Alexander’s empire was a personal conquest. It had never gained an institutional framework that could bring such diverse elements as Macedonia, Egypt, Persia, and India together into a cohesive unity. There was not even an immediate successor. When asked on his deathbed to whom his position should go, Alexander apparently answered, ‘To the strongest’. The legitimate heir was Alexander’s half-brother, Arrhidaeus, but he was retarded. Roxane was pregnant and duly produced a son. Proclaimed as Alexander IV of Macedonia, he could never be more than a puppet figure. The inevitable result was a power struggle between Alexander’s generals that was to last for twenty years. The dominant figures were first Perdiccas, the senior cavalry officer, and, after Perdiccas’ death in 320, Antigonus the One-Eyed, who had been appointed satrap of Phrygia in 333. Antigonus struggled to maintain overall control of the empire until he was defeated and killed in 301.
The most shrewd of the competitors for Alexander’s empire was Ptolemy, who, appointed as governor of Egypt after Alexander’s death, simply consolidated his position as ruler while other generals fought over the rest of the empire. He also managed to grab the most sacred relic of all, Alexander’s embalmed body, which he installed at Memphis (later moving it to Alexandria). Ptolemy could not be dislodged, and he formally declared himself king around 305, so founding a dynasty that lasted until 30 Bc. In Asia Seleucus, the commander of one of Alexander’s elite regiments, emerged as victor. He also declared himself king in 305 proclaiming his own divine heritage as the son of Apollo. His kingdom was an unwieldy one, with Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, and all the varied peoples and cultures of the eastern provinces under his rule. It proved impossible to keep intact. The dynasty lost land continually until it was eventually confined to a small area of northern Syria, where the last of the Seleucid kings succumbed to Rome in 64 BC.
The third kingdom and the most prestigious for the heirs of Alexander was Macedonia, the only one where kings were to rule over their native people. The land was fiercely contested until 276 BC, when Antigonus Gonatas, grandson of Antigonus the One-Eyed, achieved control. He constructed a great palace at Aigai and may have been responsible for completing the royal tombs there. His dynasty remained in power until the Romans occupied Macedonia in the second century Bc. The country never recovered after the wars of Alexander, and few of its men ever returned home. They had either died, remained as settlers, or become mercenaries.
Another of Alexander’s legacies was the cities left behind him along the routes of his campaigns. Several, perhaps twelve, were founded during his lifetime. While one of them, Alexandria in Egypt, dedicated in the spring of 331, was destined to become one of the greatest cities of the Mediterranean world, others were little more than military garrisons in the conquered territories. Most were east of the Tigris in regions where cities had been rare. Alexandria-in-Caucaso in the Hindu Kush, for instance, was made up of 3,000 Graeco-Macedonian soldiers, some volunteer settlers, others discarded soldiers, supported by 7,000 locals who worked as labourers for them. Such cities were isolated, thousands of kilometres from Greece, among a hostile population, and with all the discomforts associated with pioneer life. Many failed completely, but others (such as Ai Khanoum) maintained themselves as enclaves of Greek culture for generations. (Robin Waterfield, Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire, Oxford and New York, 2011, deals well with this complicated period.)
World History
