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When Alexander was dead1 and a quarrel had arisen between the Macedonian men-at-arms and his principal officers, or companions,2 Eumenes sided with the latter in his opinions, but in what he said he was a kind of common friend to both and held himself aloof from the quarrel, on the ground that it was no business of his, since he was a stranger, to meddle in disputes of Macedonians. Moreover, when the rest of the principal officers had withdrawn from Babylon, he remained behind in the city and mollified many of the men-at-arms and made them more disposed towards a settlement of the quarrel.
1 June 13, 323 B.C.
2 The quarrel was over the succession to Alexander's throne. The officers, supported by the cavalry, proposed that the crown be reserved for the child of Roxana by Alexander, if it should be a son, and that Perdiccas should be regent in the meantime; the infantry demanded that Arrhidaeus, the bastard brother of Alexander, should at once be proclaimed king. In the end a compromise was effected, and Perdiccas became chief in command under Arrhidaeus, with whom Alexander's son, when born, was to be joint king. Cf. the Alexander, lxxvii. 5.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919. 8.
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