The Ghost on the Throne: the Death of Alexander and the Disintegration of the Macedonian Empire

Alexander the Great was only 32 years old when he died. At that time, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea in the west to today's India in the east. In an unusual compromise, his two heirs, his mentally retarded half-brother Philip III and his posthumous son Alexander IV, shared regency. But Alexander's six Macedonian generals, driven by their own inner lust for power and spurred by the legend that Alexander gave the kingdom "to the strongest," began to compete for supremacy. Perhaps their most visible yet overlooked rival was Eumenes, Alexander's former Greek secretary turned general, who became the deciding factor in the fate of the precarious royal family. James Rohm, professor of classics at Bard College, will use archaeological findings and textual research to reveal the brutal struggle for control of Greece's greatest empire.