Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. The winter wind whips down out of the mountains and onto the dry plains of Iran. It chilled the old soldier to the bone. Even though he'd been serving the kings of Macedonia for 40 years, almost his entire life, he had never really gotten used to campaigning during the dark months. Many times he had marched out into the snow and rain, forted icy streams
and rivers and barely staved off hypothermia. Only a couple of winters before, Frostbite took one of his toes during an ill-advised foraging expedition. He already limped on that leg, courtesy of a spear wound received decades before during one of Alexander's battles, so to him little had changed. But despair cut the Macedonian more deeply than the wind. What was he supposed
to do now? They were all dead, everyone he'd served for so many years. Philip, Alexander, Perticus and now Eumenis, all the masters for whom he'd spilled his blood everywhere from Illyria to India. He wasn't quite sure how old he was, but he knew he was nearing 60. The strength was leaving his arms, marches were harder. When he drank too much as he often did, the headaches the next day were so bad that it almost wasn't worth it. Almost.
But he knew no other life. Even the awful sounds of a goddell's aftermath and he heard now the whales and cries for mother or water or help. Where as familiar to him as the lowing of cattle to a herder or a hammer's ringing to a smith. What else was there? He was too old to learn to sow and reap. He had no skill with clay or iron. Boats were just as unwelcome to him as they'd been the first time he traveled on one. Yet money, of course,
more money than he could ever hope to spend, but he had no taste for luxuries. It wasn't that he liked killing, not like so many of the Macedonian soldiers he'd known over the decades. It was just work, honorable work, and the service of kings he loved, and he was good at it. Those kings were long gone now though. Did he really owe these generals? Many had known when they were snot-nosed little boys in beardless rakes, his loyalty. The
thought struck the old Macedonian. Maybe a little house overlooking a sun-kissed sea. A few slaves to take care of him. Maybe a young wife looking to inherit, and all the wine he could drink. Now that didn't sound so bad. As soon as he started to ponder the scenario, a strange and overpowering desire to follow through took hold. In that moment he knew he was done well and truly done. No more blood, no more death, no more arguing about
pay or whether to betray a commander. He dropped his long pike and small shield, stripped off his battered helmet and removed his red-stained linen curusk, keeping only his short sword and dagger. His treasure, the plunder he'd gained from decades of war, was with the baggage. Perhaps his life wasn't over yet. As the years went by and Alexander's death faded into the past, the world he had made came apart at the seams. His generals bound together
by their love of victory in their king were at each other's throats within days. Their conflicts, the wars of the successors, would define the age to come. Rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings.
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When Alexander the Great died in June of 323BC at the age of just 32, he left behind an empire that stretched from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, at least in theory. In reality,
he had cut his ways through the satrapies of the Persian Empire with fire and blood. He destroyed armies on the battlefield, sacked cities that refused to open their gates to him, and slaughtered anyone who posed a threat to his continuing campaign of world conquest, whether those were soggy invilagers or his own lifelong allies and friends.
Rather than a coherent empire with well-defined administrative structures and a clear hierarchy, Alexander bequeathed to his successors a ramshackle conquest state, held together only by the King's charisma and presence at the center. He had no male heir anywhere close to adulthood who could take his place. Unlike his father, who had married early and often and father numerous children, Alexander had no offspring that he acknowledged as his own until his
backtrade wife, Roxana, gave birth several months after his death. Every collateral branch of the Argaead dynasty had been wiped out either by Alexander or by his father, Philip. There had once been a plethora of royal cousins and uncles any of whom might have succeeded to the throne with the right allies. Now, they were all gone.
But Alexander hadn't conquered half the world on his own. Forging the fractious Macedonian aristocracy into loyal backers of a militarized conquest state had been the greatest accomplishment of both Alexander and Philip before him. Involving the minor royal houses, noble families, and hill country warlords and a vast imperial project had been no easy task. It had required the sharing of power, immense quantities of plunder, and no small amount of terror inspiring
kingly wrath to keep them in line this long. The generals, companions, and bodyguards of Alexander were not meant to be trifled with at any point. By the time Alexander died in Babylon, each of those individuals controlled resources on a scale that would have allowed them to win the Peloponnesian war in a matter of weeks. They could put thousands of the finest soldiers the world had ever seen into the field and build fleets of hundreds of
cutting edge warships. Because of the immense amounts of loot they'd helped extract from the former territories of the Great King, they could afford to pay for those armies and fleets and keep them in the field almost indefinitely. Their ambitions, like Alexander's, hadn't been slaked by more than a decade of conquest. The historian James Rom points out that only one bodyguard, whose service predated Alexander's reign, ever even tried to retire.
Every other major figure kept grasping until either they achieved ultimate victory or more likely ended up on a funeral pyre. It was practically certain that any attempt at settling their dead kings and heritans would lead to war sooner rather than later. That's exactly what happened, and the contenders began dropping like flies. First the legendary general Craterus, then Alexander's designated regent Perticus, and then finally Antipeter, the elderly soldier
who had held Europe for his king during the long years in the east. By the end of 320 BC, the political landscape had changed irrevocably. The dream of a united empire was fast slipping away, and new contenders were emerging, rising from obscurity to stake their claim not on the whole, but on a mere portion of Alexander's inheritance. A quick note, I'm relying on two excellent narrative accounts of this period for today's episode. The first is Robin
Waterfields dividing the spoils. The second is James Rom's Ghost on the Throne. The latter is particularly great if you're interested in this period. So when we left off last time, Antipeter had just died. He was more than 80 years old, the last remnant of a bygone age, a link to a time before the Macedonians had been global conquerors or even the hegemon's of
the Greek world. Quite unexpectedly, given the territories the other Macedonian generals were carving out for themselves with obvious stynastic ambitions, Antipeter decided against bequeathing his regency in Europe to the most obvious candidate. That was his son, Cassander, whom Antipeter had never fully trusted with real responsibilities.
At best, the 35-year-old Cassander had been second to more seasoned figures, including Antipeter's ally Antigonus I. Rather than laying out his intentions to found an anti-patriane dynasty of the kind Ptolemy was clearly trying to create an Egypt, or Antigonus and Asia Minor, and Antipeter went a different route. He handed over his regency to Polyparicon, a long-time veteran of Alexander's campaign in the East. In fact, Alexander had sent Polyparicon to serve as the second
to the beloved and now deceased general Craterus as Regent of Europe. So Antipeter was essentially following the last command his king had ever given him before he died. Cassander was incandescent with rage at the news. Even as his father was lying on his deathbed, Cassander was already plotting to displace Polyparicon and take what he saw as his rightful place as the ruler of the
Greek world in Europe and the Aegean. Polyparicon may have had an impeccable resume and the blessing of Antipeter, but the other powerful figures surviving in 319 BC had much to gain from his potential downfall. Tollamy was Cassander's brother-in-law and the envoy Cassander sent him secured the de facto ruler of Egypt's cast at approval for a move against Polyparicon. Antigonus I,
right across the Hellaspont in Anatolia, could offer more concrete aid. Cassander soon crossed the short stretch of sea to join Antigonus and the two set about plotting Polyparicons downfall. Before he could commit to that plan, however, Antigonus still had some business to attend to Inesia. Many of the Peridotian holdouts had retreated to Tyre. Tollamy took care of that. It was one
of the cities Tollamy took in his seizure of the 11th-Eunchoes around this time. Now this was unwelcome to Antigonus and the other generals who were preparing to contest control of Mesopotamia and the provinces to the east, but in the short term there was nothing they could do about it. Antigonus had just defeated another holdout, Alcatus, Peridotus's brother, and incorporated
his substantial armies into his own. That left the Satrap's Antipater had recently appointed to govern Inesia, none of whom was especially friendly to Antigonus, any of whom could pose a threat to the general's core territories if he were to leave to fight Polyparicon in Europe. Antigonus's moves against these Satrap's made his intentions toward Polyparicon clear. One by one Antigonus got rid of them, taking control of any territory in Asia that could potentially
be hostile. He also made peace with the Greek former secretary Eumenis, who had proven himself one of the most able of Alexander's former subordinates, letting him out of the fortress where he was holed up and returned for an oath of loyalty. Antigonus had never wanted to fight against Eumenis in the first place, and now he had the opportunity to settle that conflict, even in lists the
talented Eumenis on his side, and concentrate his attention where it mattered. The final straw, between Antigonus and Polyparicon, was the seizure of some 600 talents worth of bullion from the harbor of Ephesus. The money was bound for Macedonia, the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars today, and it made Antigonus's intentions to start another war clear. By the summer of 318 BC, after less than a year of peace, the successors were once again at war with one another.
Polyparicon was nobody's fool. Who could he turn to for aid if not Antigonus and Ptolemy, both of whom were already aligned against it? What assets did he have? Well, Polyparicon wasn't in entirely hopeless straits. He controlled most of the remnants of the Argaed Royal House that mattered.
Alexander, the now four or five-year-old son of the dead king, Philip Eredaeus, Alexander's older disabled half-brother, and his wife, Adaeus Lashyrritiki, who was also a daughter of the deceased king Philip, and then Heracles, Alexander's older son by his mistress Barcene. Polyparicon doubled down on the Argaedan Heritans by reaching out to Olympius, Alexander's mother, who had been a lifelong foe of old Antipater, and whose daughter Cleopatra was Alexander's
full sister. Olympius, for her part, sought one other figure out there whose dedication to the Argaed's couldn't be doubted. That was Eumenius, recently allied with Antigonus as a condition of his release from being besieged and threatened with a death sentence for his support of Perticus. With all the legitimacy of Macedonia's ancient dynasty behind him, along with the considerable talents of Eumenius, Polyparicon would have a chance at survival.
There was one other major problem for Polyparicon. That was Greece, which was a far more lucrative, populous, and frankly valuable holding than Macedonia proper. Cassander had already been hard at work there to undercut Polyparicon's authority, so Antipater's chosen heir decided on a radical course of action, emphasizing the quote-unquote freedom of the Greeks. He told the Greek cities to bring their exiled democratic politicians home to unseat the oligarchs Alexander and Antipater had preferred
to support. Even those who had recently fought against Alexander's successors were to be pardoned and allowed to return. Cassander, for his part, was obviously on the side of the oligarchs, and many of the Macedonian garrison commanders in the Greek cities were men Cassander had carefully selected for their loyalty to him. As the spring of 318 BC turned into summer, the situation became clear. Most Greek cities deposed their oligarchs, some bloodlessly and others with rather
more bloodshed, while the garrison supported Cassander. Athens was the clearest example of this. The city itself was fully behind Polyparicon, but a Macedonian garrison loyal to Cassander held Athens' port, Parayas. That was where Cassander landed with a strong force of men and ships loaned to him by Antigunus, while Polyparicon's son, another Alexander, waited at Athens itself with an army. The stalemate cost Polyparicon dearly, as the remaining Greek cities decided to wait
to see who came out on top before choosing a side. Matters weren't helped by happenings at sea along the Aegean coast of Asia. A fleet loyal to Polyparicon inflicted a severe defeat on one loyal to Cassander and Antigunus, but that very same knight Antigunus himself led a counterattack that led to an even more devastating loss for Polyparicon's forces. Had he wanted to, Antigunus could have
simply crossed over into Europe and taken Macedonia for himself at this point. He chose not to do so, leaving Europe to Cassander and marching east into Anatolia to find and deal with Yemenis once again. Yemenis, for his part, had fully allied himself with Olympias, Polyparicon, and the remaining
forces loyal to the idea of Alexander's united empire. He slipped out of the fortress where he'd been besieged, avoided forces sent by the furious Antigunus to capture him, and linked up with the elite's silver shields, the outstanding but difficult to control veterans who had caused so much trouble over the past several years. Perhaps more important, Yemenis also gained control of a massive treasury that he could use to pay and supply his forces for the upcoming campaign against
Antigunus. From the brink of defeat, Yemenis was back in the driver's seat of the conflict, able to employ his considerable talents with the support necessary to actually win a war. For her part, Olympias too was resurgent. She accepted Polyparicon's offer of guardianship over her grandson, the young Alexander IV, and swept aside the resistance from Philip Eredaeus,
or more precisely his formidable wife, Adaya. Olympias, never the type to forego vengeance, imprisoned the disabled king and his young spouse, then set about purging the Macedonian aristocracy of any she considered disloyal. Antipater's family was her particular target, because she was convinced that Antipater and his sons had been behind the death of Alexander the Great. Eolus, one of Antipater's sons, had in fact been Alexander's cut bearer at the time
of his death. She suspected that Eolus had poisoned Alexander on instructions from Antipater, not an entirely unreasonable conclusion to draw, but perhaps one that says as much about Olympias and her methods of power as about her opponents. It was also probably around this time that Alexander's son Heracles and his mother, Alexander's old mistress, Barcene, fled Macedonia for the protection of Antigonus. Olympias surely would have eliminated them if she had the opportunity.
She would allow no rivals to her son and grandson. Now, Olympias took a truly moment to step one that marked a fundamental shift in the course of the Wars of the Successors. She had Philip Eredaeus and his young wife, both of them the children of her own dead husband, King Philip, murdered. A king was dead, a king of Argead blood, and the world would never be the same. Who doesn't want more? More care, more guidance, and more expertise, especially when it really
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her forces to block the passes and roads that led into Macedonia. Cassandra besieged Olympius and her supporters in the city of Pidna, where she was captured trying to escape by shit. Her grandson, Alexander IV, the sole remaining king was also taken prisoner. Even now, however, Olympius was a potent force. Cassandra didn't want to simply put her to death. He wanted her tried and executed,
officially, and it took two trials to finally convict her. When it came time to carry out the sentence, Olympius put on her finest clothing and faced the 200 soldiers sent to fetch her from house arrest. Odd by Alexander's mother and all her finery, they simply gaped at her until Cassandra sent some rather less awestruck men to Caesar. They may have killed her, but another story says that she was turned over to the families of her victims, those she had purged during
her brief reign in Macedonia over the past year or so. According to that account, they stoned Olympius to death, bringing to an end her decades of ceaseless struggle on behalf of her children, grandchildren, and of course herself. Cassandra refused her rebarrio and tossed out her corpse to be eaten by scavengers. The young Alexander now fell under Cassandra's power as well, and he and his back during the Mother Rooksana were locked up in the citadel of the out of the way city of
amphipolis, far from anyone who might think to use them as a lever to take power. The last real Argaead was now less than a puppet. He was an inconvenience for Cassandra who fully intended to rule for himself, not as the region for Alexander's six or seven-year-old son. But at the same time, Cassandra couldn't simply do away with the boy. His own legitimacy was too shaky to be confident of survival if he killed the young king, and besides, might still prove useful.
The real action at this time, 316 BC, was taking place in the distant east. Eumeni's used the money stored in the royal treasury of Asia to recruit a substantial army. At the same time, Antigunus the One-Eid was hunting him and turned to a series of clever
strategies to try to bring down the Wiley Greek. Bribery generally worked when it came to the money-hungry soldiers, even the venerable old silver shields who formed the core of Eumeni's forces, and offers of treasure and clemency nearly convinced them to turn over Eumeni's to Antigunus. Tala me tried as well, his lone intervention in this conflict. But Eumeni's once again showed
just how able he really was. He claimed that Alexander had come to him in a dream, and so he set up the dead king's robes and regalia on a throne, then conducted the business of state in its presence. Along with his substantial personal charisma, Eumeni's cleverness was able to hold off the wolves at the door at least for a time. He set off toward the east with his army, where there were more soldiers ready to be recruited, and opportunities in the chaos of the post-Alexander world.
We haven't talked all that much about what was happening in the eastern reaches of Alexander's empire in the wake of his death, aside from the initial rebellion of the Greek mercenaries assigned to fortify Bactria and Sondiana. Over the past several years, since the death of Perticus at the Nile and the subsequent dispersal of so many ambitious high-ranking figures, the east had been turned into a lion's den of former companions and generals.
Salukus, a former infantry officer, was now the satrap of Babylon. We know that he would have a bright future ahead of him, but that was far from clear at this point in time. Haethon, who had been made satrap of media in the post-Perticus distribution of offices, was looking to carve out an empire for himself. He had already taken Parthia and now threatened the province of Persus, the old
Persian heartland, ruled by the general Pcoistus. Pcoistus was a savvy operator, and he had endeared himself to his Persian subjects by adopting indigenous modes of dress and learning the language. Most of the other eastern satrap had joined together with the Pcoistus to resist Phaethon. Emanes arrived with his own army and began looking for allies. He didn't care much whether the
satrap's alliance joined him or Phaethon. He simply wanted more soldiers, and both sides were equipped with thousands of veteran infantry, high-quality cavalry, and hundreds of war elephants. Still wielding the ever-vager idea of royal legitimacy, Emanes summoned the eastern satrap's to join him in Susa. Some did, notably Pcoistus, while Phaethon and Silukus joined up with Antigunus, who was himself marching deep into the ease to confront Emanes. Antigunus, unlike his opponents,
had never come this way before. He had remained in Fragia on the sidelines while Alexander conquered the world. But unlike Emanes and Pcoistus, who shared power uneasily at the head of their combined army, Antigunus ruled alone. Not even his extraordinarily talented son Demetrius, whom Antigunus valued and trusted, far more than any other successor ever relied on a potential rival, was privy to Antigunus' full decision-making process. If he had shared his council,
Antigunus might have avoided the issues that would soon plague him. The royal treasury's stuffed full of Alexander's plundered silver refused point blank to open their doors to him. His first attempt to catch up to Emanes at the River Coprotees, just east of Susa, was an utter disaster. Unaware that Emanes was waiting for him just ahead, Antigunus sent lightly armed
troops to cross the river. Before the rest of his forces made it across, Emanes attacked, killing large numbers of them and incorporated many of the survivors into his own army. The morale of Antigunus' army broke, and he retreated north to Ekbatana, the capital of his ally Pythons, Satropy and Media. But all was not well between Emanes and Pequoistis.
Their army was now truly imposing, bolstered by another round of local recruitment in the province Pequoistis had worked so hard to control, and both of them thought that they should lead their combined forces. Emanes had won the victory at the Coprotees and now had the upper hand, so in response Pequoistis threw a massively elaborate and decadent feast when the army reached Persepolis. At the very center of the 40,000 or more banqueting soldiers were altars for the gods,
who were now joined by Philip and Alexander. Pequoistis was sticking his own claim to the memory of the dead kings, along with all the power they could muster. Once again, however, Emanes showed his medal. Nobody knew at this point what was happening far to the west in Macedonia and the Aegean, so Emanes simply made it up. He claimed that Olympias had defeated and killed Cassander, and that the region Polypericon was now invading Antigonus' territory in Asia. In fact, the opposite
was true. At this specific moment, Cassander was besieging Olympias and Pidna, but I didn't matter. The threat passed and soon a new one presented itself. Antigonus was marching south toward Persepolis to confront Pequoistis and Emanes in battle. The two armies had swelled to massive sizes. When they met on the edge of the Iranian desert in the dead of winter, near a place called Padai Tekene, nearly 90,000 men and 200 elephants confronted each other.
Those numbers might not sound all that high, but recall that even Alexander had never mustered more than 50,000 soldiers for a single battle. Moreover, the troops assembled near Padai Tekene were not undisciplined local levees or amateur recruits. They were professionals, many of the Macedonians with decades of experience like Emanes famed silver shields, while others were
mercenaries who'd been under arms for years. Some soldiers had been fighting for so long that they had first seen service fighting for King Philip against Elyrians and Milossians. There's a strong argument to be made that in terms of the quality of troops engaged, there had never been two finer armies assembled on a battlefield. And this was to be the new normal in the emerging post-Alexander world.
Disciplined, highly trained, and above all, expensive armies, fighting for pay, and the service of professional soldiers. For days, the two armies faced each other, separated by only a short distance but unwilling to commit to battle. Antigonus managed to slip away in the night and got to the battlefield of Padai Tekene first, and seized control of the high ground along a ridge. Emanes followed and drew up his forces below, with his Macedonian infantry holding the center and himself on the right
with his elephants. For his part, Antigonus took care to place his Macedonians so they wouldn't have to fight their opposite numbers in Emane's army. He placed his light cavalry on the left flank or to the command of Phaethon, and the one I general placed himself and his 19-year-old son Demetrius and command of the heavy cavalry and elephants on the right. With everything set, Antigonus gave the
order to advance down the hill. The plan was for Antigonus Demetrius and the right wing to lead the attack, but for reasons unknown, Phaethon jumped the gun and made first contact with Emaneus. The Greek drove them back and then the two central formations, both of them infantry formed up at a phalanx, crashed together. Here are the advantage wet to Emanes. He had the incomparable silver shields, many of whom were now in their 50s or even 60s,
and they'd done this many times before. Facing Antigonus's less experienced soldiers, they kept their nerve and cut through the enemy formation. The center of Antigonus' army began to collapse. He might have panicked here and called for a retreat with his left and center both disintegrating, but the one-eyed general stayed calm and waited for an opportunity. One immediately
presented itself. A gap had opened up between Emaneus' veteran phalanx in the center and its allies on the left and Antigonus' Antigonus Demetrius poured their reserves of heavy cavalry into the space to attack Emaneus' left flank. Now it was Emaneus forces who were crumbling, and the Greek was forced to stop the pursuit of the defeated portions of Antigonus' army to save his priceless veterans. Night fell and still the two armies faced each other on the battlefield, neither
Antigonus nor Emanes willing to admit defeat by retreating. Finally, deep into a bright moonlit night, the two sides stood down as if by mutual agreement, and the battle was over. At first glance, Emaneus was unquestionably the winner. His army had inflicted vastly more casualties, but his headstrong soldiers insisted on immediately returning to their camp to check
on their baggage, leaving the battlefield and Antigonus' hands. This was as good as an admission of defeat, but Emaneus' control of his army was so much more tenuous than that of Antigonus that there was nothing he could do to stop them. The two armies then withdrew to winter quarters, and here Emaneus made the first and the last major mistake of his career. He dispersed his troops among a number of camps the most distant of them 100 miles apart around 160 kilometers.
Antigonus saw the opening, left his own camp behind, and forced March to his army for 10 days through the Iranian desert in the heart of winter. Emaneus barely managed to get his forces assembled in time to meet Antigonus near a place called Gabiene. Once again, the two armies faced each other, but this time Antigonus and Emaneus confronted one another directly, the one
I general-leading his right wing and the Greek is left. Emaneus and Antigonus crashed into one another, but Pacoistus probably bought off or maybe simply tired of playing second-fiddled Emaneus or maybe both fled the field. Spotting Antigonus, Emaneus made directly for him, hoping to engage the general-in-single combat, but came off just short. As before, Emaneus veteran infantry
cut a swath through Antigonus' fail-anx in the center. Far more of Antigonus' soldiers fell on the field than those of Emaneus, and despite Pacoistus' desertion, the Greek seems to be on the brink of victory. And then disaster struck. Antigonus had quite cleverly sent a force of light cavalry around the flank to attack Emaneus' baggage train. Full of the plunder, the silver shields and other Macedonian veterans had spent decades accumulating. The baggage train also contained
their families. Emaneus was forced to withdraw, because Antigonus held both the battlefield and the baggage he claimed victory even though his army had been badly mauled. Still, Emaneus was hoping to fight again the next day. He still held massive advantages in an open battle. This time, however, it was all too much for the silver shields. Finally tempted by Antigonus' mini-offers and afraid for their families and their accumulated plunder, they agreed to exchange
their leader for their lost baggage and handed him over. Even now, all was not lost for Emaneus. There was a very real chance Antigonus would pardon him, even co-opt him into his service. That was precisely what Antigonus' son Demetrius recommended. For more than two weeks, Emaneus' fate hung in the balance, hoping that the Greek would die without his direct intervention, he denied Emaneus' food and water for several days. At last, however, Antigonus made his decision.
He had Emaneus strangled. His closest allies were killed as well. Eudamus, commander of the elephants, was murdered. Antigoneus, the old captain of the silver shields who hadn't been part of the betrayal, was thrown into a flaming pit and burned alive. The silver shields themselves were too dangerous to keep together as a coherent force. They were broken up and the most recalcitrant of them were sent to Aracosia in the distant east, with orders that they be quietly disposed of in ones and twos.
Olympias was dead. So as Emaneus, Philip Eredamus and his imposing young wife had been murdered, the silver shields were dispersed. The generals had won. Alexander's empire belonged to them, and now it was a matter of seeing which of them survived long enough to rule. Here's the truth about AI. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into.
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He directly controlled Asia Minor, and his forces swelled with the addition of the survivors of his defeated opponent's army. Journing West, first to Susa, and then a bit further onto Babylon was something like a royal progress for Antigoneus. He wasn't yet calling himself a king so far as we know, but the topic can't have been too far from anybody's mind, and there is some reason to think that at least in Asia he was being offered royal honors.
After all, once the news of the demise of Philip Eredaeus and Olympus and the effect of imprisonment of the young Alexander reached the east, the writing must have been on the wall for the Argaea dynasty. Now whatever his explicit plans for the future, Antigoneus certainly saw a major role for his son, Demetrius, later to be known as Demetrius Polier-Ketis, the besieger of cities. Demetrius was his father's closest and perhaps only real confidant.
Like generations of Macedonian aristocrats before him, Antigoneus was grooming his son and had been since the boy's youth. He accompanied his ascended father during these campaigns in Asia and began to win a reputation for himself, but was only trusted to play a significant role in the pair of battles against Yemenis. He was then 21 or 22 years old, already the father of a child by one of old antipaters many daughters, and those recent battlefield roles had been significant.
Antigoneus gave Demetrius command of his companion cavalry, which Macedonian military leaders schooled by Philip treated as the decisive arm. If there was an opening or an opportunity in the chaos of charging horses and elephants and clashing pikes, it was the companions who were supposed to seize it. This meant that the person entrusted with their command must have been seen as a fine tactician and a brave fighter. Demetrius was both of those things. He had inherited his father's
gigantic stature, though he didn't grow quite so tall. Charisma oozed out of him and he was devastatingly handsome. In the long Macedonian tradition, Demetrius loved both war and pleasure equally. The excesses of his personal life with days long drinking bouts and a limitless interest in women eventually became almost as famous as his military acumen. What stands out most about Demetrius, however, is that he was one of the first key players to come of age in the post-Alexander
world. He was born the year Alexander became king, 336 BC, and spent only a couple of years of his earliest childhood in Macedonia before moving to Frigia to be with his father, who was governing the province's satrap. Growing up surrounded by Macedonian soldiers like Antignais, but among non-Greek's in Asia, Demetrius had a front row seat to the unfolding of the Hellenistic world that would emerge in the decades to come. He of course had no memory of Old King Philip.
He never met Alexander the Great in adulthood, if at all, and he wasn't even particularly familiar with Macedonia itself. It was men like Demetrius, though perhaps not as high-born, capable, and ambitious, who would eventually be responsible for the transformation of Alexander's conquest state into the Hellenistic kingdoms. We'll have much more to say about Demetrius soon, but I want you to bear him and people like him in mind as we move forward. The memory of even
the recent past was fading with shocking speed. Antignais reached Babylon, which was then under the control of Salukis, a former officer of Alexander's and one of the rising stars of the years since his death. Antignais treated Salukis poorly in Babylon. He demanded an accounting of his actions as satrap and even an audit of his finances. Those were prerogatives of the king, which Antignais
manifestly was not, and Salukis wasn't having it. He told Antignais, quite correctly, if perhaps not wisely, that the Tri-Pyridesis Conference, led by Old Antipater, had made him satrap of Babylon. That was the same event that had made Antignais royal general evasion. There was nothing in any of that about Salukis being Antignais's direct subordinate. Perhaps seeing that whatever its justice Antignais wouldn't buy that line of reasoning, Salukis fled to Egypt and Ptolemy,
along with his family. It was becoming clear to the other surviving leaders, Ptolemy and Cassander, along with the satraps of the east, that Antignais wanted nothing less than the entirety of Alexander's former empire. If they wanted to stop that from happening and maintain the positions they'd spent most of the past decade trying to carve out for themselves, then they would have to fight once again. The following year, 315 BC, representatives from those interested parties,
came to meet Antignais as he traveled from Celicia to Syria. The envoys had a long list of demands for the one-eyed general. The return of Babylon to Salukis, which was reasonable enough, but also the session of a number of provinces in Western Asia to Cassander, and the recognition of Ptolemy's control over the Levant. In effect, the other power brokers were trying to push Antignais east away from Macedonia and Anatolia toward the vast, difficult to control regions of Upland
West and Central Asia. Antignais wasn't going to accept any of that. This was the genesis of what scholars called the Third War of the Successors, pitting Antignais and Demetrius in increasingly large rules against Ptolemy, Cassander, and Salukis. Now, let's stop and think for a moment about the scale of warfare that
implies. Not the army of a single Macedonian king rampaging through Persian satrapies, but sustained campaigning by massive professional armies and gigantic fleets across the entirety of Western Asia and parts of Europe and North Africa. Antignais had agents operating in the Aegean, built a new fleet in roads, tried to detach Cyprus from Ptolemy through Subdrafuge, funded the old Regent Polly Parcon in the Peloponnes of Greece, all at the same time as he led his
main strike south into Phoenicia against the ruler of Egypt. Antignais needed the naval resources of Phoenicia if he were to have any hope of prevailing against his enemies, and so he rapidly took a number of cities as far south as Gaza before appearing before the massive walls of Tire. There, Antignais was happy to launch a slow, patient siege, largely because he lacked the ships to do anything it seemed. Salukis, leading Ptolemy's fleet, actually sailed directly past
the Beseagers camp on his way to the Aegean. While he had a firm grasp of the military necessities of his current position, the fragility of his dominance over Asia and the vulnerability of being surrounded by enemies, Antignais had an even better understanding of the political realities of this new world. Even as he sought sole rule over Alexander's empire, he still grasped the power of the Argaids over people who, unlike Demetrius, had come of age in a prior era.
To that end, he emphasized his role as royal general, not just of Asia, but the entire territory Alexander had ruled. Rather more pointedly, he argued that Cassander had killed Alexander's mother, forced Alexander's half-sistered Emmerian, imprisoned Alexander IV in Roksana, and betrayed Alexander's wishes by beginning to rebuild thieves. Antignais also promised freedom for the Greeks in the sense of internal autonomy for plays, which they treasured. Now, this was smart propaganda.
The Greek cities within his realm would be more willing to supply Antignais with men and money, and those controlled by his opponents could be induced to join his cause. Tollamy kept Garrison's enumerous Greek cities. Cassander had been ruthless in his dealings with the Greeks during his usurpation of Polypyrcon. In fact, Cassander's brutality continued after Antignais' proclamation. His Garrison and Argos rounded up 500 democratic sympathizers,
hostile to the regime he supported, and had him executed. In addition to its obvious usefulness, for whatever its worth, Antignais seems to have really believed in this concept of Greek freedom. The first stages of the conflict in the West went against Antignais. Polypyrcon couldn't hold the Peloponnese against Cassander in Tollamy's fleet, and he was reduced to a tiny foothold in the south. But the tides soon turned back with much of central Greece resing against Cassander
and then the entirety of the Peloponnese. The usurper won some gains against the Illyrians and the North, but he made no real headway against Antignais' allies. Cassander was able to subborn the Satrap of Karia in Asia Minor, but Antignais' general Polypyrcon held him off for all of 314 BC and then wiped out the relief force sent by Cassander from Greece. Then at long last, Tyre finally fell to Antignais and he could turn his entire attention back to the West.
Just as important, the enormous fleet reputed to be 500 warships that he had begun constructing several years earlier was now finished. He left command in Syria to his son Demetrius, the 22-year-old first independent command and marched to deal with Cassander personally. Antignais' first stop was Karia, where he conquered the province at a furious lightning strike that lasted just a few weeks. But he faced stiffer opposition when he launched a carefully planned invasion of Europe
in 313 BC. Although his forces did well in Greece itself, Lysimicus, the Macedonian and charge of Thrace, another one of Alexander's old favorites and an officer with a bright future ahead of him met every challenge with alacrity. Lysimicus put down a rebellion of the Thracian cities, fomented by Antignais' agents and then managed to persuade the city of Byzantium to remain neutral rather than providing Antignais a base on the western side of the Hella Spawn.
Still, Cassander was in trouble, with most of southern Greece lost to him and Antignais waiting for the chance to cross over into Europe with his army. It was Ptolemy who bailed out Cassander. He moved north from Cyrene to Cyprus to show the flag in late 313 or early 312 BC and then braided Antignais' possessions which were supposed to be under Demetrius' protection along the coast. Demetrius rushed off to deal with the raids but
arrived far too late to do anything about them. By the late autumn of 312 Demetrius had to confront more than raids. Ptolemy launched a massive invasion of the southern Levant by Land and Sea and once again Demetrius hastened to meet him. He reached Gaza in the late autumn of 312 BC. Demetrius' forces were not particularly large nor of exceptional quality. He had only 2000 veteran Macedonian infantry though his cavalry and elephants were substantial. The result was an utter
disaster. Whatever his talents, Demetrius was facing Ptolemy and Salukus in person. Two of the most experienced soldiers on the face of the planet who had learned the art of battlefield command firsthand from Alexander the Great himself. They had learned still more in the decade since his death, including how to deal with an now omnipresent war elephants. They scattered cal trops, multi-sided metal spikes in front of the ground where Demetrius' elephants would attack.
Although Demetrius fought bravely, losing some of his closest friends in the process, his cavalry fled the battlefield while his infantry were surrounded and surrendered. The sources record the detail that Demetrius begged his soldiers not to desert him and only retreated himself when capture was imminent. The survivors made it back to Gaza where they foolishly tried to recover their baggage before heading further north. Ptolemy's victorious soldiers
barred the gates to the city and captured them all. Demetrius managed to get away but he had lost his entire army in a crushing defeat that revealed just how much he still had to learn. The combination of rationalist and unimaginative battle plan and mediocre tactical judgment combines to place the blame for the loss squarely on Demetrius' shoulders.
Ptolemy was ascended. He retook Phoenicia and once again placed Salukis and charger Babylon, who made a daring march east with just a thousand men to take control of his territory. And Teganus would never get to launch his invasion of Europe now that his son required assistance, so he made a hasty peace with Cassander and Leicymachus and marched east.
Demetrius, however, was far from broken by his defeat at Gaza. He stripped the Syrian towns of their garrisons and scraped together another army, which he used to launch a surprise night attack on the forced Ptolemy had sent north to complete the conquest of Syria. Still just 25 years old, it was now Demetrius' turn to win a stunning victory. He took 7,000 prisoners and knowing how capable Ptolemy was, he was careful to encamp his troops in places that made them difficult to counter-attack.
He held out until his proud father arrived later in 311 BC. For all intents and purposes, however, the war was over, and all that remained was the formal peace between Ptolemy and Teganus. The third war of the successors was done, and the outlines of the Hellenistic Kingdoms were coming into being. That's what we'll pick up next time on Tides of History. If you like Tides of History, you can listen early and add free right now by joining
Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Tides of History is written and narrated by me Patrick Weiming, sound designed by Gabriel Gould for airship. The sound engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Tides of History is produced by Morgan Jaffy. From Wondery, the executive producers are Jenny
Lowe Beckman and Marshall Luey. Thanks again for listening. Until next time from Wondery, this has been Tides of History. For years, American Scandal has taken you deep inside the biggest controversies and shocking events in US history, and now you can listen to exclusive seasons on Wondery Plus. Go beyond the headlines with jaw-dropping stories and immersive reporting that unveils the complex truth behind these scandals. In our exclusive season, the Harry Krishna murders dive into the twisted
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