Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/368

 ^6 HISTORY OF GREKCE. having the kings along with him, marched against Egypt to at- tack Ptolemy ; leaving his brother Alketas, in conjunction with Eumenes as general, to maintain his cause in Kappadokia and Asia Minor. Alketas, discouraged by the adverse feeling of the Macedonians generally, threw up the enterprise as hopeless. But Eumenes, though embarrassed and menaced in every way by Hie treacherous jealousy of his own Macedonian officers, and by the discontent of the soldiers against him as a Greek — and though compelled to conceal from these soldiers the fact that Kraterus, who was popular among them, commanded on the op- 2)osite side, — displayed nevertheless so much ability that he gained an important victory,^ in which both Neoptoleraus and Kraterus perished. Neoptolemus was killed by Eumenes with his own hand, after a personal conflict desperate in the extreme and long doubtful, and at the cost of a severe wound to himself.^ After the victory, he found Kraterus still alive, though expiring from his wound. Deeply afflicted at the sight, he did his utmost to restore the dying man ; and when this proved to be impossi- ble, caused his dead body to be honorably shrouded and trans- mitted into Macedonia for burial. This new proof of the military ability and vigor of Eumenes, together with the death of two such important officers as Kra- terus and Neoptolemus — proved ruinous to the victor himself, without serving the cause in which he fought. Perdikkas his chief did not live to hear of it. That general was so overbear- ing and tyrannical in his demeanor towards the other officers — and withal so unsuccessful in his first operations against Ptolemy on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile — that his own army muti- nied and slew him.^ His troops joined Ptolemy, whose concilia- ' Plutarch, Eumenes, 7; Cornel. Nepos, Eumenes, c. 4. Eumenes had tnvined a body of Asiatic and Thracian cavalry to fight in close combat with the short pike and sword of the Macedonian Companions — relinquish- in;r the javelin, the missiles, and the alternation of charging and retiring usual to Asiatics. Diodorus (xviii. 30, 31, 32) gives an account at some length of this bat' tie. He as well as Plutarch may probal Jy have borrowed from Iliercsy- pius of Kardia. ' Diodor. xviii. 36.
 * Arrian ap. Photium, Cod. 92; Justin, xiii. 8 Diodor. xviii. 33.