Philip II of Macedon (382-336 bc) ruled Macedon from 359 and transformed it from a backward region on the northern periphery of Greece into the director of Greek affairs. Philip began as regent for his nephew Amyntas, but military crisis, with Illyrian tribesmen dominating the western marches, Greek cities controlling the coastal lands, and royal rivals supported by Athens and others, required decisive leadership. While reforming the Macedonian army, Philip secured his northern and western frontiers through a mixture of diplomacy and force, and obtained recognition from the Athenians in return for supporting their claims to Amphipolis, a city on Macedon's eastern border and key to the Thracian gold and silver mines. Having secured his throne, Philip snatched Amphipolis and left the Athenians without reward. Control of this region provided him with funds to hire mercenaries, engage in effective diplomacy, and pursue territorial ambitions.
Marriage to Olympias of Epirus consolidated his western borders and a son, the future Alexander ‘the Great’, was born in 356. Philip now set about reducing the Greek cities along the Macedonian coast (including Methone, where he lost his right eye), which provided good lands to allocate to supporters. This reinforced his control of Macedon, since the nobility of border cantons were firmly attached to the royal court at Pella by prospects of rich patronage, while the women might enter the royal harem and their sons be educated in Macedonian ways as royal pages, thus providing hostages for current good behaviour and well-inclined leaders of the next generation.
Lack of strong leadership in Thessaly and the protracted Third Sacred War against the Phocians permitted Philip to move south; he had himself elected leader of the Thessalians, and so gained command of their powerful cavalry. Philip now suffered his only military defeat, when the Phocian Onomarchus lured him into range of an artillery trap, but Philip was victorious in 352. The Athenians were becoming increasingly wary of the rise of Macedon, and, urged on by the orator Demosthenes, unsuccessfully attempted in 348-347 to thwart Philip's designs on Olynthus, the last Greek outpost in the north.
In 346 the Peace of Philocrates briefly ended hostilities, but the constant growth in Macedonian power and Philip's interests in eastern Thrace, which he needed to control as a preliminary to the Persian expedition that now loomed larger in his plans, raised Athenian concerns about their grain supply through the Bosporus and Dardanelles. In 340 Philip detained the Athenian grain fleet during abortive sieges of Byzantium and nearby Perinthus; conflict with Athens resumed, to be ended at Chaeronea in 338. In 337 Philip established the League of Corinth which embedded Macedonian hegemony over Greece and provided a vehicle to attack Persia in revenge for the invasion by Xerxes in 480. An advance guard landed in Asia in 337, but Philip was murdered at Aegae while finalizing arrangements for the campaign, which Alexander inherited. Philip's rich tomb and cremated remains were recently discovered at Vergina; they are now displayed in the Archaeological Museum at Thessaloniki.
Bibliography
- Cawkwell, George, Philip of Macedon (London, 1978).
- Hammond, Nicholas, Philip of Macedon (London, 1994)
— L. Michael Whitby
