Scholars almost universally agree that there were two tendencies among theSuccessors of Alexander the Great: while some are assumed to have aimed atgaining control of Alexander's entire empire, others supposedly were contentwith a part of it. This paper will question the foundations of this communisopinio, as both Diodorus Siculus and Cornelius Nepos explicitly state that allthe Successors wanted to lay their hands on the entire realm and no ancientauthor mentions any separatist tendencies. A new assessment might show thatmany of the alleged signs of separatism in the early Successor era can also beinterpreted in other ways.
