I. The historian Douris tells us that the father of Eumenes of Kardia was so poor that he was obliged to act as a waggoner; yet he gave his son a liberal education both in mental and bodily exercises.  While Eumenes was yet a lad, Philip, King of Macedon, happened to come to the city of Kardia, where he amused his leisure time by witnessing the gymnastic exercises of the young men.  Perceiving that Eumenes was one of the most athletic, and that he was a manly and clever boy, Philip took him away and attached him to his own person.  A more probable story is that Philip gave the boy this advancement out of regard for his father, whose friend and guest he was.  After the death of Philip, Eumenes continued in the service of his son Alexander, and was thought to be as wise and as faithful as any of that prince’s servants.  His position was nominally that of chief secretary, but he was treated with as much honour and respect as the king’s most intimate friends, and was entrusted with an independent command during the Indian campaign.  On the death of Hephaestion, Perdikkas was appointed to succeed him, and Eumenes was given the post of commander of the cavalry, vacated by Perdikkas.  Upon this Neoptolemus, the chief of the men-at-arms, sneered at Eumenes, saying that he himself bore a spear and shield in Alexander’s service, but that Eumenes bore a pen and writing-tablets.  However the Macedonian chiefs laughed him to scorn, as they well knew the worth of Eumenes, and that he was so highly esteemed that Alexander himself had done him the honour to make him his kinsman by marriage.  He bestowed upon him Barsine, the sister of that daughter of Artabazus by whom he himself had a son named Herakles, and gave her other sister Apame to Ptolemaeus at the time when he distributed the other Persian ladies among his followers.

II.  Eumenes however was often in danger of incurring the displeasure of Alexander, because of his favourite Hephaestion.  On one occasion a house was assigned to Evion, Hephaestion’s flute-player, which the servants of Eumenes had previously claimed for their master’s lodging.  Hearing this, Eumenes went to Alexander in a rage, and complained that it was better to be a flute-player than a soldier.  At first Alexander agreed with him, and blamed Hephaestion for his conduct.  But afterwards he changed his mind, and attributed what Eumenes had done to a desire to insult himself, rather than to vindicate his rights against Hephaestion.  At another time, when Alexander was about to despatch Nearchus with a fleet to explore the Atlantic, he asked his friends to subscribe some money, as he had none in his treasury.  The sum for which Eumenes was asked was three hundred talents, of which he only paid one hundred, and said that he had had great difficulty in collecting even that amount.  Alexander did not reproach him, nor take the money from him; but he ordered his slaves secretly to set the tent of Eumenes on fire, hoping when his property