The Rise and Fall of Macedon: The History of the Ancient Macedonian Empire’s Expansion and Collapse

Over the last 2,000 years, ambitious men have dreamed of forging vast empires and attaining eternal glory in battle, but of all the conquerors who took steps toward such dreams, none were ever as successful as antiquity’s first great conqueror. Leaders of the 20th century hoped to rival Napoleon’s accomplishments, while Napoleon aimed to emulate the accomplishments of Julius Caesar. But Caesar himself found inspiration in Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), the Macedonian king who managed to stretch an empire from Greece to the Himalayas in Asia by the age of 30. It took less than 15 years for Alexander to conquer much of the known world.

Alexander is one of the most famous figures of antiquity, but everything he accomplished was made possible by his father, Philip II of Macedon. When Philip II came to power in 360 B.C., he was only 23 and had spent most of his adult life as the hostage of an Illyrian tribe. Philip II’s ascension to the Macedonian throne took place in the midst of great chaos in Macedonia, with the Illyrians continually raiding the kingdom from the north while other Greeks took advantage of this by taking even more Macedonian land. The problem was further exacerbated by Athenian attempts to influence the throne. Nonetheless, in about five years, Philip II not only brought order back to Macedon but also the respect it had once earned from Greek and non-Greek neighbors alike. 

When Alexander died in 323 B.C., his generals, all of them with the loyalty of their own corps at their backs, would tear each other apart in a vicious internal struggle that lasted almost half a century before four factions emerged victorious: Macedonia, the Seleucid Empire in the east, the Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor, and the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. During the course of these wars, Alexander’s only heir, the posthumously born Alexander IV, was murdered, extinguishing his bloodline forever.