The provinces not already bestowed by the conqueror were divided among ten of his generals, who were expected to govern in the name and for the benefit of the two kings. Finding it impossible, however, either by management or force, to keep these lieutenants in subjection to the mere name of royalty, Perdiccas formed a plan to seize the sovereignty for himself. Eu´menes was on his side, while his colleagues in the regency, and the two great provincial governors, Ptol´emy and Antig´onus, were his most powerful opponents. In a campaign against Ptolemy, in Egypt, Perdiccas was slain by his own mutinous soldiers. Craterus fell in a battle with Eumenes, in Cappadocia, and the sole regency devolved upon Antip´ater. This general defeated the schemes of Euryd´ice—niece of Alexander the Great, and wife of the imbecile king, Philip Arrhidæus—who even harangued the army at Tripar´adi´sus, in Syria, demanding to be admitted to a share in the government. A fresh division and assignment of the provinces was now made. Antigonus was charged with the prosecution of the war against Eumenes, in which he made himself master of the greater part of Asia Minor.
=20.= Antipater died in Macedon, B. C. 319, leaving the regency, not to his son Cassan´der, but to his friend Polysper´chon. Cassander, in disgust, fled to Antigonus; and in the war which followed, these two, with Ptolemy, sought the disruption of the empire, while Eumenes and Polysperchon fought for its unity. Eumenes collected a force in Cilicia, with which he meant to conquer Syria and Phœnicia, and thus gain command of the sea. Antigonus first defeated a royal fleet near Byzantium, and then marched across the country to the borders of Syria, and pursued Eumenes inland beyond the Tigris. A number of the eastern satraps here joined Eumenes, but after two indecisive battles he was seized by his own troops and given up to Antigonus, who put him to death, B. C. 316.
=21.= In Macedonia, the mock king, Philip Arrhidæus, and his wife were executed, by order of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. But this imperious princess was captured, in her turn, at Pydna; and, in violation of the terms of her surrender, was murdered by her enemies. Cassander became master of Macedonia and Greece. He married Thes´saloni´ca, half-sister of the Conqueror, and founded in her honor the city which bears her name, B. C. 316.