Philip Matyszak - Greece Against Rome: The Fall of the Hellenistic Kingdoms 250–31 BC

The Battle of Raphia 217 BC showing lines of retreat.

C ivilization and sophistication were no match for brute force. No matter that the Persians felt themselves culturally superior to the Macedonian army of Alexander. No matter that their cities were larger, their lands more extensive and their science more advanced in fields such as astronomy. What mattered was fighting ability, heavy armour and the Macedonian pike phalanx. Against these, Persian sophistication had no answer. The heirs of Sumeria and Babylon were slaughtered on the plains of Gaugamela and Issus, and their capital of Persepolis was first pillaged and then burned to the ground.

Alexander of Macedon took over the Persian empire, and in the process became the conqueror of the largest empire the world had ever known. His rule extended from the town of Elephantine on the Nile to Kandahar in Afghanistan, south to the Ganges river in India and west to the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Small wonder that it is said that, when he realized the extent of his domains, Alexander sat and wept, because he had no worlds left to conquer.

Yet it is one thing to be a conqueror and quite another to be a ruler. Even before Alexander fell ill and died in Babylon in 323 BC , his empire was starting to unravel. It was simply too big. A messenger travelling from Athens, if he made good speed and covered 40 kilometres a day every day, might hope to reach Alexander in India within four months of departure. A reply sent post-haste would arrive at the earliest in Athens eight months after the original message was sent, and if that message informed Alexander that he and his army were urgently needed, the reply would read, Hold on, Ill be with you next year.

Corrupt governors, rebellious tribesmen natural disasters all of these issues happened far from the seat of government, and the ruler would only hear of them long after the issue had, one way or another, been resolved. Added to which, Alexander was no Solomon. If he had talent as a ruler, he kept it to himself. His one major initiative integrating Persian and Macedonian culture was adopted wholesale from his fathers plans and failed in the implementation. Apart from that, Alexander never showed that he had what it would take to hold his massive empire together.

It may be that the Persians were right. Relatively speaking Alexander was a barbarian, albeit one with a very good army. Certainly, what happened to his empire after Alexander died did little to impress anyone with Macedonian sophistication. Alexander had not named a successor, mainly because in the fine tradition of Macedonian royalty, that heir would promptly have started scheming to assassinate Alexander before he changed his mind.

With no undisputed heir, Alexanders generals set about dividing up the empire almost before his corpse had cooled. It was agreed that (nominally) the new rulers were Alexanders children, with Alexanders half-brother as acting king. However, the half-brother was simple-minded and the children were still infants. Therefore it fell to Alexanders senior general a man called Perdiccas to actually take charge. Unlike Alexander the conqueror, Perdiccas had to be a ruler, and he quickly discovered that his new empire was basically ungovernable even for a superb politician, which he was not.