ChronoFive
Play today’s puzzle
Setting the scene
When Alexander the Great died in Babylon on June 11, 323 BC, aged 32, he left no clear heir—his wife Roxana was pregnant, his half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus was mentally disabled, and his vast empire stretched from Greece to India. On his deathbed, when asked to whom he left his kingdom, Alexander reportedly said 'to the strongest' (or 'to the best'). His generals, the Diadochi ('successors'), initially agreed to a regency under Perdiccas for the joint kings Philip III and the infant Alexander IV, with satrapies divided at the Partition of Babylon.
What happened
The settlement collapsed immediately. The Wars of the Diadochi (322-281 BC) were a series of conflicts among Alexander's generals—Perdiccas, Antipater, Craterus, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, Antigonus Monophthalmus, and his son Demetrius Poliorcetes. The First War (322-320 BC) saw Perdiccas killed by his own officers during a failed invasion of Egypt. The Second (319-315 BC) and Third (314-311 BC) Wars saw Antigonus attempt to reunite the empire, prompting a coalition against him. The wars were characterized by shifting alliances, betrayals, and the murder of Alexander's family—Philip III, Roxana, and Alexander IV were all killed by 310 BC.
Why it still matters
The wars ended at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, where Antigonus was killed and his empire divided. By 281 BC, after Corupedium, three stable kingdoms emerged: Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Asia, and Antigonid Macedon. The Diadochi wars destroyed Alexander's dream of a unified empire but spread Hellenistic culture across the Near East, creating the world that Rome would later conquer. The period exemplifies how personal ambition can fracture even the greatest conquests.【3387544455508721872†L5-L7】
Background
Hellenistic kingdoms crystallized from the chaos. Even centuries later, this episode remains a reference point for how empires rise, fracture, and transform.