Partition of Babylon

Alexander's ongoing plans are abandoned by common consent among his generals, who have to be content with the office of governor.

In the distribution of satrapies that follows Alexander's death, Lysimachus, one of Alexander's bodyguards during the conquest of Asia, is assigned one of the less attractive governorships, that of Thrace.

Alexander carries out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans (Kassites) in the hills of Luristan in the winter of 324-323.

The soldiers discount Eumenes of Cardia, who bears the main responsibility for civil administration, but he knows more about the empire than anyone else.

Seleucus—who, of all the Macedonian nobles, is the only one who does not repudiate his wife after Alexander's death—is given the command of the hetairoi (companions) cavalry.

Together with another soldier noted for his physical and military prowess, Leonnatus, Seleucus waits on events.

Perdiccas, a Macedonian noble who had served with distinction in Alexander's campaigns, leads the aristocratic party that supports the claim of the unborn child of Roxana, Alexander's widow, to the succession.

After a compromise under which a division of the powers of regency is arranged, Perdiccas exercises a wide authority in Asia as “supreme general.”

Soon after Alexander's death, Roxana has his second wife, Stateira (Barsine), killed.

As no heir had been appointed to the throne, Alexander's generals adopt Philip II's half-witted illegitimate son, Philip Arrhidaeus, and Alexander's posthumous son (born August 323) by Roxana, Alexander IV Aegus, as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves, after much bargaining.

Perdiccas' colleagues in the regency are Craterus and Antipater.

Busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alexander is suddenly taken ill in Babylon after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout.

Ten days later, in the early evening of June 13, 323 BCE, the thirty-three-year-old conqueror dies in Nebuchadrezzar's palace of a fever—or possibly of poisoned wine.

Having reigned for twelve years and eight months, he leaves no pure Macedonian heirs, no designated successors, and his vision of fusing Greek and Middle Eastern peoples unrealized.

Ptolemy, who has distinguished himself as a cautious and trustworthy troop commander under Alexander, will also prove to be a politician of unusual diplomatic and strategic ability in the long series of struggles over the throne that break out after Alexander's death in 323.

Convinced from the outset that the generals cannot maintain the unity of Alexander's empire, he proposes during the council at Babylon, which follows Alexander's death, that the satrapies (the provinces of the huge empire) be divided among the generals.

Alexander receives complimentary embassies the following spring at Babylon, which he plans to make the capital of his empire, from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans, and Lucanians of Italy. (The story that more distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, and even Romans, had sent embassies is most probably a later invention.)

Representatives of the cities of Greece also appear, garlanded as befits Alexander's divine status.

Following up Nearchus' voyage, he now founds an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris and makes plans to develop sea communications with India, for which an expedition along the Arabian coast is to be a preliminary.

He also dispatches Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian) Sea.

The governors of Alexander’s empire crush an uprising by Greek mercenaries who have settled in Bactria but now want to return to Greece.

Antigonus Monophthalmos (“The One-Eyed”), governor of Phrygia for almost ten years, has shown himself a brave soldier and competent administrator; his firmness and tact are popular with the Greek cities.

Antigonus, who like Antipater is not in Babylon at the time of Alexander's death, now receives also from Perdiccas the governorship of Pamphylia and Lycia formerly vested in Ptolemy.