Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/366

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334 mSTORY OF GEEECE. ablest friend and coadjutor, steadily attadied to the interest of the regal family, and Avithal personally hated by Antipater. But Alketas, brother of Perdikkas, represented that it would be haz- ardous to provoke openly and immediately the wrath of Antij)a- ter. Accordingly Perdikkas resolved to accept Nikjea for the moment, but to send her away after no long time, and take Kleo- patra ; to whom secret assurances from him were conveyed by Eumenes. Kynane also (daughter of Philip and widow of his nephew Amyntas) a warlike and ambitious woman, had brought into Asia her daughter Eurydike for the purpose of espousing the king Philip Aridsus. Being averse to this marriage, and probably instigated by Olympias also, Perdikkas and Alketas put Kynane to death. But the indignation excited among the soldiers by this deed was so furious as to menace their safety, and they were forced to permit the marriage of the king with Eurydike.^ All these intrigues were going on through the summer of 322 B. c, while the Lamian war was still effectively prosecuted by the Greeks. About the autumn of the year, Antigonus (called Monophthalmus), the satrap of Phrygia, detected these secret intrigues of Perdikkas ; who, for that and other reasons, began to look on him as an enemy, and to plot against his life. Ap- prised of his danger, Antigonus made his escape from Asia into Europe to acquaint Antipater and Kraterus with the hostile ma- noeuvres of Perdikkas ; upon which news, the two generals, im- mediately abandoning the -ZEtolian war, withdrew their army from Greece for the more important object of counteracting Per- dikkas in Asia. To us, these contests of the Macedonian officei's belong only so far as they affect the Greeks. And we see, by the events just noticed, how unpropitious to the Greeks were the turns of For- ' Diodor. xviii. 23; Arrian, De Rebus post Alex. vi. ap. Phot. Cod. 92 Diodorus alludes to the murder of Kynane or Kynna, in anotlier place (xix. 52). Compare Polycenus, viii. 60 — who mentions the murder of Kynane by Alketas, but gives a somewhat different explanation of her purpose in pass- ing into Asia. About Kynane, see Duris, Fragra '*-{, in Fragment. Hist. Grrec. vol. ii. p 175; Athcnse. xiii. p 560.