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Updated: June 28, 2025
He was obliged to content his military colleagues, which he did by giving to them provinces. The principal regents, or guardians, were soon reduced to three, Antipater and Craterus in Europe, and Perdiccas. The government was carried on in the name of Roxana's son, and of Arrhidaeus, the half-brother of Alexander.
First came the elephants, then the light infantry, next the storming party with ladders, and lastly, the pick of the cavalry, who, if the enemy should burst out during the storming, could easily drive them back. Perdiccas hoped, if he could only get a firm footing on that side of the river, to annihilate the Egyptian army easily with his superior force.
As he approached the Egyptian frontier, he found his soldiers very averse to fighting against Ptolemy, a general whom they had always regarded with extreme respect and veneration, and who, as was well known, had governed his province in Egypt with the greatest wisdom, justice, and moderation. Perdiccas treated this disaffection in a very haughty and domineering manner.
He now sent envoys to Perdiccas to command his attendance with an army, as provided by the alliance; and others to Thrace, to Polles, king of the Odomantians, who was to bring as many Thracian mercenaries as possible; and himself remained inactive in Eion, awaiting their arrival.
Meantime, Perdiccas was coming home, bringing with him the two young kings, uncle and nephew, and meaning to put Antipater down; but he turned aside on his way to attack Ptolemy, the ablest of all Alexander’s generals, who was commanding in Egypt, and in trying to cross the Nile a great part of his army was cut off, and multitudes were eaten by the crocodiles.
Alexander on his death-bed is said to have given his signet-ring to Perdiccas, but he had left no legitimate heir to his throne, though his wife Roxana was pregnant. Perdiccas reserved for himself the command of the horse-guards, the post before held by Hephaestion, in virtue of which he became the guardian of Philip Arrhidaeus, the nominal sovereign.
Cynane set out from Macedon with her daughter, on the journey to Asia, in order to carry this arrangement into effect. This was considered as a very bold undertaking on the part of Cynane and her daughter; for Perdiccas would, of course, be implacably hostile to any plan for the marriage of Philip, and especially so to his marrying a princess of the royal family of Macedon.
He recognised, also, from the first, the tendency of the age: the tendency to split up the kingdom into different states; and he had made this the basis of his policy. He was the leader of the new movement that soon generated disunity, and to this end he made a secret contract with Antipatros against the regent Perdiccas.
But Perdiccas, believing he was able enough to attain his own further objects without assistance, and that the country he left behind him might stand in need of an active and faithful governor, when he came into Cilicia, dismissed Eumenes, under color of sending him to his command, but in truth to secure Armenia, which was on its frontier, and was unsettled through the practices of Neoptolemus.
Perdiccas had bestowed this satrapy upon Laomedon, the Amphysolite, who had taken no part in the great fight between Perdiccas and Ptolemy. Ptolemy now informed him that he wished to possess his satrapy, but was ready to compensate him with a sum of money. Laomedon refused this offer with scorn. Thereupon, an army under Nicanor, one of the "friends" of Ptolemy, marched into Palestine.
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