Sorry for the long wait in the update. I had a part of it ready on a different forum, but wanted to finish it before I posted it here.
The First Signs Of Trouble
War, as the saying goes, is full of false alarms.
-Aristotle
Reconstruction of Babylon
The infantry and cavalry always dislike and distrusted each other. While the infantry were the poorer, common folk, the cavalry had always been composed of the more well off. Not to mention, when someone was promoted by Alexander from the infantry to cavalry, the others immediately felt jealous. Ever since their successful mutiny after the Hydaspes, the infantry had become emboldened. Indeed, when rumors spread that Alexander was dead after he got an arrow to the lung, the infantry mutinied against the generals, and it got out of hand, until a weak Alexander showed himself.
Now, the infantry was riled up again. Having more than likely overheard the decision at the meeting to name the future child of Rhoxane as king shall it be a boy, they had had enough. Instead, they gathered together in an assembly, and prepared to crown Arrhidaeus as the new king of Macedon. A scuffle between the cavalry and infantry broke out. Perdiccas immediately dispatched Meleager to dissuade the infantry from mutinying, and to stop the conflict. Meleager was popular with the infantry, so he was the best person to convince them otherwise. However, Perdiccas had made a massive mistake. Meleager was the very person who had suggested Arrhidaeus be crowned king at the meeting. Now Perdiccas was essentially giving him command of an army that he could easily turn against them with and take power for himself. Meleager wasted no time doing just that.
Instead of dissuading the infantry, he encouraged them, and helped them crown Arrhidaeus as Phillip III of Macedon. The intention of this gesture was quite obvious. The infantry wished to go back to the time before Alexander, before barbarians were treated the same as Macedonians, a time when Phillip ruled, and Macedon was controlled solely by pure Macedonians.
A death warrant for Perdiccas was then signed by the newly crowned Phillip, and the infantry cheered as they raced towards the palace to confront him. Meleager knew if he was to hold power for long, Perdiccas could not escape. Perdiccas managed to slip out a side exit before he got surrounded, and hastily fled Babylon, along with the rest of the cavalry and leaders. Fortunately, word did not spread quickly during this time period, as there were certainly many parts of the empire that could have taken advantage of the situation. Many however, had no idea Alexander was even dead yet.
Perdiccas was no military dunce, and he quickly set up an effective blockade and siege of Babylon with his cavalry. The water supply was cut out, and Perdiccas and his men sat there and waited for Meleager to come to the negotiating table. It was at this moment that the wily Greek, Eumenes of Cardia, arose from the sidelines to put in his two sense.
He offered a compromise. As a Greek he argued, he had nothing to gain from this chaos, and was thus a perfect mediator. Meleager reluctantly agreed to negotiate, and Perdiccas appeared before the infantrymen, giving a brilliant speech, explaining to them if they did not compromise now, the defeat no enemy had ever inflicted upon them during their glorious careers, would be done to them by fellow Macedonians. Hearing a familiar figure of authority, and shamed for their actions, the soldiers agreed to take back Perdiccas as their master. In the ensuing time, a deal, although an odd one, was hammered out.
Phillip Arrhidaeus would be crowned king. Assuming Rhoxane's child was born a male, he would be made joint king with Phillip. Phillip would hold more power than Rhoxane's child, with the assumption he could rule more competently than a newborn baby. Leonnatus was somehow removed from the board of guardians, with his position replaced with the likes of Meleager, who would become subordinate to Perdiccas in Asia. Craterus and Antipater retained their previous positions of joint protectors of Europe. Meleager had risen to the top on the wave of the soldiers. Now it was Perdiccas's turn to bring the wave crashing down.
The Fall of Meleager
All warfare is based on deception.
-Sun Tzu
Macedonian War Elephant
Meleager would not enjoy his power for long. Perdiccas had a good role model for how to deal with dissent in his camp, and this was none other than Alexander himself. When faced with Cleitus The Black calling him nowhere near the man his father was, at a drinking party the man who saved Alexander's life at the Granicus was impaled with a spear by Alexander. (although he regretted it almost immediately). After Aristotle's grand-nephew, Callisthenes, spoke out against him incorporating Persian customs into his court life (bowing before the king), Alexander was forced to abandon the bowing ritual.A few months later though, Callisthenes was conveniently connected to a plot against Alexander's life, and was executed.
At Opis, the last and most serious challenge to Alexander's authority, 10,000 of his veterans became outraged after hearing they were to be replaced by freshly recruited Persians. They openly mocked him and his delusional beliefs of him being some godly figure. His response was to walk around and pick out the soldiers who had been the most outspoken, to be summarily executed. The result was the execution of 13 distinguished veterans, and the silencing of the soldiers discontent.
So clearly, Perdiccas had quite an example to work off of. However, his power was too tenuous for him to openly pick out the leaders and have them punished. If a battle were to break out, his cavalry would be at a disadvantage in the streets and alleyways of Babylon. His solution would prove to be spectacular.
Lustrations had often been carried out in the Macedonian army from its earliest days, in an attempt to cleanse and purify themselves in front of the gods. A dog would be cut into two separate halves, and dragged onto opposite sides of a field. It was then the army would march in full armor between the two halves, sometimes followed afterward by a mock battle between infantry and cavalry. Now, Perdiccas ordered for such a lustration to be held on the open fields outside the grand city of Babylon. The excuse he used, was it was to cleanse the army of the mutiny. The cavalry and infantry were to be arranged perfectly opposite each other. Perdiccas could not have chosen a better time or place for a trap.
Although Meleager surely was suspicious, he had little choice but to go along with it. Spies planted strategically in the army around Meleager made sure he heard their grumbles about how they disliked Meleager and the way his he rose to his position. After complaining to Perdiccas, Perdiccas and Meleager agreed to arrest the dissenters during the lustration. Everything was going according to plan.
As the lustration proceeded, the infantry and cavalry marched, with the cavalry being lead by fearsome war elephants. Feeling the the two sides were at a close enough distance, Perdiccas now sprung his trap, and out came King Phillip III, who marched over to the infantry and recited his already prepared speech, demanding for the immediate surrender of the leaders of the mutiny-who ironically were the same men who were the reason he was on the throne in the first place-. If they did not comply, the cavalry, along with the war elephants, would launch a charge. Meleager had to watch in horror as 30 of his strongest supporters were handed over to Perdiccas. They were bound and thrown into the open, where they were stampeded by the elephants;a horrifying display to those watching. Perdiccas had removed the most troublesome members of the army in one stroke of brilliance. According to Arrian's Events After Alexander[1] however, Perdiccas would be always full of suspicion by his men from this point onward.
A few hours later, Meleager himself would meet his end. Despite fleeing to a nearby temple in a futile hope that the taboo of killing someone seeking sanctuary in a temple would be held up, he was forcibly dragged. The Phillip indifferently signed the death sentence of the man who had propelled him to power. Perdiccas had quite literally, stomped on the spirit of mutiny.
[1] In this timeline, the library at Alexandria is not destroyed. Thus, there are a gold mine of ancient historical texts that in our timeline were lost, that still exist in this timeline.