Between 336 and 323 BC Greece, Anatolia, Egypt and all of Asia Minor from Phoenician to the eastern border of Persia along the Ganges river, were conquered by the young Alexander III of Macedonia, son of Philip II of Macedonia.
Macedonia in the fourth century lives in an ambiguous situation, their language, their culture, their traditions are Greek, however the perception that the inhabitants of the polis have of this people is of a barbaric, rough and primitive people, and for this King Philip II decided to entrust his son Alexander to the care of the most important thinker of the time, Alexander was thus instructed by Aristotle himself, perfecting his Greek, and learning from his master all that was necessary to govern wisely and be completely accepted by Greek culture.
In 336 BC. Philip dies leaving the crown to the then twenty-year-old Alexander, who in a short time would have conquered a vast empire, first bringing under his control the various Greek polis united in the Hellenic League, an alliance that linked together all the polis that survived the wars of the Peloponnese, then he would move to Anatolia and following the coast he would reach Egypt where he would add to his titles that of Pharaoh of Egypt, from Egypt he would then leave for the Persian empire, managing to subdue the mighty empire by assuming the charge of Emperor.
In these years in which Alexander will fight many battles and besiege countless cities there will be treachery and rebellions, some regions will rise up, but with a good dose of strategy he will be able to restore order in no time.
The speed of the conquests made by Alexander distributed in little more than a decade of reign in which there was not a single day without preparing, marching or fighting a war would have given birth to countless myths and legends about the figure of Alexander, the most famous are certainly the episode of the foundation of Alexandria in Egypt, the myth of the Fountain, the myth of the Peaches, and the episode of the Gordian knot.
Myths and legends aside, in 323 BC. after the death of Alexander, and given the "absence" between many quotation marks, of a legitimate heir, the immense empire that went from Macedonia to the Ganges via the Nile valley, was divided between the generals, called Diadochi, who had followed and accompanied Alexander in the Battle, thus giving life to the Hellenistic Kingdoms. During the division of the kingdom there were no particular clashes, as the generals would have ensured control of the territories that in a sense, already ruled in the name of Alexander.
It must be said that even before Alexander there were some so-called Hellenistic kingdoms because of Hellenic culture, such as the kingdom of Bosphorus-Cimmerian founded in 480 BC and disappeared with the Macedonian conquest, others would have divided themselves into many small kingdoms, but let's proceed in order.
While Alexander is still alive, between 331 and 330, Seleucus I, Ptolemy I, Lysimachus and Cassander they begin to rule, in the name of the emperor, respectively in Asia Minor, Egypt, Cappadocia and Macedonia, later in 323 these regions of the empire would be transformed into autonomous kingdoms and empires.
Seleucus it would have extended its power from the Mediterranean coast to the eastern borders of the former Alexandrian empire, to the borders with the Indian empire of Maurya , annexing an important slice of ’Anatolia to its empire removed from the kingdom of Cappadocia.
Ptolemy he would take over as Pharaoh and take control of the Nile Valley and of Cilicia, the only fragment of Asia Minor not ruled by Seleucus.
Lysimachus would take control of Cappadocia and of Thrace , giving up a slice of Anatolia in exchange for full control of the Bosphorus Strait.
Last but not least Cassandro took control of Macedonia and of the Greek p island , with the exception of Epirus which had not become part of the Alexandrian Empire since it was ruled by Alessandro il Moroso , brother of Philip II and uncle of Alexander the Great.
The first Hellenistic kingdom to disintegrate would have been that of Lysimachus, who already in 297 began to crumble.
The first to separate, proclaiming the autonomy of his kingdom was the prince Zipoite I which separated the kingdom of Bitina from Thrace in 297, in 282 Filetero he would have founded the kingdom of Pergamum, in the southern area of western Anatolia, the region overlooking the Aegean Sea and the following year, in 281 Mithridates I founded the kingdom of Pontus in northern Cappadocia, in the north-eastern area of Anatolia, taking away another important piece from the kingdom of Lysimachus.
Disrupted the state of Lysimaco a similar fate would have touched the Seleucid Empire which would have had to deal with the various warrior populations subjugated first by the Persians and then by Alexander.
The first to proclaim themselves independent were the inhabitants of the region. Eastern Empire, on the border with India, to proclaim himself sovereign of this new kingdom would have been Diodoto in 250 with the foundation of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom which extended over the Bactrian and on the Sogdiana.
In 247 following the example of Diodotus also the Parthians they would have proclaimed themselves independent by creating an intermediate kingdom between the Seleucid empire and the Bactrian Greek kingdom, which stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, and the last Hellenistic kingdom, born from the disintegration of the Seleucid empire would be the kingdom of Characene, it is a small kingdom located north of the Persian Gulf in a region now between Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.
Unlike the other kingdoms founded by Alexander's diadochi, the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt managed to survive unscathed and the last of the Ptolemies would have been Cleopatra at whose death the kingdom would become a Roman province, a fate common to most Hellenistic kingdoms, except for a few small kingdoms such as Characene, which would subsequently have been incorporated into the Parthian kingdom, whose borders would have pushed further and further west, eventually conquering a large part of the Seleucid empire, becoming for a long time one of the most difficult and powerful enemies of Rome.