[10] The stability of Ariarathes's territory enabled him to send provincial troops with Artaxerxes III on the Achaemenid campaign to pacify Egypt.

[13] Defensive efforts were hampered by losses such as the death of Mithrobuzanes, governor of the southern Cappadocian satrapy, who was killed at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BC.

[15] Cappadocia continued to be an important focal point of Achaemenid resistance and was also used as a staging area for a campaign to retake western Anatolia.

[16] Fortunately for Ariarathes, his territory was largely unaffected by the invasion and he was able to establish himself as a key figure leading the resistance,[17] and subsequently commanded troops at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC.

[21] He then turned to Perdiccas, regent of the incumbent Macedonian ruler Philip III Arrhidaeus (r. 323–317 BC), who, needing to bring more loyal governors to his side, agreed to assist Eumenes in capturing Ariarathes's domain.

[23] Ariarathes, who was reputed to be quite wealthy, apparently managed to muster a force composed of locals and mercenaries to face Perdiccas,[24] but was defeated and captured.

[31] The Iranologist Mary Boyce and the historian Frantz Grenet note that the Zeus-like depiction of a seated Baal could actually be portraying the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda or Mithra.

[35] A few years after the death of Ariarathes I, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, a former general of Alexander, executed Eumenes and seized control of Cappadocia.

[36] Control of the region then passed to Lysimachus (r. 306–281 BC), King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon, but was captured thereafter by Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305–281), Basileus of the Seleucid Empire,[37] both of whom were Diadochi ("successors") of Alexander.