“If ever the gods gave a man a powerful dream, they gave one to me at cockcrow. A dream more real than waking. My name was called. I knew the voice, it was Alexander’s. He was in my tent, in that very chair that you, Teutamos, are sitting on. ‘Eumenes!’ he said.”
They sat forward in their chairs. Teutamos’ gnarled hands stroked the pinewood arms as if he touched a talisman.
“I begged his pardon for sleeping in his presence, as if he had been alive. He had on his white robe edged with purple, and a gold diadem. ‘I am holding a council of state,’ he said. ‘Are you all here?’ And he looked about him. Then it seemed the tent was not mine but his, the tent he took from Darius. He was there on his throne, with the Bodyguard around him; and you too were there, with the other generals, waiting for his words. He leaned forward to address us; but as he began, I woke.”
Skilled in the arts of rhetoric, he had tried none here. He had looked and spoken like a man remembering something momentous. It had worked. They were looking at one another, but not in distrust, only wondering what it meant.
“I believe,” he said, “that I divined Alexander’s wish. He is concerned for us. He wants to be present at our councils. If we appeal to him, he will guide us in our decisions.” He paused for questions; but they hardly murmured.
“So let us not receive him meanly. Here we have the gold of Koyinda which you, gentlemen, have guarded for him faithfully. Let us send for craftsmen to make him a golden throne, a scepter and a diadem, let us dedicate a tent to him, and lay the insignia on the throne, and offer incense to his spirit. Then we will confer before him, making him our supreme commander.”
Their shrewd, scarred faces considered him. He was not, it seemed, setting himself above them; he was not planning to steal the treasure; if Alexander had appeared only to him, after all he had known him well. And Alexander liked his orders obeyed.
The tent, the throne and the insignia were ready within a week. Even some purple was found, to dye a canopy. When it was time to march towards Phoenicia, they met in the tent to discuss the coming campaign. Before they sat down, each offered his pinch of incense at the little portable altar, saying, “Divine Alexander, favor us.” All of them deferred to Eumenes, whose divination was manifest around them.
It did not matter that scarcely any of them had seen Alexander enthroned. They remembered him in old leather cuirass and burnished greaves, his helmet off for them to see him, riding along the line before an action, reminding them of their past victories and telling them how to win another. They did not care that the local goldsmith was not of the highest skill. The shining of the gold, the smoke of frankincense, wakened a memory long silted over by the weather and war and weariness of thirteen years; of a golden chariot driving in triumph through the flower-strewn streets of Babylon; the trumpets, the paean, the censers and the cheers. For a little while, standing before the empty throne, it seemed to them that they might become what they once had been.
317 B.C.
THE SPRING SUN WARMED THE HILLS, melting the snows; first filling, then tempering the streams. Roads deep in mud and silted with scree grew firm again. The land opened to war.
Kassandros, with the fleet and army Antigonos had lent him, crossed the Aegean and landed at Piraeus, the port of Athens. Before his father was dead, he had sent a man of his own to take command of the Macedonian garrison in the harbor fort. While the Athenians were still discussing the royal decree and the offer of their ancient liberties, they found that the garrison had come down and occupied the harbor. Kassandros had sailed in unopposed.
Polyperchon, getting this news, despatched advance troops under his son Alexandras. The campaign hung fire; he prepared to set out himself. When he began to mobilize, he came to the palace to see King Philip.
Eurydike received him with the offerings of formal hospitality; she was resolved to have her presence recognized. Polyperchon, as formally, asked after both their health, listened to Philip’s account of a cockfight to which Konon had lately taken him, and then said, “Sir. I have come to tell you that we shall soon be marching south together. The traitor Kassandros must be dealt with. We shall start in seven days. Please tell your people to have your baggage ready. I will see your man about your horses.”
Philip nodded cheerfully. He had been on the march for nearly half his life, and took it as a matter of course. He did not understand what the war was about; but Alexander had seldom told him. “I shall ride Whitefoot,” he said. “Eurydike, which horse will you ride?”
Polyperchon cleared his throat. “Sir, this is a campaign. The lady Eurydike will of course remain at Pella.”
“But I can take Konon?” said Philip anxiously.
“By all means, sir.” Polyperchon did not look that way.
There was a pause. He awaited the storm. But in fact Eurydike said nothing.
It had never occurred to her that she could be left behind, She had looked forward to the escape from the tedium of the palace to the freedom of the camp. In the first moment of learning that she had been relegated to the women’s rooms she had been as angry as Polyperchon had expected, and had been on the point of protest, when there came into her mind Kassandros’ unspoken message. How could she influence affairs, trailing along with the army, watched at every turn? But here at home, with the guardian away at war …
She swallowed her anger at being so belittled, and held her peace. Afterwards, she found a lingering hurt that Philip had found Konon more necessary than her. After all I have done for him, she thought.
Polyperchon meantime was at the other end of the palace. Here were the quarters where the elder Philip had moved, when he ceased to share the great bedchamber with Olympias. They were handsome enough to satisfy Roxane, and her son did not complain of them. They opened onto an old orchard where he liked to play now that the days grew warmer. The plum-trees were already budding, and the grass smelled of hidden violets. “Considering his tender years and need of his mother,”
Polyperchon said, “I shall not expose the King to the hardships of the march. In any treaties I may sign or edicts I may issue, his name will of course appear with King Philip’s, as if he were present too.”
“So,” said Roxane, “Philip will go with you?” “Yes; he is a grown man, it will be expected.” “Then his wife will go to care for him?” Her voice had sharpened.
“No, madam. War is not women’s “business.” She opened her black eyes till the clear white showed all round. “Then,” she cried, “who will protect my son and me?”
What could the foolish woman mean? He brought down his brows in irritation, and answered that Macedon would be left well garrisoned.
“Macedon? Here, in this house, who will protect us from that she-wolf? She will only wait to see you gone before she murders us.”
“Madam,” he said testily, “we are not now in the wilds of Asia. The Queen Eurydike is a Macedonian and will obey the law. Even if she wished otherwise, she would not dare touch the son of Alexander. The people would have her blood.”
He left, thinking, Women! They make war seem a holiday. The thought consoled him among his cares. Since the new decree, nearly all the Greek cities were in a state of civil war, or on the verge of it; the coming campaign promised every kind of confusion and uncertainty. Roxane’s notion that he would add to his troubles by taking that termagant girl along was enough to make a man laugh.
A week later the army marched. From the balcony of the great bedchamber, Eurydike had watched the troops assemble on the great drill-field where Philip and Alexander had trained their men; had seen the long column wind slowly down alongside the lagoon, making for the coast road to the south.