The death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. was followed by a lengthy struggle for succession, with infighting among the key, powerful suitors. In the end, it was this internal strife that sealed the demise of the Empire.  These hopeful successors included Cassandros, Lisimahos, Antigonos, Antipatros, Ptolemy and Seleukos.  Each man was given responsibility over a region of the divided Empire, but continued to fight amongst themselves for the next twenty-plus years, until the Battle of Ipsos in 301 B.C.  This battle is what led to the final splitting of the Empire and who would rule over what region.

•    Cassandro became king of Macedonia
•    Lisimahos became king of Thrace and Asia Minor
•    Syria fell under the rule of Seleukos
•    Egypt was led by Ptolemy

Abandoned was the time of the city-states, now having monarchies prevailing in these provinces. One positive result of all this was the consolidation of the Hellenic and Alexandrian languages becoming the official language of the Eastern Mediterranean.    

During this Hellenistic period, and after the creation of the four mini-empires, city-states were weakened and joined confederacies.  Aetolian and Achaean emerged as the two strongest confederacies and sought to play a role in Greece’s later political structure.  Later that century, these two confederacy powers would engage in a quasi-civil war (227-217 B.C.), with armies form both sides fighting each other.  In addition, they actively participated in a turmoil that led to the Macedonian Wars, which bled out the 2nd century B.C. and found the Romans as the victors.  With the Romans winning the Macedonian Wars, this marked the end of the Macedonian continuity and the beginning of the Roman Era in Greece.