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Maybe someone can help me. I'm looking for the source of an anecdote in Robin Lane Fox's book Alexander the Great. On page 498 in the book, the story goes:

"Within five years of Alexander's death his Asian Successors gathered near Persia as if to discuss their differences; they could not be brought so much as to sit together, until the suggestion was made of Alexander's royal tent, where they could talk as equals before Alexander's sceptre, his royal robes and his empty throne. These men had been his officers, but they would not take common counsel without his unseen presence."

He gives no reference to this page in his "General Notes" section and I was wondering if anyone might know where Mr. Lane Fox had gotten it from. Thanks.

I think RLF is referring to Eumenes setting up the regalia in the tent of Alexander in 318/17.

Plutarch 13...

He said, namely, that Alexander had appeared to him in a dream, had shown him a tent arrayed in royal fashion with a throne standing in it, and had then said that if they held their councils and transacted their business there, he himself would be present and would assist them in every plan and enterprise which they undertook in his name. Eumenes easily convinced Antigenes and Teutamus that this was true. They were unwilling to go to him, and he himself thought it undignified to be seen at the doors of others. 4 So they erected a royal tent, and a throne in it which they dedicated to Alexander, and there they met for deliberation on matters of highest importance.

The scene is described twice in Diodorus. Firstly, at 18.60.5-6, Diodorus sets it in Cilcica when the Silver Shields join Eumenes:

He said that in his sleep he had seemed to see Alexander the king, alive and clad in his kingly garb, presiding over a council, giving orders to the commanders, and actively administering all the affairs of the monarchy. "Therefore," he said, "I think that we must make ready a golden throne from the royal treasure, and that after the diadem, the sceptre, the crown, and the rest of the insignia have been placed on it, all the commanders must at daybreak offer incense to Alexander before it, hold the meetings of the council in its presence, and receive their orders in the name of the king just as if he were alive and at the head of his own kingdom."

Later, when Eumenes and his army of some 15,000 join up with the satrapal coalition, he sites it near to Susa (19.15.3-4):

Eumenes, however, fearing that through their rivalry with each other they would become an easy prey for Antigonus, advised that they should not set up a single commander, but that all the satraps and generals who had been selected by the mass of the army should gather in the royal tent each day and take counsel together about what was to the common advantage. For a tent had been set up for Alexander although he was dead, and in the tent a throne, before which they were accustomed to make offerings and then to sit as a council in regard to matters that demanded attention. Since all approved his proposal as made in the general interest, he called a council each day like that of some city ruling itself on democratic principles.

Lane Fox, using “Asian Successors” and “discuss their differences” seems to have exaggerated the nature of the Macedonians gathered here. On first blush one might be forgiven for thinking Diadochoi such as Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Antigonus and others had assembled in a fashion reminiscent of Babylon immediately after Alexander’s death. In fact we have Eumenes and a group of satraps and strategoi of the upper satrapies. Peukestas might be described as possessing the ambition of such though Antigonus swiftly neutered him.

Lane Fox has the location right though. Although Diodorus first describes the tent in the context of the Silver Shields, in Cilicia, taking orders from Eumenes, his second description is much more likely to be correct. The Silver Shields, in obedience to the orders of the kings, had come from a considerable distance to put themselves in Eumenes’ service. There seems little need for any command tent of Alexander in that context.

In Susiane, however, Eumenes had just met up with the coalition army that had just seen off the territorial ambitions of Peithon Krateua. Peukestas was the “senior” officer of this coalition and had the largest single contingent. Letters from the kings or not, Peukestas immediately laid claim to command of the joint forces forcing a struggle between himself and Eumenes. It is in this context – with Eumenes needing to convince the other contingent commanders to support his leadership – that the the ploy of the Alexander tent makes far more sense. Nepos (7.2.3) describes the same ruse (as does Polyaenus at 4.8.2) and seems to situate it – in his extremely compressed narrative – just prior to Paraetecene.

Thank you very much Athenas Owl and Paralus! It is a little different than how Lane Fox put it (he is somewhat poetic with his language, in my opinion), but it solves the problem for me nonetheless.

I wonder if RLF has conflated Eumenes' ploy with the meetin at Triparedeisos.

agesilaos wrote:I wonder if RLF has conflated Eumenes' ploy with the meetin at Triparedeisos.

It's a bit early here (I'm on the tail end of the time zones )...but did Eumenes continue the practice after his meeting with Antigenes and Teutamus? Also, I would consider them "successors", just very unsuccessful ones. Seleucus, on the other hand, did succeed quite nicely, even though he originally wasn't one of the "top tier" fellas. But in "real time", Antigenes and Teutamus may have been seen as quite important. If it had been Seleucus that ended in the pit of fire...who knows.

Antigenes was also a satrap if memory serves.

agesilaos wrote:I wonder if RLF has conflated Eumenes' ploy with the meetin at Triparedeisos.

One would rather hope not: that would constitute grievous error! RLF has the meeting correct but just can’t resist the six o’clock news sound bite. It makes for a nice turn of phrase but also – in my view – exaggerates the position of some of the participants.

athenas owl wrote:It's a bit early here (I'm on the tail end of the time zones )...but did Eumenes continue the practice after his meeting with Antigenes and Teutamus?

And I’m in the **se-end of the world time zone…

I don’t believe Eumenes used the ploy at all in Cilicia. He arrived in Cyinda with his variously attested “friends” (1,000 or 2,500), produced a fist-full of legitimacy in the form of the royal letters whilst filling his other fist with the readies of the fabulously rich treasury. There “Antigenes and Teutamos, the leaders of the Silver Shields, in obedience to the letters of the kings, came from a considerable distance to meet Eumenes and his friends. After bidding him welcome and congratulating him on his unexpected escape from very great dangers, they promised to cooperate willingly with him in everything. The Macedonian Silver Shields, about three thousand in number, likewise met him with friendship and zeal” (Diod.18.59.3).

Plutarch, working from a somewhat different and very hostile tradition, claims that this was, in its entirety, a front. He claims the pair – Antigenes and Teutamos – at once set about to connive for the leadership. Diodorus, too, preserves some of this in the description of the Alexander tent device that follows in Cilicia. Here, though, it is framed in the context of one of Diodorus’ favourite topos: tyche or fortune and the turns that it takes; a theme which infuses Diodorus' work. In this tent “all the commanders would make sacrifice” after which all those commanders “would sit in the many chairs that had been placed about and take counsel together”. At this time the only such commanders are Eumenes, Antigenes and Teutamos. The 10,000 mercenaries are, as yet, unengaged and, in any case, hardly are to be accounted as ambitious to do the paymaster in.

Further, the subsequent narrative clearly describes the commanders of the Silver Shields rebuffing the attempts of Ptolemy to suborn them. The reason is loyalty to the Argead house and – a fortiori – its general:

But no one paid any attention to him because the kings and Polyperchon their guardian and also Olympias, the mother of Alexander, had written to them that they should serve Eumenes in every way, since he was the commander-in chief of the kingdom (18.62.2)

This is later echoed in Babylonia where Seleucus and Peithon send an “ambassador from themselves to Antigenes and the Silver Shields, asking them to remove Eumenes from his command” (19.12.2). Diodorus says that “the Macedonians paid no heed to this message” (19.12.3). This dismissive rebuff is reinforced at Seleucus’ second attempt where “Antigenes and his men were in no way persuaded” (19.13.2).

Likewise Antigonus ran rudely aground upon the rock of Argead loyalty when he sent Philotas and “thirty other Macedonians, meddlesome and talkative persons, whom he instructed to meet separately with Antigenes and Teutamos, the commanders of the Silver Shields, and through them to organize some plot against Eumenes” (18.62.4). Here Teutamos is corrupted by promises of gifts and a satrapy but, significantly, he was won back by Antigenes “who was a man of great shrewdness and trustworthiness” (62.6).

In all the above examples the only “commanders” are those of the Silver Shields and Eumenes. Diodorus has anticipated events in his narrative and the scene involving the Alexander tent in which all the commanders “would sit in the many chairs that had been placed about and take counsel together” belongs where he later sets it: in Susiane. Here Eumenes and his mercenaries, along with the Silver Shields, joined with the satraps and strategoi of the “upper” satrapies: Tlepolemus, Sibyrtius, Androbazus, Stasander, Eudamus as well as Peukestas whom Diodorus, significantly, describes as having “been a Bodyguard of Alexander and had been promoted by the king because of his courage” and “the most eminent of the commanders” (19.14.4).

Subsequently a council is called “in which there was found to be a good deal of rivalry for the chief command” (19.15.1). Peukestas, on the basis of the size of his contingent and his former rank of somatophylax, immediately laid claim to the supreme command. He will have had his supporters amongst the army of the satraps and strategoi so recently successful under his command. Again, significantly, it is Antigenes who claimed that “the right to make the selection ought to be granted to his Macedonians, since they had conquered Asia with Alexander and had been unconquered because of their valour” (19.15.2). By asserting this there is no reason that, on ‘exposed form’, Antigenes meant himself to be so elected; his support – and that of “his Macedonians” – had steadfastly been behind Eumenes since Cyinda.

It is precisely in such an atmosphere that Eumenes would resort to a device first suggested in Babylon in the days following Alexander’s death: the “Alexander tent”. It is here – rather than Cyinda – that the tent wherein all “the commanders” could gather and “sit in the many chairs that had been placed about and take counsel together”.

athenas owl wrote:Also, I would consider them "successors", just very unsuccessful ones […] in "real time", Antigenes and Teutamos may have been seen as quite important. If it had been Seleucus that ended in the pit of fire...who knows.

Antigenes was also a satrap if memory serves.

The text of Diodorus implies that both Teutamos and Antigenes were satraps. Certainly Antigenes was – of Susiane. “Successors” or Diadochoi likely, again, is a little above their rank.

The fact that Antigonus burned Antigenes alive in a pit not only confirms Antigonus’ strong streak of cruelty but shows just what he thought of Antigenes’ loyalty to the “royal general”. It also indicates that his famous wit and sense of humour did not quite extend to being reminded that Alexander had left him behind in Phrygia all those glorious campaigning seasons ago.

Paralus wrote:Lane Fox, using “Asian Successors” and “discuss their differences” seems to have exaggerated the nature of the Macedonians gathered here.

Lane Fox seems to have exaggerated almost everything in his chapter on the Successors. That's all I have to add to what Paralus excellently said.