Just a Teenage Girl Bullying a Couple of Grown A** Men (Hellenistic Period and the Wars of the Diadochi)

Today we are finishing up the First War of the Diadochi and getting on with Hellenistic business. Pre-order Liv's Odyssey adaptation (!!!), The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Sources: The Library by Diodorus of Sicily translated by Robin Waterfield, Alexander's Heirs: the age of the successors by Edward Anson. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Hello all and welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby. It's me, Michaela Pongoish, Hermes, no longer in semester but still writing her thesis because life, and also prepping so many episodes and extras for when I'm away next month. Well, I'm hosting this month's, regardless, for the couple of reasons. Because Liv and I already agreed upon that. Because it's my birthday month. Because I wanted to get some more Hellenistic things out there. All the reasons. But hey, it'll be fun to talk more Hellenistic and history things. It's been a while since we've talked Hellenistic stuff, so I will start with an overview of what we already discussed back in December. Gods, that was a while ago. So sorry for such

• 1:51Speaker 01

  a long delay, but honestly, Herodotus is a lot easier for me to do in the moment. And I was so busy with school and I'm still very busy with school things and feeling a bit defeated by it all. But you know what? I can do it. Of course I can, because there's no other option. Sometimes you just need to tell yourself something like that. And that you can do hard things, like fight a war with all your buddies who will inherit the empire over your other dead buddy. See? Life happens like that. I'll be honest, though, I didn't think we're going to be getting through the rest of the wars that died okay this month. I want to, but I also really want to do it justice for you all, so I don't want to skip any corners, especially as this is such an important time of transition for the ancient Med.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  So many things were happening, so many peoples were moving around and mingling and, yes, a part of that comes from Alexander's conquest, but a lot of that has to do with the ways these empires were divided up, and who got what, and how they chose to govern it moving forward. All those made big differences in the world and shaped each empire individually. I feel a little like I'm rambling, but it's also good for my brain because I do want to figure out how to talk about the Hellenistic period after we get through the Diadochi. If any of you have anything you want to learn about, or know more, or whatever, just know I love suggestions and ideas, so please feel free to send them to me on like Instagram or my email if you can find it. Truly, Liv and I love hearing from you guys.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It is so inspiring and motivating for us, and we love you all so much and love hearing your thoughts about the things we talk about here. We have both gotten so many ideas, even from my work outside of myths, baby, from your comments. Elektra once said to me, "History is made in the conversations." And I really love that and think about it a lot. Ideas and theories are built and developed in community, and we love our little nerdy history myth community. So please leave all the comments wherever you can. Now, let's get into it.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Just a teenage girl bullying a couple of grown ass men. Hellenistic period and the wars of the Diadochi.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Great, so let's get into this recap. It all started when Alex died. He didn't leave his empire to anyone in general. Instead, he just said, "To Aristo, proorum mye, gar epitaphion egona, genesomenon moeton filon." "To the best, for I foresee that my funeral games will take the form of a memorial contest among my friends." So yeah, shit was going down because there was no clear succession and Alex didn't really have kids, except for a possible one with his last wife Roxana. There was Eridias, his half-brother, but there were worries about him being able to run the empire. I actually want to look into this more, maybe for a Hermes History episode, because I've seen some discourse that it's possible Eridias was autistic.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  He was known to have very emotional breakdowns and perhaps was seen as sensitive. Those are not much of my actual choices. I mean, Diodorus Siculus simply says that he, and I quote, "was afflicted with incurable mental problems." Which, same. But the source I'm using, there was a footnote that mentions the idea that he was autistic. And I don't know if there's more research on that. I haven't looked into it, but I will eventually. Okay, so the Hetairoy, the companion cavalry, put together a little gathering as suggested by Malaga, a general. In this, they talked about what would happen with the empire. Malaga was sent to get the infantry onto the Hetairoy's side and said he gets some to stand for him. Shit went down, but Eumene supposedly helped get it all sorted

• 5:52Speaker 01

  and the agreement was that Eridias and Alex's unborn son would co-rule. But while that happened, Perdicus would be regent and Malaga would help and the rest of the Hetairoy would be in charge of various satrapies, the Persian word for provinces. That lasted about as long as you would expect. Perdicus wasn't too happy with what happened. He gains power, gets all the infantry together, punishes the people in charge of the mishap and kills Malaga. So that's one general dead. Then the Greeks revolt, because why the hell not? Perdicus sends Python to deal with the revolt. Python wants to get the Greeks on his side so he could rule the upper saperties. Perdicus ordered all the revolters to be killed, etc., etc. Python's plan doesn't work out, but the revolt is over. After this is the Lamian War, Antipater, the satrap of the Greek province, against

• 6:37Speaker 01

  various Greek city-states, namely the Athenians and the Etoleans. The Greeks were defeated in this, and it was quite of a sounding defeat in the end of it all. Antipater forced its individual city-state to treat with him, essentially dismantling Greek unity at the time. We move on. I'm trying to do this quickly, I promise. Okay, there's the conquest of Capitokia. The long and short of this is basically, Perdicus gets more power. During all this, like during the Lamian War, Ptolemy is settling his power in Egypt. He somehow manages to steal Alex's corpse and buries it in Egypt and makes friends and basically just establishing a good power base, a seat of power, some could say, that is loyal to him.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Ptolemy and Antipater team up, Ptolemy makes other friends, puts down stuff, basically gets powerful. Perdicus is trying to establish his own power base at the same time, which does involve marrying Cleopatra, Alex's sister, so that he can have a solid claim to the throne. Antigonus hears about this and sneaks out to Greece to meet with Antipater and Craterus to tell them what was going on. They were unimpressed, which is great, and they quickly make peace with what they were doing to meet with Perdicus and his allies. Perdicus decides to march on Egypt, and he sends Eumeneus to deals with Antipater and Craterus. Eumeneus had a friend, the general, Neoptolemus, who decided he didn't want to be his friend anymore, so Neoptolemus moves to Antipater and Craterus's side.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Antipater marches up to find Perdicus, and Craterus goes into battle against Eumeneus. Craterus dies, and a little later, Eumeneus kills Neoptolemus. So point one for Team Perdicus, and Eumeneus then goes off to do his own thing. Well, Perdicus makes his way into Egypt to meet with Ptolemy. There's a lot of back and forth, seizures, and general Nile adventures. Perdicus sneaks away with his army one night and moves down the Nile. He tries to make his way with his army onto this little island, and that just doesn't go well, because they do not understand the Nile. Many a man was swept away and died. They made camp, and in the middle of the night, his own army turns on him and kills him.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  And that's where we left off, and wow, that was a lot longer of a recap that I wanted to give, but c'est la vie, guys. So on to the aftermath of, you know, the light murdering. I think it's pretty important to point out that the end of the first war of the Diodokai was not when Pheidicus was murdered. We'll get there in this episode. Some other things had to go down first before that ended and yeah, that's what today's about. So, Pheidicus was murdered by his soldiers. The next day came around and Ptolemy, that lovely, lovely man, came on by to visit the camp. I don't know why I like Ptolemy so much, I, I really don't, I like, I don't know if I could say it's like, I just, I don't know, he's just up there for

• 9:27Speaker 01

  me and he's done nothing to deserve it. He's really, like, in all honesty, he hasn't done much to prove that he is a good person, but maybe he just doesn't seem like the worst of them, so I don't know if that's got me. I don't want to psychoanalyze this or get into details, I guess my brain just went with Ptolemy, he's my guy, so I'm gonna run with that. He shows up, he talked to all the Macedonians there and let them know why he did the things that he did. And then he noticed that they didn't have many provisions, so he refilled them all with grain and, and there were many a provision around for the soldiers. Good guy, Ptolemy. Diodorus says that because of this goodwill was built, so he could have taken over the custodianship of the kings at that moment.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  But it seems that that wasn't ever really Ptolemy's plan, or at least Diodorus doesn't think so. At that moment, the Macedonians got together and began making a plan for what to do next, who would take over the custodianship that Pheidicus had, and Ptolemy made his make foundations for that. The two that were chosen was, were Python and Eridaeus. Not, no, not Eri, Alexander's brother, another Eridaeus, because life couldn't be easy, you know, they just had to give us so many names and so many repeated names. Anyways, Eridaeus was the man who organized the king's retinue, basically. Pheidicus had lost all the things he had set up, his life and his power. Then, the news of Eumaeus's victory in Capidocia reached the camp.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Too little, too late, if only the news had come sooner, then he would have been protected by relation to Pheidicus and who knows how it would have affected Pheidicus himself. Instead, because of Eumaeus's closeness with Pheidicus, he was condemned to death and fifty of his closest associates and all of Pheidicus's closest friends, including his sister Adelanti, wife of Adalus, commander of the fleet. Honest to God, like, leave that woman alone.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  At this time, Adalus was at Pelusium. And hearing that his wife and Perdicus were killed, he fucked right off and sailed to Tire. Tear? Tire? Tear? Ah, I'm just gonna go with tear. Anyways, Archelaus, a Macedonian, was in charge of the garrison at Tire and made Adalus welcome. And he gave of the city and a whole bunch of money which was given to Archelaus by Perdicus. I don't understand why he did this. I mean, I'm sure we will find out eventually. You know, honestly, honest god, we really might not find out. It just happened, okay? Something to do with seeds of power. Seeds of power, friends, seeds of power. That's what is being established here. At this point, the rest of Perdicus's friends who had been murdered escaped from the camp in Memphis

• 12:08Speaker 01

  and made their way to Tire to join Archelaus and Adalus. Another brief aside, because once again, everything that happens at this point is all to do with seeds of power. We must look over to what was happening in Greece. Briefly, because this is also just a rather brief moment. Well, Antipater, you remember Antipater, over there in Greece, he started bringing his forces over into Asia. While this was happening, the Aetolians invaded Thessaly as a way to distract him. They did this because they apparently had an agreement with Perdicus. The first we are hearing of this agreement, but it was there, I guess, so off they went. On their way to Thessaly, they assaulted the Locrian city Amphissa,

• 12:52Speaker 01

  really messing up the farmland and surrounding villages in the process. They met Antipater's forces in battle and defeated one of his generals, Polocles, where him and several of his men were killed. They took prisoners and either sold them or ransomed them off. Then they got to Thessaly, where they got the Thessalians on their side to go against Antipater, amassing a massive army in the process. Well, while the Aetolians were doing this, their enemies, the Arcanians... Nope, Arcananians! Gosh, these words, sometimes, I swear.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Akkarnanians then invaded Atolia and you know messed up their farmland. Two can play this game buddy. When the Atolians heard about this, they headed back home and left some of the soldiers, the non-citizen ones, behind in Thessaly. Under Menon of Pharsalus and they dealt with the Akkarnanians. While this was happening, Polypericon, whom Antipater had left in charge of Macedon while he was out of town, went on into Thessaly with a large army and just fucked up Menon and the army left there. So, you know, Antipater's contention got Thessaly back in their hands. And we thus make our way back to Asia to see what was going on with Aridaeus and Python in their new Looking After of the Kings, their custodian ship.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  They had left the Nile and made their way to Triperidasis, which yes, I did have to look up because I had no idea where that could be. Supposedly it's in Syria and near the mouth of the Avantis River, so there you go, Google it. I feel like I not only have to make an index of men for these series, but also like various maps. Cause it's just so many people and so many places and so much changing and will I do this? Probably not. So I don't want to get your hopes up, but maybe, but probably not. Okay, they are in Triperidasis.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Triperidasis, I can't get it together. And they're having a bit of difficulty with a woman, that woman being Queen Eurydice. Okay, so who is this Eurydice? And honestly, if there's anything I think you guys should take from these Hellenistic episodes, it is that there are so many Eurydice's and they were all perfect and amazing and I am on their sides because I don't know, we can't be, let's be anyways. She was the wife of Philip III, AKA Aridaeus, married in 321, so recently.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, the first Eridias, Alexander's brother, not Eridias, now custodian of the king, Eridias, who is now Philip III. Do you see what I mean about these names? Anyways, Eurydice, whose name at birth was Adia, which my notes say we really shouldn't be calling queen at this point, because at this point, wives of the kings weren't necessarily referred to as queens, they were royal women, but I don't care, she's a queen. Well, she was the daughter of a Mintas and Canane, one of Philip II's daughters. I should also point out that at this point, Eurydice was quite young still, only around seventeen years old, so let that flavor the next little bit of information. Eurydice, for some reason

• 16:01Speaker 01

  or other, was making quite a bit of trouble for the two regents. She was going out of her way to obstruct any one of the projects they wanted to get done. This annoyed the two men quite a bit, but Python noticed that the Macedonians started to take orders straight from her more than anyone else. So at this point, him and Eridias, the custodian of the king, not the king, called a council and they said, fuck this, we out. Yeah, that's right. They got bullied to quit by a seventeen year old girl. That's how much power seventeen year old girls have. These men are weak. And seventeen year old girls are powerful. Well, the Macedonians then had to choose a new man to take over their position, and

• 16:46Speaker 01

  they decided on Antipater. Antipater arrives in Trippeiradasis a couple days before this event. After this event. I can read, it's two in the morning. Where Eurydice was on her business and causing troubles for Antipater now. She was already turning the Macedonians against him. I don't know what this woman was up to, but honestly, I love her, like so much. It was rough for Antipater. Things were not going well for him, but he managed to get all his troops together and calm everything down eventually. And somehow, during this time, he also frightened Eurydice so much so that she would no longer be a problem for him, which like, do you feel like a big strong guy now, Antipater bullying a seventeen

• 17:31Speaker 01

  year old girl? What a weirdo. I can't.

• 17:47Liv Albert?

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• 18:31Liv Albert?

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• 19:14Liv Albert?

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• 20:25Speaker 01

  Great. So, power was the name of the game at this time, and all these men were trying to find ways to gain more power and get a good handle on things. At this point, he decided to switch up how the satchel be is heaving at Patar. The provinces were looking and assign all the men to new and different ones. Are you ready for a list, my folks? We're doing a list. I'm so sorry about that. It has to happen. Lists are fun. Lists are fun. Anyways, he started with our man Ptolemy. He was left to stay in the province he was already in, Egypt. Apparently, everyone felt that through all that Ptolemy had done, he was the rightful person to keep control of Egypt. He had won it through his courage. Next, Syria went to Laomedon of Mitellene.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  And Philoxenus got Cacilia. Mesopotamia and Arbelaetetus went to Amphacus. Babylonia to Seleucus, which was quite the promotion. Antigone's got Susian as a reward for attacking Pheidicus first. Persis to Peukestus. Carmania to, God, I love Greek, Telepolimus. Media to Python. Parthia to Philip. Aurea and Drangiane to Sisander the Cypriot. And then Bactria and Sogdiana to Stasenor of Soli, another Cypriot.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  This is a long list. Is it over yet? Nope, not really. Still some more things to be moved around. Paropanus Sedai was reassigned to Oxyartes Roxana's father, and the parts of India that bordered Paropanus Sedai to Python, son of Egonor. The kingdom in Indus was left to Porus, their king, and the one in the Hydaspis to Taxiles, their king, since it was already theirs and it would have been taking too much effort to remove them. Capidokia went to Nicanor, Greater Phrygia and Licia to Antigonus, Caria to Hosander, Lydia to Cletus, and the Hellespontine Phrygia to Aridaeus. Antigonus also got to be the general of the royal army, and was tasked with dealing with Eumenes and Alchitas.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  And I realize I think I've been saying Eumaeus and it's actually been Eumenes, and I apologize so much and I can't go back and fix it all, but anytime I said Eumaeus, it was Eumenes. I'm sorry. Alchitas and Eumenes.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  What am I saying here? Anyways, his son, Cassandra, Antipater's son, was attached to Antigonus as a chilearch, which is a fun new word for me, basically meaning a guy in charge of a bunch of other guys in the army. Antipater did this so that Antigonus couldn't do anything without getting back to Antipater through his son. He was finally done all the things he had to do here, and at this point, he grabs on to the two kings and marches off to Macedonia to put them where they should have been in the first place, their homeland. Great. Now that all that's done, we can move on to other things. Administration, it's always been a hassle. Onto the way they deal with Eumenes, because of course, we're going to hear more than now that he was ordered to death. We must hear about how that goes down.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  At this point, we are following Antigonus since he was made general of the royal army. So Eumenes woke the troops up from the winter slumber. What is happening?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Eumenes does not. Antigonus woke the troops up in the winter slumber, because it was winter time apparently, and marched off to Cappadocia where Eumenes was at this point. One of Eumenes' senior officers, not at all confusingly named Pardicus, had broken off from him and taken his men to camp nearby. Eumenes had sent another officer named Phoenix to go deal with them. Phoenix and his forces fell upon the rebels in the middle of the night, and swiftly defeated them, capturing this second Pardicus and contained the rest. Eumenes had the rebel leaders, including the second Pardicus, put to death, but didn't do the same with the army. Instead, he incorporated them back into his forces, and this move endeared him to them, so, you know. The foot soldiers were on Eumenes' side.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Now, this is actually important. We'll talk about this a bit, and Ptolemy does this. But it is a way to have power, to control the army. It is a way to expand your seat of power. And it was a powerful thing to do. Anyways, while this was all happening, Antigonus had gotten a hold of the commander of Eumenes' cavalry, Apollonides, and bribed him to betray Eumenes. Eumenes and his forces found a place to camp on a plain in Cappadocia that would be perfect for a cavalry battle. Antigonus and his entire army marched up and took the high ground. There's a discussion about the number of men each side had, which I won't go into detail because I cannot emphasize this enough. I do not trust ancient numbers.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  But what I do trust is when they say things like, "They had elephants." I don't believe the numbers, but I will believe that there were elephants. And Antigonus had elephants. The battle begun, and it was fierce. How these men fought, look at them go, I don't know, just imagine it. But then suddenly, Apollonides and the cavalry abandoned Eumenes and the rest of the forces, which allowed Antigonus's forces to sweep them off their feet clean and win the victory. Many, many of Eumene's men died and they lost all the provisions that they had, which dealt quite the blow to the morale in Eumene's camps. Because, oh yeah, Eumene's wasn't in this battle, I think, or at least he didn't get captured,

• 25:50Speaker 01

  which is wonderful for him, I guess, but it does mean we have more to talk about. Well, at this point, Eumene's decides that he must escape to Armenia. And replaces Armenia with the people who lived there, because don't we love it? When people go to other places they aren't from and just take the men to go fight? Whatever. Antigonus was right on Eumene's heels and his men started to desert him. At this point, he seized a stronghold called Nora, which was likely on the border of Lytonia and Cappadocia. It was a small fortress, but built so well with such wonderful natural defenses that it was near impossible to capture. It also, luckily for Eumene's, was well stocked, so there was no fear of starvation for a good long while.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Several years even. Eumene's had none of a friend with him and they were such good friends, they decided to stay with him until death. All in all, Eumene's had 600 men. Well, at this point, Antigonus was actually in a really good position. He had a lot of men from Eumene's army that were now very loyal to him and beyond the men he already had from his position as general of the royal army. He had taken over all of Eumene's provinces, so he had money from these positions. Basically, he had amassed quite an amount of power. His seat of power had grown. I'm so sorry, the seat of power thing is, is not gonna go away. I can't stop myself. And I'm sorry in advance.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Well, at this point, it seems that that Antigonus has made a decision. He would still keep up appearances with Antipater to seem that he was still entirely on his side, but once his seat of power had completely been established, he would then stop following the orders of the kings who were Antipater. Basically, he would seize power for himself. Antigonus surrounded the fortress of Nora with many ramparts and ditches and strong palisades, but at the same time, he set up a meeting with Eumene's. This occurred, they renewed their friendship, made up for their past differences. How beautiful. And then he persuaded Eumenes to follow him in the case of his defection. Eumenes was very well aware that things could change at the drop of a hat. I mean,

• 28:03Speaker 01

  look at everything that had happened in the past couple of years. So with this, Eumenes pushed for concessions, concessions that would normally be given to someone of his rank. He would be given back all his satiries and that he would receive a full pardon to the charges that were set against him. Antigone has sent everything up and sent them off to Antipater and then packed themselves up to go deal with the other generals of Perdicus that had charges against them, namely Perdicus's brother Alchides and Adalas, the guy who married his sister and was in charge of Perdicus's fleet. So with this, Eumenes sent some envoys to Antipater just so everything could be smoothed over and the terms of agreements could be agreed upon. Apparently, the delegation was led by Hieronymus, who we simply must talk about a little bit.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Hieronymus was the author of The History of the Successors. He was from a place called Cardia in Thrace. He was the contemporary historian of the Diadochi and wrote lots about what was going on during this time, about Alexander before him in the beginning of the third century B.C. We don't know precisely when he was born and fun fact was he was likely the nephew of Eumenes. So cool. He stays pretty close to Eumenes in the following years before he eventually entered the service of the Antigone. He took care of business there and followed Antigone into battle several times, even in the final battle for Antigone. After this, Hieronymus eventually heads to Greece, where he becomes the governor of Thebes for a period of time.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  He then goes back to serve the Antigone, though, you know, so he goes back anyways. Well, what about his writings? Surely, we should have heard about him at some point, huh? Well, yeah, honestly, I should have probably brought him up sooner, but it's also fun to introduce people as we meet them. And I mean, this is a pretty big guy, a primary source of the third century. Oh, can't we read it? Please, pretty please. Eh, no, no, we cannot, because it actually, did it survive in the historical background? Because life is horrible, and cruel, and unfair, and no one should ever be okay with how cruel life truly is, but it is. She's a cruel mistress.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  But hey, look, his writings actually did survive for a short period of time in antiquity. And we should be grateful for that, because we're all pretty certain that Diodorus actually used Hieronymus as his own source for his writings. And Plutarch, Plutarch probably used him for several of his works, mostly Life of Pyrrhus. So yeah, there is no full source of Hieronymus, but there are excerpts and paraphrased bits, which are awesome, and they have been collected by some German scholars who have put them all together into books. Notably Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Muller's Fragmenta Historicorum, Gregorum, and Felix Jacoby's Di, oh, Di Fragmente der Grässischen Historiker.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  So sorry for the pronunciation, German folks, I did do some German in high school, but I've never been great at pronunciation. It's not the primary languages I'm working on currently. That's Greek, modern, and ancient, and Latin, of course, and then after that I went to learn anishanabimowen. Because my people's language, and probably French, so I can talk with my uncle Moi. Anyways, why am I talking about, oh god, ADHD tangents. I love you, Ari. Anyways, back to the narrative. Hieronymus goes off to bring the agreement to Antipater, which apparently nothing happened, so yay, how exciting things are telling us. But Eumeneus had been through quite a bit at this point, and was so aware that things could change so quickly. He knew that the current kings were only that in name, they had no power, and were simply figureheads.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  I mean, one was literally an infant, so like, you know, fair enough, Eumeneus. He could see that what was happening was that many very powerful men were vying for power, consolidating the power they already had, and really working at finding ways to grow their own seats of power. He hoped that one of them would want his services. He could provide a service that they needed, being his intelligence, his military expertise, and his steadfast loyalty. And then Diodorus decides to tell us this little bit of information about how Eumenes was exercising his horses in Nora. Because the fortress of Nora was so small, like it was so ridiculously small,

• 32:29Speaker 01

  that he couldn't even exercise his horses in it regularly, I swear against beaks. Instead, he had to find a way to keep them in tip top battle ready shape. How did he do this, you may ask? You better be, because I'm going to tell you, because it's just so mind boggling to me. And I need everyone else to know. Well, he devised a new and fun exercise for the horses. It was new, but if I'm being so real, it was in a no way fun. Basically, he tied their heads with ropes to some beams or pegs. After that, he raised them about four to six palms high, which is, I don't know, I think a unit of measurement they use with horses. I can't criticize measurements, I'm Canadian.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  We talk about distance and time. But I think that makes most sense anyways. Because of this, they had to put all their weight on their back legs with their front legs barely brushing the ground. Diodorus says, and I quote, "The immediate reaction of the horse as it strove to take its weight on its forelegs was to work its whole torso and its legs, with every part of its body being equally affected. This activity caused sweat to pour off its body, and the incredible efforts the creature had to put in made this a perfect form of exercise for them." And I'm sorry, but does this not just sound like some strange sort of torture? I don't know horses well enough to say what is the best form of exercise for them, but I feel like I know them well enough to know that they wouldn't like being pulled up

• 33:58Speaker 01

  by their head in such a way that they would essentially be trying the hardest to get back to a composure position and not feel like they're being strangled? I don't know, just saying. Like, maybe they weren't sweating as much from exertion, but more from, I don't know, nerves and stress? Especially stress, look, horses have it hard enough as it is. They evolved to eventually, to like essentially die easily. Can we just like, can we give them a break and treat them like the precious little babies they are? And maybe not hang them by their head? Is that a wild ask? I don't think so. Anyways, apparently, I'm just gonna move on from this horse shit, because I'm just, it's horse shit anyways. Eumenes also rationed the food at Nora quite strictly.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Every man who was there got the same scant amount of food. But Eumenes himself ate the same as them, not eating more for himself or doing anything to make it more palatable. This won him significantly more loyalty amongst his men. That he would live the exact way that they lived was admirable to them. That was the way life was for Eumenes and all his men at this point in time. He had managed to escape a death sentence. That's fun and put himself in a pretty good position, allying with Antigonus and whatever Antigonus had planned to do when the time came. We are almost done with the year. Like so close, we're getting to the end of three twenty to three nineteen.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Yes, that's the way years were understood in antiquity and please do not make me explain the ancient calendar because I looked into it once to understand it and I hated it so much and I I really don't want to do it again. So please, please, please do not ask. Just don't ask. Okay, just just know that the way we talk about the years as it was understood by antiquity is is kind of like three twenty slash three nineteen. That's a year. Two years for us, but it's it's not the full two years. It's like, you know, there was also a three twenty one slash three twenty. There we go. That's my explanation.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Okay, there's one final thing to finish off this year and it truly was very short, so don't worry. We are heading back to Egypt to see what Ptolemy was up to. So Ptolemy was doing very well in Egypt and he sure wanted to keep it. He could see that Phoenicia and Khol Syria would be good places for armies to camp if they wanted to make the way into Egypt. And he would have none of that. Nobody was coming for his precious Egypt. He had one Egypt and he wasn't going to give it up. So what does he do? He gets an army together and gets Nicanor, a friend of his, to be the general to send them off. The Canon marches into Syria, captured Laomedon, the satrap, as prisoner and gained the province.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  He then went on to gain allegiances with some Phoenician cities and install garrisons there.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  And then after this, he returned to Ptolemy, his good friend, and Egypt, after securing the land entry into Egypt. And with that, the year is over. And I would also say, the first war of the Diadoque is over.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  I have no idea how one decides when each of these wars and/or how to classify them. Like, it doesn't seem that clear to me. I mean, there's some parts of it seem pretty clear, but there's some parts that don't. So I, it's just, it's just a shit show for like decades. I think I have to look back again, but it's at least two decades. We're gonna get into things. When we are just getting into things now, like three episodes in, and it's, it's gonna take a while to get through all this. Do I wish I, we could do this all the way through? I mean, I don't, I don't know. Yes, but these are also really difficult episodes for me to research, right? And during semester, I just don't have the brain space.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  So I'm sorry that they have been chopped up throughout the month and the year. I'm talking distance in between the episodes, because the last ones were in December. Like, I do wish so, but it's also kind of nice to take a break. And Herodotus is much more easy for me.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  I should plan these out. In the easier and oftentimes, you're right, I should do that. But I should do a lot of things, but I don't. And that's because my brain doesn't like to plan ahead like that. It likes to plan ahead in the rough, stressful, anxiety building way, like, you know, what do I do when I move to X city for, for grad school? How will I afford rent? I don't know. I should say I get paid very well here, but I live in Canada, so. All my Canadians know, I'm very lucky with the rent I have in my current place. Not gonna get into it. Just very lucky. But that all being said, I am technically done school. I still have to finish my thesis,

• 38:58Speaker 01

  which I will be done fighting this month. So help me God, everyone help me keep on track. It's just, I have twenty-five-hundred words in, I need ten-thousand. If I do twenty-five-hundred words a week, I can finish this month. I can do it. I'm just being annoying. I'm just being, I'm not believing myself. I gotta believe in myself. I'm ranting. And then after I finish writing it, all I have left is editing until I have to submit it in August and then I'm done. And then I can graduate. I can graduate in the fall, which means I lose institutional access. Isn't that great? I gave them so much money and they're gonna take away, well, I know not all of it, but most of it, and that annoys me. And I'm going off on a tangent again. Basically, I'm sorry these episodes were separated.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  With the way Liv and I have decided to break up the year and take responsibility for episode, it's just not that easy to keep things close together. But the plus side of that all is that I get to share history with F1 and Liv actually gets to have breaks, like actual breaks. I mean, I don't think she's talked about this and maybe I shouldn't, but you know, she, she had to spend all her time making sure for so many years, so many years this show has been on, making sure that there have been two episodes coming up each week. And it's a lot of work, especially when we're researching it and we're writing it and there are long episodes to write and she, you know, she had to do that for so long. And now she can actually have, for example, time off and it's nice.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  You know, we're sharing that responsibility now. And I was super nervous to do episodes, honestly. It was her idea and I resisted it for a good long while because I actually like sitting in somebody's shadow and supporting people from backstage. It's where I'm comfortable. But having started these hipstery episodes, I'm actually finding myself more and more excited to do them. I get to research things I would never have for Liv because she's not really a history person. I mean, she is, but not in the way she is for myths. You know, how she is for myths, I am for history. I get to do things that I've always wanted to do, but never gotten around to like reading Herodotus's histories at full. So I'm happy that everyone seems to like these episodes and like me coming on here and sharing my love of history with you all and getting

• 41:09Speaker 01

  to create those kinds of spaces. And thank you to Liv for the opportunity and trust she has in me that I love Myths Baby as much as she does and that we can share this journey together from now on. Um, this got extremely tangy and a little emotional. I'm so sorry. It's uh, two thirty in the morning and I'm just finishing this all up now and I know that's late in the night and a little late to release the episode, but I'm sorry I work better at night. Anyways, I love you all. Love all this history shit. Love all the myth shit and can't wait to see what happens next between these wacky, wacky, wacky guys next week. Let's talk about Myths Baby is written and produced by that woman you all know and love Liv Albert. Michaela Pangorish is the Hermes to all the Olympians, the producer, perpetually tired, but getting things done and shouldn't be complaining about being tired

• 41:54Speaker 01

  when she's up at two thirty in the morning, whatever. Select music by Luke Chaos. Thank you, Senor Chaos. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, a collection of creators that all strive to bring you accurate and reliable information on the ancient world. These include the wonderful friends at Movies We Dig, The Partial Historian, Sweet Better, and so much more. Get ad-free episodes and more by subscription to the Oracle Edition on Patreon at patreon.com/mithsbaby or via the link in the episode's description. Are you a scholar or academic or an expert in something from antiquity, from Greece to Rome to Egypt to anywhere in the Near East, really? We would love to have you on

• 42:33Speaker 01

  the show as a conversation guest. Go to mythsbaby.com/contact and fill out our podcast guest form. We want to hear from you, so reach out. Talk to you all next week. Bye bye.

• 43:37Speaker 02

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• 44:27Speaker 04

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• 44:41Speaker 03

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