Before Alexander: The Rise of the Philip II and the Macedonian War Machine

Every educated person knows the name Alexander. Almost no one knows the name of the man who handed him the world.Philip II inherited a kingdom one bad week from disintegration — four enemies on the board, a third of the army dead in a single afternoon, an infant nephew with a better claim to the throne, and a treasury his brother's war had drained dry. He was twenty-three. Twenty-three years later he had broken Sparta's successor at Chaeronea, organized Greece into a single instrument, and designed the invasion of Persia down to the supply trains. Then a knife found him in a theater, weeks before he could cross into Asia himself.This is the story of the builder — the man who did the slow, invisible, unglamorous work that the heroes who came after him spent on a single generation. The army that conquered Persia was his. The treasury that paid for thirteen years of campaigning was his. The empire fell apart within twenty years of Alexander's death. The kingdom Philip built lasted three more centuries. This is the story of Philip II of Macedon.⚔️ AMBIENT LECTURES — narrated articles on great men in history.📜 CHAPTERS00:00 — I. The Country That Made Him17:43 — II. The Inheritance of Disasters38:56 — III. Thebes1:09:22 — IV. The Year of Three Kings1:28:30 — V. The Sarissa1:47:24 — VI. Eating Greece2:03:56 — VII. The Donkey of Gold2:23:20 — VIII. Chaeronea2:38:17 — IX. The League of Corinth2:48:00 — X. The Wedding at Aegae3:00:45 — XI. The Inheritance3:17:14 — XII. The Man📖 SOURCES & FURTHER READINGPlutarch, Lives (Alexander, Pelopidas, Demosthenes)Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Books XVI–XVIIDemosthenes, The Philippics and On the CrownJustin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius TrogusIan Worthington, Philip II of MacedoniaN.G.L. Hammond, Philip of MacedonA.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great✍️ Researched and Written by: Vir Imperium Studios#PhilipOfMacedon #philipii #macedonianempire #ancientgreece #alexanderthegreat #Chaeronea #SacredBand #Sarissa #Demosthenes #AncientHistory #MilitaryHistory #GreatMen #AmbientLectures