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Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans

Plutarch · c. 100 CE (composed over time) primary

passage 804 of 1497 · (804/1424)

in brief
As Eumenes advances into interior Asia, allied satraps join him, but Macedonian troops become luxurious and quarrelsome, so Eumenes borrows money from those who hate him and thus turns their greed into his protection.

to be seen waiting at other men's doors. Accordingly, they erected a tent royal, and a throne, called Alexander's, and there they met to consult upon all affairs of moment.

Afterwards they advanced into the interior of Asia, and in their march met with Peucestes, who was friendly to them, and with the other satraps, who joined forces with them, and greatly encouraged the Macedonians with the number and appearance of their men. But they themselves, having since Alexander's decease become imperious and ungoverned in their tempers, and luxurious in their daily habits, imagining themselves great princes, and pampered in their conceit by the flattery of the barbarians, when all these conflicting pretensions now came together, were soon found to be exacting and quarrelsome one with another, while all alike unmeasurably flattered the Macedonians, giving them money for revels and sacrifices, till in a short time they brought the camp to be a dissolute place of entertainment, and the army a mere multitude of voters, canvassed as in a democracy for the election of this or that commander. Eumenes, perceiving they despised one another, and all of them feared him, and sought an opportunity to kill him, pretended to be in want of money, and borrowed many talents, of those especially who most hated him, to make them at once confide in him, and forbear all violence to him for fear of losing their own money. Thus his enemies' estates were the guard of his person, and by receiving money he purchased safety, for which it is more common to give it.

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topics: corruption, patronage, and bribery · mobilization and recruitment

Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · Plutarch · 90–120