AR 1/5 Tetradrachm 2.57g
Minted under Adea Eurydike, Amphipolis, 318-317 BCE
Le Rider Taf. 46, 29; SNG ANS 731–735
Vs.: Kopf des Apollon mit Tänie n. r.
Rs.: Jüngling reitet n. r., unten seitlich gesehener Schild
Note: I’ve reattributed this coin to Adea Eurydike, but since I haven’t managed to obtain a replacement coin for Polyperchon, I’ll keep this page.
The Era of the Diadochi brought out the top tacticians of the time. Unfortunately for Polyperchon, he wasn’t among them. He did, though, manage to change sides enough to have a relatively long life.
In relation to the rest of the Diadochi, Polyperchon was an old guy. He was a contemporary of Philip II, and had served both him and his son, Alexander the Great. His first mistake after Alexander‘s death, though, was to support Perdikkas, who turned out to be a vicious moron.
Still, things seemed rosy for him when Antipater left Macedon to Polyperchon instead of to his own son, Kassander. True to the times, this pissed off Kassander and resulted in war. Polyperchon felt safe allying himself with Alexander‘s mother Olympias and Eumenes in Asia. That may have worked had Polyperchon not been a horrible tactician.
This showed when he took on the city of Megalopolis, which boasted a really cool name. It’s also the kind of place you expect superheroes, and they seemed to help when Polyperchon besieged the city as the lone holdout on the Peloponnesus. Polyperchon figured he had the numbers and a bunch of war elephants, but Megalopolis figured out how to royally freak the elephants out so much that they went beserk and trampled many of Polyperchon’s own men.
The situation went so badly, that the rest of Greece realized that this guy was a moron who couldn’t conduct what should have been a freebie war. They all declared themselves for Kassander, and after that the war was a lost cause.
Still, Polyperchon figured he was on the right side when he allied himself to Antigonos I Monophthalmos, who happened to be the big guy around that time. However, his ineptitude continued, and success in battle mostly eluded him.
In a desperate attempt, Polyperchon dug up Alexander‘s last son in Herakles, along with his mother Barsine. Under threat of installing Herakles as king of Macedon, Kassander finally talked some sense into him.
The reasoning was that once Herakles was installed as king, he’d have no use for Polyperchon. Instead, Kassander offered him a generous place in his army if he’d only kill the boy. This Polyperchon did, and he thus switched sides to Kassander.
While Polyperchon continued in his new post by not accomplishing much of note, he did survive. We unfortunately don’t know when he passed, but he certainly was active up to an advanced age.