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Ptolemy I, Alexander's bodyguard
turned ruler of Egypt. A leader in
breaking up Alexander's empire.
Ancestor to Cleopatra.

Seleucus, became ruler between
what is today Turkey and Pakistan.

An unreliable account of Alexander as he neared death describes him as offering rule to his generals. Another account describes him as putting the hand of one of his generals, Perdiccas, with the hand of his wife Roxana and naming Perdiccas as his heir. Perdiccas apparently did not wed Roxana - who was pregnant with Alexander's child. Perdiccas did favor making this child Alexander's heir if the child was to be a son. To some Macedonians, however, it was unthinkable that their king should be the son of a "barbarian" woman from central Asia. This was the beginning of the break-up of Alexander's empire and the spilling of much more blood. It was another failure that was to plague monarchies through antiquity. It was a failure that would leave the Hellenistic civilization that followed Alexander weak and vulnerable to a power that was rising in the west: Rome.

Those opposed to Roxana's child as Alexander's heir favored Alexander's half brother, Philip III, a simpleminded and illegitimate son of Philip II and one of Philip's mistresses. When Roxana gave birth to Alexander's son, Alexander IV, the different opinions about who should succeed Alexander intensified, and civil war appeared imminent. But war was averted by a compromise in which it was agreed that Philip III and Alexander IV would reign jointly while each was supervised by a general.

In Epirus, Alexander's mother, Olympias, supported her grandchild, Alexander IV, and was hostile toward Philip III. With Perdiccas also favoring her grandson, she sought an alliance with Perdiccas and offered him marriage to her daughter - Alexander's full sister.

Another actor in this grand drama was Alexander's general and former bodyguard, Ptolemy, who was at the head of a significant number of Alexander's former troops. Conveniently for his ambitions, he believed that he and his fellow generals would be unable to keep Alexander's empire unified, and he proposed that they divide the empire among themselves. Less than a year after Alexander died, Ptolemy murdered the man Alexander had put in charge of Egypt: Cleomenes. And in the place of Cleomenes, Ptolemy, with his army, took power in Egypt.

Alexander's generals and governors made a show of their devotion to Alexander's memory, and, except for Ptolemy, they spoke of the need to keep the empire unified. But between them came rivalry. The aged Antipater and those Alexander had assigned to govern various parts of his empire resented and feared Perdiccas' power. And Antipater, who governed Macedonia and Greece, joined with two other generals, Antigonus and Craterus, and prepared for war against Perdiccas. Power rivalry was again manifesting itself as one of the bigger sins of all time.

War erupted first over Alexander's bones, which Ptolemy is reported to have buried in the Egyptian city of Memphis. Perdiccas went with an army into Egypt against Ptolemy, but when Perdiccas needlessly lost many of his troops crossing the Nile it angered his troops, and they mutinied. A group of Perdiccas' officers assassinated him in his tent. And with the elimination of Perdiccas, the remaining generals agreed that Antipater should be regent to both Alexander's son and to Philip III. A military officer named Seleucus - who had led the mutiny against Perdiccas - was chosen to govern Babylon, and Antigonus was chosen commander-in-chief of what had been Alexander's army in the east.

Antigonus Fails to Unite the Empire

Antigonus took command of the most powerful naval forces in the Aegean, and in eastern Asia Minor (Cappadocia) he warred against and executed the man Alexander had assigned there as governor. Meanwhile, in 319, Antipater died of natural causes. His son, Cassander, replaced him as the ruling general in Macedonia and Greece, and the hostility between Olympias and Antipater became a feud between her and Cassander. Olympias had raised an army and claimed rule over Macedonia. Philip III, aware that Olympias opposed his sharing rule with her grandson, allied himself with Cassander. Feeling threatened by this, Olympias had Philip III, his wife and a hundred friends of Cassander executed. Cassander then marched from Greece into Macedonia with his army. He won battles there against Olympias' armies. He had Olympias executed, and he put Roxana and Alexander IV under guard.

It was Antigonus who controlled Alexander's great treasury in West Asia, and he hoped that by asserting his power he could unite Alexander's empire. Fearing his power, the other generals united against him. Seleucus fled from Babylon to Egypt and allied himself with Ptolemy. Cassander also allied himself with Ptolemy; as did a Macedonian general named Lysimachus who governed Thrace. In 315, with mercenaries of many nationalities, Antigonus and Ptolemy fought each other, and Antigonus forced Ptolemy out of Syria. Then Antigonus cited Cassander for crimes against Olympias and sent his troops to Greece, while in 313 Antigonus' son, Demetrius, fought and lost to Ptolemy at Gaza.

In 312, Ptolemy moved against Antigonus by sending Seleucus with a small army back to Babylon. In 311, Cassander had Alexander IV and his mother, Roxana, executed. The struggle between Antigonus and the alliance of Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander and Lysimachus continued for ten years, to 301 BCE, when the alliance against Antigonus triumphed, Antigonus losing the battle of Ipsus in Asia Minor and his life.

Seleucus emerged as nominal ruler of territory from Syria to Bactria. Lysimachus ruled Thrace, and in name he became ruler of Asia Minor. Cassander continued to rule in Macedonia and much of Greece. Ptolemy formally declared Egypt as his independent kingdom. And Antigonus' son, Demetrius, was left with command of a powerful Greek navy and the support of only a few island cities in the Aegean Sea. Demetrius thought of himself as carrying on his father's struggle to unify Alexander's empire, but reasonable hope for unification had come to an end.

The New Monarchies

The new rulers made themselves monarchs in the Macedonian tradition. Drawing from the Alexander legend, they attempted to have a striking personal appearance. They wore headbands similar to the one Alexander had worn, which became a symbol of monarchy, and they continued Alexander’s use of the title “king.” In meeting visitors they postured haughtily, while visitors were obliged to gesture submission, respect and deference.

The new monarchs sought support in religion, pretending that their bloody wars were the will of the gods. As had Alexander, they claimed themselves divine. Ptolemy claimed that he was descended from Heracles and Dionysus. He attempted to appeal to the glory of Egypt’s ancient past, and he portrayed himself as a new pharaoh, but he staffed his administration with Greeks rather than Egyptians, and many Egyptians continued to view his rule as foreign.

Seleucus claimed lineage that extended back to the god Apollo, and he claimed that his rule was under the special protection of both Apollo and Zeus. Zeus, he claimed, resided at a temple in his capital city, Antioch, and Apollo resided in a temple at Daphne, just outside Antioch.

More Wars, an Invasion by Celts, and New Boundaries and Dynasties

Alexander's prestige had rested on his military conquests, and the new monarchs believed that military prowess was a part of their prestige. They would fight one another for territory and make war a way of life in their time. Armies as large as sixty to eighty thousand would go into battle - to be thought the maximum size for armies as late as the eighteenth century.

Cassander apparently died of an illness, and his enemy Demetrius extended his rule in Greece, Demetrius taking power in Athens and starving the city into surrender. By 294, after more warring, he won control over Macedonia and named himself its king. But in 288, Seleucus and Lysimachus drove him out. In 285 Demetrius surrendered to Seleucus, and he died two years later.

Friction developed between Lysimachus and Seleucus over who would succeed Demetrius as king of Macedonia. Seleucus proclaimed himself king of Macedonia, but Lysimachus extended his rule there, and Seleucus invaded Lysimachus' territory in Asia Minor. In 281, Seleucus defeated Lysimachus at a battle in which Lysimachus died. And this left Greece and Macedonia open to a series of wars and power struggles.

Celts to the northwest of Greece and Macedonia heard of the anarchy in Greece and Macedonia, and they had heard stories of gold and silver offerings to Greek gods in temples there. They invaded, and in Macedonia they defeated, captured and executed a newly crowned king. In Greece they burned and looted as they went. They invaded Thrace and Asia Minor. Seleucus' son, Antiochus I - the first successor in a long line of Seleucid kings- was unable or unwilling to send a force against them, and cities in Asia Minor had to defend themselves as best they could. Antigonus II - Demetrius' son and the grandson of the once heroic Macedonian general, Antigonus I - rallied a force against the Celts and drove them from Thrace and Macedonia.

Antiochus ruled from Syria. He had given up hope of ruling Macedonia, and he befriended Antigonus II, taking support where he could find it. Not having the power base in Macedonia and Greece that Alexander had, and not having Alexander's reputation, Antiochus' hold on what had been Alexander's empire to Bactria was tenuous at best. He allowed some Celts to settle in central Asia Minor. But he lost control over western and northwestern Asia Minor, where Pergamum, with financial help from Ptolemy II, won its independence and detached neighboring cities. Ptolemy II sent troops into Asia Minor and took the coastal city of Eupheus, while the Seleucid dynasty also lost a large part of Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor.

The East Fragments and is Invaded by the Parthians

The region in southwestern Persia called Persis (which included the city of Persepolis) had become an independent collection of tribal monarchies that remembered the glorious past of the Persian emperors Darius the Great and Artaxerxes. Bactria was ruled by a governor whom the Seleucids ignored. Territories east of Bactria were conquered by India's first great empire, under Chandragupta. And the Seleucids did little if anything to stop the migrations into northern Persia by a people called Parthians, whom the Seleucids saw as no significant threat. From steppe lands east of the Caspian Sea, the Parthians were settling down in northern Persia and absorbing Persian culture. They founded their own towns, and around the year 250 BCE a Parthian chief founded a Persian-style hereditary monarchy called the Arsacids. Then in 246, the governor of Bactria formally declared Bactria's independence, and he allied Bactria with the empire of Chandragupta's Buddhist grandson: Asoka.

Drawing mainly from Greek and Macedonian support, the Seleucids continued to control Syria, Mesopotama, Palestine and parts of Persia. Colonies that Alexander had founded in Persia and Bactria remained Greek islands in a sea of eastern peoples. And in these colonies, Greek and Macedonian ways were being diluted by the taking of Asian women as wives.

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