…almost all of Arcadia meanwhile join the…

Antigonus has founded several cities, especially in Asia Minor, and united several small communities into unitary, large centers: Lebedus (Lebedos) and Teos, for example.

Several Greek artists grace his court; Apelles had painted his portrait in profile because of his missing eye (the cause of which is unknown).

Now at the zenith of his power, Antigonus demands Cassander's unconditional submission.

He wants possession of Macedonia, the native land of his dynasty, and to establish his dominion over Alexander's former empire.

The other Diadochi, however, warned by Cassander's fate, now join forces to attack the 80-year-old potentate.

From Babylonia, Seleucus invades Asia Minor, Ptolemy attacks Syria, and Lysimachus moves into the western part of Asia Minor.

Docimus, the regent of Phrygia, and Phoenix, the strategos of Lycia, desert Antigonus.

He, in turn, recalls Demetrius, leaves Antigoneia, and crosses the Taurus Mountains.

Lysimachus, awaiting Seleucus, avoids an engagement.

In vain, Antigonus sends a corps of raiders into Babylonia in order to divide his enemies' forces.

Philetaerus, who had served under Antigonus in Phrygia, deserts in 302 to Lysimachus, who makes him guardian of the mountain fortress of Pergamon with its treasure of some nine thousand talents.

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Antigonus and Demetrius crown their success in 302 BCE by renewing the pan-Hellenic league, which Philip II of Macedon, Alexander’s father, had formed in 337 BCE.

Ambassadors from all the Hellenic states—with the exception of Sparta, Messenia, and Thessaly—elect Antigonus and Demetrius protectors of the new league at Corinth.

It is to be an “eternal” treaty, extending to the descendants of the kings.

Each member state furnishes a contingent of troops for a league army that is commanded by the kings or their deputies.

The league is charged with ensuring a general peace in Hellas, but its primary function is to aid Antigonus against Cassander.

Alexander the Molossian, the Epirote king called to the aid of Taras, had claimed a victory over the Messapians between 333 BCE and 330 BCE.

The Messapians had joined forces with the Tarentines ater his death in 330 BCE to face an even greater force, that of Rome.

Taranto, attacked by the Lucanians in 304 BCE, asks for the help of Agathocles, who arrives in southern Italy and takes control of Bruttium (present-day Calabria), but is later called back to Syracuse.

Cleonymus of Sparta establishes an alliance with Taranto against the Lucanians in 303 BCE - 302 BCE, and fights against them.

To help Taranto against the Lucani, Cleonymus had gone as mercenary leader to southern Italy in 303 BCE with the backing of the Spartan administration..

There are two different accounts of his Italian expedition; one written by Diodorus Siculus and one by Livy, but the relations between the two sources are unclear.

The historian Thomas Lenschau supposes that they describe two different campaigns of Cleonymus: that one described by Diodorus Siculus would have taken place in 303 BCE and that one described by Livy in 302 BCE.

According to Diodorus Siculus, Cleonymus raises such a large army that the Lucani immediately conclude peace.

Then the Spartan prince takes the city of Metaponto and sails to Corcyra, which island he also quickly captures.

Learning that Taranto and other cities have broken with him, he sails back and is at first successful, but then he is defeated at a night attack.

As many of his ships are destroyed by a storm at the same time, he has to withdraw to Corcyra ion 303 or 302 BCE).

Probably in the next year (302 BCE) Cleonymus returns to Italy and—according to Livy—first conquers a city called Thuriae, location unknown, but Roman armies force him back to his ships.

The alliance with Taras and with Cleonymus of Sparta is essentially an anti-Roman campaign.

Thus, towards the end of the fourth century, Rome had become a common enemy for both the Iapygians and the Tarentines, even as far as ending the prolonged battles and causing them to make an alliance.

Cleonymus, expelled from southern Italy, sails to the north across the Adriatic Sea to land at the coast of the Veneti.

The Veneti have recurring fights with the Celtic peoples who occupy most of Northern Italy, but also have peaceful relations with the Cenomani Celts who have settled in the region of Brescia and Verona; they will eventually absorb them.

From the mouth of the Meduacus (now Brenta River) he sails upstream to the country of Patavium (now Padua) and raids the nearby villages, but the natives defeat him and he suffers great losses —allegedly four fifths of his ships are destroyed—and Cleonymus has to leave the territory of Patavium.

It is unknown how his campaign ended.

Lysimachus, occupied in Thrace for many years in wars against the local peoples, had taken little part in the struggles among Alexander's other successors in Greece and Asia, and only after the death of Antoginus and the routing of his forces at the Battle of Ipsus does he emerge as a power of the first rank.

He begins to consolidate his power in both Europe and Asia Minor against the threat posed by Demetrius, who retains Sidon and Tyre and command of the sea.

Seleucus had in 302 BCE joined the anti-Antigonus confederation led by Cassander and Lysimachus.

Ceding the claim on his Indian province to Chandragupta in exchange for an elephant corps, he has led his army (including the elephants) across half of Asia to link up with the coalition.

The united armies of Lysimachus and Seleucus engage the forces of Antigonus and Demetrius at Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BCE.

Although the combined strength of Seleucus and Lysimachus in troops is only slightly inferior to the seventy thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand horses of Antigonus, it is the allies' superiority in elephants, courtesy of Seleucus, that prove invaluable for victory.

The Indian elephants prevent Demetrius, who has pursued too far after defeating the opposing cavalry, from returning to rescue his father.

The eighty-one-year-old Antigonus is killed by a javelin, Demetrius flees, and the greater part of Asia Minor is added to the European possessions of Lysimachus, who has shouldered most of the burden of the campaign.

The allied victory ends any plans the Antigonid court may have had of reuniting Alexander's empire.

Antigonus's kingdom is divided up, with most ending up in the hands of new kingdoms under Lysimachus and Seleucus.

The victors largely follow Antigonus's precedent and have themselves named as kings, but they do not claim power over the erstwhile empire of Alexander nor each other.

Instead, these kings establish a troubled (and in the end failed) modus vivendi with each other, and accept their kingdoms as separate realms.

Ptolemy takes direct control of the Jewish homeland in 301 BCE, but he makes no serious effort to interfere in its religious affairs, permitting the Jews considerable cultural and religious freedom.

Jews first receive mention at the end of the fourth century from Greek writers, who praise them as brave, self-disciplined and philosophical.