The Diadochi

Good morning mates, I just finished The Wars of Alexander's Successors that takes us from the death of Alexander through the battle of Ipsus.* (not sure what the 2nd volume will be) In a medium-sized, affordable volume the author covers a highly complex period of military history (it doesn't help that every other person is named Alexander or Cleopatra!) I recommend reading Mary Renault's highly enjoyable novel, Funeral Games in tandem. I notice I have a lot on Alexander n my library but very little on the Successors, what I've been able to find in the past were too expensive or too scholarly (or both). I own a rather dated Successors of Alexander the Great and an ancient copy of Pyrrhus (Makers of History, VII). So hopefully this book will have at least one useful companion volume in the future.
Cheers, A

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ipsus

Try The Greek World after Alexander 323-30 BC by Graham Shipley lots of good info. It does get a little technical in places.

Yeah finding things on the Successors can be difficult. I started getting interested in the Seleucids a while back, but was dissapointed that the only book I could theoretically find specifically on them was several hundred dollars!

#3, Right! I've had a hard time finding acceptable prices.

There's also Peter Green's 'Alexander to Actium' - a nice big fat book, currently at $US50 on Amazon.

Yeah I have that one, got the paperback for around 30-ish on half.com. It's not really light reading, but it's cool to read a section at a time here and there.

There's also Green's "Short History of the Hellenistic World" or something like that. It's basically Alexander to Actium condensed to like 100 pgs.... can't really say I recommend it too highly...

After an inspiring course on Alexander the Great by the www.Livius.org’s Jona Lendering
I did some reading on the time after Alexander. Started with chapters from The Cambridge companion to the Hellenistic world ed. Glenn R. Bugh, Mary Renault’s Funeral Games (great novel!) and after that David Sweetman’s Mary Renault; a biography. Yesterday I began in The legacy of Alexander by the Australian A.B. Bosworth. From Samarkhand to Sardis: a new approach to the Seleucid empire by Susan Sherwin-White lies waiting and Peter Green’s Alexander to Actium will be tackled after my retirement.
Pfff, am I exhausted by writing this down!
We had such lovely weather last Saturday. I did some reading in the sun in the Rotterdam Zoo (Blijdorp), were the animals were communicating as never in the rest of the year. Spring at last!

Where did you find From Samarkhand to Sardis?? I've never seen that one anywhere for under like 500 dollars!

In the library. I have to bring it back.

Haha okay, that explains it then :-D

There's a few books that I can only assume are out of print that I've sworn to myself if I EVER see them in a book store for $100 or less, I'll pick them up on the spot. From Samarkhand to Sardis is one, another is Barry Cunliffe's Facing the Ocean.

I've heard Peter Green's name praised a number of times so I picked up his bio of Alexander. Feicht, are you the one that said it was great? So as soon as I get thru the first half of the 4th century that is on my list!

#11, I rate Green's bio highly, very enjoyable.

Yeah Garp, I'm sure I've raved about it on here somewhere. It was definitely the first history book I ever read cover to cover.

I could see how people could get bogged down in it since it is fairly lengthy and Green is a bit overzealous with details.... but it's great! You get so much more than just the "standard" story about Alexander; I can still remember reading it with "zomg what happens next?!?" zeal of a 15 year old who up till then had only gotten the "one paragraph treatment" of Alexander in the ole high school textbook. It was so cool reading about his escapades "subduing" various tribes all over the place, beating Darius on the battlefield, building the mole to connect Tyre to the mainland, etc etc

Man I think I wanna read it again :-D

Well I expect I will enjoy, especially after your rave review. But what's cool is that the first Alexandr bio I read by Fox was long before I ever really knew anything about ancient Greece or Persia. Now -- while I still have a lot to learn -- I'm pretty comfortable in the milieu and I know a good deal of the place names and the characteristics of the various cities. I had actually thought about re-reading the updated Fox, but instead I'm going after Green. I just need to get through Leuctra & Mantinea so I feel like a have a fairly solid background before I leap.

What's a good primary source for that period, do you think, besides the speeches of Demosthenes & Isocrates?

You mean post-Peloponnesian war, pre-Macedonian supremacy? No idea :-D I think I mentioned on the other forum, I'm really hazy in this area.

great guitar player.
Fleetwood Mac was much better when it was Peter Green's band.

Enodia -- LOL

"Antigonus the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State" by Richard A. Billows, (California, 1990) has some good sections on some of the battles between the successors and gives a sense of the vasts amounts of economic resources available to the Hellenistic kings.

Now in stock, "Great Battles of the Hellenistic World" by Jospeh Pietrykowski

if you check out my library and my tags you will find a number of general histories of the period. i am writing a 15000 word essay on the struggle between rome and antiochos the great, c190BC so a bit late to be a real diadochi. i did enjoy billows and A B Bosworth was my professor for 3 years (not australian by teh way, very english but he did lecture at my university for about 30 years so an honorary aussie). Alexander to Actium is a good book, just read the chunks you like. Bosworth's books are very thorough but he is surprised that Alexander actually killed people, while Fox is more in the W W Tarn school that sees Alexander as an enlightened ruler. in between i suspect lies the truth, a man of hist time and place who had enough genius to appeal to very subsequent generation. Once again though the lack of a complete history by a contemporary eye witness bedevils our understanding of this complicate and fascinating period.

The only continous ancient source on the diadochi is Diodorus Siculus. We have lost some volumes, so we don't have the whole period, but most of it.

There's A History of the Ptolemaic Empire by Gunther Holbl, (Routledge, 2001). For a lighter diversion, I recommend Cleopatras by John Whitehorne, entertaining, well written, and occasionally humorous. A touch of humor helps when studying the Successors! Note: the touchstone feature has just made another mistake!

I have also recently completed The Wars of Alexander's Successors 323-281 B.C. I found it to be very good. I know this is a very old thread so I thought if anyone else interested in the Diadochi and the post Alexandrian classical world were to come here looking for material an update might be useful. It is now 2017 and there is wealth of easily accessed material on the subject. Most of the books mentioned in this thread at ridiculous prices are readily available in e-book format and several can be bought reasonably in reprint. The Twilight of the Hellenistic World and the Wars of Alexander's Successors I purchased in hardback form for £4 each from the Naval and Military Press, NMP is a literary club which reissues and reprints quality books on warfare related subjects (and also war gaming and modelling). For a different approach I cannot recommend too highly Arthur Duggans novel Elephants and Castles. The author an archaeologist by profession is noted for the extensive research and historical accuracy of his work and this novel truly encapsulates the tremendous upheavals that Alexander's exploits had on the Classical World. It's central protagonist is the son of Antigonus Monopthalmus, Demetrius known as Poliorcetes or Besieger of Cities who above all else was truly a man of his times. Moving and exciting this novel sets the scene and tone of the Diadochi era like no other book I have read and I have read many. I found the flow of events far simpler to understand once I looked upon them in the light of what I learned from the story of this flawed hero and the effect of Alexander's campaign's on a classical world which would never really return to what it had been before Alexander brought the entire known world into the Hellenic milieu. Please enjoy. Yee Haa

Over the last few weeks, i have been reading Ghost on the Throne. Lots of good info. I was a little apprehensive at first, but I've actually enjoyed the style of jumping between the events that are concurrent throughout empire.