1. King of Macedonia, and son of Antipater, was 35 years old before his father's death, if
we may trust an incidental notice to that effect in Athenaeus, and must, therefore, have been
born in or before B. C. 354. (Athen.
1.18a.; Droysen, Gesch. der Nachfolger Alexanders, p. 256.) His
first appearance in history is on the occasion of his being sent from Macedonia to Alexander, then in Babylon, to defend his father
against his accusers : here, according to Plutarch (Plut. Alex.
74), Cassander was so struck by the sight, to him new, of the Persian ceremonial of
prostration, that he could not restrain his laughter, and the king, incensed at his rudeness,
is said to have seized him by the hair and dashed his head against the wall. Allowing for some
exaggeration in this story, it is certain that he met with some treatment from Alexander which left on his mind an indelible
impression of terror and hatred,--a feeling which perhaps nearly as much as ambition urged him
afterwards to the destruction of the royal family. The story which ascribed Alexander's death to poison [see pp. 201, 320],
spoke also of Cassander as the person who brought the deadly water to Babylon. With respect to
the satrapy of Caria, which is said by Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius to have been given to
Cassander among the arrangements of B. C. 323, the confusion between
the names Cassander and Asander is pointed out in p. 379a. (Comp. Diod.
18.68.) On Polysperchon's being appointed to succeed Antipater in the regency,
Cassander was confirmed in the secondary dignity of Chiliarch (see Wess. ad
Diod. 18.48; Philolog. Mus. 1.380),--an office which had previously
been conferred on him by his father, that he might serve as a check on Antigonus, when (B. C. 321) the latter was entrusted by Antipater with the command of the
forces against Eumienes. Being, however, dissatisfied with this arrangement, he strengthened
himself by an alliance with Ptolemy Lagi and Antigonus, and entered into war with
Polysperchon. For the operations of the contending parties at Athens in B.
C. 318, sec p. 125b. The failure of Polysperchon at Megalopolis, in the same year, had
the effect of bringing over most of the Greek states to Cassander, and Athens also surrendered
to him, on condition that she should keep her city, territory, revenues, and ships, only
continuing the ally of the conqueror, who should be allowed to retain Munychia till the end of
the war. He at the same time settled the Athenian constitution by establishing 10 minae (half
the sum that had been appointed by Antipater) as the qualification for the full rights of
citizenship (see Böckh, Publ. Econ. of Athens, 1.7, 4.3); and the
union of clemency and energy which his general conduct exhibited, is said to have procured him
many adherents. While, however, he was successfully advancing his cause in the south,
intelligence reached him that Eurydice and her husband Arrhidaeus had fallen
victims to the vengeance of Olympias, who had also murdered Cassander's brother Nicanor,
together with 100 of his principal friends, and had even torn from its tomb the corpse of
Iollas, another brother of his, by whom she asserted (the story being now probably propagated
for the first time), that Alexander had been
poisoned. Cassander immediately raised the siege of Tegea, in which he was engaged, and
hastened with all speed into Macedonia, though he thereby left the Peloponnesus open to
Polysperchon's son [ALEXANDER], and cutting off from Olympias all
hope of aid from Polysperchon and Aeacides [CALAS, ATARRHIAS], besieged her in Pydna throughout the winter of B. C. 317. In the spring of the ensuing year she was obliged to
surrender, and Cassander shortly after caused her to be put to death in defiance of his
positive agreement. The way now seemed open to him to the throne of Macedon, and in
furtherance of the attainment of this object of his ambition, he placed Roxana and her young
son, Alexander Aegus, in custody at Amphipolis, not thinking it safe as yet to murder them,
and ordered that they should no longer be treated as royal persons. He also connected himself
with the regal family by a marriage with Thessalonica, half-sister to Alexander the Great, in
whose honour he founded, probably in 316, the town which bore her name; and to the same time,
perhaps, we may refer the foundation of Cassandreia in Pallene, so called after himself.
(Strab. Exc. c Lib. vii. p. 330.) Returning now to the south, he stopped
in Boeotia and began the restoration of Thebes in the 20th year after its destruction by
Alexander (B. C. 315), a measure highly popular with the Greeks, and
not least so at Athens, besides being a mode of venting his hatred against Alexander's memory.
(Comp. Paus. 9.7; Plut. Polit. Praec. 100.17;
for the date see also Polem. up. Athen. i. p. 19c.; Casaub. ad loc.; Clinton, Fasti, ii. p. 174.) Thence advancing
into the Peloponnesus, he retook most of the towns which the son of Polysperchon had gained in
his absence; and soon after he succeeded also in attaching Polysperchon himself and Alexander
to his cause, and withdrawing them from that of Antigonus, against whom a strong coalition had
been formed. [See pp. 126, a, 187, b.] But in B. C. 313, Antigonus
contrived, by holding out to them the prospect of independence, to detach from Cassander all
the Greek cities where he had garrisons, except Corinth and Sicyon, in which Polysperchon and
Cratesipolis (Alexander's widow) still maintained their ground; and in the further operations
of the war Cassander's cause continued to decline till the hollow peace of 311, by one of the
terms of which he was to retain his authority in Europe till Alexander Aegus should be grown
to manhood, while it was likewise provided that all Greek states should be independent. In the
same year Cassainder made one more step towards the throne, by the murder of the young king
and his mother Roxana. In B. C. 310, the war was renewed, and
Polysperchon, who once more appears in opposition to Cassander, advanced against him with
Hercules, the son of Alexander the Great and Barsine, whom, acting probably under instructions
from Antigonus, he had put forward as a claimant to the crown; but, being a man apparently
with all the unscrupulous cruelty of Cassander without his talent and decision, he was bribed
by the latter, who promised him among other things the government of the Peloponnesus, to
murder the young prince and his mother, B. C. 309. [BARSINE, No. 1.] At this time the only places held by Cassander in
Greece were Athens, Corinth, and Sicyon, the two latter of which were betrayed to Ptolemy by
Cratesipolis, in B. C. 308; and in 307, Athens was recovered by
Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, from Demetrius the Phalerean, who had held it for Cassander
from B. C. 313, with the specious title of " Guardian" (ἐπιμελητής). In B. C. 306, when
Antigonus, Lysimachus, and Ptolemy took the name of king, Cassander was saluted with the same
title by his subjects, though according to Plutarch (Plut. Demetr.
18) he did not assume it himself in his letters. During the siege of Rhodes by
Demetrius in 305, Cassander sent supplies to the besieged, and took advantage of Demetrius
being thus employed to assail again the Grecian cities, occupying Corinth with a garrison
under Prepelaus, and laying siege to Athens. But, in B. C. 304,
Demetrius having concluded a peace with the Rhodians, obliged him to raise the siege and to
retreat to the north, whither, having made himself master of southern Greece, he advanced
against him. Cassander first endeavoured to obtain peace by an application to Antigonus, and
then failing in this, he induced Lysimachus to effect a diversion by carrying the war into
Asia against Antigonus, and sent also to Seleucus and Ptolemy for assistance. Meanwhile
Demetrius, with far superior forces remained unaccountably inactive in Thessaly, till, being
summoned to his father's aid, he concluded a hasty treaty with Cassander, providing nominally
for the independence of all Greek cities, and passed into Asia, B. C.
302. In the next year, 301, the decisive battle of Ipsus, in which Antigonus and
Demetrius were defeated and the former slain, relieved Cassander from his chief cause of
apprehension. After the battle, the four kings (Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander, and Lysimachus)
divided among them the dominions of Antigonus as well as what they already possessed ; and in
this division Macedonia and Greece were assigned to Cassander. (Comp. Daniel. viii.; Plb. 5.67; App. Bell. Syr. p. 122, ad fin.) To B. C. 299 or 298, we must refer Cassander's
invasion of Corcyra, which had remained free since its deliverance by Demetrius, B. C. 303, from the Spartan adventurer Cleonynmus (comp. Liv. 10.2; Diod. 20.105), and which may
perhaps have been ceded to Cassander as a set-off against Demetrius' occupation of Cilicia,
from which he had driven Cassander's brother Pleistarchus. The island, however, was delivered
by Agathocles of Syracuse, who compelled Cassander to withdraw from it. In B. C. 298, we find him carrying on his intrigues in southern Greece, and assailing
Athens and Elatea in Phocis, which were successfully defended by Olympiodorus, the Athenian,
with assistance from the Aetolians. Not being able therefore to succeed by force of arms,
Cassander encouraged Lachares to seize the tyranny of Athens, whence however Demetrius
expelled him; and Cassander's plans were cut short by his death, which was caused by dropsy in
the autumn of B. C. 297, as Droysen places it ; Cünton refers
it to 296. (Diod. xviii.--xx. xxi. Exc. 2; Plut. Phocion,
Pyrrhus, Demetrius; Just. xii.__xv.; Arrian, Arr. Anab. 7.27; Paus. 1.25, 26, 10.34; Droysen, Gesch. der Nachf. Alexanders ; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. vii.) It will have appeared from the above account that there
was no act, however cruel and atrocious, from which Cassander ever shrunk where the objects he
had in view required it; and yet this man of blood, this ruthless and unscrupulous murderer,
was at the same time a man of refinement and of cultivated literary tastes,--one who could
feel the beauties of Homer, and who knew his poems by heart. (Caryst. apud Athen. xiv. p. 620b.) For a sketch of his character, eloquently drawn, see Droysen, pp.
256, 257. The head on the obverse of the annexed coin of Cassander is that of Hercules.