39. PHILIP AND THE RISE OF MACEDONIA
MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS
The land of Macedonia, lying to the north of Greece, for a long time had been an inconspicuous part of the ancient world. Its people, though only partially civilized, were Greeks in blood and language. No doubt they formed an offshoot of those northern invaders who had entered the Balkan peninsula before the dawn of history. The Macedonian kings, from the era of the Persian wars, seized every opportunity of spreading Greek culture throughout their realm. By the middle of the fourth century B.C., when Philip II ascended the throne, the Macedonians were ready to take a leading place in the Greek world.
[Illustration: PHILIP II
From a gold medallion struck by Alexander]
PHILIP'S AIMS
Philip of Macedonia, one of the most remarkable men of antiquity, was endowed with a vigorous body, a keen mind, and a resolute will. He was no stranger to Greece and its ways. Part of his boyhood had been passed as a hostage at Thebes in the days of Theban glory. His residence there gave him an insight into Greek politics and taught him the art of war as it had been perfected by Epaminondas. In the distracted condition of Greece, worn out by the rivalries of contending cities, Philip saw the opportunity of his own country. He aimed to secure for Macedonia the position of supremacy which neither Athens, Sparta, nor Thebes had been able to maintain.
THE MACEDONIAN ARMY
Philip's most important achievement was the creation of the Macedonian army, which he led to the conquest of Greece and which his son was to lead to the conquest of the World. Taking a hint from the tactics of Epaminondas, Philip trained his infantry to fight by columns, but with sufficient intervals between the files to permit quick and easy movements. Each man bore an enormous lance, eighteen feet in length. When this heavy phalanx was set in array, the weapons carried by the soldiers in the first five ranks presented a bristling thicket of lance-points, which no onset, however determined, could penetrate. The business of the phalanx was to keep the front of the foe engaged, while horsemen rode into the enemy's flanks. This reliance on masses of cavalry to win a victory was something new in warfare. Another novel feature consisted in the use of engines called catapults, able to throw darts and huge stones three hundred yards, and of battering rams with force enough to hurl down the walls of cities. All these different arms working together made a war machine of tremendous power—the most formidable in the ancient world until the days of the Roman legion.
CONQUESTS OF PHILIP
Philip commanded a fine army; he ruled with absolute sway a territory larger than any other Hellenic state; and he himself possessed a genius for both war and diplomacy, With such advantages the Macedonian king entered on the subjugation of disunited Greece. His first great success was won in western Thrace. Here he founded the city of Philippi [2] and seized some rich gold mines, the income from which enabled him to keep his soldiers always under arms, to fit out a fleet, and, by means of liberal bribes, to hire a crowd of agents in nearly every Greek city. Philip next made Macedonia a maritime state by subduing the Greek cities on the peninsula of Chalcidice. [3] He also appeared in Thessaly, occupied its principal fortresses, and brought the frontier of Macedonia as far south as the pass of Thermopylae.