Changes

==Introduction==

[[File: SeleucosCoin.jpg|200px|thumb|left|A coin of Seleucus I Nicator ]]

==Background==

Alexander the Great had invaded the Persian Empire in 333 BCE with a large army of Macedonian and Greek warriors. In a series of great battles including Issus, Gaugamela and Granicus River he smashed the mighty Persian army and conquered the entire Persian Empire. Alexander later campaigned in Central Asia and in North-West India. As he went he found cities and colonies of Greeks and Macedonians and soon he had established an Empire that stretched from the Danube to the Punjab in India. After returning from his campaign in India, Alexander fell ill, probably from a fever and he died. His son was too young to succeed him, and his brother was deemed to be unsuitable. Alexander had made many plans for further conquests, but he had failed to appoint an heir. Soon his empire began to fall apart. The power vacuum after the untimely death of Alexander was soon filled by his generals<ref> Green, Peter Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age (London, Phoenix, 2008), p. 256</ref>. The army of the great King was divided up by his former generals and they took over many territories and ruled as independent sovereigns. The various generals began to fight among themselves in a series of civil wars to reunite the Empire of Alexander or to carve out a kingdom for themselves. The first War of the Diadochi saw Perdiccas, attempt to marry Alexander’s sister and to reunite the Empire under him, but he was defeated by a coalition of generals led by Ptolemy. After the defeat of Peridiccas the Empire was portioned between the generals and they all recognized Alexander’s young son as the king of his father’s Empire, but the ‘real rulers were the generals’<ref> Bennett, Bob; Roberts. The Wars of Alexander's Successors 323–281 BC; Volume I: Commanders & Campaigns. Pen and Sword Books, 2008), p. 115</ref>. Soon they generals who were really only warlords began to style themselves as monarchs, often blending local ideas about monarchy with Macedonian ideas <ref> Bennett, Bob; Roberts, Mike (2009). The Wars of Alexander's Successors 323–281 BC; Volume II: Battles and Tactics. Pen and Sword Book, 2009), p. 113</ref>. The peace agreement did not last and there were to be two further civil wars, the Second and the Third Diadochi. During the second Diadochi War, the mother, wife and the son of Alexander were murdered in Greece and the dynasty of Alexander came to an end. In the Second Diadochi war, one of Alexander’s old general Antiochus I Monophthalmus (One-eyed) became the most powerful of all the successors. He came to dominate much of the modern Middle East, Turkey and most of Greece. The other generals were fearful of the growing power of Antiochus<ref>Bennet, vol ii,p. 45</ref>. The Third Diadochi War was a war between Antigonous I and Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander. They were joined by Seleucus who had seized some of the Far Eastern Satrapies of Alexander’s Empire. Seleucus had earlier been expelled by Antigonous from Babylon and had been forced to retreat to his Central Asian territories. He later returned, after receiving some support from Ptolemy. This was to lead to the Babylonian War, which is regarded as being part of the Third Diadochi War.