Wars of the Diadochi — The Successor Wars Begin
Alexander's generals fought over his empire for forty years and broke it into three kingdoms. He died at Babylon in June 323 BC at thirty-two with no arrangements made. Asked on his deathbed who should have it, he is reported to have said to the strongest, which is either a genuine remark or the perfect summary of what followed. The heirs available were a half-brother with a mental disability and a son not yet born, and both were used as figureheads and then murdered. The generals initially divided the satrapies and preserved the fiction of a single empire under a regent. That lasted about two years. Perdiccas was killed by his own officers invading Egypt in 321; Antipater died in 319; Eumenes fought a brilliant campaign in the east and was handed over by his own troops in 316 in exchange for their baggage; Antigonus the One-Eyed came closest to reuniting the whole and was killed at Ipsus in 301 at about eighty, fighting against four of the others. By 281 the map had settled: Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucus in Asia, and the Antigonids in Macedonia. The wars invented the Hellenistic world — Greek-speaking courts, cities and administrations from the Aegean to Afghanistan, mercenary armies, war elephants, and dynasties that ruled non-Greek populations through Greek institutions for two and a half centuries. Ptolemy's line ended with Cleopatra in 30 BC. The period is the best-documented case in ancient history of what happens when a personal empire outlives the person. Nothing in it was institutional, everything depended on the loyalty of armies to individual commanders, and the armies changed sides for pay and for baggage with great regularity.
- Year: 323 BCE
- Category: Political
