Dividing the Spoils

Biographies of Alexander the Great (e.g., those by Philip Freeman) abound, but what happened after the death of the world conqueror in 323 B.C.E.? Classicist Waterfield (Why Socrates Died) narrates 40 years of war over who would rule next among the Macedonian's companions. Meanwhile, across the far-flung empire from Egypt to Afghanistan, the vying warlords were spreading a new Hellenistic culture, which Waterfield sees as a Romantic successor to ancient Greek classicism. From the people they conquered, the new rulers absorbed an absolute, Eastern model of kingship that remained the standard for centuries. Nearly limitless treasuries funded the decades of war among Alexander's "successors"—most prominently Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucus in Babylonia, Antipater in Macedonia, and Antigonus (everywhere). In the end, a few large monarchies remained where there had briefly been one empire. Then the Romans absorbed the whole region, which became the Greek east, the legacy of Alexander.