Battle of Ipsus

Diodorus Siculus is the principal source for the history of the Diadochi, in his 'Library of history' (Bibliotheca historica). Diodorus is often derided by modern historians for his style and inaccuracies, but he preserves many details of the ancient period found nowhere else.[1][2] Diodorus worked primarily by epitomizing the works of other historians, omitting many details where they did not suit his purpose, which was to illustrate moral lessons from history.[3] However, since Diodorus provides the only continuous narrative for the history of the Diadochi, we have no alternative but to rely on his account. Unfortunately, from book XXI onwards (301 BC), including the actual Battle of Ipsus, the Bibliotheca only exists in fragments. Nevertheless, Diodorus provides extensive details of the Fourth War of the Diadochi leading up to Ipsus. It is generally thought that Diodorus's source for much of this period was the now-lost history of the Diadochi written by Hieronymus of Cardia. Hieronymus was a friend of Eumenes, and later became a member of the Antigonid court; he was therefore very much familiar and contemporary with the events he described, and possibly a direct eyewitness to some.[4]

The only full description of the battle available is in Plutarch's Life of Demetrius. Plutarch was writing some 400 years after the events in question, and is therefore a secondary source, but he often names his sources, which allows some degree of verification of his statements.[5] Plutarch was also primarily interested in moral lessons from history, rather than actually detailing history in depth,[6] and thus his description of the battle does not go into great detail.

In the aftermath of the Second War of the Diadochi (315 BC), the aging satrap Antigonus I Monophthalmus had been left in undisputed control of the Asian territories of the Macedonian empire (Asia Minor, Syria and the vast eastern satrapies). This left Antigonus in prime position to claim overall rule over the Macedonian empire. Antigonus's growing power alarmed the other major Successors, resulting in the eruption of the Third War of the Diadochi in 314 BC, in which Antigonus faced a coalition of Cassander (ruler of Macedonia), Lysimachus (ruler of Thrace) and Ptolemy (ruler of Egypt). This war ended in a compromise peace in 311 BC, after which Antigonus attacked Seleucus, who was attempting to re-establish himself in the eastern Satrapies of the empire. The resulting Babylonian War lasted from 311 to 309 BC, and resulted in defeat for Antigonus, allowing Seleucus to re-claim the satrapy of Babylonia and overlordship of the territories to the east.

While Antigonus was distracted elsewhere, Ptolemy had been expanding his power into the Aegean Sea and to Cyprus. Antigonus thus resumed the war with Ptolemy in 308 BC, beginning the Fourth War of the Diadochi. Antigonus sent his son Demetrius to regain control of Greece, and in 307 BC he took Athens, expelling Demetrius of Phaleron, Cassander's governor, and proclaiming the city free again. Demetrius then turned his attention to Ptolemy, invading Cyprus and defeating Ptolemy's fleet at the Battle of Salamis-in-Cyprus. In the aftermath of this victory, Antigonus and Demetrius both assumed the crown of Macedon, in which they were shortly followed by Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and eventually Cassander.

The successor kingdoms before the battle of Ipsus, 303 BC.

In 306, Antigonus attempted to invade Egypt, but storms prevented Demetrius's fleet from supplying him, and he was forced to return home. With Cassander and Ptolemy both weakened, and Seleucus still occupied by attempting to assert his control over the East, Antigonus and Demetrius now turned their attention to Rhodes, which was besieged by Demetrius's forces in 305 BC. The island was reinforced by troops from Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander. Ultimately, the Rhodians reached a compromise with Demetrius – they would support Antigonus and Demetrius against all enemies, save their ally Ptolemy. Ptolemy took the title of Soter ("Savior") for his role in preventing the fall of Rhodes, but the victory was ultimately Demetrius's, as it left him with a free hand to attack Cassander in Greece. Demetrius thus returned to Greece and set about liberating the cities of Greece, expelling Cassander's garrisons, and the pro-Antipatrid oligarchies. This occupied much of Demetrius's efforts in 303 and 302 BC.

Seeing that Demetrius's war effort was aimed at destroying his power in Greece, and ultimately in Macedonia, Cassander tried to come to terms with Antigonus. However, Antigonus rejected these advances, intent on forcing Cassander's complete surrender. Cassander therefore held counsel with Lysimachus, and they agreed on a joint strategy that included sending envoys to Ptolemy and Seleucus, asking them to join in combatting the Antigonid threat. Seeking to take the initiative, Cassander sent a significant portion of the Macedonian army under Prepelaus to Lysimachus, which was to be used in joint operations in Asia Minor. Meanwhile, Cassander took the rest of the Macedonian army into Thessaly to confront Demetrius.

Lysimachus crossed over the Hellespont in 302 BC, intending to take advantage of Antigonus's absence in Syria by overrunning Asia Minor. The cities of Lampsakos and Parion submitted to him, but he had to storm Sigeion, after which he installed a garrison there.[7] He then sent Prepelaus with 7,000 men to attack Aeolis and Ionia, while he besieged Abydos.[7] This siege was unsuccessful however, since Demetrius sent the city reinforcements from Greece by sea.[7] Lysimachus instead went on to win over Hellespontine Phrygia, and then captured the major administrative centre of Synnada.[7] Meanwhile, Prepelaus captured Adramyttion, Ephesos, Teos, and Colophon; he could not however capture Erythrae or Clazomenae, again due to sea-borne reinforcements.[7] Finally, Prepelaus moved inland and captured Sardis, another major administrative centre.[7]

When Antigonus received news of the invasion, he abandoned preparations for a great festival to be held in Antigonia, and quickly began to march his army northwards from Syria, through Cilicia, Cappadocia, Lycaonia, and into Phrygia.[8] Lysimachus, hearing of the approach of Antigonus's army, held counsel with his officers, and decided to avoid open battle until Seleucus's arrival.[8] The allies thus defended their camp with entrenchments and palisades, and when Antigonus arrived offering battle, they remained within the camp.[8] Antigonus therefore moved to cut off the allies' provisions, forcing Lysimachus to abandon the camp and make a night-time march of some 40 miles to Dorylaion. There, the allies built a new, triple-palisaded camp amongst the hills, with relatively easy access to food and water.[8] Antigonus followed closely behind, and laid siege to the allied camp, bringing up catapults for the assault. Lysimachus sent sorties to try to disrupt the siege-works, but the Antigonid forces always ended with the upper hand in ensuing skirmishes.[9] With the siege works nearing completion and food running low, Lysimachus decided to abandon the camp, and marched away during a night-time storm.[9] Antigonus again attempted to follow, but as winter approached with further rain, conditions became difficult, and he abandoned pursuit and dispersed his men into winter quarters instead.[9] The allied army marched on into Bithynia and went into winter quarters in and around the city of Heraclea.[9]

Demetrius, son of Antigonus

Whilst settling his army for the winter, Antigonus heard the news that Seleucus was en route from the eastern satrapies to support Lysimachus.[9] He therefore dispatched messengers to Demetrius, ordering him to bring his army over to Asia to reinforce the Antigonid forces.[9] Demetrius had in the meantime continued his campaign in Greece, and although Cassander had blocked the land-passes, Demetrius had entered Thessaly by sea.[10] There had followed a somewhat inconsequential campaign of manoeuvre between the two armies in Thessaly, before Demetrius received his father's messages asking for reinforcements.[11] Demetrius thus hastily arranged a truce with Cassander, and took his army by sea across the Aegean to Ephesos.[11] He recaptured Ephesos, and marched north to the Hellespont, where he established a strong garrison and fleet to prevent European reinforcements reaching the allied army in Asia. Demetrius then also dispersed his army into winter quarters.[11]

In the absence of Demetrius, Cassander now felt able to send further reinforcements to Lysimachus, under the command of his brother, Pleistarchus.[12] Since Demetrius was guarding the easy crossing points at the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, Pleistarchus attempted to ship his men directly across the Black Sea to Heraclea, using the port of Odessos.[12] The men had to be sent in batches due to a lack of ships, and although the first batch arrived safely, the second shipment was intercepted by Demetrius's fleet, and the third wrecked in a storm. Pleistarchus himself narrowly survived the wreck of his command ship, eventually being carried to Heraclea to recuperate over the winter.[12] Similarly, the concentration of Antigonid forces in Asia now made Ptolemy feel secure enough to bring an army out of Egypt to try to conquer Coele Syria.[13] He captured a number of cities, but while laying siege to Sidon, he was brought false reports of an Antigonid victory, and told that Antigonus was marching south into Syria. He thus garrisoned the cities he had captured, and retreated into Egypt.[13] At around the same time, Seleucus appears to have finished his march from the east, arriving in Cappadocia with his army, which he then sent into winter quarters.[13]

Diodorus completes book XX of his Library at this point, saying that he will describe the battle between the Kings at the start of the next book.[13] However, only fragments remain of books XXI onwards, and although some fragments of his description of the battle do remain, they do not form a coherent narrative. In his description of the battle, Plutarch does not describe the preliminary manoeuvring that must have occurred in 301 BC before the battle, so it is unclear how events unfolded. Lysimachus and Seleucus were probably anxious to bring Antigonus to battle, since their respective power-centres in Thrace and Babylon were vulnerable in their prolonged absence.[14] The armies eventually met in battle around 50 miles north-east of Synnada, near the village of Ipsus.[14] Antigonus was aware of Ptolemy's raid on Syria the previous year, and thus would have been loath to be cut off from Syria and his capital in Antigonia, and thus moved to intercept the allied army.[15] The exact location of the battle is unknown, but it occurred in a large open plain, well-suited for both the allied preponderance of elephants and the Antigonid superiority in cavalry numbers and training.[16]

In terms of overall strategy, it is clear that both sides had resolved on battle;[13] for the allies, it represented the best chance of stopping Antigonid expansion, rather than allowing themselves to be defeated piecemeal.[21] For Antigonus, the chance to defeat all his enemies at once could not be passed up, even if he would have preferred to defeat them individually.[17] However, little is known about the specific strategic considerations facing the two sides before the battle, as the precise circumstances and location of the engagement remain uncertain. As mentioned above, it has been suggested that the allied army was trying to cut Antigonus's lines of communication with Syria, in order to prompt him into battle, but this is only one of several possible scenarios.

Tactically, both sides faced the common problem of the wars fought amongst the Successors; how to defeat an army equipped in the same manner and using the same basic tactics. The Diadochi seem to have been inherently conservative, and continued to favour a strong attack with cavalry on the right wing of the battle-line (tactics commonly used by both Philip and Alexander) as the principal tactical thrust – even though they must have been aware of the likelihood their opponents would perform the same maneuver on the opposite side of the battlefield.[18][22] When armies were numerically even and deploying the same tactics, gaining a clear advantage was difficult. The use of novel weapons, such as war elephants and scythed chariots, to change the tactical balance was one approach used by the Diadochi, but such innovations were readily copied. Thus, both sides at Ipsus had war elephants, although thanks to Seleucus, the allies were able to field an unusually high number, in addition to scythed chariots. Both sides therefore sought an open battlefield; the allies in order to use their elephants to full potential, and the Antigonids to allow full use of their strong cavalry arm.[16] For the Antigonids, strong in both infantry and cavalry, the tactical situation was straightforward, and followed the template Successor tactic of a massive cavalry assault on the right wing.[18] For the allies, weaker in infantry, the tactics would have been to maximize their overwhelming superiority in elephants, though it is not clear exactly how they intended to do this.[23] Nevertheless, the elephants played a pivotal role in the battle.[24]

Kingdoms of the Diadochi after the battle of Ipsus, c. 301 BC.

  Kingdom of Seleucus

Other diadochi

  Kingdom of Cassander

  Kingdom of Lysimachus

  Kingdom of Ptolemy

  Epirus

From the wreck of the Antigonid army, Demetrius managed to recover 5,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, and escaped with them to Ephesos. Despite the expectation that he would raid the Ephesian treasury, Demetrius instead immediately set sail for Greece "putting his chief remaining hopes in Athens". However, he was to be disappointed; the Athenians had voted not to allow any of the kings into Athens. Concealing his wrath, he asked the Athenians for the return of his ships that were moored there, and then sailed on to the Isthmus of Corinth. He found that everywhere his garrisons were being expelled, and his erstwhile allies defecting to the other kings. He left Pyrrhus of Epirus (at that time part of the Antigonid faction) in charge of the Antigonid cause in Greece, and himself sailed to the Thracian Chersonesos.

The last chance to reunite the Alexandrine Empire had already been passed when Antigonus lost the Babylonian War and two thirds of his empire. Ipsus confirmed this failure. As Paul K. Davis writes, "Ipsus was the high point of the struggle among Alexander the Great’s successors to create an international Hellenistic empire, which Antigonus failed to do."[32] Instead, the empire was carved up between the victors, with Ptolemy retaining Egypt, Seleucus expanding his power to eastern Asia Minor, and Lysimachus receiving the remainder of Asia Minor. Eventually Seleucus would defeat Lysimachus at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC, but he was assassinated shortly afterward. Ipsus finalized the breakup of an empire, which may account for its obscurity; despite that, it was still a critical battle in classical history and decided the character of the Hellenistic age.

• Livius.org: The battle of Ipsus
• Kingdoms of the Successors of Alexander: After the Battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301