Polyperchon returns to Macedonia until Cassander renters…

After two indecisive victories at Paraitacene (317 BCE) and Gabiene (316 BCE), Eumenes is betrayed to Antigonus by officers under his command.

According to Plutarch and Diodorus, Eumenes had won the Battle of Gabiene but lost control of his army's baggage camp thanks to his ally Peucestas' duplicity or incompetence.

Despite Eumenes' observation that Antigonus' infantry had been broken and that in cavalry the forces were fairly matched, the loss of the baggage has demoralized Eumenes' troops, as it also includes all the loot of the most decorated Macedonian veterans (called the Argyraspides, or Silver Shields)—treasure accumulated over thirty years of successful warfare.

It contains not only gold and gems but the Greeks' women and children.

Antigonus responds to a request for the return of the baggage train sent by Teutamus, one of their commanders, by demanding they give him Eumenes.

The Silver Shields do just that.

According to Plutarch, Antigonus starves Eumenes for three days, but finally sends an executioner to dispatch him when the time comes for him to move his camp.

Eumenes' body is given to his friends, to be burnt with honor, and his ashes are conveyed in a silver urn to his wife and children.

Eudemus, who had come from India as an ally of Eumenes and was responsible for the recruitment of Eumenes' elephants and light infantry, is also executed, as is the leader of the Argyraspides, Antigenes.

The Macedonians of Eumenes are now drawn into the ranks of Antigonus' army.

However, given the demonstrated fickle loyalty of the Argyraspides, Antigonus will never use them in a battle.

They are soon sent to the far-off satrapy of Arachosia (in modern Afghanistan), where the local satrap Sibyrtius is given special orders to send them out in two or three on dangerous missions, to ensure they don't survive to become a cohesive unit again.

Seleucus, refusing Antigonus' demand that he give an accounting of the income from his satrapy, escapes capture by fleeing to Ptolemy in Egypt, where he remains in Ptolemy's service, taking the initiative in forging a coalition among Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander.

…Amphipolis under his protection—or guard.

Antigonus, now in complete control of Asia Minor, returns from the eastern provinces intending to reunite Alexander's empire under his own sovereignty.

Cassander joins forces with Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus to oppose him.

Having become master of Macedon and most of Greece by 316, …

…Cassander places the Aristotelian Demetrius of Phalerum in charge of Athens and …

…rebuilds Thebes, which Alexander had razed in 316 BCE as punishment for the Theban rebellion.

This is evidence of Cassander's personal hatred for the dead king.

Antigonus, now the dominant figure among the successors, occupies Syria and proclaims himself regent.

In order to win the support of the Greek city-states, whose resistance to subjugation presents the chief obstacle to the formation of a Hellenistic monarchy, he announces to his assembled army that all the Greeks shall be free, autonomous, and ungarrisoned.

This political slogan is to be sounded repeatedly- almost immediately by Ptolemy (and for a final time by the Romans in 196).

In the resulting coalition war (315–311), Seleucus is made one of Ptolemy's generals.

Antigonus, in order to win the support of the Greek city-states, whose resistance to subjugation presents the chief obstacle to the formation of a Hellenistic monarchy, announces to his assembled army that all the Greeks shall be free, autonomous, and ungarrisoned.

This political slogan is to be sounded repeatedly—almost immediately by Ptolemy (and for a final time by the Romans in 196).

Seleucus in the resulting coalition war (315-311 BCE) is made one of Ptolemy's generals.

Thessalonike, half-sister to Alexander the Great, was born around 352 or 345 BCE.

King Philip II, to commemorate the birth of his daughter, which fell on the same day as the armies of Macedon and Thessalian league won the significant battle of Crocus Field in Thessaly over the Phocians, is said to have proclaimed, "Let her be called victory in Thessaly".

In the Greek language her name is made up of two words Thessaly and nike, which translate into 'Thessalian Victory'.

Her mother did not live long after her birth and upon her death Thessalonike appears to have been brought up by her stepmother Olympias.

In memory of her close friend, Nicesipolis, the queen had taken Thessalonike to be raised as her own daughter.

Thessalonike was, by far, the youngest child in the care of Olympias.

Her interaction with her older brother Alexander would have been minimal, as he was under the tutelage of Aristotle in "The Gardens Of Midas" when she was born, and at the age of six or seven when he left on his Persian expedition.

She was only nineteen when Alexander, king of the then most known world, died.

Thessalonike had spent her childhood in the queen’s quarters, to whose fortunes she attached herself in 317 BCE when the latter returned to Macedon, and with whom she took refuge in 315 BCE, along with the rest of the royal family, in the fortress of Pydna, on the advance of Cassander.

The fall of Pydna and the execution of her stepmother threw her into the power of Cassander, who embraced the opportunity to connect himself with the Argead dynasty by marrying her; and he appears to have studiously treated her with the respect due to her illustrious birth.

This may have been as much owing to policy as to affection but the marriage appears to have been a prosperous one.

Thessalonike, as queen of Macedon, will become the mother of three sons, Philip, Antipater, and Alexander; and her husband pays her the honor of conferring her name upon the port city of Thessaloniki, which he founds on the site of the ancient Therma and twenty-six other local villages,.

The city, as it continues down to the present day, will soon becomes one of the most wealthy and populous cities of Macedonia, located at the head of the Gulf of Salonika in northern Greece, about one hundred and ninety miles (three hundred kilometers) northwest of Athens.

Antigonus is now in complete control of Asia Minor, but when he returns from the eastern provinces intending to reunite Alexander's empire under his own sovereignt, in 315 appointing himself the guardian of Alexander IV, he battles Cassander for dominance.

With the aid of his officers in Greece, Antigonus drives out Cassander's Macedonian forces of occupation and forms the island cities in the Aegean into the League of the Islanders, preparatory to his invasion of Greece.

His ally, the city of Rhodes, furnishes him with the necessary fleet.