Eumenes (1.1-1.2)

EUMENES of Cardia, according to Duris, was the son of a man whom poverty drove to be a waggoner, in the Thracian Chersonesus, but received a liberal education in literature and athletics. While he was still a boy, Duris says further, Philip, who was sojourning in the place and had an hour of leisure, came to see the young men and boys of Cardia exercising in the pancratium[*] and in wrestling, among whom Eumenes had such success and gave such proofs of intelligence and bravery that he pleased Philip and was taken into his following.

But in my opinion those historians tell a more probable story who say that a tie of guest-friendship with his father led Philip to give advancement to Eumenes. After Philip’s death Eumenes was thought to be inferior to none of Alexander’s followers in sagacity and fidelity, and though he had only the title of chief secretary, he was held in as much honour as the king’s principal friends and intimates, so that on the Indian expedition he was actually sent out as general with a force under his own orders,[*] and received the command in the cavalry which Perdiccas had held, when Perdiccas, after Hephaestion’s death, was advanced to that officer’s position.