Meleager and Attalus saw an opportunity for themselves. As matters stood, they were not going to be major beneficiaries of the new dispensation. But perhaps the passion of the infantry could sweep them to power. Instead of merely reporting the decision to the troops for their acclamation, they threw in their lot with the infantry. Before long, they returned to the palace at the head of an armed mob, insisting that Arrhidaeus be made king; they had chosen the name “Philip” for him, to remake him in the image of his heroic father, so that he would be Philip III, King of the Macedonians. Meleager had Arrhidaeus prominently displayed beside him, dressed as Alexander, while he himself wore the insignia of a Bodyguard of the new king. Disturbingly, the infantry had usurped the barons’ role and turned kingmaker, for the first time in Macedonian history. They had the right to acclaim a king, but never before had they effectively chosen one. Alexander’s death had shaken fundamental structures.

The cavalry, however, remained loyal to their officers and refused to accept the infantry’s choice. They were still committed to Rhoxane’s unborn child. Civil war was about to erupt between the cavalry and the infantry, as it almost had in India two years earlier, just at rumors of Alexander’s death. Within a day or two of his actual death, the champions of two rival candidates for the throne were poised to come to blows, and a mob was in the process of elevating a man who was not fully competent to kingship. These were not good omens for the future.

Perdiccas and a number of others took refuge in the vast palace with its hundreds of chambers, but it was not hard for Meleager’s men to force their way in. There was no way that Perdiccas could win this confrontation, so he surrendered. Leonnatus led the cavalry units and the war elephants out of the city. Perdiccas stayed in an attempt to patch things up, but, feeling uncertain whether he would remain alive long in Meleager’s Babylon, he soon joined Leonnatus in camp outside the city.

Meleager’s brief moment had arrived. He was the king’s right-hand man, he controlled Babylon, and he had possession of Alexander’s talismanic corpse. But this was illusory power. Leonnatus’s flight with the cavalry did not serve only to prevent Macedonians killing fellow Macedonians, but was also a tactical move. Their mobility enabled them effectively to put the city under siege.

Eumenes, however, had stayed in Babylon. As a Greek, he was able to steer a course among the opposing Macedonian factions. Meleager could see that the blockade of the city would quickly undermine his position, and certainly not all the infantry were in favor of civil war. So, a few days later, Meleager agreed to the compromise Eumenes suggested, certainly with Perdiccas’s approval: that Arrhidaeus and Rhoxane’s child (if it were male) should bothbe kings; that Meleager should become Perdiccas’s second-in-command; that Antipater should be retained, with the title “Royal General of Europe”; and that Craterus, who was the troops’ favorite as well as a friend of Meleager, should be made “protector of the kingdom,” perhaps the new Harpalus, responsible for the imperial exchequer. ⁶This compromise calmed things down enough for Perdiccas to return to Babylon, and the agreement was ritually ratified in the presence of Alexander’s corpse, “so that his majesty might witness their decisions.” ⁷

With hindsight, it is easy to see that Perdiccas never intended to honor this agreement. ⁸His concession was meant only to defuse the current crisis and buy him time. Perhaps this is how he had persuaded Leonnatus to take a back seat, when the first meeting had offered him equal power with Perdiccas in Asia—by telling him, “Give me a few days, and we should be able to bring you back on to center stage.” At any rate, if Meleager felt secure, he was sorely mistaken. Under the guise of continuing the reconciliation process, Perdiccas isolated Meleager from his most important ally by offering Attalus his daughter in marriage.

When Perdiccas struck he did so in a highly dramatic fashion. The reconciliation and the formal acknowledgment of Arrhidaeus as King Philip III were to be marked by a review and lustration of the entire army, and Perdiccas persuaded Meleager that they should also use the occasion to root out the last of the potential mutineers. In the course of the review, then, the troublemakers were called out—and they were all supporters of Meleager. Three hundred were thrown to the elephants, to be trampled to death—the first time this terrible form of punishment had been used in the Greek world—and to intimidate the infantry. Meleager himself survived for a day or two longer, before being summoned to face Perdiccas. He died “resisting arrest.” Meleager was the first to try to ride to power on the waves of chaos created by Alexander’s death. Those with latent ambitions looked on. Perdiccas’s cruelty taught them an important lesson: the only right would be might.

Perdiccas’s supremacy was ratified when the Bodyguards and other senior officers met again, this time without interference. At this final conference, Perdiccas was made regent, “Protector of the Kings,” one unborn and the other not fully competent; theoretically, all the regional governors of the empire would be subordinate to him. He promoted Seleucus to be his second-in-command, the post left vacant by Meleager’s death, and commander of the elite Companion Cavalry, the main strike force of the army.

The clearest sign of Perdiccas’s dominance is that he felt he could insult Leonnatus, who had been promised the coregency at the initial conference but was no longer slated for such an elevated role. It is likely that Perdiccas and Leonnatus had quarreled and fallen out; at any rate, Perdiccas hardly saw any need to appease him.

Antipater was confirmed as regent in Macedon; he was not to be recalled, as Alexander had wanted. This was sensible of Perdiccas, because whereas Antipater might have obeyed a summons from Alexander, he was hardly likely to submit to Perdiccas. As for Craterus, there was no further mention of “protector of the kingdom”—a grand, but perhaps empty title, probably accepted by Perdiccas and his followers only temporarily, as part of the process whereby they could eliminate Meleager and bring the infantry to heel. He was fobbed off with the joint generalship of Europe, when under Alexander’s orders he would have had this position all to himself. But perhaps he soon would anyway, since Antipater was well advanced in years. In any case, Craterus was far away in Cilicia; what was he going to do about it?

CONSEQUENCES

At the top of the tree, then, the final Babylon conference established an unequal triumvirate of Perdiccas, Antipater, and Craterus. Perdiccas had taken all Asia for himself; Antipater and Craterus had been restricted to Europe, where Perdiccas was content to leave them to find some way to work together, or to wait for Antipater to die. Before long, however, the framework for a reconciliation between Antipater and Perdiccas was in place. As well as reinstating the old viceroy, Perdiccas also offered to marry his daughter Nicaea. And Antipater’s son Cassander was given the command of the Shield-bearers, the position left vacant by Seleucus’s promotion.

Now that the succession had been settled, provisions had to be made for the maintenance of the empire. Perdiccas kept a number of his supporters by his side, but rewarded others with satrapies. He and his fellow marshals assiduously avoided taking thought for the longer-term administration of the empire. They simply retained the existing structure, for the time being, and took over the old, somewhat laissez-faire Persian system, whereby all the satraps were answerable to the king, but as long as they paid their satrapies’ taxes and kept the peace within and on their borders—as long as they did not draw attention to themselves—were left pretty much to their own devices. They could enrich themselves and their favorites and live like kings in their own right. The only difference was that this time they were answerable not to any single king but to the kings’ representative, Perdiccas, who was assigned no particular territory, and therefore occupied the position held in the past by the Persian king or by Alexander.