page_title: List of ancient great powers
section_title: Macedonia
hierarchical_section_title: List of ancient great powers / Ancient Europe / Ancient Greece / Macedonia
caption_attribution_description: Restitution du décor polychrome du sarcophage dit d'Alexandre, provenant de la nécropole royale de Sidon, représentant la bataille d'Issos. Etude&#160;: Vinzenze Brinkmann et Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann. Stéréolithographie&#160;: Alphaform, Munich. Restauration des parties manquantes&#160;: Joseph Kotti, Sylvia Kellner. Peinture&#160;: Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann. Original&#160;: Musée national archéologique d'Istanbul. Exposition «&#160;Bunte Götter&#160;» dans la version montrée à Athènes. Colour-adjusted version
context_page_description: Recognized great powers came about first in Europe during the post-Napoleonic era. The formalization of the division between small powers and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. A great power is a nation or state that, through its great economic, political and military strength, is able to exert power and influence over not only its own region of the world, but beyond to others.
  The historical terms "Great Nation", a distinguished aggregate of people inhabiting a particular country or territory, and "Great Empire", a considerable group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, are colloquial conversations.
  3000 BC – 476 AD
context_section_description: Macedon was the name of an ancient kingdom in the northernmost part of ancient Greece, bordering Epirus to the west and the ancient thracian Odrysian kingdom to the east. For a brief period it became the most powerful state in the world after Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, including the entire Achaemenid Empire, inaugurating the Hellenistic period of Greek history.
  The rise of Macedon, from a small kingdom at the periphery of Classical Greek affairs, to one which came to dominate the entire Hellenic world (and beyond), occurred in the space of just 25 years, between 359–336 BC. This ascendancy is largely attributable to the personality and policies of Philip II of Macedon. Philip's military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian greatness brought him early success. He had however first to re-establish a situation which had been greatly worsened by the defeat against the Illyrians in which King Perdiccas himself had died. The Paionians and the Thracians had sacked and invaded the eastern regions of the country, while the Athenians had landed, at Methoni on the coast, a contingent under a Macedonian pretender called Argeus. Using diplomacy, Philip pushed back Paionians and Thracians promising tributes, and crushed the 3,000 Athenian hoplites (359). Momentarily free from his opponents, he concentrated on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army. His most important innovation was doubtless the introduction of the phalanx infantry corps, armed with the famous sarissa, an exceedingly long spear, at the time the most important army corps in Macedonia.
  
  Philip's son, Alexander the Great, managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states, but also to the Persian empire, including Egypt and lands as far east as the fringes of India. Alexander's adoption of the styles of government of the conquered territories was accompanied by the spread of Greek culture and learning through his vast empire. Although the empire fractured into multiple Hellenic regimes shortly after his death, his conquests left a lasting legacy, not least in the new Greek-speaking cities founded across Persia's western territories, heralding the Hellenistic period. In the partition of Alexander's empire among the Diadochi, Macedonia fell to the Antipatrid dynasty, which was overthrown by the Antigonid dynasty after only a few years.
caption: Polychrome decoration of the Alexander Sarcophagus.
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