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Alexander's successors:
The settlement at Babylon

  Alexander Diadochi ('successors'): name of the first generation of military and political leaders after the death of the Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the Great in 323. To settle the question whether his empire should disintegrate or survive as a unity, and, if so, under whose rule, they fought four full-scale wars. The result, reached by 300, was a division into three large parts, which more or less coincided with Alexander's possessions in Europe, Asia, and Egypt.
  During the next quarter of a century, it was decided whether these states could endure. As it turned out, there were no great territorial changes, although there were dynastic changes. After 280, the period of state-forming came to an end.
  Alexander died in the afternoon of June 11, 323 BCE, in Babylon. Next day, his generals met to discuss the new situation. Under normal circumstances, they, as representatives of the Macedonian nation, had to choose a new king, and the obvious candidate would be the brother of the dead king, Arridaeus. However, he was illegitimate, epileptic, and considered mentally unfit to rule. As a consequence, it was difficult to reach a solution.
  Perdiccas, the commander of the Companion cavalry who had been appointed by Alexander as his successor, said that it was best to wait until queen Roxane, who was pregnant, had given birth. If it were a son, it would be logical to make him king. This was all too transparent: Perdiccas wanted to be in sole command until the boy had grown up.
  Nearchus, the commander of the navy, pointed out that Alexander already had a three year old son, Heracles, the son of his former concubine Barsine. Everyone could see through this proposal: Nearchus was married to a daughter of Barsine, and would, as the future king's brother-in-law, suddenly be very influential.
  The next speaker was Ptolemy, one of Alexander's personal friends. He objected to the idea that a son of Roxane or Barsine would be king of Macedonia. Those boys were mere half-breeds. His proposal was that the most important decisions were to be taken by those present, as some kind of collective leadership. This proposal, in fact a compromise, received some support.
  However, the commander of the phalanx, Meleager, objected and sided with Arridaeus. He was supported by the foot soldiers, who hated Alexander's oriental policy and preferred Arridaeus, who was not of Persian blood. Another reason for their choice may have been that they wanted the empire to be a unity, whereas Perdiccas and the other cavalry commanders seemed to be aiming at a division of the kingdom.
  The situation was tense, as it seemed that Meleager's soldiers wanted to fight for Arridaeus against Perdiccas and his adherents. That would mean a war between the infantry and the cavalry. Although violence was used and Meleager was killed, the cooler heads on both sides improvised a compromise. Perdiccas was to be regent for king Arridaeus and Roxane's son (if the baby were a son, of course). Seeing that this was the only way to prevent civil war, everybody agreed. Arridaeus became king under the name of Philip III, and when Roxane's baby turned out to be a son, he became king Alexander IV. Perdiccas was made regent for the fool and the infant and appointed the generals as satraps. To make the situation less complex, Alexander's second wife Statira was murdered.
  But war had become inevitable. When the Athenians heard that Alexander had died, they revolted (autumn 323). They had been preparing the war for some time and were joined by several other Greek towns. They occupied Thermopylae, and when the Macedonian commander Antipater arrived, he was repelled and forced to hide in the nearby fortress of Lamia. In the spring, Leonnatus, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, was able to relieve him, but he was killed in action and the war continued.
  In the summer, however, Craterus arrived. He had once been Alexander's most capable general and had been appointed as commander in Europe. His orders were to lead back 11,500 veterans and to build a navy in Cilicia (to be used when Alexander attacked Carthage). Craterus used the fleet and the veterans, and defeated his enemies at Crannon (September 5, 322) This was the end of the so-called Lamian War. The Greek cities, which had been free allies during Alexander's reign, were from now on treated as Macedonian subjects. It also meant the end the Athenian democracy.
  At the same time, the Greek veterans who had been forced by Alexander to live in punitive colonies in the eastern satrapies, decided to fight themselves a way back to Greece. They were defeated by a Macedonian army commanded by Peithon, the newly appointed satrap of Media, and sent back. For the time being, all remained quiet in the east, but many Europeans had died, and the grip of the survivors on the eastern periphery -not too tight already- was weakened. In 316, the Indian king Chandragupta could conquer the Indus valley.
  In 322, it seemed that the empire would remain quiet and united. However, the centrifugal forces were already at work, and within a few months, the unity was shattered.

Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.

The Babylonian War

  The peace treaty of 311 did not inaugurate a true age of peace. On the contrary. Every signatory had a secret agenda and used the warless years to build new armies and prepare for war. The period of uneasy peace lasted until 307.
  Antigonus Monophthalmus used the truce to attack Seleucus, the satrap of Babylon, who had not signed the treaty. Seleucus' arrival at Babylon can be dated between May 13 and June 1, 311. Although there was some fighting in one of the citadels, the assault on the world's largest city had been an easy success, which had been facilitated by the fact that the satrap of Babylon, Peithon, had died a few months earlier in the battle of Gaza.
  Almost immediately, the satrap of Media, Antigonus' friend Nicanor, and the satrap of Aria, Euagoras, marched on Babylon, but Seleucus was waiting for them near the Tigris. When Euagoras was killed during the battle, his men went over to Seleucus, and Nicanor was forced to retreat. Seleucus immediately took Nicanor's capital Ecbatana and enlisted his soldiers in his own army. He now marched to the south, where he captured Susa and added Elam to his possessions. In a half year's time, he had become a powerful ruler, and he accepted the title Nicator, 'victor'.
  He was still in Elam when Demetrius arrived on the scene. By this time, the peace treaty was in the making, and Antigonus could afford to send soldiers to the east. In September, the attackers started to besiege the two citadels of Babylon. (He was to become famous by this type opf warfare.) When the first one was captured and looted, the main force left the city, leaving one Archelaus as satrap to take the second citadel. Seleucus had orders to return, and Seleucus organized a guerilla war against Archelaus. It is not known whether (and if, when), the second citadel was forced into surrender.
  In August, when the peace treaty was in force, Antigonus himself arrived at Babylon. There were street-fights, and Antigonus was unable to capture all buildings he wanted to take. The struggle in the streets lasted until after April 10, 309, New Year's day. During the summer, Antigonus conducted punitive campaigns in the neighborhood, and Seleucus continued the guerilla.
  Finally, Seleucus and Antigonus met each other in a full-scale battle. Seleucus ordered his men to have breakfast during the night, and attacked before dawn. His enemies were hungry and unarmed, and Antigonus was forced to go back to Syria (August 30 or 31). The two parties must have concluded a peace treaty, because Seleucus proceeded to conquer the eastern satrapies, and Antigonus was active in the west.
  He had every reason to return. In the meantime, Ptolemy had added Cyprus to his territories, and moved to the Aegean Sea, where he gained a bridgehead on the island Cos. From there, he sailed to Delos, where he reorganized the Nesiotic League, which would support the ruler of Egypt. Antigonus now was compelled to focus on the west.
  Seleucus now had a free hand to go to the east. Here, he conquered Bactria and invaded India. His victories were duly commemorated with a coin issue - although the particlar coin to the right was struck a quarter of a century after the events.

Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.

Cyrus takes Babylon

Introduction
  In October 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus took Babylon, the ancient capital of an oriental monarchy covering modern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. In a broader sense, Babylon was the ancient world's capital of scholarship and science. The subject provinces soon recognized Cyrus as their legitimate ruler. Since he was already lord of peripheral regions in modern Turkey and Iran (and Afghanistan?), it is not exaggerated to say that the capture of Babylon meant the birth of a true world empire. The Achaemenid empire was to last for more than two centuries, until it was divided by the successors of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great. A remarkable aspect of the capture of Babylon is the fact that Cyrus allowed the Jews (who were exiled in Babylonia) to return home.
  Several texts describe this event:
•The Chronicle of Nabonidus gives contemporary information about the rise of Cyrus and the erratic behavior of the Babylonian king Nabonidus, who leaves Babylon and spends several years in the oasis Tema in Arabia. His son Belsharusur (the biblical Belshazzar) acts as regent but is unable to ward off the approaching Persian danger. Finally, Nabonidus returns and fights. But it is in vain; Cyrus is welcomed as representative of the supreme god.
•The Verse account of Nabonidus is a poem by one of the priests of the Esagila, the temple of the Babylonian supreme god Marduk. It shows that they were upset because the important New Year's festival (Akitu) had not been celebrated in the king's absence. The author of this libel does little to hide his contempt for the impious madman.
•The prophet Daniel tells a story about the madness of another king of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar. There are several details in this story that make it plausible that the original story was about Nabonidus. Reconstruction of this original is possible through comparison with the text known as the Prayer of Nabonidus.
•The text known as the Cyrus Cylinder does not care about the reason for Nabonidus' behavior. The new king presents himself -according to the priest who wrote this text- as the one chosen by the supreme god to liberate Babylon from tyranny. We may speculate that Cyrus considered himself to be on a divine mission, under guidance of the Persian supreme god Ahuramazda; the Babylonian clerk who wrote down this text calls the god who had lead Cyrus to victory Marduk. Cyrus also boasts that he has liberated many people who were exiled to Babylon.
•The Jewish prophet known as Second Isaiah tells more or less the same story: the Persian ruler is chosen by a supreme god (the God of the Jews, in his view) and after winning a victory, Cyrus allows the Jews to go back home.
•The prophet Ezra gives us the -probably authentic- text of Cyrus' decree on the exiled Jews.
•The Greek researcher Herodotus, finally, has a very unreliable story about the Fall of Babylon.

Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.