The Battle of Corupedium
At Corupedium in 281 BC the last two of Alexander's generals still alive fought each other, and both were dead within a year. Lysimachus had taken Thrace in the first division of the empire in 323, the least promising share of it, and spent two decades subduing a frontier of tribes between the Danube and the Aegean. He took the royal title in 306 with the others, did much of the work of destroying Antigonus at Ipsus in 301, and was rewarded with western Anatolia. In 285 he added Macedon, and at about seventy-five he held most of what Alexander had ruled in Europe. It came apart inside his own family. Persuaded by his second wife that his heir Agathocles was plotting against him, Lysimachus had his own son executed. The widow fled to Seleucus with the accusation, the Anatolian cities began defecting, and Seleucus crossed the Hellespont with an army. The battle was fought in Lydia and Lysimachus was killed in it, reportedly by a javelin, at about eighty. His body was found on the field days later, guarded by his dog. Nobody inherited: his kingdom of Thrace simply ceased to exist as a unit. Seleucus had seven months to enjoy being the last man standing. He crossed into Europe to claim Macedon and was murdered near Lysimachia by Ptolemy Keraunos, a son of Ptolemy I whom he had sheltered. Three years later the Gauls poured through the Balkans and killed Keraunos in turn. The generation that had divided Alexander's empire was gone, and the three dynasties that outlasted them - Antigonid, Seleucid and Ptolemaic - were what the eastern Mediterranean would be for two centuries.
- Year: 281 BCE
- Category: Military
