It is curious that one of the largest empires of antiquity had such weak foundations that, in reality, it was only sustained by the charisma of its builder. We are talking about Alexander the Great. That giant with feet of clay that he formed with his military genius dissolved as soon as his binder died, which was himself, causing a fratricidal war between his generals for keeping the spoils. In it a strange and practically unknown battle was framed, that of Corupedio, which closed the contest without serving practically anything.
Alexander the Great, continuing the work started by his father Philip, not only took over Greece but also made the continental leap and extended his power to the Persian Empire, Egypt, Phoenicia and continued advancing unstoppably until reaching India. There he had to give in and turn around when his troops refused to continue, given that they had already been campaigning for a dozen years but their hypomnemata (notebooks) revealed plans for further conquests across North Africa when death overtook him in 323 B.C.
He did not have a designated successor, since the illness that caused his death (malaria, typhoid, poisoning?) came as suddenly as it was fatally quick in its resolution, little more than a week. His wife Roxana was pregnant but she was still several months away from giving birth, apart from the fact that many did not like the idea that the heir had barbarian blood. His son Heracles had fathered with a concubine and lacked legitimacy.
Nor was the stepbrother of the deceased, Filipo Arrideo, a viable option as he was intellectually disabled, so, given the power vacuum, several options arose, each defended by a pressure group:on the one hand, the philoi (friends), on the other the somatophylakes (bodyguards), here the diadochoi (diadochos, generals), there the soldiers...
There was no way to reach an agreement, so a distribution of positions was proceeded without an express leader. Perdiccas was appointedchiliarch (a kind of prime minister) and epimeleta (governor), while Craterus became prostatés (tutor) of Philippus Arrideo, Seleucus was named hiparch (chief of the cavalry), Antipater retained the regency of Greece and Macedonia, and the latter's scion, Cassander, assumed command of the hypaspists (light heavy infantry).
In addition, the satrapies were distributed among the members of the Council of Babylon, so that Egypt went to Ptolemy, who founded a dynasty that would reach Cleopatra; Babylon for Archon; Lycia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia for Antigonus I; Thrace for Lysimachus; Hellespontic Phrygia for Leonatus; Medium for Peitón; Persia for Peucestas; Cilicia for Philotas; Caria for Asander; and Atropatene for Atropates. Finally, Eumenes of Cardia received the right to conquer Cappadocia and Paphlagonia.
There were territories that took advantage of the confusion to rebel, in the case of Bactria and a part of Greece gathered around Athens, the latter crushed by blood and fire. The situation was so turbulent that everyone tried to take advantage of it for their own benefit and ended up openly fighting each other only three years after Alexander's death. Ptolemy had annexed Cyrenaica and Perdiccas, who negotiated her wedding with a daughter of Olympias (Alexander's mother), mobilized against him, thus beginning the so-called First War of the Diadochi.
First, because there was not just one but four, which for more than two decades stained with blood, pacts and betrayals what had once been a united army. The third of those contests began in 314 B.C. by the demand of Antigonus to proceed to a new distribution of the satrapies. Antigonus had become the most powerful diadochus after defeating Eumenes and Seleucus and taking over Asia Minor. That led Ptolemy, until then cautious, to react and confront him. Both had victories and defeats but none were decisive, so they opted for a truce in 311.
That same year Casandro assassinated Alexander IV along with his mother Roxana, thus disappearing the only figure that could have put an end to the discord. The next victim was Heracles and everything came crashing down again. Seleucus, who held Babylon, extended his dominion eastward while Ptolemy did the same for Cyprus in the Aegean by agreeing with Antigonus that Antigonus should keep the islands and he mainland Greece. That directly confronted them with Cassander, who after ending Alexander's dynasty aspired to establish his own.
In fact, Antigonus expelled Cassander from Greece and proclaimed himself basileus (king). The other diadochi did not want to be left behind and so proclaimed themselves in their respective domains, giving rise to new dynasties (the Lagid or Ptolemaic, the Seleucid...) and putting an end once and for all to the Alexandrian idea of a united Hellenic empire. Cassander's counterattack plunged Greece into four years of conflict, but since he was unable to defeat Antigonus, he received the help of Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Seleucus, who finally achieved victory at Ipsos, where Antigonus not only lost the battle but also lost the battle. life.
The winners divided up the domains of the deceased but his son Demetrius was still alive, who would later be nicknamed Poliorcetes for the siege to which Rhodes submitted, a good general although too impulsive, who knew how to wait for what was inevitable:dissension among the victors. Then, also coinciding with Cassander's death from dropsy, he reconquered part of Greece and proclaimed himself king of Macedonia. Unfortunately, he lacked popular support and had to flee before the push of Lysimachus's army, aided by Pyrrhus, the ruler of Epirus. He still had the strength to fight him but finally had to throw in the towel and take refuge with Seleucus, who kept him a prisoner for the rest of his life.
Lysimachus was the great beneficiary of the events, since he was left with the south of Macedonia, Thrace and a good part of Asia Minor, while Ptolemy was satisfied with securing Egypt, and Seleucus with an extensive territory that ranged from the eastern zone of the current Turkey to Persia, passing through Syria and Phoenicia. However, the final episode of that mess was still missing. Ptolemy Ceraunos, son of the Egyptian king disinherited due to his temperament, went into exile first with Lysimachus but the latter, induced by his wife Arsinoe (sister of Ceraunos), who wished to favor the succession of one of his sons instead of the heir, Agathocles (held with another former wife), had him executed. The widow also feared for her life and sought refuge with Seleucus. She and she convinced him to try to wrest Macedon from Lysimachus.
The two armies met at Corupedio, a name that alludes to the Koros plain, located in Lydia, western Anatolia. It was the year 281 BC, and the truth is that there are hardly any references to that battle. Some sources point out that Lysimachus had 51,000 foot soldiers, 8,300 cavalry and 25 war elephants, against whom Seleucus opposed 31,500 foot soldiers, 9,500 horsemen and 60 elephants, plus 15 sickle chariots. Tradition says that, despite being very old, both diadochos fought personally and a Heracleian soldier named Malacon killed Lysimachus with a spear.
This is how the writer Memnon of Heracleia tells it in his work Historia de Heracleia Pontica (city located on the coast of Bithynia), although it has been lost and we only know it through references to Photius I of Constantinople in an anthology that made reviews of almost three hundred books under the heading Library (or Myriobiblos ), as early as the 9th century:
There are no more details, except for one that seems more literary than anything else but it is exciting:after the defeat and disbandment of the defeated troops, Lysimachus's corpse would have remained abandoned on the battlefield for several days and when they were finally able to return to give him burial they could only recognize him because his faithful dog stayed with him, protecting him from carrion birds.
As can be deduced from the text, it turned out that most of Alexander's domains, except for Ptolemaic Egypt, were finally in the hands of Seleucus, forming what has gone down in history as the Seleucid Empire. They were multi-ethnic territories but under the rule of a Macedonian caste that left considerable Greek influence until its disintegration amid civil wars at the end of the 2nd century BC. Interestingly, Macedonia was not part of his domain.
This was because Seleucus barely enjoyed his success when he was assassinated shortly after the battle of Corupedius, by Ptolemy Ceraunus, who wanted Arsinoe to marry Pyrrhus (although she fled and married his brother Ptolemy II Philadelphus). Cerauno died fighting a Galatian invasion and was succeeded by his brother Maleagro, who only lasted two months on the throne. After several ephemeral successions, Antigonus II Gonatas, son of Demetrius I Poliorcetes and grandson of Antigonus, settled down, founding the Antigonid dynasty.