Phocion had always walked a middle path between Athens and Macedon and tried to keep the two nations at peace, but that middle path had become perilously narrow. When Polyperchon’s decree became known at Athens, an exuberant populace again demanded removal of the Piraeus garrison. Nicanor was invited to meet with a government council at a secure location, under a guarantee of safety. But the Athenians had laid a plot to arrest Nicanor as he entered the meeting place. Phocion warned Nicanor of the ambush so that he escaped just in time, and the public again howled with anger. Nicanor too was enraged and threatened to wreak vengeance on the Athenians. Phocion somehow managed to calm both sides, but the tension level in the city was rising fast.

It became clear that Polyperchon was sending an army toward Athens to enforce his decree and that Nicanor’s control of Munychia would then be at an end. Indeed, many in Athens were prepared to take up arms and end it themselves. Though his popularity was at a low ebb, Nicanor sent a letter to the Assembly, urging the Athenians to bar the new troops and side instead with Cassander. His arguments made little headway, but while he was distracting the citizens with rhetoric, he was also sneaking soldiers into his garrison by night. Phocion turned a blind eye, allowing the escalation to go on while preserving deniability. The elder statesman had seen by now that he must preserve Nicanor’s grip on Munychia, in hopes it would allow Cassander to prevail in the war. He might perhaps have recalled the warning Antipater had given him when he asked that no garrison be installed. “Phocion, we would grant you anything, except what would destroy you and us both,” the old man had told him. From the moment he agreed to work with the Macedonians, his fate had hung on their control of his city.

Athens and its harbor Piraeus, with walls protecting the traffic between them (Illustration credit 8.2)

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By the time the Athenians realized what Nicanor was up to, it was too late. His forces were large enough to defend the garrison against an uprising. Nicanor tightened his grip by bringing in mercenaries and seizing the entire harbor, along with the booms that controlled its entrance. He could now bar the ships of Polyperchon and admit those of Cassander or, if he chose, bar the food shipments on which Athens depended. Phocion again bore the brunt of the Athenians’ anger at their increasing impotence. As he got up to speak in the Assembly, he was hooted down in derision.

At this point a letter arrived in Athens from the dowager queen Olympias, still residing in Epirus but speaking as though on behalf of the Macedonian state. She commanded Nicanor to surrender his position. The Athenians rejoiced when they heard this, believing their troubles were at an end. Nicanor, for his part, seemed disconcerted and promised the garrison would indeed be vacated but again dragged his feet, stalling for time.

For Phocion, the situation had become fraught with peril. The war between Cassander and Polyperchon had become a Panhellenic struggle, with Cassander supporting oligarchic rulers all across Greece while Polyperchon backed democrats. Athens was split down the middle. In the upper city the clock continued to tick toward the freedom decree deadline, and a land army was expected to arrive any day to enforce it. In the harbor, Nicanor fortified his position and waited for Cassander to arrive by sea. Phocion had no way to know who would get there first or which side would prevail. He would benefit from a victory by Cassander, but had to avoid being seen as his ally in case the democrats, backed by Polyperchon, took power. He had to aid Nicanor just enough to ensure the garrison’s survival, but not enough to be branded a collaborator.

At last the army sent by Polyperchon arrived at Athens. In its train marched a column of exiled citizens and pro-democracy activists, among them Hagnonides, Phocion’s most determined foe. The army’s leader, Polyperchon’s son Alexander, took control of Athens itself, while Nicanor remained dug in behind the walls of Piraeus. Phocion pleaded with Alexander not to allow the enactment of the freedom decree, at least until the civil war was resolved. He set up negotiations between the two Macedonian generals, but when it was clear these talks were being held in closed chambers, Phocion again fell under suspicion. The people sensed they were being deceived and that Phocion was in league with their enemies. They were not entirely wrong.

Amid anger, paranoia, and demands for retribution, the restoration of the democracy finally came to pass. The Assembly, its ranks now swelled by returning exiles, voted in a clamorous session to depose the existing government and elect a new one. Phocion and his supporters were thrown out of office. Some took flight and headed to Piraeus; some were sentenced to execution; the lucky ones, including Phocion, were merely exiled and stripped of property. Though Hagnonides himself took the rostrum and denounced Phocion, the Athenians did not yet have the stomach to kill their long-serving elder statesman.

Rejected by the Athenians, Phocion looked to the Macedonians for support. He had carefully avoided backing Nicanor in any demonstrable way. Alexander, Polyperchon’s son, wrote a letter attesting to this, urging his father to treat Phocion and his friends as valued allies. Bearing this document, a bitter testament to his reliance on the kindness of strangers, Phocion made his way north to find Polyperchon. He had no hope of restoration of power, or even of property; he needed only a sanctuary in which to live out his remaining days. He must by now have hoped that these would be few.

7.

EUMENES, ANTIGENES, AND TEUTAMUS (CILICIA, SUMMER 318 B.C.)

Eumenes had arrived at the treasury of Cyinda and rendezvoused with the Silver Shields. Thanks to the letters he bore from Polyperchon, he was strat¯egos, or “commander in chief,” of Asia with power to draw on the royal treasuries, give orders to the royal army, and prosecute the war against Antigonus One-eye—who just a few weeks before had held exactly the same office and powers. Antigenes and Teutamus, co-captains of the Silver Shields, placed themselves at Eumenes’ disposal, as Polyperchon had ordered them to do.

The thought of commanding these officers must have given Eumenes pause. Teutamus was an unknown quantity, but Eumenes knew Antigenes well from their years together under Alexander. A tough, unflinching infantryman, more than sixty years old but still in peak form, Antigenes would be a powerful ally but a fearsome adversary. This man had played a large role in Perdiccas’ murder—first of the assassins to strike—and had also been among those who, the day following that murder, had condemned Eumenes to death. Despite the reversals of the past weeks, no one had bothered to revoke that death sentence; Polyperchon had not even mentioned it in his directives. Antigenes might regard it as still in effect.

Then, too, Eumenes would face the problem of his origins in dealing with Antigenes and Teutamus, just as he had with other Macedonian generals. Exercising the prerogatives of rank would not be easy for a Greek, no matter what Polyperchon decreed. Letters sent from Pella, half a world away, by a regent only barely hanging on to power, were a slender thread with which to bind these men’s loyalty—especially when Antigonus One-eye would eagerly welcome their defection.

Antigenes and Teutamus greeted Eumenes with respect, but soon tensions began to emerge. The two captains were reluctant to come to Eumenes’ tent for instructions, regarding this as a form of submission. Eumenes, for his part, was unwilling to go to theirs. Prejudice was once again threatening to set allied leaders at odds. Eumenes tried to use Greekness in his favor, claiming, as he had before in Babylon, that since he was barred from the throne, his motives were beyond reproach. He underscored this point by refusing the five hundred talents that Polyperchon had allotted him from the royal treasury. “I have no need of such a gift, since I have no aspirations toward rule,” he told the men now serving—he hoped—under him.