Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/299

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struggles between the generals, who divided among themselves the world of Alexander, went through five stages before things settled down into the state in which we find them in the last period of Greek nominal independence. In the first two of these, B.C. 323 and 321, the empire is still professedly united under the two kings, Philip Arrhidaeus (half-brother of Alexander the Great) and Alexander IV., his posthumous child by Roxana. In the third (B.C. 312) Philip has disappeared (murdered by Olympias in B.C. 317), and though Alexander is still nominally king, four great satraps are really exercising independent power—Ptolemy, son of Lagos, in Egypt; Lysimachus, in Thrace; Antigonus, in Asia; Seleucus in Babylonia. In B.C. 311 Alexander and Roxana were murdered by the order of Cassander. Then followed fresh quarrels, ended at last by a naval victory of Demetrius, son of Antigonus, over Ptolemy (B.C. 306).

After this the Diadochi assumed the title of king, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus of Syria and Asia Minor, Seleucus of Upper Asia (Babylonia), Lysima-