The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paullus Scipio]

Paralus wrote:

Diodorus is compressing his source: the departure from Nora and the revoking of the alliance and Eumenes' concurrent scarpering to Cilicia did not happen days apart. It only appears that way in the summarised text of Diodorus.

Maybe but Diodorus is quite categorical that the new army was raised within a few days. (Certainly later (XVIII.59) it is the same force which he ‘decamps’ with to Cilicia)
XVIII.53.6 “When the siege had lasted a year and hope of safety had been abandoned, there suddenly appeared an unexpected deliverance from his plight; for Antigonus, who was besieging him and bent on destroying him, changed his plan, invited him to share in his own undertakings, and after receiving an oath-bound pledge, freed him from the siege. Thus unexpectedly saved after a considerable time, he stayed for the present in Cappadocia, where he gathered together his former friends and those who had once served under him and were now wandering about the country. Since he was highly esteemed, he quickly found many men to share in his expectations and to enlist for the campaign with him. In the end, within a few days, in addition to the five hundred friends who had been besieged in the fortress with him, he had more than two thousand soldiers who followed him of their own free will. With the aid of Fortune he gained so great an increase in power that he took over the royal armies and championed the kings against those who had boldly tried to end their rule. But we shall relate these events in more detail a little later in their proper place.”

The raising of this small army obviously occurred prior to Eumenes moving to Cilicia…..and Diodorus/Hieronymous is quite categorical that the troops were raised within days, and that they followed ‘of their own free will’. Since the Persian Satrapies were a form of feudalism, Cappadocians might be raised/conscripted by their local Lords, but were in no position to follow anybody ‘of their own free will’. This sounds like Macedonians e.g. Eumenes bodyguard, who had something to fear if they tried to join Antigonus.

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.

Since Nora was on the border of Cappadocia, if the troops were Cappadocian, they would presumably have dispersed to their homes, and not be ‘wandering about the country’ at all. They were therefore not ‘locals/Cappadocian’, and the only likely alternative is that they were Macedonian strangers. ‘Wandering about the country’ sounds like a euphemism for brigandage in a hostile Cappadocia.
Clearly the men were in a body, and nearby, when Eumenes left the fortress of Nora, to join him so quickly.

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.

…Nevertheless the vast majority of ‘philoi’ were fellow Macedonians, and Greeks and Persian ‘philoi’ were a distinct minority, if not rare. ‘Satrapal attendees’ had estates to look after, and if a band of Macedonian desperados/bodyguard etc might survive a year of brigandage (doing much the same as they had done under Alexander), how much more unlikely is it that ‘paides/youth/pages’ would do so? Nor can there possibly have been anything like 2,000 ‘paides’!!!

We can add to this Diodorus' insistence that Antigonus did, indeed, take over Eumenes' army when he reports Antigonus' intentions after the death of Antipater (18.50.1 & 3 ):

That is not in dispute – but it would be very unlikely that every man-jack went over, and I believe that Antigonus taking over the ‘mercenaries’ and bulk of the army is quite right – but that those with homes to go to probably did disperse, and those, such as Macedonians/Bodyguards, who for some reason ( dislike/fear/loyalty to Eumenes) did not wish to join Antigonus did indeed “wander about the country” until Eumenes re-united them – after all the crafty Eumenes certainly didn’t intend to hole up in the impregnable Nora fortress for ever! I think there is no discrepancy between Plutarch and Diodorus here, especially as they are both largely drawing on the same source….Antigonus took over 'the army' but not all of it. Several thousand 'dispersed' and stayed loyal to Eumenes.

But in addition to all this you have not said where, at the feast, the 3,000 Hypaspists were – certainly not with “the mercenaries and the mass of the allies” ( Persian archers and slingers for the most part) in the outer ring. They can only plausibly be in the next inner ring ( also next largest in numbers):
“the circuit of the second was of eight stades, and in it were the Macedonian Silver Shields and those of the Companions(Hetairoi) who had fought under Alexander”(XIX.22.2)

…as we agree these are not the cavalry, who are in an inner ring, and are therefore Alexander’s veteran ‘pezhetairoi’. Only fellow Macedonian veterans would have been accepted as equals by the ‘Argyraspides’, and only to current Macedonian Hypaspists would ex-Hypaspists yield pride of place in battle.

There can therefore be little doubt that the 2,000 plus referred to, ultimately 3,000 or so Hypaspists, are Macedonian veterans ( where are these veterans otherwise in the orders of battle for Parataikene/Gabiene? )