Source that indicates that Alexander the Great was not a king of Ancient Greece but him as his father conquered ancient Greece  and not only    and originally was not Greek     Philip II of Macedonia ruled from  BCE Without the military and political efforts of Philip Alexander would never have been as successful as he was According to Bosworth Philips work with the Macedonian army and establishment of alliances with the Balkan peoples gave both himself and Alexander the resources necessary to carry out such conquests    Philips military zenith was at the battle at Chaeronea in August of  BCE Philips army was greatly outnumbered by the Athenian and Theban forces yet his phalanxes overwhelmed the Athenians and Thebans Athens and Thebes were forced to become subjects of Philip and Macedonia leaving Sparta as the only Greek state not under Macedonian control    The area from which Olympias came was considered barbaric and her practice of Dionysian rituals did little to convince Philip and other Macedonians otherwiseAlexander then moved Olympias back to Epirus and he went to Illyria    The next day Alexanders general Perdiccas attacked the gates Arrian claims that he did so before Alexander gave a signal Diodorus says that the signal had been given Regardless the battle had begun Perdiccas broke through and into the city an d Alexander moved the rest of his force in behind to prevent the Thebans from cutting Perdiccas off from the rest The Macedonians then stormed the city killing almost everyone in sight women and children included They plundered sacked burned and r azed Thebes as an example to the rest of Greece  By making the military a fulltime occupation Philip was able to drill his men regularly building unity and cohesion within the army Alexander fought with the finest military machine that Asia or Greece had ever seen primarily because of the amount of time and effort spent on maneuvers  Link suggested  by Alexander the Great World Encyclopedia Philips  Oxford Reference Online