Antipater Antipater ( ; ; c . 397 BC – 319 BC ) was a Macedonian general and a supporter of kings Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great . In 320 BC , he became regent of all of Alexander ' s Empire . Antipater was one of the sons of a Macedonian nobleman called Iollas or Iolaus and his family were distant collateral relatives to the Argead dynasty . Antipater was originally from the Macedonian city of Paliura ; had a brother called Cassander ; was the paternal uncle of Cassander ’ s child Antigone and was the maternal great uncle of Berenice I of Egypt . Antipater had ten children from various unknown wives . His daughters were : Phila , Eurydice of Egypt and Nicaea of Macedon , while his sons were : Iollas , Cassander , Pleistarchus , Phillip , Nicanor , Alexarchus and Triparadeisus . Career under Philip and Alexander . Nothing is known of his early career until 342 BC , when he was appointed by Philip to govern Macedon as his regent while the former left for three years of hard and successful campaigning against Thracian and Scythia ns tribes , which extended Macedonian rule as far as the Hellespont . In 342 BC , when the Athenians tried to assume control of the Euboean towns and expel the pro - Macedonian rulers , he sent Macedonian troops to stop them . In the autumn of the same year , Antipater went to Delphi , as Philip ' s representative in the Amphictyonic League , a religious organization to which Macedon had been admitted in 346 BC . After the triumphal Macedonian victory at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC , Antipater was sent as ambassador to Athens ( 337 – 336 BC ) to negotiate a peace treaty and return the bones of the Athenians who had fallen in the battle . He started as a great friend to both the young Alexander and the boy ' s mother , Olympias ; there were even rumours that he was Alexander ' s father . He aided Alexander in the struggle to secure his succession after Philip ' s death , in 336 BC . He joined Parmenion in advising Alexander the Great not to set out on his Asiatic expedition until he had provided by marriage for the succession to the throne . On the king ' s departure in 334 BC , he was left regent in Macedonia and made " general ( " strategos " ) of Europe " , positions he held until 323 BC . The European front was to prove initially quite agitated , and Antipater also had to send reinforcements to the king , as he did while the king was at Gordium in the winter of 334 – 333 BC . The Persian fleet under Memnon of Rhodes and Pharnabazus was apparently a considerable danger for Antipater , bringing war in the Aegean sea and threatening war in Europe . Luckily for the regent , Memnon died during the siege of Mytilene on the isle of Lesbos and the remaining fleet dispersed in 333 BC , after Alexander ' s victory at the Battle of Issus . More dangerous enemies were nearer home ; tribes in Thrace rebelled in 332 BC , led by Memnon of Thrace , the Macedonian governor of the region , followed shortly by the revolt of Agis III , king of Sparta . The Spartans , who were not members of the League of Corinth and had not participated in Alexander ' s expedition , saw in the Asian campaign the long - awaited chance to take back control over the Peloponnese after the disastrous defeats at the Battle of Leuctra and Battle of Mantinea . The Persians generously funded Sparta ' s ambitions , making possible the formation of an army 20 , 000 strong . After assuming virtual control of Crete , Agis tried to build an anti - Macedonian front . While Athens remained neutral , the Achaea ns , Arcadians and Elis became his allies , with the important exception of Megalopolis , the staunchly anti - Spartan capital of Arcadia . Agis started in 331 BC to besiege the city with his entire army , generating great alarm in Macedon . So to not have two enemies simultaneously , Antipater pardoned Memnon and even let him keep his office in Thrace , while great sums of money were sent him by Alexander . This helped to create , with Thessalian help and many mercenaries , a force double that of Agis , which Antipater in person led south in 330 BC to confront the Spartans . In the spring of that year , the two armies clashed near Megalopolis . Agis fell with many of his best soldiers , but not without inflicting heavy losses on the Macedonians . Utterly defeated , the Spartans sued for peace ; the latter ' s answer was to negotiate directly with the League of Corinth , but the Spartan emissaries preferred to treat directly with Alexander , who imposed on Sparta ' s allies a penalty of 120 talents and the entrance of Sparta in the league . Alexander appears to have been quite jealous of Antipater ' s victory ; according to Plutarch , the king wrote in a letter to his viceroy : " It seems , my friends that while we have been conquering Darius here , there has been a battle of mice in Arcadia " . Antipater was disliked for supporting oligarchs and tyrant s in Greece , but he also worked with the League of Corinth , built by Philip . In addition , his previously close relationship with the ambitious Olympias greatly deteriorated . Whether from jealousy or from the necessity of guarding against the evil consequences of the dissension between Olympias and Antipater , in 324 BC , Alexander ordered the latter to lead fresh troops into Asia , while Craterus , in charge of discharged veterans returning home , was appointed to take over the regency in Macedon . When Alexander suddenly died in Babylon in 323 BC however , Antipater was able to forestall the transfer of power . The fight for succession . The new regent , Perdiccas , left Antipater in control of Greece . Antipater faced revolts in Athens , Aetolia , and Thessaly that made up the Lamian War , in which southern Greeks attempted to re - assert their independence . He defeated them at the Battle of Crannon in 322 BC , with Craterus ' help , and broke up the rebellion . As part of this he imposed oligarchy upon Athens and demanded the surrender of Demosthenes , who committed suicide to escape capture . Later in the same year Antipater and Craterus were engaged in a war against the Aetolians when he received the news from Antigonus in Asia Minor that Perdiccas contemplated making himself outright ruler of the empire . Antipater and Craterus accordingly conclude peace with the Aetolians and went to war against Perdiccas , allying themselves with Ptolemy , the satrap of Egypt . Antipater crossed over to Asia in 321 BC . While still in Syria , he received information that Perdiccas had been murdered by his own soldiers . Craterus fell in battle against Eumenes ( Diodorus xviii . 25 - 39 ) . Regent of the Empire . In the treaty of Triparadisus ( 321 BC ) Antipater participated in a new division of Alexander ' s great kingdom . He appointed himself supreme regent of all Alexander ' s empire and was left in control of Greece as guardian of Alexander ' s son Alexander IV and brother Philip III . Having quelled a mutiny of his troops and commissioned Antigonus to continue the war against Eumenes and the other partisans of Perdiccas , Antipater returned to Macedonia , arriving there in 320 BC ( Justin xiii . 6 ) . Soon after , he was seized by an illness which terminated his active career , and died , leaving the regency to the aged Polyperchon , passing over his son Cassander , a measure which gave rise to much confusion and ill - feeling . Alexander ' s assassin ? Though the debate surrounding the cause of Alexander ' s sudden death has never been clearly resolved , all of our ancient sources — even those who reject the notion of murder and assign the death to natural causes — mention that rumours abounded in the late fourth century BC that Antipater had been responsible for poisoning the great king . Shortly before Alexander ' s demise , Antipater ' s position had recently come under threat , as Alexander ' s mother Olympias had been writing to her son that Antipater was fomenting unrest and disloyalty in Macedon . Alexander had summoned him to Babylon to answer these charges , but , citing his fear of an uprising in Greece , he had sent his son Cassander in his place . Cassander — so the rumour goes — then had his younger brother Iollas , Alexander ' s butler , poison the king . Plutarch , who does not believe that Alexander was murdered , cites as the authority behind these rumours one Hagnothemis , who overheard Antigonus discuss the matter . Literary works . Antipater was a student of Aristotle and Aristotle named him as executor - in - charge of his will , when he died in 322 BC . According to Suidas , Antipater left a compilation of letters in 2 books and a history , called " The Illyrian Deeds of Perdikkas " . ( " Περδίκκου πράξεις Ιλλυριακαί " )