Who was Philip II of Macedon?

He was king of Macedon (382 to 336 BC) who transformed its army, united most of Greece by force (Sparta apart), and was the father of Alexander the Great.

What is Philip II famous for?

For creating the Macedonian phalanx armed with the long sarissa pike, uniting most of the Greek states after his victory at Chaeronea (Sparta apart), and fathering Alexander the Great.

What was the Macedonian phalanx?

A deep infantry formation armed with the sarissa, a pike roughly five to six metres long, which outreached ordinary spears; combined with cavalry and siege craft it made Macedon dominant.

What happened at the Battle of Chaeronea?

In 338 BC Philip's Macedonians defeated the combined armies of Athens, Thebes and their allies at Chaeronea, effectively ending the independence of the southern Greek states, though Sparta stood apart.

How did Philip II die?

He was assassinated in 336 BC by one of his own bodyguards during a wedding festival; the motive is still debated, and his son Alexander succeeded him.

Was Philip II greater than Alexander?

Alexander won the famous conquests, but he did it with the army and the position Philip built; many historians rate Philip as the more important founder, if the less dazzling commander.

Philip II of Macedon: the maker of an army

Philip II is often overshadowed by his son, but it was Philip who built the machine. He turned the weak, divided kingdom of Macedon into the greatest military power in Greece, forging a new kind of army around the long pike, and by war and diplomacy he mastered the Greek city-states, leaving Alexander the finest army in the world.

The new Macedonian army

Coming to the throne of a threatened kingdom in 359 BC¹, Philip rebuilt its army from the ground up. He armed his infantry with the sarissa, a pike far longer than any Greek spear¹, and drilled them into a deep, bristling phalanx, then combined it with heavy cavalry, siege engines and light troops into a single professional force, one of the most effective armies the ancient world had seen.

Engraving of tightly packed pikemen with shields and long pikes pushing against charging warriors — The Macedonian phalanx Philip created, here in action under his son Alexander against the Thracians in 335 BC, in an illustration by John Steeple Davis of about 1900. Public domain

Master of Greece

With this army Philip expanded in every direction, and in 338 BC he crushed the combined armies of Athens, Thebes² and their allies at Chaeronea, breaking the independence of the southern Greek states, Sparta apart³. He bound them into a league under his leadership⁴ and prepared a great war against the Persian Empire.

Philip II of Macedon on an ancient medallion. Public domain.

He built the army; his son Alexander would take it to the ends of the earth.

Assassination

Philip never launched his Persian war. In 336 BC, at a royal wedding festival², he was struck down by one of his own bodyguards², for reasons still debated³. The throne, and the army he had built, passed to his twenty-year-old son,⁴ Alexander.

The measure of the man

Alexander's genius is famous, but he inherited the instrument of his conquests. Philip was the reformer and organiser who made Macedon supreme, and without his army the conquest of Persia would have been unthinkable.

Two silver coins in a museum case, one with a bearded head of Zeus, the other with a rider on horseback — Silver tetradrachm of Philip II from the mint of Pella, about 342 to 328 BC, with the head of Zeus and a horseman; Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University. Public domain

Meet his son Alexander the Great, or explore the other great commanders of ancient Greece.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

World History Encyclopedia, “Philip II of Macedon (Donald L. Wasson)” ↩ a b c
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 16, 85 to 86 (Chaeronea) and 91 to 94 (the assassination at Aegae). ↩ a b c
Ian Worthington, Philip II of Macedonia (Yale University Press, 2008). ↩ a b
N. G. L. Hammond, Philip of Macedon (Duckworth, 1994). ↩ a b
Wikipedia, “Philip II of Macedon”