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Alexander the Great didn't enjoy a long life, but few people have had such a profound effect on the world. In an odd way, perishing so young was probably the best thing Alexander could have done for his legacy - he didn't grow old and frail, and he wasn't crushed by the unbearable weight of actually running such a vast and disparate empire. He perished almost as dramatically as he lived.
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Alexander the Great didn't live long
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but his conquest still had a profound effect on the world. The empire he carved out wasn't built to last
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And although the men who formed his inner circle were individuals of great ambition and talent
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Alexander turned out to be an impossible act to follow. So today, we're going to take a look at what actually happened
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to Alexander the Great's empire immediately after he died. Alexander the Great died on June 11th of the year 323 BCE
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We know this thanks to a Babylonian astronomical diary written in clay
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The tiny artifact is the only surviving contemporary account of Alexander's passing
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and sadly, it doesn't tell us much. The historical weight of Alexander's death was almost comically understated by the tablet's words
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which simply read, Today the King Died, Clouds. It's a good copy
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It's precise, but just a little more detail next time, maybe. While we might know the date of Alexander's death
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we don't know the cause. Based on the historical record, there are several possibilities
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The first is disease. Alexander's last difficult campaign in the Indus River
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Valley would have brought exposure to unfamiliar diseases, and he easily could have contracted any of them
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Another possibility is that he simply may have never truly recovered from a grievous
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wound he received during the siege of Multan. It's also conceivable he succumbed to alcoholism
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Alexander was always a heavy drinker, but he may have cranked things up a notch
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in the wake of the passing of dear friend and possible lover, Festion
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Another credible theory, one certainly widely believed at the time, was that Alexander had been poisoned
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by one of his enemies, and there were a lot to choose from. One leading suspect was the Macedonian noble Cassandros
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sent to Babylon by his father, Dipatros, the regent of Macedonia. Modern physicians have advanced a few other theories
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but the continued absence of Alexander's remains means nobody can know for sure
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When Alexander almost perished during his campaign in India, it raised the specter of a major succession crisis
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Without a clearly identified second in command, the army's cohesion almost broke down entirely when rumors of Alexander's demise surfaced
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None of his generals had enough sway over the rest of the army to take the reins of power
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and things got dicey fast. Despite the sneak peek at what would happen if he died
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Alexander didn't fix the problem, and when he passed away in Babylon, there was no obvious
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living successor. He had possibly fathered an illegitimate son, Heracles, with a Persian woman
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named Varasini. But the disputed parentage of the boy, along with his Persian blood, made him an unlikely successor
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Similarly, although Alexander's wife, Roxani, carried his legitimate child her Bactrian heritage would not be looked upon kindly by most Macedonians That left Ridaos the living half of Alexander who wasn mentally
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competent enough to rule. Alexander was evidently quite fond of his impaired brother
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as he was left alive when Alexander took the throne and systematically eliminated all potential
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rivals. And indeed, some Macedonians thought his brother, despite his disabilities, should take the
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thrown away. But if that happened, a regent would be necessary to oversee the administration of the
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empire. Among the generals, Alexander tried to treat them with equal favor, so none would bear
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him ill will or attain the influence to challenge his rule. As a mechanism for protecting his grip
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on power, it was quite effective. But it also sowed the seeds for disaster upon his demise
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Since the generals were regarded as equals, none felt compelled to answer to the other
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Peridikas was considered the most senior of Alexander's bodyguards. He held the position of Chiliarhos, effectively the commander of the army
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and had been handed Alexander's ring. In fact, it was Peridikas who convened a meeting in Babylon to consider the matter of succession
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The meeting started out cordially enough. But predictably, it descended into chaos when sharp disagreements arose
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over exactly who should succeed Alexander. The Macedonian army was barely held together by Alexander
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and the division between the infantry and cavalry boiled over in India
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when the infantry simply refused to go any further. Even Alexander couldn't force them onward
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Without them, he wouldn't be much of a conqueror, and they knew it as well as he did
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They were a formidable fighting force, hardened by decades of warfare, but they were increasingly difficult to handle
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Alexander's efforts to fuse the cultures of his empire angered the very foot soldiers who'd played
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such an important role in winning it. They resented the inclusion of local troops into
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the phalanx, while the cavalry remained almost entirely Macedonian. This sentiment made managing
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the infantry difficult for Alexander and pretty much impossible for any of his successors
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The infantry captain, Meliagros, saw an opportunity and called for the ascension of Ridaos
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Meliagros arrived at the room where Alexander's body lay, joined by the impaired prince and a few hundred followers
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to proclaim Ridaos the new king. Mayhem had broken out not even 24 hours after Alexander's passing
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The outnumbered Macedonian nobles were forced to flee the royal quarters via a hidden passage
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Hidden passage? Always cool. Men were sent to detain Peridikas, but he managed to talk them out of it by shaming them into leaving
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Not wishing to push his luck any further, Berodicus and the Macedonian nobles left Babylon that evening
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but they wouldn't be gone long. After fleeing the city, the Macedonian nobles
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blocked the supply routes into Babylon. With the situation rapidly spiraling out of control a compromise was worked out between the two factions to avoid open civil war The succession dispute was resolved by proposing a system where if Roxani unborn child turned out to be a male
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he would rule alongside Ridaos, who had now assumed the name Philip III
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Peridicus would remain regent as Kiliahos and would be regent to the unborn king
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Meliagros would act as his deputy, while other matters involving the European and Asian portions of the empire
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were worked out. The pact avoided open war, but it would not prevent further bloodshed
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After the dust of the initial hostilities had settled, Peridicus arranged for a cleansing
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ritual called lustration to be performed outside the city walls by the Macedonian army
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Trigger warning for dog lovers, the act saw a dog slain in half, with the two pieces dragged
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to either side of the battlefield. The army would then march between the pieces in an act that
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symbolized purification, because nothing says pure like cutting man's best friend in half
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While the alleged point of all this was to ease the tensions between the two factions of the
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Macedonian army, Beridicus actually had other intentions. Outside the city walls, the infantry
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gathered only to find their chosen king had been brought forward to demand the ringleaders of the
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recent troubles to be handed over. The infantry found themselves confronted with a fully armed
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force of cavalry, complete with armored war elephants from the Indian campaigns. In an open
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field, resisting such a force was futile, and the demands were met. Around 30 leaders were apprehended
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and bound. Those prisoners were then laid out in front of the army and fatally trampled by the war
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elephants in a gruesome, albeit effective, show of strength by the nobility. Meliagros escaped with
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his life, but he was soon tracked down to a temple, where he assumed the taboo against violence in a
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holy place would ensure his safety. He assumed wrong. Meleagros was dispatched on the spot
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bringing an ignoble end to his brief flirtation with great power. Roxani and Peredicus were eager to cement their grip on power, but the threat of potential rivals
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being born to Alexander's two Persian wives still remained, so the pair arranged for their
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elimination. Statara II was the daughter of Alexander's great enemy, Darius III, who was
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captured along with her mother after Alexander's victory at Issus. Statara and Parisatis, daughter
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of another Persian ruler, married Alexander as part of the mass weddings at Susa. The whole thing
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was a half-assed attempt at cultural fusion, where Alexander and his men took Persian wives
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All but one of the marriages ended in divorce after Alexander's passing, when rumors of Statara's
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pregnancy reached Roxani, she was obviously less than thrilled. Working with Peridicus, she forged a letter from Alexander, summoning the princess and
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her sister to Babylon. The letter arrived before the Persian woman learned of Alexander's passing
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When the women arrived they were immediately killed and the remains were unceremoniously cast down a well that was then buried by servants Although Parisatis was not named in the historical accounts it likely she was either slain
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alongside Statira or dispatched later. Roxani's ruthlessness was born of necessity. Her future
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was tied to her unborn child, and no rival could be allowed to live
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The partition of Babylon divided the empire into smaller regions to be governed by Alexander's
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closest allies as regents. Dipatros had been left in charge of Macedon when Alexander began his
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great conquest, and he and his son Cassandros would remain in charge of the Macedonian homeland
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Egypt was given to Ptolemaeus to look after, while the remaining lands in Asia were distributed
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among the generals, though Eumenes had to secure the potentially lucrative providence of Cappadocia
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by force. Relations between the successors were strained from the beginning. Factions formed and
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dissolved as marriage contracts were made and broken. One of the most sought-after women in
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the ancient world was Alexander's 32-year-old sister, Cleopatra of Macedon. Cleopatra was the
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widow of the late king of Epirus and shouldn't be confused with the later Macedonian ruler of Egypt
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who showed up in Shakespeare's plays and was played by Elizabeth Taylor in the movies
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Leonatos, a friend and bodyguard of Alexander, appeared set to win the race for her hand
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but perished before the marriage could take place. Peridikas, Cassandros, and Digonos all tried to win Cleopatra's favor, but they all failed
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The Tolemaios was one of Alexander's closest friends, but he had limited military experience
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especially compared with the other members of Alexander's personal guard. However, what he lacked in battlefield prowess, he more than made up for with cunning and intellect
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Widely regarded as the cleverest of the successors, the Tolemaios would ultimately carve out a great empire in his own right in Egypt
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Knowing the symbolic value of Alexander's body, Petolimaios schemed to have the king's corpse
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transported to Damascus for her safekeeping. Realizing a plot was afoot, Peridicus arranged
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to take the body back, only to learn Petolimaios' men had spirited Alexander's remains to Egypt
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where they would be housed for centuries at Alexandria. The tomb of Alexander became a
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popular tourist destination and was visited by both Julius and Augustus Caesar, but its location
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was eventually lost and remains a mystery to this very day. The theft of Alexander's body
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prompted Peridikas to raise an army and invade Egypt. He intended to retake possession of
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Alexander's remains to stop Petrolimaeus from gaining too much power. It didn't go so well
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The campaign was a disaster, and Peridikas was slain by his own officers, who then defected to
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Petrolimaeus' side. With the demise of the regent Peridikas, the unity of the empire unraveled after
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just three years of precarious existence