Perdiccas had stage-managed the meeting in high ritual fashion. The noble Companions were to deliberate in the presence of Alexander’s empty throne, which was adorned with the royal robes and armor, and the diadem, the simple hair band that Alexander had made the symbol of kingship. And he opened the meeting with a moment of silence in which he added to the display the signet ring that Alexander himself had handed him not long before his death. ⁴Reverence for the symbols of kingship was a Macedonian tradition. It was a solemn moment, but they had to put aside such feelings and get down to some hard negotiation.

The critical assumption of the meeting was that the task for the foreseeable future was to keep hold of all of the territories acquired by Alexander, and the corollary of this was that those areas within the empire that remained unsubdued should be brought into line, and borders and other trouble spots should be secured. There was work to be done, but also a hierarchy to be established, with Alexander’s heir at its head. The existing administration was bound to be shaken up, and there would be plum jobs available for those who played the game of power well. But above all they had to determine whose domain it was in the first place.

Perdiccas used the weight of his authority to argue that they should all wait and see whether Rhoxane’s unborn child was a boy, and then make it king. She would come to term in a couple of months, and he hoped and expected not only to hold the reins of power until then, but to act as regent afterward, until the boy came of age—if the boy were allowed to come of age. No doubt Perdiccas remembered that Philip II had gained the Macedonian throne after acting as regent; no doubt he was already hoping that Rhoxane would give birth to a girl, so that power could more easily remain in his hands.

The first hint that Perdiccas was not going to have things all his own way—and of the tensions just below the surface of the meeting—came from Nearchus. He agreed that it was unthinkable to consider anyone but a boy with Argead blood a legitimate successor, but argued that the situation was too tense to wait even the few weeks until Rhoxane should give birth. He proposed, then, that Heracles should be made king. This was Nearchus’s bid for power, since at the Susa weddings of the previous year he had gained as his wife Heracles’ half sister. Eumenes, who had gained Heracles’ aunt, was silent; he was Perdiccas’s man, or at any rate an Argead loyalist who was naturally inclined to favor Rhoxane’s offspring. Nearchus’s suggestion was shouted down, on the grounds that Alexander himself had never acknowledged the child as his own and therefore as a possible heir.

Ptolemy pointed out the problem with both Heracles and Rhoxane’s unborn son: they were not full-blooded Macedonians, and therefore would not be acceptable in all quarters. Some would wonder what had been the point of conquering the east, if an easterner was then given the throne. Ptolemy suggested a compromise solution. He wanted to see the inner circle of Alexander’s advisers become a junta of marshals; they had been Alexander’s council in war and peace, and so they should continue to meet in the presence of Alexander’s famous golden throne, and to deliberate and issue decrees for the empire, just as they always had done. This suggestion was an attempt on Ptolemy’s part to gain at least equal power with the other members of his proposed junta for himself and his allies, chiefly Peithon and Leonnatus. Otherwise, and especially because he and Perdiccas were not on the best of terms, he could see himself becoming sidelined. The proposal was not as republican as it looked; spelled out, it meant that Alexander’s Bodyguards and senior Companions would be assigned satrapies and other positions of responsibility, so that the most powerful of them, at least, would each in a sense be monarchs of their own kingdoms, but they would meet as a council when decisions had to be taken for the empire as a whole.

Ptolemy’s impractical solution met, to Perdiccas’s irritation, with considerable approval, presumably because more people present saw it as a way of gaining a slice of the pie themselves. An impasse was rapidly developing, created by the mutual distrust of the senior officers. Aristonous tried to tip the scales in Perdiccas’s direction by suggesting that the unconstitutional irregularity of any kind of period without a true king could be avoided if Perdiccas himself were to succeed to the throne. This idea too was warmly welcomed; perhaps that is what Ale xander had meant by handing his ring to Perdiccas, who was, after all, royal in his own right, even if not an Argead.

Perdiccas was tempted, but he was intelligent enough to realize that confrontation would inevitably follow his assumption of kingship. There were many who were loyal to the Argead line, and it would be easy for someone to challenge his right to the throne once Rhoxane’s child was born. At the same time, if he had Rhoxane and her unborn child killed, he would court massive unpopularity. So he could not be king, but it appeared that he could not be regent of an unborn child either, and that any kind of interregnum might be unacceptable and unworkable. Even while he was hesitating and considering his options, Meleager, a respected infantry officer, was arguing against his or any other man’s sole regency, on the grounds that it would be equivalent to non-Argead kingship.

So far, if our confusing sources have preserved at least in outline some traces of the actual debate, Alexander’s half brother Arrhidaeus had not been mentioned as a candidate for kingship. But Arrhidaeus was, to put it patronizingly, a kind of mascot for the infantry, and a royal presence in their religious rituals. It became clear to those inside the palace that those outside would like to see Arrhidaeus on the throne: he was an adult, fully Macedonian Argead, and he was there in Babylon. He may even have already been given the honorary title of King of Babylon by Alexander. ⁵There was no need for an interregnum.

Peithon, however, spoke for many in dismissing the idea that a half-wit should occupy the Macedonian throne. He suggested a less radical way out of the impasse than had been mentioned before, and one that recognized his friend Leonnatus’s stature: Perdiccas and Leonnatus, as the two with the highest credentials, should act in Asia as regents for the boy king, Rhoxane’s child, when he was born, while Antipater and Craterus should similarly be the guardians of the kingdom in Europe. After a little more debate, this was the position on which this first meeting settled.

PERDICCAS’S CHANCE

It is commonly said that a camel is a horse designed by committee; certainly Alexander’s Companions had produced a camel. If anyone had stopped to think, it must have been obvious that the existence of four regents for the next eighteen years or so (or three regents, once aged Antipater had died) was no recipe for peace. And, although Perdiccas’s lobby in the meeting had been powerful—in addition to Aristonous and Eumenes, he had the support of several very highly respected senior officers, including his younger brother Alcetas and Seleucus—he was not likely to be happy with the outcome. He had glimpsed and laid claim to sole power, only to be denied it. In short, the outcome of the first meeting looks like a temporary measure. Scheming undoubtedly continued behind the scenes.

Nevertheless, the Companions behaved as though they had found a solution. Delegates were chosen to present the decision of the meeting to the cavalry and the infantry. The cavalry made no demur, but the infantry was incensed. The officers who were sent to win them over, led by Meleager and a respected senior officer called Attalus, met with the overwhelming demand that Arrhidaeus be made king. The loyalty of the Macedonian infantry to the Argead line was impressive, and the fact that the cavalry was prepared to go along with the meeting’s decision would hardly have weighed with them at all. Every ancient commander had to come to terms with the fact that his forces consisted of two groups who were perennially divided: the cavalry and all the senior officers came from the highest social classes, while the infantry was made up of peasant farmers. The two did not always see eye to eye, and sometimes even had to be coerced into making up a single fighting unit.