Heirs to the Empire- Perdiccas at the Nile

[Easy E]

I am saving up cash to get a couple of 6mm Baccus Diadochi armies for this game...... in the meantime, paper templates will have to do the job.



After Alexander's Death, a dispute broke out between the foot officers and the cavalry officers over who should rule the Macedonian Empire. The officers of the infantry wished it to be Alexander's half-brother who was rumored to be an imbecile. The Cavalry officers supported the unborn child of Alexander's Persian wife, Roxanne. Through treachery, the Cavalry officers were victorious int eh dispute. This led to the raising of Perdiccas to regent.

As regent, Perdiccas ruled on behalf of Alexander's infant son. In theory, he ruled the Diadochi. However, many of the most powerful men across the new Hellenistic world would not settle for anything less than total power of their own. In a bid to seal his own power base, Ptolemy stole Alexander's body and spirited it away to Egypt. This was a great affront to the regent's power and Perdiccas prepared to march.

However, he could not leave the rest of the Empire undefended. In Turkey, he appointed Eumenes of Cardia to defend the region with the help of Neoptolemus the Satrap of Armenia. This was to protect the fertile heartland of the empire from the scheming and violent Craterus and Antipater in Europe. The results of his efforts can be seen in the battle reports here and here.

Perdiccas himself raised an army and marched for Egypt. Ptolemy drew up his army on the opposite side of the Nile and waited to face his foe. The Nile had traditional been a key strategic asset in protecting Egypt and Ptolemy banked on its help once more. The Nile was prone to flooding and had a strong current. Perdiccas tried to use his elephants as breakwaters in the waterway to allow his troops to cross. However, the footing was unstable. The fording of the river failed and a considerable number of lives were lost.

Angry at this unnecessary loss of life, Perdiccas was approached by a delegation of his officers in his tent. What exactly transpired is unclear, but Perdiccas himself was killed. Soon the invasion of Egypt was canceled and the attempt recover Alexander's body abandoned. Today's battle is an attempt to “re-fight” the battle that never happened between Perdiccas and Ptolemy. It is a great 'What-If” scenario as the following 6 Wars of the Diadochi may have been very different if the official regent of Alexander had lived, Alexander's body restored to Macedon, and the Silver Shields stayed within the loyalist camp.

This battle is a “What if” battle. This assumes that Perdiccas and Ptolemy did have a battle at the banks of the Nile. Instead of a failed crossing, this battle will be a forced crossing where Perdiccas is trying to force his army across the Nile in the face of Ptolemy's resistance. The winner will earn the right to keep Alexander's body as a talisman of legitimacy of rule.

The Forces:

Perdiccas-
Left Wing:
Epilektoi Cavalry- Seleceus

Center:
Silver Shields- Antigenes
Elephants
Bronze Shields

Right Wing:
Companion Cavalry- Perdiccas

Total Point- 54

Ptolemy-

Left Wing:
3 Archers

Center:
Bronze Shield
2 White Shields

Right Wing:
Epilektoi Cavalry- Ptolemy
Asphract Cavalry

Total Points- 54

Mission:
This will be a Forced Crossing by Perdiccas against Ptolemy. The objective is for Perdiccas to get 10 points off the opposite board edge in 8 turns. To make the game more like the historical situation, we will be placing a river down the middle of the board. It will be considered dangerous terrain. Nearby are various fields since the Nile valley was a fertile farm land.

Set-up:
For this battle, I am sure that the Silver Shields were in fact with Perdiccas. We know this since one of the officers, Antigenes; that helped assassinate Perdiccas. Therefore, I am 100% sure that the Silver Shields were there with him. We also know for a fact that Perdiccas had War Elephants with him as they were a key component of his plan to ford the Nile.



Beyond the details above, we have no idea what either army was composed of. Since no battle actually occurred, no one bothered writing it down. Therefore, we will need to guess at the organization of the rest of the armies. Since Phalanxes are the core of Macedonian and Successor armies, we can assume they were the core of these armies as well. Ptolemaic Egypt was known for their efforts to raise a native Phalanx, although the White Shields here are probably too soon. In addition, ancient Egyptian armies were well known for their archers so it makes sense that Ptolemy's force would have a strong archer contingent. Finally, all early Hellenistic armies also relied heavily on cavalry to try to mimic Alexander's successes, so both armies need a strong cavalry element.



In this case, the Ptolemaic are on the right side of the river. The Perdiccans are on the left side of the river.

You can read the results and the rest of the story: https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2018/12/heirs-to-empire-battle-report-perdiccas.html

[Arrigo]

nice report

but I am afraid some typos slipped in... Seleceus?

Also why you defined Craterus and Antipater violent and scheming? Craterus is usually depicted as a loyal officer and always concerned about the rank and file. Antipater was quite old and usually depicted as calm, a far cry from his son! It is also worth to note that both of them at that point were still uncommitted (and Antipater had to keep the poleis under control too). I am interested in hearing what is your opinion of the great troublemaker, Eumenes himself!

On the other hand you can refer from the viewpoint of Perdiccas, and of course for Perdiccas everyone was scheming and violent against him. Said that I am not so sure he would have kept the empire united for long. With Alexander gone, only Roxanne and her unborn child, Cleopatra, Cynane, and Philip III had right to the imperial throne. So even defeating Ptolemy Perdiccas must have grabbed some legitimacy (and neither Cleopatra nor Cynane liked him... actually he had already ordered his Brother to kill Cynane and this more or less killed his legitmacy with the army on the long run). Even worse he displayed a bit of idiocy when he reneged his promise to marry  Antipater's daughter after Olympias offered Cleopatra's hand (with the girl in question having already refused). And then never forget the Monster, Olympias... who would have involved herself killing relatives and half relatives right and left.

IMHO Perdiccas was already spent even without the disaster of the crossing (another smart move...). My opinion has been that Alexander empire was already dead the minute Alexander in person passed away. The two best contender for the throne were Antigonus and Seleucus as shown by the events, both made much more compromises than Perdiccas ever tried, both were smarter, and both in the end failed. A big what if (tried a couple of time with AH Successors...) was that Ptolemy succeeded in his gamble to marry Cleopatra. Now you would have had Ptolemy allied with Seleucus, with a real claim to be the heir, and a reasonable military force... (plus he was in good releationship with Alex' nephew, Pyrrhus so he had a foothold on the western flank, he had a decent navy, and was not an enemy of Cassander who was in control of Macedonia... of course it would have been a coalition... 

okay, stop with alternate history...

[Easy E]

In my view, all the Diadochi were violent and scheming, even the less violent and scheming ones.   

Yeah, I can never get Sele's name spelled right and my spellcheck doesn't help me.  Grrrr.   

As far as Eumenes, he is an interesting character.  It is a good thing they did not have the internet or texting back then, because he went to the "Dream of Alexander" well a few too many times. 

I honestly do not know how he managed to last so long and keep coming back.  He never had a chance, but you got to grudgingly respect a guy that manages to keep getting back up again.  Of course, he was a violent and scheming bar steward too. His efforts probably only helped destabilize the old "Empire" instead of re-unifying it under Antigones Monopthalamus (SP?).  So, I guess on net he was a bad actor for the region.   


Edit: You mention Sele as being one of the most likely to re-claim the old Empire, and in effect he did manage it.  However, I see him as a Johnny Come lately who pretty much just hung around the fringes until the real heavy-hitters were beyond their prime or dead.  He had some amazing moments on the Eastern fringes of the Empire, but that had always been a side show.  If he had been in the thick of it in Turkey from the beginning like Antigones M or Eumenes, I don't think he would have performed as well. 

To me, Antigones Monopthalamus is the premier Diadochi that all others should be measured against.

Of course, that is.... like..... my opinion, man!       

[Arrigo]

Well spell checkers... old tale from my even older archaeology department (and while the whole thing was in Italian the meaning is preserved in english translation)... my then supervisor (for my degree dissertation before I crossed the channel) just finished writing an article for a journal on the walls of a Roman city. Because his theory was that they were from the 2nd Punic War and he talked extensively about Hannibal he gave me a printout copy (it was not yet in print) to read. It was a fine read but we were at the dawn of Windows spellchecking... so the zealous computer changed all 'n' in Punic (Punico in italian) to 'b' because it decided Punic was not a real word... guess the end result (the word is extremely similar both in Italian and English...). We got it in time at least.  A year later I had the same problem with Polibyus and Hoplite in my own dissertation and he was telling me to double-check every chapter...

I like Seleucos because he was at least loyal (he allied with Ptolemy and never broke the alliance  and fought against Lysimachus after the latter reputation completely collapsed), did not murder people for the sake of it (got murdered in the end). He and Lysimachus defeated Antigonus at Ipsus when Antigonus and Demetrius were still the top dogs. He seemed also able to keep his own holdings together quite well. It would have been interesting to see how he would have managed in the long run. My two drachmae on the subject  but I tend to be pro-Ptolemaic, so I am anti-Antigonos by default. Yet, as you said, even if one does not consider Antigonos the prime diadochoi, he was certainly a figure to be reckoned with.

Eumenes always reminds me of Pyrrhus. Excellent generals, always able to come back, but always knocked down, with the difference that at least Pyrruhs managed to keep a kingdom for some time, Eumenes instead being more or less an army on the move. My personla opinion is that because he was not a macedonian, he had no real power base in the army, and was usually relying on mercenaries and groups with no direct loyalty to him (the Silver Shields) he had no real chances. On the other hand he is also emblematic of the collapse of the empire, he was an appointed official, but his 'colleagues' disliked him because it was of a different 'ilk' and that was for them a sufficient reason to hamper is job first (after all he had been ordered to remove the last serious Persian holdout) and fight him later.

Anyway the more you look at the mess, the more you realized possibly Victor David Hanson  (notwithstanding some of the criticism he had been subjected to) was spot in declaring Alexander a madman with no real idea of what he was doing. Every decent ruler (decent in terms of ruler-ability) is trying to ensure a smooth succession... that idiot not only never thought about it, but when faced with the issue practically made sure the empire would have collapsed. Then you have Perdiccas that put the nails on the coffin (killing Cynane, the sister of Alexander, who was also popular with the troops... that was pure inverse genius... and admitting he had done something idiotic when he spared Eurydice and allowed the marriage with Philip III... thus making clear he had no idea of what he was doing), after that Perdiccas was gone, and with him gone any semblance of empire...

On the other hand... big what if... Antigonus appointed regent!

Looking forward to the rules... it is also time to have another go at Successors!

Best,
Arrigo

[Easy E]

This is what I like about this period.