Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire

303 Pages·2011·8.57 MB·English

by  Robin Waterfield

dividing the spoils
Ancient Warfare and Civilization
series editors:
richard alston robin waterfield
In this series, leading historians offer compelling new narratives
of the armed confl icts that shaped and reshaped the classical
world, from the wars of Archaic Greece to the fall of the Roman
Empire and Arab conquests.
Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire
Robin Waterfi eld
robin waterfield
DIVIDING THE SPOILS
The War for Alexander
the Great’s Empire
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Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Waterfi eld, Robin, 1952–
Dividing the spoils : the war for Alexander the Great’s empire/Robin Waterfi eld.
p. cm. — (Ancient warfare and civilization)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-539523-5
1. Greece—History—Macedonian Hegemony, 323–281 B.C. 2. Macedonia—History—Diadochi,
323–276 B.C. 3. Generals—Greece—Biography. 4. Generals—Macedonia—Biography. 5. Greece—
Kings and rulers—Biography. 6. Macedonia—Kings and rulers—Biography. 7. Mediterranean Region—
History, Military. 8. Mediterranean Region—History—To 476. I. Title.
DF235.4.W38 2011
938 ′ .070922—dc22 2010030834
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
for my father
and in memory of my mother
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
List of Illustrations xv
Maps xvi
1. The Legacy of Alexander the Great 1
2. The Babylon Conferences 16
3. Rebellion 30
4. Perdiccas, Ptolemy, and Alexander’s Corpse 43
5. The First War of the Successors 57
6. Polyperchon’s Moment 69
7. The Triumph of Cassander 81
8. Hunting Eumenes in Iran 93
9. Antigonus, Lord of Asia 107
10. The Restoration of Seleucus 118
11. Warfare in Greece 128
12. The End of Antigonus 140
13. The Kingdoms of Ptolemy and Seleucus 155
14. Demetrius Resurgent 171
15. The Fall of Demetrius 184
16. The Last Successors 197
Time Line 213
Cast of Characters 219
Genealogies 227
Notes 231
Bibliography 245
Index 265

viii Contents
Preface
This book tells the story of one of the great forgotten wars of history.
It took more or less forty years after the death of Alexander the Great
for his heirs (the D iadokhoi , the Successors) to fi nish carving up his vast
empire. These years, 323–281 bce , were fi lled with high adventure,
intrigue, passion, assassinations, dynastic marriages, treachery, shifting
alliances, and mass slaughter on battlefi eld after battlefi eld. And while
the men fought on the fi eld, the women schemed from their palaces,
pavilions, and prisons; this was the fi rst period of western history when
privileged women, especially from the royal families, began to play the
kind of major political roles they would continue to play throughout
the future history of Roman, Byzantine, and European monarchies.
My period has a natural starting point—the death of Alexander in
June 323—and an equally natural end. The year 281 saw the violent
deaths of the last two direct Successors of Alexander, those who had
known and ridden with him. The next generation—the Epigonoi , as
Nymphis, a historian of the second century bce, called them in a lost
work—may have been just as ambitious as their fathers, but the world
had changed. It was no longer realistic to aim for dominion of the
whole of Alexander’s empire; instead, their fi rst aim was to hold on to
their core territories—Macedon for the Antigonids, Asia for the Seleu-
cids, and Greater Egypt for the Ptolemies. Of course, they and their
descendants would regularly attempt to take over some of a neighbor’s
territory, but no individual any longer realistically aspired to rule the
whole known world. There would never again be a time like the time