The Wars Of Alexander's Successors

[SKY]

Greetings,

Has anyone read or have an opinion on the now two volume set by Bob Bennett and Mike Roberts
"The Wars Of Alexander's Successors"?

Worth getting or just stick with Heckel and Bosworth? I do not see a review in the book section.

Thank you.

Sky

[Fingy]

I saw these on Amazon and am considering buying them. Never read a review though.

[athenas owl]

I have a bookmark from a site that Bob Bennett had on AOL, I remember it wasn't bad, and quite readable. Though now I can't access them..I assume they've been deleted or something for the book.

I got an e-mail about this book and am considering buying it.

Here's a kink to a couple of short reviews, which I woud agree with from what I remember reading online.

http://www.librarything.com/work/7946925

Here's some reviews from the UK Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wars-Alexanders ... 184415761X

It sounds like a big issue is that there is only one map in the whole book, but the reviews are quite positive.

I think I could devote my life to making the perfect flow chart of the Diodachi period. I really do have one I made...

[Paralus]

There was a web page to this book. That was deleted, I imagine, when Pen & Sword picked it up for publication. The idea was two books: Kings (or commanders) in the first; campaigns and tactics in the second. To me one and the same in the one: one can't be described without the other.

The authors wrote the theme intoduction to Ancient Warfare 3.2 and that, I imagine, gives a taste. As a very broad sweep, I find little to disagree with.

I should read the book(s).

I think I could devote my life to making the perfect flow chart of the Diodachi period. I really do have one I made...

Love to see it. More importantly, the timeline....

Worth getting or just stick with Heckel and Bosworth?

Well that would be a matter for your choice. My advice would be a reading of Diodorus 18-20 as well as Plutarch's Lives (Demetrius, Eumenes, et al).

[athenas owl]

I think I could devote my life to making the perfect flow chart of the Diodachi period. I really do have one I made...

Love to see it. More importantly, the timeline....

Well the timeline is what makes it bit messy. Like the low/high chronology for the events surrounding Eumenes and after that I read Bosworth/Wheatley, I am not so sure that 302 is a good date for Mithridates Ktistes to have high-tailed it from Antigonus. Stuff like that.

[SKY]

Thank you all for the comments, greatly appreciated.

I was perusing vol. 1 of this book (in a bookstore) and it seemed very well written, vol. 2 was nowhere to be found.

Cheers,

Sky

[Paralus]

Well the timeline is what makes it bit messy. Like the low/high chronology for the events surrounding Eumenes and after that I read Bosworth/Wheatley, I am not so sure that 302 is a good date for Mithridates Ktistes to have high-tailed it from Antigonus. Stuff like that.

The "low" or "high" as separate chronologies are, pardon the pun, ancient history. The "hybrid" chronology is now the go. In very abridged Readers' Digest terms, the "low" dates for 323-20/19 are correct (thus Triparadeisos is 320) and the "high" for 318 down to 313.

The period you mention - Eumenes' release from Nora to his death - was a major bone of contention. This is settled: the great campaign of Antigonus to rid himself of the "pest from the Chersonese" occupied autumn 318 until very late December 317 / early January 316. Eumenes died in January 316 and Olympias followed him after her surrender (Arrhidaeus and Eurydike having bitten the dust in the autumn of 317). Seleucus then scarpers from Babylon in summer 316.

Aside from the near completely missing (in the classical corpus) account of Antigonus' attempt at a repeat with Seleucus (310-08), there seems general agreement over dating post that campaign.

As for Mithridates, it might have been difficult for Demetrius to advise him to do the 'bolt' when he was busy "liberating the Hellenes" of the mainland (unless Mithridates was with him). That he did so on his return to the east prior to Ispsus does not quite gel either: The One-Eyed had far more pressing matters clouding his krater. More likely is a date after Salamis when Antigonus is at the hight of his powers.