Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [1]
8.3 A funerary monument, Athens. Courtesy Olga Palagia
9.1 The only known depiction of elephant warfare from Alexander’s time. Courtesy Frank Holt
9.2 Movements of Antigonus and Eumenes leading up to the battle of Paraetacene. Beehive Mapping
10.1 An artist’s rendering of Tomb 2, Aegae. Andronikos, Vergina: The Royal Tombs, Athens, 1984. 17th Ephorate of Antiquities © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Archaeological Receipts Fund
10.2 The silver hydria containing the remains of Alexander IV. Andronikos, Vergina: The Royal Tombs, Athens, 1984. 17th Ephorate of Antiquities © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Archaeological Receipts Fund
epl.1 Alexander as depicted on Ptolemy’s coinage, 321 B.C. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Preface
The Macedonian Empire was one of the world’s largest but, without doubt, its most ephemeral. It attained its greatest extent in 325 B.C. with Alexander the Great’s invasion of the Indus valley (today eastern Pakistan), at the end of a ten-year campaign of conquest in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. But it began to collapse in 323 following Alexander’s sudden and unforeseen death. It existed in a full and relatively stable form for only two years.
The story of Alexander’s conquests is known to many readers, but the dramatic and consequential sequel to that story is much less well-known. It is a tale of loss that begins with the greatest loss of all, the death of the king who gave the empire its center. “He died just when men most longed for him,” writes Arrian, one of the ancient historians who dealt with this era, implying both that Alexander’s talents were needed to keep the empire together and that the king had become an object of adoration, even worship, in the last years of his life. The era that followed came to be defined by the absence of one towering individual, just as the previous era had been defined by his presence. It was as though the sun had disappeared from the solar system; planets and moons began spinning crazily in new directions, often crashing into each other with terrifying force.
The brightest celestial bodies in this new, sunless cosmos were Alexander’s top military officers, who were also in some cases his closest friends. Modern historians often refer to them as “the Successors” (or “Diadochs,” a Greek word meaning virtually the same thing). But that term is anachronistic for the first seven years after Alexander’s death, when none of these men tried to succeed the king; they vied for his power but not his throne. During the entire span I cover in this book, there were living Argeads (members of the Macedonian royal family) who alone had the right to occupy that throne. Hence I refer to those often termed Successors simply as Alexander’s generals; they were contestants for military rather than royal supremacy. Many of them would eventually occupy thrones, but only after 308 B.C., when it became clear that the Argead era was well and truly over.
The conflicts of these generals took place across a huge swath of Alexander’s empire, often with clashes occurring simultaneously on two or even three continents. I have used snapshot-like frames, starting in the third chapter, to organize disparate but interconnected events, each headed by a rubric to remind readers of the place, time, and principal characters involved. It should be noted that the dates I have used in the rubrics are contested and may differ by a year from those found elsewhere. Historians are divided over two rival schemes, the so-called high and low chronologies; the dates I have given here belong to the high chronology, endorsed most recently by Brian Bosworth in his masterful study The Legacy of Alexander. It is Bosworth’s authority that has decided this matter for me, since I think both schemes have sound arguments and valid evidence behind them, as does a recently proposed hybrid that blends elements of the two.
The ancient record of this era is frustratingly incomplete, even though two talented Greek historians wrote studies of it, and one of them was