Antipater

Antipater (398?-319 B.C.), Macedonian general, and regent of Macedonia during Alexander’s Eastern expedition (334-323). He had previously (346) been sent as ambassador by Philip to Athens and negotiated peace after the battle of Chaeroneia (338). About 332 he set out against the rebellious tribes of Thrace; but before this insurrection was quelled, the Spartan king Agis had risen against Macedonia. Having settled affairs in Thrace as well as he could, Antipater hastened to the south, and in a battle near Megalopolis (331) gained a complete victory over the insurgents (Diodorus xvii. 62). His regency was greatly troubled by the ambition of Olympias, mother of Alexander, and he was nominally superseded by Craterus. But, on the death of Alexander in 323, he was, by the first partition of the empire, left in command of Macedonia, and in the Lamian War, at the battle of Crannon (322), crushed the Greeks who had attempted to re-assert their independence. Later in the same year he and Craterus were engaged in a war against the Aetolians, when the news arrived from Asia which induced Antipater to conclude peace with them; for Antigonus reported that Perdiccas contemplated making himself sole master of the empire. Antipater and Craterus accordingly prepared for war against Perdiccas, and allied themselves with Ptolemy, the governor of Egypt. Antipater crossed over into Asia in 321; and while still in Syria, he received information that Perdiccas had been murdered by his own soldiers. Craterus fell in battle against Eumenes (Diodorus xviii. 25-39). Antipater, now sole regent, made several new regulations, and having quelled a mutiny of his troops and commissioned Antigonus to continue the war against Eumenes and the other partisans of Perdiccas, returned to Macedonia, where he arrived in 320 (Justin xiii. 6). Soon after he was seized by an illness which terminated his active career, 319. Passing over his son Cassander, he appointed the aged Polyperchon regent, a measure which gave rise to much confusion and ill-feeling (Diodorus xvii., xviii).

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