Alexander IV of Macedon

Alexander IV was king of Macedon from birth and never ruled anything. He was born a few months after his father Alexander the Great died at Babylon in 323 BCE, to Roxane, the Bactrian noblewoman Alexander had married at the height of the eastern campaign. The generals at Babylon had already been arguing about the succession; the compromise was that the empire would be held jointly by Alexander's half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus, who was mentally incapable, and by Roxane's child if it proved to be a son. It was, and the two of them became joint kings under a regent - which meant that for the whole of his short life the boy was a legitimising object passed between the men fighting the wars of the Diadochi. Perdiccas held him first, then Antipater, who took him to Macedonia, then Polyperchon. His grandmother Olympias seized him and killed Philip Arrhidaeus to clear the way, and was besieged and executed by Cassander in 316. Cassander took custody of the child and his mother and shut them in the citadel at Amphipolis under guard, stripped of royal attendants and titles. The peace of 311 BCE among the Diadochi contained a clause saying that Cassander would hold Europe until Alexander came of age, which amounted to a public statement of the date on which he would become inconvenient. Cassander had him and Roxane poisoned in about 309 BCE, when he was thirteen or fourteen, and kept the deaths secret for a while. The Argead dynasty ended with him, and within five years the surviving generals had stopped pretending and were calling themselves kings.

• Lived: 323 BCE – 309 BCE
• Nationality: Macedonian
• Roles: ruler