Philip II of Macedon

Philip II turned Macedon from a raided borderland into the power that conquered Greece, and his son got the credit. Born around 382 BC, he spent three years as a hostage in Thebes in his teens, where he observed Epaminondas's army and the Sacred Band at first hand. He took power in 359 BC after his brother and four thousand Macedonians were killed by the Illyrians, with the kingdom facing invasion from three directions and rival claimants backed from outside. He bought off some enemies, married into others — he took seven wives, each a treaty — and rebuilt the army completely. The reforms are his real achievement. He created a professional standing force paid year-round, drilled and marched with weights. He armed the infantry with the sarissa, a pike some five to six metres long, in a phalanx that could hold ground while the heavy Companion cavalry delivered the decisive blow on the flank — the hammer and anvil that Alexander used. He developed torsion siege engines and made his army capable of taking cities, which Greek armies generally were not. He funded it by seizing the gold and silver mines at Mount Pangaion. He took Amphipolis, absorbed Thessaly, destroyed Phocis in the Sacred War, and beat a coalition of Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea in 338 BC, where the eighteen-year-old Alexander commanded the cavalry that destroyed the Sacred Band. He formed the League of Corinth and was preparing an invasion of Persia when a bodyguard stabbed him at his daughter's wedding in 336 BC.

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