1. Journal of Ancient History 3 (290)
  2. Peithon, an Alexander’s Successor in the Shadow of Great Contemporaries

Peithon, an Alexander’s Successor in the Shadow of Great Contemporaries

Smirnov Svyatoslav V.

The paper is devoted to the political biography and career of Peithon, son of Crateuas, who is still one of the little-known Early Hellenistic politicians in modern scholarship. At the beginning of his career Peithon was involved into the Eastern campaign as Alexander’s bodyguard. By the end of Alexander’s life he was quite a powerful general and a member of the king’s nearest environment. Shortly after the death of Alexander the Great Peithon became the main participant in the division of his empire. In Babylon (323 BC) Peithon was appointed the satrap of Media. He put down a revolt of Greek military colonists in the ‘high satrapies’. After Perdiccas’ murder Peithon and Arrhidaios became regents of the empire for a short time. Since the meeting in Triparadeisus in 320 BC Peithon held the post of general of the ‘high satrapies’. Some later events (like his relations with Atropates and an unsuccessful war against the eastern satraps) enable the author to suppose that Peithon made attempts to create his own kingdom in the East.

Keywords: Peithon, diadochi, Hellenism, Antigonos ‘the One-eyed’, Hieronymus of Cardia, Seleucus I
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