The Wars of Alexander’s Successors by Bob Bennett and Mike Roberts (Pen & Sword, 2011) attracted me as being about a period which is normally covered very briefly in modern books. In most histories I have read there is a chapter at most from Alexander’s death to the stability of about 280 BCE.

This book filled in the details of that period more than adequately. In the words of Thurber’s 10-year-old girl, “it told me more about penguins than I wanted to know.” But I had several problems with the book.

First, I could not find any information about the authors other than they are British, have university degrees and have written other books on ancient wars. And I only found that by looking on the web; there is nothing about them in the book itself.

Secondly, for this period particularly, a list of the actors would have been nice. There were at least 5 Alexanders, 4 Ptolemies and several Cassanders. I, at least, had a hard time keeping track of how they were related. “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard” applies.

I read the Kindle edition and it is almost totally without maps (maybe the printed edition has them?). There is one map of Alexander’s empire from Europe to the Indus. I have in my head a decent map of the ancient Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, but of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, Sogdia, etc. I have only vague ideas for this era.

Finally, the authors list Athenaeus, Diodorus Siculus, Justin, Pausanias, Plutarch, Polyaenus and Quintus Rufus as ancient sources, but never tell us which source they relied on for some of the details. They adopt the misanthropic ancient attitudes towards all the women (Olympias, Roxanne, Cleopatra (not the famous one) et al.) as connivers and golddiggers. And they frequently cite huge armies (75,000 men, 200 elephants) without sources. I cannot believe that in this era such armies could be supplied; just the logistics of feeding 200 elephants crossing the arid land between the Indus and the Iranian plateau is mind-boggling. 

Overall, though, despite my quibbling above, the book gives a detailed account of this very complicated time. For those interested, I would recommend it (but have an atlas of the ancient world handy).

By Daniel A. Bronstein, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University