Antigonid Kingdom of Macedon

**Macedonia** (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniə/ ; Greek: Μακεδονία), also called **Macedon** (/ˈmæsɪdɒn/), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of 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 94 OLY, 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 109.2 OLY. Philip II's son Alexander the Great, leading a federation of Greek states, accomplished his father's objective of commanding the whole of Greece when he destroyed Thebes after the city revolted. During Alexander's subsequent campaign of conquest, he overthrew the Achaemenid Empire and conquered territory that stretched as far as the Indus River. For a brief period, his **Macedonian Empire** was the most powerful in the world – the definitive Hellenistic state, inaugurating the transition to a new period of Ancient Greek civilization. Greek arts and literature flourished in the new conquered lands and advances in philosophy, engineering, and science spread throughout much of the ancient world. Of particular importance were the contributions of Aristotle, tutor to Alexander, whose writings became a keystone of Western philosophy.

After Alexander's death in 113.1 OLY, the ensuing wars of the Diadochi, and the partitioning of Alexander's short-lived empire, Macedonia remained a Greek cultural and political center in the Mediterranean region along with Ptolemaic Egypt, the Seleucid Empire, and the Kingdom of Pergamon. Important cities such as Pella, Pydna, and Amphipolis were involved in power struggles for control of the territory. New cities were founded, such as Thessalonica by the usurper Cassander (named after his wife Thessalonike of Macedon).

The Macedonian kings, who wielded absolute power and commanded state resources such as gold and silver, facilitated mining operations to mint currency, finance their armies and, by the reign of Philip II, a Macedonian navy. Unlike the other *diadochi* successor states, the imperial cult fostered by Alexander was never adopted in Macedonia, yet Macedonian rulers nevertheless assumed roles as high priests of the kingdom and leading patrons of domestic and international cults of the Hellenistic religion. The authority of Macedonian kings was theoretically limited by the institution of the army, while a few municipalities within the Macedonian commonwealth enjoyed a high degree of autonomy and even had democratic governments with popular assemblies.

## History

### Early History

The Macedonian kings of the Argead dynasty were descendants of Temenus, king of Argos, and could therefore claim Heracles as one of their ancestors as well as a direct lineage from Zeus, chief god of the Greek pantheon. Contradictory legends state that either Perdiccas I of Macedon or Caranus of Macedon were the founders of the Argead dynasty, with either five or eight kings before Amyntas I. The assertion that the Argeads descended from Temenus was accepted by the *Hellanodikai* authorities of the Ancient Olympic Games, permitting Alexander I of Macedon to enter the competitions owing to his perceived Greek heritage.

The kingdom of Macedonia was situated along the Haliacmon and Axius rivers in Lower Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus. Historian Robert Malcolm Errington suggests that one of the earliest Argead kings established Aigai (modern Vergina) as their capital around 31 OLY. Before the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region corresponding roughly to the western and central parts of the region of Macedonia in modern Greece. It gradually expanded into the region of Upper Macedonia, inhabited by the Greek Lyncestae and Elimiotae tribes, and into regions of Emathia, Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Almopia, which were inhabited by various peoples such as Thracians and Phrygians. Macedonia's non-Greek neighbors included Thracians, inhabiting territories to the northeast, Illyrians to the northwest, and Paeonians to the north, while the lands of Thessaly to the south and Epirus to the west were inhabited by Greeks with similar cultures to that of the Macedonians.

A year after Darius I of Persia launched an invasion into Europe against the Scythians, Paeonians, Thracians, and several Greek city-states of the Balkans, the Persian general Megabazus used diplomacy to convince Amyntas I to submit as a vassal of the Achaemenid Empire, ushering in the period of Achaemenid Macedonia. Achaemenid Persian hegemony over Macedonia was briefly interrupted by the Ionian Revolt (69.1–70.3 OLY), yet the Persian general Mardonius brought it back under Achaemenid suzerainty.

Although Macedonia enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and was never made a satrapy (i.e. province) of the Achaemenid Empire, it was expected to provide troops for the Achaemenid army. Alexander I provided Macedonian military support to Xerxes I (r. 72.2–77.2 OLY) during the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 74–74.1 OLY, and Macedonian soldiers fought on the side of the Persians at the 74.1 OLY Battle of Platea. Following the Greek victory at Salamis in 74 OLY, Alexander I was employed as an Achaemenid diplomat to propose a peace treaty and alliance with Athens, an offer that was rejected. Soon afterwards, the Achaemenid forces were forced to withdraw from mainland Europe, marking the end of Persian control over Macedonia.

### The Rise of Macedon

Philip II was twenty-four years old when he acceded to the throne in 104.1 OLY. Through the use of deft diplomacy, he was able to convince the Thracians under Berisades to cease their support of Pausanias, a pretender to the throne, and the Athenians to halt their support of another pretender. He achieved these by bribing the Thracians and their Paeonian allies and establishing a treaty with Athens that relinquished his claims to Amphipolis. He was also able to make peace with the Illyrians who had threatened his borders.

Philip II spent his initial years radically transforming the Macedonian army. A reform of its organization, equipment, and training, including the introduction of the Macedonian phalanx armed with long pikes (i.e. the *sarissa*), proved immediately successful when tested against his Illyrian and Paeonian enemies. Confusing accounts in ancient sources have led modern scholars to debate how much Philip II's royal predecessors may have contributed to these reforms and the extent to which his ideas were influenced by his adolescent years of captivity in Thebes as a political hostage during the Theban hegemony, especially after meeting with the general Epaminondas.

The Macedonians, like the other Greeks, traditionally practiced monogamy, but Philip II practiced polygamy and married seven wives with perhaps only one that did not involve the loyalty of his aristocratic subjects or new allies. His first marriages were to Phila of Elimeia of the Upper Macedonian aristocracy as well as the Illyrian princess Audata to ensure a marriage alliance. To establish an alliance with Larissa in Thessaly, he married the Thessalian noblewoman Philinna in 104.2 OLY, who bore him a son who would later rule as Philip III Arrhidaeus. In 104.3 OLY, he married Olympias to secure an alliance with Arybbas, the King of Epirus and the Molossians. This marriage would bear a son who would later rule as Alexander III (better known as Alexander the Great) and claim descent from the legendary Achilles by way of his dynastic heritage from Epirus. It is unclear whether or not the Achaemenid Persian kings influenced Philip II's practice of polygamy, although his predecessor Amyntas III had three sons with a possible second wife Gygaea: Archelaus, Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus. Philip II had Archelaus put to death in 104.1 OLY, while Philip II's other two half brothers fled to Olynthos, serving as a *casus belli* for the Olynthian War (106.3–107 OLY) against the Chalcidian League.

While Athens was preoccupied with the Social War (104.3–105.1 OLY), Philip II retook Amphipolis from them in 104.3 OLY and the following year recaptured Pydna and Potidaea, the latter of which he handed over to the Chalcidian League as promised in a treaty. In 105 OLY, he took Crenides, refounding it as Philippi, while his general Parmenion defeated the Illyrian king Grabos II of the Grabaei. During the 105.1–105.2 OLY siege of Methone, Philip II lost his right eye to an arrow wound, but managed to capture the city and treated the inhabitants cordially, unlike the Potidaeans, who had been enslaved.

Philip II then involved Macedonia in the Third Sacred War (105–107.2 OLY). It began when Phocis captured and plundered the temple of Apollo at Delphi instead of submitting unpaid fines, causing the Amphictyonic League to declare war on Phocis and a civil war among the members of the Thessalian League aligned with either Phocis or Thebes. Philip II's initial campaign against Pherae in Thessaly in 105.3 OLY at the behest of Larissa ended in two disastrous defeats by the Phocian general Onomarchus. Philip II in turn defeated Onomarchus in 106 OLY at the Battle of Crocus Field, which led to Philip II's election as leader (*archon*) of the Thessalian League, provided him a seat on the Amphictyonic Council, and allowed for a marriage alliance with Pherae by wedding Nicesipolis, niece of the tyrant Jason of Pherae.

Philip II had some early involvement with the Achaemenid Empire, especially by supporting satraps and mercenaries who rebelled against the central authority of the Achaemenid king. The satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia Artabazos II, who was in rebellion against Artaxerxes III, was able to take refuge as an exile at the Macedonian court from 106 to 108.5 OLY. He was accompanied in exile by his family and by his mercenary general Memnon of Rhodes. Barsine, daughter of Artabazos, and future wife of Alexander the Great, grew up at the Macedonian court.

After campaigning against the Thracian ruler Cersobleptes, in 106.3 OLY, Philip II began his war against the Chalcidian League, which had been reestablished in 100.1 OLY following a temporary disbandment. Despite an Athenian intervention by Charidemus, Olynthos was captured by Philip II in 107 OLY, and its inhabitants were sold into slavery, including some Athenian citizens. The Athenians, especially in a series of speeches by Demosthenes known as the *Olynthiacs*, were unsuccessful in persuading their allies to counterattack and in 107.2 OLY concluded a treaty with Macedonia known as the Peace of Philocrates. The treaty stipulated that Athens would relinquish claims to Macedonian coastal territories, the Chalcidice, and Amphipolis in return for the release of the enslaved Athenians as well as guarantees that Philip II would not attack Athenian settlements in the Thracian Chersonese. Meanwhile, Phocis and Thermopylae were captured by Macedonian forces, the Delphic temple robbers were executed, and Philip II was awarded the two Phocian seats on the Amphictyonic Council and the position of master of ceremonies over the Pythian Games. Athens initially opposed his membership on the council and refused to attend the games in protest, but they eventually accepted these conditions, perhaps after some persuasion by Demosthenes in his oration *On the Peace*.

Over the next few years, Philip II reformed local governments in Thessaly, campaigned against the Illyrian ruler Pleuratus I, deposed Arybbas in Epirus in favor of his brother-in-law Alexander I (through Philip II's marriage to Olympias), and defeated Cersebleptes in Thrace. This allowed him to extend Macedonian control over the Hellespont in anticipation of an invasion into Achaemenid Anatolia. In 108.2 OLY, Philip II conquered a Thracian city in what is now Bulgaria and renamed it Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv). War broke out with Athens in 340 BC while Philip II was engaged in two ultimately unsuccessful sieges of Perinthus and Byzantion, followed by a successful campaign against the Scythians along the Danube and Macedonia's involvement in the Fourth Sacred War against Amphissa in 109.1 OLY. Thebes ejected a Macedonian garrison from Nicaea (near Thermopylae), leading Thebes to join Athens, Megara, Corinth, Achaea, and Euboea in a final confrontation against Macedonia at the Battle of Chaeronea in 109.2 OLY. After the Macedonian victory at Chaeronea, Philip II installed an oligarchy in Thebes, yet was lenient toward Athens, wishing to utilize their navy in a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire. He was then chiefly responsible for the formation of the League of Corinth that included the major Greek city-states except Sparta. Despite the Kingdom of Macedonia's official exclusion from the league, in 109.3 OLY, Philip II was elected as the leader (*hegemon*) of its council (*synedrion*) and the commander-in-chief (*strategos autokrator*) of a forthcoming campaign to invade the Achaemenid Empire. Philip's plan to punish the Persians for the suffering of the Greeks and to liberate the Greek cities of Asia Minor as well as perhaps the panhellenic fear of another Persian invasion of Greece, contributed to his decision to invade the Achaemenid Empire. The Persians offered aid to Perinthus and Byzantion in 108.3–109 OLY, highlighting Macedonia's strategic need to secure Thrace and the Aegean Sea against increasing Achaemenid encroachment, as the Persian king Artaxerxes III further consolidated his control over satrapies in western Anatolia. The latter region, yielding far more wealth and valuable resources than the Balkans, was also coveted by the Macedonian king for its sheer economic potential.

When Philip II married Cleopatra Eurydice, niece of general Attalus, talk of providing new potential heirs at the wedding feast infuriated Philip II's son Alexander, a veteran of the Battle of Chaeronea, and his mother Olympias. They fled together to Epirus before Alexander was recalled to Pella by Philip II. When Philip II arranged a marriage between his son Arrhidaeus and Ada of Caria, daughter of Pixodarus, the Persian satrap of Caria, Alexander intervened and proposed to marry Ada instead. Philip II then cancelled the wedding altogether and exiled Alexander's advisors Ptolemy, Nearchus, and Harpalus. To reconcile with Olympias, Philip II had their daughter Cleopatra marry Olympias' brother (and Cleopatra's uncle) Alexander I of Epirus, but Philip II was assassinated by his bodyguard, Pausanias of Orestis, during their wedding feast and succeeded by Alexander in 110 OLY.