Alexander's Empire Divided Among His Generals (323 BC)

The event

Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BC at only thirty-two years old, leaving no capable heir to hold his vast empire together. What followed were decades of brutal warfare among his former generals, the so-called Wars of the Successors, as each carved out a portion of the conquered world for himself.

The prophet Daniel had anticipated exactly this outcome centuries earlier: the mighty Greek king's kingdom would be "broken up and parceled out toward the four winds of heaven," and — remarkably — not passed down to his own descendants (Daniel 11:4; see also Daniel 8:8, 22). That is precisely what happened. Within about twenty years the empire settled into several successor kingdoms, of which two would matter most for the biblical story: Ptolemy's dynasty ruling from Alexandria in Egypt, and Seleucus's dynasty ruling from Antioch in Syria.

Judea sat geographically right between these two power centers, which meant it would spend the next century and a quarter as a contested prize — first Ptolemaic, then Seleucid — fought over by armies marching back and forth along its roads. This single fact of geography explains a great deal of Judea's political history all the way up to the Maccabean crisis.

Dating

323 BC is one of the most securely fixed dates in all of ancient history, confirmed by Babylonian astronomical diaries recording Alexander's death. The eventual settling of the empire into a handful of stable successor kingdoms took roughly two more decades of warfare to complete.

Scripture references

• Daniel 11:3-4
• Daniel 8:8
• Daniel 8:22

Other witnesses

• Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 18-20
• Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12.1