After the death of
Alexander there was not really a successor. Officially, his handicapped
stepbrother Arrhidaios would take the power as Phillip III, and the still
unborn son of Roxan would follow him as Alexander IV. But reality was
different and the empire got shared between the main powerful figures: Chiliarch Perdikkas
and Antipatros (the strategist from Athens), Krateros and some Satraps
like Antigonos (who took Mayor Phrygia, Lykien and Pamphylien), Ptolemaios
(who took Egypt) and Lysimachos (who ruled over Thracia).
This started a series of
small fights and territorial alterations. Some states were disintegrated
and formed again with new a territorial structure, they became independent
and after dissolved because of internal arguing. This situation ended at
the beginning of 281 BC with the extinction of the generals. Antipatros
and Krateros defeated Thessaly and destroyed once and for all the naval
power of Athens, that got occupied by the Macedonian troops. In Asia,
Perdikkas tried to extend his power, until that in 320 BC he got killed by
a campaign in Egypt.
The same year fell also Krateros in the fight
against Eumenos in Minor Asia. Antigonos got the power over Asia and died
in 301 BC at the age of 81 during the battle of Ipsos in Phrygia.
Ptolemaios died in 283 BC. Seleukos became the ruler of Babylon and
strongly enlarged his reign in a short time. The fights continued in this
way for a long time, and many rulers died and got quickly replaced by
other. Finally, the empires got shared between Lysimachos, who had in the
mean time taken the supremacy in Europe, and Seleukos, who was ruling over
Asia and Minor Asia.
Now
it was the time for the fights between Lysimachos and Seleukos to start,
that ended with the death of Lysimachos in 281 BC during the battle
of Kurupedion. Seleukos saw then close his dream of seizing the power over
Europe, but got killed when entering the European territories. The result
of these power struggles were the three remaining big empires: the
Ptolemaic Empire, the Seleucid Empire, and the ancestral territory of
Macedonia.
In
Greece, many cities got together to create alliances that would set them
in a more relevant position. The first ones were the Aetoler Alliance,
that seized the power over almost all central Greece after expelling the
Celts that had advanced until Delphi, the Achaean Alliance, that
surrounded the Peloponnesus, and the Melossian Alliance, in the entire
region of Epirus. In 276 BC, an anti-Macedonian alliance between Athens
and Sparta followed the Chremonidian war but ended with the defeat of
Athens, giving Macedonia the total control in 262 BC. After, Pergamon
enjoyed a short rise between 228 and 223 BC, when Attalos I dominated over
a big part of Minor Asia.
Kleomenes managed to make
Sparta born again through his reforms, but got beaten in 222 BC by a
Macedonian Achaean Alliance and the city went down again. In 224 BC, a
Hellenic Alliance leaded by Macedonia was created with the union of
Achaia, Thessaly, Epirus, Akarnany, Boeotia, Phokoe, Lokre and Euboea. This
Alliance guided the allies war against Sparta and Aetoler in 220 BC, which
ended with the peace of Naupaktos, the last peace signed before the Roman
arrival in Greece.
In fact, the Roman
established themselves in Macedonian territories during the I and II
Illyrieschen war in 229 and 219 BC. Phillipp V
formed then an alliance with Carthage, in Sicily, and Rome with Aetoler.
This leaded to the first Macedonian war in 215-205 BC, which ended with a
peace agreement. Ιn the II Punic war, the Roman defeated Carthage and
Sicily became a Roman province.
Early History / Archaic Age / Classical Age / Hellenic Age / The Army / Timeline
