Antigonus I Monophthalmus

Antigonus I Monophthalmus, “the One-Eyed,” was a Macedonian commander born around 382 BCE who became one of the most powerful Successors of Alexander the Great. Alexander appointed him satrap of Greater Phrygia during the conquest of the Persian Empire, and after Alexander’s death in 323 Antigonus retained a major Asian command. In the wars that followed he defeated Eumenes, absorbed much of Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean territories, and for a time came closer than any rival to reconstructing Alexander’s empire under a single successor.

Antigonus worked closely with his son Demetrius and in 306 BCE adopted the royal title after Demetrius’ victory over Ptolemy’s fleet at Salamis in Cyprus. His growing power provoked repeated coalitions among Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus and Cassander. The decisive confrontation came at Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BCE, where Antigonus, then about eighty, was killed and his Asian dominions were divided among the victors. His immediate empire disappeared, but Demetrius survived and the Antigonid dynasty later secured the Macedonian throne.

Antigonus is a major figure across the linked Successor novels: Robert Fabbri’s To the Strongest, The Three Paradises, An Empty Throne, Babylon and Forging Kingdoms; Mary Renault’s Funeral Games; Alfred Duggan’s Elephants and Castles; and Christian Cameron’s Tyrant: Funeral Games, Destroyer of Cities and Force of Kings. The linked histories of Quintus Curtius Rufus and Diodorus Siculus supply ancient narrative context, with Diodorus especially important for the early Diadochi.