Perdiccas and Meleager

(It may be useful to refresh your memory with this post before reading.)

Perdiccas was a Greek, a descendant of minor princes in the province of Orestis. He joined the League of Desmond at an early age, and possessing a great physical ability, he excelled, rising to become a notarch in the League and a cavalry division commander in Alexander's forces. In the League, it was said that there were only two men in all of Alexander's lands who could rival Perdiccas's strength and skill: Alexander himself, and a Macedonian general named Meleager.

Meleager was not a prodigy; at the time of Perdiccas's entry into the League and Alexander's forces, Meleager had been serving under Alexander for ten years, commanding a significant force of infantry, but for most of that time had lacked either opportunity or ability for advancement. It might be reasonably supposed that this stasis was not so much due to any lack of skill on Meleager's part as it was to his non-membership in the League of Desmond, a necessity for high placement in Alexander's army.



Perdiccas now became Meleager's rival; not only in strength, but also for the love of a woman, named Celandine. Celandine was known as a woman of unusual beauty, which perhaps explains why the eyes of both Perdiccas and Meleager fell on her so close together. Masters of strength and war, they battled fiercely for Celandine's affection; and it was a hard blow to Perdiccas when Meleager, not of the League and lacking Perdiccas's prodigy, took Celandine's hand in marriage.

Perdiccas married afterward - repeatedly, in fact - but these marriages were for power, not love. He still burned for Celandine; and well did Meleager know it.

On Alexander's death, both Perdiccas and Meleager were well positioned to make a grab for power. It was the natural extension of Perdiccas's rise, the chance for Meleager to rise out of perpetual medocricity - and a chance for both of them to assert dominance over the other. Perdiccas argued that rulership of Alexander's empire should be granted to Alexander's unborn legitimate son (with Perdiccas as regent), while Meleager contended that the empire should go to one of Alexander's bastards (whom Meleager could easily control). Perdiccas lulled Meleager, who had become head of an opposition faction, into waiting for Alexander's wife to bear her child - then had him and his loyalists arrested and murdered for mutiny.

Perdiccas would marry twice more, each time to the daughters or sisters of great princes, before his death at the hands of his own officers following his failure to cross the Nile. Without a single leader, Alexander's empire fragmented, splitting into a dozen warring factions. The League, having bound its fortunes to Alexander's, followed suit. And Celandine drank hemlock upon hearing of Meleager's murder.

I know this one's a long one; it's taken rather too long to work on. The next one will be shorter, and then (I suspect) its successor will be quite the doozy.