Demetrius again visits Greece.
24. Second sojourn of Demetrius in Greece. The expulsion of Cassander's garrisons from the Grecian cities, and more particularly from those in Peloponnesus; the appointment of Demetrius as generalissimo of Greece, for the conquest of Macedonia and Thrace; proved not only to Cassander, but also to the other princes, that their common interest loudly called upon them to resist the over-powerful Antigonus.
League against Antigonus, 302.
25. Third grand league of Cassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, against Antigonus and his son; brought about by Cassander. How easily, even after the violent irruption of Lysimachus into Asia Minor, might Antigonus have dispersed the gathering storms, had not his presumption led him to place an overweening reliance on his own good fortune!
Junction of Seleucus and Lysimachus, 301.
26. Junction of Seleucus of Babylon and Lysimachus, in Phrygia. Antigonus, to concentrate his forces, recalls his son, who had pushed on to the borders of Macedonia. The cautious Ptolemy, on the other hand, is afraid to invade Syria; and, in consequence of a false report, that Lysimachus had been defeated, retires full of alarm, into Egypt.
Battle of Ipsus, 301.
27. Great and decisive battle fought at Ipsus in Phrygia, in the spring of 301, which costs Antigonus his life, and annihilates his empire, as the two conquerors divide it between themselves, without taking any account of the absent confederates. Asia Minor, as far as mount Taurus, falls to the share of Lysimachus; and all the rest, with the exception of Cilicia, which is given to Plisthenes, Cassander's brother, is left to Seleucus.—Demetrius, by the help of his navy, escapes into Greece.
Domestic organization of the monarchy.
28. The almost unbroken series of wars which had raged from the time of Alexander, must have precluded the possibility of much being effected with respect to domestic organization. It appears to have been nearly, if not wholly, military. Yet were the numerous devastations in some measure compensated by the erection of new cities, in which these princes vied with one another, impelled partly by vanity to immortalize their names, partly by policy to support their dominion, most of the new settlements being military colonies. Nevertheless this was but a sorry reparation for the manifold oppressions to which the natives were exposed by the practice of quartering the army upon them. The spread of the language and civilization of the Greeks deprived them of all national distinction; their own languages sinking into mere provincial dialects. Alexander's monarchy affords a striking example of the little that can be expected from a forced amalgamation of races, when the price of that amalgamation is the obliteration of national character in the individuals.