Plutarch on the siege of Nora

After the death of Alexander the Great on June 11, 323, Perdiccas was appointed as regent for Alexander's half-witted brother Philip Arridaeus and his baby son Alexander. Soon, Perdiccas lost control of the empire, and he had to fight a civil war against rebel officers like Ptolemy, Antipater, and Craterus.

Perdiccas' most important ally was Eumenes of Cardia, who defeated Craterus. However, Perdiccas himself was assassinated and Antipater divided the empire again (settlement of Triparadisus, 320; text). He made Antigonus Monophthalmus supreme commander in Asia, and ordered him to fight against Eumenes.

The story is told by Plutarch of Chaeronea in his Life of Eumenes 10-12. The anonymous translation belongs to the Dryden series.

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[11.1] Then Antigonus built a wall round Nora and left a force sufficient to carry on the siege, and drew off the rest of his army.note Eumenes was beleaguered and kept garrison. He had plenty of grain and water and salt, but no other thing, either for food or delicacy; yet with such as he had, he kept a cheerful table for his friends, inviting them severally in their turns, and seasoning his entertainment with a gentle and affable behavior.

[11.2] For he had a pleasant countenance, and looked not like an old and practiced soldier, but was smooth and florid, and his shape as delicate as if his limbs had been carved by art in the most accurate proportions. He was not a great orator, but winning and persuasive, as may be seen in his letters.

[11.3] The greatest distress of the besieged was the narrowness of the place they were in, their quarters being very confined, and the whole place but 360 meters in compass, so that both they and their horses fed without exercise.

[11.4] Accordingly, not only to prevent the listlessness of such inactive living, but to have them in condition to fly if occasion required, Eumenes assigned a room 40 meters long, the largest in all the fort, for the men to walk in, directing them to begin their walk gently, and so gradually mend their pace. And for the horses, he tied them to the roof with great halters, fastening which about their necks, with a pulley he gently raised them, till standing upon the ground with their hinder feet, they just touched it with the very ends of their forefeet.

[11.5] In this posture the grooms plied them with whips and shouts, provoking them to curvet and kick out with their hind legs, struggling and stamping at the same time to find support for their forefeet, and thus their whole body was exercised, till they were all in a foam and sweat; excellent exercise, whether for strength or speed; and then he gave them their grain already coarsely ground, that they might sooner dispatch and better digest it.