After Alexanders death, his empire was up for grabs, he died after saying “the empire goes to the strongest”. Historians say that he might have said this because he was obsessed with conquest, and he wanted his heir to continue on in his path. He wanted his best general to rule because he knew that other empires were coming for his spoils. He couldn’t have expected that his empire was going to fracture into so many pieces that it did. Alexander officially died in Babylon in June of 328 BCE, four of his close generals/ body guards took control of his lands they were Lysimachus, Cassander, Ptolemy and Seleucus. Lysimachus took Thrace and much of Asia Minor; Cassander in joint rule with his father, took Macedonia and Greece; Ptolemy seized Egypt, Palestine, Cilicia, Petra, and Cyprus (thus beginnng the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt which lasted until the death of Cleopatra VII in 31 BCE) while Seleucus took control of the rest of Asia (so founding the Seleucid Empire which was comprised of Syria, Babylon, Persia, and India).