Macedon

An ancient kingdom of northern Greece originally occupying territory north of Thessaly and northwest of the Aegean Sea. It was the center of a powerful empire under Philip II and his son Alexander the Great and contributed significantly to the spread of Hellenistic civilization. It became the first Roman province in 146 B.C.

Macedon, Macedonia;in general the former is used to describe the political entity, the latter the geographical area. Geographically, Macedonia occupies a central area of the Balkan Peninsula, a largely mountainous region covering parts of what are now south-west Bulgaria, northern Greece, and Serbia. Politically, the kingdom of Macedon is said to have been founded—probably in the mid-seventh century BC—by Perdiccas I, who came from Argos and claimed descent from the mythical Temenus, king of Argos (and the eldest of the Heracleidae).

During the reigns of Amyntas (late sixth century) and his son and successor Alexander I, considerable territorial gains were made. Friendly relations were established with Peisistratus and his sons, tyrants at Athens, and the process of Hellenization began (other Greeks persisted in saying that the Macedonians were barbarians rather than full Hellenes). Alexander's successor Perdiccas II (king c.452–413) played a shifty role in international politics, vacillating between Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. He was succeeded in 413 by Archelaus, memorably portrayed by Plato in the Gorgias as a monster of cruelty. Nevertheless, he did most to ensure that his country was part of Greece proper by making his new capital at Pella a centre for Greek artists and poets, entertaining among others Euripides, Agathon, Choerilus of Samos, Timotheus, and Zeuxis. Many Macedonian customs which seemed un-Greek, like tattooing, had lapsed by this time, but one or two lingered; by the time of Aristotle it was no longer traditional for a Macedonian who had not ‘killed his man’ to wear a cord round his waist, but until a very late date no one was permitted to recline at table (having instead to sit upright) who had not killed a wild boar without nets. (At the age of 35 Cassander was still sitting up to the table.) The country was wild, and as late as classical times contained lions and bears.

Macedon assumed a central role in Greek history under Philip II (reigned 359–336 BC), whose expansionist policy roused Athens and Thebes to war against him. When he defeated them at Chaeronea (338) he became master of Greece. Under Philip's son and successor Alexander the Great, Macedonian power reached its zenith. At his death in 323 he left an empire stretching from the Adriatic to the Punjab, and from north Afghanistan to Libya. However, there was no competent successor in the family and there followed for nearly half a century a complicated power struggle among Alexander's generals for fragments of his empire. Cassander achieved control of Macedon itself, and other generals founded dynasties in various parts of the empire—the Attalids in Pergamum, the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Syria. With the death of Seleucus, the last survivor of Alexander's generals, in 281 the possibility of the union of the empire under one ruler came to an end.

In 279 Macedonia was invaded by a Celtic people known as Gauls (or Galatians), but they were defeated by Antigonus Gonātas (grandson of one of Alexander's generals), who established the Antigonid dynasty in Macedon and proved a vigorous, successful, and cultured ruler (277–239). This dynasty maintained a partial control over Greece until 168 BC.

After Gonatas, the most prominent of the Antigonids was his grandson Philip V (221–179), a man of remarkable energy and misplaced ambition, who precipitated two wars with Rome—the First and Second Macedonian Wars (214–205 and 200–197). The first war was inconclusive; in the second Philip was defeated by Q. Flamininus at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly in 197, and in the following year Flamininus made his famous announcement at the Isthmian Games that Greece was free of Macedonian dominion. Philip V's son Perseus was the last Macedonian king. In the Third Macedonian War (172–168/7) his army was practically annihilated at the battle of Pydna (168) by the Roman consul Aemilius Paullus; this was followed by the dethronement of the Antigonids and the break-up of the Macedonian kingdom into four federal republics. The end came twenty years later, when an attempt by a pretender to reunite Macedon was defeated by Caecilius Metellus, and the country became a Roman province (146). Those cities, like Athens and Sparta, which had taken Rome's side, remained Roman allies; the rest were made subject and tributary. Greece became a Roman protectorate (not a province until the time of Augustus).

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: the ancient kingdom of Philip II and Alexander the Great in the southeastern Balkans that is now divided among modern Macedonia and Greece and Bulgaria
  Synonyms: Macedonia, Makedonija