Saving documents and books in antiquity

Nowadays, saving our documents and information on our computers is very obvious. Before the digital era, we relied on typewriters and printers to distribute our pamphlets, advertisements, letters, and books. 

It is hard to imagine that in antiquity nothing of the kind existed, but then the needs were entirely different. Public information, laws, decrees, and other important notices were inscribed on stone slabs or posted on walls in conspicuous places throughout the city, and eventually shared with other cities.  

Exchanging documents and letters over longer distances, as during Alexander’s campaigns, required writing on papyrus, a lightweight material that could be easily transported. His correspondence with Antipater, Olympias, Aristotle, Sisygambis, governors, and generals all over his ever-growing empire required an active exchange of news and information.

Eumenes and Callisthenes, serving as Alexander’s secretaries, must have been very busy and very organized. We tend to forget that they also kept copies of Alexander’s correspondence, official documents, and perhaps private letters as well. This becomes apparent when Eumenes’ tent went up in flames after a conflict that arose as Nearchus was preparing the fleet to sail the Southern Sea. 

Alexander had exhausted his own treasury and had to borrow money from his friends, including Eumenes, to finance Nearchus’ expedition. His secretary was to contribute 300 talents, but being stingy, he gave only 100 talents. Alexander did not accept Eumenes’ excuse that it was not without difficulty and decided to set his friend’s tent on fire. He expected Eumenes to rush his money out, and thus admit he had been lying. The plan went wrong, and the tent burned down entirely, leaving a clump of smelted gold and silver worth one thousand talents. In the process, Alexander’s archives were reduced to ashes. It is Plutarch who tells us that Alexander asked several governors and generals to send Eumenes copies of the papers that had been destroyed. This proves that Alexander did indeed keep a record of his correspondence! 

We so often read of papers and books that have only partially survived or are only known second-hand or not at all, except for the title. This situation is inherent to the mindset of the time and to the degradation of the natural support used (papyrus). 

Papyrus is a vegetal product and a very practical writing support, but it is also fragile. It has been calculated that papyrus documents had a lifespan of a maximum of one hundred years. This may have suited the needs at the time, but the chances of having them still around two thousand years later are very slim. 

Chances of survival were greater if there were many copies of a text, like, for instance, for theater plays. Yet, professional writers were expensive, and the costs were borne by the author. In Roman times, wealthy citizens could afford to have certain scrolls copied for their own use, but they would hardly survive after the Fall of the Roman Empire. 

Under exceptional conditions, some scrolls or bits of papyrus, however, reached us. The most telling example is the scrolls that survived the fire in Herculaneum after the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Only recently have we been able to decipher their content without having to unroll the brittle carbonized scrolls (see: Reading the papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum). 

Another situation developed in Egypt. The garbage dump in Oxyrhynchus that served as fuel to the local population in the 19^th century appeared to contain a huge amount of hitherto unknown papyrus texts ranging from the Ptolemaic era to the Muslim conquests in the 7^th century AD. The papyri consist of private letters and public documents, such as a variety of official correspondence, theater plays, records, sales, wills, and inventories. The deciphering of the papyri is ongoing, as only a handful of scholars are capable of recognizing where the bit of papyrus text belongs. 

When parchment was introduced in the 2^nd century BC, documents stood a better chance of survival, although even animal skins had their limits. However, parchment was extremely expensive to make. 

With the passage of time, interest and taste evolved and changed. Treatises, studies, analyses, and even books and poems went out of fashion and vanished altogether. 

As the writing supports were decaying, it is not surprising that documenting Alexander’s life is a nearly impossible task, despite the second-hand recordings by Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius, and Plutarch, who could still access some original documents (see: Eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s life).

[Top picture Derveni papyrus 340 BC, Thessaloniki Museum.
Bottom picture from Archaeology News, Digs & Discoveries] 

A few words of praise for Oliver Stone’s vision of Alexander

Oliver Stone received loads of criticism for his Alexander movie, revisions, and comments as if he had it all wrong. Well, nobody from Alexander’s lifetime is still alive to contest what’s right or not. 

As said in my earlier blog post about Stone’s book Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander, it is so much easier to point out the shortcomings than to consider the author’s considerable merit. The critics seem to forget that Alexander’s life was far too complex, too active, too magnanimous, and too genial to be told in a movie of three hours for a public largely unacquainted with history or Alexander the Great. 

At the end of his book, Oliver Stone added a highly interesting chapter “Afterward”, an excellent explanation and justification for his vision of Alexander. I can only admire his stamina.  I saved this text from some link back in 2006 and had a fresh look at it today. It is striking to read how, nearly twenty years later, Stone’s approach to Alexander is still so close to the truth! 

His plea for humankind to understand Alexander is worthy of Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator. Here is an excerpt worth reading:

The response is in what Alexander did, and not his motives, which I suspect were something like most of ours: highly ambivalent, at times glorious, at times wretched. I sometimes feel professional historians, generally apart from the human give and take of the marketplace, expect too much from their leaders -- requiring them to act from abstract principles in a world harsh with chaos, greed and infighting. We can certainly say in Alexander’s defense that he kept the expedition marching eastward for 7 more years after Babylon, with a greatness of vision that could motivate a 120,000-man army. By leading from the front and sharing the burdens of his men, he showed himself above the comfort lines of materialism, and as a known foe of official corruption, he set high standards by punishing those found guilty of stealing, raping, plundering (including his school friend Eumenes). From all accounts written of Alexander, we see time and again, his great passion, pain, and self-torture in incidents such as the murder of Cleitus, the burning of Persepolis, the mutiny in India, the kissing of Bagoas in front of his men, and the bestowing of official acceptance on Asian men and womenfolk. There is no ancient ruler, outside of legend, that I have ever heard commit such potentially self-incriminating actions. This is, of course, one of the reasons his name continues to endure – who was ever remotely like him? ‘In the doing, always in the doing’, Alexander. 

Conquest is also a form of evolution. If Alexander had a smaller vision, he would’ve retreated long before to Babylon and consolidated his empire. He would’ve brought his mother, his sister and his entourage to the Persian Court. He would’ve made a stronger, more patient effort to combine Macedonian and Persian custom. This unification of cultures would’ve been the lifetime challenge for any emperor, and would’ve certainly changed the course of history. Why did he not? 

I see Alexander more as an explorer, like many others of such a nature, not quite knowing what’s going to come up on the horizon, yet boldly reaching for the new electrical charge of change. He stayed in motion until the end, and never returned to his Rome, London, Paris, Berlin, or Mongolia, as other conquerors have. He comes across in many ways as a man who was making it up as he went along -- from Babylon through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and back to Babylon -- where in the end, he remained unsatisfied, dreaming of his expedition to the West. I would call him not an imperialist as present fashion would have it, but rather a ‘proto-man’, an enlightened monarch naturally in search of one land, one world -- the unity, so to speak, of the womb. Given that Alexander might’ve had a longer lifetime to develop this experiment, his empire might’ve yielded perhaps six or seven centers -- such as Babylon, Alexandria, Athens, Carthage, Rome, South Spain, a world with nerve centers that supposes, to a surprising degree, the global world centers we have today – but with one world government, centered on enlightened monarchy, or, barring that, some form of governing body. 

In unconsciously pursuing this ‘one world’ concept, under the guise of a personal quest, the Alexander of the drama we created would have to be a man who believed he was the right force to bring the world into a greater sense of unification and prosperity, that he was a step in the evolutionary process. And given the cataclysms possible, I do think Alexander ruled extraordinarily well for 12 years over men, both noble and bestial, in a social fabric that not only maintained itself, but greatly expanded in terms of culture, scientific discovery, and economic progress. It’s so easy to dismiss this great effort, I think too easy, to declare it broken after 12 years of rule. But can we say it really broke apart? Even if dissolved in four parts, the basic communal energies remained in place, and his creation culminated shortly, within 150 years, in the burgeoning Roman Empire.

I cannot agree more!

Another aspect of Alexander’s personality?

Life is full of surprises and Alexander’s life is no exception. Our best sources are extant books by Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius, Plutarch, and Justin, but contemporary documents are far more difficult to find (see: Eyewitness accounts of Alexander's life). Alexander’s Royal Journals carefully kept by Callisthenes and Eumenes have not survived, except for some rare fragments whose origins cannot be verified with certainty.

Browsing through Robinson’s book, The History of Alexander the Great and the Ephemerides of Alexander’s Expedition, I was intrigued by the few lines that survived Ephippus’ writing. 

Ephippus of Olynthus was a historian and contemporary of Alexander. It is unclear whether this man is the same as Ephippus of Chalcis, mentioned by Arrian as one of the superintendents Alexander installed in Egypt. The reason to link both names is that the city of Olynthus is part of Chalcis. Otherwise, our Ephippus may well have lived at the king’s court or shortly after his death. 

He is known as the author of a lost pamphlet “On the death (or funeral) of Alexander and Hephaistion,” as mentioned by Athenaeus of Naucratis, who lived about the end of the 2^nd/beginning of the 3^rd century AD. The document held an account of the burial of Hephaistion and Alexander as well as of the king’s death. 

Robinson is quoting Athenaeus in several separate issues, shedding a different light on Alexander than what other, usually Greek, sources tell us. 

According to Ephippus, Alexander spent one hundred minas on a dinner with his friends, i.e., sixty or seventy of them. It seems the author is reacting to some critics about Alexander’s expenses compared to those of the Persian king, who spent four hundred talents for his 15,000 invites. Converting the currencies, however, both expenditures come to the same amount per capita.

Another observation made by Ephippus is that the Macedonians never understood how to drink in moderation, but drank a lot of wine at the beginning of a feast. The case of Proteas of Macedonia, who was a sturdy guy, is highlighted because he drank a great deal all his life. Alexander, Ephippus said, once ordered a six-quart cup of wine, and after a drink, toasted Proteas, thereby extending a challenge to him. Proteas took the cup, sang praises to his king, and drank the rest of the wine under the wide applause of those present. A little later, Proteas ordered another such cup, toasted the king, and took a drink. Alexander then (accepting the challenge) took it but could not hold it, falling back on his cushion and dropping the cup from his hands. The king fell ill and died. 

This scene inspired Oliver Stone in his Alexander movie during a scene played in India. However, this is not how the king died, and the text puts serious question marks behind the assumption that Ephippus lived at Alexander's court at the time of his death. The truth about Alexander’s death, for me, lies elsewhere as I discussed on previous occasions (see: A personal approach to the cause of death for Alexander).

Regarding the luxury of Alexander, Ephippus tells us that the king had a golden throne, and couches with silver feet “on which he used to sit and transact business with his companions”. These couches are known from the Susa wedding party, but the link is not made in this text. 

Ephippus continues by stating that Alexander also wore “sacred vestments”, such as the purple robe, cloven sandals, and horns of Ammon as if he were a god. At times, he would imitate Artemis, wearing her dress while driving his chariot. Alexander also had a Persian robe and displayed the bow and javelin of the goddess above his shoulder. Sometimes, he dressed as Hermes, and sitting with his friends, he wore the god’s sandals and the petasus, holding the caduceus in his hand. In everyday use, he would appear wearing a purple riding cloak and a purple tunic with white stripes, and the Macedonian causia holding the royal diadem. Referring to Heracles, Alexander would wear a lion’s skin and carry the god’s club. 

To my own astonishment, Ephippus also says that Alexander used to have the floor sprinkled with perfumes and fragrant wine, while incense and myrrh were burnt in his presence. If this is true, I presume it would happen only while the king resided in one of the Persian palaces? The bystanders are said to remain silent out of fear of his violence, “with no regard for human life.” 

Athenaeus further quotes Ephippus, saying that Alexander arranged a festival for Dionysus at Ecbatana. He does not tell us when this sacrifice occurred but I would assume it was in 324 BC, maybe around the death of Hephaistion. 

The local satrap Satrabates had invited all the troops (just try to picture the scene!) for his lavish feast, and many speeches of praise and flattery were made to impress Alexander. As in Samarkand, some of these praises turned into insolence. However, with the king’s complicity one of his armorers totally went overboard by having the herald announce that he, Gorgus, would shower the son of Ammon with 3,000 gold coins; and whenever Alexander would besiege Athens, he would add 10,000 full suits of armor and as many catapults and other missiles needed for the war. 

Such words clearly illustrate how preposterous and absurd these flatteries of Alexander were! Freedom of speech? 

Shifting through Ephippus' lines, it is difficult and even impossible to determine what is correct and what is not. As always, opinions are divided. Ephippus’ version of the facts is examined in detail by Antony Spawforth in his article The Pamphleteer Ephippus, King Alexander and the Persian Royal Hunt.

Eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s life

Alexander's life and exploits are best known to us from the leading ancient historians, Arrian of Nicomedia, Diodorus Siculus, Curtius Rufus, and Plutarch. Their works, however, were written several centuries after the king's death and based mainly on books that are now mostly lost. 

Since these authors used a different source or a combination of the available material, we ended up having different versions of the same story, which, in turn, can be interpreted individually. 

The oldest eyewitness account was written by Anaximenes of Lampsacus, who lived from c. 380 until 320 BC. It is highly probable that his On Alexander, which included the Battle of Issus and more, was published during Alexander's lifetime. After all, he accompanied the king to Persia. Except for some fragments, the book is lost. Upon the invitation of Philip II, Anaximenes lived at the Royal Court of Pella and wrote the king's history, Philippica.  

Callisthenes of Olynthus (c.360 – c.327 BC) was a nephew of Aristotle, upon whose recommendation he was appointed to become Alexander's Court historian. He accompanied the king to Asia, where he kept the official records of Alexander's expeditions. Around 330 BC, he wrote his Deeds of Alexander up to the Battle of Gaugamela or possibly the death of Darius in 330 BC. In 327 BC, Callisthenes was implicated in a conspiracy to assassinate Alexander. He was imprisoned and died seven months later. Except for a few fragments, the book is lost. 

Ptolemy, undoubtedly the best-known eyewitness, wrote his account between 320 and 283 BC. Ptolemy had grown up at Philip's court and became one of Alexander's generals to join him on his Asian campaign. As a result, his book covered the entire reign of Alexander, particularly from the military point of view. Arrian widely used Ptolemy's history, which he thought was very trustworthy. Unfortunately, this account is also lost, except for fragments. After Alexander's death, Ptolemy became king of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that ended with Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. 

Very shortly after Alexander's death, Nearchus of Crete wrote his Indike about his Indian campaigns. Nearchus had been with Alexander from the beginning. As the king's admiral, he would have led the fleet to the Gates of Heracles – a plan that never materialized. Only fragments of this book have reached us; it is otherwise lost (see: The Ephemerides of Alexander's Expedition by C.A. Robinson). 

Onesicritus, Alexander's helmsman sailing down the Indus, also wrote a now-lost book, How Alexander was educated, shortly after the king's death. A philosopher himself, he presented Alexander as such. Onesicritus was often in competition with Nearchus, and his book had a reputation for not being reliable. Few fragments survived (see: The Ephemerides of Alexander's Expedition by C.A. Robinson). 

After Alexander's death, his chamberlain Chares also wrote an eyewitness account, Histories of Alexander. He covered the later years of Alexander's reign. This book is lost, except for some fragments. 

Aristobulus of Cassandreia, in turn, covered the entire reign of Alexander in a kind of autobiography. The book, whose title is unknown, was written shortly after the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. Except for some fragments, it is lost. Aristobulus was one of the king's engineers and was put in charge of restoring Cyrus' tomb in Pasargadae. 

The most essential account was the Ephemerides, the Royal Diaries, the 'official' daily report that Eumenes of Cardia supposedly kept. He was appointed Alexander's personal secretary after having served Philip previously. There are serious doubts about the authenticity of these Royal Diaries because rumors circulate that the original document was later rewritten. Instead of having a book from Alexander's lifetime, it may well have become a forgery of a later date. The original is lost, except for fragments. The Ephemerides led to the Alexander Romance. 

The oldest known version of the Alexander Romance dates probably from the 3rd century AD, and its author is unknown, although it has been attributed to Pseudo-Callisthenes. The name has nothing to do with the Callisthenes mentioned above, who died before Alexander. The earliest version of the Romance was composed in Alexandria shortly after Alexander's death and related the story of his life, spiced with many fantastic tales that never happened. Over the centuries, the Romance was translated, truncated, embellished, and circulated throughout Europe and Asia. 

This list is incomplete; we know many other authors only by name. Their work is all lost, except for fragments or quotes by other historians. 

It is hard to believe that so few would have written about Alexander's exploits among the thousands of rulers, philosophers, generals, artists, and even ordinary soldiers who met him. The Persians and the Indians certainly shared their encounter with Alexander, yet barely any such documents surfaced until recently.

The hard reality is that even fragments of writing from Alexander's lifetime have survived. The most famous man in history would have disappeared had it not been for men like Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius, and Plutarch.

Alexander's projects and future plans, including his conquest of the West, are also largely neglected. Yet every single one is worth mentioning, which I did in a separate post: Alexander’s missed voyage to conquer the West.

[Papyrus from Macedonian Archaeology Quota]

Latest update 30 January 2025

Writing a letter home and the logistics implied

It sounds like the most obvious thing to do for a soldier, writing a letter home. But I find it quite remarkable that the Macedonian troops travelling with Alexander wrote letters to their family in their homeland because it implies that the average soldier could actually read and write! Maybe they didn’t all carry pen and ink in their backpack but papyrus or some kind of parchment – even though that seems to have been implemented only in the days of Cleopatra – was easy to take along.

The letters home are rarely mentioned in our literature but they become subject to close scrutiny when the Macedonians are divided after the plot and the execution of Philotas in 330 BC. Many were distressed by the murder of Parmenion, Philotas’ father. The army no longer stood unanimously behind the king’s decisions and policies. Alexander, however, could not let this group of discontent troops sow havoc in his ranks. He had to make sure to find the traitors and those who dared to criticize him. This was a serious matter and he decided to open and censor the army’s letters home. This was the only way for Alexander to locate the unruly elements. He removed the culprits from their own units and transferred them to a separate body, the ataktoi, a disciplinary unit that was specially created for the occasion. These men were sent on particularly dangerous or suicidal missions where they could and would redeem themselves – if they were not killed that is.

The courier service between the troops on the march and their homeland must have involved an incessant flow of riders and seafarers – not only for the common soldiers but also for official business that must have followed another channel.

The most frequent mail exchanges were undoubtedly Alexander’s official correspondences with his Regent, Antipater, and with foreign ambassadors and representatives. It was the task of his secretaries Eumenes of Cardia, who occupied that position previously under his father, and of Callisthenes of Olynthus, the nephew of Aristotle. There must have been an entire “office” of scribes of all kinds, including people who were familiar with the does of don’ts at foreign courts and a number of qualified translators and copyists to keep track of the documents.

Alexander certainly wrote his private letters to his mother Olympias personally for I doubt he would have entrusted these to anyone else. He may have employed a number of private and trustworthy couriers because the content of those documents was highly sensitive.

We are also aware of Hephaistion’s correspondence with Aristotle but it seems evident that he maintained a vivid correspondence with many scholars and high ranking officials spread all over the conquered territories and even beyond.

Also, the incoming mail had to be checked, sorted and distributed. The royal mail had priority and was opened, checked and sorted by the scribes in Alexander’s tent supervised, I assume by Eumenes who had to decide what had to be prioritized and what not.

The matter of correspondence, on whatever level, implies a huge logistic machinery of its own. It has been suggested that initially Parmenion was responsible for the army’s logistics, which may have included the mail services. However, once he was assigned as keeper of the immense Persian treasury in Ecbatana, we don’t know who replaced him to become the trusted brain behind those operations.

The siege of Sangala (in modern Pakistan)

It is one of those fights that hardly catches our attention and is generally ignored among the greater battles of Alexander. Yet it is another of those gems among his incessant conquests pushing ever further eastwards.

As soon as Alexander had set foot on the eastern bank of the Hydraotes River, modern Ravi (see also: Alexander marching beyond the Hydaspes), most of the Indian tribes surrendered without resistance and those who did not were, of course, subdued by force. Sangala, however, was another story. Although the city has not yet been located, we are told by Arrian that it stood on top of a hill. The tribes that resisted Alexander in the immediate surrounding of the city had sought and found refuge inside its walls. Three consecutive circles of carts were set up around the hill by the defenders to function as individual obstacle walls. They felt pretty comfortable behind their defenses from where they could easily venture out to face Alexander - or so they thought.

Alexander is a master when it comes to adjusting his tactics to any given situation and upon arrival, he immediately instructed his archers to ride along the enemy front line while shooting their arrows at long range in order to pin them down inside the city. This gave Alexander enough time to put his men into position so he could start the advance towards the outer line of carts. The Indians advanced and climbed on their carts, attacking with bows and arrows at long range. Clearly, the cavalry was of no use here and Alexander rapidly dismounted to lead his infantry to the assault. The enemy was soon driven from the first line of carts and rallied behind the second line where they could better defend themselves as they fought in closer ranks. Although the Macedonians had to push and maneuver their way through the outer ring of carts to reach the Indians, the enemy was once again forced to withdraw. They did not make another stand behind the third ring of carts but retreated rapidly inside the city instead.

This was enough fighting for one day and Alexander instructed his infantry to string out around Sangala. However, he did not have enough troops available at this time to allow a complete encirclement. The break in his defenses was opposite a shallow lake so he took the precaution to post his cavalry around the lake. Alexander’s guess was that the Indians would try to slip out of Sangala under cover of darkness. How well he understood what warfare was all about, for his supposition turned out to be correct. In the dead of night, the Indians left the city but fell in the arms of the patrolling cavalry. Many were killed, others returned to the relative safety of the city walls.

At this stage, Alexander built a double stockade around the city and made sure that the lake itself was more efficiently guarded. He even made arrangements to bring in his siege engines when he learned from stray Indians that the people of Sangala planned to escape that very night through the opening in the stockade at the lake.

Ptolemy was put in charge and he collected all the Indian carts that were left behind and placed them across the line of the Indian’s escape route to stop or at least slow down their flight. He also instructed his men to collect the wooden posts that had not been used for the construction of the stockade and pitch them as a barrier on either side between the lake and the city. Since most of this work had been done in near darkness, the people of Sangala had no knowledge of this barrier. As soon as the Indians opened their city gates and speeded down to the lake, Ptolemy sounded the alarm and soon his men were on top of the Indians who tried to find their way between the carts and the newly erected palisade – to little or no avail and once again they withdrew inside the city.

At this time, Porus who had been called in to reinforce Alexander’s troops arrived with his elephants and some 5,000 Indians, and Alexander had erected his siege engines. The Macedonians, in the meantime, had been able to undermine the city wall and climbed the scaling ladders they set all around the town. Sangala was taken by assault and up to 17,000 Indians were killed in the process while over 70,000 were taken prisoner. Alexander also captured 500 cavalry and 300 war chariots. His own losses did not reach more than one hundred men but strangely enough over 1,200 of his troops were wounded – a remarkably high number. These figures can be explained when reading Curtius’ account of the battle. He tells us that the Indians had tied the chariots together and standing on their platforms were able to rapidly leap from one cart to the next, attacking the Macedonians with lances and axes from above. In the ensuing chaos, Alexander soon ordered that the bonds that held the chariots together should be cut first after which his troops could attack the enemy on the individual carts. It must have been quite a bloody affair.

After having buried his dead with the proper rituals and ceremonies, Alexander sent his secretary, Eumenes, with a small detachment to convince the two neighboring towns which had joined in Sangala’s resistance with offers of peace if they surrendered willfully. The embassy was useless for the bad news had traveled ahead of them and the people of both cities had fled by the time Eumenes arrived. Alexander tried to catch up with them, but they had had enough time to get away. He then returned to Sangala and razed it to the ground.

Porus was sent to back to the cities that had surrendered with instructions to garrison them. Alexander himself resumed his march east towards the Hyphasis River, modern Beas.

[Picture of the Hydraotes River from Wikipedia By Vjdchauhan - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0]
[Map from Travel, Tourism, Transport and Maps of Pakistan]

What became of Alexander’s closest commanders after the War of the Diadochi?

Alexander was surrounded and supported by his highly skilled and efficient Bodyguards or Companions, who, after his death in 323 BC, had to take charge and rule his vast empire. They definitely were not prepared for this task, as Alexander obviously had not expected to die at such a young age.

The ensuing war that lasted for almost forty years and went into history as the War of the Diadochi was inevitable. Time and again, the commanders took sides and changed sides, made peace treaties, but coveted each other’s possessions soon after. Their lust for power and innate Greek competitiveness led them, at the head of their seasoned armies, to conquer ever more land. In the process, they eliminated each other systematically, till around 280 BC only four dynasties remained: the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Asia, the Lysimachids in Thrace, and the Antipatrids in Macedonia.

At the time of Alexander’s death, all his Bodyguards were in Babylon: Aristonous, Leonnatus, Lysimachos, Peithon, Perdiccas, Peucestas, and Ptolemy. Other powerful men were also present, like Seleucos, one of his principal commanders over the past seven years; Nearchus, his fleet admiral; and Eumenes, his secretary and archivist. However, Craterus was still in Cilicia on his way to Macedonia, and Antipater, as the Regent, was in Pella. Sooner or later, all these leaders got involved in the Succession War and died while defending their rights or in their increasing ambition to expand their territory.

"Diadochen1" by Captain_Blood - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

Here is what became of them:

The first to die was Leonnatus, who relieved Antipater during the siege of Lamia in 322 BC and was killed by the Athenian enemy.

The next victim was Craterus in 321 BC, as his horse stumbled during a fierce confrontation with Eumenes on the borders of Cappadocia. He was trampled to death.

Perdiccas followed in 320 BC after failing to lead his troops safely across the Nile when he invaded Egypt held by Ptolemy. He was killed by his own officers.

Antipater died of old age in the late summer of 319 BC, nominating Polyperchon as his successor instead of his own son, Cassander.

Later that year (319 BC), the generals Arrhidaeus, Nicanor, and Cleitus were eliminated.

Eumenes, after desperate and repeated attempts to win the confidence of his troops, was killed by Antigonus Monophthalmus, the rising star in 317 BC. At the same time, Antigenes was burnt alive by Antigonus.

Under false pretexts, Peithon was summoned to Ecbatana by Antigonus some time later, where he was accused of treachery and executed.

Aristonous became the general of Olympias in her war against Cassander, but when the queen was taken prisoner in 316 BC, he was put to death by Cassander.

Nearchus disappeared from history around 300 BC, after he had joined Antigonus Monophthalmus and acted as adviser to his son, Demetrios Poliorcetes.

Lysimachus had the difficult task of ruling Thrace, which served as a buffer zone between east and west. He was killed in 281 BC after crossing the Hellespont into Lydia.

Peucestas had a less glamorous end to his career. He surrendered to Antigonus after acting as an unwilling ally of Eumenes and was kept as Antigonus’ close advisor and afterward for his son Demetrios Poliorcetes. The last time we heard from him was in 290 BC.

Ptolemy made a better choice with Egypt, which he ruled successfully, starting a dynasty that lasted three hundred years. Ptolemy I Soter died in his mid-eighties in 283 BC.

The same applies to Seleucos, who, after many fights on different sides, gained protection from Ptolemy and managed to establish himself as ruler of Alexander’s eastern provinces (311-302 BC). In his ambition to conquer Macedonia and Thrace as well, he was assassinated in 281 BC by Ptolemy Keraunos, son of Ptolemy I. He was the last of the great men who once rode by Alexander’s side to the end of the world.

Sardes, the capital of ancient Lydia and a key-city for Alexander’s Successors

My last visit to Sardes goes back several years and it seems that Turkey is finally promoting this unique site. Tourism is definitely on the rise, but whether that is a good thing or not, depends on how we want to look at things. The tourists bring in the badly needed cash but too many people treading the ancient floors is not necessarily a blessing.

Sardes is being praised as the capital of Lydia ruled by wealthy King Croesus from 560 until 546 BC when the envious Persians conquered the city. We will remember that the first gold coins ever were issued by Croesus. Yet I have not seen any traces of the Lydians in Sardes itself – maybe one day something will surface, who knows? What we see today is mainly Roman but the place has been occupied from about the 7th century BC till the 7th century AD and has seen Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans occupying its houses and streets. One of the highlights definitely is the Temple of Artemis, the fourth largest Ionic temple in the world that was converted into one of the seven holy churches of Christianity. There is evidently a lot to see and to explore.

Wherever I go, I always automatically look for Alexander the Great simply because he has been to so many places, and that includes Sardes. I already followed Alexander to Sardes in a previous article “Heading for Dascylium and Sardes”, but since the city is in the news once again it may be worth elaborating a little more about its important role.

Licensed under CC BY-SA2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

To begin with, Sardes was the start of the main road built by the Persians to connect it with Susa in the heart of the Persian Empire. That shows how important this city in Asia Minor was. Seleucos, Alexander’s successor in Asia, later had palaces all over his kingdom since it was simply too large to have a fixed center. This means that his capital was wherever he happened to be, which was either at Susa, Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, Antioch-on-the-Orontes, Celaenae, or Sardes. I wish there were some remains to confirm Alexander’s passage or Seleucos’ pal ce at Sardes.

Closer to Alexander, there is the role his sister, Cleopatra, played. She was Queen of Epirus after her husband, Alexandros, had died, and she was an excellent match for anyone aiming for more power after her brother’s death. She was first ready to marry Leonnatus, but he died while fighting on Antipater’s side during the siege of Lamia. At Olympias’ instigation, Cleopatra moved to Sardes to marry Perdiccas, who was preparing his wedding to Nicaea, Antipater’s daughter. We know that Antipater was Olympias’ constant enemy, and she would have loved to see her daughter married to Perdiccas. This general had led the Babylon Conferences (see: What if …?) and was on his way to Macedonia escorting Alexander’s corpse, accompanied by the two kings (the simple-minded Arrhidaeus/Philip and the infant Alexander IV) at the head of the veteran’s army that had campaigned on Alexander’s side. As a matter of course, Perdiccas was tempted by Cleopatra, for through this marriage, he would rule the empire, but on the other hand, he could not ignore Antipater; so, he went ahead to marry Nicaea. Shortly thereafter, however, he sent Eumenes, once Philip’s and Alexander’s secretary and presently Olympias’ messenger, to Sardes, loaded with gifts for Cleopatra and a marriage proposal. At this stage, Perdiccas even installed his bride-to-be as satrap of Lydia.

Perdiccas was moving at a slow pace, escorting Alexander’s body to Macedonia and the entire train and army. Events took a sharp turn when Ptolemy “hijacked” Alexander’s corpse and took it to Memphis, leaving Perdiccas no choice but to set in pursuit to recuperate the body. Ptolemy was ready to meet Perdiccas, whose attack ended in disaster as part of this army drowned in the Nile. He failed his duty to his troops, and a group of his senior officers decided to simply murder Perdiccas.

Now the road was open for Ptolemy, who approached Cleopatra soon after, asking for her hand in marriage. She agreed, and they soon saw themselves as king and queen on the throne of Macedonia. But this time, it was Antigonus Monophthalmus, who by now ruled over most of Asia Minor, who thwarted the plan by preventing her from leaving Sardes and eventually had her killed so she would not fall into the hands of any of the successors who would use her to rise to a higher power.

Poor Cleopatra, she was widowed while in her early thirties and ended up being a pawn in the Successors’ fight for legitimation. She cannot have been much older than forty-five when she died. Love and/or happiness were no issue in those days, and in a way, I am glad Alexander did not live to witness this.

The last time Sardes was in the news in connection, although remotely, with Alexander, happened during the final confrontation between Lysimachus and Seleucos, the last two of the Successors. This was in 281 BC during the battle of Corupedium, the “Plain of Plenty”, just west of Sardes. It was here that Lysimachus was killed. Seleucos became the last of the Successors still alive.

Well, much of this part of history will most certainly be ignored by the guides taking the tourists around Sardes. King Croesus and King Alexander III are certain to steal the show, but even …

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