Dividing the Spoils

by Waterfield, Robin

  Cleomenes: born and bred in Egypt; appointed satrap, or perhaps financial administrator, of Egypt by Alexander in 331; killed by Ptolemy I in 322.

  Cleopatr a: sister of Alexander III of Macedon; wife of Alexander I of Molossia; ruled Molossia after his death; promised to Leonnatus, then Perdiccas, and later Ptolemy I; killed by Antigonus late in 309 or early in 308.

  Craterus: one of Alexander’s most trusted generals; Alexander’s death found him in Cilicia; allied himself with Antipater for the Lamian War and then to deal with Perdiccas and Eumenes; died in battle with Eumenes in 320.

  Cratesipolis: wife of Alexander, son of Polyperchon; after his death in 315, set up an independent enclave in Sicyon and Corinth; hung on there until Ptolemy I’s takeover in 309.

  Cynnane: half sister of Alexander III; mother of Adea; killed (by accident?) by Alcetas in 321.

  Darius III: last Achaemenid king of the Persian empire; killed by his own men in 330 following defeat by Alexander the Great.

  Deidameia: sister of Pyrrhus; once betrothed to Alexander IV, but married Demetrius Poliorcetes.

  Demetrius of Phalerum: ruler of Athens 317–307 for Cassander; ousted by Demetrius Poliorcetes; fled eventually to Alexandria.

  Demetrius Poliorcetes (the Besieger): flamboyant and erratic son and heir of Antigonus Monophthalmus; his father’s right-hand man in the 300s; recovered after Ipsus and came to rule Macedon from 294 to 288; following an overambitious invasion of Asia, died in captivity under Seleucus’s protection in 282.

  Demosthenes: persistent opponent of Philip II and Alexander III, warning his fellow Athenians about Macedonian intentions for Athens and southern Greece; accused of embezzling some of Harpalus’s money and exiled; returned just before the Lamian War, but his death was demanded by Antipater after victory in the war; committed suicide as a fugitive on the island of Calauria in 322, aged sixty-two.

  Eumenes of Cardia: secretary and archivist to Philip II and Alexander III; awarded satrapy of Cappadocia in 323; fought on after Perdiccas’s death until defeat by Antigonus in 319; allied himself to Antigonus in 318, but then soon to Polyperchon; killed by Antigonus in 317 after Gabene.

  Eurydice: daughter of Antipater; first wife of Ptolemy I; mother of Ptolemy Ceraunus, Ptolemais, and Lysandra.

  Eurydice: seeAdea.

  Harpalus: close associate of Alexander III, entrusted with the financial administration of the empire; on Alexander’s return from India, absconded with a large amount of money, first to Tarsus and then to Athens, where his money helped finance the Lamian War; assassinated on Crete in 323.

  Hephaestion: the closest friend, probable lover, and second-in-command of Alexander III; died in 324, probably from alcohol abuse, to Alexander’s great grief.

  Heracles: illegitimate son of Alexander III; never a contender for the Macedonian throne until 309, when Polyperchon set out to install him but treacherously killed him instead on Cassander’s orders.

  Iolaus (or Iollas): son of Antipater; cupbearer to Alexander the Great, and hence fell under suspicion of having poisoned him; died ca. 320; his tomb was desecrated by Olympias in 317.

  Lachares: ruler of Athens from ca. 297 until defeat by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 295.

  Lanassa: daughter of Agathocles, king of Syracuse; briefly married to Pyrrhus before marrying Demetrius.

  Leonnatus: Bodyguard of Alexander the Great; outmaneuvered by Perdiccas in the power struggle following Alexander’s death; sided with Antipater, while eyeing the Macedonian throne for himself, as husband of Cleopatra; killed in 323, early in the Lamian War.

  Leosthenes: commander of the Greek forces in the Lamian War (323–322), during which he was killed.

  Lysandra: daughter of Ptolemy I and Eurydice; married Alexander V and then Agathocles; fled to Seleucus’s court during the civil war following Agathocles’ execution by his father.

  Lysimachus: Bodyguard of Alexander the Great; awarded Thrace in 323 and reappointed in 320; tied up in Thrace for many years, but emerged in the 300s and led the coalition forces against Antigonus and Demetrius at Ipsus in 301; gained Asia Minor and then took over Macedon as well in 284; his kingdom fell into civil war in 283; defeated and killed by Seleucus at Corupedium in 281.

  Meleager: infantry commander under Alexander the Great; tried to seize power after Alexander’s death in 323 but killed by Perdiccas.

  Menander: Companion of Alexander the Great, appointed satrap of Lydia by Alexander in 331; reappointed after his death in 323 but replaced in 320.

  Menander of Athens (ca. 344–292): foremost surviving author of New Comedy plays.

  Menelaus: brother of Ptolemy I and governor of Cyprus from ca. 315 until defeat by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 306.

  Nearchus of Crete: Alexander III’s most trusted admiral; after Alexander’s death joined Antigonus’s court, and eventually became one of young Demetrius’s advisers.

  Neoptolemus: a Molossian prince in Alexander’s court; ordered by Perdiccas to help Eumenes in Asia Minor, but instead joined Antipater’s side; died in a battlefield duel with Eumenes in 320.

  Nicaea: daughter of Antipater, married first to Perdiccas and then to Lysimachus; mother of Agathocles.

  Nicanor: son of Antipater; appointed satrap of Cappadocia in 320 but forced out by Antigonus ca. 319; killed by Olympias in 317.

  Nicanor: general of Cassander, garrison commander of Piraeus from 319 until 317, when he was executed by Cassander.

  Olympias: wife (Philip II), mother (Alexander III), and grandmother (Alexander IV) of Macedonian kings; an enemy of Antipater, in exile in her native Epirus from 330; returned at Polyperchon’s invitation in 317; killed by Cassander in 316.

  Peithon: Bodyguard of Alexander the Great; appointed satrap of Media in 323; interim coregent in 320; too ambitious for his own good, he was killed by Antigonus in 316.

  Perdiccas: Bodyguard of Alexander the Great; seized power after his death by gaining control of the two kings; the First War of the Successors was intended to curb his ambitions; assassinated by staff officers while invading Egypt in 320.

  Peucestas: Bodyguard of Alexander the Great, appointed satrap of Persis in 323 and reappointed in 320; demoted by Antigonus as part of his settlement of the east in 316.

  Phila: daughter of Antipater; married first to Craterus and then to Demetrius Poliorcetes; committed suicide in 288.

  Philetaerus: governor or treasurer of Pergamum for Antigonus, then Lysimachus; fled to Seleucus in 283 during the civil war in Lysimachus’s kingdom; with Seleucus’s help, became the first ruler of independent Pergamum.

  Philip II of Macedon (359–336): instigator of Macedonian greatness; unified and secured Macedon; hugely expanded its military capacity; planned to invade the Persian empire but was assassinated; his son Alexander III inherited the task.

  Philip III of Macedon (323–317): birth name Arrhidaeus; mentally impaired half brother of Alexander the Great; a pawn in Meleager’s, then Perdiccas’s, then Adea’s maneuvers; killed on Olympias’s orders.

  Philip IV of Macedon (297): son of Cassander, ruled for only a few months before dying.

  Pleistarchus: younger brother of Cassander; one of Cassander’s main generals in Greece from 313 onward; awarded Cilicia after Ipsus, but lost it to Demetrius in 298; established by Lysimachus as an independent dynast in Caria.

  Polemaeus (called Ptolemaeus, i.e., Ptolemy, in some sources): nephew of Antigonus Monophthalmus and an extremely effective general in the 310s; briefly independent in central Greece 310–309 before being killed by Ptolemy I on Cos.

  Polyperchon: Craterus’s second-in-command in Cilicia at the time of Alexander’s death; Antipater’s deputy in Macedon 320–319; replaced Antipater as regent in 319; ally of Olympias; ousted by Cassander; reduced to some parts of the Peloponnese; tried to regain power by restoring Heracles in 309; died ca. 303.

  Prepelaus: a general of Cassander from ca. 315; last heard of at Ipsus (301).

  Ptolemais: daughter of Ptolemy I and Eurydice; became one of
the many wives of Demetrius Poliorcetes.

  Ptolemy I of Egypt (satrap 323–305; king 305–285): Bodyguard of Alexander the Great; awarded Egypt in 323 and reappointed in 320; pursued a policy of creating buffer zones around Egypt; successfully defended Egypt against two invasions (320, 306); expanded especially into the Aegean area, but an attempted takeover of Greece in 309 failed; abdicated in favor of his son Ptolemy II in 285 and died in 283.

  Ptolemy II of Egypt (285–246): son of Ptolemy I by Berenice (and so not his eldest son).

  Ptolemy Ceraunus: son of Ptolemy I by Eurydice (and so his eldest son); denied the throne by his father’s preference of Berenice; in exile in Lysimachus’s court, then Seleucus’s; assassinated Seleucus and made himself king of Macedon (281–279); killed during Celtic invasion.

  Pyrrhus of Epirus (306–302, 297–272): restless great-nephew of Olympias and second cousin of Alexander the Great; allied first with, then against Demetrius (then with, then against again); later a thorn in the side of the Romans and, briefly, king of Sicily.

  Rhoxane (or Roxane): Bactrian princess who became Alexander III’s first wife in 327; pregnant when he died, gave birth a few months later to Alexander IV; killed, along with her son, by Cassander ca. 309.

  Seleucus I of Asia (305–281): after Alexander’s death, rose rapidly thanks to alliances with Perdiccas, then Antipater; appointed satrap of Babylonia in 320; ousted by Antigonus in 316; made a dramatic return in 311; defended his province, and established his realm from the Euphrates eastward; after Ipsus, added Syria; after Corupedium, added Asia Minor; killed by Ptolemy Ceraunus while trying to add Macedon as well.

  Seuthes III of Thrace (ca. 330– ca. 300): Lysimachus’s bête noire, king of the Odrysians and effective ruler of inland Thrace.

  Stratonice: daughter of Demetrius, granddaughter of Antipater, and niece of Cassander; married first to Seleucus and then to his son Antiochus.

  Telesphorus: nephew of Antigonus; a not very successful general in Greece in 312; briefly independent in Elis.

  Thessalonice: half sister of Alexander III; captured and subsequently married by Cassander in 316; failed to keep the peace between Antipater I and Alexander V; murdered by Antipater.

  Zipoetes of Bithynia (327–280): ruler of independent Bithynia; subdued by Antigonus but resurgent after Ipsus.

  Genealogies

  None of these genealogies is complete. For fuller versions, and more trees, see F. W. Walbank et al. (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 7.1: The Hellenistic World (2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 484–91, or P. Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 732–9.

  Note that Arsinoe, who married her brother Ptolemy II, had previously been married to Lysimachus and then to her half brother Ptolemy Ceraunus, while Ptolemy II had previously been married to another Arsinoe, the d. of Lysimachus.

  Notes

  Abbreviations

  Ager =

  Ager, S., 1996, Interstate Arbitrations in the Greek World, 337 – 90 BC(Berkeley: University of California Press).

  Austin =

  Austin, M., 2006, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation (2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

  Bagnall/Derow =

  Bagnall, R., and Derow, P., 2004, The Hellenistic Period: Historical Texts in Translation (2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell) (1st ed. title: Greek Historical Documents: The Hellenistic Period).

  Burstein =

  Burstein, S., 1985, The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

  Curtius =

  Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander.

  DS =

  Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History.

  FGrH =

  Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin: Weidmann, 1923–58; CD-ROM ed., Leiden: Brill, 2004).

  Grant =

  Grant, F., 1953, Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill).

  Harding =

  Harding, P., 1985, From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Ipsus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

  Heckel/Yardley =

  Heckel, W., and Yardley, J. C., 2004, Alexander the Great: Historical Texts in Translation (Oxford: Blackwell).

  Justin =

  Marcus Junianus Justinus, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus

  SSR =

  Giannantoni, G., 1990, Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, 4 vols. (Naples: Bibliopolis).

  Welles =

  Welles, C. B., 1934/1974, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (New Haven: Yale University Press; repr. Chicago: Ares).

  Preface

  1. Plutarch, Life of Alexander 8.2.

  2. See I. Morris, “The Greater Athenian State,” in Morris and Scheidel 2009, 99–177; and note that Polybius does not include the Athenian “empire” in his survey of empires prior to the Roman one (Histories 1.2).

  3. Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, p. 44, Penguin ed.

  Chapter 1

  1. Arrian, Anabasis 24–6 relates this story, along with other glimpses of Alexander’s last days; see also the other texts translated in Heckel/Yardley, 272–80.

  2. The symptoms are described by Plutarch, Life of Alexander 73–7, and Arrian, Anabasis 24–6. The main innocent suggestions are malaria (Engels 1978a; Hammond 1989b, 304–5), peritonitis (Ashton/Parkinson 1990), acute surgical complications (Battersby2007), and encephalitis (Marr/Calisher 2003). Bosworth1971 cannot rule out poisoning on historical grounds, nor can Schep2009 on medical grounds. We owe accurate knowledge of the time of Alexander’s death to Depuydt1997.

  3. Curtius 10.10.14.

  4. Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus 15.4.

  5. On Hyperides: Ps.-Plutarch, Lives of the Ten Orators 849f. On Cassander: Plutarch, Life of Alexander 74.2–3. The story sounds over-melodramatic, but it may contain an element of truth.

  6. On this document, the Royal Ephemerides or Royal Journal, see especially Bosworth1971 and Hammond 1988. Another version of its value as propaganda is given by Heckel 2007. The view that it was a much later forgery is argued by, e.g., L. Pearson, “The Diary and Letters of Alexander the Great,” Historia 3 (1955), 429-55; repr. in Griffith 1966, 1–27. in Griffith 1966.

  7. DS 16.93.7; Justin 9.6.5–6.

  8. “Satrapy” is the term for a province of the Achaemenid empire; a “satrap” was the governor of a satrapy.

  9. For Alexander’s innovatory style of kingship, see Fredricksmeyer 2000 and Spawforth 2007; for Alexander’s attitude toward easterners, Bosworth 1980.

  10. Carney 2001. Guesses began in antiquity: see e.g. Plutarch, Life of Alexander 77.5; DS 18.2.2.

  11. Bosworth 2000; Heckel 1988; text in Heckel/Yardley, 281–89. Heckel skillfully argued for a date early in 316 for the forgery, but Bosworth’s 308 seems more plausible.

  12. A talent was the largest unit of Greek currency. In this book I have assumed that one talent had a spending power equivalent to $600,000. Greek money was not on the whole fiduciary, but worth its weight; the primary meaning of “talent” is a weight—close to 26 kgs (somewhat over 57 lbs). The breakdown is as follows: 36,000 obols = 6,000 drachmas = 60 minas = 1 talent. A mercenary soldier in the period covered in this book might expect to receive at most 2 drachmas a day, to cover all his expenses; see Griffith 1935/1984, 294–307.

  13. DS 18.4.1–6. Some scholars doubt the authenticity of all or some of the “Last Plans”: see e.g. Hampl in Griffith 1966. But see e.g. Hammond 1989b, 281–85.

  14. See Fraser 1996.

  15. DS 18.8.2–7; Justin 13.5.2–7; Curtius 10.2.4.

  16. DS 18.8.4.

  17. Justin 13.1.12, clearly speaking with hindsight.

  18. Arrian, Anabasis 7.26.3; Curtius 10.5.5; Justin 12.15.8; DS 17.117.4.

  Chapter 2

 
1. On this practice in Persia, see Briant 2002, 302–15; in Macedon, Hammond 1989a, 54–5.

  2. Slightly distorted in Curtius 10.5.16.

  3. This percolation is presented by Curtius (10.6–10) as the physical presence of ordinary troops in the meeting room. None of our other sources for these events (Justin 13.2–4; DS 18.2–3; Arrian, After Alexander fr.1.1–8) contains this feature, and I judge it to be a dramatic or distorted way of representing the percolation. Otherwise I have broadly followed Curtius’s account. There are, however, serious difficulties with Curtius and all the sources, not least that, implausibly, none of them has the meeting paying any attention to Arrhidaeus until forced to do so. The extant accounts read more like dramatizations of the main issues than reliable accounts of who proposed what. Other discussions of the Babylon meetings: Atkinson/Yardley 2009; Bosworth 2002, ch. 2; Errington 1970; Meeus 2008; Romm 2011, ch. 2.

  4. Curtius 10.5.4.

  5. Bosworth 1992, 75–9.

  6. Arrian, After Alexander fr. 1.3; for the meaning of the Greek phrase, see Anson 1992, Hammond 1985, and Meeus 2009 a.

  7. Justin 13.4.4.

  8. Errington 1970.

  9. For full details, see DS 18.3; Curtius 10.1–4; Arrian, After Alexander fr. 1.5–8; Dexippus fr. 1; with Appendix 2 in Heckel 1988.