Antigonus c. 382–301 Nicknamed Monophthalmus (‘One-Eyed’). One of the oldest and ablest of Alexander’s generals. He took part in Alexander’s invasion of Asia Minor and in 333 was made satrap of Phrygia; after Alexander’s death, Pamphylia and Lycia were added to his province. Unwilling to accept the authority of Perdiccas, he avoided Meleager’s error of risking a trial of strength and sought refuge in Greece. There he gained the favour of Antipater and later took the field with him against Perdiccas and Eumenes. After the death of Antipater in 319 Antigonus supported the former’s son Cassander against Polyperchon. He concentrated his efforts first at dealing with his most dangerous local opponent, Eumenes, who upheld Polyperchon’s cause in Asia Minor, and, having eliminated him, tried to bring Seleucus, then governor of Babylon, under his authority. At this point his growing power and the prospect that he might reconstitute the empire under his rule alarmed Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassander and Lysimachus sufficiently to make them combine in a coalition against him. As a part of his diplomatic warfare against them, Antigonus adopted Polyperchon’s tactics of offering self-government and the removal of the occupying garrisons to the Greek cities, including those in the territories of Cassander and Lysimachus. He was the first of the generals to take the royal title (306). In 302 Antigonus’ son Demetrius on his behalf revived the League of Corinth created by Philip and Alexander in 337: its aim was to harness the Greeks in an alliance which preserved the forms of their independence. After Antigonus’ death at Ipsus in 301 no Greek ruler remained who possessed the power to revive the project.
Antipater c. 398–319 Like Parmenion, his near contemporary, Antipater was older than Philip of Macedon and one of his most valued generals. He was sent to Athens as ambassador in 346 and negotiated peace with the Athenians after Chaeronea in 338. When Alexander set out for Asia he left Antipater in charge of Macedonia and Greece. Here Antipater frequently found himself opposed by Olympias, Alexander’s mother, who undermined his position first with Alexander and later with Perdiccas. In 331 he defeated Agis in the Peloponnese. After Alexander’s death, Antipater commanded Macedonian troops against the Greeks in the Lamian War of 323–2. At the conference at Triparadeisus in 321 or 320 he assumed the regency. His authority was accepted by the Macedonian troops in Asia, command of whom he entrusted to Antigonus, while he himself brought back the kings, Philip and Alexander, to Macedonia. His alliance with Antigonus was cemented by the marriage of his daughter Phila (the widow of Craterus) to Antigonus’ son Demetrius. But by then Antipater was nearing eighty and this period of stability was cut short by his death.
Cassander c. 355–297 Son of Antipater, he did not accompany the Macedonian army on its invasion of Asia but remained in Macedonia during his father’s regency. He was sent to Babylon in 324 but did not find favour with Alexander. Displeased at his father’s choice of Polyperchon for his successor, he set himself to oust his rival from the regency and sought help from Antigonus in Asia Minor. In 317, following the defeat of Polyperchon’s fleet by that of Antigonus off the Bosphorus, Cassander returned to Macedonia. In 316 he had Olympias executed and the young Alexander IV and his mother Roxane imprisoned (they were murdered some years later). In the following year, alarmed by the growth of Antigonus’ power, he joined the coalition of Ptolemy, Seleucus and Lysimachus against him. His power in Europe was confirmed in the settlement of 311 and in c. 305 he assumed the title of king of Macedonia. In mainland Greece, Cassander continued the policy pursued by his father, Antipater, of treating the city-states as subjects rather than allies, in contrast to the policy of Antigonus and Demetrius. In Macedonia his rule was more beneficial, in that by refraining from expansionist aims he reduced the strain upon the country’s manpower and financial resources. The Macedonians experienced the exact opposite of this policy during the short reign of Demetrius.
Craterus died 321 or 320 Outstanding among the younger Macedonian generals with Alexander, he came to occupy the place which Parmenion had held in the early years. Alexander trusted him thoroughly: in 324 he was charged with the task of bringing back a large corps of veterans to Macedonia and soon afterwards was appointed to replace Antipater in Europe. Immediately after Alexander’s death he was appointed guardian of Arrhidaeus. In the summer of 322 he crossed to Greece to relieve Antipater, who was then besieged in Lamia, and later engaged the Greek rebel forces at Crannon. His alliance with Antipater was confirmed by his marriage to the latter’s daughter Phila. In 321 or 320 he joined Antipater in the war against Perdiccas and at a battle near the Hellespont was defeated and killed by Perdiccas’ lieutenant Eumenes.
Lysimachus died 281 An elite bodyguard (somatophylax) of Alexander, he was wounded in India in 326. Following Alexander’s death he became governor of Thrace, and married Antipater’s daughter Nicaea. In 315 he joined the coalition of Ptolemy, Seleucus and Cassander against Antigonus. For many years he was obliged to occupy himself in pacifying his territory and consolidating his authority; he declared himself king c. 305. In 302 he launched a perfectly timed surprise invasion of Asia Minor, and in the following year effected a junction of his forces with Seleucus to defeat and kill Antigonus at Ipsus. Lysimachus was the principal beneficiary of the partition of Antigonus’ territories which followed the battle. His newly acquired dominions stretched from the north to south of Asia Minor, shut out Seleucus from the western seaboard and thus sowed the seeds of future conflict. He and Pyrrhus expelled Demetrius from Macedonia in 288 and shortly afterwards he occupied the whole country. In the last years of his reign Lysimachus’ autocratic and extortionate methods of government became intensely unpopular, and when Seleucus invaded his territory he met little resistance. Lysimachus made a stand at Corupedium near Magnesia in 281 and was killed in the battle.
Perdiccas c. 360–321 A member of a princely family of the province of Orestis in upper Macedonia. He served with distinction under Alexander, whose leading general he became after the death of Hephaestion and the return of Craterus to Europe. The dying Alexander entrusted him with the royal seal, and shortly afterwards at the conference in Babylon he was confirmed as supreme commander of the royal armies in the name of the Kings (Alexander IV and Philip III Arrhidaeus). In 322 he successfully invaded Asia Minor and requested the hand in marriage of Antipater’s daughter Nicaea, but then rejected it in favour of Alexander’s sister Cleopatra, a match offered him by Olympias. Although the marriage never took place, this action was represented by Antigonus as implying that Perdiccas aimed at usurping the crown and caused an irreparable breach with Antipater. In 321 or 320 Antipater, Antigonus and Craterus invaded Asia Minor, while Perdiccas had already marched south to attack Ptolemy in Egypt. He failed to force the crossing of the Nile and lost many men in the attempt, whereupon his troops mutinied and he was murdered.
Polyperchon c. 385–c. 300? A contemporary of Philip, he was a divisional commander under Alexander, and in 324 returned to Macedonia with Craterus and the demobilized veterans. He served with Antipater in the Lamian War, and in 319 Antipater named him as regent and his own son Cassander as second in command, an arrangement which the latter deeply resented. Compelled to seek support against Cassander and Antigonus, Polyperchon reversed Antipater’s repressive policy towards the Greek city-states, removing the occupying garrisons and permitting the return of many of the exiles. The effect of this action was to range himself with the democratic factions and Cassander with the oligarchic. In 317 Cassander landed in Macedonia: thereafter Polyperchon’s position deteriorated to that of a mere soldier of fortune. In 315 he accepted service under Antigonus, for whom he held the Peloponnese against Cassander’s forces, and in 309 he invaded Macedonia, again at Antigonus’ instigation, to support a pretender to the throne: this was one Heracles, a supposed son of Alexander and the Persian princess Barsine. Cassander bribed him to change sides, whereupon Polyperchon had the young pretender murdered. He is last heard of campaigning in the Peloponnese for Cassander in 304.
Ptolemy I c. 360–282 Son of the Macedonian nobleman Lagus, and one of the inner circle of Alexander’s commanders and advisers. He fought with distinction in India and wrote a history of Alexander’s campaigns which was an important source for Arrian’sAnabasis. After Alexander’s death he was appointed satrap of Egypt and determined to maintain his independence of the central authority of Perdiccas. One of his first actions to this end was to divert to Egypt the cortège bearing the body of Alexander, which the army had intended to be buried in Macedonia. Ptolemy justified his acquisition of this precious relic, which was first interred with great magnificence at Memphis and subsequently at Alexandria, on the grounds that Alexander had wished to be buried in Egypt. In 322 he allied himself with Antipater, and in 321 or 320 he defeated an invasion of Egypt by Perdiccas; the pact with Antipater was consolidated by his marriage to Antipater’s daughter Eurydice. In 315 he joined forces with Cassander, Seleucus and Lysimachus to resist Antigonus’ ambition to reconstitute the empire under his rule. In 306 his fleet was almost wiped out off Cyprus at the battle of Salamis, but Antigonus’ and Demetrius’ subsequent attempt to invade Egypt was foiled by bad weather. Ptolemy took no part in the battle of Ipsus and hence received little in the subsequent division of the spoils, but he arranged dynastic alliances by marrying his daughters, Arsinoe to Lysimachus and Lysandra to Cassander’s son Alexander and then to Lysimachus’ son Agathocles, and his stepdaughter Antigone to Pyrrhus of Epirus. More successful as a statesman than as a soldier, he left behind him a kingdom which was to prove the most enduring of the Hellenistic monarchies. He founded the Library of Alexandria and was one of the few Macedonian generals of his generation to patronize literature and the arts.
Seleucus c. 358–281 Son of Antiochus, one of Philip’s generals, and a near contemporary of Alexander, he became in about 330 commander of the crack infantry formation, the Hypaspists. He took Perdiccas’ side immediately after Alexander’s death, but was later instrumental in his murder following the failure of the Egyptian campaign. At the conference at Triparadeisus he was appointed to the satrapy of Babylonia. In 316 he was expelled by Antigonus, whereupon he fled to Egypt, joined Ptolemy in the war against Antigonus and commanded Egyptian squadrons in the Aegean. He returned to Babylon in 311 and steadily extended his authority over the eastern provinces. He declared himself king in 306/5. After campaigning in India, he made peace with the Indian ruler Chandragupta, receiving in return a corps of elephants which played a part in his victory at Ipsus in 301. At the partition of Antigonus’ domains, Seleucus added Syria to his territories and founded his western capital at Antioch. In 285 his most threatening rival Demetrius surrendered and in 281 he turned on his former ally Lysimachus, invaded his territories in western Asia Minor and defeated and killed him at Corupedium. But when he crossed to Europe to claim Lysimachus’ Thracian kingdom, he was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus, the disinherited son of Ptolemy I.