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Made in gb
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





Dorset, England

Hi Chaps,

So playing the recent expansion for Field of Glory II has given me a new found appreciation for the Diadochi period which I had always glossed over before.

Reading a the wikipedia summary (don't worry I do intend to get a proper book on the subject!) there are a lot of different generals whose fortunes wax and wane.

At this early stage, I'm leaning toward Lysimachus as he has an interesting unit roster and story but I do like the Antigonids for their shear resistance and that they got within touching distance of reuniting the empire.

Who do you find the most interesting or inspiring?

Cheers
Kroem

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/06 14:19:42


 
   
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




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So other don't have to google it to understand the Diadochi period is the years following the death of Alexander the Great and the dissolution of his empire by his generals, friends, and family.

Unfortunately I know little of the period (honestly I didn't even know it was called the "Diadochi" period until I looked at the wiki article). I suppose if I had to pick one of the successors it would be Ptolemy but I don't know much about that Ptolemy (I know plenty about the other one as he falls more within my range of interest). But the guy established the successor state that lasted the longest so he must have done something right XD I also have to give the guy credit as one of the few things I do know about is that he's the source of ultimately what few details we have for Alexander's personal life. His historical account of Alexander's campaigns forms the basis for pretty much all later histories and it is sadly one of many contemporary works lost to the ravages of time.

   
Made in gb
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





Dorset, England

Yea Ptolemy is pretty cool, he seemed to be very good at defending since Egypt never changed hands unlike the other kingdoms.
It was a bit weird in RTW that they decided to make his kingdom into ancient Egypt just for unit variety but hey ho!

I think one of the Ptolemies sent an expedition to find the source of the blue Nile lake (the Nile spits in two at some point, the source of the white Nile was discovered much later by Burton and Speke)

I think technically the Indo-Greek kingdoms lasted a little longer than his, but I wouldn't really call them successor states as the conquered parts of India that Alexander never reached.
   
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Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces






I recently had a course about this period and one of the lectures was about Ptolemaic Egypt and so I have to say Ptolemy. He made himself Pharaoh of Egypt, and re-established Egypt as a major empire and great power (Egypt had lost its power after it was conquered by the Assyrians and later annexed by the Persians),which is pretty cool.
Antigonus the One-eyed was also pretty cool

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Yeah. I think they said somewhere that they didn't want to have "yet another" phalanx army and wanted to mix it up, which is fair enough I guess.

And yeah some of the Indo-Greek kingdoms might have I don't know, but when I think of the Successors I really only think of the main five; Ptolemy's Egypt, Seleucus's Empire, Lysimachus Ionia (which I don't think lasted that long?), Macedon, and Epirus. Again though. Not supremely knowing of this period XD

   
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Tzeentch Aspiring Sorcerer Riding a Disc





Have to say that Seleucus would be the most interesting one for me, he really turned around his fortunes and walked away with the largest share.

While not really a Diadochus, Diodotus who split off from the Seleucids to form Greco-Bactria is enormously interesting, sadly not a lot is know historically and archaeology wise about Greco-Bactria, as its in some of the most politically dangerous modern countries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 LordofHats wrote:
Lysimachus Ionia (which I don't think lasted that long?)

Lysimachus had the misfortune of being the neighbor of Seleucus during his height of power. The succesion struggle in Lysimachus' family ended up in one of the sons being accused of trying to gain the throne with the help of Seleucus and the son got killed. But then the family of that son fled to Seleucus, which Seleucus used as his casus belli. As far as I'm aware Lysimachus died in that war, but he was already quite old and had a good 25 years of rule under his belt. His family actually kept control of Macedonia before being conquered by the Antigonids. The whole period of the Diadochi reads like a game of musical chairs.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/02/06 13:41:32


Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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The whole period of the Diadochi reads like a game of musical chairs.


Seems like an inevitability when all the major players were generals under one of the few military commanders in history who can make a claim to having never lost a battle. Depending of course on how much one believes Alexander's own successors as to the matter of who won at Hydaspes.

   
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 LordofHats wrote:
The whole period of the Diadochi reads like a game of musical chairs.


Seems like an inevitability when all the major players were generals under one of the few military commanders in history who can make a claim to having never lost a battle. Depending of course on how much one believes Alexander's own successors as to the matter of who won at Hydaspes.

The amount of backstabbing they took part in would have made a Skaven proud. Its hard to accurately asses who the better commanders would have been when most of the wars involved a 2 or 3 vs 1. But you hit the nail on the head, it depends on who you believe, seeing as most of them come across as a bunch of egomaniacs based on the histories they created for themselves.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/06 13:56:08


Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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Made in gb
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Basing this mostly on Rome Total War, but I'd have to go Seleucus - Loved the faction in game, but the real dude was pretty impressive, given the territory he started with and what he ended up with.

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Definitely Ptolemy - though I read a pretty good historical fiction novel that ran with the theory that he was the one who poisoned Alexander!

   
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Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





Dorset, England

 LordofHats wrote:
The whole period of the Diadochi reads like a game of musical chairs.


Seems like an inevitability when all the major players were generals under one of the few military commanders in history who can make a claim to having never lost a battle. Depending of course on how much one believes Alexander's own successors as to the matter of who won at Hydaspes.

True, it seems very difficult to create legitimacy when you seize a kingdom by force. You saw it in the Dark Ages as well where kings were keen to use the authority of the Pope (and ergo God) to to give them more legitimacy than a mere military strongman.

It does make you wonder what the common man, especially those in Macedon, thought of his king changing every 5 minutes!
   
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Ha!

It was very much an accepted part of their culture!

   
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Dorset, England

Look like Ptolemy and Seleucus are tied for first place so far, I think Seleucus could have re-united the whole empire if he hadn't got himself assassinated.
Maybe I should have made this a poll to settle definitively who was the best.


 Alpharius wrote:
Definitely Ptolemy - though I read a pretty good historical fiction novel that ran with the theory that he was the one who poisoned Alexander!

Ooh conspiracy abounds. I think Alexander was quite jealous of success. Apparently he tried to belittle Antipater's victory over the Spartans when he was holding down the fort in Macedon!

Cassander was the one who loved poison though :-p

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/06 14:49:52


 
   
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We'll never know who was 'definitely best'!

   
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Dorset, England

Oops I meant definitively not definitely, in any case I'm pretty sure that a Dakkadakka poll is scientific evidence.

Does Mithrades count as a Diadochi? I guess not because he is not Greek...his heirs actually managed to beat the Romans for a while though.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/06 14:56:06


 
   
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Mithrades doesn't count because he want one of Alexander's Generals. There are only 5 I think, Ptolemy, Seleusus, Cassander, Lysimachus and Eprius.


Seleusus is my favourite. Not only did he actually expand the empire even further east, but he was basically surrounded by enemies and the Selucids were able to survive until the Romans kill them off.

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 welshhoppo wrote:
Mithrades doesn't count because he want one of Alexander's Generals. There are only 5 I think, Ptolemy, Seleusus, Cassander, Lysimachus and Eprius.


Seleusus is my favourite. Not only did he actually expand the empire even further east, but he was basically surrounded by enemies and the Selucids were able to survive until the Romans kill them off.

That is 5 of the longest surviving ones, but there were more: Antigonus, Polyperchon, Perdiccas, Peithon, Eumenes, Antipater etc.

Btw, this period really reads like a real life version of Game of Thrones I love it.

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Made in gb
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





Dorset, England

nah that list is definitely not complete, there are loads of them like Eumenes, Antipater, Cassander, Antigonus etc all who were Alexander's generals and had their own Kingdoms afterwards.
   
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The Diadochi were a lot of different people and more than just Seluecid, Antigonus, Lysimachus, and Ptolemy. They are just the most well known, and actually created something that lasted a bit in the Mediterranean basin.

Eumenes of Cardia is my favorite. He wasn't even Macedonian and was Alexander's secretary. He killed Neoptolemus in a one-on-one duel after smashing his army, and the army of Craterus. He got beat by Antigonus.... eventually. Man, did that dude have his moments of greatness and his moments of WTF! He did love to pull the "Ghost of Alexander Told Me Too!" trick a few too many times though.

My second favorite is Olympia, Alexander's Mom. She managed to defeat an army or two just by showing up! She was a bad mother, not one to mess with.

For best: Seleceus and Antigonus got the closest to unifying the old Macedonian Empire. Arguably, Seleceus did manage it before getting killed by a chump Ptolemy Saturnus(?). Those guys have to be thought of as "best", but not necessarily my favorite.

Edit: Sadly, there is not a lot of detail on the composition of these types of armies, or records of their many, many battles.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
For those interested, I have a couple of games between Neoptolemus and Eumenes on my blog.

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/06/heirs-to-empire-battle-report-eumenes.html

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2018/01/battle-report-heirs-to-empire-forced.html

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/02/06 18:24:28


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Too bad he screwed up and lost the Silver Shields baggage. Perhaps they wouldn't have turned on him if he wasn't a Thracian/Scythian.

Props to Ptolemy for stealing Alexander's body. Rather annoying Roman generals/emperors wouldn't stop looting Alexander's tomb for PR stunts.

Personally its Seleucus, honestly I think he and Ptolemy bear more responsibility for Hellenism than Alexander by establishing long lasting Greek dynasties built on Hellenic bureaucracies. The historiography surrounding the Seleucids is fascinating, they're pretty much ignored by western historians until the 80s despite being one of the largest and most successful successor states and Iranian historians tend to ignore that era because they're "greek" not persian. Seleucus's dealings with Emperor Chandragupta Maurya are interesting alone for the East-West cultural exchange.
   
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Alexander gets/deserves the credit because he started the whole thing - more or less - and without that, Ptolemy and Seleucus probably wouldn't have amounted to much at all!

But yes, props to them for carrying the whole thing forward too!

   
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 Kroem wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
The whole period of the Diadochi reads like a game of musical chairs.


Seems like an inevitability when all the major players were generals under one of the few military commanders in history who can make a claim to having never lost a battle. Depending of course on how much one believes Alexander's own successors as to the matter of who won at Hydaspes.

True, it seems very difficult to create legitimacy when you seize a kingdom by force. You saw it in the Dark Ages as well where kings were keen to use the authority of the Pope (and ergo God) to to give them more legitimacy than a mere military strongman.

It does make you wonder what the common man, especially those in Macedon, thought of his king changing every 5 minutes!


Well you gotta remember that life expectancy was quite short at the time for most people. The "comman man" was also largely going to be preoccupied with his next meal, matters like who his taxes went to were often of little concern.

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 Grey Templar wrote:
 Kroem wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
The whole period of the Diadochi reads like a game of musical chairs.


Seems like an inevitability when all the major players were generals under one of the few military commanders in history who can make a claim to having never lost a battle. Depending of course on how much one believes Alexander's own successors as to the matter of who won at Hydaspes.

True, it seems very difficult to create legitimacy when you seize a kingdom by force. You saw it in the Dark Ages as well where kings were keen to use the authority of the Pope (and ergo God) to to give them more legitimacy than a mere military strongman.

It does make you wonder what the common man, especially those in Macedon, thought of his king changing every 5 minutes!


Well you gotta remember that life expectancy was quite short at the time for most people. The "comman man" was also largely going to be preoccupied with his next meal, matters like who his taxes went to were often of little concern.

Life expectancy was only really short because of the huge infant mortality though. Infant mortality really skews the life expectancy statistics of pre-industrial societies. Take that out and you get a much more reasonable life expectancy. Once you made it to your 5th or 6th birthday the chance was much bigger than not you would also make it to your 50th. Most people back then lived somewhat shorter than people on average in the modern day because of less advanced medical care, but it is not like they lived really short lives. There were even people that lived to 100 back then as well.
It is of course impossible to know how the common Macedonians felt about the changing kings, but they must have cared about it. We see the Successor kings all go to great lengths to justify their right to rule. They would not have bothered with this if the people didn't care about it. Of course, it could very well be that just in the modern day, the higher up the social ladder you go the more people start to care about politics. So a poor subsistence farmer somewhere in the hills of rural Macedonia far from the capital might not care about the king. In fact, it is likely he doesn't even know who the king is (or that there has been a change in kings) since news traveled a lot slower in those days. But a moderately wealthy craftsman or merchant in the city? He would likely have been much more informed and much more opinionated about politics and all those kings and their wars.

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I think Antigonus the One-Eyed died at 80. Really the single most pivotal factor for living a long life is nutrition. People who were well fed generally lived as long 2000 years ago as they do today.

   
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Dorset, England

I re-created had a tough battle between the armies of Lysimachus and Seleucus yesterday evening.

It went pretty poorly to begin with as my Phalanxes lacked the quality to go toe to toe with the Seleucid formations and I hadn't really brought enough cavalry to deal with the combination of Companions and Cataphracts.
Luckily as the battle wore on gaps started to appear in the main battle line as units for pushed back or routed. I managed to exploit these with the lighter Thracian infantry I had held in reserve and the battle turned when the scythed chariots and elephants which had become disordered and bogged down thanks to my missile troops, panicked and undermined the whole Seleucid battle line!

Man of the match has to go to a single unit of Phalangists who, finding themselves surrounded, formed a square and doggedly held on against three enemy divisions to prevent a total collapse of my centre!

Overall I can appreciate why Seleucus was so successful, his armies combined the best of both the Greek and the Persian systems of war.
   
 
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