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into several kingdoms after his death, a legacy which reigned on and continued the influence of ancient Greek culture abroad for over 300 more years. This map depicts the kingdoms of the Diadochi , after the Battle of Ipsus. The five kingdoms of the Diadochi were:
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The Diadochi were the rival generals, families, and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for control over his empire after his death in 323 BC. The Wars of the Diadochi mark the beginning of the Hellenistic period from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River Valley.
The most notable Diadochi include Ptolemy, Antigonus, Cassander, and Seleucus as the last remaining at the end of the Wars of the Successors, ruling in Egypt, Anatolia, Macedon and Persia respectively, all forging dynasties lasting several centuries.Chisholm 1911, p. 600.
Philip built Macedonia into the leading military state of the Balkans. He had acquired his expertise fighting for Thebes and Greek freedom under his patron, Epaminondas. When Alexander was a teenager, Philip was planning a military solution to the contention with the Persian Empire. In the opening campaign against Byzantium he made Alexander "regent" ( kurios) in his absence. Alexander used every opportunity to further his father's victories, expecting that he would be a part of them. At the report of each of Philip's victories, Alexander was said to lament that his father would leave him nothing of note to do.
There was a source of disaffection, however. Plutarch reports that Alexander and his mother bitterly reproached him for his numerous affairs among the women of his court.Plutarch, Alexander, Section IX. Philip then fell in love and married a young woman, Cleopatra, when he was too old for marriage. (Macedonian kings traditionally had multiple wives.) Alexander was at the wedding banquet when Attalus, Cleopatra's uncle, made a remark that seemed inappropriate to him. He asked the Macedonians to pray for an "heir to the kingship" ( diadochon tes basileias). Rising to his feet Alexander shouted, using the royal "we," "Do we seem like bastards ( nothoi) to you, evil-minded man?" and threw a cup at him. The inebriated Philip, rising to his feet and drawing his sword to defend Attalus, promptly fell. Making a comment that the man who was preparing to cross from Europe to Asia could not cross from one couch to another, Alexander departed, to escort his mother to her native Epirus and to wait himself in Illyria. Not long after, prompted by Demaratus the Corinthian to mend the dissension in his house, Philip sent Demaratus to bring Alexander home. The expectation by virtue of which Alexander was diadochos was that as the son of Philip, he would inherit Philip's throne.
In 336 BC Philip was assassinated, and the 20-year-old Alexander "received the kingship" ( parelabe ten basileian).Plutarch, Alexander, Section XI. In the same year Darius III succeeded to the throne of Persia as Shah, "King of Kings," which the Greeks understood as "Great King." The role of the Macedonian basileus was changing fast. Alexander's army was already multinational. Alexander was acquiring dominion over state after state. His presence on the battlefield seemed to ensure immediate victory.
Staff meetings to adjust command structure were nearly a daily event in Alexander's army. They created an ongoing expectation among the hetairoi of receiving an important and powerful command, if only for a short term. At the moment of Alexander's death, all possibilities were suddenly suspended. The hetairoi vanished with Alexander, to be replaced instantaneously by the Diadochi, men who knew where they had stood, but not where they would stand now. As there had been no definite ranks or positions of hetairoi, there were no ranks of Diadochi. They expected appointments, but without Alexander they would have to make their own.
For purposes of this presentation, the Diadochi are grouped by their rank and social standing at the time of Alexander's death. These were their initial positions as Diadochi.
A compromise was arranged, with Arrhidaeus being crowned as Philip III. If Roxana's child was a son, they would rule jointly. Perdiccas was named Regent and Meleager as his lieutenant. Eventually, Roxana did give birth to Alexander's son, Alexander IV. However, Perdiccas had Meleager and the other infantry leaders murdered and assumed full control.
Perdiccas, summoned a council of the great men of Alexander's court to appoint for the parts of the Empire in the partition of Babylon. Ptolemy received Egypt; Laomedon received Syria and Phoenicia; Philotas took Cilicia; Peithon took Medes; Antigonus received Phrygia, Lycia and Pamphylia; Asander received Caria; Menander received Lydia; Lysimachus received Thrace; Leonnatus received Hellespontine Phrygia; and Neoptolemus had Armenia. Macedon and the rest of Greece were to be jointly ruled by Antipater and Craterus, while Alexander's former secretary, Eumenes, was to receive Cappadocia and Paphlagonia.
Alexander's arrangements in the east were left intact. Taxiles and King Porus governed over their kingdoms in India; Alexander's father-in-law Oxyartes governed Paropamisadae; Sibyrtius governed Arachosia and Gedrosia; Stasanor governed Aria and Drangiana; Philip governed Bactria and Sogdia; Phrataphernes governed Parthia and Hyrcania; Peucestas governed Persis; Tlepolemus had charge over Carmania; Atropates governed northern Media; Archon got Babylonia; and Arcesilaus governed northern Mesopotamia.
Ptolemy came to terms with Perdiccas's murderers, making Peithon and Arrhidaeus regents in his place, but soon these came to a new agreement with Antipater at the Partition of Triparadisus. Antipater was made regent of the Empire, and the two kings were moved to Macedon. Antigonus remained in charge of Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphylia, to which was added Lycaonia. Ptolemy retained Egypt, Lysimachus retained Thrace, while the three murderers of Perdiccas—Seleucus, Peithon, and Antigenes—were given the provinces of Babylonia, Media, and Elam respectively. Arrhidaeus, the former Regent, received Hellespontine Phrygia. Antigonus was charged with the task of rooting out Perdiccas's former supporter, Eumenes. In effect, Antipater retained for himself control of Europe, while Antigonus, as leader of the largest army east of the Hellespont, held a similar position in Asia.
In 310 BC Cassander secretly murdered Alexander IV and Roxana.
The Ptolemaic rulers gradually embraced Egyptian traditions, such as sibling royal marriages, which the Ptolemaic dynasty frequently partook in. The cosmopolitan nature of Ptolemaic Egypt can be seen with the Rosetta Stone, an edict ordered by Ptolemy V Epiphanes (204–180 BC), would be written in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Coptic language, and Greek language. However, the Ptolemaic rulers' insistence on the incorporation of Greek influences into Egyptian society led to many peasant revolts and uprisings throughout the course of the kingdom's existence.
The New Latin terminology was introduced by the historians of universal Greek history of the 19th century. Their comprehensive histories of ancient Greece typically covering from prehistory to the Roman Empire ran into many volumes. For example, George Grote in the first edition of History of Greece, 1846–1856, hardly mentions the Diadochi, except to say that they were kings who came after Alexander and Hellenized Asia. In the edition of 1869 he defines them as "great officers of Alexander, who after his death carved kingdoms for themselves out of his conquests."
Grote cites no references for the use of Diadochi but his criticism of Johann Gustav Droysen gives him away. Droysen, "the modern inventor of Hellenistic history," not only defined "Hellenistic period" ( hellenistische ... Zeit), but in a further study of the "successors of Alexander" ( nachfolger Alexanders) dated 1836, after Grote had begun work on his history, but ten years before publication of the first volume, divided it into two periods, "the age of the Diadochi," or "Diadochi Period" ( die Zeit der Diodochen or Diadochenzeit), which ran from the death of Alexander to the end of the "Diadochi Wars" ( Diadochenkämpfe, his term), about 278 BC, and the "Epigoni Period" ( Epigonenzeit), which ran to about 220 BC. He also called the Diadochi Period "the Diadochi War Period" ( Zeit der Diadochenkämpfe). The Epigoni he defined as "Sons of the Diadochi" ( Diadochensöhne). These were the second generation of Diadochi rulers. In an 1843 work, "History of the Epigoni" ( Geschichte der Epigonen) he details the kingdoms of the Epigoni, 280-239 BC. The only precise date is the first, the date of Alexander's death, June, 323 BC. It has never been in question.
Grote uses Droysen's terminology but gives him no credit for it. Instead he attacks Droysen's concept of Alexander planting Hellenism in eastern colonies: "Plutarch states that Alexander founded more than seventy new cities in Asia. So large a number of them is neither verifiable nor probable, unless we either reckon up simple military posts or borrow from the list of foundations really established by his successors." He avoids Droysen's term in favor of the traditional "successor". In a long note he attacks Droysen's thesis as "altogether slender and unsatisfactory." Grote may have been right, but he ignores entirely Droysen's main thesis, that the concepts of "successors" and "sons of successors" were innovated and perpetuated by historians writing contemporaneously or nearly so with the period. Not enough evidence survives to prove it conclusively, but enough survives to win acceptance for Droysen as the founding father of Hellenistic history.
M. M. Austin localizes what he considers to be a problem with Grote's view. To Grote's assertion in the Preface to his work that the period "is of no interest in itself," but serves only to elucidate "the preceding centuries," Austin comments "Few nowadays would subscribe to this view." If Grote was hoping to minimize Droysen by not giving him credit, he was mistaken, as Droysen's gradually became the majority model. By 1898 Adolf Holm incorporated a footnote describing and evaluating Droysen's arguments. He describes the Diadochi and Epigoni as "powerful individuals." The title of the volume on the topic, however, is The Graeco-Macedonian Age..., not Droysen's "Hellenistic".
Droysen's "Hellenistic" and "Diadochi Periods" are canonical today. A series of six (as of 2014) international symposia held at different universities 1997–2010 on the topics of the imperial Macedonians and their Diadochi have to a large degree solidified and internationalized Droysen's concepts. Each one grew out of the previous. Each published an assortment of papers read at the symposium. The 2010 symposium, entitled "The Time of the Diadochi (323-281 BC)," held at the University of A Coruña, Spain, represents the current concepts and investigations. The term Diadochi as an adjective is being extended beyond its original use, such as "Diadochi Chronicle," which is nowhere identified as such, or Diadochi kingdoms, "the kingdoms that emerged," even past the Age of the Epigoni.
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