Battle of Corupedium

In 281 BC, the last great battle between Alexander the Great's original generals was fought at Corupedium, near Sardis in western Anatolia. By then, both commanders were old men who had served under Alexander more than forty years earlier. Lysimachus, around 80, ruled Thrace, Macedon and much of Anatolia. Seleucus, in his late seventies, ruled the vast Seleucid Empire stretching east to Iran. Lysimachus had recently been weakened by a family tragedy. At the urging of his wife Arsinoe, he had executed his popular son and heir Agathocles, a crime that turned many of his subjects and officers against him. Seleucus invaded, and in the battle that followed, Lysimachus was killed. Seleucus now controlled almost all of Alexander's former empire except Egypt. He crossed into Europe to claim Macedon, his homeland, but just months later he was murdered by Ptolemy Keraunos, the exiled son of Ptolemy I, whom he had taken in. Corupedium ended the generation of Alexander's generals and confirmed the division of the Hellenistic world into rival kingdoms.