Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire

Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire - Paperback

$25.90
$25.90
Skip to product information
Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire
  • Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire
Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire - Paperback

Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire - Paperback

by Robin Waterfield
$25.90
$25.90

Book Overview

by Robin Waterfield (Author)

Alexander the Great conquered an enormous empire--stretching from Greece to the Indian subcontinent--and his death triggered forty bloody years of world-changing events. These were years filled with high adventure, intrigue, passion, assassinations, dynastic marriages, treachery, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter on battlefield after battlefield. And while the men fought on the field, the women, such as Alexander's mother Olympias, schemed from their palaces and pavilions.

Dividing the Spoils serves up a fast-paced narrative that captures this turbulent time as it revives the memory of the Successors of Alexander and their great contest for his empire. The Successors, Robin Waterfield shows, were no mere plunderers. Indeed, Alexander left things in great disarray at the time of his death, with no guaranteed succession, no administration in place suitable for such a large realm, and huge untamed areas both bordering and within his empire. It was the Successors--battle-tested companions of Alexander such as Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Seleucus, and Antigonus the One-Eyed--who consolidated Alexander's gains. Their competing ambitions, however, eventually led to the break-up of the empire. To tell their story in full, Waterfield draws upon a wide range of historical materials, providing the first account that makes complete sense of this highly complex period.

Astonishingly, this period of brutal, cynical warfare was also characterized by brilliant cultural achievements, especially in the fields of philosophy, literature, and art. A new world emerged from the dust and haze of battle, and, in addition to chronicling political and military events, Waterfield provides ample discussion of the amazing cultural flowering of the early Hellenistic Age.

Author Biography

Robin Waterfield is an independent scholar and translator. In addition to translating numerous Greek classics, he is the author of Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths, Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age, and Athens: A History, From Ancient Ideal to Modern City. He lives in the far south of Greece on a small olive farm.

Number of Pages: 302
Dimensions: 0.9 x 9.2 x 6.1 IN
Illustrated: Yes
Publication Date: November 01, 2012
ISBN9780199931521
Author Robin Waterfield
PublisherOxford University Press
GenreHistory
FormatPaperback
PublishedNovember 2012
LanguageENG- English
Pages302
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

History Nonfiction Wars & Conflicts

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

More by Robin Waterfield

Ion/Orestes/Phoenician Women/Suppliant Women

Ion/Orestes/Phoenician Women/Suppliant Women - Paperback

Ion/Orestes/Phoenician Women/Suppliant Women - Paperback

By Euripides, Robin Waterfield, and James Morwood

About Robin Waterfield

Robin Waterfield has translated numerous classical texts for OWC, including Plato's Republic, Herodotus' Histories and Plutarch's Greek Lives and Roman Lives Edith Hall is co-director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at the University of Oxford. She has published widely on ancient Greek drama and society, reviews and appears on radio and television. She has written introductions to the other four volumes of Euripides' plays in OWC. James Morwood has translated three volumes of Euripides' plays for OWC and is the author of The Plays of Euripides and A Dictionary of Latin Words and Phrases.

You may also like