Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/300

270 chus of Thrace, Cassander (son of Anti pater the second regent) of Macedonia. There is now no pretence of unity; Alexander's Empire has been resolved into its component parts. Then followed five more years of quarrel, caused partly by the conflicting claims of Lysimachus and Antigonus upon Asia Minor, partly by the question whether Coele-Syria and Palestine are to belong to the kingdom of Egypt or to that of Antigonus in Upper Asia. This was ended by the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia (B.C. 301), in which Antigonus and his son Demetrius the Besieger were defeated by the three kings, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, and Antigonus was killed.

This led to the fifth re-arrangement. There were now four great kingdoms—Egypt, Syria, Thrace with part of Asia Minor, Macedonia. Besides these Demetrius the Besieger had assumed the title of king, though he had no regular kingdom. He was, however, possessed of a strong fleet, and dominated Cyprus, Tyre and Sidon, and soon after the death of Cassander (B.C. 295) became King of Macedonia for