Description
Book SynopsisThis is the story of one of the great forgotten wars of history - which led to the disintegration of one of the biggest empires the world has ever seen. Alexander the Great built up his huge empire in little more than a decade, stretching from Greece in the West, via Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, and Persia through to the Indian sub-continent in the East. After his death in 323 BC, it took forty years of world-changing warfare for his heirs to finish carving up these vast conquests. These years were filled with high adventure, intrigue, passion, assassinations, dynastic marriages, treachery, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter on battlefield after battlefield. And while the men fought on the field, the women schemed from their palaces and pavilions.Dividing the Spoils revives the memory of Alexander''s Successors, whose fame has been dimmed only because they stand in his enormous shadow. In fact, Alexander left things in a mess at the time of his death, with no guaranteed succession, no
Trade Reviewwell-paced and often dramatic narratives, up-to-date research, and thorough documentation * Wall Street Journal *
Robin Waterfield has produced an excellent introduction...He conveys the drama of the aftermath of Alexander's death with the intensity of a novelist * Military Times *
A briskly readable march through tumultuous events which continue to reverberate. * Daily Express *
Robin Waterfield's coruscating cultural-political narrative does full and equal justice to all the major dimensions of this extraordinary half-century. * Paul Cartledge, author of Ancient Greece, A History in Eleven Cities *
A gripping and often unsettling account of a formative period of ancient history. As Robin Waterfield points out, it deserves to be far better known than it is -- and now, thanks to the author himself, it is as accessible as it has ever been. * Tom Holland, author of Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West *
Table of ContentsPreface ; Acknowledgements ; Timeline ; Cast of Characters ; 1. The Legacy of Alexander the Great ; 2. The Babylon Conferences ; 3. Rebellion ; 4. Perdiccas, Ptolemy, and Alexander's Corpse ; 5. The First War of the Successors ; 6. Polyperchon's Moment ; 7. The Triumph of Cassander ; 8. Hunting Eumenes in Iran ; 9. Antigonus, Lord of Asia ; 10. The Restoration of Seleucus ; 11. Warfare in Greece ; 12. Duel to the Death ; 13. The Kingdoms of Ptolemy and Seleucus ; 14. Demetrius Resurgent ; 15. The Fall of Demetrius ; 16. The Last Successors ; Glossary ; References ; Bibliography ; Index
