Leaving the army to its new crusade, Ptolemy recrossed the river to his palace in Memphis, no doubt glad to return to a less volatile environment. The swings of emotion he had witnessed over the past three days had been bewildering and disturbing. First, Perdiccas’ troops had made two determined efforts to penetrate his Nile defenses. Then, with Perdiccas dead, they had embraced himas their hoped-for leader, nearly handing him regency over the kings, the keystone of imperial control. Finally, news of Craterus’ death had sent them into a murderous rage and turned them back toward Asia to attack their former commanders. It was all too reminiscent of the tumultuous week in Babylon following Alexander’s death, the last time Ptolemy had been united with these unruly veterans. Clearly, Perdiccas had failed to tame them during the intervening years.

There was no telling what would happen when this ungovernable beast returned to Asia, but that uncertainty was not Ptolemy’s problem. Undoubtedly, the fabric of the empire would be rent by the collisions and clashes there, but Egypt could remain detached. Ptolemy’s Nile defenses had held despite all Perdiccas had thrown at them, ensuring that no Macedonian army would soon attack again. And it had escaped no one’s notice that the army was leaving without the prize it had come for, Alexander’s body. Neither of the new commanders, Peithon and Arrhidaeus, had dared ask for its return (indeed Arrhidaeus had, not coincidentally, helped Ptolemy obtain it to begin with). Ptolemy’s declaration of independence had stuck. He had his own empire, his Egypt, and needed little from the rest of Alexander’s realm—except perhaps some trained Indian elephants, a precious resource he took the liberty of commandeering from the departing army.

Ptolemy rejoined his burgeoning household with its two trophy women, Thais, the beautiful Athenian courtesan who had already borne him three children, and now a new bride, Antipater’s youngest daughter, Eurydice. One brought him pleasure and the other power, but Ptolemy was still vulnerable to a third impulse, love. By this time he had taken notice of his bride’s young cousin and lady-in-waiting, a widow by the name of Berenice. Soon he made this woman his mistress, and ultimately his wife. She bore him his two heirs, Ptolemy II and Arsinoe, a brother and sister who, following an old Persian royal custom, married each other. Through his children by Berenice Ptolemy founded a dynasty that ruled Egypt for almost three centuries, until their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Cleopatra VII, the lover of both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, killed herself by the bite of an asp.

2. THE ROYAL FAMILY (EGYPT AND POINTS NORTH, AUTUMN 321 B.C.)

What were the first words spoken by the son of Alexander the Great, just now acquiring the power of speech? Were they in Macedonian or in the Bactrian tongue he presumably learned from his mother, Rhoxane? Or was he tutored in high classical Greek, the language his father had made the lingua franca of the new ruling class? Did he know, at age two, that his words had the power to shape a realm stretching from the Adriatic to the banks of the Indus? Such questions are beyond speculation, since of all the records preserved from this era, not one gives the boy a voice or a consciousness. Though he stood closer to the maelstrom than anyone, we do not have a single utterance or action by which his personality might be judged. The young Alexander, known today as Alexander IV, remains a cipher, even after the opening of his still-unplundered tomb in 1979.

How was the young Alexander told that Perdiccas no longer had charge of him but others he barely knew? What was told to his uncle and co-ruler, Philip, who must have realized, however dimly, that a coup had taken place? Was any attempt made to enlist Philip’s support for the new regime? Or was he a mere possession conferring power, like the signet ring given to Perdiccas? One anecdote from later in Philip’s life shows that this monarch had a partial understanding of events around him. But his behavior could become erratic and violent, and his keeper on at least one occasion had to restrain him. Peithon and Arrhidaeus could only have given him the illusion of agency, securing his token approval for acts of state as Perdiccas had done.

Philip’s new wife, however, was a different matter. Adea, now also called Eurydice, had all her wits about her and all the energies of youth. She was determined to be more than a figurehead. As the army moved north out of Egypt, Adea began to assert herself. She sensed an opportunity to grasp supreme power, an opportunity her mother, Cynnane, had sacrificed her life to give her.

By now Adea had spent several weeks with the royal army and had learned much about the new breed of soldier Alexander had created. Money, she knew, was much on the men’s minds. Many of their comrades, those discharged by Alexander but now fighting again under Antipater, had received a handsome bonus at their send-off, a talent of silver per man. The others had gotten no such boon, though they claimed Alexander had promised one. Now the expedition to Egypt had disappointed their hopes of plunder, and even their standard salary was in arrears (Perdiccas’ brother-in-law Attalus, on the run from the death sentence imposed on him, had made haste to secure a stash of money from which they would have been paid). For these hardened veterans, fighting not for a cause or country but because fighting was their way of life, money meant everything. It was a measure of prowess, a reward for hard labors, a bond linking them to their commanders. If money was running short, as Adea knew it was, that bond could easily be broken.

As the army made its way back into Asia, Adea began making her voice heard in camp. With her status as granddaughter of the great Philip ensuring an audience, she harped on the theme of owed money, a theme she knew would provoke her listeners to outrage. She was in contact with the outlawed Perdiccan faction, men like Attalus who had access to ready cash. Discontent began to swirl around this teenage firebrand, prompting Peithon and Arrhidaeus, the new heads of the central government, to impose a gag order on her. But Adea refused to comply. She knew that after the near mutiny caused by the murder of her mother, the generals would not dare lay hands on her, and they had no other way to stop her voice.

3. TRIPARADEISUS (WINTER, LATE 321 B.C.)

The army arrived at Triparadeisus, a “triple game park” somewhere in what is now Lebanon, with Adea still insisting on her political rights. Peithon and Arrhidaeus played for time, awaiting the arrivals of old man Antipater and Antigonus One-eye, who were hastening to meet them as they advanced northward. Finally, when Antipater and his army were close at hand, the pressure became intolerable. Not content with freedom of speech, Adea was contesting guardianship of the joint kings, the only source of legitimate power. What more right than she, Adea demanded, did Peithon and Arrhidaeus have to speak for her husband? There was no good reply. Events were slipping out of control. Perdiccas’ brother-in-law Attalus had arrived on the scene, with money to attract desertions; the army was seething with sedition. Conceding inability to manage the crisis, Peithon and Arrhidaeus resigned their posts, urging Antipater to come at once to take charge.

Antipater arrived to find the royal army, including the famous Silver Shields, in an ugly mood. This was his first glimpse of how it had been transformed in the years it had spent in Asia (the decommissioned veterans Craterus had brought him were more tractable men). It was not a pretty sight. These soldiers had tasted the ultimate liberty, the right to kill their own commander, and seemed to no longer revere any authority, except an iron-willed teenage girl. Antipater was their nation’s highest-ranking officer, but his arrival made little impression on them. They kept howling for the pay they claimed was due them, spurred on by the irrepressible Adea.