General Notes

[2280151.ged]
Birth: in 382 BC 1
Death: in 301 BC, Ipsus, Phrygia, Asia Minor [Turkey] 1
Event: Ancestor M
Event: Progenitor X
Event: Ruled 306 - 301 BC, King of Macedonia 1
Note:
Antigonus I MONOPHTHALMUS ("One-Eyed"), also called ANTIGONUS I CYCLOPS
(b. 382 BC--d. 301, Ipsus, Phrygia, Asia Minor [now in Turkey]),
Macedonian general under Alexander the Great who founded the Macedonian
dynasty of the Antigonids (306-168 BC), becoming king in 306. An
exceptional strategist and combat leader, he was also an astute ruler who
cultivated the friendship of Athens and other Greek city-states.
Military campaigns.
In 333 Alexander had appointed Antigonus satrap of Phrygia, and upon
Alexander's death he also received the governorship of Pamphylia and
Lycia from the regent of the Macedonian empire, Perdiccas. He then formed
an alliance against Perdiccas with Antipater, the governor of Macedonia,
and with Ptolemy of Egypt, Lysimachus of Thrace, and Craterus (all of
whom had served under Alexander). Perdiccas was murdered, and Antipater
became regent of the empire. In 321 Antipater appointed Antigonus
commander in chief of his army in Asia and sent him against Eumenes, the
satrap of Cappadocia and an adherent of Perdiccas. Antigonus defeated
Eumenes and then besieged him unsuccessfully in the mountain fortress
Nora. Polyperchon succeeded Antipater as regent, and Antigonus joined
forces against him with Cassander (Antipater's son), Ptolemy, Lysimachus,
and Eumenes in 319. When Eumenes, his rival in Asia Minor (Anatolia),
went over to Polyperchon, Antigonus defeated him with the aid of Seleucus
and Peithon (the satraps of Babylonia and Media, respectively) at
Gabiene. Then, wishing to eliminate all possible rivals, Antigonus had
both Eumenes and Peithon executed; Seleucus escaped to Egypt.
Antigonus was now in complete control of Asia Minor, but Ptolemy,
Lysimachus, Cassander, and Seleucus allied themselves against him in the
first coalition war (315-311) in an attempt to thwart his plan of
reuniting Alexander's empire. Antigonus occupied Syria and proclaimed
himself regent. In order to win the support of the Greek city-states,
whose resistance to subjugation presented the chief stumbling block to
the formation of a Hellenistic monarchy, he announced to his assembled
army that all the Greeks should be free, autonomous, and ungarrisoned.
This political slogan was to be sounded again and again--almost
immediately by Ptolemy and for a final time by the Romans in 196. With
the aid of his officers in Greece, Antigonus drove out Cassander's
Macedonian forces of occupation there and formed the island cities in the
Aegean into the League of the Islanders, preparatory to his invasion of
Greece. His ally, the city of Rhodes, furnished him with the necessary
fleet.
While he was engaged in conquering Caria, his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes,
was defeated at Gaza by Ptolemy and Seleucus (312). Seleucus returned to
his former province, Babylonia. In view of this new threat from the East,
Antigonus decided to make peace with all of his adversaries except
Seleucus. All of the diadochoi (Alexander's successors) confirmed the
existing boundaries and the freedom of the Greek cities. Antigonus, no
longer regent but merely strategos (officer in charge) of the whole of
Asia, was to rule in Syria and from the Hellespont to the Euphrates.
Activities in Greece.
Then Ptolemy attacked Cilicia, and the second coalition war (310-301)
against Antigonus broke out. In Greece in 307, Antigonus' son Demetrius
ousted Demetrius of Phaleron, Cassander's governor of Athens, and
reestablished the old Athenian constitution. The grateful Athenians
honoured Antigonus and Demetrius as divine saviours (theoi soteres).
Cassander's influence in Greece was now broken, and in 306 Demetrius
defeated Ptolemy's fleet near Salamis on the island of Cyprus and
conquered the island. This