Eumenes

They had also written concerning these matters to Antigenes and Teutamus, the commanders of the Silver-shields. These men, on receiving their letters, ostensibly treated Eumenes with friendliness, but were plainly full of envy and contentiousness, disdaining to be second to him. Eumenes therefore allayed their envy by not taking the money, alleging that he had no need of it;

while upon their love of contention and love of command, seeing that they were as unable to lead as they were unwilling to follow, he brought superstition to bear. He said, namely, that Alexander had appeared to him in a dream, had shown him a tent arrayed in royal fashion with a throne standing in it, and had then said that if they held their councils and transacted their business there, he himself would be present and would assist them in every plan and enterprise which they undertook in his name. Eumenes easily convinced Antigenes and Teutamus that this was true. They were unwilling to go to him, and he himself thought it undignified to be seen at the doors of others.

So they erected a royal tent, and a throne in it which they dedicated to Alexander, and there they met for deliberation on matters of highest importance. And now, as they advanced into the interior of the country,[*](In 317 B.C., against Antigonus, who was in Mesopotamia. He had received the satrapy of Susiana.) Peucestas,[*](One of the most distinguished officers of Alexander, who bad been made satrap of Persia during Alexander’s lifetime.) who was a friend of Eumenes, met them with the other satraps, and they joined their forces, so that the number of their men and the splendour of their equipment raised the spirits of the Macedonians. But the leaders themselves had been made unmanageable by their exercise of power, and effeminate by their mode of life, after the death of Alexander,

and they brought into collision spirits that were tyrannical and fed on barbaric arrogance, so that they were harsh towards one another and hard to reconcile. Moreover, by flattering the Macedonian soldiery extravagantly and lavishing money upon them for banquets and sacrifices, in a short time they made the camp a hostelry of festal prodigality, and the army a mob to be cajoled into the election of its generals, as in a democracy.

Eumenes, however, perceiving that, while they despised one another, they feared him and were on the watch for an opportunity to kill him, pretended to be in need of money, and got together many talents by borrowing from those who hated him most, in order that they might put confidence in him and refrain from killing him out of regard for the money they had lent him. The consequence was that the wealth of others was his body-guard, and that, whereas men generally preserve their lives by giving, he alone won safety by receiving.