Fourth, as mentioned also in the previous chapter, there was a certain weakening of and skepticism about the Olympian religion. A contemporary utopian writer, Euhemerus of Messene (a friend of Cassander), influentially revived the old fifth-century theory that the Olympian gods were no more than human beings who had achieved remarkable things—as Demeter, say, had discovered how to cultivate cereal crops, or Dionysus had discovered viticulture. In fact, he even specified “generals, admirals, and kings” as such gods in the making. ¹⁶In the hymn the Athenians sang for Demetrius when he entered the city in 297, the Olympian gods are said to be remote. In a world at war, such a view is unsurprising: despite all their sacrifices and prayers, the Athenians were still starving—until Demetrius came and saved them.

If we shed Judeo-Christian preconceptions (especially monotheism, with its corollaries of divine omniscience and omnipotence), it is not difficult to understand the deification of the Successors as a spontaneous reaction to their superhuman and lifesaving achievements, aided and abetted by more than a soupçon of the desire to appease a power that could as readily destroy the city as save it. Nor is it hard to understand such a reaction; even in our own sophisticated times, people have been known to regard as gods whoever or whatever gives them the greatest rush of emotion. In an era of disillusionment, the orthodox churches often fail to deliver such ecstasy, and so exotic gurus and Elvis Presley become gods. In any case, the early Hellenistic world did not subscribe to Judeo-Christian principles; the Successors stirred deep enough emotions to pass as gods.

PTOLEMY CERAUNUS

Seleucus now held all Asia from the Aegean to Afghanistan—almost all the old Persian empire, apart from Greater Egypt and the territories he had ceded to Chandragupta. The Egyptian king must have felt himself to be the next target, especially since Seleucus incorporated Ceraunus into his court, indicating that he looked with favor on his claim to the Egyptian throne. By and large, the Asiatic Greek cities opportunistically welcomed Seleucus, though Lysimachan garrisons at Sardis and elsewhere had to be driven out.

Seleucus spent only a few months settling the present and planning for the future of Asia Minor before taking the next logical step. In the summer of 281, he crossed the Hellespont and marched on Lysimacheia to lay claim to Lysimachus’s European possessions as well. With Thrace and Macedon, Seleucus would in effect rule the world. He was closer than even Antigonus ever got to emulating Alexander.

There was no army that could resist him—he was “the conqueror of conquerors” ¹⁷—but even the leaders of vast armies are vulnerable as individuals. In September, while they were out riding together near Lysimacheia, Ceraunus treacherously killed Seleucus with his own hand. Ceraunus had decided to give up on Egypt—too tough a nut to crack—and take advantage of the current confusion to establish himself in Europe. Ironically, Seleucus had sheltered his own murderer. It was a wretched end for one of the most bold and enterprising of the Successors. At least, by making Antiochus joint king, he had left his empire as stable as it might be.

The last of the true Successors—the last of those who had known and ridden with Alexander the Great—both died in blood within a few months of each other. All four of the major post-Ipsus contenders had died within a few years: Ptolemy in 283, Demetrius in 282, Lysimachus and Seleucus in 281. The effect of this watershed would be the confirmation of the fundamental divisions of Alexander’s empire, but it took a few years to become apparent. It was as though the original Successors’ impetus continued by inertia for a few years, despite the fact that the kings of the next generation were more content to abide within their own borders. It was Macedon itself that bore the brunt of the final phases of the Successors’ warfare.

Ceraunus had himself acclaimed king of Macedon at Lysimacheia by the assembled army. Not a few of the troops had worked for Lysimachus before being incorporated into Seleucus’s army and felt no particular loyalty to Seleucus. Philetaerus bought Seleucus’s body from Ceraunus and, after ceremonially cremating it at Pergamum, sent the ashes to Antiochus. After all, he was setting up an independent kingdom in territory that nominally belonged to Antiochus now. Antiochus had the bones interred in Seleucia Pieria, where a temple was constructed over them and the cult of the Seleucid royal house began.

But such genteel acts lay in the future. For the present, Antiochus was racing west to restore order in Asia Minor, which had been left without overall administration and with only scattered garrisons to defend it. But he was delayed on the way by an opportunistic rebellion in Syria, and Ptolemy seized the chance to add to his Asia Minor possessions. Only in 279 was Antiochus in a position to send an army into Asia Minor to stop the rot. In the two years since Corupedium and the deaths of Lysimachus and Seleucus, Ptolemy’s forces had made major gains, and they now had effective control of a large slice of the Asia Minor coastline, from Lycia to Chios. Antiochus’s general managed to check further expansion, but no more, and he marched north instead. He honored Seleucus’s agreement with Philetaerus and left Pergamum alone, but invaded Bithynia, where Zipoetes was also taking advantage of the chaos to extend his borders. The repulse of the invasion did not bode well.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the quasi-pretender Gonatas tried to get to Macedon before the pretender Ceraunus, but was driven off. Ceraunus had already been proclaimed king by the army, and he now sought further legitimation. No doubt he reminded the Macedonians of his father’s claim to be the illegitimate child of Philip II, as though there were good Argead blood in his veins. He also invested Arsinoe, Lysimachus’s widow, in Cassandreia. The recovery of Cassandreia would demonstrate to the Macedonians his concern to pull the country back together again.

But then he had a better idea. Instead of trying to take Cassandreia, he offered to marry his half sister. This would not only gain him Cassandreia, but allow him to claim to be Lysimachus’s heir and avenger. She finally agreed to the alliance—a fact that even the ancient authors found puzzling, since the marriage was so obviously doomed from the start. The tradition tells a chilling tale of a woman who wanted nothing more than to be queen of Macedon, and of an evil man foreswearing himself before the mightiest gods to persuade her of his sincerity when he said that he would recognize her sons as his heirs. ¹⁸

Before long, the newlyweds fell out when Ceraunus butchered two of Arsinoe’s three sons by Lysimachus, “in their mother’s arms.” ¹⁹Arsinoe must have been foolish, or desperate, to believe that he would acknowledge them as his heirs; they were rivals. The eldest son had already fled, and soon his mother did the same. She went to Samothrace, and then to Egypt, where she later married her brother Ptolemy II, thus becoming a queen for the third time and introducing the Macedonian royal family to the pharaonic tradition of brother-sister marriage.

Ceraunus, free now to rule Macedon as he wished, did a good job of appeasing Pyrrhus and Ptolemy II. He loaned Pyrrhus troops for his imminent Italian campaign, and assured his half brother that he no longer had any designs on the Egyptian throne. Outside interference was the last thing he needed, since he had enough troubles from within, dealing with unruly barons and rival claimants to the throne. But Celtic tribes were on the prowl for land. They had been making a nuisance of themselves on the borders for many years; Cassander had had to deal with incursions or threatened incursions on several occasions. But recently the massive movement of land-hungry Celts had become a far more serious problem; they had already more or less brought to an end Odrysian rule in Thrace, for instance. Now, in 279, a monstrous band approached Macedon. Ceraunus thought he could handle the situation. They expected to be given a lot of money and sent to look for land elsewhere, but Ceraunus chose to face them in battle. The Macedonian army was cut to pieces, and Ceraunus’s head displayed on a spear.