The title of this book is a bit misleading. Rather than concentrating on Antigonus Gonatas’ career, it is concerned with Greek history of the third century BC, particularly of mainland Greece, while Antigonus Gonatas is embedded as one of the important political actors who crossed the Greeks’ paths during this age. Thus, the Macedonian king serves as “a good lens . . . through which to view this period of Greek history” (p. xii). In consequence, the book discusses Antigonus Gonatas less than the title suggests: the narrative starts to focus on the protagonist only in the second half of the book, starting with chapter 6.

When Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, chaos soon emerged in all corners of his new empire. While several kings from different dynasties ruled Macedonia in the decades after his death, it was not until the reign of Antigonus Gonatas (276–239), the next in line in the Antigonid dynasty, that Macedonia went through a visionary process of reformation and modernization. Unfortunately, this is a story not often told. When students think of Greek history, they tend to think of cities like Athens and Sparta and persons like Leonidas and Pericles, and not the achievements of regents and generals in the Hellenistic world.

The book under review therefore addresses an urgent need. It is the third installment in an unintended trilogy on the Hellenistic period written by Robin Waterfield, the two first being Dividing the Spoils (2012), which focusses on the successors of Alexander, and Taken at the Flood (2014), which addresses the Roman conquest of Greece. Waterfield’s purpose in this new study is “to open up even for general readers an obscure period of ancient Greek history,” since “no one has tried to pull it all together in a single volume” (xi). As the title suggests, Waterfield uses Antigonus Gonatas (ca. 320–239 BCE) as a way into the third century, thus ending up with a great biography of a pivotal figure in the Antigonid dynasty and the historical period in which he operated.