Founded during the time of Philip II, the Hypaspists were an elite infantry force whose predecessor was the Shield Guard. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThe weapons they use and the way they fight are very special, they use not only the sarissa spears of the Macedonian phalanx in their daily battles, but also light weapons such as short swords, and even they can throw javelins. Therefore, this is a highly adaptable unit made up of elite infantry in a hundred battles that can fight in a variety of ways. On Alexander's march into India, in order to appease these elite veterans, Alexander gave a new name to some of the shield guards, these veterans of the time of Philip II. Although the average age of this army is very large, their combat experience was unmatched in the whole world at that time.

At the time of Alexander's death, the Silver Shield was originally under the command of Craterus, but strangely enough, when Craterus returned to Europe to deal with the Greeks, he even took with him light infantry recruited from Asia, but left this Silver Shield Army in Cilicia to be received by Padica. However, Antignis, the commander of the Silver Shields, was one of the masterminds behind the assassination of Padica, so it cannot be ruled out that this force was left in Asia by Claterus. Now, after receiving the letter from Olympias and Polybeccon, Antignis went to Cilicia with this strong infantry of 3,000 men to meet Eumenes. The two sides met at Cilicia, and Eumenes began to use the money authorized to him by Polybecon to recruit new soldiers for battle. What's more, it was now he, not Antigonus, who had moral legitimacy, and the vast land of Asia east of Cilicia was now nominally under his jurisdiction.

In the days when Antigonus and Cassander openly confronted Polybecon, Eumenes was not idle. After escaping Minander's pursuit, Eumenes managed to rendezvous with the Silver Shields, and the first problem he had to solve was how to deal with the Macedonian officers who had come into contact with the Silver Shields.

Eumenes had known these officers as early as the time of Alexander the Great's crusades, but at the time he was only a secretary, and he was a Greek, not a Macedonian. Now, the newly appointed regent Polybercon had suddenly parachuted in on a much younger (Eumenes was in his 40s at this time, and the main commander of the Silver Shield was at least 50 years old), and a few letters from thousands of miles away were not enough to convince them, especially in the face of Antigonus' constant attempts to lure them into betrayal.

Antiochon, the commander of the Silver Shields, was also a veteran of Antigonus's age, who accompanied the old king in his expeditions to the north and south during the time of Philip II. He should be the hardcore of Craterus, and it is likely that it was Craterus's ploy to receive Antizhenis's silver shield soldiers in Cilicia in the first place, otherwise it is incomprehensible that he would have left this elite army there. As one of the masterminds of the assassination on the Nile, Eumenes may still have some fear of the veteran, who is said to have been the first to attack the former regent Padika, and later contributed to the death sentence of the remnants of Padika, including Eumenes. However, this time, Antignis actually traveled thousands of miles from Susa to Cilicia after receiving Polybocon's letter, which shows that Antignis recognized and faithfully carried out Polybocon's request, which to a certain extent shows Antijanis's attitude, both of them were once Clatrous's subordinates, so Antignis did not betray Eumenes in the end, and he is not the kind of person who betrays his lord and seeks glory. But the deputy commander of the Silver Shield, the man named Teutamus, was a little younger, he was not a man of peace, he was greedy for money and profit, and he proved to be a man of little will and great danger. …,

At the time of the meeting in Cilicia, Antignis and Thotamos greeted the new Asian general with great respect, but soon afterward, tensions began to develop. Antignis and Thothamos thought that going to Eumenes' tent was a sign of submission to the young man, who had not so long ago been a prisoner of Nora and an enemy of the Macedonians, and Eumenes' temper came, and he refused not only to go to the tent of the chiefs of the Silver Shieldmen, but also to accept the property of the Macedonian royal treasury that the Silver Shieldmen had brought to him. The Greek complained angrily: "If you do not intend to accept my orders and arrangements, this property will mean nothing to me. ”

Seeing that the two sides were about to reach a stalemate, Eumenes suddenly thought of a holy relic beside him - after the death of Alexander the Great, his ring was given to Eumenes, his remains were in the hands of Ptolemy, and the tent he used during his lifetime belonged to his secretary Eumenes. Now, Eumenes claims to have dreamed of Alexander the Great: the great conqueror who has returned to the world, to the same tent he had lived, wielding his scepter and ruling his empire. In his dream, Alexander also told his secretary that he would have to come to his tent to meet when decisions were made about Macedonian military and political affairs. Eumenes told Antignis and others that he believed that the dream was the message of Alexander the Great. He persuaded the veterans to use the wealth of the royal treasury to create a throne of pure gold, on which were placed the scepter, crown, and armor used by Alexander the Great during his lifetime. They placed the throne in the "Alexandria Tent" used by Eumenes, and held daily deliberations in it. Before the meeting began, they would perform Alexander's court rites to the throne as if Alexander's soul were sitting on the throne watching them. In this way, Eumenes not only calmed possible tensions, but also strengthened his authority by using Alexander the Great to inspire the cohesion and fighting spirit of these veterans.

Afterwards, Eumenes and his newly recruited soldiers and silver shieldmen marched south from Cilicia into Phoenicia. It was Ptolemy's newly conquered territory, but Ptolemy did not have enough forces at hand to resist Eumenes' army. He then resorted to diplomatic means by sending envoys to Antignes and Thotamos, telling them that Eumenes was only a condemned prisoner, and that they were to carry out the death sentence that they had participated in pronouncing a few years earlier. However, Ptolemy's letter had no effect, so Ptolemy's army withdrew from Phoenicia and ceded it to Eumenes, allowing the latter to begin building a fleet (although that fleet defected to Antigonus after the defeat of Clitus).

Ptolemy's lobbyists found nothing, but the lobbyists sent by Antigonus almost succeeded. Antigonus sent a lobbyist group of 30 veterans led by a Philotas to meet the commanders of the Silver Shields, and this Philotas was the former governor of Cilicia who had defected to Padica, then to Artecas, who was captured along with Dochemos, Laomedon, and Attalus after the defeat of Arcetas, and later soon defected to Antigonus. He lured Antignis and Thotamos and others with his high-ranking officials, hoping that they would betray Eumenes. Moved by the words, Thotamos followed the lobbyists to meet his prefect Antiochnius. However, Antignes pointed out that Eumenes, as a Greek, had to rely on them to command his Macedonian soldiers, and was therefore bound to be polite to them. Antigonus, by contrast, was extremely powerful, and if he defected to the Macedonian, who was older than them, he could only snort, and if he did not pay attention to any mistakes, Antigonus was fully qualified to punish or even execute them. Eumenes' Greek status helped him this time, and in the end, Thotamos accepted Antilliones' arguments and decided to be loyal to Eumenes. Ironically, this loyalty is based only on interests rather than feelings. …,

However, Philotas did not give up just like that, and seeing that the lure would not work, he took out a letter from Antigonus—Antigonus had already prepared for both. In this letter, Antigonus warns that if the Silver Shieldmen dare to refuse his orders, then he will regard the Silver Shieldmen as a rebel, and that the Silver Shieldmen's commanders are a little frightened in the face of naked threats. At this time, Eumenes arrived, and immediately gave a speech, reminding the Silver Shield Soldiers that it was Philip II and Alexander the Great who had brought them to where they are today, and that they must owe allegiance to the Macedonian royal family. The enthusiasm and candor of Eumenes' speech, combined with the pros and cons of Antignes' previous analysis, led Thotamos and the other Macedonian officers to reject Antigonus, and Philotas returned in vain.

However, what happened to Eumenes turned out to be extremely unfavorable, and because of his pride in winning the battle, Chrytus's fleet was wiped out near Byzantium, and he himself was killed by Lysimachus's soldiers on the way to escape. Later, when the Eumenes fleet sailed to Cilicia, the Phoenician sailors defected to Antigonus en masse with large sums of money, and Antigonus himself led a large army to defeat Eumenes. Due to the lack of troops at hand, Antigonus won successive naval victories and his morale was high, and Eumenes had no choice but to set his sights farther to the east. In a vast area stretching from Mesopotamia to Gandhara (from present-day Syria-Iraq to the Indus River), Eumenes intended to use his authority to co-opt the armies of the various Macedonian governors, gather them together, and then return to fight Antigonus to the death. Although there was little hope for such an adventure, Eumenes had no choice at this point.