Eumenes

In consequence of this, Eumenes was again in high favour; and once when letters were found in his camp which the leaders of the enemy had caused to be scattered there, wherein they offered a hundred talents and honours to any one who should kill Eumenes, his Macedonians were highly incensed and made a decree that a thousand of the leading soldiers should serve him continually as a body-guard, watching over him when he went abroad and spending the night at his door.

These carried out the decree, and were delighted to receive from Eumenes such honours as kings bestow upon their friends. For he was empowered to distribute purple caps and military cloaks, and this was a special gift of royalty among Macedonians.

Now, prosperity lifts even men of inferior natures to higher thoughts, so that they appear to be invested with a certain greatness and majesty as they look down from their lofty state; but the truly magnanimous and constant soul reveals itself rather in its behaviour under disasters and misfortunes. And so it was with Eumenes.

For, to begin with, he was defeated by Antigonus[*](Early in 320 B.C.) at Orcynii in Cappadocia through treachery,[*](Antigonus had corrupted Apollonides, commander of a division of cavalry under Eumenes, and he went over to the enemy in the midst of the battle, with his division. Cf. Diodorus, xviii. 40, 5-8.) and yet, though in flight, he did not suffer the traitor to make his escape out of the rout to the enemy, but seized and hanged him. Then, taking the opposite route in his flight to that of his pursuers, he changed his course before they knew it, and, passing along by them, came to the place where the battle had been fought. Here he encamped, collected the bodies of the dead, and burned them on pyres made from the doors of the neighbouring villages, which he had split into billets. He burned the bodies of the officers on one pyre, those of the common soldiers on another, heaped great mounds of earth over the ashes, and departed, so that even Antigonus, when he came up later, admired his boldness and constancy.