We must now resume the narrative which we dropped at the partition of the empire, and distribution of the provinces, that immediately followed Alexander's death, and relate the events which led to the result mentioned at the close of the preceding chapter, and were pregnant with other more momentous consequences. One of the first occurrences which marked the administration of Perdiccas after he had established himself in the regency, was a wound which he inflicted on Greece in a distant corner of Asia: a triumph of the Macedonian arms memorable rather because it prevented than because it produced an important change in the course of affairs, but which serves to illustrate his character, as well as the footing on which he stood. While the struggle which we have seen brought to such a disastrous issue was just beginning in Greece, and the states which took part in it could with difficulty raise a force sufficient to maintain it, a body of Greeks, who, if they had been present in their native land, would probably have thrown their whole weight into the same scale, and might have turned it decisively on the side of freedom, was suddenly swept from the earth. The Greek colonists, whom Alexander had planted in the new cities which he founded in the eastern satrapies, had only been detained by fear during his life in what they considered as a miserable exile.