page_title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
section_title: Hellenistic era
hierarchical_section_title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom) / History / Hellenistic era
caption_attribution_description: English: Antigonos III Doson. 229-221 BC. AR Tetradrachm (31mm, 17.05 g, 12h). Amphipolis mint(?). Struck circa 227-225 BC. Wreathed head of Poseidon right / Apollo seated left on prow left, holding bow; monogram below.
context_page_description: Macedonia, also called Macedon, was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.
  Before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom outside of the area dominated by the great city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and briefly subordinate to Achaemenid Persia. During the reign of the Argead king Philip II, Macedonia subdued mainland Greece and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom through conquest and diplomacy. With a reformed army containing phalanxes wielding the sarissa pike, Philip II defeated the old powers of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC.
context_section_description: The beginning of Hellenistic Greece was defined by the struggle between the Antipatrid dynasty, led first by Cassander (r. 305–297 BC), son of Antipater, and the Antigonid dynasty, led by the Macedonian general Antigonus I Monophthalmus (r. 306–301 BC) and his son, the future king Demetrius I (r. 294–288 BC). Cassander besieged Athens in 303 BC, but was forced to retreat to Macedonia when Demetrius invaded Boeotia to his rear, attempting to sever his path of retreat. While Antigonus and Demetrius attempted to recreate Philip II's Hellenic league with themselves as dual hegemons, a revived coalition of Cassander, Ptolemy I Soter (r. 305–283 BC) of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty, Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305–281 BC) of the Seleucid Empire, and Lysimachus (r. 306–281 BC), King of Thrace, defeated the Antigonids at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, killing Antigonus and forcing Demetrius into flight.
  Cassander died in 297 BC, and his sickly son Philip IV died the same year, succeeded by Cassander's other sons Alexander V of Macedon (r. 297–294 BC) and Antipater II of Macedon (r. 297–294 BC), with their mother Thessalonike of Macedon acting as regent. While Demetrius fought against the Antipatrid forces in Greece, Antipater II killed his own mother to obtain power. His desperate brother Alexander V then requested aid from Pyrrhus of Epirus (r. 297–272 BC), who had fought alongside Demetrius at the Battle of Ipsus, but was sent to Egypt as a hostage as part of an agreement between Demetrius and Ptolemy I. In exchange for defeating the forces of Antipater II and forcing him to flee to the court of Lysimachus in Thrace, Pyrrhus was awarded the westernmost portions of the Macedonian kingdom. Demetrius had his nephew Alexander V assassinated and was then proclaimed king of Macedonia, but his subjects protested against his aloof, Eastern-style autocracy.
  War broke out between Pyrrhus and Demetrius in 290 BC when Lanassa, wife of Pyrrhus, daughter of Agathocles of Syracuse, left him for Demetrius and offered him her dowry of Corcyra. The war dragged on until 288 BC, when Demetrius lost the support of the Macedonians and fled the country. Macedonia was then divided between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus, the former taking western Macedonia and the latter eastern Macedonia. By 286 BC, Lysimachus had expelled Pyrrhus and his forces from Macedonia. In 282 BC, a new war erupted between Seleucus I and Lysimachus; the latter was killed in the Battle of Corupedion, allowing Seleucus I to take control of Thrace and Macedonia. In two dramatic reversals of fortune, Seleucus I was assassinated in 281 BC by his officer Ptolemy Keraunos, son of Ptolemy I and grandson of Antipater, who was then proclaimed king of Macedonia before being killed in battle in 279 BC by Celtic invaders in the Gallic invasion of Greece. The Macedonian army proclaimed the general Sosthenes of Macedon as king, although he apparently refused the title. After defeating the Gallic ruler Bolgios and driving out the raiding party of Brennus, Sosthenes died and left a chaotic situation in Macedonia. The Gallic invaders ravaged Macedonia until Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius, defeated them in Thrace at the 277 BC Battle of Lysimachia and was then proclaimed king Antigonus II of Macedon (r. 277–274, 272–239 BC).
  In 280 BC, Pyrrhus embarked on a campaign in Magna Graecia (i.e. southern Italy) against the Roman Republic known as the Pyrrhic War, followed by his invasion of Sicily. Ptolemy Keraunos secured his position on the Macedonian throne by giving Pyrrhus five thousand soldiers and twenty war elephants for this endeavor. Pyrrhus returned to Epirus in 275 BC after the ultimate failure of both campaigns, which contributed to the rise of Rome because Greek cities in southern Italy such as Tarentum now became Roman allies. Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia in 274 BC, defeating the largely mercenary army of Antigonus II at the 274 BC Battle of Aous and driving him out of Macedonia, forcing him to seek refuge with his naval fleet in the Aegean.
  Pyrrhus lost much of his support among the Macedonians in 27
caption: A tetradrachm minted during the reign of Antigonus III Doson (r. 229–221 BC), possibly at Amphipolis, bearing the portrait image of Poseidon on the obverse and on the reverse a scene depicting Apollo sitting on the prow of a ship
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