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The aftermath of the battle was the final partition of the Macedonian Empire. There were no further attempts to reunify the lands conquered by Alexander the Great. After some additional conflicts, by 280 BC, Alexander’s conquests were finally divided between the Seleucids in Asia, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Antigonids in Macedonia. These kingdoms proved durable, and the successor states endured for roughly 200 years.
====The early death of How did Alexander==the Great Die?==
[[File: Alex 3.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Bust of Ptolemy later Ptolemy I of Egypt]]
Alexander died after a short illness in the former palace of the Babylonian kings. The sudden demise of a man who seemed a force of nature and widely seen as a demi-god shocked even his enemies. Many, at the time, believed that he was poisoned possibly by one of his generals. There had been conspiracies before aimed at Alexander such as the ‘Conspiracy of the Pages.’ <ref>Arrian, 6, 7</ref>
The lack of an able and mature successor meant that the Empire was almost bound to fall into a state of civil war. When there was no clear succession plan in kingdoms in the ancient world instability inevitably followed the death of the monarch. Without a strong king at the head of the army and the state, power fell into the hands of the strongest, and these were the generals. They had become very ambitious, even during the lifetime of Alexander. Many of them when they served as satrapies often acted like independent monarchs. The lack of a ruler meant that power passed to the generals and they began a series of power struggles that caused the unified Empire of Alexander to fragment into a series of different successor states.<ref>Shipley, p 15</ref>
====The Scale of the Was Alexander's Empire==too Large to Control after his Death? ==The Alexander's early death of Alexander and the absence of any an heir that could control the ambitions of the generals and others were crucial factors in the disintegration of the Empire. However, there are those who some argue that even if there had been an orderly succession and the army had remained united that , it would have fragmented in due course. The Alexander’s realm's sheer extent of Alexander’s realm is estimated to have been 2 million square miles (5 million kilometers). Communications at the time were very slow , and, furthermore, the Macedonian Empire was very diverse and divided by religion, ethnicity, and language.
Alexander had the charisma and authority to impose his will on the regions. However, even he had to give his governors a great deal of autonomy to his governors and was troubled by rebellious satraps <ref> Arrian, 5, 78</ref>. The vast Empire would have been very hard to keep together even had the great conqueror lived and had a capable successor. Once he died, there was no central authority to maintain unity. The scale of the territories was such that it was almost impossible to govern effectively. Instead, local military leaders often usurped entire provinces with impunity and became de-facto independent. This situation repeated itself with Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucus in Babylon , and Lysimachus in Thrace.
The sheer scale of the conquests of Alexander allowed generals to carve out often large states. Moreover, the regions required these local strongmen, who could deal with issues on the spot. Only they could maintain order and defend the frontiers because any central authority would have been too far away and distant.<ref>Green, Peter. Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990), p 113</ref> The need for these strong local rulers was another factor in the break-up of one of the largest Kingdoms in world history.
====Conclusion====In an astonishingly brief period, Alexander conquered a huge Empire. However, it just as quickly collapsed it fragmented into a series of warring Empires and Kingdoms. Strictly speaking, the Empire of Alexander only lasted a little more than a decade and could be said to have begun to break up after his burial. The cause of the collapse of the great realm can be attributed to several factors. The first was the Alexander's early death of Alexander , which left his kingdom in a state of disarray and , more importantly , meant that the army was no longer under central control.  The generals became the de-facto rulers of the Alexander's lands conquered by Alexander and fought many civil wars to secure a share of the spoils. Then there was no successor to the Macedonian monarch , only an infant and a man who had some form of developmental deficit. The sheer scale of the territories conquered by Alexander also contributed to the fragmentation of the Empire.
====Further Reading====

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