Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/352

 320 HISTOKY OF GREECE. cities handed over to new masters, as fragments of the vast in testate estate left by Alexander. The empty form of convening and consulting a synod of deputies at Corinth, -was no longer thought necessary. All the above-named officers were considered as local lieu- tenants, administering portions of an empire one and indivisible, under Arida;us. The principal officers who enjoyed central authority, bearing on the entire empire, were, Perdikkas, chili- arch of the horse (the post occupied by Hephaestion until his death), a sort of vizir,i and Seleukus, commander of the Horse Guards. No one at this moment talked of dividing the empire. But it soon appeared that Perdikkas, profiting by the weakness of Arida3us, had determined to leave to him nothing more than the imperial name, and to engross for himself the real authority. Still, however, in his disputes with the other chiefs, he repre- sented the imperial family, and the integrity of the empire, con- tending against severality and local independence. In this task (besides his brother Alketas), his ablest and most effective auxiliary was Eumenes of Kardia, secretary of Alexander for several years until his death. It was one of the earliest pro- ceedings of Perdikkas to wrest Kappadokia from the local chief Ariai-athes (who had contrived to hold it all through the reign of Alexander), and to transfer it to Eumenes, to whom it had been allotted in the general scheme of division.^ At the moment of Alexander's death, Kraterus was in Kilikia, at the head of an army of veteran Macedonian soldiers. He had been directed to conduct them home into Macedonia, with ordei-s to remain there himself in place of Antipater, who was to come over to Asia with fresh reinforcements. Kraterus had with him a paper of written instructions from Alexander, em- bodying projects on the most gigantic scale; for western con- quest — transportation of inhabitants by wholesale from Europe into Asia and Asia into Europe — erection of magnificent religious edifices in various parts of Greece and Macedonia, etc. This list was submitted by Perdikkas to the officers and soldiers around him, who dismissed the projects as too vast for ' Arrian and Dexippus — De Reb. post Alex, ul supra: compare Diodor xviii. 48. ^ Diodor. xviii. 16.