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The Settlement of Triparadisus was a second attempt to distribute power after the death of Alexander the Great. The first agreement, made at Babylon in 323 BC, had quickly collapsed and open warfare had followed (First Diadoch War). This saw two of the three most important of the successors killed, Perdiccas murdered by his troops and Craterus killed in battle. Only the aging Antipater remained of the triumvirate who had held supreme authority in 323.
At Triparadisus he took over their duties, making him the sole unifying figure in the empire. He also took possession of the two kings, Alexander’s half-brother Arrhidaios and infant son Alexander, taking them back to Macedonia after the meeting. Eumenes, who had been a key support of Perdiccas, was stripped of his satrapy of Cappadocia (in absence), and Antigonus appointed to command the Macedonia army in Asia, with the job of capturing Eumenes.
The majority of the satraps remained in place. Ptolemy was already secure in Egypt, Antigonus was restored to his satrapies in Asia Minor and Lysimachus retained Thrace. The most notable new appointment at Triparadisus was that of Seleucus, a former cavalry commander under Alexander, as satrap of Babylon.
The new arrangements at Triparadisus marked an important turning point in the wars of the successors. While the two kings had remained in Asia, they provided some focus of loyalty for those who still shared Alexander’s vision of a merger of east and west. Once they were back in Macedonia, that focus was gone. Within ten years the kings would be murdered, but the idea of a single united empire had already died.