Alexander IV

The end of the Argead dynasty

Alexander IV was the posthumous son of Alexander the Great and Roxana. Alongside Philip III Arrhidaeus, he was recognized as joint ruler of the fractured empire while still an infant, serving as a symbolic figurehead under the control of regents and rival generals. Like his nominal co-ruler, he never visited Egypt, though his royal name was incorporated into local temple inscriptions. His brief reign came to a tragic end in 310 or 309 BCE when he and his mother were murdered on the orders of Cassander, completely extinguishing the Argead royal bloodline and paving the way for Ptolemy to establish his own independent dynasty.

A treaty that marked him for death

After Alexander's grandmother Olympias was killed in 316 BCE, Cassander kept Alexander IV and Roxana imprisoned at Amphipolis, and a 311 BCE peace treaty among the rival Macedonian generals formally confirmed the boy's kingship once he came of age. That very clause turned him into a liability: as Alexander approached the age at which the treaty said he should actually begin to rule, Cassander had him and Roxana quietly killed, reportedly by an agent named Glaucias, in the spring of 310 BCE. Their deaths were kept secret for months and only became publicly known that summer, by which point the Diadochi were already free to carve up Alexander the Great's empire as kings in their own right rather than regents for his line.