Eumenes

His sword, however, he still retained, and while Eumenes, transported with rage and ancient hatred, was stripping off his armour and reviling him, Neoptolemus surprised him with a wound under the breastplate, where it reaches the groin. But the blow gave Eumenes more fright than harm, since lack of strength made it feeble. After stripping the dead body, weak as he was from wounds received in legs and arms, Eumenes nevertheless had himself put upon his horse and hastened to the other wing, supposing that the enemy were still resisting.

But when he learned of the fate of Craterus and had ridden up to where he lay, and saw that he was still alive and conscious, he dismounted, wept bitterly, clasped his hand, and had many words of abuse for Neoptolemus, and many words of pity for Craterus in his evil fortune, and for himself in the necessity which had brought him into a conflict with a friend and comrade, where he must do or suffer this harm.[*](According to Nepos (Eumenes, iv. 4), Eumenes gave Craterus worthy funeral rites, and sent his remains to his wife and children in Macedonia.)

This battle was won by Eumenes about ten days after the former.[*](Cf. chapter v. 3.) It lifted his reputation high, and he was thought to have accomplished his task alike with wisdom and bravery; but it got him much envy and hatred as well among his allies as among his enemies. They felt that he, an alien and a stranger, had used the arms and might of the Macedonians for slaying the foremost and most approved of them.

Now, if Perdiccas could have learned in time of the death of Craterus, no one else would have had chief place among Macedonians; but as it was, he was slain in a mutiny of his soldiers in Egypt[*](See the note on chapter vi. 3.) two days before this report of the battle came to his camp, and his Macedonians, in a rage, at once condemned Eumenes to death. Moreover, Antigonus was appointed to conduct the war against him, in conjunction with Antipater.

When Eumenes fell in with the royal herds of horse that were pasturing about Mount Ida, he took as many horses as he wanted and sent a written statement of the number to the overseers. At this, we are told, Antipater laughed and said that he admired Eumenes for his forethought, since he evidently expected to give an account of the royal properties to them, or to receive one from them.

Because he was superior in cavalry, Eumenes wished to give battle in the plains of Lydia about Sardis, and at the same time he was ambitious to make a display of his forces before Cleopatra[*](See the note on chapter iii. 5.); but at the request of that princess, who was afraid to give Antipater any cause for complaint, he marched away into upper Phrygia and wintered at Celaenae. Here Alcetas, Polemon, and Docimus strove emulously with him for the chief command, whereupon he said This bears out the saying, Of perdition no account is made.

Moreover, having promised to give his soldiers their pay within three days, he sold them the homesteads and castles about the country, which were full of slaves and flocks. Then every captain in the phalanx or commander of mercenaries who had bought a place was supplied by Eumenes with implements and engines of war and took it by siege; and thus every soldier received the pay that was due him, in a distribution of the captured properties.