MACEDONIA

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

THE FAILURE OF THE GREEK CITIES

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THE MACEDONIANS AND PHILIP II

Macedonia, lying across the top of the Hellenic peninsula, had always seemed ''provincial,'' even semibarbaric, to the Hellenes, though the Macedonians were essentially Greek. Macedonia had protected the Greek states to the south from barbarian invasion and in the fourth century became the unifier of the Greeks. Under Alexander's leadership Macedonian-Greek armes extended Hellenic civilization throughout the Eastern Mediterranean basin and beyond. Yet, at the beginning of the fourth century Macedonia seemed to be breaking up. Invaded by barbarians and under pressure from the Greek states to the south, the burdens of external and internal strife helped to create a difficult situation.

When Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great, came to power in 359 matters looked hopeless. Philip was the most extraordinary individual of his age. Within five years he defeated all his enemies and unified the kingdom. He built a fine army and became a major power in the Greek world. Macedonia was a unique state. Though a monarchy, the king's powers were limited by an army assembly and a companion cavalry, the mounted nobility of the realm. The Macedonian king was regarded by the companions as merely first among equals.

When Philip was invited into the political affairs of the traditional Greek cities, he aroused some concern and appeared to many as a threat to their liberties; he was violently opposed by the Athenian orator Demosthenes. By skill at war and diplomacy, however, he moved southward. After the battle of Chaeronea in 338 in which he defeated Thebes and Athens, he was the master of Greece.

He appears to have thought of himself, however, as a deliverer, rescuing the Greeks from their suicidal rivalries, and as a champion of Hellenism against barbarism. He convoked assemblies at the Isthmus of Corinth which elected him leader of a new Pan-Hellenic, anti-Persian alliance with mandate to undertake at least a partial conquest of the Persian empire. In 336, however, he was assassinated by a disgruntled Macedonian nobleman.

THE CAREER OF ALEXANDER

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THE HELLENIC VIEW OF MAN

The balance of success that attended the Hellenes from Miltiades to Alexander in their confrontation with the more easterly powers of the ancient world ensured that the Hellenic view of man and the universe would not be lost to view but become one of the main threads in the fabric of Western culture. Most simply and broadly, this was the Homeric view of the individual human being as capable in himself of making his own way in a potentially intelligible universe, within his own life span without contingence on anything beyond.
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1Translated by Robson, Anabasis of Alexander, VII (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958, Loeb Classical Library 236-269), p. 28.

Send comments and questions to Professor Gerhard Rempel,

Western New England College.

http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc1/lectures/09alexander.html