposite bank would not be guarded; no one would expect a crossing upstream from the delta, where the Nile’s waters were united in a swift, deep current. It was a daring stroke, much in the manner of Alexander, for Alexander had succeeded, time after time, by suddenly appearing where no one thought he could be.

For the second day in a row, Perdiccas sent his men into the Nile at first light. The first contingents reached the island in safety, though the current was strong and the water came up to their chins in midchannel. Perdiccas tried a new tactic to ease the passage: he sent elephants across upstream of the wading troops to break the force of the current, and had mounted horsemen cross downstream to catch any soldiers who lost their footing. This was a fatal error. The heavy tread of the animals dislodged silt from the riverbed, causing the channel to suddenly deepen. The bewildered soldiers, thinking that Ptolemy had opened a new sluiceway to flood them, could no longer keep contact with the bottom. The crossing was halted. Only half the men had reached the island—too few to defend themselves once Ptolemy arrived, as he no doubt soon would. Perdiccas had no choice but to call them back.