After Alexander
After Alexander's death his generals carved up his empire and founded their own states. Among them were two dynasties that held power through much of the eastern Mediterranean world—the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria—until the ascendancy of the Romans. With this continuing spread of Hellenism (Greek culture), Koine Greek (common Greek) became an international language.
Macedon, one of the divisions of the new order, with Greece as a dependency, went through a series of power struggles over the next centuries. on the death of Antipater, Macedon's first ruler after Alexander, cassander, Antipater's son, defeated a faction led by Polyperchon and married Alexander's half sister Thessalonica. In 315 b.c.e. he refounded the seaport city of Therma as Thessalonica (or Salonika). In 305 b.c.e. Cassander proclaimed himself king of Macedon.
Cassander's death in 297 b.c.e. began a period of short-lived reigns until Antigonus II rose to power in 276 b.c.e. Among the problems facing the Macedonians just before and during Antigonus's reign were invasions of the Galatoi (the Greek name for Celts), which began in about 279 b.c.e. Antigonus, who ruled until 239 b.c.e., was also forced to contend with uprisings of the Greek city-states. He defeated Sparta and Athens in the Cheremonidean War of 267-261 b.c.e. and managed to maintain Macedonian control over the Aegean Sea and reestablish Macedon as an economic power. Yet unrest continued, and his nephew, who rose to power in 229 b.c.e. as Antigonus III, continued the restoration of Macedonian hegemony throughout the Greek Peninsula during his eight-year reign.
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