Eumenes

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.

Again, when he came upon the baggage of Antigonus, and could easily have captured many freemen, many slaves, and wealth amassed from so many wars and plunderings, he was afraid that his men, if loaded down with booty and spoils, would become too heavy for flight, and too luxurious to endure wanderings and lapse of time. In lapse of time, however, he placed his chief hopes for ending the war, feeling that he could thus cause Antigonus to turn back.

But since it was quite a difficult matter to deflect his Macedonians from good things which were within their reach, he ordered them to refresh themselves and bait their horses before advancing upon the enemy. He himself, however, sent a secret message to Menander, who was in charge of the enemy’s baggage, implying that he was concerned for him as an old time friend and comrade, and advising him to be on his guard and withdraw as quickly as possible from his low-lying and accessible position to the foot-hills near by, which could not be reached by cavalry or surrounded.

Menander speedily comprehended his peril and decamped, and then Eumenes openly sent out scouts and ordered his soldiers to arm themselves and bridle their horses, as he was going to lead them against the enemy. But when the scouts brought word that Menander was altogether safe from capture now that he had taken refuge in a difficult region, Eumenes pretended to be vexed, and led his forces away.

And it is said that when Menander bore witness of these things to Antigonus, and the Macedonians began to praise Eumenes and felt more kindly towards him, because, when it was in his power to enslave their children and outrage their wives, he had spared them and let them go, Antigonus said: Nay, my good men, that fellow did not let them go out of regard for you, but because he was afraid to put such fetters on himself in his flight.