On Alexander’s death, the Macedonian army had to decide who would succeed him. One of his wives, Rhoxane, was pregnant and her confinement imminent. A number of officers apparently wished to see if the child should be a boy and, if so, to proclaim him king (Plut. Eum. 3). The rank and file, however, preferred Alexander’s elder half-brother, Philip Arrhidaeus, who though feebleminded, was alive and present. In the end all agreed to a compromise: Arrhidaeus should become king (Diod. XVIII 2), but if Rhoxane bore a son, he should become co-king (from XVIII 18 onwards Diodorus speaks of two kings; he omitted the material explaining the compromise). A few weeks later Rhoxane did indeed give birth to a boy called Alexander.
A regency, however, was required in any case. Since Alexander’s generals could not agree on a single regent, they settled on a transparently unworkable arrangement whereby four veteran officers Antipater, Craterus, Perdiccas, and Meleager (as Perdiccas’ deputy) were to share power (Arr. BNJ 156, Fr. 1,1-3; Diod. XVIII 2 just gives the effective result). However, since Antipater was in Macedonia and Craterus was currently leading the 10,000 veterans whom Alexander had discharged at Opis back to Macedonia (Diod. XVIII 4) (see chap. 19), for the moment Perdiccas took over the command and redistributed the satrapies and other high offices (see Box 20.1). Noteworthy were the appointments of Ptolemy as satrap of Egypt and of Seleucus as commander of the “Companions,” the Macedonian cavalry.
Thereafter Perdiccas, who did not wish to have his hands tied by Alexander’s notebooks, contrived to have annulled all outstanding orders and plans left over from when Alexander was alive. At an assembly of the troops, Perdiccas read out the late king’s last plans (presumably he had “edited” them to achieve the desired effect), and their preposterousness caused the troops to vote to carry out none of them. His hands free, Perdiccas turned to practical matters of state. He eliminated some enemies, including Meleager, and suppressed the mercenaries’ revolt in Bactria (Diod. XVIII 4).
Ptolemy meantime took over his satrapy (Diod. XVIII 14). His effective predecessor, Cleomenes, was to remain in charge of the finances (Dexippus, BNJ 100, Fr. 8; Just. XIII 4,11), but Ptolemy quickly eliminated his rival (Paus. I 6). In hindsight Ptolemy had received the one satrapy which could most easily be severed from the empire (as Egypt had been for six decades in the fourth century) and converted into an independent kingdom. If Ptolemy wanted, or even realized, this in 323 can no longer be ascertained, but Egypt would eventually become one of the chief Hellenistic states.
World History
