Eumenes of Olbia

Eumenes is a typical young man, seventeen years old and with little more to worry about than the source of his wine and his next conquest before Zopryon’s armies threaten his homeland. His father is Cleomenes, one of the richest and most powerful men on the Euxine, and he himself is already a fully equipped member of the hippeis.

I.G. Spence’s Cavalry of Classical Greece was an indispensable source in explaining the training of a young man like Eumenes, teaching me what Kineas would have experienced as a trainee as well as the value of Greek cavalry in the age of the hoplite and the phalanx.

Eumenes is quite bitter over the path chosen by his father, and it changes him; forcing maturity on the young man and some consequent bitterness that informs his character. His self-imposed exile will take him to greatness — and beyond it. And it is through characters like Eumenes that we will see the long-term consequences of having been formed by Kineas.