Antipater's death in 319 BCE had signaled the end of centralized authority in the empire.

His successor, a senior commander but maladroit politician named Polyperchon, tries to win the Greeks of the mainland by a new proclamation of their liberties.

The result is that the Athenians of the democratic party regain power and use their freedom to execute the pro-Macedonians, including the worthy but compromising Phocion—who, his forty-five elections as general notwithstanding, is executed as a traitor for permitting the Macedonian seizure of Piraeus.

Antipater's son Cassander refuses to acknowledge the new regents and war flares up.

Antigonus joins forces against Polyperchon with Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Eumenes, and the able, up-and-coming Cassander.

Cassander, with the help of Antigonus, seizes Macedonia and …

…most of Greece, including Athens.

Polyperchon had invited the terrible Olympias to act as regent for her young grandson, Alexander IV, but she continues to decline his request.

Eumenes marches toward the eastern provinces, pursued by Antigonus.

He holds Antigonus in check during a long and hard campaign on the Iranian plateau; the two armies meet at Paraetacene in summer 317, a technical victory for Antigonus but an inconclusive battle.

One Berenice had arrived in Egypt after the death of her first husband in the retinue of Eurydice, Ptolemy's second wife and queen, whom he had married as part of a political agreement with her father, Antipater of Macedonia.

Ptolemy in about 317 makes Berenice his third wife.

Cassander drives Polyperchon from Macedonia in 317 BCE.

Alexander's two successors, his half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus and his son Alexander IV, continue to furnish a nominal focus for loyalty.

When Cassander establishes Arrhidaeus as king of Macedon in 317 BCE, Philip’s wife makes Cassander regent.

The Macedonian soldiers, however, support the return of a furious Olympias, who puts to death Philip and his wife, Eurydice II, as well as Cassander's brother and a hundred of his partisans.

Olympias is finally named Stratonice, which is probably an epithet attached to Olympias following her victory over Eurydice in 317 BCE.

One Agathocles, a potter’s son who had moved from his native town of Thermae Himeraeae to Syracuse about 343 BCE, had learned his father's trade, but afterwards entered the army and served with distinction under Timoleon.

In 333, he had married the widow of his patron Damas, a distinguished and wealthy citizen.

He has been twice banished for attempting to overthrow the oligarchical party.

Returning in 317 with an army of mercenaries drawn from cities chafing under Syracusan domination, he takes a solemn oath to observe the democratic constitution which is then set up.

Forcibly establishing himself as “strategus auticrator,” he also appropriates the title of “general plenipotentiary,” accorded in the past only to Dionysius the Elder.

In what comes to be called Agathocles’ Massacre, he murders his political opposition and members of the ruling Council of Six Hundred, in all killing or banishing an estimated ten thousand persons.

As master of Syracuse, he creates a strong army and fleet and subdues the greater part of Sicily.

After two indecisive victories at Paraitacene (317 BCE) and Gabiene (316 BCE), Eumenes is betrayed to Antigonus by officers under his command.

According to Plutarch and Diodorus, Eumenes had won the Battle of Gabiene but lost control of his army's baggage camp thanks to his ally Peucestas' duplicity or incompetence.

Despite Eumenes' observation that Antigonus' infantry had been broken and that in cavalry the forces were fairly matched, the loss of the baggage has demoralized Eumenes' troops, as it also includes all the loot of the most decorated Macedonian veterans (called the Argyraspides, or Silver Shields)—treasure accumulated over thirty years of successful warfare.

It contains not only gold and gems but the Greeks' women and children.

Antigonus responds to a request for the return of the baggage train sent by Teutamus, one of their commanders, by demanding they give him Eumenes.

The Silver Shields do just that.

According to Plutarch, Antigonus starves Eumenes for three days, but finally sends an executioner to dispatch him when the time comes for him to move his camp.

Eumenes' body is given to his friends, to be burnt with honor, and his ashes are conveyed in a silver urn to his wife and children.

Eudemus, who had come from India as an ally of Eumenes and was responsible for the recruitment of Eumenes' elephants and light infantry, is also executed, as is the leader of the Argyraspides, Antigenes.

The Macedonians of Eumenes are now drawn into the ranks of Antigonus' army.

However, given the demonstrated fickle loyalty of the Argyraspides, Antigonus will never use them in a battle.

They are soon sent to the far-off satrapy of Arachosia (in modern Afghanistan), where the local satrap Sibyrtius is given special orders to send them out in two or three on dangerous missions, to ensure they don't survive to become a cohesive unit again.

Seleucus, refusing Antigonus' demand that he give an accounting of the income from his satrapy, escapes capture by fleeing to Ptolemy in Egypt, where he remains in Ptolemy's service, taking the initiative in forging a coalition among Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander.