147-627: Hellenistic Greece is the historical period of Ancient Greece following Classical Greece and between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek Achaean League heartlands by the Roman Republic . This culminated at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC, a crushing Roman victory in the Peloponnese that led to the destruction of Corinth and ushered in
294-546: A 'strongman' was often the best solution. Athens fell under a tyranny in the second half of the 6th century BC. When this tyranny was ended, the Athenians founded the world's first democracy as a radical solution to prevent the aristocracy regaining power. A citizens' assembly (the Ecclesia ), for the discussion of city policy, had existed since the reforms of Draco in 621 BC; all citizens were permitted to attend after
441-564: A Persian nobleman named Sisines , by receiving them for several years as exiles at the Macedonian court. This gave him a good knowledge of Persian issues, and may even have influenced some of his innovations in the management of the Macedonian state. Alexander was also acquainted with these Persian exiles during his youth. In 336 BC, Philip II sent Parmenion , with Amyntas , Andromenes and Attalus , and an army of 10,000 men into Asia Minor to make preparations for an invasion to free
588-498: A battle in which some 7,000 Illyrians died (357 BC). By this move, Philip established his authority inland as far as Lake Ohrid and earned the favour of the Epirotes . After securing the western and southern borders of Macedon, Philip went on to besiege Amphipolis in 357 BC. The Athenians had been unable to conquer Amphipolis, which commanded the gold mines of Mount Pangaion , so Philip reached an agreement with Athens to lease
735-500: A coalition of 31 Greek city states, including Athens and Sparta, determined to resist the Persian invaders. At the same time, Greek Sicily was invaded by a Carthaginian force. In 480 BC, the first major battle of the invasion was fought at Thermopylae , where a small rearguard of Greeks, led by three hundred Spartans, held a crucial pass guarding the heart of Greece for several days; at the same time Gelon , tyrant of Syracuse, defeated
882-609: A council of elders (the Gerousia ) and magistrates specifically appointed to watch over the kings (the Ephors ). Only free, land-owning, native born men could be citizens entitled to the full protection of the law in a city-state. In most city-states, unlike the situation in Rome , social prominence did not allow special rights. Sometimes families controlled public religious functions, but this ordinarily did not give any extra power in
1029-528: A decisive victory, and in 447 lost Boeotia again. Athens and Sparta signed the Thirty Years' Peace in the winter of 446/5, ending the conflict. Despite the treaty, Athenian relations with Sparta declined again in the 430s, and in 431 BC the Peloponnesian War began. The first phase of the war saw a series of fruitless annual invasions of Attica by Sparta, while Athens successfully fought
1176-456: A dominant position throughout Greece. During the following years Rome was drawn deeper into Greek politics, since the defeated party in any dispute appealed to Rome for help. Macedon was still independent, though nominally a Roman ally. When Philip V died in 179 BC, he was succeeded by his son Perseus , who like all the Macedonian kings dreamed of uniting the Greeks under Macedonian rule. Macedon
1323-436: A group of city-states allied themselves to defend Greece, the vast majority of poleis remained neutral, and after the Persian defeat, the allies quickly returned to infighting. Thus, the major peculiarities of the ancient Greek political system were its fragmented nature (and that this does not particularly seem to have tribal origin), and the particular focus on urban centers within otherwise tiny states. The peculiarities of
1470-486: A hole matching the penetrating wound and lameness suffered by Philip, the authors of the study identified the remains of Tomb I in Vergina as those of Philip II. Tomb II instead was identified in the study as that of King Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice II . The Greek Ministry of Culture replied that this claim was baseless, and that the archaeological evidence shows that the ankylotic knee belongs to another body which
1617-441: A job but to become an effective citizen. Girls also learned to read, write and do simple arithmetic so they could manage the household. They almost never received education after childhood. Philip II of Macedon Philip II of Macedon ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Φίλιππος Philippos ; 382 BC – October 336 BC) was the king ( basileus ) of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He
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#17327647599451764-543: A new League which Rome ultimately controlled, and democracies were replaced by aristocratic regimes allied to Rome. In 192 BC, war broke out between Rome and the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III . Antiochus invaded Greece with a 10,000 man army, and was elected the commander in chief of the Aetolians. Some Greek cities now thought of Antiochus as their saviour from Roman rule, but Macedon threw its lot in with Rome. In 191 BC,
1911-483: A public dinner and then raping him. When Pausanias complained to Philip, the king felt unable to chastise Attalus, as he was about to send him to Asia with Parmenion to establish a bridgehead for an invasion he was planning. Also, Philip had recently married Attalus' niece, Cleopatra Eurydice . Rather than offend Attalus, Philip tried to mollify Pausanias by elevating him within his personal bodyguard. Pausanias then seems to have redirected his desire for revenge towards
2058-682: A result it was directly annexed the following year and became a Roman province , the first of the Greek states to suffer this fate. Rome now demanded that the Achaean League, the last stronghold of Greek independence, be dissolved. The Achaeans refused and, feeling that they might as well die fighting, declared war on Rome. Most of the Greek cities rallied to the Achaeans' side, even slaves were freed to fight for Greek independence. The Roman consul Lucius Mummius advanced from Macedonia and defeated
2205-760: A result of Epaminondas ' liberation of Messenia from Spartan rule, the helot system there came to an end and the helots won their freedom. However, it did continue to persist in Laconia until the 2nd century BC. For most of Greek history, education was private, except in Sparta. During the Hellenistic period, some city-states established public schools . Only wealthy families could afford a teacher. Boys learned how to read, write and quote literature. They also learned to sing and play one musical instrument and were trained as athletes for military service. They studied not for
2352-523: A special type of slaves called helots . Helots were Messenians enslaved en masse during the Messenian Wars by the state and assigned to families where they were forced to stay. Helots raised food and did household chores so that women could concentrate on raising strong children while men could devote their time to training as hoplites . Their masters treated them harshly, and helots revolted against their masters several times. In 370/69 BC, as
2499-423: A struggle for power broke out among his generals, which resulted in the break-up of his empire and the establishment of a number of new kingdoms. Macedon fell to Cassander , son of Alexander's leading general Antipater , who after several years of warfare made himself master of most of the rest of Greece. He founded a new Macedonian capital at Thessaloniki and was generally a constructive ruler. Cassander's power
2646-722: A war with the Roman Republic in the late 3rd century. Although the First Macedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion, continued to fight Macedon until it was completely absorbed into the Roman Republic (by 149 BC). In the east, the unwieldy Seleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump survived until 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt until 30 BC when it too
2793-632: A year, the Thirty had been overthrown. The first half of the fourth century saw the major Greek states attempt to dominate the mainland; none were successful, and their resulting weakness led to a power vacuum which would eventually be filled by Macedon under Philip II and then Alexander the Great. In the immediate aftermath of the Peloponnesian war, Sparta attempted to extend their own power, leading Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Thebes to join against them. Aiming to prevent any single Greek state gaining
2940-465: Is debated. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides , Xenophon , Demosthenes , Plato and Aristotle . Most were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than of many other cities. Their scope is further limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history. The archaic period, lasting from approximately 800 to 500 BC, saw
3087-522: Is known from much more fragmentary documents such as annals, king lists, and pragmatic epigraphy . Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field . Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th century BC historical figures such as Darius I of Persia , Cambyses II and Psamtik III , and alluding to some 8th century BC persons such as Candaules . The accuracy of Herodotus' works
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#17327647599453234-399: Is mountainous, and as a result, ancient Greece consisted of many smaller regions, each with its own dialect, cultural peculiarities, and identity. Regionalism and regional conflicts were prominent features of ancient Greece. Cities tended to be located in valleys between mountains, or on coastal plains, and dominated a certain area around them. In the south lay the Peloponnese , consisting of
3381-458: Is that of Aristotle , who states simply that Philip was killed because Pausanias had been offended by Attalus (Philip's uncle-in-law) and his friends. Attalus was the uncle of Philip's wife Cleopatra (renamed Eurydice upon marriage). Fifty years later, the historian Cleitarchus expanded and embellished the story. Centuries afterwards, this version was propagated by Diodorus Siculus and other historians who relied on Cleitarchus. According to
3528-479: Is unclear exactly how this change occurred. For instance, in Athens, the kingship had been reduced to a hereditary, lifelong chief magistracy ( archon ) by c. 1050 BC; by 753 BC this had become a decennial, elected archonship; and finally by 683 BC an annually elected archonship. Through each stage, more power would have been transferred to the aristocracy as a whole, and away from a single individual. Inevitably,
3675-710: The Archaic period , the Greek population grew beyond the capacity of the limited arable land of Greece proper, resulting in the large-scale establishment of colonies elsewhere: according to one estimate, the population of the widening area of Greek settlement increased roughly tenfold from 800 BC to 400 BC, from 800,000 to as many as 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 -10 million. This was not simply for trade, but also to found settlements. These Greek colonies were not, as Roman colonies were, dependent on their mother-city, but were independent city-states in their own right. Greeks settled outside of Greece in two distinct ways. The first
3822-647: The Battle of Aegospotami , and began to blockade Athens' harbour; driven by hunger, Athens sued for peace, agreeing to surrender their fleet and join the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. Following the Athenian surrender, Sparta installed an oligarchic regime, the Thirty Tyrants , in Athens, one of a number of Spartan-backed oligarchies which rose to power after the Peloponnesian war. Spartan predominance did not last: after only
3969-456: The Battle of Ipsus , ending his challenge. After Cassander's death in 298 BC, however, Demetrius seized the Macedonian throne and gained control of most of Greece. He was defeated by a second coalition of Greek rulers in 285 BC, and mastery of Greece passed to the king Lysimachus of Thrace . Lysimachus was in turn defeated and killed in 280 BC. The Macedonian throne then passed to Demetrius's son Antigonus II , who also defeated an invasion of
4116-576: The Delian League gradually transformed from a defensive alliance of Greek states into an Athenian empire, as Athens' growing naval power intimidated the other league states. Athens ended its campaigns against Persia in 450, after a disastrous defeat in Egypt in 454, and the death of Cimon in action against the Persians on Cyprus in 450. As the Athenian fight against the Persian empire waned, conflict grew between Athens and Sparta. Suspicious of
4263-817: The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until the end of the 1st century BC. The defeat of the Greek cities by Philip and Alexander also taught the Greeks that their city-states could never again be powers in their own right, and that the hegemony of Macedon and its successor states could not be challenged unless the city states united, or at least federated. The Greeks valued their local independence too much to consider actual unification, but they made several attempts to form federations through which they could hope to reassert their independence. Following Alexander's death
4410-654: The Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War . The unification of Greece by Macedon under Philip II and subsequent conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic civilization across the Middle East. The Hellenistic Period is considered to have ended in 30 BC, when
4557-509: The Greek city-states of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, Philip II led the effort to establish a federation of Greek states known as the League of Corinth , with him as the elected hegemon and commander-in-chief of Greece for a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia . However, his assassination by a royal bodyguard, Pausanias of Orestis , led to
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4704-795: The Illyrians , a struggle in which King Perdiccas himself had died. The Paeonians and the Thracians had sacked and invaded the eastern regions of Macedonia, while the Athenians had landed at Methoni on the coast with a contingent under the Macedonian pretender Argaeus II . Philip pushed back the Paeonians and Thracians promising tributes, and defeated the 3,000 Athenian hoplites (359 BC). Momentarily free from his opponents, he concentrated on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army. Philip II made many notable contributions to
4851-427: The Illyrians . Before leaving, Perdiccas had appointed Philip as regent for his infant son Amyntas IV , but Philip succeeded in taking the kingdom for himself. Philip's military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonia brought him early success. He first had to remedy the woes over Macedonian territory faced by his throne's government. This was a predicament that had greatly worsened through Macedonia's defeat by
4998-606: The Macedonian phalanx , an infantry formation that consisted of soldiers all armed with a sarissa . Philip is credited for adding the sarissa to the Macedonian army, where it soon was the common weapon used by most soldiers. Philip had married Audata , daughter or granddaughter of the Illyrian king Bardylis . However, this marriage did not prevent him from marching against the Illyrians in 358 BC and defeating them in
5145-628: The Paeonians due north, the Thracians to the northeast, and the Illyrians , with whom the Macedonians were frequently in conflict, to the northwest. Chalcidice was settled early on by southern Greek colonists and was considered part of the Greek world, while from the late 2nd millennium BC substantial Greek settlement also occurred on the eastern shores of the Aegean , in Anatolia . During
5292-587: The Parthenon of Athens. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and finally to the League of Corinth led by Macedon . This period was shaped by the Greco-Persian Wars , the Peloponnesian War , and
5439-644: The Peloponnese except Sparta , while the Aetolian League expanded into Phocis . During the third century BCE these leagues were able to defend themselves against Macedon and the Aetolian league defeated a Celtic invasion of Greece at Delphi. After Alexander's death, Athens had been defeated by Antipater in the Lamian War and its port in the Piraeus housed a Macedonian garrison. To counter
5586-671: The Rise of Macedon . Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period (323–146 BC), during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East from the death of Alexander until the Roman conquest. Roman Greece is usually counted from the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC to the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as
5733-700: The Thracian coast (354–353 BC). Philip's involvement in the Third Sacred War (356–346 BC) began in 354 BC. At the request of the Thessalian League , Philip and his army traveled to Thessaly in order to capture Pagasae , resulting in an alliance with Thebes. A year later in 353 BC, Philip was once again asked to assist in battle, but this time against the tyrant Lycophron who was supported by Onomarchus . Philip and his forces invaded Thessaly, defeating 7,000 Phocians and forcing Phayllus,
5880-487: The greaves , one of which was shaped consistently to fit a leg with a misaligned tibia (Philip II was recorded as having broken his tibia). Also, the remains of the skull show damage to the right eye caused by the penetration of an object (historically recorded to be an arrow). Two scientists who studied some of the bones claimed in 2015 that Philip was buried in Tomb I, not Tomb II. On the basis of age, knee ankylosis , and
6027-449: The poleis grouped themselves into leagues, membership of which was in a constant state of flux. Later in the Classical period, the leagues would become fewer and larger, be dominated by one city (particularly Athens , Sparta and Thebes ); and often poleis would be compelled to join under threat of war (or as part of a peace treaty). Even after Philip II of Macedon conquered the heartlands of ancient Greece, he did not attempt to annex
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6174-483: The "cloud rising in the west": the ever-increasing power of Rome. He was known as "the darling of Hellas". Under his auspices the Peace of Naupactus (217 BC) brought conflict between Macedon and the Greek leagues to an end, and at this time he controlled all of Greece except Athens, Rhodes and Pergamum. In 215 BC, however, Philip formed an alliance with Rome's enemy Carthage , which drew Rome directly into Greek affairs for
6321-464: The 146 BC conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. Macedonia became a Roman province while southern Greece came under the surveillance of Macedonia's prefect ; however, some Greek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoid taxation. The Aegean Islands were added to this territory in 133 BC. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was crushed by
6468-583: The Carthaginian invasion at the Battle of Himera . The Persians were decisively defeated at sea by a primarily Athenian naval force at the Battle of Salamis , and on land in 479 BC at the Battle of Plataea . The alliance against Persia continued, initially led by the Spartan Pausanias but from 477 by Athens, and by 460 Persia had been driven out of the Aegean. During this long campaign,
6615-525: The Corinthian empire in northwest Greece and defended its own empire, despite a plague which killed the leading Athenian statesman Pericles . The war turned after Athenian victories led by Cleon at Pylos and Sphakteria , and Sparta sued for peace, but the Athenians rejected the proposal. The Athenian failure to regain control of Boeotia at Delium and Brasidas ' successes in northern Greece in 424 improved Sparta's position after Sphakteria. After
6762-718: The Crisaian plain which belonged to Delphi . These decisive victories led to Philip being recognized as the military leader of the League of Corinth , a Greek confederation allied against the Persian Empire , in 338/7 BC. Members of the league agreed never to wage war against each other, unless it was to suppress revolution . Philip II was involved quite early against the Achaemenid Empire. From around 352 BC, he supported several Persian opponents to Artaxerxes III , such as Artabazos II , Amminapes or
6909-601: The Dark Ages was the Archaic Period , beginning around the 8th century BC, which saw early developments in Greek culture and society leading to the Classical Period from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC until the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The Classical Period is characterized by a "classical" style, i.e. one which was considered exemplary by later observers, most famously in
7056-560: The Great Tumulus at Aigai near modern Vergina , the capital and burial site of the kings of Macedon, and found that two of the four tombs in the tumulus were undisturbed since antiquity. Moreover, these two, and particularly Tomb II, contained fabulous treasures and objects of great quality and sophistication. Although there was much debate for some years, as suspected at the time of the discovery Tomb II has been shown to be that of Philip II as indicated by many features, including
7203-619: The Great to carve up his empire in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. The wars lasted until 275 BC, witnessing the fall of both the Argead and Antipatrid dynasties of Macedonia in favor of the Antigonid dynasty . The era was also marked by successive wars between the Kingdom of Macedonia and its allies against the Aetolian League , Achaean League , and the city-state of Sparta . During
7350-785: The Greek cities never recovered. Mithridates was finally defeated by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) in 65 BC. Further ruin was brought to Greece by the Roman civil wars, which were partly fought in Greece. Finally, in 27 BC, Augustus directly annexed Greece to the new Roman Empire as the province of Achaea . The struggles with Rome had left certain areas of Greece depopulated and demoralised. Nevertheless, Roman rule at least brought an end to warfare, and cities such as Athens, Corinth, Thessaloniki and Patras soon recovered their prosperity. Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( Ancient Greek : Ἑλλάς , romanized : Hellás )
7497-497: The Greek cities to revolt against Antigonus, in what became the Chremonidean War , after the Athenian leader Chremonides . The cities were defeated and Athens lost her independence and her democratic institutions. The Aetolian League was restricted to the Peloponnese , but on being allowed to gain control of Thebes in 245 BC became a Macedonian ally. This marked the end of Athens as a political actor, although it remained
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#17327647599457644-633: The Greek city states was intermittent, however, since other rulers, particularly the Ptolemies, subsidised anti-Macedonian parties in Greece to undermine the Antigonids' power. Antigonus placed a garrison at Corinth , the strategic centre of Greece, but Athens, Rhodes , Pergamum and other Greek states retained substantial independence, and formed the Aetolian League as a means of defending it. Sparta also remained independent, but generally refused to join any league. In 267 BC, Ptolemy II persuaded
7791-473: The Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks and led to a steady emigration of the young and ambitious to the new Greek empires in the east. Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan , where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until
7938-480: The Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks, making the endless conflicts between the cities which had marked the 5th and 4th centuries BC seem petty and unimportant. It led to a steady emigration, particularly of the young and ambitious, to the new Greek empires in the east. Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan , where
8085-460: The Greek colonies Syracusae ( Συράκουσαι ), Neapolis ( Νεάπολις ), Massalia ( Μασσαλία ) and Byzantion ( Βυζάντιον ). These colonies played an important role in the spread of Greek influence throughout Europe and also aided in the establishment of long-distance trading networks between the Greek city-states, boosting the economy of ancient Greece . Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred relatively independent city-states ( poleis ). This
8232-578: The Greek colony Sybaris in southern Italy, its allies, and the Serdaioi. In 499 BC, the Ionian city states under Persian rule rebelled against their Persian-supported tyrant rulers. Supported by troops sent from Athens and Eretria , they advanced as far as Sardis and burnt the city before being driven back by a Persian counterattack. The revolt continued until 494, when the rebelling Ionians were defeated. Darius did not forget that Athens had assisted
8379-438: The Greek lands by the Gauls , who at this time were living in the Balkans. The battle against the Gauls united the Antigonids of Macedon and the Seleucids of Antioch, an alliance which was also directed against the wealthiest Hellenistic power, the Ptolemies of Egypt. Antigonus II ruled until his death in 239 BC, and his family retained the Macedonian throne until it was abolished by the Romans in 146 BC. Their control over
8526-420: The Greek system are further evidenced by the colonies that they set up throughout the Mediterranean , which, though they might count a certain Greek polis as their 'mother' (and remain sympathetic to her), were completely independent of the founding city. Inevitably smaller poleis might be dominated by larger neighbors, but conquest or direct rule by another city-state appears to have been quite rare. Instead
8673-416: The Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centers of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch , capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria respectively. Cities such as Pergamon , Ephesus , Rhodes and Seleucia were also important, and increasing urbanisation of the Eastern Mediterranean was characteristic of the time. The quests of Alexander had a number of consequences for
8820-408: The Greeks at Corinth , which was razed to the ground. In 146 BC, the Greek peninsula, though not the islands, became a Roman protectorate. Roman taxes were imposed, except in Athens and Sparta, and all the cities had to accept rule by Rome's local allies. In 133 BC, the last king of Pergamum died and left his kingdom to Rome: this brought most of the Aegean peninsula under direct Roman rule as part of
8967-660: The Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling colonies in all directions. To the east, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was colonized first, followed by Cyprus and the coasts of Thrace , the Sea of Marmara and south coast of the Black Sea . Eventually, Greek colonization reached as far northeast as present-day Ukraine and Russia ( Taganrog ). To the west the coasts of Illyria , Southern Italy (called " Magna Graecia ") were settled, followed by Southern France , Corsica , and even eastern Spain . Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya . Modern Syracuse , Naples , Marseille and Istanbul had their beginnings as
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#17327647599459114-412: The Greeks living on the western coast and islands from Achaemenid rule. At first, all went well. The Greek cities on the western coast of Anatolia revolted until the news arrived that Philip had been assassinated and had been succeeded as king by his young son Alexander. The Macedonians were demoralized by Philip's death and were subsequently defeated near Magnesia by the Achaemenids under the command of
9261-423: The Greeks were very aware of their tribal origins; Herodotus was able to extensively categorise the city-states by tribe. Yet, although these higher-level relationships existed, they seem to have rarely had a major role in Greek politics. The independence of the poleis was fiercely defended; unification was something rarely contemplated by the ancient Greeks. Even when, during the second Persian invasion of Greece,
9408-400: The Greeks, Flamininus was a moderate man and an admirer of Greek culture. Philip had to surrender his fleet and become a Roman ally, but was otherwise spared. At the Isthmian Games in 196 BC, Flamininus declared all the Greek cities free, although Roman garrisons were placed at Corinth and Chalcis . But the freedom promised by Rome was an illusion. All the cities except Rhodes were enrolled in
9555-420: The Ionian revolt, and in 490 he assembled an armada to retaliate. Though heavily outnumbered, the Athenians—supported by their Plataean allies—defeated the Persian hordes at the Battle of Marathon , and the Persian fleet turned tail. Ten years later, a second invasion was launched by Darius' son Xerxes . The city-states of northern and central Greece submitted to the Persian forces without resistance, but
9702-419: The League in 356 BC. In 357 BC, Philip married the Epirote princess Olympias , who was the daughter of the king of the Molossians . Alexander was born in 356 BC, the same year as Philip's racehorse won at the Olympic Games . During 356 BC, Philip conquered the town of Crenides and changed its name to Philippi . He then established a powerful garrison there to control its mines, which yielded much of
9849-430: The League of Corinth following the death of Philip, Alexander began his campaign against Persia in 334 BC. He conquered Persia, defeating Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, and after the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC proclaimed himself king of Asia. From 329 BC he led expeditions to Bactria and then India; further plans to invade Arabia and North Africa were halted by his death in 323 BC. The period from
9996-401: The League. Aratus preferred distant Macedon to nearby Sparta, and allied himself with Doson, who in 222 BC defeated the Spartans and annexed their city – the first time Sparta had ever been occupied by a foreign power. Philip V, who came to power when Doson died in 221 BC, was the last Macedonian ruler with both the talent and the opportunity to unite Greece and preserve its independence against
10143-448: The Macedonian army. The cavalry, which were the primary source of the army's strength, went from a force of 600 to 4000 from the time of the battles with the Illyrians to 334 BC. The discipline and training of the soldiers increased as well, and the Macedonian soldiers under Philip were provided with the possibility of promotion through the ranks and rewards and bonus wages for exceptional service. In addition to these changes, Philip created
10290-403: The Macedonians. From 352 to 346 BC, Philip did not again travel south. He was active in completing the subjugation of the Balkan hill-country to the west and north, and in reducing the Greek cities of the coast as far as the Hebrus . To the chief of these coastal cities, Olynthus , Philip continued to profess friendship until its neighboring cities were in his hands. In 348 BC, Philip started
10437-406: The Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC (around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer) and ended in the 6th century AD. Classical antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages ( c. 1200 – c. 800 BC ), archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following
10584-612: The Piraeus remained garrisoned. Athens fought more unsuccessful wars against Macedon with Ptolemaic aid such as the Chremonidean War . The Ptolemaic kingdom was now the city's main ally, supporting it with troops, monies and material in multiple conflicts. Athens rewarded the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 224/223 BC by naming the 13th phyle Ptolemais and establishing a religious cult called the Ptolemaia. Hellenistic Athens also saw
10731-685: The Roman general Sulla . The Roman civil wars devastated the land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as the province of Achaea in 27 BC. Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman . The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy , and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome . The territory of Greece
10878-532: The Romans sent Lucius Aemilius Paullus to Greece, and at Pydna the Macedonians were crushingly defeated. Perseus was captured and taken to Rome, the Macedonian kingdom was broken up into four smaller states, and all the Greek cities who aided her, even rhetorically, were punished. Even Rome's allies Rhodes and Pergamum effectively lost their independence. Under the leadership of an adventurer called Andriscus , Macedon rebelled against Roman rule in 149 BC: as
11025-469: The Romans under Manius Acilius Glabrio routed him at Thermopylae and obliged him to withdraw to Asia. During the course of this war Roman troops moved into Asia for the first time, where they defeated Antiochus again at Magnesia on the Sipylum (190 BC). Greece now lay across Rome's line of communications with the east, and Roman soldiers became a permanent presence. The Peace of Apamaea (188 BC) left Rome in
11172-481: The Seleucid Empire to invade mainland Greece , yet his defeat by the Romans at Thermopylae in 191 BC and Magnesia in 190 BC secured Rome's position as the leading military power in the region. Within roughly two decades after conquering Macedonia in 168 BC and Epirus in 167 BC, the Romans would eventually control the whole of Greece. During the Hellenistic period the importance of Greece proper within
11319-680: The Spartans from various parts. In 345 BC, Philip conducted a hard-fought campaign against the Ardiaioi ( Ardiaei ), under their king Pleuratus I , during which Philip was seriously wounded in the lower right leg by an Ardian soldier. In 342 BC, Philip led a military expedition north against the Scythians , conquering the Thracian fortified settlement Eumolpia to give it his name, Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv ). In 340 BC, Philip started
11466-655: The actual background to the assassination, it may have had an enormous effect on later world events, far beyond what any conspirators could have predicted. As asserted by some modern historians, had the older and more settled Philip been the one in charge of the war against Persia, he might have been content to make relatively moderate conquests, e.g., making Anatolia into a Macedonian province, and, unlike his son Alexander, not have wanted to push further into an overall conquest of Persia and further campaigns in India. In 1977, Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos started excavating
11613-579: The ancient Greeks did not think in terms of race . Most families owned slaves as household servants and laborers, and even poor families might have owned a few slaves. Owners were not allowed to beat or kill their slaves. Owners often promised to free slaves in the future to encourage slaves to work hard. Unlike in Rome, freedmen did not become citizens. Instead, they were mixed into the population of metics , which included people from foreign countries or other city-states who were officially allowed to live in
11760-407: The ancient capital of the kingdom of Macedon. Philip and his royal court were gathered in order to celebrate the marriage of Alexander I of Epirus and Cleopatra of Macedon , Philip's daughter by his fourth wife Olympias . While the king was entering into the town's theatre, he was unprotected in order to appear approachable to the Greek diplomats and dignitaries who were present at that time. Philip
11907-753: The assassination of Alexander II , Philip was sent as a hostage to Illyria by Ptolemy of Aloros . Philip was later held in Thebes ( c. 368 –365 BC), which at the time was the leading city of Greece . While in Thebes, Philip received a military and diplomatic education from Epaminondas , and lived with Pammenes , who was an enthusiastic advocate of the Sacred Band of Thebes . In 364 BC, Philip returned to Macedon . In 359 BC, perhaps in May, Philip's other brother, King Perdiccas III , died in battle against
12054-417: The bodyguards. The three sons of Aeropus of Lyncestis were also suspected of taking part in the plot, acting as accomplices of Pausanias. Arrhabaeus and Heromenes were put to death, while the third brother, Alexander of Lyncestis , was pardoned. The reasons for the assassination are difficult to ascertain. There was controversy even among ancient historians; the only known surviving contemporary account
12201-447: The brother of Onomarchus, to leave. That same year, Onomarchus and his army defeated Philip in two succeeding battles. Philip returned to Thessaly the next summer, this time with an army of 20,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, and the additional support of the Thessalian League's forces. At the Battle of Crocus Field , 6,000 Phocians fell and 3,000 were taken as prisoners and later drowned. This battle earned Philip immense prestige as well as
12348-560: The capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD. Finally, Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization during the later 4th to early 6th centuries AD, consummated by the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I in 529. The historical period of ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in comprehensive, narrative historiography , while earlier ancient history or protohistory
12495-666: The center, while in the east lay Boeotia , Attica , and Megaris . Northeast lay Thessaly , while Epirus lay to the northwest. Epirus stretched from the Ambracian Gulf in the south to the Ceraunian Mountains and the Aoos river in the north, and consisted of Chaonia (north), Molossia (center), and Thesprotia (south). In the northeast corner was Macedonia , originally consisting Lower Macedonia and its regions, such as Elimeia , Pieria , and Orestis . Around
12642-597: The cities responded to the threat of the post Alexandrian Hellenistic states by banding together into alliances or becoming allies of a strong Hellenistic state which could come to its defense therefore making it asylos or inviolate to attack by other cities. The Aetolians and the Achaeans developed strong federal states or leagues ( koinon ), which were governed by councils of city representatives and assemblies of league citizens. Initially ethnic leagues, these leagues later began to include cities outside of their traditional regions. The Achaean League eventually included all of
12789-591: The city to the ground. The same fate was inflicted on other cities of the Chalcidian peninsula, resulting in the Chalcidian League dissolving. Macedon and the regions adjoining it having now been securely consolidated, Philip celebrated his Olympic Games at Dium . In 347 BC, Philip advanced to the conquest of the eastern districts about Hebrus, and compelled the submission of the Thracian prince Cersobleptes . In 346 BC, he intervened effectively in
12936-405: The city to them after his conquest, in exchange for Pydna (which was lost by Macedon in 363 BC). However, after conquering Amphipolis, Philip captured Pydna for himself and kept both cities (357 BC). Athens soon declared war against him, and as a result, Philip allied Macedon with the Chalcidian League of Olynthus . He subsequently conquered Potidaea , this time keeping his word and ceding it to
13083-455: The course of the archaic period. Already in the seventh century, the right of all citizen men to attend the assembly appears to have been established. After a failed coup led by Cylon of Athens around 636 BC, Draco was appointed to establish a code of laws in 621. This failed to reduce the political tension between the poor and the elites, and in 594 Solon was given the authority to enact another set of reforms, which attempted to balance
13230-473: The course of the eighth and seventh century. According to Spartan tradition, this constitution was established by the legendary lawgiver Lycurgus . Over the course of the first and second Messenian wars , Sparta subjugated the neighbouring region of Messenia , enserfing the population. In the sixth century, Greek city-states began to develop formal relationships with one another, where previously individual rulers had relied on personal relationships with
13377-444: The crime itself, regardless of how sympathetic they might have seemed afterward. Scholar Daniel Ogden has noted that if there was a sexual side to the murder, "then it can be contextualized in this regard against known homosexual relationships in and around the Macedonian court" and that according to Aristotle, the regicide of Archelaus I of Macedon was by his former eromenoi , Crateuas and Hellenocrates of Larissa. Whatever
13524-574: The culmination of political and social developments which had begun in the Greek dark age, with the polis (city-state) becoming the most important unit of political organisation in Greece. The absence of powerful states in Greece after the collapse of Mycenaean power, and the geography of Greece, where many settlements were separated from their neighbours by mountainous terrain, encouraged the development of small independent city-states. Several Greek states saw tyrants rise to power in this period, most famously at Corinth from 657 BC. The period also saw
13671-461: The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC until the death of Cleopatra , the last Macedonian ruler of Egypt, is known as the Hellenistic period. In the early part of this period, a new form of kingship developed based on Macedonian and Near Eastern traditions. The first Hellenistic kings were previously Alexander's generals, and took power in the period following his death, though they were not part of existing royal lineages and lacked historic claims to
13818-423: The deaths of Cleon and Brasidas, the strongest proponents of war on each side, a peace treaty was negoitiated in 421 by the Athenian general Nicias . The peace did not last, however. In 418 BC allied forces of Athens and Argos were defeated by Sparta at Mantinea . In 415 Athens launched an ambitious naval expedition to dominate Sicily; the expedition ended in disaster at the harbor of Syracuse , with almost
13965-674: The dominance that would allow it to challenge Persia, the Persian king initially joined the alliance against Sparta, before imposing the Peace of Antalcidas ("King's Peace") which restored Persia's control over the Anatolian Greeks. By 371 BC, Thebes was in the ascendancy, defeating Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra , killing the Spartan king Cleombrotus I , and invading Laconia. Further Theban successes against Sparta in 369 led to Messenia gaining independence; Sparta never recovered from
14112-409: The domination of politics and concomitant aggregation of wealth by small groups of families was apt to cause social unrest in many poleis . In many cities a tyrant (not in the modern sense of repressive autocracies), would at some point seize control and govern according to their own will; often a populist agenda would help sustain them in power. In a system wracked with class conflict , government by
14259-659: The east to the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya in exchange for war elephants, and later lost large parts of Persia to the Parthian Empire . By the mid-third century, the kingdoms of Alexander's successors was mostly stable, though there continued to be disputes over border areas. The great capitals of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Antioch in the Seleucid Empire . The conquests of Alexander had numerous consequences for
14406-552: The elites of other cities. Towards the end of the archaic period, Sparta began to build a series of alliances, the Peloponnesian League , with cities including Corinth , Elis , and Megara , isolating Messenia and reinforcing Sparta's position against Argos , the other major power in the Peloponnese. Other alliances in the sixth century included those between Elis and Heraea in the Peloponnese; and between
14553-555: The end of the first century BC. The city-states within Greece formed themselves into two leagues; the Achaean League (including Corinth and Argos) and the Aetolian League (including Sparta and Athens). For much of the period until the Roman conquest, these leagues were at war, often participating in the conflicts between the Diadochi (the successor states to Alexander's empire). The Antigonid Kingdom became involved in
14700-609: The entire army killed, and the ships destroyed. Soon after the Athenian defeat in Syracuse, Athens' Ionian allies began to rebel against the Delian league, while Persia began to once again involve itself in Greek affairs on the Spartan side. Initially the Athenian position continued relatively strong, with important victories at Cyzicus in 410 and Arginusae in 406. However, in 405 the Spartan Lysander defeated Athens in
14847-666: The era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Three centuries after the decline of Mycenaean Greece during the Bronze Age Collapse , Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece , from
14994-425: The exact borders of the Hellenistic kingdoms were not settled. Antigonus attempted to expand his territory by attacking the other successor kingdoms until they joined against him, and he was killed at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. His son Demetrius spent many years in Seleucid captivity, and his son, Antigonus II , only reclaimed the Macedonian throne around 276. Meanwhile, the Seleucid kingdom gave up territory in
15141-528: The first time. Rome promptly lured the Achaean cities away from their nominal loyalty to Philip, and formed alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest power in Asia Minor . The First Macedonian War broke out in 212 BC, and ended inconclusively in 205 BC, but Macedon was now marked as an enemy of Rome. Rome's ally Rhodes gained control of the Aegean islands. In 202 BC, Rome defeated Carthage, and
15288-532: The founding of Greek colonies around the Mediterranean, with Euboean settlements at Al-Mina in the east as early as 800 BC, and Ischia in the west by 775. Increasing contact with non-Greek peoples in this period, especially in the Near East, inspired developments in art and architecture, the adoption of coinage, and the development of the Greek alphabet. Athens developed its democratic system over
15435-408: The free acquisition of Pherae . He was made the leader ( archon ) of the Thessalian League and was able to claim Magnesia and Perrhaebia, which expanded his territory to Pagasae. Philip did not attempt to advance into Central Greece because the Athenians, unable to arrive in time to defend Pagasae, had occupied Thermopylae . There were no hostilities with Athens yet, but Athens was threatened by
15582-481: The gold he later used for his campaigns. In the meantime, his general Parmenion defeated the Illyrians again. In 355–354 BC he besieged Methone , the last city on the Thermaic Gulf controlled by Athens. During the siege, Philip was injured in his right eye, which was later removed surgically. Despite the arrival of two Athenian fleets, the city fell in 354 BC. Philip also attacked Abdera and Maronea, on
15729-576: The government. In Athens, the population was divided into four social classes based on wealth. People could change classes if they made more money. In Sparta, all male citizens were called homoioi , meaning "peers". However, Spartan kings, who served as the city-state's dual military and religious leaders, came from two families. Women in Ancient Greece appear to have primarily performed domestic tasks, managed households, and borne and reared children. Slaves had no power or status. Slaves had
15876-489: The immediate succession of his son Alexander, who would go on to invade the Achaemenid Empire in his father's stead. Philip was born in either 383 or 382 BC, and was the youngest son of King Amyntas III and Eurydice of Lynkestis . He had two older brothers, Alexander II and Perdiccas III , as well as a sister named Eurynoe. Amyntas later married another woman, Gygaea, with whom he had three sons, Philip's half-brothers Archelaus , Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus . After
16023-544: The increasing Athenian power funded by the Delian League, Sparta offered aid to reluctant members of the League to rebel against Athenian domination. These tensions were exacerbated in 462 BC when Athens sent a force to aid Sparta in overcoming a helot revolt, but this aid was rejected by the Spartans. In the 450s, Athens took control of Boeotia, and won victories over Aegina and Corinth. However, Athens failed to win
16170-554: The largest, wealthiest and most cultivated city in Greece. In 255 BC, Antigonus defeated the Egyptian fleet at Cos and brought the Aegean islands, except Rhodes, under his rule as well. In spite of their decreased political power and autonomy, the Greek city state or polis continued to be the basic form of political and social organization in Greece. Classical city states such as Athens and Ephesus grew and even thrived in this period. While warfare between Greek cities continued,
16317-528: The last Hellenistic kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt , was annexed by the Roman Republic . Classical Greek culture , especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome , which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization , the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art. Classical antiquity in
16464-514: The loss of Messenia's fertile land and the helot workforce it provided. The rising power of Thebes led Sparta and Athens to join forces; in 362 they were defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Mantinea . In the aftermath of Mantinea, none of the major Greek states were able to dominate. Though Thebes had won the battle, their general Epaminondas was killed, and they spent the following decades embroiled in wars with their neighbours; Athens, meanwhile, saw its second naval alliance, formed in 377, collapse in
16611-561: The man who had failed to avenge his damaged honour, and accordingly to plan to kill Philip. Some time after the alleged rape, while Attalus was away in Asia fighting the Persians, he put his plan into action. Other historians (e.g., Justin 9.7) suggested that Alexander and/or his mother Olympias were at least privy to the intrigue, if not themselves instigators. Olympias seems to have been anything but discreet in manifesting her gratitude to Pausanias, according to Justin's report: He writes that
16758-519: The mercenary Memnon of Rhodes . The kings of Macedon practiced polygamy . Philip II had seven wives throughout his life, all members of royalty from foreign dynasties, and all of which were considered queens, making their children royalty as well. The dates of Philip's multiple marriages and the names of some of his wives are contested. Below is the order of marriages: King Philip was assassinated in October 336 BC (perhaps 25 October) at Aegae ,
16905-495: The mid-350s. The power vacuum in Greece after the Battle of Mantinea was filled by Macedon, under Philip II . In 338 BC, he defeated a Greek alliance at the Battle of Chaeronea , and subsequently formed the League of Corinth . Philip planned to lead the League to invade Persia, but was murdered in 336 BC. His son Alexander the Great was left to fulfil his father's ambitions. After campaigns against Macedon's western and northern enemies, and those Greek states that had broken from
17052-471: The period of Roman Greece . Hellenistic Greece's definitive end was with the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, when the future emperor Augustus defeated Greek Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony , the next year taking over Alexandria , the last great center of Hellenistic Greece. The Hellenistic period began with the wars of the Diadochi , armed contests among the former generals of Alexander
17199-442: The plot seems specious, to act as they did would have required them to act with an improbable degree of brazen effrontery in the face of a military whose members were personally loyal to Philip. What seems to have been recorded, rather, are simply suspicions that were naturally directed towards the chief beneficiaries of the assassination; however, their actions in response to the murder are hardly evidence of their guilt with respect to
17346-408: The power of Macedon under Cassander, Athens courted alliances with other Hellenistic rulers such as Antigonus I Monophthalmus , and in 307 Antigonus sent his son Demetrius to capture the city. After Demetrius captured Macedon, Athens became allied with Ptolemaic Egypt in an effort to gain its independence from Demetrius, and with Ptolemaic troops they managed to rebel and defeat Macedon in 287, though
17493-410: The power of the rich and the poor. In the middle of the sixth century, Pisistratus established himself as a tyrant, and after his death in 527 his son Hippias inherited his position; by the end of the sixth century he had been overthrown and Cleisthenes carried out further democratising reforms. In Sparta, a political system with two kings, a council of elders , and five ephors developed over
17640-446: The province of Asia. The final downfall of Greece came in 88 BC, when King Mithridates of Pontus rebelled against Rome, and massacred up to 100,000 Romans and Roman allies across Asia Minor. Although Mithridates was not Greek, many Greek cities, including Athens, overthrew their Roman puppet rulers and joined him. When he was driven out of Greece by the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla , Roman vengeance fell upon Greece again, and
17787-617: The reforms of Solon (early 6th century), but the poorest citizens could not address the assembly or run for office. With the establishment of the democracy, the assembly became the de jure mechanism of government; all citizens had equal privileges in the assembly. However, non-citizens, such as metics (foreigners living in Athens) or slaves , had no political rights at all. After the rise of democracy in Athens, other city-states founded democracies. However, many retained more traditional forms of government. As so often in other matters, Sparta
17934-420: The regions of Laconia (southeast), Messenia (southwest), Elis (west), Achaia (north), Korinthia (northeast), Argolis (east), and Arcadia (center). These names survive to the present day as regional units of modern Greece , though with somewhat different boundaries. Mainland Greece to the north, nowadays known as Central Greece , consisted of Aetolia and Acarnania in the west, Locris , Doris , and Phocis in
18081-509: The reign of Philip V of Macedon (r. 221–179 BC), the Macedonians not only lost the Cretan War (205–200 BC) to an alliance led by Rhodes , but their erstwhile alliance with Hannibal of Carthage also entangled them in the First and Second Macedonian War with ancient Rome . The perceived weakness of Macedonia in the aftermath of these conflicts encouraged Antiochus III the Great of
18228-518: The right to have a family and own property, subject to their master's goodwill and permission, but they had no political rights. By 600 BC, chattel slavery had spread in Greece. By the 5th century BC, slaves made up one-third of the total population in some city-states. Between 40–80% of the population of Classical Athens were slaves. Slaves outside of Sparta almost never revolted because they were made up of too many nationalities and were too scattered to organize. However, unlike later Western culture ,
18375-663: The rise of New Comedy and the Hellenistic schools of philosophy such as Stoicism and Epicureanism . By the turn of the century, the Attalids in Pergamon became patrons and protectors of Athens as the Ptolemaic empire weakened. Athens would later also establish a cult for the Pergamene king Attalos I . Antigonus II died in 239 BC. His death saw another revolt of the city-states of the Achaean League , whose dominant figure
18522-444: The same night of her return from exile, she placed a crown on the assassin's corpse, and later erected a tumulus over his grave and ordered that annual sacrifices be made to the memory of Pausanias. Some modern historians have claimed that none of the accounts are probable: They say that in the case of Pausanias, the purported motive for the crime hardly seems adequate. Furthermore they claim that implicating Alexander and Olympias in
18669-414: The siege of Perinthus , and in 339 BC, began another siege against the city of Byzantium . As both sieges failed, Philip's influence over Greece was compromised. He successfully reasserted his authority in the Aegean by defeating an alliance of Thebans and Athenians at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, and in the same year, destroyed Amfissa because the residents had illegally cultivated part of
18816-467: The siege of Olynthus, which, apart from its strategic position, housed his half-brothers, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus , pretenders to the Macedonian throne. Olynthus had at first allied itself with Philip, but later shifted its allegiance to Athens. The latter, however, did nothing to help the city because its expeditions were held back by a revolt in Euboea . The Macedonian king took Olynthus in 348 BC and razed
18963-420: The sixteenth book of Diodorus' history, Pausanias of Orestis had been a lover of Philip, but became jealous when Philip turned his attention to a younger man, also called Pausanias. The elder Pausanias' taunting of the new lover caused the younger Pausanias to throw away his life in battle, which turned his friend Attalus against the elder Pausanias. Attalus took his revenge by getting Pausanias of Orestis drunk at
19110-448: The state. City-states legally owned slaves. These public slaves had a larger measure of independence than slaves owned by families, living on their own and performing specialized tasks. In Athens, public slaves were trained to look out for counterfeit coinage , while temple slaves acted as servants of the temple's deity and Scythian slaves were employed in Athens as a police force corralling citizens to political functions. Sparta had
19257-640: The territories they controlled. The most important of these rulers in the decades after Alexander's death were Antigonus I and his son Demetrius in Macedonia and the rest of Greece, Ptolemy in Egypt, and Seleucus I in Syria and the former Persian empire; smaller Hellenistic kingdoms included the Attalids in Anatolia and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom . In the early part of the Hellenistic period,
19404-515: The territory or unify it into a new province, but compelled most of the poleis to join his own Corinthian League . Initially many Greek city-states seem to have been petty kingdoms; there was often a city official carrying some residual, ceremonial functions of the king ( basileus ), e.g., the archon basileus in Athens. However, by the Archaic period and the first historical consciousness, most had already become aristocratic oligarchies . It
19551-574: The time of Alexander I of Macedon , the Argead kings of Macedon started to expand into Upper Macedonia , lands inhabited by independent Macedonian tribes like the Lyncestae , Orestae and the Elimiotae and to the west, beyond the Axius river , into Eordaia , Bottiaea , Mygdonia , and Almopia , regions settled by Thracian tribes. To the north of Macedonia lay various non-Greek peoples such as
19698-564: The war between Thebes and the Phocians, but his wars with Athens continued intermittently. However, Athens had made overtures for peace, and when Philip again moved south, peace was sworn in Thessaly. With key Greek city-states in submission, Philip II turned to Sparta , warning them "If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out." The Spartans' laconic reply was one word: "If." Philip proceeded to invade Laconia, devastate much of it and eject
19845-409: The worship of the family of Alexander the Great and may have housed the cult statue of Philip. It is probable that he was regarded as a hero or deified on his death. Though the Macedonians did not consider Philip a god, he did receive other forms of recognition from the Greeks, e.g. at Eresos (altar to Zeus Philippeios), Ephesos (his statue was placed in the temple of Artemis ), and at Olympia, where
19992-454: Was Aratus of Sicyon . Antigonus's son Demetrius II died in 229 BC, leaving a child (Philip V) as king, with the general Antigonus Doson as regent. The Achaeans, while nominally subject to Ptolemy, were in effect independent, and controlled most of southern Greece. Athens remained aloof from this conflict by common consent. Sparta remained hostile to the Achaeans, and in 227 BC Sparta's king Cleomenes III invaded Achaea and seized control of
20139-505: Was a member of the Argead dynasty , founders of the ancient kingdom, and the father of Alexander the Great . The rise of Macedon , including its conquest and political consolidation of most of Classical Greece during his reign, was achieved by his reformation of the army (the establishment of the Macedonian phalanx that proved critical in securing victories on the battlefield), his extensive use of siege engines, and his use of effective diplomacy and marriage alliances. After defeating
20286-504: Was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( c. 600 AD ), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Prior to the Roman period , most of these regions were officially unified once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 to 323 BC. In Western history ,
20433-539: Was a notable exception to the rest of Greece, ruled through the whole period by not one, but two hereditary monarchs. This was a form of diarchy . The Kings of Sparta belonged to the Agiads and the Eurypontids, descendants respectively of Eurysthenes and Procles . Both dynasties' founders were believed to be twin sons of Aristodemus , a Heraclid ruler. However, the powers of these kings were held in check by both
20580-460: Was a situation unlike that in most other contemporary societies, which were either tribal or kingdoms ruling over relatively large territories. Undoubtedly, the geography of Greece —divided and sub-divided by hills, mountains, and rivers—contributed to the fragmentary nature of ancient Greece. On the one hand, the ancient Greeks had no doubt that they were "one people"; they had the same religion , same basic culture, and same language. Furthermore,
20727-429: Was challenged by Antigonus , ruler of Anatolia, who promised the Greek cities that he would restore their freedom if they supported him. This led to successful revolts against Cassander's local rulers. In 307 BC, Antigonus's son Demetrius captured Athens and restored its democratic system, which had been suppressed by Alexander. But in 301 BC a coalition of Cassander and the other Hellenistic kings defeated Antigonus at
20874-641: Was conquered by the Romans. The Aetolian league grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided with the Seleucids in the Roman–Seleucid War ; when the Romans were victorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic. Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian league and Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romans in 146 BC, bringing Greek independence to an end. The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule during
21021-577: Was free to turn her attention eastwards, urged on by her Greek allies, Rhodes and Pergamum. In 198 BC, the Second Macedonian War broke out for obscure reasons, but very likely because Rome saw Macedon as a potential ally of the Seleucids, the greatest power in the east. Philip's allies in Greece deserted him and in 197 BC he was decisively defeated at the Cynoscephalae by the Roman proconsul Titus Quinctius Flamininus . Luckily for
21168-417: Was in permanent settlements founded by Greeks, which formed as independent poleis. The second form was in what historians refer to as emporia ; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods. Examples of this latter type of settlement are found at Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west. From about 750 BC
21315-460: Was now too weak to achieve this objective, but Rome's ally Eumenes II of Pergamum persuaded Rome that Perseus was a potential threat to Rome's position. As a result of Eumenes's intrigues Rome declared war on Macedon in 171 BC, bringing 100,000 troops into Greece. Macedon was no match for this army, and Perseus was unable to rally the other Greek states to his aid. Poor generalship by the Romans enabled him to hold out for three years, but in 168 BC
21462-426: Was suddenly approached by Pausanias of Orestis , one of his seven bodyguards, and was stabbed in his ribs. After Philip was killed, the assassin immediately tried to escape and reach his getaway associates, who were waiting for him with horses at the entrance to Aegae. The assassin was pursued by three of Philip's other bodyguards, and during the chase, his horse tripped on a vine. He was subsequently stabbed to death by
21609-407: Was thrown or put into Tomb I after this had been looted, and probably between 276/5 and 250 BC. Besides this, the theory that Tomb I belonged to Philip II had previously been shown to be false. More recent research gives further evidence that Tomb II contains the remains of Philip II. The heroon at Vergina in Macedonia (the ancient city of Aegae – Αἰγαί) is thought to have been dedicated to
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