Notes:
Macedon or Macedonia (Greek Μακεδονία Makedonía) was the name of an ancient kingdom in the northern-most part of ancient Greece, bordered by the kingdom of Epirus to the west and the region of Thrace to the east. For a brief period it became the most powerful state in the ancient Near East after Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, inaugurating the Hellenistic period of Greek history.
History
Early history
The first Macedonian state emerged in the 8th or early 7th century BC under the Argead Dynasty, who have allegedly migrated to the region from the southern Greek city of Argos (thus the name Argead). Their first king is recorded as Perdiccas I. The kingdom was situated in the fertile alluvial plain, watered by the rivers Haliacmon and Axius, called Lower Macedonia, north of the mountain Olympus. Around the time of Alexander I of Macedon, the Macedonians started to expand into Eordaiaa, Bottiaea, Pieria, Mygdonia, and Almopia, mountains regions settled by different tribes, usually called Upper Macedonia. Near the modern city of Veria, Perdiccas I (or, more likely, his son, Argaeus I) built his capital, Aigai (modern Vergina). After a brief period of Persian overlordship under Darius Hystaspes, the state regained its independence under King Alexander I (495–450 BC).
Atticisation and expansion
Prior to the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region approximately corresponding to the province of Macedonia of modern Greece. It became increasingly Atticised during this period, though prominent Athenians appear to have regarded the Macedonians as uncouth.
A unified Macedonian state was eventually established by King Amyntas III (c. 393–370 BC), though it still retained strong contrasts between the cattle-rich coastal plain and the fierce isolated tribal hinterland, allied to the king by marriage ties. They controlled the passes through which barbarian invasions came from Illyria to the north and northwest. Amyntas had three sons; the first two, Alexander II and Perdiccas III reigned only briefly. Perdiccas III's infant heir was deposed by Amyntas' third son, Philip II of Macedon, who made himself king and ushered in a period of Macedonian dominance of Greece.
Under Philip II, (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paionians, Thracians, and Illyrians. Among other conquests, he annexed the regions of Pelagonia and Southern Paionia (these regions respectively correspond to the Monastir/Bitola and Gevgelija districts in the modern Republic of Macedonia).
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 very persistence of a hereditary monarchy which wielded formidable – sometimes absolute – power, although this was at times checked by the landed aristocracy, and often disturbed by power struggles within the royaal family itself. This contrasted sharply with the Greek cultures further south, where the ubiquitous city-states mostly possessed aristocratic or democratic institutions; the de facto monarchy of tyrants, in which heredity was usually more of a 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 times. Such institutions were abolished by city-states well before Macedon's rise (most notably by the Athenian legislator Solon's famous σεισάχθεια seisachtheia laws).
Empire
Philip's son Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian 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's adoption of the styles of government of the conquered territories was accompanied by the spread of Greek culture and learning through his vast empire. Although the empire fractured into multiple Hellenic regimes shortly after his death, his conquests left a lasting legacy, not least in the new Greek-speaking cities founded across Persia's western territories, heralding the Hellenistic period. In the partition of Alexander's empire among the Diadochi, Macedonia fell to the Antipatrid dynasty, which was overthrown by the Antigonid dynasty after only a few years, in 294 BC.
Kingdom of Macedon shortly after Philip's II death.
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