HELLAS:NET - History

The political situation in Macedon became very uncertain with the sudden death of Alexander. He did have a half-brother, but his intellectual capacities were not that well that he would be able to rule such a vast empire. The widow of Alexander, Roxane, was pregnant but unfortunately did Alexander not have any children yet. The Macedonian generals decided that they would wait and see if the child would be a son. The child was of course to young to become king, so Alexander's half-brother was made king while one of the generals would become regent in the name of Alexander's son. At the same time they divided the kingdom in several parts which would be ruled separately by them. This way they controlled everything while Alexander's descendants only had a symbolic function. However, soon a battle for total power erupted which lasted from 323 till 281. This period is known as the period of the diadochs, which means as much as successors.

Alexanders empire split up.

This period can be split up in three parts. The first few years there was still one legitimate dynasty and there were persons who defended the interests of the descendants of Alexander as they were his rightful successors. The second period started in 315 when Alexander's son was murdered. At that moment Antigonus One-eye was the ruler over Asia Minor and the most powerful diadoch. His competitors for total control over the empire were Lysimachus in Thracy and the north-west of Asia Minor, Cassander (the son of Antipater who died in 319) in Macedon and Hellas, Ptolemaeus in Egypt and Seleucus in Babylon. Around 306 all of them declared themselves king over their part of Alexander's empire.

The third part started in 301 when Antigonus died at Ipsus in Frygia during a large battle against a coalition of "separatists". Lysimachus gained control over Asia Minor, and the heritage of Alexander seemed to have fallen into four separate kingdoms. However, Antigonus' son and most important general Demetrius Poliorcetes (= conqueror of towns) managed to get away after the death of his father. He only had his fleet left, but in the years before the battle he already had managed to get support from several Greek cities, among them was Athens.

Several diadochs had declared themselves as liberators of Hellas in order to get the support of the Greek cities, but none of them had been so successful in this as Demetrius and Antigonus. Thanks to this was Demetrius powerful enough to become king of Macedon after the death of Cassander in 297. In 288 he was driven away from Macedon and Hellas after a combined attack of Lysimachus and Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was the king of Epirus who claimed to be king of Macedon as the wife of Phillip II, and the mother of Alexander, had been a member of the house of Epirus. Demetrius fled to Asia Minor where he was captured by Seleucus, who forced him to commit suicide in 285. Lysimachus took over the control of Macedon and Thessaly and became the most powerful of the diadochs.

Family-feuds and intrigues at the court resulted in another war, and in 281 Lysimachus was killed at Corupedium during a battle against Seleucus. The son of Demetrius, Antigonus Gonatas, now claimed to be the one who should come to the throne in Macedon. Antigonus Gonatas had managed to gain power as he still had the control over harbours like the Piraeus, Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias after the death of his father.

Invasions of 'barbarians'.

In 279 Celtic tribes, which are usually referred to as the Galatians, invaded Hellas and Macedon from Central Europe. Some of them even invaded Asia Minor where they were fought by the Macedonian ruler of Pergamum, a to Seleucus deserted commander of Lysimachus. This person had been insignificant till then, but he saw his fights against the Galatians rewarded with the founding of an independent kingdom Pergamum. This kingdom would become later on one of the most prominent cultural centres of the Hellenistic world thanks to the dynasty of Attalids. However, the Galatians remained an independent political unity in Asia Minor in spite of the continuous attacks of Pergamum.

In Hellas the Celts were stopped by the Aetolic League, while Antigonus Gonatas stopped them in Thracy and Macedon. Thanks to his efforts Antigonus managed to become king of Macedon, like he had aspired for such a long time. After his failed attempts to establish a Hellenistic monarchy in south Italy and Sicily Pyrrhus of Epirus hoped to drive Antigonus away from Macedon. His ambitions ended when an old woman threw a roof-tile on his head during streetfights at Argos in 272. He was immediately dead.

Fate had decided. The battle for the heritage of Alexander was decided with the founding of three big kingdoms: Macedon was ruled by the dynasty of Antigonids; large areas of Asia Minor and Syria, Mesopotamia and the eastern satrapies formed together the kingdom of the Seleucids; Egypt and the areas around it were ruled by the dynasty of the Ptolomies. Of course there were small autonomous areas like the kingdom of Pergamum, but they did not have much influence. The further political and military history of the third century was characterised by a balance of power between these three kingdoms.

The three kingdoms.

The Macedonian empire fell apart in several smaller empires after Alexanders death which kept fighting eachother for several centuries.

The strategic vulnerable spots for Egypt were the traderoute from the north over the sea, and from the north-east through the Sinai dessert. The first one forced the Ptolomies to have an active naval policy. They established strongholds and allies in the coastal areas of west and south Asia Minor and the Aegean. One of the most important of their strongholds was Rhodos, which had its golden era as flourishing tradecenter. It remained a free and independent Polis, and had very much stability as a tax of 2% on every incoming and outgoing product enabled the upper classes to provide the lower classes with a good system of social security. This way they kept the poor people happy while they maintained their political superiority.

Hellas itself was important for the Ptolomies and the Seleucids for the recruitment of mercenaries and administrators. There were a lot of tensions between Egypt and Macedon as the last one traditionally saw Hellas as part of its kingdom. However, Egypt never supported anti-Macedonian movements in Hellas other than by political means. Around 250 Egypt could no longer access Hellas as Macedon had managed to take over the control of the seas.

In Asia Minor Egypt controlled Palestine and southern Syria to prevent attacks on the homeland through the Sinai. However, shortly after 200 Egypt was forced to end its ambitions in this area too as the Seleucid king Antiochus III conquered both areas. During an earlier battle (the battle of Raphia in 217) Egypt had managed to defeat Antiochus, but in fact this was already the end of Egypt as an important power. The Egyptian victory was thanks to local Egyptian warriors who were trained as Macedonians. The victory at Raphia was the start of a nationalistic awakening in Egypt, and the growing aversion against the Greek-Macedonian domination degraded the kingdom of the Ptolomies to a political factor of little importance. The Seleucids had internal problems also in the course of the third century, caused by the immense size and the multi-cultural character of the kingdom. That is why the further political history of the kingdom is characterised by a strive for unity.