Life of Eumenes

This life of Eumenes of Cardia comes from Cornelius Nepos' surviving book on foreign generals, written in the first century BC. Its subject belongs to the turbulent years after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, when his generals fought for his empire.

Nepos notes that Eumenes, as a Greek among Macedonians, was held back by his birth. He served for years as private secretary to Philip II and then to Alexander, and after Alexander's death received the province of Cappadocia. Loyal to the royal house, he sided with the regent Perdiccas, and defeated and killed the general Craterus and Neoptolemus in battle. Condemned by the other Macedonians, he was besieged through a winter in the fortress of Nora, where he kept his horses fit by hoisting them up so that they kicked themselves into exercise. He later commanded the royal forces in Asia on behalf of Alexander's family, including the elite Macedonian veterans known as the Silver Shields, and outmanoeuvred Antigonus in a series of campaigns. In the end his own troops, whose baggage had been captured, handed him over to Antigonus, who had him put to death in 316 BC. Nepos ends with Antigonus' honourable burial of his enemy.

The life is a study in loyalty and ingenuity against heavy odds. Nepos' Latin is easy and his anecdotes are vivid.