s assisted by the operation of two
battering-rams, each 150 feet long and propelled by the labour of 1000
men, the Rhodians were so active in repairing the breaches made in
their walls, that, after a year spent in the vain attempt to take the
town, Demetrius was forced to retire and grant the Rhodians peace.

In 301 B.C., the struggle between Antigonus and his rivals was brought
to a close by the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, in which Antigonus was
killed, and his army completely defeated. He had attained the age of
81 at the time of his death. A third partition of the empire of
Alexander was now made. Seleucus and Lysimachus shared between them
the possessions of Antigonus. Lysimachus seems to have had the greater
part of Asia Minor, whilst the whole country from the coast of Syria to
the Euphrates, as well as a part of Phrygia and Cappadocia, fell to the
share of Seleucus. The latter founded on the Orontes a new capital of
his empire, which he named Antioch, after his father Antiochus, and
which long continued to be one of the most important Greek cities in
Asia. The fall of Antigonus secured Cassander in the possession of
Greece.

Demetrius was now a fugitive, but in the following year he was
agreeably surprised by receiving an embassy from Seleucus, by which
that monarch solicited his daughter Stratonice in marriage. Demetrius
gladly granted the request, and found himself so much strengthened by
this alliance, that in the spring of the year 296 he was in a condition
to attack Athens, which he captured after a long siege, and drove out
the bloodthirsty tyrant Lachares, who had been established there by
Cassander.

Meanwhile Cassander had died shortly before the siege of Athens, and
was succeeded on the throne of Macedon by his eldest son, Philip IV.
[Philip Arrhidaeus is called Philip III.] But that young prince died in
295, and the succession was disputed between his two brothers,
Antipater and Alexander. Demetrius availed himself of the distracted
state of Macedonia to make himself master of that country (B.C. 294).
He reigned over Macedonia, and the greater part of Greece, about seven
years. He aimed at recovering the whole of his father's dominions in
Asia; but before he was ready to take the field, his adversaries,
alarmed at his preparations, determined to forestall him. In the
spring of B.C. 287 Ptolemy sent a powerful fleet against Greece, while
Pyrrhus on the one side and Lysimachus on the other sim