Page 76 - All About History - Issue 72-18

War elephants of
Alexander the Great’s
successors in combat.

etween 334 and 323 BCE Alexander the Great
of Macedon conquered a gigantic empire that,
at its height, would stretch from the Balkans
in Europe to the frontiers of India and the
B steppes of Central Asia. Upon his death in
Babylon in 323 BCE Alexander’s former generals fell
to fighting amongst themselves for its possession.
BAT EOF gain mastery over it, and after years of conflict,
The empire was too big for any one man to

it was divided unevenly between three main
dynastic groups, each one originating with one of
Alexander’s senior commanders. These were the
RAPHIA Diadochoi, or Successors, to the legendary king:
Antigonus, Seleucus and Ptolemy.
The Antigonids ruled Macedonia, Greece, and
other parts of Europe; the Seleucids held the
tremendous eastern domains, including Syria,
Mesopotamia, and Iran, all the way to western
India; and the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt.
RAPHIA, PALESTINE, 214 BCE in 223 BCE and based in Syria, was eager to reassert
The Seleucid king Antiochus III, newly-crowned

control over the former eastern possessions of his
Written by Marc DeSantis empire, originally conquered by Alexander, that had

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