Macedon: Alexander the Great

A historical Macedonian state under the Argead Dynasty emerged around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. The founder of the Macedonian kingdom is refered to as Perdiccas I. Around the time of Alexander I of Macedon, Macedonians started to expand west: into Eordaia, Bottiaea, Pieria, Mygdonia, and Almopia. Near the modern city of Edessa, Perdiccas I (or, more likely, his son, Argaeus I) built his capital, Aigai. After a brief period of Persian overlordship under Darius Hystaspes, the state regained its independence under King Alexander I (495-450 BC). Prior to the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region approximately corresponding to the province of Macedonia of modern Greece.

In Macedon ancient cities (e.g. Aigai) were developed and new ones founded as part of the Macedonian kings’ projects of the state which was henceforth to take an energetic part in Greek politics.
Systematic town-planning was instituted by Philip II to improve the administrative, economic and military organization , and elaborated by Alexander III and the Successors with the founding of cities bearing their names. In cities built in the plain the Hippodameian system was applied.The basic principle of the Hippodameian system was to organize the city so that its functions were rationally served. The three centres, religious, administrative-political and commercial, were incorporated in the layout of equal-sized blocks of buildings delimited by straight, often paved roads with perpendicular intersections. The houses in the blocks were disposed in such a manner as to ensure their proper functioning and water supply, as well as plentiful light for their rooms.

The wars of the Diadochi, the successors to the empire of Alexander the Great, caused another arms race. This time the trend was to build bigger and bigger galleys. Macedon was building hexiremes (probably with two men on each of three oars) in 340 BC; by 315 BC Antigonus, the successor to Alexander the Great in Macedon, was building septiremes, which saw action at the Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC); his son Demetrius, involved in a naval war with Ptolemy of Egypt, built eights (octeres), nines, tens, twelves and finally sixteens!

Under King Philip II of Macedon (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into lands formerly belonging to Paionians, Thracians, and Illyrians to incorporate an area including what is currently the Monastir (now Bitola) and Gevgelija districts of what is now the Republic of Macedonia. In Philip’s time strong contrasts remained between the cattle-rich coastal plain of Macedon and the fierce isolated tribal mountain clans, allied to the king by marriage ties. They controlled the passes through which barbarian invasions came from Illyria to the north and northwest.
In this time, Macedon became more politically involved with the south-central city-states of Ancient Greece, but it also retained more archaic features like the palace-culture, first at Aegae (modern Vergina) then at Pella, resembling Mycenaean culture more than classic Hellenic city-states, and other archaic customs, like Philip’s multiple wives in addition to his Epirote queen Olympias, mother of Alexander.
Another archaic remnant was the persistence of hereditary monarchy wielding formidable power, which was at times absolute, although variously checked by the landed aristocracy, and often disturbed by power struggles within the royal family itself. This contrasts with: the ubiquitous city-states with their more-or-less democratic institutions; the de facto monarchy of tyrants, in which heredity was usually more of an ambition rather than the accepted rule; and the limited, predominantly military and sacerdotal, power of the twin hereditary Spartan kings. The same might have held true of feudal institutions like serfdom, which may have persisted in Macedon well into historical time, whereas they had been abolished by city-states several centuries ago (most notably by the Athenian legislator Solon’s famous seisachtheia laws).
Philip’s son Alexander III (the Great) (336–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedon power not only over the central Greek city-states, but also to the Persian empire, including Egypt and lands as far east as the fringes of India. Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and of Epirote princess Olympias. According to Plutarch (Alexander 3.1,3), Olympias was impregnated not by Philip, who was afraid of her and her affinity for sleeping in the company of snakes, but by Zeus.
Aristotle was Alexander’s tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy.
In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated. Philip’s murder was once thought to have been planned with the knowledge and involvement of Alexander or Olympias. However, in recent years Alexander’s involvement has been questioned and there is some reason to believe that it may have been instigated by Darius III, the recently crowned King of Persia.
After Philip’s death, the army proclaimed Alexander, then aged 20, as the new king of Macedon. Alexander immediately ordered the execution of all of his potential rivals and marched south with his armies in a campaign to solidify control of Greece and confront the Persian Empire. Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, including Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria and Mesopotamia, and extended the boundaries of his own empire as far as the Punjab. Alexander integrated non-Greeks into his army and administration, leading some scholars to credit him with a “policy of fusion.” He encouraged marriage between Greeks and non-Greeks, and practiced it himself. This was extremely unusual for the ancient world. After twelve years of constant military campaigning, Alexander died, probably of malaria, typhoid or possibly a viral encephalitis. His conquests ushered in centuries of Greco-Macedonian settlement and rule over non-Greek areas, a period known as the Hellenistic Age. Alexander himself lived on in the history and myth of both Greek and non-Greek peoples. Already during his lifetime, and especially after his death, his exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appears as a towering legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles.