A gripping account of one of the great forgotten wars of history, revealing how Alexander the Great's vast empire was torn asunder in the years after his death

Alexander the Great conquered an enormous empire--stretching from Greece to the Indian subcontinent--and his death triggered forty bloody years of world-changing events. These were years 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, such as Alexander's mother Olympias, schemed from their palaces and pavilions. Dividing the Spoils serves up a fast-paced narrative that captures this turbulent time as it revives the memory of the Successors of Alexander and their great contest for his empire. The Successors, Robin Waterfield shows, were no mere plunderers. Indeed, Alexander left things in great disarray at the time of his death, with no guaranteed succession, no administration in place suitable for such a large realm, and huge untamed areas both bordering and within his empire. It was the Successors--battle-tested companions of Alexander such as Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Seleucus, and Antigonus the One-Eyed--who consolidated Alexander's gains. Their competing ambitions, however, eventually led to the break-up of the empire. To tell their story in full, Waterfield draws upon a wide range of historical materials, providing the first account that makes complete sense of this highly complex period. Astonishingly, this period of brutal, cynical warfare was also characterized by brilliant cultural achievements, especially in the fields of philosophy, literature, and art. A new world emerged from the dust and haze of battle, and, in addition to chronicling political and military events, Waterfield provides ample discussion of the amazing cultural flowering of the early Hellenistic Age.

As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, this volume combines approaches from material anthropology, imperial and military history to shed light on the acquisition and appropriation of objects during British colonial warfare. The authors offer a nuanced view of how the amassing of objects was governed and understood within military culture.

Addressing a marginalized era of Greek and Roman history, Taken at the Flood offers a compelling narrative of Rome's conquest of Greece.

When Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-two, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea in the west all the way to modern-day India in the east. In an unusual compromise, his two heirs—a mentally damaged half brother, Philip III, and an infant son, Alexander IV, born after his death—were jointly granted the kingship. But six of Alexander’s Macedonian generals, spurred by their own thirst for power and the legend that Alexander bequeathed his rule “to the strongest,” fought to gain supremacy. Perhaps their most fascinating and conniving adversary was Alexander’s former Greek secretary, Eumenes, now a general himself, who would be the determining factor in the precarious fortunes of the royal family. James Romm, professor of classics at Bard College, brings to life the cutthroat competition and the struggle for control of the Greek world’s greatest empire.

This major study by a leading expert is dedicated to the thirty years after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. It deals with the emergence of the Successor monarchies and examines the factors which brought success and failure. Some of the central themes are the struggle for pre-eminence after Alexander's death, the fate of the Macedonian army of conquest, and the foundation of Seleucus' monarchy. Bosworth also examines the statesman and historian Hieronymus of Cardia, concentrating on his treatment of widow burning in India and nomadism in Arabia. Another highlight is the first full analysis of the epic struggle between Antigonus and Eumenes (318-316), one of the most important and decisive campaigns of the ancient world.

Presents a short history of Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire, from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. This book sets the rise of Alexander's short-lived empire within the broad context of ancient Near Eastern history under Achaemenid Persian rule, as well as against Alexander's Macedonian background.