The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paralus]

The tradition of desertion to the enemy is far more likely correct; Plutarch’s will be a more apologetic version in Eumenes’ favour and likely Hieronymus’ creation..........The “soldiers” he collected are almost certainly mostly cavalry. This was Eumenes’ strongest arm and had been raised from his own satrapy. The bulk of any infantry will have been made up of Cappadoccians for similar reasons.

...I would say LESS likely, since in addition to the 'almost 1,000 cavalry' that Eumenes has straight after Nora, Diodorus also gives him 2,000 troops who must be infantry, and who 'follow him of their own free will' i.e. volunteers, not conscripted Cappadocians... (XVIII.53.7).

I would suggest that one tradition or the other is correct; adding the two disparate notices to produce a larger total is an odd way to go. Perhaps, using that method and adding Arrian and Diodorus, the Persian satraps had 120,000 foot and 30,000 cavalry at Granicus?

Eumenes’ Cappadoccians are not “conscripted’; the source material states that he promised his volunteers freedom from taxes et al. The Cappadoccians in the army of Orcynii were volunteers. They might well be persuaded to continue throwing in their lot once more.

As to Macedonians “wandering about the country” (the expanses of Cappadoccia), Eumenes had been locked up for a year. It is rather odd to expect that they’d be “wandering about the country” a year later with no employer and, a fortiori, no pay on the off chance that Eumenes might survive his incarceration. Even less likely that Eumenes, “within a few days” of that release, gathered them all together.

The philoi and those Eumenes managed to garner (“who’d served him before”) are more likely his satrapal attendees and his “paides” (who appear in both great battles). The notion that “philoi” is normally applied to Macedonians cannot stand. Philip II opened the hetairoi to many a non-Macedonian and the retinues of the successors numbered many a Greek philoi.