Meanwhile, in Egypt, Ptolemy was undertaking a different kind of propaganda, a history of Alexander’s Asian campaign highlighting his own role and obscuring that of Perdiccas. In all likelihood, Perdiccas was dead when Ptolemy began this history, but probably Perdiccas’ supporters, and his memory, were not. There was much to be gained from concealing a wound Perdiccas suffered at the battle of Gaugamela, or blaming Perdiccas’ lack of discipline for the onset of fighting at Thebes, or, most important, omitting mention of Alexander’s greatest mark of favor, the handing over of the signet ring. Perhaps Ptolemy hoped that, as one of few witnesses present, he could consign that moment to oblivion. It did not reflect well on him if the man whose downfall he had largely caused was the king’s legitimate, handpicked successor.

Many others likewise had an interest in blackening Perdiccas’ name—those who colluded in his murder, inherited his power, or joined in the hunt for his partisans. Any or all of these may have helped color the portrait of Perdiccas preserved in the ancient sources. We find in those sources condemnations of Perdiccas’ arrogance, high-handedness, and brutality, a portrait that at times verges on slander. Diodorus uses the word phonikos, or “man of slaughter,” to describe him, an odd barb to throw at a soldier whose stock-in-trade was killing enemies. But when a leader has failed, the very qualities that made him a leader suddenly appear as flaws. Perdiccas’ arrogance and bloody-mindedness were no more pronounced than Alexander’s, indeed much less so. But Alexander, unlike the hapless Perdiccas, knew little of failure.

6.

CLEOPATRA, EUMENES, AND ANTIPATER (SARDIS, SPRING 320 B.C.)

For two years Alexander the Great’s sister, Cleopatra, had stayed in Asia, watching the war unfold from the satrapal palace of Sardis. Perhaps she longed to return to her Macedonian homeland or to Epirus, where her mother, Olympias, was looking after her two young children. But that would be to admit defeat and accept a life of irrelevance that might also be short. The one chance she had of restoring her branch of the royal family, and of safeguarding her mother and her children, was to wed a powerful general and beget a new heir to the throne. But back in Europe there were no such bridegrooms to be found. She had come into Asia to marry, and in Asia she remained, like some fairy-tale princess in a tower awaiting her knight-errant.

Her time was running short. As she reached her mid-thirties, her capacity to bear children, the principal asset she brought to the succession struggle, was fast waning. Worse, she knew that her rival in fertility, Adea, now married to King Philip for more than a year, might announce a pregnancy at any moment. Should that happen, Cleopatra’s value in the marriage market would drop precipitously. A child produced by tworoyals, if it were male, would without question become the new heir. Not even Cleopatra, the full sister of Alexander, could trump such a potent union of Argead bloodlines, unless she too married an Argead, and there were none left to marry. Even eligible generals, after the deaths of her first two prospects, Leonnatus and Perdiccas, were starting to run short.

The rise to power of old man Antipater spelled danger to Cleopatra. This ancient foe of her mother bore no love for her branch of the Argead house and now could do it much harm. Antipater had played the marriage game far more successfully than she; his daughters were wed to Ptolemy and Antigonus’ son, Demetrius, locking up two of her own potential bridegrooms. The whole empire seemed suddenly to be in Antipater’s pocket; with the scope of his power, he could choke off access to Sardis and prevent suitors from reaching her. Perhaps he could even force her to marry his son Cassander—but the thought of union with the man believed to have poisoned her brother was no doubt a disturbing one.

While Cleopatra contemplated her darkening prospects, a troop of cavalry rode up to the walls of Sardis with a commanding figure at its head. It was not, however, her knight in shining armor but Eumenes, her brother’s former secretary.

This was an awkward development for Cleopatra. Eumenes was an old friend and loyal servant of her family’s and, thanks to the changing tides of fortune, leader of a powerful army. He had always supported Cleopatra and her marital ambitions. But Eumenes was now an outlaw, condemned to death for his role in Perdiccas’ regime. Not only could Cleopatra not marry him—he was a Greekafter all, far below her station—but even to receive him might be a criminal act. With Antipater making his way toward Sardis, Cleopatra could not put herself on the wrong side of the civil war.

Eumenes, for his part, was eager to talk with Cleopatra. He had spent the last several months living off the lands of his enemies, plundering provinces in western Anatolia, but had come to Sardis seeking something more precious than booty—legitimacy. Cleopatra could counteract the ascendancy of his two great nemeses, Antipater and Antigonus One-eye. They had taken charge of the kings and claimed to be stewards of the royal house, but Cleopatra could give the lie to that claim with a wave of her hand. If she would become Eumenes’ ally, join her moral authority to his military might, they could yet prevail over their enemies. They had much reason to make common cause: both were excluded from power by second-class status, she as a woman and he as a Greek. Both could thrive only by attaching themselves to a regent or king. Perhaps, until one of them succeeded, they could become attached to each other.

Eumenes chivalrously paraded his cavalry before Sardis, trying to impress the princess within. Mindful of his last visit there, when Cleopatra had spurned Perdiccas because of his uncertain chances in war, Eumenes hoped to show that this time victory was assured. Indeed he wanted to fight the royal army right there, on the plains outside Sardis, as though his men would take inspiration from the watching eyes of Cleopatra. She was closest in blood to Alexander of anyone on earth; in her the virtues, perhaps even the features, of the dead king seemed to have found life once again. “Such was the reverence for the greatness of Alexander that even the traces left behind in womencould be used to summon the blessing of his hallowed name,” writes Justin in his summary of Trogus’ history.

But Cleopatra, though she granted Eumenes an audience, was not willing to become his partisan. She was conscious of her duty to the state and did not wish to exacerbate its troubles by taking sides. She asked Eumenes to leave Sardis and seek battle elsewhere, far from her regal presence. Eumenes bade farewell to the princess and, as she had asked, led his army from Sardis.

Old man Antipater arrived in Sardis soon after and paid his own visit to Cleopatra. He had been informed of her colloquy with Eumenes, and he was not pleased. He could surmise what game the princess had been playing, first with Perdiccas and now with Perdiccas’ consigliere, and perhaps he knew about the dalliance with Leonnatus before that. With his authority already under challenge—another princess, the teenage Adea, had very nearly gotten him stoned to death—Antipater could not allow Cleopatra to flirt with his enemies. He scolded her for heedlessness of the royal house’s interests. He had loyally served that house for six decades, but it was being torn apart, as he saw it, by meddlesome, ungovernable women.

Cleopatra would have none of this. She was too proud to be talked down to by a man who had taken orders from her father and her brother. In a now-lost speech that a medieval reader, Photius, described as “beyond what one would expect of a woman,” Cleopatra hit back at Antipater with all the ammunition she had. Perhaps she too, like her mother, held this man responsible for her brother’s death and now accused him to his face. Antipater somehow mollified her, for the two parted as friends. The empire’s senior commander and its most high-ranking royal still needed each other. Cleopatra was unwilling to be blamed for civil strife, and Antipater had learned, through the wretched example of Perdiccas, the high price a soldier would pay for killing an Argead princess.